It’s The Little Things That Count – Customized Error Pages
There are a lot of great websites that have been designed for businesses, yet many of them forget some of the simpler features that can make or break an online business. One of the simpler tasks you can do is create customized error pages. These are the pages that are shown to visitors whenever there is a problem with your site, or a problem with their search.
For potential customers, there is nothing more uninspiring than to land on a website only to see a “page not found” error, or worse, “server not found”. Think about those errors. A “server not found” error could mean you no longer exist so the visitor will look elsewhere. “Page not found” errors shouldn’t happen. This generally means the visitor has followed a link that arrives on a page that no longer exists. Either that, or the link is badly formed in the first place.
Customized error pages can actually help your visitors. When customizing, a friendly message that states the page is not available at that time while suggesting alternatives can help direct traffic further into your site. You can also place a search box prominently so the visitor can search your site for content they are looking for.
Traffic is hard to get at the best of times. The last thing you need is to waste any traffic because it is arriving on dead pages. What you should also bear in mind is that if that visitor happens to be one of the search bots, and they cannot find your site, or your pages, then this can have an effect on your position in the search results. There are many website owners who have complained bitterly about being dropped from the front page of the search results, simply because their server was out of action. From the search engine’s perspective, your page could not be found so why include it in search results?
If you are having your website professionally designed, be sure to insist on customized error pages. They can save a lot of hassles.
Anatomy Of A Modern Business Website
If you were to lift a website from ten years ago and dump it into today’s internet world, it wouldn’t cut it. Business websites of today can be complicated beasts, or at least, they may seem that way. However, a closer inspection will reveal that their anatomy is actually quite simple.
Today’s business website needs to address several factors. Get the design and mix right, and your website will be the least of your worries. So what factors does a modern website need?
Optimized for search – it goes without saying that search is still the number one source of traffic for most websites – this includes both organic, paid, and local search.
Optimized for social – optimizing for social involves a few simple modifications to a standard website. Social buttons are the first factor to consider. Allowing comments or user feedback should also be considered.
Optimized for the user - uncluttered pages, clear call-to-action triggers, easy to follow navigation, and the ability to communicate with you, the business owner, are all important user functions.
Optimized for the Internet – today’s websites need to be slick, fast, easy to follow, and fairly straightforward. Shopping baskets and checkouts need to be smooth processes that are not complicated by over form filling or confusing processes. Today’s website needs to be streamlined in the way it processes users and their data.
Optimized for information – what is the Internet all about? Information and communication. We have communication covered so all that is left is information, and for a website, that boils down to content. Relevant, unique, up-to-date, easy to read, and of value to users – content is what drives websites and its content that attracts visitors.
Does that sound too simplistic? Perhaps you are trying to over complicate what should be a straight out process. The hardest task in building a website to satisfy everything on that list is the seamless integration of each component. If your web design team can get that right, you website is ready to do business.
Are You Using The Right Anchor Text For Local Search
Local search is not quite the same as organic search. Where for many years the preferred anchor text in links has been keyword orientated, local search is less keyword-based and more business or website name orientated. For local search, a link with your business name is often of more value than a link with a related keyword. In fact, there are many stories around suggesting that keywords in links are no longer the ideal – but that’s a story for another time.
When you think about local search, you have a distinct advantage over organic search. You can tell the search engines all about your business. In Google Places, for example, you can provide your official business name, your address, and your telephone number. You can also add tags and place your business into a category. With organic search, your search engine optimization program needs to use keywords to ensure the search engines know what your pages are all about.
The bottom line is this: Search engines don’t need anchor text to tell them about your business – you’ve already done that. Links that are in your business name have far more value than those with keywords as your anchor text. Add address details to the text around your business name, and you further reinforce your local search rankings. Local search is all about being local.
The more often your business is linked back to your site where your address is in plain view, or at the very least your town or region, the better. Are you pushing keywords in all your anchor text for local search? Try modifying some of your links to include your business and your town – or the service you provide and the town.
Local search is all about being local so shout your presence from the rooftops – or at least, from the friendly pages around you.
Can A Niche Search Engine Help Your Business?
A news release from Google caught my attention today and it reignited a train of thought related to niche search engines. In the past, real estate agents were able to upload home listings to Google Maps. From February, that service will disappear because Google are doing away with the Google Base API. One of the reasons that Google provided for no longer supporting real estate included this little gem:
….due to low usage, the proliferation of excellent property-search tools on real estate websites…..
That one sentence tells us two things – first, users were not using Google to search for real estate, and second, that Google acknowledges that property search engines are doing a good job. And they are. Worldwide, almost every country has a niche real estate search engine that has been set up by the real estate industry.
Real estate is not the only industry, although they are one of the most successful. Motor vehicles and travel have also been successful at setting up their own niche-based search engines. In fact, think of a niche and there is bound to be a dedicated search engine. The question is this: Can these search engines help your business? In short, the answer is yes – most definitely.
Niche-based search engines are often less competitive than mainstream search so optimizing your website can be a little easier. They also have the added benefit of dedicated traffic. If someone visits a real estate search engine, you can bet they are looking for real estate. In most cases, they are also looking to buy. Traffic from niche related search engines are more likely to convert into sales because of these factors.
At present, apart from a small number of very popular niches, niche search engines aren’t as popular as mainstream search. That will change as they prove their worth, and that will be a real bonus for businesses everywhere.
Are You Optimizing The Right Content?
Managing your own website can be difficult when faced with issues such as time limitations, and perhaps even a lack of advanced skills. In these situations, website owners often try to take shortcuts. One of those shortcuts involves the optimization of web pages for search.
It can be an easy escape to simply optimize the home page and perhaps one or two landing pages, after all, that is where you want your traffic coming in – hence the term ‘landing pages’. That approach makes the assumption that the only traffic you want is from buyers – if you’re in business, then that makes sense.
The approach can be misguided. First, while your landing pages are optimized for search, your customers are not. They tend to use a wide range of search phrases, and no matter how well optimized your landing pages are, they cannot hope to cover every single search term. Your secondary pages, on the other hand, can be optimized for a wide range of search terms – in fact, the more pages, the more search phrases covered.
Taking short cuts when optimizing your website means you are short changing yourself when it comes to traffic. Every visitor that lands on one of your pages is a potential customer, no matter which page they actually arrive on. The more pages you have indexed and ranking well in search, the more traffic you are likely to receive.
Search engine optimization is a process that takes into account each page – it also takes into account your web site as a whole. Rather than taking shortcuts, spend some time optimizing every page. Over time, you will experience more traffic coming into your website, and a higher sales turnover to match.
The Dangers Of Pay Per Click Marketing
A post on Search Engine Journal highlights some of the problems that face businesses when it comes to pay per click marketing. There are several good points made in the post, particularly when it comes to who you hire to manage your pay per click marketing campaigns. The difficulty faced by management is that pay per click is so foreign to them, but they have trouble understanding some of the analytics presented to them.
The management of pay per click marketing should be seen as a professional service. Managers often know little of accounting or legal matters, so they hire professionals to look after those areas of their business. The Internet should be seen in the same light. When hiring a professional organization to manage any of your online activities, you should apply the same due diligence you would show to an accounting or legal firm.
One of the points the post on Search Engine Journal highlighted was that of basic dishonesty - to quote from the post:
Many businesses larger and small don’t ask enough questions from their paid search person/company. Many companies hide what your CPC and CPA is and therefore you will never really know if your PPC is cost effective.
I tend to take issue with the first sentence in that it assumes that most paid search companies aren’t professional. How closely do you quiz your accountant, attorney, or any other professional service provider? That’s not to say you shouldn’t quiz them at times, especially when it comes to determining budgets and the effectiveness of the campaigns. It does come back to due diligence and ensuring you hire experienced and well recognized pay per click management companies.
The one area where we are in total agreement with the Search Engine Journal post is that paid search, when done correctly, can increase sales markedly. When an email marketing campaign is used to follow up sales, repeat business tends to be driven to greater heights. Paid search can be profitable; just be sure the people who are controlling your paid search are professional, experienced, and well respected in the industry.
Why A Customized Internet Marketing Strategy Is A Must
Gone are the days where you could just copy what had been working for other online businesses. The Internet has become quite complex when it comes to maintaining a successful business so each business generally requires a unique approach. This has become particularly important when it comes to Internet marketing.
Five years ago, Internet marketing consisted of search, advertising, and small social media sites such as forums. Today, social media has exploded with Facebook becoming more complex everyday. Some businesses do well with sites such as Twitter while others are finding that forming partnerships with the old-fashioned forums and niche blogs have delivered better results.
The question facing new businesses is where to start, which social media site is going to deliver the best results, and how search will fit into their marketing plans, both now and into the future. If you’re serious about your business, and you are looking for success, then the only approach that is going to work is to have a customized Internet marketing strategy developed for you. Better yet, if you want to stay on top of your niche, is to have that customized Internet marketing strategy developed and managed for you.
Professional Internet marketing strategist are in a position to measure every aspect of your online presence, and then tweak various components in order to gain the most leverage from the traffic coming into your site. A professional marketing strategists can take the traffic you are now generating and increase sales or conversions by several degrees.
If you think this approach is going to be too expensive for your business, then perhaps it’s time to think again. Current trends are showing that customized and managed Internet marketing strategies are delivering a positive return on investment that far exceeds what doing it yourself would achieve. The return on investment is such that businesses can grow at a steady rate with increased turnover and profits generated. Can you really afford to continue without a customized Internet marketing strategy?
Does Your Website Pass The 30 Seconds Test?
They say that first impressions count, and when it comes to website design, it certainly holds true. In fact, since Google’s introduction of the web page preview option in search results, website design has probably become more important. The general theory is that you have less than 30 seconds to convince a visitor to stay on your site – that’s probably down to five seconds when it comes to Google Preview.
A quick check of your website stats will tell you how long traffic is staying on your site. If a high number of visitors stay for less than 30 seconds, and they don’t click through to other pages, then you need to start thinking about why – is it your website design that is at fault? There are a number of issues that you should be analyzing. These include:
- Overall look - does your website look too busy? One of the biggest issues that users complain about is how busy a site looks. From a user’s perspective, they just don’t know where to start.
- Navigation – is your navigation easy to understand and in plain site, or is it hidden towards the bottom of the page?
- Content - visitors come to your website because they are looking for something. Is it there in plain site, or is it hidden in amongst a myriad of ads?
- Advertising - speaking of ads, are visitors blown away by the number of ads that hit them, especially in the ‘above the fold’ section of your website?
- Friendly – how friendly is your website? Does is welcome your visitor and encourage them to stay awhile? Color, graphics, and issues like font size all play a role in making your visitor feel at ease.
While it may seem to be easier and cheaper to create your own website, the reality is often the opposite. If your website is not up to scratch, then it could be costing you money. While a professional website design team may seem costly initially, over time their work will repay you many times over. You’ve got 30 seconds to convince your visitor to stay – does your website achieve that?
Are Your Competitors Really That Far Ahead?
It can be frustrating managing a business with an online presence. You have a good website, easy navigation, top quality content, and your products and services more than competitive – yet you struggle to gain that front page listing in search results. Before throwing the towel in and looking at alternatives, a little competitive intelligence may alter the picture completely.
The factors that are going in to determining search rankings are always in flux. Some factors only need time, for example, inbound links. It is also important to understand that search rankings are so flexible that two different people entering the same search may see different results. Google is one search engine that also takes into account the surfing/searching history of the user.
Competitive intelligence can give you a snapshot of where your competitors are today. You can use this data to plot their progress over time compared to yours. Often, you will find that your competitors are only progressing slowly, if at all, while you are moving ahead at a faster rate.
This leaves you with two options, to either work a little harder at improving those ranking factors, or to let time deliver the fruit of your previous efforts. Competitive intelligence is never a one off factor. By continuously monitoring your competitors, you will gain a real insight into how far they really are ahead of you. A word to the wise, however: Don’t forget to look behind at those who may be trying to sneak their way past you. Remember, your competitors are not just those who appear in front of you; there are just as many following on behind you.
The Limitations Of Local Search
Local search has been a big help to smaller local businesses over the last year or so. They have been able to out-compete their larger rivals simply because the scale of size actually works for them rather than against them when compared to traditional marketing. However, those factors that are working for small businesses may also be working against other small businesses.
Mobile businesses that service an area that exceeds Google’s 50-mile radius can be at a real disadvantage. In today’s economic climate, small one person businesses that operate out of the back of a vehicle will often think nothing of traveling 100 miles to complete a job. Consider photographers, particularly wedding photographers – they travel to wherever their services are required.
The problem with local search is that Google, for example, has that strict 50-mile radius as a limitation to appearing in local search results. That 50 miles is measured from your business’ official address, not from the center of your town. If you want to appear in local search for neighboring towns, you will need to establish a physical presence in that town – an option that is not always viable.
While some businesses are trying to get around this by using fake addresses, Google is slowly weeding these businesses out of its local search results, even if they are legitimately servicing those areas. Google is aware of this problem, since it’s been raised on numerous occasions. However, even they have no recommendations to fix the problem, except for creating a physical presence in each location.
We do have to be fair to Google in this case, however. They are trying to provide users with the most relevant search results possible. Local search is just that – local. So for an out of town business to appear in those results, they would also need to convince locals that they do service that area.
Local search is great for local businesses. It certainly levels the playing field and may even give smaller businesses a real edge of national competitors. You do need to be aware of the limitations and how they may affect your business.
Is It Okay To Break Google’s Rules?
Todd Mintz on Search Engine Journal has an interesting post on whether or not it’s okay to break Google’s rules when it comes to optimizing your website for search. I am sure that over time it will cause a little stir in the search industry, especially with his conclusion advocating this practice. In his words:
Because Google’s guidelines do not have the force of law, how you manage your site and its tactics doesn’t involve ethical decisions (so long as you aren’t violating any laws) but business decisions. You should employ any and all tactics that can and will increase your revenue irrespective of Google’s guidelines.
To a certain extent, he is right. It is your business, and Google’s rules are not laws that you ‘must’ abide by. If a certain practice is good for your business, even though Google frowns on it, then it probably makes good sense to proceed with it. However, you do have to balance the possible effects of a Google search penalty – how much harm will that do to your business?
There is no doubt that Google is inconsistent when it comes to sites breaking the rules. What is dangerous about Google’s inconsistency is the way they apply these rules. Every now and then Google goes on a spree penalizing sites left, right and center for a particular group of breaches. Twelve months or two years later, they pick another group of rules to target. The last big target was paid links, and that caused a real storm.
We are probably overdue for Google to target a different set of rules to ensure they are being followed. By breaking those rules, you could be setting yourself up for a future penalty. Ultimately, it’s your business and your website. If you want to bend, twist, or even outright break some of Google’s rules, that’s your decision. Do your research first to see if other sites are also freely bending or breaking those rules. Better yet, do everything possible within the guidelines, then only bend the rules if you really need to.
Internet Marketing – Loose Lips Sink Ships (and Businesses Too)
They say that loose lips sink ships; at least, they did back in WWII. Those words still ring true today, except the ships are businesses. It’s the loose lips that haven’t changed. Internet marketing covers a wide range of activities including search and social. It’s amazing how one loose word in the wrong place can come back to bite you down the track.
Badmouthing someone, either while engaged in a social media conversation, via a blog’s comments, or even privately through e-mail, never actually gets you anywhere, no matter how angry they have made you. Being able to control your emotions and respond courteously yet with authority with help you to maintain (if not build) your reputation while still allowing you to promote your product or service.
Humans are a fickle lot. We read a comment and we instantly take it personally. Often, it’s not true. If a comment is true, you need to be able to depersonalize it, and to put it into perspective. Why has that person made that comment? Rather than responding with angry outbursts yourself, remain professional.
Internet marketing is all about promoting your business, your products, and your brand. Reputation management is all about protecting your business, product, or brand. Between the two, there is no room at all for personal feelings, in particular, personal grudges. If someone bad mouths you, your business, product, or brand, take it as a potential marketing or reputation-building opportunity.
Loose lips will sink businesses. Leave your emotions at home and put on a professional face that is ready to handle everything that the online world is prepared to throw at you.
Cross Promoting Your Social Media Presence
I am often intrigued at the lack of foresight shown by some online entrepreneurs. If you visit their website or blog, you will find links to their social media presence standing out proudly (as they should). Visit each of those pages or profiles, and there’s hardly a mention of any of the other social presences. Social media optimization is just that – optimizing your social media presence – and that includes cross promoting.
So, why should you cross promote? Do you want your followers on Twitter also following you on Facebook, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, or any other social site where you have a presence? It may seem like you’re marketing to the same person twice, however, it is the social nature of these sites that is important to your social media marketing efforts.
People who follow you on Twitter are not necessarily going to have the same follows on Facebook, or any other social site. It is their friends and followers that you are also marketing too in the hope they will start to follow you, and perhaps become customers as well. By cross promoting, your friends and followers will most likely follow you on those other sites as well – and all with no effort from you.
Cross promoting your social media presence is a quick way to build your presence on a wide range of sites. The flow-on effect can be huge as friends of friends join you on one site then follow through to join you on a second or third site. The growth in your follower list can be quite viral – and all because you took those extra moments to cross promote your social media presence.
Ted Williams – A Sad Lesson In Online Reputation Management
Most people have probably heard of the recent online phenomena surrounding Ted Williams. He was a homeless individual whom someone decided had a great voice. They made a short video and posted it to YouTube. From there, it went viral, and suddenly Ted Williams became one of the most popular men in the US – at least, for a short period of time.
Ted was flown around the country, interviewed by the best, including Dr Phil. He even had large sums of money thrown at him to do advertising voice overs. A true rags to riches story. Unfortunately, he was detained by police days later for being drunk and disturbing the peace. The problem was, much of his story centered on him being a reformed alcoholic. Now, he is yesterday’s news and no one want to know him.
It’s not our role to comment on the rights or wrongs of what happened to Ted Williams. Rather, it provides a very telling lesson on the difficulties of online reputation management. Consider how your business would have fared if a similar situation arose.
Rather than Ted Williams’ voice being the draw card, it was a video of your product in action. Everyone loves the video, the product looks great, and suddenly sales are booming. You have achieved every marketer’s dream, a viral marketing campaign.
But what happens if, a week or two later, someone posts a comment about how your product started a fire, or some similar catastrophic situation. Your reputation will suddenly go down hill, fast. Your video will sit unwanted, and your sales will drop altogether. Ted Williams, despite everything that has happened, still has that perfect on-air voice. Your product may be totally harmless, the fire or event being caused by misuse rather than poor quality.
The final result is still the same – like Ted Williams, the Internet skyrocketed your product to the starry heights – just as quickly, the Internet brought your product, and your business, back down to earth with a grinding thud. Online reputation management can be tough, especially in situations that involve viral campaigns.
If ROI Is Important, Then Why Is Your Marketing Strategy Wrong?
There has always been a sad truth about marketers – they care little for ROI. This has always been the realm of managers, particularly finance managers. Their mantra is always – ‘how much will it cost and what sort of return will we get’? When it comes to marketers, they are always interested in how far and how well they have delivered their message.
Is there a meeting place? There should be. There is one startling fact that business managers and marketers should always have at the back of their minds – it is easier to sell to existing customers than it is to acquire new customers. So my question to you is simple – what are you doing with your existing customers?
For many businesses, a customer comes to their website, buys, and disappears, often never to be seen again. Online marketing has one special difference to offline marketing, a website is not in your face everyday. Offline, your store front is there. People walk past it everyday. A website is different. If your customer has not bookmarked your website, and can’t quite remember the URL, they will visit whichever website catches their eye the next time they want to purchase.
So I ask again. What are you doing with your existing customers? Are you capturing their email addresses for email marketing? Are you inviting them to follow you on any of the social media sites? If you are not maintaining contact with your existing customers, then perhaps your internet marketing strategy needs a review. Existing customers can be pure gold so if ROI is important to you, make sure you get the maximum return from every one of them.
SEO Is Only One Link In The Internet Marketing Chain
SEO is not Internet marketing. In fact, SEO is just one link in what is an ever growing chain of Internet marketing options. There are some online businesses that are quite profitable, yet they have not done any ounce of search engine optimization, they have the other links to be profitable. So what are those other ‘links’ in the chain? Here are a handful of marketing options that should keep you occupied for a while.
Pay-per-click advertising. There are many businesses that prefer the targeted traffic that comes from PPC advertising. It can be easy to measure your ROI, and you have complete control of your spending.
Social Media Marketing. There are some niches that are more suited to social media marketing than others. Some businesses can survive by attracting customers through social media rather than search.
Email Marketing. Newsletters have long been a popular channel for marketers. Email marketing has proven to be highly successful for some online businesses, particularly those that are catalog-based.
Offline Marketing. Large corporations still use traditional offline marketing strategies. Online businesses are now finding that some of these channels are well suited for promoting their online businesses.
Blogs. Blogs are certainly not dead. In fact, blogs are becoming a favorite place for many that are researching products and brands before making decisions on where to spend their money. Blogs are also an excellent way for your online business to connect with the social side of the web.
Businesses, both online and offline, that can harness all of those links in the Internet marketing chain are going from strength to strength. That doesn’t mean you need to utilize all of them, but if you can determine which of those options are best suited to your niche, you can focus your attention on building your presence and building your business – to success.
Marketing To Your Websites Traffic Metrics
Do you understand your website’s traffic metrics? Most websites have particular days of the week, and even hours of the day, when they are at their busiest. A quick look at your website’s stats will tell you which days of the week (and which hours of the day) are most popular. The question is, can you modify your marketing to either take advantage of traffic peaks, or better yet, to drive traffic during the quieter times?
Offline businesses have been doing it for centuries. Making special offers available early in the week when customer traffic is low. Some businesses have even been accused of raising prices during peak periods – gas for our cars is a good example. What about your website – can you do the same?
Many businesses care only about right now. You need to understand your target market first. If you are selling products that are aimed at moms, then you will see a distinct peak at certain times of the day, depending of course on your product. Tweeting a super special at other times of the day may increase your traffic marginally, but if moms just aren’t available then, that special offer will be lost. More importantly, you may upset some customers since they weren’t physically able to take up your offer.
Knowing your traffic highs and lows and knowing your target market’s online habits are important metrics that you may be able to use to better target your marketing. If you use pay-per-click advertising, then you can ensure your ads are only running when your customers are online.
When it comes to blog traffic, publishing blogs shortly before your traffic peak ensures your readers are receiving the very latest. Publish after your traffic peak and regular readers are seeing your content 20-24 hours after publication – that is not ideal if you are looking to start conversations. On topical matters, you could be seen to be publishing stale news.
Understand your traffic metrics and use them to help boost your internet marketing programs.
Google Tweaks Adwords For Improved CTR
Google has made a number of minor tweaks to their Adwords pay-per-click advertising program. The aim is to increase clicks, thus driving more revenue to Google, while it is hoped it will also drive more revenue to advertisers. Whether or not it does is open to debate although one change, relating to site links for those that use them, should see improved CTR and with it improved sales.
Do you include site links in your Adwords campaign? It is certainly worth having a closer look if you don’t. Site links allow you add extra links to your Adwords ad unit – up to ten for a campaign. Google has, in the past, shown the top four links in any ad unit displayed. Google has now changed this and will automatically rotate these links based on historical performance. This is good news for website owners who have several pages they want to drive traffic to.
In other changes, Google will change the way that domain URLs are displayed. Over the next week Google will modify all ad units displayed in search results so that the domain URL is all in lower case. This is to match the way domain URLs are displayed in search results. According to Google:
In any given month, we experiment with hundreds of subtle variations of the Google search results page, testing everything from font sizes and colors to layouts and spacing, as well as dozens of other variables. Recently, we found that by standardizing the look of the URLs on the page, we were able to improve many of our user metrics, including ad clickthrough rates
I am not sure that a change in the display of URLs will make a huge difference in click through rates, but then, any improvement is bound to be welcome.
The final modification will be a welcome one for those who have drilled down to really fine tune their ads. Negative keywords, in other words keywords, or parts of keywords that your don’t want associated with your ads, had to be set campaign by campaign. Now you can create a set of negative keywords that can be used with multiple campaigns. That will make life a little easier for Adwords users.
Of course, there are many Adwords users that don’t use site links or negative keyword lists when they really should. This could be costing them a significant amount when it comes to wasted or lost clicks. If you don’t completely understand how to use them, then consider working with a team of pay-per-click management specialists to fine tune your Adwords campaign.
Measuring Social Media Success
If there is one complaint that is often heard regarding social media marketing it is the lack of analytics and the inability for business to measure return on investment. This perception is not really true – you can measure the success or failure of a social media marketing campaign. I would go further and suggest that you can measure and compare different campaigns to determine which is the more effective.
The hardest part of any form of measurement is the collection of data. This is not as hard as it may seem. Your first step is to determine what data is important. You can measure any of the following social media outcomes to determine success or failure.
Social media views – You are able to measure how many people have viewed your page on Facebook, and how many times your video has been viewed in most of the video sites. You can also measure how many people are reading your blog.
Subscribers, followers and fans – You can measure the growth in subscriber numbers for your blog or newsletter, Twitter followers, and Facebook fans.
Social media sharing – How many times are your Tweets retweeted, your pages liked, or your blog pages Stumbled? Sharing is reported to be a factor used by search engines to determine authority.
Traffic – Your own web analytics should be able to tell you how much traffic is flowing from social media websites to your pages. This will tell you if your social media marketing campaign is being effective.
Conversions – The ultimate statistic is being able to measure how many conversions you are achieving that can be directly attributed to your social media marketing activity. Using tracking codes on your links can help you to measure this.
Return on investment does not have to be a monetary return. If you decide you need to achieve a certain number of subscribers to make newsletter marketing viable, then the success of any social media campaign will be measured by the final number of subscribers achieved. The monetary return will come at a later date and will depend on how many sales can be attributed to your newsletter.
What is important is that you can measure various components of a social media marketing campaign.
Smart SEO Concentrates On The Probables
Are you chasing the impossible? When it comes to search engine optimization, many website owners are. They spend a lot of time, effort, and money chasing that number one ranking in the search results. Smart SEO is all about assessing your position and comparing it to your competition, then acting on what you can realistically achieve – the probables rather than chasing the improbables.
The number one ranking in search results is not a fixed rank. If you have Google’s Webmaster Tools tracking your website, you will find that your search rankings change, and frequently too. Search results now also take into account factors that are beyond the reach of search engine optimization – these factors include a user’s history. This means that, in some searches you are actually number one – or number twenty-one. You have no control.
If your analysis of your current positions suggests it would be hard work, time consuming, and perhaps costly to chase a higher search rank, then it’s time to change your strategy. You need to work on other factors such as your meta description, your landing pages, and perhaps even your social media marketing.
Your meta description may help you stand out from the crowd and so draw more clicks – even though you are only number two or three in the search results. Spending time on developing a good landing page may see you convert a higher rate of visitors – which would you prefer, more visitors or more sales? Social media marketing, of course, uses another channel to attract visitors.
Don’t chase the improbables – it can be a frustrating experience. Take a realistic approach and tackle what is achievable in the current environment. You’ll save time, money, and your sanity.
Email Marketing Should Be One Of Your Marketing Cornerstones
Whether you’re a small business or a large corporation, you need to take advantage of every marketing opportunity that is available. Email marketing is one such opportunity, and for small businesses it is one that can be conducted on a level playing field. The only advantage that big business may have is in their ability to acquire email addresses. However, over time, and with some clever promotional work, you can acquire a fairly large database yourself.
So why should email marketing be one of your marketing cornerstones? Consider these reasons:
- Email marketing is cost effective. Email marketing can cost as little as $20-$30 per month yet you can send newsletters weekly and/or updates daily (but don’t spam your customers). Compared to most forms of online marketing, email is one of the cheapest.
- Email marketing is easily assessed for ROI. You can easily track email marketing to determine ROI. You can also track email marketing using different formats to determine which produces the best ROI.
- Email marketing produces results. If you follow the double opt-in principle, then those are on your email list because they have some interest in your business, products, or services. This means they are more likely to buy than perfect strangers – and they do.
- Email marketing is social. Readers can respond to your emails, ask questions, and even make suggestions. While this social affect isn’t as public, there are times when you can republish what they have said. A newsletter that is well written feels more friendly than a catalog pushing the latest specials.
Finally, email marketing is very effective at promoting your brand and building your reputation, especially if your newsletter is filled with helpful tips. Of course, use email marketing to flood your customers and it could have the opposite effect, but then, that isn’t effective Internet marketing.
Maintaining A Stable Local Search Position
Local search was the big winner to come out of 2010 and there is a general consensus that 2011 will be even bigger. Growth in local search will no doubt be controlled to an extent by the uptake of mobile devices. If the uptake and use of these devices continues to climb, then there is no stopping the direction of local search.
For businesses serving a particular geographical region, optimizing their business for local search is a must. However, it doesn’t stop there. In fact, local search may prove, over time, to be one of the hardest areas of search engine optimization. Of course, Google may get a little smarter, but at present, their local search engine isn’t smart, and it’s quite easy to drop from the top of the search results to not appearing at all.
Data is the big issue and it’s an area that you will need to pay special attention to. Business owners, especially new ones, spend time quickly listing their businesses where they can. Ask them tomorrow who they have listed their business with, and many will have forgotten the precise details. This becomes a problem down the track when the business changes name, address, telephone number, or direction.
Google is not currently able to associate different data with the one business. If it comes across a similar business name, but with different data, it assumes there are now two (or more businesses). Effectively, links, reviews, and any other optimization strategies used are now divided between two (or more listings). The answer is simple enough in theory, perhaps not so simple in practice. You will need to ensure you use precisely the same data every time you create a business listing, directory listing, or social media profile. I also suggest you record every listing you make – you can then return at a later date and make any updates when necessary. Local search is important; don’t let stray data affect your position.
Are You Afraid To Appear In Your Own Promotional Videos?
Although video marketing has become a very successful marketing channel, there are still those who have serious doubts about its benefits. Cost is one factor that is used as an excuse, often because there is a perception that there is a need for professional voices or actors. Videos are not television commercials – yet, at least – although users expect a similar quality.
If you pay a visit to YouTube and view many of the videos on offer, you will be surprised at how few actually feature humans. When they do, it’s often only the hands. While many videos do include voices, viewers are not expecting professional actors – your own voice will normally be the best.
For many business owners, that is where the real hurdle lies. They are apprehensive about appearing, either in person or just in voice, in their own marketing videos. Most people are nervous about appearing on camera for the first time. There are many professionals who are nervous before appearing on camera, and they have done it for years. There are several things you can do to help yourself relax.
From a filming point of view, using the smallest camera and the smallest microphone possible can be a big help. If the camera and microphone are not obvious, then the person being filmed can totally relax. I recall a story that described how a professional crew were being frustrated by the nerves of their subject. Their solution was simple, they hid the camera and microphone, told their subject it was just another practice run through, then recorded their practice run. It was the best recording to come out of the filming session.
It’s hard to learn to relax, and it’s easy for others to say ‘forget the camera is there’. Really, if you are going to appear in your own promotional videos, that’s what you need to do – relax and act in a normal manner.
Juggling Your Reputation Management
It’s amazing how a few words can trigger a train of thought a mile long. Seth Godin has a short piece on the art of juggling. So what does juggling have to do with reputation management? Plenty really. To quote from Seth’s blog:
Throwing is more important than catching. If you’re good at throwing, the catching takes care of itself. Emergency response is overrated compared to emergency avoidance.
Of course, it’s the last sentence that caught my eye (that’s his italics, not mine). You can apply the philosophy that response is overrated compared with avoidance to reputation management. Operating online with a policy of providing good products with a good service and you will develop a reputation for excellence.
However, what had me thinking was human nature. We do make mistakes, and they can sometimes be blown right out of proportion. Imagine a juggler that has been distracted for a moment – there’s a good chance they will drop the lot. And that can happen to reputations as well – take your eye off the game for a moment and suddenly your name is mud.
Unlike a juggler, you can protect yourself to a certain degree. By building a strong reputation early, it becomes harder to undo. Those that believe in you and your products will doubt any negatives until they can prove for themselves that what is being said is true. What is important in the reputation management process is to build a strong reputation in all the places you operate in.
This includes search results, social media, and your own websites. If you can develop that reputation from day one, you will lessen the chance of any stray incident or a disgruntled employee (or customer) starting a negative campaign against you. In simple terms – reputation management starts with your activities. Like a juggler, it takes constant concentration to ensure your business is doing everything possible to build and support your reputation.
How An Online Presence Is Helping Offline Professionals
One of the biggest trends in recent years has been the adoption of online technology by offline professionals. Real estate, law, medicine, insurance, and education have really grasped the benefits of an online presence and they are using that presence to very good effect. The focus over the last eighteen months on local search by the search engines has taken their presence to a new level.
Internet users are increasingly looking to the Internet to provide information on offline services in their area. Professional services have a rather unique standing online today, because users are not only looking for a professional to perform some role in their lives; they are also looking for in-depth information related to specific services.
A good example is the legal profession. If someone is contemplating bankruptcy, for example, they will research as much as possible about this subject before deciding to proceed. Once that decision is made, they will then look for a professional in their area to complete the process. So rather than simply obtaining the details of a local professional, users are also looking for detailed information on their services.
The lesson for professionals is very clear – a single page with your business details won’t cut it. A user may well arrive on your site and see these details, but in many cases, that is not what they are looking for. An online presence for professionals must include facts and details related to the range of services you provide. They need to be written in plain English, and be written in a style that is easy to understand.
For professionals developing an online presence, your online marketing starts with the quality of your content and the ease with which it is found while being supported with details about how you can help the user. Do it well and the user will stay on your site, probably bookmark it for a return visit, then call upon your services to complete the task.
If you’re a professional looking to develop and online presence, then talk to another group of professionals who have a clear track record in helping others develop an online presence. We can help you develop a quality website, claim your business through local search, develop content related to your profession, then complete the process with a quality Internet marketing campaign. Our aim is to make you the authority in your profession for your region.
Getting The Balance Right In Search Engine Marketing
Despite popular opinion, search engine marketing is not purely about paid search. Rather, it is marketing through the search engines using both paid and organic search. One of the difficulties with organic search is determining your return on investment (ROI). That doesn’t mean it should be ignored.
Where businesses need to focus, especially new businesses, is on the balance between investing in paid and organic search. It is easy to determine the ROI when it comes to paid search. For this reason, you can target hundreds, sometimes thousands, of keywords. This, together with targeting features, means you can advertise your business to a much wider market.
Organic search can be slow. However, that can work in a new business’s favor. While paid search brings in the bulk of a website’s traffic, organic search can slowly build in the background, especially if you only target a precise set of keywords. As your organic traffic grows, you can start to diversify your keyword list; in the meantime, paid search is still delivering traffic. The overall effect is a slow but steady growth in the business.
A mistake that many new businesses make is to throw 70% or more of their marketing budget at organic search and leave the crumbs for paid search, social media marketing, and perhaps other forms of advertising such as banners. Often, the balance should be reversed with paid search receiving the bulk of your marketing budget while organic search is left to slowly develop.
Every niche is different, of course, and some niches respond well to social media marketing rather than search. A little research and a lot of testing is the best approach. With search engine marketing, achieving a good balance between your paid and organic efforts can result in a profitable business from day one – and a business that will continue to grow over time.
Does Your Website Convert Traffic Into Customers
We spend a lot of time talking about how to increase traffic to your website, but unless you convert that traffic into customers your efforts are often wasted. I know there are some sites that want traffic purely as online branding and promotional use, but many websites exist because of the business they do through the Internet. It’s your website that converts traffic into customers and it can take a lot of research and trial and error to gain the best conversion rates.
Online business owners can learn a lot from their offline counterparts. One feature of many offline businesses is the concentration on efforts to not win walk-in traffic, but to do everything possible to keep that traffic in the store for as long as possible. Every parent knows about the final marketing trick, the offers made at the point of sale – often targeting children. I notice some supermarkets now advertise checkouts that are ‘child friendly’, that doesn’t mean they don’t have point-of-sale marketing material.
Your website needs to follow the same principles. Once a visitor arrives on your website, you need to keep them for as long as possible. The use of video is popular now for catching people’s attention and increasing their desire for your goods or services. Video production now needs to be a little more sophisticated than in the past, but then, a professionally produced video is likely to have more selling power than a home-produced video.
Content is a website’s prime tool in keeping visitors on their site. However, content on its own is useless if visitors cannot find it. This brings into play your internal link structure, the placement of those links, and the anchor text used to promote those links. This is one area where trialing different placements and different anchor text can result in improved click-through rates.
A professionally designed website that makes use of modern features like video, infographics, and well-written content can work together to keep visitors on your website for longer periods. The longer they stay on your website, the more likely they are to become a customer. When it comes to point of sale offers, don’t be afraid to ask for email details for newsletters. Is your website helping you to convert visitors to customers?
Why Facebook Ads Don’t Cut It – Yet
2010 will go down in history for a number of reasons and one that stands out for many online marketers is the dethroning of Google by Facebook. Almost 9% of all US traffic visits Facebook. That’s a lot of traffic in one place and you would think a blessing for online marketers. No one would blame you for seriously considering Facebook’s advertising feature as well. Surely you could gain a decent stream of traffic to your web site?
If there is one disappointment related to Facebook, then it would have to be its advertising. They don’t appear to have got it right just yet, and while pay per click is cost free if there are no clicks, there are other certain aspects that concern me. Facebook is not alone – to date, social media has not been a great place to advertise. Let’s face it, most people visit sites like Facebook because they want to socialize, not view advertisements.
So where is Facebook failing? There are a number of areas that Facebook need to work at. The first, and perhaps most important, is that you cannot truly target your ads. In fact, you are limited to profile information such as location, age, and interests. It would be nice if advertisements could be targeted based on content – this would make them more relevant to the user, and more likely to receive a click.
One area that has concerned me for a while, to the point of annoying me, is that ads are repeated, especially if you click on one of them. I do click on ads when doing research, or if curiosity gets me. I notice those ads appear far more frequently than most others. In my mind, this is one way to really annoy users, especially if they have clicked through and become a customer. The last thing they want to see is the same ad appearing day after day.
When it comes to advertising, Facebook is still learning, still fine tuning, and still trying to find a ‘fit’ that will work with their users and advertisers alike. Until they do get it right, by all means do your research, but be well aware of its limitations as a pay per click option.
Why Is SEO Still Important?
With all the talk about social media marketing being the new king of traffic delivery, you would think it was the only method. In the cold hard light of day, most businesses still rely on search traffic, and they will for years to come. Social media marketing and search engine optimization complement each other, they certainly don’t work against each other.
There is an easy way to look as this issue – why chase only half the traffic when you can gain traffic from both channels? The number of people using search engines to find information is still growing, even if it is only slowly. More importantly, when you look at the volume of search undertaken each day, if you were to receive .001% of that traffic, it would most likely crash your servers – that’s a lot of traffic and a lot of search queries being run.
So, why is SEO still important? Search engines are still supplying traffic for free. The only cost to you is the time effort that you or a consultant put into optimizing your pages to rank as highly as possible in those search results. Do it well and your web site will receive significant traffic from the search results.
In many cases, SEO serves one further purpose, a purpose that many don’t consider. A good SEO program will ensure that your web site is put together in a very slick, tidy and well-managed fashion. Whether your traffic is coming from the search engines or social media, that tidy and slick web site will gain instant approval from visitors. Without the housekeeping that SEO demands, web sites would run out of control, will start to look untidy, and will most likely frustrate users who can’t find what they are looking for.
Search engine optimization helps your web pages to rank highly in search results. It also helps you to stay in control of your web site. Both are important if you want to be successful.
Protect Your Reputation By Treating Fads With Caution
If 2011 is like any other year there will be fads that come and go, perhaps even some that come and stay. What has been evident over the years is that some have proven to be good while others have proven to not only be bad, but to run the risk of getting your website removed from the search index. If you’re good at picking the winners and losers, then you don’t need to read on. If you want to protect your reputation, then the best piece of advice to offer is to be cautious.
The problem with fads is that they come and go. Some fads hang around, but they can still be dangerous. Some of the more notable include automatic software – the type that seeks out blogs to leave robotic comments; spins a document and then lodges it with hundreds of directories; and the type that automatically bookmarks pages in social bookmarking sites.
If automatic isn’t enough, there are still a lot of individuals offering to do the same by hand. Oh yes, they ‘hand pick’ the directories, social sites, and blogs – but ultimately, it’s still spam.
This past year we have seen groups touting local search as a ‘clever’ way to game the search results. Claiming a listing in many locations around the US, even though you’re sitting at home in the UK, or Australia, or wherever. Google will soon find a way to filter those tactics, then hit those websites that games the system right out of the ball park.
2011 will see new creative ways to get to the top of the search results. If they sound a little fishy, then they probably are. If you have spent a lot of hours building your business, and building your business’s reputation, then forget any of the fads as they come around – use a little caution to see if they are valid, and acceptable by the Internet at large.