- Think strategically. Your Web site should be a part of your overall marketing plan.
- Choose a Web site address (URL) that’s intuitive and easy to remember. Your company’s name (if it’s short) or the name of your main product might work well.
- Put your Web address on all your printed material, including business cards, letterhead, press releases and invoices. Include it in all your advertising.
- Don’t forget offline media and traditional publicity techniques. Send news releases promoting your site to newspapers, broadcasters, and magazines.
- Speak at conferences and trade shows, and write informative articles for trade publications. When you do, mention your Web address.
Brought to you by SCORE "Counselors to America's Small Business.
Notable Articles
The Best Keywords Ever
by Stoney deGeyter - No, I'm not going to give you a list of most searched or most clicked keywords or whatever. Instead I'm going to talk about how to determine which keywords will be the best for you.
A great article to understand how to choose your keywords for your website.
Copywriting Makeover: Value vs. Vision
by Karon Thackston - In Part 1 of this series, we discovered that explaining the value your products offer is only one part of the copywriting process. Creating a visual image is another. While Wholesalers USA knew their target customers better than most companies do, they needed help with two areas: optimizing their copy for the search engines and incorporating visual imagery.
This is an excellent article, to understand how copywriters anlayze content to better get your message accross as well as satisfy search engine optimizations.
Persuasive Copywriting: Writing for the Web Instead of Your CEO
by Erin Walker - The purpose of writing for the web is to convince your prospects that your company has something to offer them that will solve a problem or fill a need. There are a lot of ways to get them to your home page, but once they are there, you want them to take the next step - fill out your form, download your free trial, or even just sign up for your newsletter.
Social Networking is defintely the hot topic in 2007 search engine marketing! Start learning about it now:
Creators, Critics and Collectors - Creating Social Content
by Jennifer Laycock - When it comes to viral marketing and social media, there's often talk of a group of people known as "key influencers." These are the people that serve as a sort of ambassador to the people online when it comes to marketing campaigns. What's often overlooked though, is an understanding of the sub-groups of people within the overall key influencer category.
Small Businesses Should Know Their Place Online
by Stoney deGeyter - The Internet allowed many mom and pops to move out of mom and pop status and develop a new kind of corporate identity. But as the e-marketplace began to grow, driving traffic to a new online business became increasingly difficult. While starting a business on the internet today is still relatively easy compared to doing so off-line, it has become more expensive and time consuming than ever.
SitePoint Tribune #369 (sitepoint.com)
Follow Online Ad Money to Find Customers
Data from American Advertising Federation (AAF), November 2006, compiled into an eMarketer report, shows the percentage of media budgets allocated to emerging media (according to U.S. advertising executives) as follows:
- search 27.0%
- online video 15.0%
- blogs 8.5%
- podcasts 8.0%
- social networking 7.7%
I was most interested in the amount allocated to blogs because data from the Radio Television News Directors Foundation (RTNDF) in 2006 revealed that 52% of US adults never read a blog, and 16% don't know what a blog is. On the other hand, I can understand the thinking behind the high budgets being allocated to search. There simply isn't a better time to get in front of a potential customer than when they're actively searching to buy what you sell.
Let this data be your wake-up call -- if you have a web business, you'll benefit from great search engine rankings, the use of online video, having a blog, recording a regular podcast, and getting involved in social networking. Follow the money -- that's where the customers always are.
The Powerful Influence of the Little Things
Marketing isn't all about expecting a bunch of ads to immediately generate sales. The process is more subtle than that. As a marketer of many years, I know the impact logo views and brand mentions can have on sales -- basically, the more views a logo receives, the higher the number of sales that will result (I know that's broad generalization, but bear with me here!).
Familiar brands get purchased more. It's that simple.
Derren Brown is an English psychological illusionist who focuses on perceptual manipulation and persuasive techniques. This YouTube video extract from his TV show is a wonderful illustration of the power of subtle marketing.
While I feel sure that it wouldn't have been the video content alone that influenced the advertisers to post this extract to YouTube, this video is a brilliant example of what influences us as we go about our day to day lives.
You can apply this approach to your online advertising campaigns -- the benefit from having a top rank in Google, for example, doesn't always come from an immediate sale. A very significant branding benefit comes from being seen at the top. That branding benefit can equate to many sales over an extended period of time.
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