The Best Online Marketing Strategy

The Best Online Marketing Strategy

by Kevin Kielty

Tips for Starting a New Online Business

One of the biggest mistakes that many businesses online and offline make is that they do not have a plan for success. Even though it is an online business, you should still have a business plan and you should have a search marketing strategy and know that you are targeting a large enough market. You should do searches online on Google, and Yahoo, and MSN, and see which of your competitors come up for that search term.

You should also do some market research analysis so that you know which search terms people are searching for the most. Some search terms might only produce a couple, 10 or 20 searches a day, and other search terms might have several thousand a day. You will need a big enough market to target because you will be sharing that market with your competitors.

What it all comes down to in the end is that you have about 10 or 20 competitors on the front page of Google, Yahoo and MSN. You need to do the following well, to compete with these competitors.

1. Your website needs to have a better presentation than your competitors. This means a more engaging demonstration of the products and services you sell.

2. You need to come up as high as possible in the search engines either through search engine marketing or paid sponsored ads also known as pay-per-click.

3. Optimize your website so that search engines can find you organically. This is also known as search engine optimization.

Common Mistakes Beginners Make

1. They start targeting and promoting keywords before they know the value of the keywords they are promoting.

2. When using pay-per-click advertising, they direct everyone to the front page of their website. As much as possible, direct your ads to a detailed web page which matches up to your prospective customers search term.


Tips for a Successful Online Advertising Campaign

1. Have a customized landing page, which takes the prospective customer to the exact product, or service page for which they are searching.

2. To have a cost effective online marketing strategy there needs to be enough people searching for your product or service.

For example, if someone is searching for a particular type of guitar, your ad should feature that particular type of guitar. The more specific you are and the less searching the perspective customer has to do once they get to your web page, the more likely they are to contact you, buy your product, or take the action you want them to take.

You will need to research which search terms or keywords are searched on more frequently than other search terms so that you can make sure that you have the largest audience possible. You can do this using Google's keyword tool. Doing just this small amount of market research can make the difference between success or failure of your online business venture.

For example, if you're selling Widget A and there's only ten people a day in your area searching for Widget A, you are not going to be very successful. If however, there are 100,000 people a day searching for a Widget A and you only have two competitors who also sell Widget A, then there is room for you in that market.

Google's Keyword Tool and How to Use it

The first place to start with researching your keywords is the Google keyword tool, found here: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Below are some useful features of Google's keyword tool:

1. You can enter various phrases describing your businesses products or services into the search box. The tool will give you results on different phrases and synonyms matching your description. It will also tell you which search terms produce the largest amount of traffic on a monthly basis.

2. If you are targeting the entire United States then the monthly traffic column per keyword is very accurate. If you are targeting a particular state within the United States then you would need to divide that number by the percentage of population in that state.

3. Google's keyword tool also has a column that indicates the average cost per click for each search term. This can be helpful for forecasting how much to price your product or service. For example, if you are selling something for $10.00 and it costs you $10.00 to get enough people to your website before anyone buys your product then you need to rethink your pricing model. If however, your product sells for $20.00 and it only costs you $5.00 in advertising before someone buys your product, then you have a cost effective marketing campaign.


Other Search Engine Marketing Strategies

In addition to pay-per-click, you can pursue search engine marketing techniques such as:
1. Article Marketing
2. Directory Marketing
3. Community Forum Marketing
4. Channel Partner Marketing

The goal of all of these marketing techniques is to get a higher search engine ranking for the search terms you are targeting. All of the methods above include backlinks to your website. Backlinks to your website is the number one criteria used by search engines to rank your website.

Online Market Penetration

After you have done your market research, the next thing you will want to do is to determine if it is a growing market.

One of the ways you can discover if you are in a growing market is by using Google Trends. When using Google Trends, enter a search term which describes your business or industry into the search box and view the trend line in the results. If the trend line is moving up then you are in a growing market. If the trend line is moving down, then you are in a declining market. This will give you a good indication if it would be worthwhile for you to launch your business.

Another way to tell if there is room for you in a particular market is to look at your online competitors. Often times if their websites have not been updated in a while, it can indicate they are doing a good business. Also, if you have to scroll down to the second or third page of the search results before you find a decent looking web page, that can indicate a large market.

If you want a successful online business, follow these steps:

Do the market research, do a competitive analysis and research the market trends for your industry, then you will be successful in your new online business.

About the Author:
Kevin Kielty writes for Internet Marketing Advantage in Raleigh, NC. Online marketing, and web design are his areas of expertise. Internet Marketing Advantage specializes in bringing together web design, and Raleigh Online Advertising.

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How to Use Web Analytics to Grow Your Business

How to Use Web Analytics to Grow Your Business
By Mike Tekula (c) 2009

If you own a business, chances are you do. But don't pat yourself on the back too quickly.
By now it's widely-accepted that if you have a business card you should probably have a website. It doesn't matter what your company is selling - a website, however modest, has become a standard.
The real question is: what is your website doing for your business?

As a web marketer I often put this question to the business owners I meet. Not because I'm trying to lead into my sales pitch, but because I'm intrigued to hear the answer.

Most people get a certain "deer in the headlights" look in their eyes when I ask this question. To be fair, it's not a question we're used to hearing. But that's not all that's going on here.

Traditional advertising mediums - print, TV, radio, etc - are notoriously difficult to track. Sure, you'll know how often the phone is ringing or how many people come in with a coupon clipped from the Sunday paper, but what you don't know is how many people saw/heard your ad and whether they were interested, oblivious or, worse, annoyed.

Business owners are used to this. We all know we need to advertise - it's a necessary cost of doing business - so we buy that half-page ad in the Yellow Pages or the local newspaper, we sponsor an event or a little league team, we have a radio commercial written (maybe even with a jingle) and we hope for the best.

This has been a given in marketing since the beginning. But the web, and analytics, changed the game.

So how should you be using your web analytics to grow your audience, and your business, online?

Track Everything

With web analytics on your site you can track:

• Where your traffic is coming from by
  - The referring website and page
  - The search engine and keyword used

• Your website visitors by
  - Their location
  - Their operating system, browser and monitor resolution
  - Their network

• Visitor behavior and actions by
  - Duration of visit (time on site)
  - Pages per visit (number of pages viewed)
  - Bounce rate (percentage of users who viewed only one page before leaving)
  - Conversion rate (percentage of users who completed a preset task)

If you're planning on doing any kind of web marketing, be it through search engines, email or advertising on other websites, information on your past and current traffic is crucial. Not to mention you'll want analytics in place so you can properly track the new traffic your promotions will, hopefully, bring in.

Tie Your Traffic Sources to Your Users' Actions

When looking at your analytics data the behavior and action metrics mean little by themselves. If the bounce rate of your site overall is 75%, what does that tell you? Well, this is a pretty high bounce rate - you should at least be shooting to have a bounce rate lower than 50%. But does this tell you exactly what is wrong?

Likewise, if you have secured advertising or a listing on another website, the number of visits coming in from that site only gives you part of the picture.

Tying your bounce rate to a specific traffic source, on the other hand, can tell you a lot.

If a given traffic source is generating a bounce rate of 85% or more, for example, this indicates that users are not being satisfied. There are a few possibilities as to why:

• The users may not be well-qualified - or the site where you are listed or advertising might not have the best audience for your content/offer.

• The listing/ad may promise something that the entry page does not live up to (or, at least, the promise is difficult to locate once the user arrives at your site).

• Your site is simply not usable, is unattractive or unprofessional, causing users to leave immediately (and most don't come back)

• Your users are not connecting with your content/offer.

There are other possibilities, but you'll want to find the most likely answer here - and try to fix it. Then, using the same metrics (traffic source + bounce rate), you can see whether things improve moving forward.

Using metrics like these you can also get a sense of which advertisements are bringing you a return on your investment and which aren't. With goal tracking in Google Analytics, for example, a conversion rate is added to just about every traffic metric, including referring websites. If you're finding that a website is sending you plenty of traffic but none of it is converting, re-examine the referring website's audience, how your site is being presented and the user's experience when they click through.

The Point

Your website is more than a brochure. It's an interactive tool for your users. The only true way to find out how they're using it (or not using it) is to get web analytics set up properly on your website (including setting goal points to track conversions).

And the best way to improve your website in the aim of building your business is to use the information your web analytics give you.

The age of blind advertising - of throwing money at the problem and hoping for the best - is dead.

If you aren't tracking everything, taking time on a regular basis to understand what the data reveals about your users and adjusting your efforts based on this information, you're missing an opportunity to optimize your advertising and get a better return on your budget.

In this economy, is that something you can afford?

About The Author
Mike Tekula is the President of Unstuck Digital - a Long Island, NY web marketing company that offers proven solutions and training for growing your business online.

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The SEO Content Controversy

One of the ways search engines determine site ranking is to sort through your online content and rank the site based on repeated keywords or phrases.

Content rich websites have found success in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategies. While I highly recommend this strategy there is another viewpoint that is less dependent on content for exposure for site rankings.

Some webmasters are strong proponents of non-content SEO strategies. These technical experts rely very heavily on meta-title and other html or code-based SEO strategies for sites that are less content oriented.

Purists on both sides of the argument will say their approach is far superior to the other.

For the content sites they can judge their success through keyword strategies that are observable in long-term site rankings.

For the non-content sites they can observe keywords or phrases being used to determine site rankings from a more technical source in behind-the-scenes code.

So, which is the better approach?

Both.

This really is a matter of being able to have your cake and eat it too. You can maximize SEO strategies in the coding on your site while infusing your website with knowledge based original content.

The combination of these two strategies can work with greater efficiency than either strategy alone.

If you are ill equipped to manage coding then you should work tirelessly to incorporate knowledge based articles into your website.

The standard negative reply to this concept is when a business is primarily selling a product or service and do not feel original content really works with their online store.

If, for instance, your business sells blocks of gourmet cheese you could incorporate original articles on the various cheese offerings, their taste and texture and the history behind each cheese type. You could incorporate articles that provide recipes that include the cheese types you provide.

Hopefully you get the idea, by adding knowledge-based articles you can assist your site ranking, help your customer and minimize the need for coded SEO strategies until you learn how best to implement the non-content SEO.

There will always be a battle as to which SEO strategy is best, but I will go so far as to say the best strategy will be the one that includes both concepts to the best of the web owner's capabilities.

While some want to make the issue an either/or decision it is really a both/and solution.

However you optimize your site, work to the best of your ability to implement strategies that work for you long-term.

Too many strategies are short-term props that help you very little in the grand scheme of the life of your website.

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Author: Scott Lindsay - Now you can make a website incredibly fast at HighPowerSites.com. Start a home business and be an Ebook Reseller at BooksWealth.com.

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10 Steps to Testing the Viability of Your Online Business Idea That Won't Break the Bank

10 Steps to Testing the Viability of Your
Online Business Idea That Won't Break the Bank
By Donna Gunter (c) 2009

How do you determine if your online business idea will sink or swim? Here are 10 steps you can take to test your idea without breaking the bank:

1. Research. Comprehensive research is always the first step for any business idea. Brainstorm a list of keywords someone might use to find the product/service that you're offering, and then use a keyword tool finder to see how many searches have been done on these keywords. The keyword tool will also make suggestions of related keywords to try. Once you have a list of keywords, conduct searches (use quotation marks around your search term for stronger results) in Google, Yahoo, and MSN to see who else is out there. Evaluate the popularity of the sites you discover by checking out their Google Page Rank and Alexa ranking. Use the same keywords to see if articles have been written about your topic in the major article banks. You'll uncover your competition in this research, as well as potential strategic alliances. Employ a powerful bookmark program to help you track your research results.

2. Monetize the idea. After completing your research, have you discovered enough competitors in the marketplace who are making money from doing something similar? If so, how are they making money -- is it from the sale of info products, consulting services, subscription to their site, advertising, etc? If you don't see much competition, that usually means one of two things:

a. There's not enough demand for the product/idea or

b. You're ahead of the curve in seeing the profit potential.

Unfortunately, in most cases, that result means that there's not enough demand for your idea in the way that it's been presented.

3. The "so what" factor. From your research you should be able to clarify what it is that you're offering and what group of people need what you're offering. In order to be successful, your offering must pass the "so what" factor in light of your competition. To take this test, you must successfully be able to answer the following question after telling someone what you do, "So what? How is that different from what x, y and z are offering?" You can answer these questions best if you review the benefits of what you're offering (the What's In It For Me) rather than just a listing of the features, and if you can speak from the heart about your idea. An online business will take time to manage and develop, so you want to settle on something that you love. If you don't enjoy what you're doing, you quickly become a prisoner in a prison of your making.

4. Industry information. Set up Google Alerts for your industry keywords and track them from info posted on websites, blogs, and newsgroups. Reviewing the alerts you receive over the next few weeks should help you expand your view of the problems/issues with your subject, help you see the "movers and shakers" in the industry, and help you discover other places (blogs, discussion forums, social networks) where your target market hangs out online.

5. Test the waters. The easiest way to test your idea is by creating a blog. Buy a keyword-rich domain name for the blog and map your blog to that domain. Then begin to blog about your insights on your topic, or reprint articles others have written on your subject. The idea here is to begin to establish your online presence and your online brand.

6. Build a list. Once you've got a blog set up, you need to begin to build your marketing list. The easiest way to do this is to create a free giveaway on your site (ebook, video, report, audio recording) and a form for the visitor to input his name and email address to receive your giveaway. Your privacy policy should be readily available to them and outline how you'll use their info and what they can expect to receive from you. You'll also need an emaíl marketing service or shopping cart service to manage your list.

7. Crown yourself the expert. The only way to become an expert in an area is to believe that you are one. By virtue of the research you've already conducted, you know more than a large percentage of your target market. Therefore, don't hesitate to begin to refer to yourself as an expert in your industry.

8. Drive traffic. Once you build your blog, they (visitors) won't come without some encouragement. Create profiles on prominent social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. Start writing articles about your topic and submittíng those to article directories. Discover if your target market hangs out on niche-specific social networking sites and start networking there. Interview experts in your industry and release the interviews as a podcast. Create a weekly email newsletter to stay in touch with the prospects on your email list. Create powerful inbound links by getting your blog listed on various blog and website directories.

9. Implementation time. Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither is a successful online business. Allow at least three months to give your idea a test run and evaluate it after that time. Have you been able to build a list? Are you getting traffic to your site? Are you attracting the attention of others in your industry? If so, you're ready to move to the next step.

10. Move forward. If you determine that your idea is viable, what's next? Creating info products or a membership site? What are your longer term goals to develop this idea into a business? The best way to harness all the info that you've collected thus far is to create a business plan. It doesn't have to be complicated -- it can be only one page, in fact. What you need to commit to paper is your offer, your target market, your ongoing goals for how to monetize the idea, and an outline of how you plan to grow the business over time.

It's not too late to get your start in an online business. Don't be distracted by the false promises of quick wealth overnight. Success takes time and planning, so invest some planning and research time into your business idea. That's the strongest foundation you can create for yourself to become a successful online entrepreneur.

About The Author

Internet Marketing Strategist and Boomer Biz Coach Donna Gunter helps baby boomers create profitable online retirement businesses that they love by demystifying and simplifying the tools and strategies needed to market and grow their businesses online.

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7 Basics of Good Web Design

7 Basics of Good Web Design
By George Peirson (c) 2009

Whether you are just starting a web design project, looking at revamping an existing site, or just wanting to double check the usability of your current web site you should consider these 7 Basics of Good Web Design.

These basics are aimed at new visitors/customers; your repeat customers will be judging your web site on different values. Just like wearing the appropriate clothes for a job interview, these basics will help you pick out the "look" of your web site so that you make a good first impression.

1. Fast Loading Web Site - Any way you look at it, a fast loading page should be your number 1 concern. The web is all about speed, fast searches, fast purchases, fast information. You can't have any of that with a slow loading page. Ask yourself this question - have you ever been on Google doing a search for something important and a link you clicked on didn't open up immediately? What did you do? Patiently wait for the page to open or move onto the next link on the page? My favorite sites open almost immediately.

So, a few suggestions: Make sure that your images are properly optimized. Don't use very many large images, save those for a different page. Keep any auto-running multimedia to a minimum, provide links to run media instead. Check your code for anything else that could affect your page loading times. Since text loads almost instantly go ahead and use all the text you want, just keep everything else under control.

2. No Meaningless Splash Page - Do you appreciate a fancy animation page that doesn't tell you anything and you have to wait for before the web site will open? Neither do I. The last thing I want once I find an interesting site is to wait through some animation before getting to the first page. This doesn't mean that I don't want multimedia on a site, I do. I just don't want an animation before the first page that forces me to wait for it to finish before getting onto the site. It's like having to wait for a salesperson to finish their memorized speech before you can ask them a question. No thanks! I like animation, just in the right place and at the right time. Plus, if I am a returning customer, I will have already seen that animation and don't need to see it again.

My suggestion is to use a smaller animation contained in your main landing page which also includes your main message and links to the rest of your site. It will make for a faster loading page (smaller file) and your visitors can go ahead with accessing your site without having to wait for the animation to finish.

One final note, don't ever put your logo as the only content on your landing page with a link that says "Enter Site". This just screams Unprofessional and will drive away potential visitors in droves. The last thing I want to do is to click on another link just to get into the site. This is a total waste of my time. I usually will skip a site if I see this.

3. No Annoying Web Gimmicks - Now that you have your visitor on your site quickly the one thing you don't want to do is to drive them away just as quickly. So, don't put anything annoying on that first page. No loud background music that makes them quickly hit the volume control or the back button on their browser. No flashing animations while they are trying to read your content. No popup, flyout, expanding ads that cover your home page. Basically, leave the gimmicks alone until you are sure that your visitor will stay on your site. Most casual visitors will leave your site in just a few seconds, no sense on driving them away more quickly.

Multimedia is great on a web site, just don't bombard your visitor with it first thing. If you want audio, then put in a nice picture with a link, like a picture of yourself with text saying something like "Let me tell you how to make fifty thousand this month!" If they are interested, they will click on the link and listen to your message; if they are not interested in audio, then you should be using a different pitch anyway.

Also, monitor what advertisers are putting on your site if you sell ad space. I am sure you have seen those ads with the animated dancing figure, cute the first time you see it. But after seeing it 10,000 times with every imaginable character I have added the company to a líst I keep of companies I won't do business with. So their animation has gone from "look at me" to "you annoy me" in my mind. Ads like these will impact your visitor's experience. So even if your site is perfectly designed, one misplaced ad can ruin all of your hard work.

4. Have a Clear Message - Too many web sites are a mish-mash of content. This is especially true of blog pages. Certain types of sites lend themselves to stream of consciousness content, but most don't. Make it easy for your viewer to understand what your web site is about, don't make them guess. Have a clear topic headline, followed by clear and concise text. This is also where a picture is worth a thousand words, but only if the picture directly pertains to your message.

You want your visitor to quickly understand what your message is. If they like your message, they will take the time to read the rest of your page and look around your web site. If they don't like your page, then it won't do you any good having them stay on your site anyway. So, don't make your visitors guess, let them know what you are about quickly and cleanly and you will have happy visitors. And when thinking about a sales page, a happy customer is a buying customer.

5. Coordinated Design - This one should be self evident, but it is surprising how many sites change their design for every page. You want your visitor to be comfortable in your site and one way to achieve that is by having a coordinated web design. Having a consistent logo, using a consistent color scheme, keeping your navigation in the same place. All of these help to create a coordinated design. This does not mean that you can't change colors or the "Look" on different segments of your site, but if you do, the changes should not be so drastic that it feels like you have moved on to a different site.

If you select one place for your logo, one place for your navigation, one look for your buttons or other common graphic elements and stick with those then you will be well on your way to a coordinated design. If you change colors for a different section, but keep the same logo location, the same navigation location, the same button shape, then your visitors will not become lost as they move from page to page.

6. Easy Navigation - Once you have grabbed your visitors attention you want them to be able to easily move around the different areas of your web site. This is done with easy to use navigation. There are three standard, accepted locations for navigation elements on a web page: along the top, on the left side, and at the bottom. I will usually put my main navigation either along the top or along the left side. I will then put text based navigation at the bottom of the page, this text based navigation is more for the search engines than anything else, but it also makes it easy for your visitors to move to the next page when they have reached the bottom of the current page.

Most people start reading a page from the top left and then read towards the bottom right. So navigation at the left or top will be seen as soon as someone enters your page. Also navigation at the left or top will not move or change position if the browser window is adjusted in size. The worst thing you can do is to put your main navigation on the right side of the page and have your page set for a large screen size. Let's say that your page is set for 1024 across with the navigation on the right, and someone views your page at 800 across, they will not see your navigation at all. The left side of your page will show perfectly, but the right side will be hidden outside of their viewing area. Of course by using floating or popup menus you can overcome some of these design limitations and keep your navigation visible at all times.

Unless you know that your audience will enjoy it, don't use Mystery Navigation. This is where your navigation is hidden within images, or spaced around the web page in some mysterious random order. This can be fun on gaming sites, or social networking sites, but in most cases the navigation should be easy to see and easy to use. If you do want to use Mystery Navigation, I would recommend keeping the text based navigation at the bottom of the page, just in case.

7. Have a "Complete" web site - And finally, no one wants to go to a web site only to find that the site is "Under Construction" and the content they are looking for is not there. These are words that you shouldn't ever use. If a section of your web site is not ready for prime time yet, then simply don't show it yet. It is better to have your site look complete and professional, then to have it look like a work in progress that should not be up on the web yet.

You can easily tell your visitors that you will be having more content in the future without having your site look like it is unfinished. Just use phrases like "Content Updated Weekly" or "New Products Added Monthly". Both of these will tell your visitors that it would be worth their time to come back and visit later, but neither one will make your site look unfinished. So no matter how small your web site is, give the impression that you have taken the time to complete the site before putting it up on the internet, this makes for a more professional presentation and a better visitor experience.

In Closing - By following these simple 7 Basics of Good Web Design you will be well on your way to having an easy to use and successful web presence. Just keep in mind what you look for when you first land on a web page after doing a web search in Google or Yahoo, or other search engine. If you want fast loading pages, make sure your pages load fast. If you want to be able to find what you are looking for quickly and easily, then make sure you have easy navigation. Just keep your first time visitor in mind, put yourself in their web shoes and make your web site an enjoyable place to visit and success should follow.

About The Author

George Peirson is a successful Entrepreneur and Internet Trainer. He is the author of over 40 multimedia based tutorial training titles covering such topics as Photoshop, Flash and Dreamweaver.

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