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The 3 main areas of Online Marketing

by Paul Gregory at 11:45 am on July 9, 2009

Online Marketing or Internet Marketing can be a complicated business and there are lots of aspects to consider when taking on a complete Online Marketing project.
However to sum up the whole process we can segregate Online Marketing into 3 main areas, these are Traffic Generation, Conversion Analysis and Repeat Business. The following will go into more detail about each area.

Traffic Generation

One of the first things that need to be considered is how am I going to get visitors to my website?
This can be achieved in various ways but the method that will generate the most traffic is Search Engine Optimisation. This is the process of ranking highly in what is called the natural search results of a search engine. The first step in this process involves Keyword Research. This refers to figuring out what words and phrases most relate to your business and which of these words people actually search for and then incorporate them into your websites content and metadata. This then allows the search engines to know which words are important to your website. There are many other aspects to SEO such as Competitor Analysis, External & Internal Linking and Social Media to name a few all of which need to be considered when taking on an SEO project.
Another method of traffic generation is Pay Per Click advertising. This uses the same principles as SEO in the respect that it uses keywords. However with PPC advertising you bid on the position your advert will show depending on the keyword. The beauty of this type of advertising is you only pay when someone clicks on your advert.

Conversion Analysis

The next part of Online Marketing refers to Conversions. Conversions are sales or enquiries depending on the nature of your business. As part of your project you will want to monitor and analyse how many sales/enquiries you have achieved. A good way of doing this is to attach some analytical package (such as Google Analytics) to your website allowing you to see visitor activity and where any sales/enquiries came from.
However on the flip side if you are not achieving any sales/conversions you will want to know why. Maybe your website simply isn’t appealing enough to provoke a sale/enquiry, maybe you’re not giving the customer enough information or maybe your contact form is hard to find. These things can all be monitored and acted upon that is why it is so important to analyse your websites statistics regularly.

Repeat Business

Once you have achieved sales/enquiries unless you are only interested in one off sales then it is important to encourage people to repeat buy. This can be achieved through online marketing using techniques such as Email Marketing Campaign and well maintained blogs or forums.
Email Marketing gives you the opportunity to send a message to people who have already shown an interest in your product or service by signing up for newsletters or regular updates. This is what’s known as a Permission List as the people on the list have given their consent for you to contact them.
Another method of encouraging repeat business is to keep a well maintained blog or forum. This method allows people to interact with your business and gives them assurances that they can air any grievances or concerns quickly and easily. A blog is a great way to keep your customers informed on latest products, offers or company news and allows them to feel part of the community.

To sum up you will need to plan and consider each of these areas to succeed in your Online Marketing project. However the rewards for successful implementation are well worth the time and effort.

The Importance of Internal Linking

by Paul Gregory at 5:22 pm on June 29, 2009

It is often believed that in SEO the most important links are external links leading to your site. Whilst these are indeed extremely important it is also very important to get the Internal Linking structure of your own site right.

Main Site Navigation

This process begins when you are deciding what keywords to use in the main navigation of your site. It is a good idea to use your most important and most relevant keywords within the main navigation as this is one of the first things the search engines will look at when crawling your site.

However don’t be tempted to try and stuff loads of keywords into your navigation as 1) It looks messy and 2) You can potentially get punished by the search engines.

Website Footer

Another form of Internal Linking that will also help the Search Engines is having a footer that mirrors the main navigation but can also contain a few extra pages that aren’t linked from the main navigation (these are usually pages like Privacy Policy or Terms & Conditions). It is very important however not to be tempted to keyword stuff in this area. I have seen sites where the footer links cover more area than the main content of the page! This again looks messy but will also reduce the value of each individual link.

Internal Text Links

Internal Text Links are links that are placed within the content of a page. When a relevant keyword is used in the content of your site you can turn that word into a link to the relevant part of your site. An example of this would be ‘We are a Web Design company based on the Wirral’ where web design links to the relevant page on our site (yes I know a cheap inbound link to our site on that one!).

And you guessed it, it’s important not to add too many text links as it will look messy and reduce the value of the links.

These steps alone will not boost your site to the top of the rankings, however they are an important part of the overall SEO process and for the time it takes it is definitely worth doing.

SEO, PG Tips

What are your customers D.U.F.’s?

by Paul Gregory at 10:20 am on June 15, 2009

Your customers D.U.F.’s

It is important for any company selling online to understand their customers D.U.F.’s. Now this has nothing to do with Homer Simpson’s favourite beer (mmm Duff!) but stands for Doubts, Uncertainties and Fears when buying online.

How can I find out what my customers D.U.F.’s are

This is a quick checklist of good ways to find out your customers DUF’s

• Start by Reviewing your Site
Is all the information regarding a product there and visible to a client? Is everything there that should be, like shipping costs, delivery date, secure shopping etc. Compare your site to industry leaders to see what you may be missing.

• Have a chat with the people on the front line
Talk to the people who speak to your customers. Are the customers asking the same questions every day? If so think about adding and FAQ to your site to allay some of their fears and answer their questions.

• Ask your customers for Feedback
Adding a customer feedback form can be a great way to find out what is worrying your customers about your products or services. It is also a great way to make customers feel comfortable buying from you if you have positive customer feedback.

• Usability Testing
Ask people who are unfamiliar to your site to go over it and assess the usability. This is a great way to see if your site is user friendly to new visitors and a great way to uncover new DUF’s.

ecommerce, web design

My Top 5 tips for On Page SEO

by Paul Gregory at 2:54 pm on May 20, 2009

These are My Top 5 tips for On Page SEO. Now these are by no means the definitive 5 things you should do in SEO, but they are a useful place to start. I welcome any comments or feedback you may have.

• Keyword Research

Choosing the correct keywords for your site is like building the foundations of a house. These keywords are the building blocks that support many aspects of SEO. It is important to select keywords that describe your business from the customer’s point of view, as they are the ones that are going to be using those words to find your site. To select these words there are many tools out there including Google Adwords Keyword Tool and Wordtracker to name but two, but it is also good to do some competitor analysis by typing the terms you think describe your business into the search engine and seeing who shows up. If they are your competitors or businesses much like yours you are on the right track.

• Content

Probably the most important part of the SEO process is the actual content on the website. It is important to remember that you are writing the content for your visitors and not the search engines. This means it is best to remember to make the content readable, coherent and to look at it from a customer’s point of view. Get someone who is not involved with the company and doesn’t know SEO to have a look at your site, if they wonder why there is repetition then you have overdone the keywords. Don’t stuff your content with keywords to try and get the site picked up by the search engine. This can actually lead to your site being punished and not showing at all in the search engines.

• Meta Data – Particularly important when producing meta data is the Title tag <title>. This is the text that shows at the top of the web browser and effectively gives a title to each page of your site. It is important to incorporate relevant keywords within the title tag. Once again however it is important to consider customers as the title tag is the first thing that people will see in the SERPs. Again it is important not to keyword stuff your Title tag as this may once again lead to sites or pages not showing.

Arguably of less importance are the keyword <keywords> and description tags <description>. The keyword tag is simply a list of keywords relating to the web page and is just a case of listing your most popular, relevant keywords.
The description tag is basically a description of the page. It is a few lines of text that give the customer a brief overview of the page. This means it is again important to write a description tag that is relevant and coherent to the customer as the description tag is also visible in the SERPs.

• Friendly URL’s

It is important to have URLs that relate to the page not only for your visitors but also for the search engines.
Using a keyword that relates to the page within your URL will help your site rank higher for that particular keyword. It also helps visitors to navigate your site as they know exactly where they are within it for example www.webtise.co.uk/webdesign tells you, you are on the web design page.
From an aesthetic point of view it also looks a lot tidier to have friendly URLs throughout the site.

• Internal Linking

An important aspect of On Page SEO is to make sure all your links are linking to the correct pages. It is also useful to link text within your content to pages of your site. The best practice is to use keywords within the text to link to other relevant (that is the important bit) areas on the site. As with everything else it is important not to over do your linking as not only does it look messy but it can also lead to punishment from the search engines. A footer sitemap is also a useful way of incorporating keywords and internal linking on your site.

5 Top Tips for Converting Traffic Into Sales

by Paul Gregory at 1:46 pm on April 21, 2009

A website is like a shop window. People will walk up to it and take a look however if the window display isn’t appealing and doesn’t show them what they are looking for them they will carry on walking and look at the next window (or go to the pub!). That is why it is important to follow these Top Tips to succeed with your website.

1. Make sure you have a solid Web Design or Refresh your current design.

It is hugely important that you have a solid base for you business. In this case a Website.

Don’t settle for a cheap easy solution, make sure you go for a design that suits your needs and more importantly the needs of your customers.

Think about your own buying behaviour, you are unlikely to buy anything from a website that looks tacky and messy; you are much more likely to buy from a site that’s well organised, good looking and professional.

If it is already too late and you have gone for the cheap option you may want to consider a web refresh and look to update your site. The overall goal is to create a clean and unified look that invites users to go deeper into your site and ultimately make a purchase.

2. Create Visible and Enticing Calls to Action

As part of your websites navigation you will want to consider the position of your Call to Action. All too often the call to action is tucked away at the bottom of the page where a user is less likely to find it. Make sure your calls to action are visible by placing them higher up your page, this will allow a visitor to see exactly where they need to go to make a purchase or enquiry.

The other important part of calls to action is the wording you use. Make sure the wording is appealing and not pushy, but stands out clearly (Buy Now, Order Today etc.). Also make sure it suits the overall theme of your site and doesn’t look out of place.

3. Make Visitors ‘Stick’ to your site

If people are visiting your site but not hanging around then you will never get any sales. Ways to improve the ‘stickiness’ of your site include adding relevant and interesting content, adding a search box allowing visitors to find exactly what they want or including a blog or forum allowing visitors to interact and find out more information.

4. Aim to get visitors onto sales focused areas of your site

It is important to get visitors to what they are looking for in as few clicks as possible. This can be achieved by adding a list of ‘best sellers’ or ‘new products’ to your home page that each link to the specific product. Visitors will start to lose interest if it takes them more than 3 or 4 clicks to find what they are looking for.

5. Focus on your Target Market

The best way to do this is to put yourself in your customers shoes. How would you go about finding your product if it was something you required?

Do some research and find out what websites, forums or blogs your customers are looking at. The goal is to place your website in front of as many potential customers as possible.

« Newer Posts

The 3 main areas of Online Marketing

The Importance of Internal Linking

What are your customers D.U.F.’s?

My Top 5 tips for On Page SEO

5 Top Tips for Converting Traffic Into Sales

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