WSI Blog - Internet Marketing Tips and Strategies

Blogging is a great way to drive traffic to your website and to share your product and industry knowledge. However just because you publish a blog does not guarantee you a reader following. Follow the tips below to improve the success of your blog.

1. Narrow down your target audience
Blog readers are looking for something specific. They may frequent multiple blogs on the same topic in order to stay on top of current trends in their area of interest. Look at your products and services and determine who you are ultimately trying to reach. Then you can share with them your industry expertise and current market trends.

2. Give them valuable information
Determine what information your audience would find valuable. If you're a home builder your reader might enjoy some building tips to cut down on heating costs. Blog readers will come back if you continue to educate and inform them. Immerse yourself in your industry trends and share that knowledge through your blog.

3. Speak the language
Write your blog as if you were speaking to your audience. If you write a medical blog and your audience is made up exclusively of medical professionals then feel free to use technical jargon. However if your medical blog will be frequented by potential patients make sure you aren't speaking over their heads. If they can't understand your content they won't continue to read your blog. 

You may have a beautiful and user friendly website but that alone will not insure that consumers are finding it. Contrary to some beliefs the best way to increase visitation to your site is not through costly print, radio, TV or online banner ads. The ultimate way to attract more visitors is through content marketing combined with a good SEO strategy.

Filling your site with fresh content that is valuable to your target audience and then promoting that content can have a major effect on your site's exposure in the search engines. The ultimate goal it to write great content that your relevant for your target audience, promote the content on your site and additional content marketing sites/article marketing sites. Promoting on article marketing sites can help drive new links alone will and improve your search engine rankings. Finally promoting your content within social media outlets, YouTube and blogs will complete that extra step to taking your content virally.

The most important factor here is that your content be relevant and of high value to your reader. In order to take the first step towards content marketing is to create a content blueprint. Here are 6 steps to creating a content blueprint:

Step 1: Define your business goals
What do you want to achieve in the next 12 months?

Step 2: Identify your ideal website audience
Who exactly do you want to be visiting your website? This is typically the person most likely to be making the decisions about your product or service. As a homebuilder you may want to target housewives for example as they may be the primary decision maker when it comes to building a new home.

Step 3: List the types of information they require
For each target audience what questions will they typically ask and what is the information most requested about your company, product or service?

Step 4: Determine the action you want your target to take
What is their call to action? Watching a video? Signing up for your newsletter? Whatever you direct them to,m that information needs to help your visitor solve their problem and ultimately encourage them to engage with your company.

Step 5: Research search keywords
Use keyword research tools such as Wordtracker or Google's keyword tool. Find out what people are searching for and use the tool to identify niche topics that you can create content for.

Step 6: Create your blueprint
Sort your content by target audience and create a sitemap and navigation plan to channel your content effectively to your visitor. For each piece decide what channels you will use to promote. Consider website, blog, YouTube, Podcast, LinkedIn, Facebook and anywhere else you anticipate your target frequenting.

Create a schedule for when you will create and publish content. Publishing regularly will increase visibility. The best part about content marketing is that the information you create and share is actually increasing the value of your business.

Lastly make sure you have a way to measure your success. Install Google Analytics to monitor website visitation and set business goals that you can measure.

Content marketing continues to be a great way to improve search engine visibility in 2010, and improve the "stickiness" of your site. Content marketing is when you publish, promote, and syndicate content this is valuable, interesting, and relevant to your brand and overall marketing strategies.

Focus on creating "keyword" rich content that aligns well with the keywords you are targeting for your site and be sure to provide content that reads well and is written for the user, not for the search engines. Many clients tend to get one or the other of these key points, but often fail to utilize both strategies (keyword rich content & written for the user). A recent client of ours provided a well written article, but failed to use any of the keywords that we were trying to target for the search engine optimization campaign. I suppose you can't always use your keywords for every article, but it certainly makes sense to try.

Create optimized content that is specific to what your target audience is searching for:
• Identify the information needs of your target audience
• Analyze your ideal persona's needs
• Include a clear "call to action" in each article and content piece. Your readers will often do what you tell them to do. Call Now! Get More Information. Download Our Free Whitepaper. Buy Now.
• Provide information that fulfills the need of each of your personas - Can't always be done with 1 content article, provide multiple articles over time that speaks to all of your target audience.

Once your content is written, you need to distribute it. First, make sure your content article is on your website as a web page. You can offer a PDF version, but an actual page will allow you to setup internal links to other pages (improves SEO and usability) and add analytics to track the popularity and success of your articles. Use an initial push strategy to begin marketing your content (social media, article marketing sites, blogs, and market it on your own site). This will help get people interested in your content and hopefully they will begin to share it with others. Wherever possible, always include a link back to your article on your site or a targeted page on your site.

In internet marketing, we constantly have potential clients who are hung up on the cost of search engine optimization and aren't sure if they can justify the cost. While it may seem expensive, search engine optimization is perhaps the most important part of your internet marketing mix. Why? Because while you may not be willing to spend the money to have it done correctly to yield the best results, your competitors are. And every month that goes by that other websites are benefitting fromSEO, your site is falling farther and farther behind.

It may help to look at SEO as a long term investment rather than a one time or recurring cost. Unlike pay per click campaigns, where you are essentially "renting" the space at the top pages of the search engines, SEO helps you "own" the space and ensures that you will continue to stay at the top once you get there. And because SEO is an investment, keep in mind that as with most investments, you get what you pay for. There are certainly SEO packages at every price point, but you need to ask yourself how one company is able to provide this costly service for so much less than others in the market. Search engine optimization is extremely time consuming, which is reflected in the pricing of most reputable internet marketing companies.

Is search engine optimization expensive? Yes and No. It's really only considered "expensive" if the service does not help you increase revenue above and beyond what you invested into it. But we assure you, it's the best internet marketing dollars you'll ever spend if it's done correctly.

To create a relevant website takes a lot of time and energy. Most small to medium sized business owners are already up to their ears in work - from handling sales and accounting, to project management, and the day to day running of their business. But for those who want to dive in and take on the challenge of marketing their own website, the key to making your site relevant in today's market is WEB CONTENT. Good content, written well (for the web), is a great way to improve your internet marketing. The goal for content writing on the web is to position your company as an expert in your industry. The more content you provide that helps people understand exactly what it is that you do, the better.

Also, with RSS feeds, blogs, and social media sites, connecting your content to your target audience is getting easier and easier. Social media sites like YouTube, Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, and more are taking over the web. My suggestion is to get on these sites as well as your own website and start developing content. Or you can have us develop content that converts. It all comes down to how much time do you have to devote to developing content.