Upon visiting your site potential customers will either "surf" (engage with your content) or they will "turf" it (leave without participating.) You only have about 7 seconds to engage a visitor to your site and that includes the time it takes for your site to load on their computer. Ultimately you want your visitors to visit multiple pages of your site and click through when given the opportunity, or if you create a great landing page they should be able to "convert" on that page without needing to see anymore pages.
Considering how challenging it can be to get a consumer to your site you don't want to lose them by making it hard for them to find what they need via search. The key is making sure your site pages are listed in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). Visibility on SERP is achieved through SEO to increase your organic search standing, through Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ads, and indirectly through Social Media. Ultimate success is often achieved with a combination of the two. Since it is easier to guarantee your standing in PPC it is important to create a conversion-focused PPC ad that compels a consumer to click through.
Here are 3 tips to create a successful PPC ad:
1. Include Strong Call-to-actions or Promotional Offers
- Use compelling words like "save, "order", "buy" etc. If there are no current sales "free shipping" or "compare" are also successful.
- Keep the most important information within the "Title Tag" which is the line of text underlined in blue. Pay attention to how any characters each search engine will display in the Title Tag and make sure your most important information is within that range.
2. Ensure You Write Your Keywords in the Title Tag First
- Do not begin your title tag with your brand name. It won't be as well received by the user and it hinders SEO efforts.
- Following your keywords use action words in the title such as "learn", "discover", "find" etc.
- Add secondary keywords or geographies you business services to the title tag.
- Last but not least, put the brand name of your company.
3. Go Social
- Social media is an umbrella term for medias that integrate technology, social interaction and include pictures, videos, audio and written communication.
To learn more tips to help ensure your website is "surfed" rather than "turfed" check out our recorded webinar, "Surf and Turf with Surf and Social."
If you are trying to increase your website visibility through a PPC campaign or by improving your organic search standings it's time to think about the speed behind your website. When ranking PPC standings Google has added loading time to it's ranking and organic searches will soon take page load time into account as well. There's no reason to allow messy coding to prevent you from getting the best possible search engine rankings.
The goal was once to keep a page load under 100kB per page. Today that can be more difficult but if your site falls between 300kB and 500kB then you need to reduce your page size. You can use Google's Page Speed plug-in for Firebug to get a page speed analysis.
The best place to start evaluating the loading time of your site look to these four areas:
1. (X)HTML: What is Your Code Weight
Make sure your HTML is clean and simple. Avoid unnecessary tables and inline images. HTML should not be over 30kB - 50kB on a single page.
2. CSS Sheets
Keep sheets minimal and well written. Divide the sheets so they are organized within the site structure. Remove any unused classes.
3. JavaScripting
Make sure all JavaScripting files are external and with everything else, keep them lightweight.
4. Images Optimization
Using the correct image files and reducing image size is a common cause of slower page loading. Use JPGs for photos and PNGs for line art. Avoid GIFs when possible as they do not compress as well as PNGs. Make sure image files are compressed correctly to avoid an oversized page.
This information came from today's blog post: Need For Speed: Give Your Web Pages a Nitro Boost by Kristine Schachinger. To read her tips in more detail click here: http://budurl.com/NFSBlogWSI63
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.
Search engines have finally surpassed the Yellow Pages (print versions). Think about....when was the last time you opened your Yellow Pages? The shift in how we find products and services we want is being dominated by search.
The graph below from webpro news, shows that search engines have finally surpassed the Yellow Pages.
Why have search engines overtaken the Yellow Pages and why are they more effective:
Yellow Page ads often appear next to your competition. (Search engine ads do as well most times, but you can differentiate your business with proper targeting (keywords, location, niche markets), good landing pages, social media, and more).
An optimized, well planned website, you can differentiate yourself from your competitors. It's hard to tell which company is a better fit for you when looking at Yellow Page ads.
It's difficult to determine what business came from your Yellow Page ads vs. your other marketing mediums. Yellow Page ads are costly and provide low measurability.
Using web analytics you are able to track the how, what, where, and when of your online marketing campaigns.
Establishing a content marketing plan, your website will become a resource and asset to your business.
Search engines deliver quicker results and allow you to quickly gather more information about the products and services you are interested in. The Yellow Page process is just that....a process that takes far too much time to gather the information you need to make an informed choice.
Search engines allow us to compete on a level playing with bigger brands. This is not possible with Yellow Pages without having a large marketing budget. Using long tail, niche keywords in your search marketing efforts, you can drive affordable traffic and new leads for your business.
Earlier this week, eMarketer published an article that reaffirmed what WSI is always telling our clients - even in a poor economy, you have to invest in your online marketing spending to make money. In fact, for a lot of businesses, increasing your business spending or reallocating marketing dollars into cheaper and more effective (read: online) media during a downturn can help you come out on top as the economy picks up.
The eMarketer article goes on to discuss the correlation between businesses that are continuing to succeed and greater marketing spending. The bottom line: "Almost two-thirds of small businesses that expected increased revenues had raised or planned to raise marketing spending, compared with just 32% to 36% of businesses with flat or declining revenues."Additionally, "the survey showed small businesses shifting marketing initiatives toward cheaper digital media and away from traditional channels. The top three marketing tools used were social media, e-mail newsletters and search."
Contact us today to find out how WSI can help your business leverage these three (and other) marketing tools to maximize the effectiveness of your business spending. You may think you can't afford to increase business spending or increasing online marketing spending right now, but the truth is you can't afford not to if you want to survive and thrive in the current economy.
We encourage you to read the eMarketer article in its entirety here.
As companies continue to struggle in the current economy, many are seeing their marketing budgets cut with more cuts anticipated for the last quarter of 2009 into 2010. During this time of change and scrutiny over every advertising dollar spent, it is important to note that the online advertising sector continues to grow as business are taking their marketing strategies online. According to eMarketer, digital spending will account for 17% of total ad spending in the US by next year, up from 15.4% currently and 13.9% last year. An "Interaction 2009" report done by GroupM Interaction indicates that companies are also increasing spending on search and mobile marketing and decreasing traditional media spending. According to this report, the future of marketing is so-called "intention marketing" with a combination of paid and organic search along with mobile and social media marketing.
Savvy marketers are already following this trend, according to a 2009 accountability study done by the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) and Marketing Management Analytics (MMA). The number one strategy is taking offline marketing online, and reallocating spending into lower-cost digital media like SEO, PPC and Social Media Marketing.
WSI can take a look at your current marketing strategies online (and offline) and provide the online marketing how to that every business needs in this economy. For every industry, there is a correct marketing mix online that will get you the best ROI possible. And one of the significant benefits of WSI's online marketing strategies is that everything we do is 100% trackable so you know almost immediately how well your campaigns are working and where there is room for improvement.
To find out more about the online marketing strategies WSI can provide, as well as a complimentary analysis of the marketing mix online for your business, please contact us today. As we kick of the fourth quarter of 2009, there's still time to end the year and start off the new year with a bang!
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.
With increased adoption of Internet marketing it continues to evolve and grow in the variety of tools, techniques and methodology available. Custom Landing pages are becoming an essential step in online marketing practices. Business owners are realizing that traffic to their home page is clearly, not leading to sufficient customer conversion. If you are spending money through online advertising to bring in traffic, it is worth that extra effort to make sure it translates into conversions and revenue. Read on to find out how you can do this.
What is it that your business needs to market effectively online and enhance your revenues significantly? Maybe it's an interactive video on YouTube. Could be an email marketing campaign and a monthly e-newsletter. A blog might be the one thing your business could really benefit from. How about an RSS Feed or a podcast? Is your landing page truly a sales tool or simply a good looking showroom where people stop by and leave without taking any positive action? When was the last time you updated your Facebook profile to make it more meaningful to your business image?
A comprehensive mix of Internet marketing tools and techniques could help you accelerate your business and move it to the next level – a level your competitors may already be eyeing on their radar. In the "Amazing Race" of the Internet, time is of the essence! What steps should you take to stay ahead?
Let's take a look at the top Internet marketing trends that you can leverage to enhance your business efficiency and profits:
Search Engine Marketing
Getting your website to list on top positions in leading search engines or hundreds of clicks coming in to your site is fantastic. The question is - how much of this is impacting your bottom line through increased conversions and sales?
While the goals of search engine optimization and pay-per-click are primarily to increase traffic to your website, the goal of a good Search Engine Marketing strategy is much more than that. Statistics indicate that lead generation, direct online sales and driving traffic are the leading objectives for search marketing. Get your WSI Consultant to help your search marketing strategy deliver these results.
Social Media Marketing
Social media enables users to easily participate in and actively contribute to. Consumer Generated Media (CGM) is the intersection between real and virtual worlds. Anyone with an Internet connection can share their message with the world. This is perhaps the biggest reason why social media has gained such importance. It involves people and it gives them power – the power to voice their opinions and the power of knowledge that comes from gaining insights and feedback. The distinct advantage that social media has over other forms of traditional media is its dynamic and flexible nature. Not only can it change with time and be edited as required by the author (or sometimes by a community of users), it can also be shared, archived and indexed by search engines.
Social Media Marketing is about reaching out to the Web community and leveraging the power of word-of-mouth publicity. RSS Feeds, Podcasting, Blogs, Social Networking sites and Interactive Video are powerful, inexpensive and easy to use tools that you can leverage to reach out to your customers. Contact your WSI Internet Consultant today to find out how.
Landing Page Optimization
Stefan Tornquist, Research Director at MarketingSherpa quotes statistics indicating that "an improved landing page can result in an average 40% increase in conversion". The fact is that the overall volume of users visiting website home pages is going down and will reduce further, significantly. If the point of entry is increasingly, a landing page, then that page must cater to different types of visitors. It must be dynamically designed to cater to each of their needs, yet, lead them all to convert.
With the complexity of media vehicles and Web user trends, testing the efficacy of a landing page is critical to ensure your RoI. WSI Consultants have been trained by industry leading firms like Google, Yahoo and MarketingSherpa to design and test revenue generating landing pages for businesses like yours. To make sure that your landing page speaks to your audience and leads them to conversion, contact your local WSI Consultant today.
Your online business must have a comprehensive Internet Marketing strategy to attract and convert more customers. WSI offers Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Pay-per-Click (PPC) advertising, Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Email Marketing, Social Marketing, Landing Page Optimization, Video Marketing and more to help you put in place a good mix of Internet marketing tools.
CONTACT US and get started on a detailed e-Business evaluation and execution plan as soon as possible. Good luck and cheers to your online success!
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