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10 Tips for Internet Marketing Success
Copyright 2009, Vogel Marketing Solutions LLC
- Measure: it’s surprising how many websites are not being analyzed: how many visitors, where do they come from, what pages do they visit, how long do they stay, and more. That’s like paying for a billboard without knowing if it’s on a busy highway or a back country road. Sign up for Google Analytics – it’s free! You’ll need to place a small bit of code on each web page, but the information to be gained is priceless. Even if you’re planning on a site redesign, start now to benchmark your performance.
- Design Should Align With Your Mission: Unless you are a web design firm who wants to display your expertise, I’m not a big fan of overly-designed, flashy websites. The look and feel should reflect your brand, and integrate with all offline marketing as well (ads, direct mail, trade show exhibits, signage, and so on.) If you are trying to influence engineers or CFOs for example, then you need a no-nonsense, get-to-the-bottom-line site that clearly displays your benefits. Keep it easy to navigate and avoid too much flash animation that slows down the process of giving the visitor what they want – i.e. what do you offer that will improve their lives. Gone are the days when a website was just another “brochure.” It’s now the primary source for your audience to decide whether or not to do business with you (B2B or B2C).
- Keep It Fresh: it’s surprising to me how many websites go for years without updated design or content. (I recently visited a B2B site with a home page that read “Last updated July 1998”!) Even if you lack the time or funds for a re-design, keep the content fresh. Rotate out the copy on all major pages monthly if possible. Give visitors a reason to return.
- Speak Your Audiences’ Language: the second a visitor lands on your site they need to immediately understand what’s in it for them. Don’t let your site be an “electronic brochure” that simply lists your features and brags about how wonderful you are. Show images of your customers. Include testimonials. Speak in terms of benefits – not features. Give them something of value (a white paper, tips, industry trends, a pricing calculator, competitive intelligence, etc.)
- Employ Search Engine Optimization: if you lack the in-house expertise for SEO, then outsource it. There’s no point to a great site if no one goes there! Ensure your pages are well-populated with the right keywords (which you’ll glean from your Google Analytics – never assume!) Find high-quality sites that can point back to yours. Use Alt tags for your images. Submit your sitemap to Google, MSN, Yahoo! and DMOZ.
- Employ Search Engine Marketing: related to, but different from, SEO. SEM includes all the actions you can take – some free, some not – that will drive visitors to your site other than the organic listings on the search engines’ results pages. This can include Google AdWords, Microsoft AdCenter, Yahoo! Search Marketing, and others. These programs allow you to set monthly budgets, adjust your ads as needed, point to specific landing pages, and analyze the results of your efforts. SEM places your ad in the “Sponsored Links” area of a search engine results page, so that it aligns with the search terms used by your prospect. SEM can also place your ads in “Content” sites that relate to your topic or of interest to your audiences.
- Proofread Your Site: I recently saw a website that misspelled the name of their company right at the top of the homepage! It’s easier to do than you think. Create an “approval tree” for new web pages that includes co-workers or others who are sharp proofreaders. Test links, and be sure to test your site in Firefox, Safari, and Google’s new Chrome browser. While not as popular as Internet Explorer, there are millions of users of these other platforms, and websites can sometimes render differently on them.
- Create a News Room: one of the leading ways to drive visitors, and elevate positions in search engines, is a well-populated “news room” section of your site. Create news releases and post them regularly – even if they don’t warrant sending to the media outlets. If you do send a release to the media, don’t forget to include links to your site. Most editors now prefer email versus faxed or mailed releases. They can easily cut and paste your release, and if they include your URL, it will help drive visitors and increase your visibility on search engines. Don’t forget online editors and bloggers who are relevant to your industry.
- Create CURLs and PURLs: CURLs are “Custom URLs” that are developed for a very specific purpose or topic, and may or may not be permanent to your site. For example, you could create a custom landing page regarding your appearance at an industry trade show. This can help raise your visibility on search engines. If someone searches for “Your Industry Trade Show 2009” and your CURL is “www.yoursite.com/Your_Industry_Trade_Show_2009”, then the search engine will recognize that page as relevant to the search. PURLs are “Personalized URLs,” that are developed for a single individual or entity, such as “www.yoursite.com/Smith_Enterprises” or “/John_Smith”. This can be used to promote your specific product or services just for that company.
- Keep Content Short: Visitors scan web pages, rather than read them. The exception will be White Papers or detailed information on a specific topic – such as the one you’re reading now. But even on this page, you see that I have numbered each paragraph, and made each tip “bold”, so a reader could scan down the page and absorb each of the ten tips without reading. Otherwise, try to keep pages to a single screen shot with little or no scrolling.
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