Showing posts with label Internet Marketing Basics. Show all posts

Web Copywriting Basics

Posted on Saturday, March 26, 2011 by

Writing for the web is a skill that, when mastered, can help improve your conversion rate. There are many differences between writing for the web and writing for offline content.

I actually wrote this post a few years ago for another blog project that I didn't keep up so I'm reusing it here. I'm interviewing two Adelaide based Professional Copywriters, Anna Peterson and Michael Soinenen, in the next few weeks so it will be interesting to compare their tips and insights to my researched article.

Your website content is what attracts, engages and ultimately converts your visitors. People behave very differently on the web than they do when consuming other media. The information, structure and navigation or your pages is very important to make customers of your visitors. Every page should end with a call to action to channel your visitor towards a conversion.

  • What to Write About: Information; key words; SEO
  • Structure: Make your content scannable
  • Navigation: Internal links; external links
  • Call to Action: Drive conversions
  • What to Write About
People come to your website for information. If you don’t have what they’re looking for then your competition is only a back button away. Market research is important to determine what your customer’s needs are and what language and keywords they are using to explore and satisfy those needs. Try to write information rich articles with a specific focus to help satisfy your customer’s needs.

First and foremost your content is for engaging and then converting your customers. The second most important reason to have good content is to make your website findable in the search engines. Each webpage should be optimised for a small number of keywords or key phrases, which are determined through market research. I will discuss search engine optimisation at greater length in future posts.

Structure

Unlike book or magazine readers, website users typically scan webpages rather than reading all, or even, most of the words. Therefore it is important to write your pages using a structure that is easily scanned so your customer can get an idea of what the page is about in only a few seconds. Here are a few tips to make your content scannable:
  • Intuitive headlines and titles to make it clear what the page is about.
  • Bullet points and checklists.
  • Illustrate some content with pictures and diagrams with unique captions explaining them.
  • Simple sentence structures.
  • Start each page with a conclusion and a short summary of the remaining content. Eye tracking studies have shown that users typically scan a webpage in an ‘F’ shaped pattern. In addition, content that is above the fold, or before the user has to scroll, is much more likely to be read than content that the user must scroll for. Structure your page so that the most important information is at the top and towards the left of the page.
Navigation

  • Maximise the space at the top of your document by including links to other sections of the document using anchor links.
  • Split long articles into multiple, hyperlinked pages as users aren’t willing to read large documents on the web.
  • Keep your page clean and simple by linking to background or explanatory information for those who want or need it.
  • Treat your hyperlinks as keywords as they will stand out and draw the eye of your scanning customers.
  • Linking to useful external sites can help increase your credibility
  • Put relevant, but less important links at the bottom under a ‘See Also’ heading
Call to Action

Every page on your website should end with a call to action. The call to action should be a step towards completing a conversion. My call to action for this page is for people to subscribe to my feed so they can receive my new internet marketing articles as soon as they are published.



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Market Research Basics

Posted on Sunday, March 6, 2011 by

Before developing a web strategy you should always do some market research to ensure your strategies are the most efficient way to achieve your goals.

Six important questions that you should keep front of mind when conducting your market research:
  1. What is our value proposition?
  2. What is our competitive advantage?
  3. Which market niche are we going to focus on?
  4. Which keywords and phrases are we going to use to target our niche?
  5. What will our conversion points be?
  6. What media mix will we use to drive traffic?

Value Proposition

A value propopostion is a marketing statement that summarises why a consumer should buy a product or use a service. This statement should convince a potential consumer that one particular product or service will add more value or better solve a problem than other similar offerings.

There can be many possible value propositions for a specific product depending on which aspect of the product you decide to focus on. Your market and keyword research will identify several potential product aspects that customers value and are searching for. The research will be accompanied by data showing the competition, relevancy and value of each product aspect to help you make a decision about which one to target.

Product & Competitive Analysis

Identify your key competitors on the web and analyse their websites with the above six questions in mind. Compare and contrast their offereings with yours to determine which aspects of your offering are more exclusive and more valuable.

Brainstorm all the keywords and phrases that describe your product or offering and analyse which of those each of your competitors tend to focus on.

Target Market Niche

A niche market is a focused, targetable portion of a market. A business that focuses on a niche market is addressing a need for a product or service that is not being addressed by mainstream providers. You can think of a niche market as a narrowly defined group of potential customers.

It is extremely difficult to jump straight on the web as a mainstream provider. Your best chance of success is to start with a very narrow focus and expand it as your web business grows. Market and keyword research will identify several potential target market niches, defined by the keywords they commonly use. The research will be accompanied by data showing the competition, relevancy and value of each market niche to help you make a decision about which one to target.

Customer & Market Analysis

You need to do some initial analysis of your existing customers and target market to determine how they might interact with your company and product on the web. Ask your customers what kinds of keywords they would use to describe your product and type into a search engine to find you. In addition, ask them why they use your product or service and which aspect is most valuable. A great way to do this is by sending out a customer survey but you can also gain valuable insight by talking to a few of your customers face to face or over the phone.

Seek out communities on the web related to your market. These places can include forums, blogs and social networking groups. Look at the keywords and language being used to describe your kind of products and compare them with those collected from your existing customers. Keep your eyes open for potential markets that you may not have been aware of.

Keyword Research

Keywords connect customers with products and are therefore the building blocks of web marketing strategy. Your product and competitive analysis and customer and market analysis should have given you a general idea of which keywords your existing market might use to find your existing product. The purpose of keyword research is to compare and contrast your keywords by competition, relevency and value to help determine your product and market focus.

Your keyword comparison and analysis will identify several potential target market niches and value propositions. Your target keywords will be those that connect your target market niche with your chosen value proposition.



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Return on Investment (ROI) Basics

Posted on Saturday, February 12, 2011 by

"A performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment or to compare the efficiency of a number of different investments." - Investopedia

ROI = (Gain from Investment - Cost of Investment) / Cost of Investment

The internet is very well set up for evaluating ROI as almost everything is measurable to some degree. With the aid of analytical tools you can determine exactly where your new customers came from and therefore which aspects of your internet marketing efforts are successful and which aspects need improvement.

Gain from Investment

GfI = Number of Conversions x Conversion Value

The gain from investment can be determined by looking at how many Conversions the website generated and the value of each conversion.

Cost of Investment

CoI = Initial (Startup Costs) + Ongoing Costs

The cost of investment is the total costs associated with the project such as developing the website and other web properties, doing research, developing strategies. The ongoing costs include things like link building, advertising and content creation.

Tracking Conversions

Google's free website analytics tool, Google Analytics, is a great option for tracking the conversions of your website. Using the Goal and Funnel features you can determine the path people took to eventually convert or where they dropped off the path if they didn't convert.



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Competitor Analysis Basics

Posted on Friday, February 4, 2011 by

Competitor analysis is the process of determining who your competitors are on the web and how they conduct their business so you can identify opportunities to increase your profits.

Your online competition can be identified as those who are competing for the same potential customers as you. They are often those who rank highly for keywords associated with your products or services. They can also be those who are competing for the same traffic as you from sources such as paid advertising, social media and directories.

I found two really great articles from Allied Internet Productions covering Competition Research and Competition Analysis so rather than going in to depth I will refer you to them for more info.

The most important parts of Competitor Analysis are:
  • Competitor Research- Determine who your online competitors are in order to analyse them.
  • Benefits Analysis- What are the key benefits of their (your competitors) products that they are highlighting?
  • Pricing Analysis- What are the prices of their products and services?
  • Content Analysis- What kind of content do they have? Is there anything important missing?
  • Targeted Search Term Analysis- Which keywords are they targeting?
  • SEO Analysis- How well are they Search Engine Optimised?
  • Technology/Tool Analysis- What technologies and tools are they using?
  • Usability Analysis- What are the usability strengths and weaknesses of their web properties?
  • Functionality Analysis- What are the primary functions of their web properties? Is their any important functionality missing?
  • Overall Strategy Analysis- An overall look at your competitor's online strategy
There can be a fair amount of overlap in the research done for 'Competitor Analysis' and the research done for other aspects of your internet marketing.

Your SEO analysis should include a backlink analysis to see which websites are linking to your competitors. This information will come in useful when you come to do Off Site SEO and are looking for websites to link to you.



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Web Development & Design Basics

Posted on Tuesday, February 1, 2011 by

The steps for creating the web properties that will deliver the content to your visitors and drive them to convert into customers. Content should always be put before design.


The five basics steps of development are:
  1. Content
  2. Technology
  3. Structure
  4. Design
  5. Test & Improve
The order of the steps indicates the order they should be done in as well as a rough guide to the importance of each step. For instance, Content is always more important than design.

Content

Web content includes:
  • Articles
  • Headings
  • Tag lines
  • Multimedia
  • Information
  • Onsite SEO
  • Usability
  • Analytics
You should start developing content early as it can be quite time consuming.

Technology

This is the technology that will house and deliver your content to your market. Included in this step is determining which web properties you want to develop eg. Website, Facebook Page, Google Place Page etc.

Structure

The structure of the content is an important step which should be considered as the content is being developed. It encompasses the structure and layout of each page and the structure of all the pages. It also includes the navigation system through which the different pages are accessed.

Design

Design is the look and feel of the website. The design should work with the technology to highlight and enhance the content.

Test & Improve

This step is an ongoing one which should be revisited often. Conversion optimisation relies on continually testing and improving the web properties so that more visitors convert.

Testing involves:
  • Usability & Accessibility testing
  • Cross Browser Testing (Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari)
  • Cross OS Testing (Mac, Windows, Linux)
  • Cross Device Testing (Desktop, Laptop, Netbook, Smart Phone, Tablet)



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Conversions Basics

Posted on Monday, January 24, 2011 by

The basis for almost all online strategies is to increase traffic to the web property and then improve or increase the conversions of that traffic.


A conversion is not merely a purchase or sales lead, it can be anything to help achieve the objectives, such as;
  • Capturing an email address
  • Gaining a fan or follower on your social media presence
  • Having a piece of content read or downloaded
  • Being contacted by email or phone
  • Having your address viewed and then visited
The conversion path or funnel is the series of steps that a user takes to convert. You can track how many people convert and where in the funnel they leave using tools such as Google Analytics Goals. Over time you can tweak your products, marketing and conversion funnel to get the best conversion rates and therefore greater profits.

Here is a great guide to improving your conversion rate.



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Email Marketing Basics

Posted on Thursday, January 20, 2011 by

Marketing by sending emails to customers or potential customers to drive conversions. It gives you a 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc chance to convert someone who didn't buy from you the first time.


Survey statistics show that Email Marketing is consistently the best performing advertising channel for businesses, above Organic Search Marketing and well above Social Media Marketing. Chilli Chocolate Marketing (Adelaide firm specialising in Email Marketing) reports a return on investment of almost $50 for every $1 spent.

Email addresses can be gathered in a number of different ways such as giving an offer such as a free report or ebook in exchange for a name and email address. You need to be very careful when collecting email addresses that you get significant permission to send them emails otherwise you could get into serious legal trouble for spamming (see below).

There are many software packages that you can buy or subscribe to to facilitate your email marketing campaigns. These packages make whole process much easier carry out.

Don't Spam

We're all familiar with receiving spam and everyone knows how annoying and unwanted it is. If you are going to start an email marketing campaign you need to know the Spam laws in place in the country where your recipients reside. Information for sending commercial emails in Australia can be found at the ACMA Website.




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Off Site SEO (Link Building) Basics

Posted on Friday, January 14, 2011 by

Link building is the process of requesting, creating and encouraging links, from various sources, to your website. Links help with search engine optimisation and driving traffic.


Link building is the key form of 'Off Site SEO,' that is Search Engine Optimisation done off your website to increase your rankings in the search engines. In the world wed web, search engines consider links to a website as 'votes' for that website by the one linking to them. There is a consensus that these link votes are one of the most important factors for ranking well in search engines.

Aside from SEO, more links means there are more ways for people to get to your website so it should result in more traffic.

There are three ways to get links, according to Seomoz.org:
  • Editorial Accumulation- acquiring links naturally by another webmaster simply deciding to link to you.
  • Manual Suggestion and Approval- such as submitting to directories and manually requesting other website and blogs to link to you
  • Self Created, Non-editorial- links that you create yourself, not on your own site. This includes blog comments, links posted in forums and guestbook signing.
Web Site Advantage has some great tips and info about link building.



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Mobile Marketing Basics

Posted on Saturday, January 8, 2011 by

Mobile Marketing is marketing via mobile devices such as mobile phones, PDAs, ipads and ipod touches. Marketing methods can include SMS, applications, games and websites.


Mobile Use Statistics
According to Nielson's 2010 statistics (via heidiallen.id.au) 43% of Online Australians now own a Smartphone. A Digital Tip article says an amazing 93% of mobile devices in Australia and NZ are iphones and ipod touches. Much of the rise in usage is accredited to the rise in popularity of Social Media. The statistics in the US, an indication of what the future holds for us, are pretty compelling evidence that the mobile web is here.

Mobile marketing is most appropriate for businesses that people would likely be looking for while they are out and about such as restaurants, shops and entertainment venues. However, as the popularity of mobile devices and mobile browsing increases, mobile marketing becomes increasingly relevant to all businesses.

One of the most basic mobile marketing methods is to have your website optimised for viewing on a mobile device. Most normal websites can be viewed on a mobile device but, as A7 Designs put it, 'Using a regular website on a PDA, Smartphone or mobile phone is like trying to fit a Ferrari into a matchbox.' Your website needs to be specially designed and optimised so that its easy to use on a mobile device.

Other effective mobile marketing methods include SMS marketing and marketing via interactive applications.



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Keyword Research Basics

Posted on Tuesday, January 4, 2011 by

The process of determining the keywords being used by your target market that will will give you the best return on investment.


Keyword research is the foundation of almost all your business's activity on the internet from Search Engine Optimisation to Pay Per Click advertising to increasing conversions.

Determining the best keywords and key phrases is a complicated process. The phrases that give the best return are those that are most searched for but also have the least competition. There are several tools that can be used to investigate keywords and phrases- how often they are searched for, how competitive they are and make further suggestions. Here are some of the best:
sources: seomoz.org, seo-website-designer.com (Adelaide SEO Expert)



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Local Search Optimisation Basics

Posted on Thursday, December 23, 2010 by

Local Search refers to the search engine products, directories and other tools servicing search queries that relate to locations, such as 'internet marketing Adelaide,' instead of simply 'internet marketing.

Products such as Google's Places and Maps provide significant benefits to consumers looking for businesses in their local area. Therefore it is important to get your business where the people are already looking for you... and your competitors.

Here are some tips to rank better in local searches:
  • Ensure your address, phone number and any other contact details are easily found on your website. It's probably a good practice to have them on every page.
  • Claim your Place Page/Listing in Google Places. Fill out the page with as much information as possible including photos and video.
  • Associate your Place Page with the proper categories.
  • Make sure your website content is relevant to the keywords you are trying to target.
  • Submit your website to local business directories.
  • Keep your website and place page content current and fresh and try and get both mentioned and linked to in blogs and news articles.
While researching for this article I also came across an interesting article on Search Engine Land about Foursquare. Foursquare is a social media game that is played on mobile devices and requires users to interact with the real world using the Geo location hardware in their devices. Could this be the future of local search?






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Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC) Basics

Posted on Sunday, December 19, 2010 by

"Pay per click (PPC) is an Internet advertising model used on websites, where advertisers pay their host only when their ad is clicked. With search engines, advertisers typically bid on keyword phrases relevant to their target market. Content sites commonly charge a fixed price per click rather than use a bidding system."- Wikipedia

The most popular PPC program is Google's 'Adwords,' followed by Yahoo's 'Search Marketing.' It is widely acknowledged as the most effective form of online advertising. PPC is a multi billion dollar industry that is on the rise. Competition for desired keywords can vary greatly depending on your industry, competition and target market.

Setting up and managing a Pay Per Click account/s and campaign/s can take a lot of time and effort but can also result in a great return on investment.

Some terms:
  • PPC- Pay Per Click
  • CPC- Cost Per Click
  • CTR- Click through rate
  • CPM- Cost per thousand impressions
  • ROI- Return on investment
  • Conversion Rate - The percentage of visitors who actually are converted into purchasers of your product/service. It is calculated as the number of click-throughs divided by the number of actual conversions, and the higher the conversion rate, the more effective your campaign has been.




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Affiliate Marketing Basics

Posted on Saturday, December 18, 2010 by

"Affiliate marketing is an online advertising channel in which advertisers (online merchants that sell products or services) pay publishers (independent parties that promote the products or services of an advertiser on their Web site) only for results, such as a visitor making a purchase or filling out a form, rather than paying simply to reach a particular audience" -Commission Junction


Affiliate marketing is a kind of outsourcing that allows the business (advertiser) to focus on their core product or offering while the affiliates (publishers) focus on what they do best, marketing and converting.

Advantages:
  • Only pay when a sale is made
  • Easy to manage spending
  • Easy to measure return on investment
Disadvantages:
  • Affiliates can hurt your brand and reputation if their marketing methods are not carefully controlled
  • You have to compete with them in the search engine
  • Competition from your affiliates drives up advertising costs for your own marketing



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Social Media Marketing Basics

Posted on Tuesday, December 14, 2010 by

Social Media allows you to strike up a conversation with your customers and build a relationship.

Here is a list of some of the most popular social media properties (data from Wikipedia):

Facebook: 500,000,000 users, Founded 2004, General interest
Twitter: 175,000,000 users, Founded 2006, General interest, Micro-blogging, RSS, updates
Habbo: 165,000,000 users, General for teens, over 31 countries world wide, Chat rooms and user profiles.
MySpace: 130,000,000 users, Founded 2003, General interest
Linkedin: 80,000,000 users, Founded 2003, Business and Professional Networking

Facebook and Twitter are the two that most people know about. I find Linkedin useful to connect with industry professionals.




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Website Usability Basics

Posted on Sunday, December 12, 2010 by

Website usability refers to how easy it is for your target customers to use your website. Improving usability can lead to visitors staying on the site longer and viewing more pages and increasing your conversions.

Testing Website Usability

You can test a website's usability by doing user testing. All you need is 5 representative users, a computer and a notebook. Ask the users to do simple tasks on the website you want to test and make notes of where they do well and where they have trouble. It is especially important to do user testing before and throughout a website re/design. (more information on user testing).

source: useit.com



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SEO Basics

Posted on Saturday, December 11, 2010 by

Search Engines rank pages for a given search term using two things... the relevancy of the page to the search term and the importance of the page overall.

  • Relevancy is determined using hundreds of different factors such as page contents, title tags, headings, alt tags etc.
  • Importance is interpreted as popularity by the search engines and again is determined using hundreds of different factors, the main one being incoming links which are seen as votes for the website.
Even if your pages are highly relevant to certain terms you may not be realising your full potential because you are targeting the wrong terms. You want to target terms that your potential customers use to search for your product or service but you also want to target terms that don't have strong competition.

Improving the importance or popularity of your pages and website could be more difficult and will require good quality content and search engine optimisation.

source: SEOmoz



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