People I would like to Interview in Adelaide

Posted on Friday, March 18, 2011 by

This post has been sitting in my drafts for a while simply as my own reference for future interviews. People often Google their names or companies so I thought I would create a list of people here and if they find me on their own and are interested in being interviewed then they can contact me themselves.

If you are on the list and would like to be interviewed you can contact me by email at nick.morris @ this domain, by twitter @WebMarkAdelaide, by Linkedin or by Facebook.

Internet Marketing

Geoffrey Kwitko (startup club founder)

Social Media

Lee Hopkins
Shai Coggins
Michelle Prak
Kelly Noble

Website Design & Development

DBG Technologies

Conversion Optimisation

The Search Guys

Online Video Marketing

Adelaide Hills TV

Email Marketing

Chilli Chocolate Marketing

Analytics

Are there any internet marketing businesses out there focussing on analytics? If you know any suggest below in the comments, if you are one then contact me.

Adelaide Business Bloggers

Do you know any Adelaide Businesses using blogging as a marketing tool? Let me know in the comments.

Adelaide Business Websites

Do you know any Adelaide Businesses using websites and the internet as a marketing tool? Let me know in the comments.




Posted in | Leave a comment

Web Development - IMA

Posted on Saturday, March 12, 2011 by

Description of the Web Development stage for the Internet Marketing Adelaide project.

Content

  • Articles- Most of the written content is in blog post articles. I've been trying to update the blog every two days. My articles are generally short, have a 1 or 2 sentence summary at the top and use dot points where possible to make them easy to read.
  • Pages- The most important information that I think people will want to refer to is in pages which are linked to at the top (and one in the sidebar). My current pages are:
  • Videos- I created a dedicated YouTube account, Web Marketing Adelaide, for videos relating to this project.
  • Titles- The page titles are in the form of 'post title | blog name'
  • Headings- The post and page titles are the key headings on each page

Technology
  • Web Properties- Website/blog, Facebook Page, Twitter Profile
  • Onsite- The blog uses the Blogger CMS
  • Backend- Hosted for free by Blogger (Google owned), the domain name was registered through Google and the image and email hosting is provided by Google.

Structure
  • Navigation- Horizontal top menu navigation for the most important pages plus sidebar links for other important pages
  • Layout- Standard 2 column blog layout

Design

I selected a simple, free template for blogger and just went with it. I especially liked that the header is not very high so you see more content without scrolling.

Test & Improve

I haven't yet done any usability testing but would like to in the future.

[This article is part of the Internet Marketing Adelaide Case Study. See the latest articles in the case study here or head over to the case study index for all the articles.]



Posted in , | 1 Comment

Lets Face It Interview

Posted on Thursday, March 10, 2011 by

Unfortunately the post title is misleading. I was hoping to bring you an interview with Let Face It (website), an Adelaide company that offers Social Media Solutions for businesses. I contacted them about a month ago and received a reply from Michelle Vigor, business development manager and partner, saying she was happy to do an interview and to send the questions through. I sent through the questions that evening but never received a reply.

Here's some of the questions I wanted to ask Michelle. I don't know if I'll ever get replies but if you are thinking of hiring someone to take care of your social media marketing, you should keep these questions in mind.
  1. How can social media benefit businesses?
  2. What type of businesses get the greatest benefits?
  3. Is social media most beneficial for maintaining a relationship with current customers or gaining new customers?
  4. How can/should social media be used in conjunction with other marketing channels?
Statistics & Returns
  1. What measurable benefits should businesses see from their social media marketing (SMM)?
  2. What are the other non-measurable or hard to measure benefits of SMM?
  3. How regularly should you make updates and comments?
  4. How many hours per week need to be invested to manage the account?
  5. Whats the relationship between the amount of effort (or investment) put in and the returns gained (e.g. diminishing returns, exponential increase or straight line relationship.)? How does it compare with other forms of online and offline marketing?
  6. How does the quality (ie. conversion potential) of traffic/leads generated from social media compare to that or other forms of online marketing (e.g. SEO, PPC & Email Marketing) and offline marketing (TV, print, yellow pages)?



Posted in , , | Leave a comment

Tracking Clicks on Outbound Links

Posted on Tuesday, March 8, 2011 by

Clicks on outbound links is an advanced statistic to track. It can give you insight into the biggest traffic leaks on your site or how well you're doing when you encourage people to follow a link offsite.

I recommend using Google Analytics for all your tracking needs. Its a free and powerful analytics package which can plug right into your Adwords account. (Note: This article assumes you're using the new Asynchronous tracking code.)

There are two main ways to track outbound links using GA, Virtual Page Views or Event Tracking. Both methods use a piece of javascript code within the link attributes to track the action of clicking the link.

Virtual Page Views

This method creates whats known as a virtual pageview when the link is clicked. You specify the path for the pagview as if it were an actual page and it is recorded within GA just like any other page view.

The problem is that the extra pageviews affect other important statistics such as Bounce Rate and Page Views/ Visitor. The advantage is that you can use the virtual page view as a goal.

Event Tracking

This method simply tracks the click as an event and is the more appropriate way to track clicks on outbound links.

The problem is you cant use the event as a goal within GA (yet).

I've been trailing the use of virtual pageviews on this blog and another site and I've decided that its ability to be used as a goal is not worth the affect it has on bounce rate. I am in the process of switching over to the event tracking method. I've found an interesting article which has a workaround for using event tracking as if it were a goal.

These resources might also be helpful:
Trying to work this stuff out was made much more difficult by the existence of this article: http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=55527. It contains an outdated method but because it was in Google support it was difficult to discount it. I eventually found some other threads; here and here that clear it up.

[Conversion tracking resources and reading]



Posted in , | Leave a comment

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.



Posted in , | Leave a comment

Adding Custom Tab to Facebook Fan Page

Posted on Friday, March 4, 2011 by

You have the ability to add a custom 'tab' to your facebook page using the static fbml application. Custom tabs are great for encouraging people to get involved in your page or directing them to your website.

One of the things that makes Facebook so user friendly is its simple layout which is the same on every page and unable to be changed. This makes it difficult for businesses to make their page standout. One way to achieve this is to put in a custom tab. When you have 25 fans you are able to direct users who aren't already your fans to land on your custom page. This gives you a unique opportunity, within Facebook, to brand yourself and direct the new user to do what you want them to do.

Loc Tran from Adelaide Online Marketing has created a great video showing you how to add a custom Facebook tab and highlighting some of the benefits.




If you're still confused, theres some great tutorials and resources in the reading below.



Posted in , | 1 Comment

Interview with Ian Rielley from Media Mouse

Posted on Wednesday, March 2, 2011 by

I caught up with Ian Reilley, Director of Media Mouse, an Adelaide based internet marketing company specialising in SEO and conversion optimisation, in December to discuss web marketing.

Internet marketing is promoting your own or other websites getting exposure to your target market, traffic to your website, and converting those visitors. - Ian Reilley.

I asked Ian what is the first step when taking on a new client and he said "find out what they want." It is important to have clear goals in mind for your website or online presence to give direction to your web marketing campaign. Once the desired end point (goals) have been established you simply need to "work backwards" to determine what needs to be done, and then execute it.

One of the first and most important steps to success on the internet is keyword research. Ian highlighted 'market, competition and search volumes' as critical as important things to look at in the initial phases of an internet marketing plan.

Ian was adamant that Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the most effective thing businesses can do to improve their websites and online presence. By SEO he basically means 'Page 1 of Google,' as they have by far the largest search market share in Australia (around 95%). He also said the following three things are important for success.
  • Look and feel of your website
  • Call to action
  • Build an email list for a newsletter using an offer such as a discount or freebie
Mr Reilley is not yet convinced that Facebook, while excellent for branding, is the right vehicle for conversions when compared with Google.

When you hire an internet marketing professional for your business, Ian advises that you should see a return on your investment within 60 days. If you don't, you should find someone else.

Media Mouse offers a guarantee that they will get their clients to page 1 of Google for their business type. (Guarantee Terms)

sources: Interview with Ian Reilley (Dec 2010)



Posted in | 1 Comment