Marketing, for small and mid-sized businesses, has changed greatly and ever since, online or Internet marketing has become a viable option for growing sales. The major shift is the result of Outbound Marketing, which refers to marketing communications, which has been upstaged by the Inbound Marketing process.

The channels of Inbound Marketing which business owners must master in order to compete are: Search Engine Optimization or SEO, Social Media Marketing or SMM, and Mobile Marketing. A thorough exploration and integration of the tasks associated with the channels will prove to bring new and qualified visitors to your website and should be housed in your overarching Marketing Strategy in order to begin to sell your goods and services directly to consumers online.

There are many facets to successfully marketing in a digital age, and Inbound Marketing entails a lot of things, including, content creation, SEO, social media, lead generation, lead management, and analytics.

However the good news is that marketing online is convenient, it is affordable and it’s a way to reach a global audience in ways your small or mid-sized business could not reach before now. Once, advertising campaigns meant spending big money on TV channels, now you don’t have to spend a fortune to reach your targets and that’s what’s getting businesses so excited about New Marketing.

The digital age provides many more opportunities to expand and increase your businesses using emerging media and now it’s just a matter of getting the know-how to properly jump into the Internet marketing pool.

HOW THE INBOUND MARKETING PROCESS SHOULD BE DEVELOPED

Fueled with a solid Marketing Strategy in hand, and an effective website, which serves as the hub of all of your online marketing and lead generation, you’re ready to Generate More Traffic. By increasing the flow of traffic to your website, you increase the number of opportunities for visitors to turn into leads.

Some proven ways to bring new and qualified visitors to your site are Blogging, Social Media, SEO and PPC (optional):

Blogging is an innovative way to get the word out about your product or service and is an opportunity for your business to reach out and speak directly to online viewers.  In blogs you can offer tips and advice among many valuable and creative content options and you have the opportunity to reach prospective buyers on a personal level.  Guest blogging offers a great way to grow your own blog.

Something to keep in mind is that such activities as on-page optimization, local search website optimization, content optimization, and link strategy, is known as Search Engine Optimization or SEO.  Every company needs to gain an edge over the competition and therefore no matter what size your business is, it can benefit from SEO.  Have your business join others’ forums on which you can include links to your website for further optimization.

Once people conduct searches for your type of product or service, you want your business to be among the first they discover, because most people don’t look beyond the first ten or so companies they see on search engine pages results. Therefore, your goal is to keep your company near the top. Afterwards, once they land on your webpage you want to keep them there, so your pages must be attractive and offer a good user experience.

Get your company‘s Social Media programs active. This is where you come face to face with the public. Use social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and YouTube as a platform to  get your products and services found and talked about…Generate Buzz!

The more you engage and educate as part of your Inbound Marketing and relationship building, the more your business will be considered an authority and once customers start pouring in they’ll be pulling in other customers right behind them. Having a Social Media strategy at work is especially vital for a small or mid-size company, traditionally overlooked, as much larger companies with large advertising budgets once pushed them aside.

Once you have your foothold in Internet Marketing and you’ve been recognized and recommended by people on the Social Media sites, your business will be generating qualified leads. Consider the facts that Facebook now has over 800 million users, Twitter has 200 million users, Linked in has 120 million users, and YouTube is getting 3 billion views per day. Now that’s a lot of potential customers out there and you certainly want to get as big a share for your company as possible.

Be a business that communicates with meaningful content and you‘ll be a business that has more and more new customers. Get involved with email marketing so whenever your advertisements show up on the Internet you offer to send people more information about your business through email.

Offer brochures and useful information which they can use so that once they get to know more about your company they’ll also be interested to see your website and take a look at all of your products.   It’s a great way to now and then make special offers to your customers and occasionally send them newsletters.

The Pay-Per-Click Internet advertising model uses publisher’s sites, to place advertisements in order to draw attention to your business.  Traffic is directed to your website when your ad is clicked and as the advertiser, you pay the publisher each time that your ad is clicked.   With search engines like, Google, Yahoo, MSN/Bing, advertisers bid on key word phrases relevant to their target market.

If one is looking for a hair tonic and that’s your product, they’ll be interested, if say, the advertisement offers them a qualitative product at a first time discount and they can get the information through email. This way you will most likely gain a customer, they will get the information they desire and you will be able to begin growing your email list database.

There is also the Mobile Marketing channel to consider, the fastest growing and most recent of all options because of the fact that people have less time to spend at home and in their offices and are getting the latest news and information through their mobile phones.  f you integrate your Inbound Marketing techniques with your mobile website, Smart Phone Apps, SMS/text messaging, and QR codes Mobile Marketing will help you generate leads.

The next step in the Inbound Marketing process is to Convert Traffic to Leads by creating attractive offers and calls to action that appeal to potential buyers at all levels.  The proven process can be accomplished in 3 steps:

1 Build Landing Pages with the descriptive offer that includes a form to collect lead information (upon completion of form, user gains access to the offer and receives an auto responder email)

2 Enter the Lead into your Customer Retention Management System

3 Place Call-to-Action’s through your website to encourage more lead generation

It is important to understand what potential buyers are thinking about your product or service, as there are different types of offers that will attract a particular type of prospect. You can schedule multiple campaigns simultaneously as long as you have the analytical support to manage the data.

Converting Leads to Sales, the next Step in the Inbound Marketing process, involves a series of laborious tasks from lead intelligence to CRM integration.  Marketing automation is used to cost-effectively perform the tasks hands-free.

Measuring for ROI closes the loop on Inbound Marketing and is the final step.  The most important metrics you should measure are: 1) Traffic to Leads 2) Cost Per Lead 3) Lead to Customers 4) Cost per Customer and by channel you should measure using these criteria:

Novice or expert, navigating online, is no cake-walk and if you have a small or mid-sized business which needs to expand into Internet Marketing, get your FREE copy of the downloadable eBook, “Just in Time Help for Small and Mid-sized Businesses to Thrive in a Digital Age”, dive deeper into the fundamentals of Search, Social and Mobile Marketing and grow your business today.

Advertising in the yellow pages, or newspapers, or trade publications, or buying a booth at a trade show are often showing less and less return on the investment.

Where can you find the leads and customers today?  One popular source these days is going online and using the internet.

Distinct Advantages To Using Online Advertising

Good news.  Paying to advertise online (particularly on the main search engines—Google, Yahoo, and Bing) offers some distinct advantages to the older methods.

Warning:  Advertising online is not advisable for every business.

If your profit margins are so tight that the cost to advertise online eat up all your profits (or even leads to a loss), then advertising online is not for you.

How can you know for sure?  You can read: How to Determine if  Your Advertising is Making or Losing Money.

Assuming the dollars and sense make sense for you, there are many advantages to using online advertising like Google AdWords, or Yahoo/Bing Adcenter.

1.  Increasing Online Search Levels.

More people every month are using the internet to find YOUR products and services.

I think you know this from personal experience.  When YOU need information on how to solve a problem (should I advertise online?  How to get my water heater working?), or to find a professional to help you (Who can help me with my taxes?  Who can help fix my air conditioning? Or give me a valuation on my business?), where do YOU go?

Your approach is not unique.  Did you know that today, on just one of the search engines (Google), over 1 billion (with a B) searches will be performed?  That is an increase of 1,100% in just the last 4 years!  This trend will only accelerate over the next 5 years.  

If the fish are increasingly plentiful in a particular lake, you would be a fool to ignore fishing in that lake.

2.  Unlike Conventional Advertising, You Only Pay When People Actually Come to You.

This is a revolutionary change in advertising.  In conventional advertising, you pay based on potential people seeing you, whether or not someone actually responds to your message.

Think billboard or a newspaper ad.  You pay based on circulation or traffic levels.  If no one responds to you, you still pay.

In online advertising, you only pay when someone clicks on your ad about a specific product or service (which takes them to your website).

Here is a great way to think of it:  You only pay Google, Yahoo, or Bing if a searcher “rings your doorbell” wanting to know more about your products and services.

How good is that?

Who wouldn’t be willing to pay money to obtain people that are actively ringing your doorbell, eager to learn more about your product or service?

3.    You Can Control Your Customer Acquisition Costs to the Penny.

Unlike conventional advertising you can track and control the cost of acquiring a lead, or a customer… to the penny in many cases.

Why is that important?  If a customer is worth X to you, you can make sure it doesn’t cost more than X to obtain them.  That can guarantee you don’t lose money.  I can also help you maximize your profit margin.

For example, if a customer is worth $200 to you, you can target those keywords customers are using that cost $50 or less to obtain, insuring a 4x (300%) return on your marketing investment (ROI).

More Advantages To Google Internet Advertising

There are many, many other remarkable advantages to using internet advertising as part of your marketing strategy.  You can read further on: 4 Surprising Advantages to Using Online Advertising for Your Business here.

If you leverage these powerful advantages, you can easily make $2-5 in profits for every dollar you spend.  Talk about a magic slot machine! 

Are you currently using pay-per-click… or thinking about it?  Download our free report, 14 Vital Tips To Improve Your AdWords Campaign.  It can help you pay less… and get more out of your online campaign.

Do you want to find out if your current Google advertising campaign is providing you the best return at the lowest possible cost?

Take advantage of a professional evaluation of your AdWords campaign.  We can provide you with action items to improve your current pay-per-click campaign.

This service, normally $79, is being offered for free through March 31, 2012.

How ‘bout you?  If you have used Google AdWords for your business, how well has it worked for you? 

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerburg is expected to make 25 Billion dollars himself in the deal.  With 800 million users, this means 1 in 10 people on the planet use Facebook!

Social Media is ten years old, starting in 2002 with the creation of Friendster, Facebook in 2004, and finally Twitter in 2006.  In 2006 Yahoo actually tried to buy Facebook for 1 Billion dollars.  In 2007 Microsoft invested 140 million dollars in Facebook.

In 2009 Russian company Digital Sky invested 200 million dollars in Facebook.  In 2010 Goldman Sachs and Digital sky invested 500 million dollars.  In January 2012, Facebook halted the selling of its shares in secondary markets, signaling an impending IPO.

Many companies have been slow to adopt these latest technologies, initially viewing them as a passing fad for teenagers.

Companies now see the effect of Social Media, realizing it represents a new distribution channel for information; and is here to stay.  While several Social Media companies have come and gone or have been reduced in popularity (i.e. AOL, MySpace), Facebook represents the most popular, and most imbedded in our digital lifestyle.  According to Postling.com, 79% of social networkers use Facebook.

Aside from the additional stability and advertising opportunities for Facebook as a company, the consumer gains in several significant ways:

#1 – Added Stability

First, the added stability of the Facebook IPO lets consumers know they can rely on this channel for personal communication and to view new products and services. Consumers are creatures of habit, and want to know that they can trust the technology to be around and they can continue to share postings, photos, videos, and news content with friends, family, and businesses.

#2 – Extended Reach for Developers

Second, the Facebook IPO lets developers know that they can extend the reach of their services on a reliable platform and have the incentive to make improvements, which benefits the consumer.  From an application perspective, a developer needs to know that a technology will exist far into future, giving them time to secure capital for R&D, perform market research, and then work out all the bugs for the finished product.

#3 – Advertisers Win

And lastly, with the Facebook IPO advertisers can better target their audiences with improved demographics, statistics, and greater numbers of subscribers/members, made all the better by more advertising opportunities with the new TIMELINE feature.  Ads currently make up 17% of Facebook’s revenue.

In the old version of Facebook, viewers could only see a week or two of past entries on the main page. With this new TIMELINE feature, viewers can easily go back and look at postings starting from when the profile was originally setup; in some cases representing years worth of entries and pages.

To check out an overview of TIMELINE, click on this YouTube video:

See Timeline in Action! More advertising means more revenue to put back into better functionality for consumers, and the ability to compete with others in the Social Media space.

Many websites and social media companies subscribe to the “razor blade theory” model.  The idea comes from the concept of selling a disposable razor handle at a loss, then turning around and selling the blades at a huge markup to make a profit.

In the case of these new technology platforms, content (in the form of online forums, articles, videos, online media) is given away for free.  With the millions of viewers accessing this content either via computers or mobile devices, it allows for huge advertising opportunities.
Click here to view the webpage for this fantastic infographic on the Facebook IPO:

Do any of these items apply to you? How do you think the Facebook IPO will affect businesses?

This is Part I of a 2 Part Post.

As traditional marketing methods become more ineffective and costly, many business owners and marketers are asking how they can best capitalize on marketing their business on the web.  For some marketers, an effective internet marketing strategy, was not thought out before they jumped at the opportunity to market their businesses online and unfortunately, without regrouping and building the fundamentals the powerful business results that a strategy can afford won’t ever be realized by them.

Don’t let this be the case for your business.

I have 8 steps to share with you (4 Steps today) that will help you to build the fundamentals and implement a successful strategy needed for internet marketing regardless of what niche your business is in and regardless of the size of your business:

Step #1 – Establish Your Initial Keyword Strategy

Keywords are the basic backbone of the Internet and the starting point.  The way consumers find businesses online through search engines has become routine and a habit, and you can optimize your website around the keywords that are relevant to your business and which keywords consumers will likely find your business from.

Your chances of getting found by people searching using those keywords will drive more qualified traffic to your website.  You’ll want to determine the popularity and competitiveness of certain keywords and then test and analyze how well they perform (how effective they are at leading visitors to your website).

So how do you determine which keywords will maximize your potential to draw in targeted leads, from search engines, to your site?

The ongoing process of keyword research, if you commit, will give you valuable insight into product demand and industry trends.  The more comprehensive your keyword research efforts, the better you will be able to organically grow traffic, which in turn, will save you from spending money to generate traffic to your website through pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns such as Google Adwords.

There are 3 steps involved in creating a keyword strategy:

Step 1 – Create a List of 3-5 Keywords Relevant to Your Business 

The rule of thumb here is that large companies are searched by their brand name and small and mid-sized businesses are typically searched by phrases core to what product they sell or service they offer.

Step 2 - Choose Keywords Based on Their Difficulty and Relevance

Keep in mind that the greater the volume of searches on a keyword, the more competitive it is and for small and mid-sized businesses, you want to choose less competitive keywords, more specifically related to your business so you can rank higher.  The Google Keyword Tool will help you determine keyword competitiveness.  Watch a video on how to choose the right keywords.

Try different keywords to see which ones work best for you.  

Step 3 - Optimize Your Site Around Your Keywords

With respect to the content, here is where you will incorporate your chosen keywords into your website.

Step #2 – Optimize Your Website

With keywords chosen, the next logical step is to optimize your site for search.  Once you have optimized your site so that you are on the first few pages, you have achieved the main goal of SEO.

Let’s discuss Search Engine Optimization (SEO):

SEO is worth doing first because it can be improved quickly.  The 2 distinct categories of SEO are:

1. On Page SEO – How well your website’s content is presented to search engines can be improved immediately.
2. Off Page SEO – Your sites “authority” on the web (determined by what other websites say about your site) can take time to improve.

Here are 2 free SEO tools to use to find out how well optimized your  website is:

1) Website Grader  2) Vrank.com 

Both of these tools offer great free tips to improve your sites’ SEO weaknesses.

Step # 3 – Create a Content Strategy 

As you have developed a clear sense of your businesses’ keywords and optimized your website for search engines, you’re ready to attract more visitors.  The way to attract people to your business is by sharing your expertise, experiences and  resources through content.

Content marketing requires a strategy which defines your channels like blogs for example.  WordPress and Blogger are the most popular blogging platforms, are very easy to use via content management system (CMS) and offer a way to add content without having to know any HTML code.  Other blogging platforms include Posterous, TypePad and Drupal.

Some Considerations About Blogging for Your Business

One of the main purposes of your business blog is to offer your prospects and customers a means to engage with your brand.  Your goal should be to publish articles that serve as a resource for solutions to their pain points and answers to their questions, much in the same way an industry magazine would be written.

Other examples of content to add to your portfolio include eBooks, white papers or research reports that can all be used to generate leads based on offers with calls-to-action that you include in them.

Whatever channels you decide are right for your business should be defined within your content strategy,

Step #4 – Promote Content and Create a Social Media Marketing Strategy 

Social media channels like Google+, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube will require distinct plans within your Social Media Marketing Strategy.  These outlets will allow your prospects and customers to communicate directly with your employees and your business can experience significant growth if managed properly.

How-to Monitor Social Media

Spending considerable time focused on listening to the buzz online related to your industry is key so that you can decide when to respond.  These tools will help you monitor your business and industry mentions in social media:

Google Alerts: Delivered to your email inbox, these help you track mentions of your brand and relevant keywords all over the web.

Twitter: TwitterSearch or HootSuite both have monitoring features where you can monitor mentions of your brand.

Google Reader and RSS Feeds: When you set up RSS feeds in Google Reader of searches of your brand or industry keywords in other popular social media sites such as Flickr, Digg, Delicious, etc. you can scan the results in your reader daily for mentions.

Facebook Insights: You can use your Fan Pages’ Facebook Insights Dashboard to show you stats such as fan growth and page views to gauge your pages’ interaction and engagement.

For more information about how to use social media for business, access DigiStream Media’s FREE eBook Download 

Remember to check back on February 20th for Part II and Steps 4 through 8!

Which steps do you find most effective and why?

The possibilities are endless on how you can create intriguing videos and here are a few ways of using YouTube to drive traffic to your website that you should use once you commit, the top three of which are described below.

Top Way #1 – Identify the Keywords that Need to be Included in the Video

YouTube is the worlds 2nd largest search engine.  It has hundreds of millions a user a day and every day thousands of hours of video content are added. YouTube is 4th largest web property in the world and is on the path to become the source of advertising and publishing new content.

Use the most highly searched, relevant keywords in your video title and description. There are tools that you can use to help you discover the keywords that are relevant to your business.

You can change your video’s title and description at any time if you find that the video is no longer coming up high in searches or if you want to explore a new “keyword market.”  The right keywords will get you ranked higher in both YouTube and search engine searches.

When thinking of a title for your video, you should consider descriptive, eye catching phrases that the user would think of inserting in the search field in a search Engine.  Possibly adding dates, time, location or something more unique and specific can drive higher ranking to your video.

When you add a description to your video, try to use complete sentences, add details like place, location, dates and something the user can relate to.  When adding tags to your video always be consistent, use descriptive keywords and avoid keyword stuffing.

YouTube highly recommends using there Insight tool which gives results of demographics and data that can give you a better hand on whats working and whats not.  Insight will help generate reports that tell you where there traffic is arriving from, what keywords are being searched and provide data that will help you see which target audience is viewing your video.

Top Way #2 – Include a Transcript of the Video

The transcript makes it easier for search engine spiders to identify the topic of your video, so indexing is more accurate, and any keywords in the dialog of your video get included, too, which can translate to higher ranking.  Transcripts should be saved in the .txt format and can be uploaded using the Edit Captions button on your video’s YouTube page.

Follow this link to find a few very useful tips on how to create free high quality captions and check out a screenshot of what the Captions screen looks like:

 Top Way #3  - Include a Call to Action

Perhaps the most important tip is to include a call to action in your video. In other words, tell the viewer what you want them to do (visit your site), why they should do so (for example, to purchase the product you’ve just showcased), and give them the means to do it.

There are several ways to go about it. There is a call-to-action overlay that you can customize to take viewers directly to your site from within the video.

In addition, remember to include your domain name in the description – use the complete URL to create an automatic hyperlink. You can also add annotations to your video.

These small, pop-up boxes can be used for things like recommending other related videos of yours, reminding viewers to subscribe to your channel and to like and share the video.

Bonus - Top Way #4

Backlinks are important in YouTube rankings, just as they are for all search engines. Make sure that you link to your video and to your channel from outside sources, including your own site, other social networking sites, and forums or discussion boards in which you participate – just be sure that linking doesn’t violate any terms of agreement for these boards. You might also explore some of the other ways of gaining backlinks, such as link sharing and asking bloggers who write on relevant topics if they would be willing to link to you.

Bonus Plus – Top Way #5

One of the greatest ways to drive higher traffic to your video is to share your video with the world.  Share videos with members of the community, experiment with annotations and always have a section for user feedback.

Another key to sharing your video and driving traffic is to use the embed feature and post your video on other social media network sites, blogs and video hosting sites.

Setting up and using a YouTube channel can benefit every type of business. It is one more way to engage your customers, build your brand, drive traffic and rank higher in search engines.

Let me hear from you…Using the tips above, how do you envision maximizing your ultimate success?

This is Part II of my 2 Part blog series.  To view Part I, click here.

In my last blog post, I revealed how important it is to make sure you have a good idea of how your clients are using mobile technology, and how if you don’t know, it will be valuable to do some market research or perform a survey of your clients’ mobile habits.

Once these questions have been addressed, and you have established that it makes sense to include mobile in your marketing mix, you can get started planning the mobile campaign. You must begin by establishing which mobile channel best suits your marketing goals and your target market.

Once all these things have been accomplished you should determine what your mobile marketing message will be and how you will integrate your mobile marketing campaign into the rest of your marketing efforts.

Here are tips #4 through #6 to start your mobile marketing channel selection, message development and mobile evaluation:

Tip 4 – Establish Which Mobile Channels Best Suit Your Marketing Goals and Your Target Market

and

Tip 5 – Determine Your Mobile Marketing Message

I’ve added ‘Integration Tips’ so you can see how to integrate your mobile marketing campaign into the rest of your marketing efforts.

Some of the mobile channels I will discuss are represented in the matrix illustration using concentric rings, leading to the brand at the bottom:

Mobile Website: The way people engage with mobile marketing starts with them accessing your website on their mobile device.

Integration Tip: One way to integrate your mobile marketing with your mass media and outdoor marketing, is to place banners and ads that reference your mobile friendly site at bus stops, subway stations and on billboards.  People have idle time in these places and your ads will get traction.

Mobile E-mail: Your email campaigns need to be optimized for mobile considering many people access their email via mobile device.  You will want to : 1) Test your e-mail messages on a couple different mobile devices 2) Use compelling subject lines that include the important information in the fist 30 characters. 3) Include your brand name in your ‘Subject’ line 4) Send a text alternative to html e-mails, and include a link to an online version of the e-mail (this way people can click the link if they have trouble viewing the email).

Integration Tip: Mention any promotion you are sending in e-mails on your home page, and include a link to the online version e-mail to integrate your e-mail campaign with your website.

Short Messaging Service (SMS) (Text Messaging): Text messaging rather than reaching your customers through a phone call with up to 160 characters of text (many phones will activate text to make it clickable) that is similar to a short email is a great way to broadcast your promotions.

HAVE A TELEPHONE LIST? If you have access to your customers’ mobile telephone numbers, you can send them a text message.  If you have promoted to the mobile list previously, you can create an intriguing follow-up message with an attractive new offer.  

DON’T HAVE A TELEPHONE LIST? You can use your other marketing channels to encourage your customers to interact with your brand by sending a text message to a short code number to get a special offer.  This kind of mobile marketing is location-based and has short life cycle.      

When users send the text message a computer replies with a code or password they can give the cashier to receive the discount. This is a good way to build up a list of mobile phone numbers that you can use later with other more targeted text messaging campaigns.

Integration Tip: It is a good idea to allow people opt in to your marketing messages by sending the recipients a text message that also confirms their number and makes the offer, like this: “Our customer database lists this your mobile phone number. Reply with ‘OK’ to receive coupons & other messages at this number.”

Picture Messaging (MMS): These type of messages must be of high value to your customers since they cause users higher fees than text messages.  As compared to text messages, picture messages are more versatile as they include pictures, animation, text and sound and are traditionally sent form a mobile number to an email account. Like in text messages, most phones will recognize and activate text to make it clickable if it is a phone number, web link or short code.

Integration Tip: Encourage users to sign up and receive new product notifications or birthday e-mails on their cell phone on your website. Include links to the website in the picture message that encourage the recipients to view the site from their mobile phone.

Location Based Marketing: To take in-store promotions one-step further and remind customers of advertised deals or create special incentives for mobile users, location based marketing, will reach customers when they are in within range of a physical store location.  This is achieved when messages are sent to the phone via bluetooth or Infrared technologies but has limited range. 

If your customers interact very frequently with your brand, using GPS enabled cell phones to send users targeted e-mails or text messages based on your location is acceptable BUT if they are not, then this way is considered intrusive and personal so it is not advised.

Mobile Pay-Per-Click:  As your ad is displayed along side regular search results, as a paid listing, when users click through to get to your site, you are charged a fee. You bid on keyword terms that are related to your product offering and when users search for those terms, your ad is displayed.  

You are given a certain number of characters to describe your products and you can link the advertisement to any page on your website.

Mobile Pay-per-Click prices are still reasonable since it is so new and there’s less competition on keyword phrases.  Search engines and third party providers are still testing different means of displaying these ads so now is the time to build up a history with the Pay-per-Click providers and beginning to learn the ropes.

Integration Tip: Whenever you run a special promotion or marketing campaign you should update your Pay-per-Click advertisements.  You may decide to bid on different keywords associated with your promotion or you may need to change the text of the advertisement to reflect the new marketing message or promotion.

Mobile Banner Ads: Mobile banner ads, are purchased from a third party provider on a ‘cost per million’ basis, are linked to your site and are shown on other sites as a means of generating revenue.   The number of times your ad is shown, its ‘impressions,’ affects how much you pay instead of weather your ad is clicked on or not.

The third party provider will allow you to select different filters that affect how, when and to whom your ad is displayed. The number of filters you set will also effect your cost per million (CPM).  Mobile banner ads make for good branding.

Integration Tip: Your banner ads need to reinforce your brand without users having to click thru to your site since you are paying by the impression.  Keep your banners updated with the same marketing messages that you are using in other marketing channels.  

Other mobile channels include: Mobile Apps | Bluetooth Marketing | Geo Location | Augmented Reality and 2-D Codes.

Tip 6 - Evaluate Mobile Success 

Test. Test. Test.  You should expect to test various campaigns and allow at least 3 mos. before benchmarking.  As mobile marketing is new, it will take time to get a good read on its reach and a return.  You should do a few different one-time campaigns to give your customers and prospects time to catch on and create the ‘buzz’.

Your mobile marketing efforts will impact the success of your other marketing campaigns.  Mobile should be creating indirect benefits to your sales volume both online and in your brick-and-mortar location.

You can use web analytics tools to track the online portions of your mobile campaign.

It’s important to use an integrated marketing strategy that incorporates the mobile channels that make sense for your particular business and to craft proper messaging that coincides with your other marketing messages online and offline.

Share how you are planning, integrating and evaluating mobile marketing strategies with us…

Many businesses are hyper-focused in their online marketing on getting more visitor traffic to their website.  Yes, website traffic is a good thing.  But, traffic is only the first half of the online marketing profitability equation.

It is possible to be getting plenty of traffic to your website… but lose money.

Seriously?  How can that be?

Examples where even plentiful traffic is not enough…

One reason that is more common than you think is that a company’s cost/benefit metrics are upside down.  That simply means it is costing them more to acquire a customer (or an opt-in) than what they will make from that customer or opt-in. Sadly, some companies don’t know their numbers.  Make sure you know how to determine your online profitability. Another reason you can be getting gobs of traffic, but not have much to show for it (like leads, customers and revenue), is you are not effectively “converting” the traffic into a lead, or a customer. This is what I call website persuasion:  Persuading website visitors to do what you want them to do—to call you, to download a free report, to sign up for your newsletter, to buy something, to leave a comment, etc.

Ways to Improve Your Website’s Persuasiveness

Here are 3 great tips for improving the persuasiveness of your website:

Vital Way #1 – Determine Your Primary Goal 

What do you want to accomplish (primarily) with your website visitor?  Yes, there are many things you may hope to do with them, but pick one primary one.  Then, you need to make sure everything works toward that end.  Confucius said:  “He who aim at nothing… hit it every time.”

Vital Way #2 – Create a Path

For a website visitor, your site is like visiting a new city.  It is all new and needing to be explored to know what’s there. It is much easier, and less stressful for them if you intentionally lead them from A to B to C, rather than them having to figure it out.  Guess what?  They won’t try (at least for very long). Worse yet, you have 3 or 4 A’s on your site, all, clamoring for attention.

For them, it is like visiting a tourist town, driving down the main road and getting assaulted on both sides of the road by flashing signs from every hotel (Stay here!!!  Vacancy!!  Special Discount!!  Stop now!!!), every restaurant, (Eat here!! Kids eat free!!  Voted best!!)  tourist store, and attraction. That may be what your website is doing without you knowing it.  Too many competing choices will lead them to turn around and go somewhere else.

Here are some helpful tools you can use to insure that you have created an easy path for your website visitor:

Heat Map.  A heat map of your website helps you determine if you have too many areas of your website competing for the attention of the visitor.  It also helps you determine if the thing you want them to focus on is actually getting noticed.  Services like Feng-Guior Crazy Egg can provide you a heat map for your website.

Live or Video Recording.  A software program like Clicktale will actually record visitor interactions on your site.  It will show you where they look, in what order, where they click, etc.  A service called UserTesting.com will have volunteers go to your site and provide video recorded feedback on what they experienced.

Google Analytics.  Google Analytics will help you determine if your site is accomplishing your goal by giving you valuable data– like the visitor’s on-page time, or bounce rate.  If people are only staying on your site for 23 seconds, that is an indication that at least one of the problems may be a poor path.

Vital Way  #3 – Maximize the Prime Website Real Estate

Studies tell us that on average a website visitor assesses your site in under 8 seconds to decide whether to explore further or move on.  It is therefore critical to put your most important information “above the fold.” This is an old newspaper term that’s made a successful transition into the digital world.

It referred to the information that appeared on the top half of the page, “above the fold”. It’s the most highly read piece of the newspaper.

The area on a webpage that is “above the fold” is that information which appears on the screen when a reader lands on your page.  Any information that requires a reader to scroll down is “below the fold.” Be sure that your most critical and important information appears above the fold—many readers never scroll any further so deliver your prime information up top and prominently.

Need more website ideas? Need more great ideas for improving your website?  Download the Website Persuasion Checklist.  It’s free… and full of valuable tips to improve the effectiveness of your website.

Ok, your turn.  What things have you experienced on a website that have kept you from staying (or opting in, or buying something)?

This is Part II of my 2 part post on ways site maps improve SEO ranking.  If you’d like to read Part I click here.

Using site maps is an often-overlooked method of boosting search engine ranking. It’s convenient for crawlers to gather all your information, so it gets indexed faster.

By reflecting changed content, it gets this data onto the search engines faster, too. In part I of this series, we looked at a couple of ways in which site maps help improve SEO rankings. There is another element that is perhaps the most useful of all.

That element is the ability of site maps to inform search engines of changes to the site. These changes are identified faster via a site map, relative to the crawling of individual content pages, through which changes may not even be identified at all.

With the information encoded in the XML site map, web crawlers will learn how often parts of your site are updated. For example, if you have a weekly blog post, the crawler will know to return weekly to get the new link.

This can improve your ranking simply because your site is visited more often, rather than by chance.

Build Your Site Map Online

Sitemaps are becoming more important in search engine algorithms, so it makes sense to incorporate good site maps into your site. You can use a site map building tool or software to make it easy to do.

Your webmaster should review the site maps before you publish them to ensure they are complete and error-free.

Here are the details you will need to complete the free Online Site map Generator:

For very large sites, multiple, smaller site maps are the best approach. This is also helpful if you have different types of content, such as videos, image galleries, or news updates.

By classifying them through different site maps, search engine crawlers will be able to index the links even faster, benefitting you.

In addition to XML format site maps, stored in the root of your domain, you should have HTML formatted site maps as well, for the convenience of your visitors. By increasing the usability of your site, so that visitors can always find what they are looking for, you’ll have more satisfied customers or readers.

This site map helps you, or your developer, too, because it is like a snapshot of the site. When it is time to make updates or changes, having the site map to refer to makes it easier to plan and organize.

Smart site maps are one of the easiest ways to increase search engine ranking. They do so by gathering in one place all of the information that crawlers are looking for.

It makes it possible for all the pages of even very large sites to be identified and classified, which isn’t the case if the pages must be found separately by the crawler. A sitemap creates internal links, which boost ranking, and provides better context for them so they can be indexed correctly.

Hidden links, broken links, and poor site structure can lead to pages being overlooked, but a site map compensates for these issues. Furthermore, site maps let crawlers know how often the site should be checked for updates, so they come back more often, keeping your ranking high.

How will you take action to generate or improve your site maps?

Facebook has announced that users have until Feb 2^nd to make mandatory changes to their personal profile before the existing format is converted over to a new “Timeline” format.  While most of the changes are purely cosmetic, a main change in functionality is occurring.

Previously Facebook pages showed the entries and postings made from the last week.  Facebook has stored all the entries you ever made since you created your account.  Now your past postings, entries, pictures and comments will be fully viewable to any of your current subscribers or viewers.

You can edit your profile in advance of this change to ensure you are showing your best possible online image.

Listed below are 6 tips to prepare for the new changes with the addition of Timeline:

Tip #1 – Update in Advance

Update your personal Facebook profile page in advance of the mandatory conversion next week to remove embarrassing pictures & posts or simply manage/clean up the look & feel of your profile.  Your new timeline will replace your profile, but all your stories and photos will still be there.

If you want to see how your timeline appears to other people, click the gear menu at the top of your timeline, and select “View As.”  You can choose to see how your timeline appears to a specific friend or the public.

Tip #2 – Insert a New “Cover” Photo

Select a photo for the new “Cover” for your Facebook profile.  The cover is the new larger rectangular shaped graphic positioned as a footer at the top of the page.

Your existing profile picture will appear in the lower left hand corner partially covering part of the larger graphic.  Just like profile pictures, your cover photos are public.

Tip #3 – Edit Old Posts, First

Start with the oldest Facebook posts first, since it will take a long time for all the posts to load, and during this process it is hard to edit them since the page keeps scrolling and moving.  My own profile took 20 minutes to fully load postings dating back to 2009.

Tip #4 – Change Dates

You can change the date of when pictures are posted to match the actual event (great for photos that were added later such as vacation pictures.

Tip #5 – Set Aside Time

Leave plenty of time to work on this.  It took an hour and a half to make all the changes to clean up my profile.  You have the ability to hide or delete the previous posts.

Tip #6 – Business Pages

Updating a personal profile does not update any Business pages that are linked to it.  Facebook has hinted at plans to update business pages with the Timeline feature, but has yet to announce a date.

Get Timeline Now.

To get timeline, simply go to the Introducing Timeline page and click “Get Timeline.” Or you can wait until you see an announcement at the top of your profile.

Check out this Timeline Guide from Mashable.

Do any of these tips apply to you? Can you offer any additional tips?

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is a critical component of doing business on the web.  If your site or business isn’t among the first 100 to come up in a search, potential customers simply aren’t going to find you.

You can approach SEO by doing it yourself, or you can choose to work with a consultant, but either way there are a few fundamental rules that must be followed if you are going to be successful in boosting your search engine ranking.

Rule 1 – Keep Content Relevant

You must have a minimum of 500 words of content on your website. 800 to 1000 is better. More content means more keywords and a better ratio of keyword density.

Search engines will often de-rank sites which overuse keywords, so if you have more content, you’ve got more room to include keywords. You can boost your content by adding a blog, a video page, or a news section.

Keep the content relevant, at least tangentially, to your business.

Rule 2 – Create Content for Search Engines and Humans

Don’t forget about your human visitors in your enthusiasm to optimize search results. Your content still needs to be interesting, readable, and informative, or you are going to lose all the potential customers you’ve just gained through using SEO.

Write for people first, and then revise as needed to ensure that you’ve satisfied your SEO goals as well.

Rule 3 – Work on Your Keyword Density

Keyword density should fall at 2 to 4 percent of your total word count. That is, for every 100 words, keywords will appear 2 to 4 times.

Keywords that are hidden in coding are often picked up by search engines, as well. Now you can see why a site with 500 words or fewer is much harder to optimize for search.

There are free online keyword density analyzers like the one shown below that can evaluate your site for you. If your current content’s density is too low or high, rework it to meet the target.  Test you keywords now.

Rule 4 – Draw Them Into Your Posts and Website Copy

The use of keywords with H1, H2, and H3 tags draws the attention of search engine spiders, which crawl the web gathering content. A nice way to use them is in titles and subheadings, which also make content more readable for your visitors.

Most people won’t read a block of text unless something draws them in. It is likely that your pages will be scanned by your visitors, so giving them titles and headings which are relevant helps them to find what they’re looking for.

That keeps them on your site, hopefully looking more closely at what you have to offer.

These 4 rules should be kept in mind as you are building and updating your website. SEO should be in the forefront of your mind at all times.

Keep a list of keywords, and refer to keyword generators to add ones that you may not have thought of. Be alert to keywords in the materials of your competitors.

With just a bit of attention to SEO, you’ll organically gain more traffic and be able to grow your business.

Do any of these 4 basics already work for you? Can you offer additional tips?