Posts Tagged ‘Relevance’

Avoiding Marketing Money Pits

Sunday, November 15th, 2009

Is your business bombarded by sales and other marketing professionals telling you that the products or services they are offering are in the best interest of effective and cost reducing methods to market your organization? Finding your way through the maze of offers, opportunities and avoiding potential money pits highlights the importance for all businesses regardless of size to have a strategic marketing plan that is implemented and followed.

It is a tough market place for any small business and information is the key to making wise marketing decisions and for the survival of any business or organization. The relevance of a strategic marketing plan can not be under stated. It is unfortunate but all to common that people under the disguise of professionals in marketing and sales will boast their products and services as the most effective and cost reducing methods to market your business. Additionally, by writing articles or giving lectures for example, they attempt to give their claims a form of legitimacy. Beware of people making extraordinary claims, a true professional wants to sell you their product or service but also retains the integrity to learn your business and knows when the product or service is not a good fit. The benefit for this type of sales or marketing professional is your loyalty and trust in future business transactions.

A strategic marketing plan helps a business to avoid potential money pits that waste valuable marketing dollars in expenditures that may appear to cost less but have minimal or no measurable results. Simply because something may cost less and other businesses are participating does not make it a solid marketing decision for your organization and certainly does not guarantee successful results. Regardless of the ticket price if it does not produce measurable results and drive business to your establishment it is a money pit.

There are many good examples on the internet of people under the disguise of professionals boasting their products or services as sound marketing advice. One of these claims is that a business could inexpensively build brand recognition through the purchase of low cost promotional items with the organizations name or logo embossed on them; items such as pens, tablets, calendars, magnets, and much more. The problem is that this technique offers minimal to no measurable success in brand building, but more importantly does nothing to draw new customers into the business.

In terms of simple math, if an advertising business were to spend the same money that would be spent on embossed promotional items in traditional media channels such as print, radio, or television for example with an expected 2% rate of return and a minimal exposure of 12,000 individuals gives the advertising business the opportunity for 240 customers for that expenditure. If only 30% of the 2% actually make a purchase that provides the business with 72 new transactions. A business can multiply its average transaction price by 72 to see the real potential income from this one marketing expenditure. Another benefit is brand awareness that would be gained through the advertisement and the opportunity to build customers for life. Furthermore, to entice repeat business and brand loyalty the organization can offer its customers coupons. This method promotes customer appreciation and can be a low cost marketing method.

Moreover, with any marketing expenditure a business should always perform a cost benefit analysis in correlation with its strategic marketing plan. Simply, if it does not offer measurable results, drive new business, and build brand awareness it is a money pit.

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Harness The Power Of Offering Freebies To Your Affiliate Site’s Visitors

Saturday, November 14th, 2009

Who in his right mind would refuse a freebie? Out of 10 people you ask, only about one or two will forego a freebie for some strange reason. The rest will gladly accept it. It’s simply a part of human nature to be appreciative of gifts, particularly useful ones. This is also something that advertisers and business owners understand fully well and thus use to their advantage.

In affiliate marketing, the use of freebies can be especially beneficial, provided of course, that you understand how to deploy them strategically. Find out how to use the power of offering freebies to your affiliate site’s visitors and reap the rewards:

Freebies should be integrated into your marketing campaign

Freebies can be quite powerful as marketing tools for affiliate marketing. If visitors to your website find that free stuff is available, they will stick around and be more willing to come back for more but only if they find it relevant to their needs ? the very reason they came to visit your website in the first place.

Consider each affiliate marketing campaign you perform and find out how to use freebies strategically. Just because something is free doesn?t automatically mean that people will visit your affiliate website and grab what you offer. There has to be a relevance between the freebie and the main product or service you are promoting.

Let’s say your main product is an e-book that teaches the secrets of the affiliate marketing trade to affiliates. A good freebie to offer with this campaign would be a short report on the top 10 mistakes that affiliates make that cause failure in affiliate marketing. Or you could offer a freebie in the form of a script that could help affiliates track their own stats.

Remember that the power of freebies when offered in affiliate marketing is only limited to its relevance. The free stuff should be something that can supplement the main product or enhance its use. Otherwise, your visitors will simply have no reason to try to obtain it.

Offer something better

Just because you’re offering freebies to your affiliate site’s visitors doesn?t mean you should allow them to completely ignore your premium offers. If you let this happen, forget about earning an income from your affiliate site.

Remember that all those free stuff you offer are part of your strategy to attract more visitors and affiliate prospects to your website. If you find out later that you’re dealing with visitors who are mainly freeloaders, you might want to rethink your career as an affiliate marketer and switch to becoming a charitable foundation instead.

Always offer your affiliate site’s visitors some form of incentive to persuade them to purchase, subscribe or sign up for membership. Offer a product or service that is considerably better than the freebie as an alternative. So instead of just providing a link they can click to download or obtain your free stuff, you could also say something like:

“Get our free version now OR buy the premium/complete package for just $$$. This is a limited offer and will expire soon. ACT NOW!”

By imposing a time restriction, you also impose a sense of urgency and persuade your affiliate site’s visitors that if they want to take advantage of a better offer, they should act immediately.

This is one power that freebies have over other types of promotions, which makes them very effective when used in affiliate sites. Plus, you can even expect a conversion without performing any follow ups.

Find out the best freebies you can afford.
There is no logic at all to giving away freebies if you have nothing to gain from it. When affiliate marketers and business owners offer free gifts to their site’s visitors, it is a carefully crafted strategy and not just some careless act of generosity.

When you do offer freebies, you have to have something in return, if not now then at least later. Learn to harness the use of freebies for your affiliate site’s visitors carefully. It’s a proven strategy and can be a very valuable component of your affiliate marketing arsenal.

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Without Search Engine Optimisation Your Website Could Be Lost

Sunday, November 1st, 2009

Building a great internet site is a wonderful achievement. But it could also be a complete waste of your time and money unless potential clients can find it. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is one way to ensure your site is seen in the most crowded marketplace ever conceived.

SO WHAT IS SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION (SEO)?

To understand Search Engine Optimisation you must first consider how people actually look for ? and eventually find - products and services on the web.

Research shows that more than 80 per cent of the world?s 290 million internet users (10 million of them in Australia) use search engines to find what they?re after.

There are many search engines available to consumers ? the better known include Google and Yahoo! ? but in general they all work the same way. Typically a person will enter a keyword or phrase into the search engine and immediately receive a list of recommended web pages.

Internet users are impatient, which means they seldom scan though more than a page or two of search results, and generally only access sites listed at the top of the page. If you want to be seen, your site must not only appear on a list of search results, it must rank towards the very top.

Open a search engine and type in a word or phrase someone searching for your company might use ? if you fail to appear in a prominent position, chances are your site has not been search engine optimised. Without optimisation, your site is about as effective as an advertisement floating in the middle of the ocean.

HOW DO SEARCH ENGINES RANK INTERNET SITES?

Search engines regularly dispatch ?spiders? or ?robots? (aka bots) to collect information on websites. Using an algorithm ? a set of complex formulas or rules ? the search engine evaluates each website?s relevance and then ranks it accordingly.

These algorithms are unique to each search engine, they are highly secret and they change all the time. But in general they all obey a basic set of rules. That means it is possible improve your chances of a better ranking by ensuring your website has the most appropriate content, and that the content is structured in a search engine-friendly way ? this process is known as Search Engine Optimisation.

Search Engine Optimisation is not an exact science. It requires trial and error, and there is never a guarantee of success. But without Search Engine Optimisation your website is almost guaranteed of not being seen.

Of course there are other ways of reaching potential clients. You could, for example, spend money to advertise on a search engine, and only have your advertisement appear when people search for particular keywords. That is valid way to increase your chances of reaching customers. But studies have shown people using the internet tend to trust and visit the free listings more than paid listings.

HOW DO YOU GET STARTED ON SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION?

First you need to find out if your site is actually being indexed by a search engine.

Open a search engine and type your company name in the search box. If you appear in the results it means that spiders or robots have located your site. They will place the site into a memory bank, and visit it from time to time to update their information.

If your site it not listed you could consider submitting your site to search engines. This will not guarantee that they will list you, but it won?t hurt to try. A word of advice - do not submit your site multiple times as this will only annoy the search engine people, and you need to be on their good side.

Some search engines will not accept submissions ? they prefer to find your site themselves. And some simply draw their information from other search engines (a disclaimer should alert you to this practice), which makes it pointless submitting your site to them.

Once you are confident your site is being indexed, you need to identify keywords ? these are the terms a potential visitor might enter into a search engine when looking for your product, service or company.

Finding the right keywords is a pivotal component of Search Engine Optimisation. There are applications that allow you to test each word by showing how popular it is and how often it is used ? the result might surprise you.

A good way to find keywords is to visit a competitor?s website and see what it has listed. To do this, open their site and click on ?view source? - a heap of what looks like gibberish will come up, but find a line which says ?

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Sitemaps Benefit Viewers & Search Engines

Friday, October 30th, 2009

Search engine ranking is perhaps the most important element that determines a website?s success. The key to getting your website to appear in the search engine results starts with getting your website?s pages indexed. By indexed, I mean allowing the Google robot to visit and scan each page on your website to determine its relevance. However, many search engines have a difficult time finding pages that are buried deep in your site?s navigation structure. Below I will discuss some techniques that will help the search engines find those hidden pages, as well as assist human visitors to navigate your website. I will be focusing exclusively on Google because, although there are many search engines, most websites get 50x more traffic from Google than Yahoo & MSN combined.

Depth of the Index

The frequency which Google visits your site to index pages is largely determined by the frequency of website updates. If your website is updated daily, Google is likely to visit everyday. The ?depth? of Google?s indexing refers to the tiers of your website?s navigation tree that will get indexed. For example, your homepage would be the first tier and any pages linked from the homepage, such as your ?Company Info? page would be 2nd tier pages. Any pages that are only accessible from these second tier pages would be considered 3rd tier pages.

The depth of Google?s index largely depends on each page?s Page Rank (that addicting little green bar on the Google Toolbar). Generally, as you move from the 1st to 2nd and from 2nd to 3rd tier of your website?s navigation structure, Page Rank will fall. If your homepage has a Page Rank of at least one, your 2nd tier pages should get indexed. If your second tier pages have low or no Page Rank, then Google probably hasn?t indexed any pages past this tier and isn?t aware that other pages exist.

What is a SiteMap?

A sitemap lists all your website?s pages in a structured, single page format. By viewing your sitemap, a website visitor can quickly and easily be aware of all your website?s pages and navigate to the area they are interested in. Although this type of sitemap is geared towards human viewers, it is also beneficial for search engines because it will allow the robots to see pages that may be 4 or 5 tiers deep in your website. Given that the Page Rank on you sitemap page is ample enough (make sure it is linked from your homepage), Google should crawl and index your whole website.

New Type of SiteMap

There is a new type of sitemap available to use ? The Google SiteMap. It is a little different from the traditional sitemap ? it is an XML file located on your website?s server that lists all your website?s pages and associated attributes. Google will read this file and will be aware of all your website?s pages, regardless of the depth of the navigation structure. In addition to listing each page of your website, you can also specify attributes such as the frequency of updates and priority of indexing for each page.

How Does It Work?

As I said before, the Google Sitemap is created in XML (Extensible Markup Language). It is similar to HTML, and often used these days in RSS and blog feeds. Here is an example of an entry that would be written for each page in a website:

http://www.yoursite.com/index.html
2007-05-18
monthly
0.8

The ?url? tag specifies that you are entering information for a new URL (website page). The ?lastmod? tag specifies when the page was last updated. The ?changefreq? tag specifies how often the page is updated. The ?priority? tag specifies the relative priority for indexing of that page.

Helpful Tools

This new type of sitemap is great for letting Google know about your whole website. The bad news is that this XML file needs to edited in Notepad each time you make a change or addition that effects your website?s navigation structure. If your website changes frequently or you have a lot of pages, coding the file by hand can be a real pain. Fortunately, there are many sitemap generators available for free on the Internet. Just do a search for ?Google Sitemap Generator? and you will find dozens of free tools that will ?crawl? your website and create the sitemap for you.

Conclusion

Google states that using their sitemap program will not increase your search engine rankings. But, it will get more of your pages indexed, and Google in turn should deem your website larger and more important. In the long run this should lead to increased search engine traffic. Don?t forget to update your sitemap when your website changes. By keeping both types of sitemaps updated and accessible, your website will quickly become a visitor and search engine favorite.

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SEO By Owner In Three Easy Steps

Friday, October 30th, 2009

You have two choices to consider when trying get your site ranked higher in search engines. You can hire a Search Engine Optimization Company that is an expert in the field or if you have some time, you can do it yourself.

Research your Keywords

Ask yourself what keywords you think someone might type in when searching for products you sell or services you provide. Though a keyword may be only one word it is usually a phrase made up of keywords. Phrases are more specific and will more than likely be what potential customers use when searching for products or services online.

After a quick brainstorming session write down all that you were able to come up with. Make sure to consider geographical phrases if they are important to your customers and don?t forget of alternative words that could be used (an example could be ?new car Littleton?). Make sure to surf the websites of your competition to get more ideas until you can come up with a list in the neighborhood of 20 to 30.

Now you should take two keywords from your list that you feel potential customers will use most frequently. Take into consideration that popular keywords are also competitive keywords and harder to achieve higher ranking with. If your goal is to obtain a high ranking for the term ?auto insurance?, the path to achieving it may be long. Try to make your keywords the ones that are most related to your business and not riddled with vagueness or extremely competitive. Make each phrase about two or three words in length like the previous example.

Now that we have your keywords we will move on to the next step.

Site Text

Your site text is made up of the wording that is on your web page. There is a phrase for search engines and it is content is king. Search engines love unique content and your keywords should be placed in key locations within the content so Google understands the relevance your site has to them. Also make sure that your copy reads well around them as it needs to make sense for your visitors who are most important.

Keywords can be placed in headings, at the top of pages, in bold or italics, used as link text for other pages of your site and in your title tag.

Add additional content after you are finished tuning up your webpage. Give more detailed descriptions of the products and services you offer. Provide a frequently asked questions page and pages of articles that pertain to your products or services.

With your design you should keep in mind that search engines cannot read images nearly as well as text. Sites that are made up with excessive flash or pictures really impede how well they can read the content of your site.

Link Building

A common way of thinking about links is that every link from another site that leads to yours is a vote for the popularity of your site. Every quality link you receive can improve your search rankings.

The quality of your inbound links is more vital than the quantity. The preferred and more valuable link is from sites that are relevant to your niche and with authority (highly regarded in the niche). A quality directory with relevant categories is another example. Just a few quality links with authority can have more value for your site than hundreds of lesser quality. Think of it like you do your personal business network. Both can have a strong effect on the success or failure of your business.

Take time to consider all the other relevant websites in your niche such as organizations, industry affiliates and non-competing companies. Send them a email introducing yourself, your products and services and explain how your website could benefit their visitors. Then politely suggest that they create a link to your website from theirs.

Record the Results

Over time you should watch and record your search engine rankings by doing a Google search for your chosen keywords to see where you rank. You can also monitor where your visitors are coming from by watching your hosting reports. Do this for each significant page of your website.

Continue to add to your websites content and increase the links to your website over time. This needs to be an ongoing effort for as long as you want visitors to your website.

As you continue to record the results of your efforts you should see the traffic increase and with that your sales. Know where your visitors are coming from so you can continually monitor your marketing efforts successes. Only by measuring it do you know where and how to improve it.

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