In the prior post, we talked about picking out more unique, less broad phrases to wrap your internet marketing around. Remember that Google likes to match people's exact search query with an exact match or as close as possible. So the bots, spiders and crawlers that index your website must see those terms that you are targeting so that when a search is initiated by a user, Google knows right where to go to get the answer for them. Writing good copy includes the ability to include the targeted phrases and words in your copy while providing an excellent user experience. Focusing too much on fitting the targeted, searchable phrases in the body might result in a confusing or amateurish looking website which may result in a high bounce rate (they come in an leave right away without ever doing anything). Never take you eye off the "user experience" ball.
For example. Here is a way that copy migh appear in a golf web site.
"Bob's Golf Clubs has your below par round on their racks. Bob's provides a full line of golf equipment to golfers of every ability to lower their score plus all the accessories to look good and to feel good. Check out Bob's on line inventory and see how to lower your score or just look good too!"
Or it could appear like this with targeted keyword phrases:
Bob's on line discount store specializes in ADVANCED GOLF DRIVER TECHNOLOGY, game improvement 54 DEGREE SAND WEDGES and SPECIALTY STAINLESS STEEL WEDGES. Bob's has an on line GOLF DRIVER FITTING SYSTEM to assure proper fitment of the club. Imagine yourself coming down the 18th fairway at Pebble Beach two under par with a 2008 SET OF STAINLESS STEEL SPECIALTY WEDGES. Check out Bob's inventory for DISCOUNT GOLF CLUBS FOR SALE.
I would not target or optimize for all of the capitalized phrases, but would focus on those that fit into my marketing strategy. Both "54 degree sand wedges" and "discount golf clubs for sale" have a smaller number of search queries than "discount golf clubs" or "sand wedges" so they might fit. Putting the other less common phrases like "specialty stainless steel wedges" and "Golf driver fitting system" might draw some additional traffic from very specific keyword searches. All might have higher conversion rates.
There's a reason marketing agencies employee copywriters. They know good copy draws people in and makes them more likely to buy. A little thought and creativity can make your existing traffic more likely to buy AND can deliver new traffic
Tried any of this? Had some success?
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Reverse Marketing-the Long Tail Keywords
When people and companies first get into the internet marketing arena they look determine their message and write the copy that generally appeals to the broad market. Seems logical. Perhaps get exposed to 1.0 million visitors and capture a 100 or so to convert to whatever you want them to do. However, these general, broad terms are very competitive. A check of the search query "marketing" yields 784 million potential sites that have that broad term. Think it might be hard to get noticed? "Internet marketing" brings that down to about 90 million and "internet marketing California" down to around 7 million. Still going to be hard to get noticed and if you choose pay per click the cost may be towards the high side.
Equations have two sides. Let's look at the other side. You are selling computer bags. A brief look at Keyword Discovery free version keyword tracker indicates the word is searched for an average of 700 times a month and google returns 1.6 million results. The same list indicates that the keyword phrase, "discount laptop computer bags" gets an average of 4 searches per month and a google search yields just over 400,000 results. In fact there are several long tail phrases that get between 1 and 10 searches per month. Whether you choose pay per click or optimizing your site, or both, wrapping your internet marketing efforts, around these longer tailed phrases may lead to addressing a much more targeted market and much higher conversion rate. An even further refinement of the long tailed keyword may yield even better results.
When this techique is employed many internet marketers find that a series of less frequently searched phrases, say 10, will perform (that means turn into business) much better than the the 10 visitor generating performance of more generic, broad matched keywork phrases.
Anyone try this technique? What were your results? Any additional insights?
Equations have two sides. Let's look at the other side. You are selling computer bags. A brief look at Keyword Discovery free version keyword tracker indicates the word is searched for an average of 700 times a month and google returns 1.6 million results. The same list indicates that the keyword phrase, "discount laptop computer bags" gets an average of 4 searches per month and a google search yields just over 400,000 results. In fact there are several long tail phrases that get between 1 and 10 searches per month. Whether you choose pay per click or optimizing your site, or both, wrapping your internet marketing efforts, around these longer tailed phrases may lead to addressing a much more targeted market and much higher conversion rate. An even further refinement of the long tailed keyword may yield even better results.
When this techique is employed many internet marketers find that a series of less frequently searched phrases, say 10, will perform (that means turn into business) much better than the the 10 visitor generating performance of more generic, broad matched keywork phrases.
Anyone try this technique? What were your results? Any additional insights?
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Google Provides New Tools for Internet Marketers
Google has provided three new tools to assist internet marketers to better understand the search world as it relates to their own objectives.
The first is Google Trends. With Trends you can compare the world’s interest in your favorite topics. Enter up to five topics and see how often they’ve been searched on Google over time. Google Trends also shows how frequently your topics have appeared in Google News stories, and in which geographic regions people have searched for them most. A subset of Trends is Hot Trends. This reflects what people are searching for on Google today. Rather than showing the most popular searches overall, which would always be generic terms like 'weather,' Hot Trends highlights searches that experience sudden surges in popularity, and updates that information hourly.
The second is Google Insights. This tool analyzes a portion of worldwide Google web searches from all Google domains to compute how many searches have been done for the terms you've entered, relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time. A subset of this tool is Rising Searches which highlight searches that have experienced significant growth in a given time period, with respect to the preceding time period.
The third tool is Google Trends for Websites. When you enter the address of a website into the search box, Trends for Websites shows you a graph reflecting the number of daily unique visitors (the number of people who visit a website) to that website.
It is important to know the explanations, caveats and limitations of each of these tools and Google does a fine job with this. All of these tools should serve the internet marketer with additional insights into how the search world is working and how it relates to what you are trying to do.
Anybody use these tools? Would like to hear from you, your assessments, how you used them, what interesting things you found.
The first is Google Trends. With Trends you can compare the world’s interest in your favorite topics. Enter up to five topics and see how often they’ve been searched on Google over time. Google Trends also shows how frequently your topics have appeared in Google News stories, and in which geographic regions people have searched for them most. A subset of Trends is Hot Trends. This reflects what people are searching for on Google today. Rather than showing the most popular searches overall, which would always be generic terms like 'weather,' Hot Trends highlights searches that experience sudden surges in popularity, and updates that information hourly.
The second is Google Insights. This tool analyzes a portion of worldwide Google web searches from all Google domains to compute how many searches have been done for the terms you've entered, relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time. A subset of this tool is Rising Searches which highlight searches that have experienced significant growth in a given time period, with respect to the preceding time period.
The third tool is Google Trends for Websites. When you enter the address of a website into the search box, Trends for Websites shows you a graph reflecting the number of daily unique visitors (the number of people who visit a website) to that website.
It is important to know the explanations, caveats and limitations of each of these tools and Google does a fine job with this. All of these tools should serve the internet marketer with additional insights into how the search world is working and how it relates to what you are trying to do.
Anybody use these tools? Would like to hear from you, your assessments, how you used them, what interesting things you found.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Keywords, keywords, keywords
I believe more and more that you cannot start too early to determine keywords related to what your website is about. These words should drive traffic to the sight as a result of searchers using them. Doing keyword analysis before adopting a domain name may be wise. A site like computerrepair.com is rather generic when compared to laptopcomputerrepair.com. Or even more precise may be onsitelaptoprepair.com. If you would like to be more geographically oriented you may consider OClaptoprepair.com. This is a marketing decision because choosing one over the other or being too specific may exclude potential customer groups that you want. The marketing question to resolve: is it too broad or too narrow with respect to our target markets.
The basis of keywords is deciding what words or phrases ordinary humans will insert in the search engine of their choice when they are looking for a particular product or service. This is not what you think they should enter or what GOOGLE or YAHOO thinks they mean, but what they actually do enter. This is why much of keyword determination is research and then trial and error, tweaking, tweaking some more and measuring the results. The research will increase your probability of obtaining the objective but will not take you to 100%. Websites like wortracker.com and keyworddiscovery.com can help in research. You can also enter search terms yourself and see what comes up and if it relates closely to your website.
If paid search advertising is used to drive traffic to your site, a big part of the this approach is about keywords. if you have already studied keywords as related to your website you will be ahead of the game because these words or phrases are purchased from the search engines. Depending on relevancy factors of your site as it relates to the search query, it will appear in one of the ad positions on the search page results. Right words at the right place at the right time will result in a click onto the target website.
Keywords are key. They are also nebulous, can be expensive, can be too broad or too narrow and are probably not the silver bullet many website owners are looking for. They are, however, an intergral part of any internet marketing strategy. Avoid thinking that the search engines are on the side of the website owner. The search engine customer is the searcher and their business model depends on providing the searcher results that are consistently credible, relevant and on point. If they do that the customer continues to return and everything else in their business model falls more easily into place.
The basis of keywords is deciding what words or phrases ordinary humans will insert in the search engine of their choice when they are looking for a particular product or service. This is not what you think they should enter or what GOOGLE or YAHOO thinks they mean, but what they actually do enter. This is why much of keyword determination is research and then trial and error, tweaking, tweaking some more and measuring the results. The research will increase your probability of obtaining the objective but will not take you to 100%. Websites like wortracker.com and keyworddiscovery.com can help in research. You can also enter search terms yourself and see what comes up and if it relates closely to your website.
If paid search advertising is used to drive traffic to your site, a big part of the this approach is about keywords. if you have already studied keywords as related to your website you will be ahead of the game because these words or phrases are purchased from the search engines. Depending on relevancy factors of your site as it relates to the search query, it will appear in one of the ad positions on the search page results. Right words at the right place at the right time will result in a click onto the target website.
Keywords are key. They are also nebulous, can be expensive, can be too broad or too narrow and are probably not the silver bullet many website owners are looking for. They are, however, an intergral part of any internet marketing strategy. Avoid thinking that the search engines are on the side of the website owner. The search engine customer is the searcher and their business model depends on providing the searcher results that are consistently credible, relevant and on point. If they do that the customer continues to return and everything else in their business model falls more easily into place.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Planning-the Parallel Universe
Many years ago some professor or textbook somewhere told me that management was planning, organizing, staffing, contolling and coordinating. Over the years I have found that this is about as good as any definition.
Most are familiar with the basic functions required to run a business. You need a product or service, someone or something to create/produce it, a technique to sell it, someone to count and control the money and some legal assistance along the way. We also know that in most cases, start up funding is limited therby reducing the probability of incorporating each of these functions on staff which results in the business owner or manager making decisions about the functions. Who will be on the payroll, which functions they will outsourced, and who or what will they live without.
The on-line world is a parallel universe. Having or creating a product or service belongs to both universes. You need one or the other or both. Now things begin to change. The sales and marketing departments may become your web developer and SEO (search engine optimizer) person. The developer would provide an effective on line marketing presence and the SEO is there to make sure that the website is found when someone searches for the product or service.
A subset of your marketing department may be your email marketing specialist who would be the direct contact to collected email addressees. Because you may be doing various marketing campaigns that require an ROI (return on investment) your business must also have an analytics function. This function is responsible for understanding the results of website hits, misses, and conversions and to provide a basis for the future on-line marketing campaigns. It would also interpret data used for process improvement.
Just as in the case of more traditional business organizations with limited funding, the business person must prioritize the importance of each function to achieve the objective. A fledgling business might outsource the accounting function while a website business might outsource the SEO function. In fact, in this parallel universe, the website business may choose to outsource most of the functions as they are fairly compartmentalized with each requiring specific training and knowledge.
I think that the important point is to recognize that the parallel universe is comprised of different and specific functions. In a traditional business you may find someone talented and knowledgable enough to manage the finance function and the human resource funtion. In the parallel universe you may find someone who can do both the web development and the SEO functions. However, in the longer view it is not the ideal situation in either case. To mix them up or assume that they are just one function could be a strategic mistake.
Development of an effective on-line business does require those basic management tools mentioned above. It also requires an awareness of all the possibilities of marketing and mechandising that can be used, all the functions required to maximize its success, and the funding available from which to make decisions to allocate those resources.
Most are familiar with the basic functions required to run a business. You need a product or service, someone or something to create/produce it, a technique to sell it, someone to count and control the money and some legal assistance along the way. We also know that in most cases, start up funding is limited therby reducing the probability of incorporating each of these functions on staff which results in the business owner or manager making decisions about the functions. Who will be on the payroll, which functions they will outsourced, and who or what will they live without.
The on-line world is a parallel universe. Having or creating a product or service belongs to both universes. You need one or the other or both. Now things begin to change. The sales and marketing departments may become your web developer and SEO (search engine optimizer) person. The developer would provide an effective on line marketing presence and the SEO is there to make sure that the website is found when someone searches for the product or service.
A subset of your marketing department may be your email marketing specialist who would be the direct contact to collected email addressees. Because you may be doing various marketing campaigns that require an ROI (return on investment) your business must also have an analytics function. This function is responsible for understanding the results of website hits, misses, and conversions and to provide a basis for the future on-line marketing campaigns. It would also interpret data used for process improvement.
Just as in the case of more traditional business organizations with limited funding, the business person must prioritize the importance of each function to achieve the objective. A fledgling business might outsource the accounting function while a website business might outsource the SEO function. In fact, in this parallel universe, the website business may choose to outsource most of the functions as they are fairly compartmentalized with each requiring specific training and knowledge.
I think that the important point is to recognize that the parallel universe is comprised of different and specific functions. In a traditional business you may find someone talented and knowledgable enough to manage the finance function and the human resource funtion. In the parallel universe you may find someone who can do both the web development and the SEO functions. However, in the longer view it is not the ideal situation in either case. To mix them up or assume that they are just one function could be a strategic mistake.
Development of an effective on-line business does require those basic management tools mentioned above. It also requires an awareness of all the possibilities of marketing and mechandising that can be used, all the functions required to maximize its success, and the funding available from which to make decisions to allocate those resources.
Saturday, May 3, 2008
What's Next
Now that an overall website objective has been determined (what do you want your website to do?), a sketch of how it will look and how it will accomplish that objective has been completed, and each of the items in the laundry list of options has been examined, what is next?
At this point I see many who just get on with it. They retain a developer or buy some software and start. This is not necessarily a bad route as internet marketing and E-Commerce requires much testing, and much trial and error. You will surely learn something. On the job training can work, but there are other ways that may get a better ROI. Also remember that part time effort gets part time results.
The websites that that I see that result in marketing success spend time on outlining their overall internet marketing plan which includes how they will actually market and merchandise their product or service over the first time period which may be 3-6 months. Using the laundry list in a previous post (Planning Part 2), they will determine the following:
At this point I see many who just get on with it. They retain a developer or buy some software and start. This is not necessarily a bad route as internet marketing and E-Commerce requires much testing, and much trial and error. You will surely learn something. On the job training can work, but there are other ways that may get a better ROI. Also remember that part time effort gets part time results.
The websites that that I see that result in marketing success spend time on outlining their overall internet marketing plan which includes how they will actually market and merchandise their product or service over the first time period which may be 3-6 months. Using the laundry list in a previous post (Planning Part 2), they will determine the following:
- When and how each chosen internet marketing technique will be employed
- How to get people to come to your site-SEO, Keywords, Outside media, viral, buzz
- How and when the website will be updated for fresh content
- Cycle of specials, discounts, promotions, new products, fresh packaging will be sketched out
- How they will communication to target markets
- Human resources/expertise/time required
- The total investment/budget for the first part of the program
- Establish realistic expectations
- How the results will be measured and documented
They will also determine cost or initial investment. This may dictate limitations on the marketing plan. Although internet marketing can result in lower customer acquisition cost it is generally not free. All businesses need customers and all businesses compete to obtain customers and to keep them. This takes time and money.
I have had clients who said they tried Google keywords, purchased them and limited their spending to less than $50 over a few days or weeks. Disappointing results usually follow and they conclude that that did not work. Most of the time the disappointment comes from the lack of employing proper website principles, not having and following a general marketing plan, not allocating the proper funding and not being patient. After all, this is marketing where the one simple secret formula for success still remains a secret. Because of that we must use all the tools available to us to achieve our marketing success. I doubt that many of us would dive into 20 feet of water without knowing how to swim or knowing how to use techiques and tools to keep us afloat. So why do it with your marketing efforts?
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Planning Part 2
So you determined what you want your website to do and made a determination that you could make it achieve that objective. But the planning and thinking is not over. A real goal at this time is to get your ideas into a planning environment that features marketing techiques with measurable results. I see many website clients that have a single snapshot focus as the primary marketing technique, that is, they put the products on the site with pricing and want to get on with it. Below are a few items that should be examined for a good plan:
- Viability of Amazon Stores, Ebay, Yahoo Stores, Froogle, Craigslist
- Using directories-Yahoo, Technorati, DMOZ
- Web host-capabilities, bandwidth
- Blogging
- Getting visitors-PPC, SEO, traditional media, mailings, promotions, banner ads
- Techniques of capturing email addresses-inducements
- Email marketing campaigns-developing the relationship
- Effective calls to action-buy now!
- Landing pages that convert-two clicks to action
- Easy check out-credit cards, pay pal, Google check out
- Increasing per unit check out dollars-other purchase options, upsell, special packaging
- Merchandising programs-holidays, gift cards, coupons, discounts, contests, free shipping
- Content updates
- Security and website professionalism
- Shipping and return policies
- Warranty programs
- Affiliate programs-pay others to sell
- Measuring the results-Analytics (Google Analytics)
- Figuring out if it will make money
The list is not all inclusive. A plan may include some of these, all of these or even other items. Going through this process will allow the potential marketer to determine the course of action, and determine the budget that may be required to accomplish the goals. It will also save some time down the road as most marketers will come back to one or all of these when they find their website marketing hopes fall short of their expectations.
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