Internet Marketing Myths

Internet marketing is comprised of organic search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click advertising and social media marketing.  Many marketers don’t use pay-per-click (also called SEM).  Other than for some of the most competitive keyword phrases in your market niche, you are best served driving traffic from organic search engine rankings.

I argue that marketers should be actively working on their Internet marketing plan on an ongoing basis.  This isn’t a self serving comment as much as it is just reality.  It’s true that a new SEO plan for a website which has not previously gone through the conventional SEO process requires some heavy lifting that usually takes months to complete.  But, once it’s complete, it’s NOT done. 

To think you do SEO as a one time activity is the biggest Internet marketing myth on the planet.  I’ve actually read that and I’m amazed that people can actually think that. 

Search engines crawl your website regularly and ongoing. Imagine if search engines just crawled your website once then never again.  You wouldn’t like that would you?  You want credit for your great new content and for the new incoming links you’ve received over the past weeks, months and even years. 

Search engines crawl websites because they are in the business of providing search results to you and me based on the most relevant content and incoming links.  A website that was less relevant last week may be more relevant this week due to new content and links.  What if your top competitors have made their websites more relevant to your favorite keywords in the past week?  They will probably move up in search engine rankings.

So how can anyone actually believe that once you set up your SEO plan you are done?  That’s like saying once you roll out a marketing campaign, you’re done.  Or, like saying once you go to the gym and exercise, you’re done.  Or, once you …………ok, you get my point by now.

Earlier I stated that Internet marketing includes social media.  If you have not yet acknowledged the importance of social media in your marketing strategy, I urge you to.  Social media has allowed your prospects to learn more about you and your competitors than ever before.  The good news is you are less dependent on outside media to deliver good content to your prospects and customers.  And, the good news (there is no bad news here) is you get to do it as often as you want without needing a Fortune 100 marketing budget. 

The second Internet marketing myth point I’m making is that any business of any size (down to the sole proprietor) can deliver a great message using social media.  If you don’t have your own blog (which you should consider) visit popular blogs in your industry and post comments with your insights and thoughts.  Visit the websites of the main publications in your industry.  They probably have a blog where you can also post comments and see what people are talking about.

These Internet marketing myths can be summed by saying that working on organic SEO in part through active social media marketing can take time and effort, but the choice is do on an ongoing basis or not.  If you don’t you run the risk of being out-marketed by those competitors of yours who are.

If you have an experience to share pertaining to ongoing Internet marketing strategy success, please post it in the comment below.  Share it with us!  The world awaits your input…

 

Landing Page Design Podcast

Landing page design strategies are all about achieving your objective, either to generate a lead or create a sale.  In this podcast, we’re talking mostly about lead generation.

This podcast is a summary of a blog post on landing page design strategies.

Landing page design strategies apply for both SEO and PPC strategies.

When someone finds you in a search engine, the page they land on is the “landing page.”

Landing pages should be clear, uncluttered, to the point with a strong headline and some easy to understand call to action.

Landing page design significantly impacts results.  Search engine rankings alone don’t produce results. 

The landing page should have a strong headline with a call to action.

The call to action should be compelling.  Offer them something.

People on B2B landing pages are not there to make a decision.  They are doing research.  Help them out in their evaluation.  Give them “bite size chunks” of information.

Call to action ideas may include an invitation to sign up for a webinar, white paper or something FREE. If offering a webinar, make it as strong as possible with interesting topics and speakers. Guest speakers with name recognition can be a good draw and works well.

Getting people to fill out a form on a landing page can be challenging.  It often makes sense to offer the form on the click through from the landing page, in other words a second level landing page.  Often, people will not fill out a form on the initial landing page.   The call to action which takes people to the next page is often the most effective way to capture the lead in a form fill.

Pay careful attention to designing landing pages which will achieve your goals pertaining to your target audience, whether you drive the traffic to the landing page from pay per click advertising or SEO. 

 

Sweat the PPC Details!

Pay per Click Advertising, aka, SEM, PPC. 

PPC results are displayed along the top and right side.  The results are paid results.  

Target audience for this podcast is for marketers who are spending $1,000 to $10,000 per month in paid search advertising.

Measuring for conversions, not clicks.
Paid search is not the answer to all Internet marketing goals.
Paid search not good for Brand promotion unless you have a big budget.
Paid search is all about lead generation or direct sales on the Internet.
Know the difference between Search and Content networks.

Search network is primary Google and select other search engines fed by Google, e.g., Business.com.

Content networks are comprised of any website which chooses to display Google ads.
Results can vary greatly between Search and Content networks.
Be selective in the use of keywords.
Mix it up between competitive keywords and long tail keywords.
Do your research to identify long tail keywords.
Long tail keywords increase your probability of winning in paid search marketing.

Use Campaigns to distinguish themes.
E.g., product families
Break down campaigns by using ad groups to distinguish products within a campaign.
E.g., individual products
Set up a limited number of ads in each ad group.
3 to 5 ads per group.

Set up a reasonable number of keywords per ad.
Make sure they are relevant to the ad group or you’ll compete with other ad groups.
Test keyword variations: broad, phrase and exact.
Don’t display all your keywords as broad keyword variation.
You can use broad version, phrase version and exact version of keywords.  Test each version to see which variation can produce the lowest cost conversions.

Use dedicated landing pages!!!  Good landing pages can make a PPC campaign.
Generate dynamic landing pages with headlines that match the ad.
Design landing pages which are,
Uncluttered
Supported with a strong headline
Has a strong call to action
Use graphics sparingly (don’t distract)

Track conversions
Tracking impressions and click through rates don’t mean anything.  Track conversions.
Use conversion tracking (Adwords) to measure results.
Test, measure, revise and repeat.
Test variables which are measurable.

Geo target if appropriate.  Display your ads in the geographic regions that you want to sell to.

Stretch your budget using the ad scheduler.
Review results often, print reports, study them, get input from others.

Sweat the PPC details for improved conversions.
 

SEO: The Perfect Storm

I often talk with marketers about the difference between SEO (search engine optimization) and PPC (pay per click advertising).   I remind myself that, unlike me and my team at Find and Convert (and others in our business), most marketers don’t spend their days thinking about Internet marketing strategies as we do.

So, when we look at the difference between SEO and PPC, it goes beyond the costs.  After all, most marketers understand that PPC can cost a lot more than SEO.  But, for so many marketers PPC (also known as SEM) is the path of least resistance. 

Many marketers believe they can measure results from PPC easier than from SEO strategies.  But, let’s examine some of the facts.

We spend a lot of our time producing reports for clients.  These reports summarize (usually in painstaking detail) many statistics.  For the sake of this blog post I’ll hone in on the most telling stats which really point to the advantages of SEO over PPC. 

Time and again we see that visitors to our client’s websites which come from organic searches spend more time on the website, visit more pages and have lower bounce rates than paid search traffic.  The first two stats mentioned here should be self evident.  A bounce rate refers to someone who visits a web page on your site and does not visit another page, essentially “bouncing” off your site.

Moreover, when we provide reports on our PPC plans for clients, we track the cost of conversion (the desired action for the client).  Such conversion costs are tracked for the ads and for the keywords.  The most telling conversion cost is for the keywords we track.  This metric really tells us the cost to produce a lead for the most desirable keywords.

All too often we see marketers show the most interest in the most competitive keywords.  They wind up paying dearly for these keywords simply because they are competitive.

In SEO strategies, we are able to (with a lot of hard work) build optimization strategies for select keywords which are less competitive (long tail keywords).  For example, we work hard for a client to rank on page one for “project accounting software.”  But, the software client we represent has a product that runs only on Oracle.  So, when someone searches for “oracle project accounting software,” we hit a home run in ranking and in a qualified website visitor.

So, the message in this post is to think long term with SEO strategies.  Do the hard work which will require ongoing care and feeding, but can have long lasting and cost effective sales results through organic search traffic.  And, don’t be afraid to target lower searched, less competitive and long-tail keywords. 

I’ve always said I’d rather be found by the 10 people who are a perfect fit, than targeting 1000 people who may be a fit but are harder to reach and therefore a higher risk search strategy.