I am often asked about how to effectively market for the web. Depending upon who you ask you’ll get a myriad of answers, some of which will be very vague, and others which will throw lots of measurement and statistical jargon at you. Both of the aforementioned (in my opinion) are seeking to employ the “shell-game” approach, … in short, to keep you unsure of what’s going on as you continue to lay out your dollars.
In the past I have had a several clients pay for optimization (all but one before I optimized their website). What they described to me in each case was paying a flat weekly or monthly fee for services rendered, yet any explanation about what was done was kept very general. To my mind a good marketer would provide their clients with an exacting list of everything that was done, and how much time the changes took.
Of course there are some marketers with integrity, who will keep you informed of exactly what they are charging you for, with lots of experience, proven results, and who are affordable … ok, great. If you are confident that the person has the necessary skills, won’t go out of business in a week or two and take your money, will provide results, and can otherwise be contacted per your schedule, then … hire them! The reality is that most “marketers” have little or no experience with web marketing. Many have taken a few business classes and read articles on the web, and are now selling them self as an expert … a few may even have a business marketing degree, but without real world experience you will be paying them to “learn on the job”. One final note on marketers, …. before you hire anyone, ensure that they have a professional website of their own (most of the scammers just send out emails without a contact phone number or physical address), and most importantly, ensure that there are examples of verifiable results of their marketing efforts.
When it comes to marketing, what many don’t realize is that first and foremost you need a great website. You could pay to have the best of best of the marketing firms manage your online efforts, but if the visitors arrive and don’t like your website they’ll leave. It’s as simple as that. What I explain to clients is that marketing goes hand in hand with SEO. If your site is visually engaging, has all the necessary elements in place to target for SEO, and has content of value to your visitors, then you’ll get new and repeat traffic, and your site ranking will improve. All that online marketing offers is the potential to reach more visitors, which ideally would help to improve your site ranking quicker.
Of course there are a variety of considerations that will affect a site’s ranking, and for those who read my posts regularly you already know what these are. As a recap ensure that your website has:
- XTHML/HTML5 compliant code (no tables for layout)
- ADA (American Disabilities Act) compliant image and link tags
- Fast page loading – avoid unnecessary images and flash
- SEO optimized text, especially on the home page
- SEO optimized page Meta titles
- SEO optimized page titles
- SEO optimized Meta descriptions
- SEO optimized page headings
- SEO friendly navigation
- Keyword text above the fold
- Internal links to your additional pages
- Consistent domain name (URL) over time
- An XML sitemap
- Incorporate calls-to-action
- New/Changeable content
- Does not use blackhat techniques
When it comes to visitors, site ranking will improve based upon:
- The number of new and repeat visitors
- Visitor duration of time on pages, and degree of search depth
- Inbound links from credible websites
- Social media shares
Of all of the things noted above, it is “new and changeable” content that most marketing professionals will focus their efforts on. The best options here are:
- Blogs
- Social Media – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google+
- Review Websites
- Forums (your own, and posting on others)
- Whitepapers / Press release
- Newsletters
- Videos (YouTube, Vimeo)
- Craigslist
As you can imagine, each of the above provides the opportunity to regularly submit company/business information that will “ideally” be of value to your users and with luck you’ll be linked to and your content shared. Since shared content is ranked highly by the search engines this is very important, but moreover, content that is perceived as “helpful” will be visited and linked to more often. In the same regard a site that is seen as “fun” will also gain more repeat traffic.
Assuming you’ve done all of the above then the next step with marketing is to look for top ranked websites to link to you. I don’t recommend a link exchange per se, since in most cases you have little if any control over the quality of the websites that you’re linked with, or the type of sites that they are; yet I do recommend linking to a handful of sites that are of a related industry which have a good reputation. This of course goes back to providing helpful resources. Note that one of the blackhat techniques is to utilize link mills, to pay for likes, shares, etc. The reality is that the short term benefit of a black hat technique is not worth the long term consequences of being banned.
When I assist clients with linking, I will search for their type of business using the words that their visitors will likely search for, utilize several variations. In the listings see if you can find any top ranked websites/directories that offer a free or low cost linking service. In many cases there will be industry websites that will link to you, … such as construction, medical, legal, artists, day care, etc. Of course if a site doesn’t come up on the first few pages then they won’t have any real value to you.
An additional option is to get linked with YP.com (web yellow pages), Super Pages, Merchant Circle, Google Places, Yahoo Local, and the myriad of other sites that have a similar “local business” directory platform. If you’re a new business you may want to pay for a listing on these, but I personally just choose the “free” submission option, and if payment is required then I don’t use them.
Once you’ve included your site in all of the aforementioned you need to devise a strategy of maintaining these. I have found that most businesses will initially setup some of these, but they quickly lose interest since it is work to maintain. My suggestion, create a marketing schedule and then copy the date of inclusion, URL, username/password, to every site that you can be found on. Experience has shown that it is very easy to lose your log-in information.
As for the specifics:
Social Media – Blogs and Facebook
Create no less than 2 posts a month, include images, behind the scenes information about your business, and provide useful “timely” information about your industry, and links/resources of value to your visitors.
Social Media – Twitter
I typically create a tweet whenever I create a blog or facebook post; use the “hash” tag effectively, and be sure to follow others.
Newsletters
I send out one a month, some of my clients send out quarterly newsletters, and some only when there are promotions or important news. The goal is to be consistent, so just find what works for you.
Forums
Forums on your own site are a great way to engage your visitors, but this is a lot of work since the spammers often run rampant. What many marketers will do is visit other industry related forums and answer questions, and otherwise be helpful. In most cases you are allowed to include a link back to your website, just don’t spam the forums with links.
Whitepapers
Industry pages can be a great way to share what is going on in your industry. Some of my clients create PDF articles of the latest laws/regulations that can affect their clients, or their latest achievements, company news, etc.
Review Websites
Where possible encourage your satisfied clients to review your site on the popular review websites, ie Google Places, Angie’s List, Yelp, etc. Testimonials on your website, and social media can also be effective.
Videos
Since most people prefer to watch a video over reading about a business/service, this is a good option to share information. If the video is fun there is a good chance it will be shared, and maybe even go viral. I encourage my clients to include their quality videos on their website, blog, and Facebook.
Craiglist
I often find craigslist postings coming up above well optimized, established websites. The reason for this of course is the amount of traffic the CL pages receive. For the new business it would be a good idea to create a quality graphical page/ad for weekly posting on Craig’s list.
The goal of marketing is to automate where possible!
What I suggest is to look for ways to expedite the process of content inclusion with your social media efforts. For example, blog posts can be automatically added to a newsletter by way of the RSS feed; tweets can be auto-added to a blog or website, the facebook “like” box can be auto-added to a blog or website, and facebook posts can be automatically sent as “tweets”, etc.
Social Media is about Engagement!
With your social media efforts engage your visitors by asking them questions and responding to their comments. Make your website and social media efforts as fun as possible by including games, quotes, humor, polls, contests, etc. And be sure to include a newsletter sign-up form on your website and blog.
Track your efforts
At this point it is just a matter of doing a bit of tracking. By utilizing Google Analytics and Webmaster tools you can see where you visitors came from (referring site). If you find that you don’t get any traffic from one of your inclusions visit that site to ensure that your content is still active. Be sure to periodically review/update your content on all of your online properties, as well as on the directory, review sites, and web pages that link to you.
* Note: Retain the administrative access and rights to all of your pages. In this regard be sure to ask for the URL, username, and password for all accounts that were created in your name. This would be for blogs, social media, directories, forums, CMS websites, etc. In the same regard, if your designer sets up a hosting account or domain (URL) for you, be sure that it is in “your” name, not theirs to ensure that you are in fact the legal owner of it.
A sound marketing strategy will take time to do right, so you need to dedicate yourself to it. If you have the money then sure, hire an experience professional to do it for you, but recognize that you are the expert on your business, so you’ll still need to provide the necessary content for your social media efforts and pages. To be clear, social media works best when you provide information about “your” business, don’t just re-tweet and link to other posts and pages.
And in case I haven’t stressed this enough, be sure to gauge the value of the money spent for the results achieved. If you hire someone they should be able to tell you exactly what was done over a period of time.
In conclusion, there is no one marketing strategy right for all businesses. What I’ve listed above will work for most (if not all) businesses, yet if your business type is very competitive – such as the medical and legal fields, you may need to pay for advertising at first. In this case I would recommend Google AdWords, though there are other options such as Yahoo, Ask Jeevees, Yp.com and SuperPages, etc. Some businesses will benefit from using Pinterest, Stumble Upon, and other social media platforms.
Lastly, keep in mind that there needs to be visual continuity across your marketing efforts. In this regard ensure that your website, blog, faceook page, twitter, google +, etc all employ consistent branding where possible, and utilize engaging graphics for cover images and page/post inclusions. If you are doing the marketing yourself it is a good idea to create different sizes of your logo (white background and transparent “.png”), larger and smaller views of representative product/services images, your website URL, contact information, short description about your business/services, etc. You will find that most sites will ask for these so it is best to have them ready to use in a folder prepared for this.
Best of luck with your marketing efforts!
