Online Advertising and Marketing
Your website is up and you have promoted it on everything from business cards to T-shirts. Your shopping cart program is primed for action. There’s only one problem—nobody shows up.
The net is littered with tens of thousands of dead sites, abandoned because no one visited. You can always tell a dead site—it was last updated on its launch date. So how can you make yours successful?
Throw some money at it—judiciously. “It’s a good idea to stick with low-cost, grass-roots techniques,” says Jim Daniels, president of JDD Publishing in Smithfield, Rhode Island. Daniels has written several books about internet marketing and publishes the Bizweb eGazette newsletter, which has more than 110,000 subscribers worldwide and is accessible at bizweb2000.com.
Also, if you can afford one, hire a PR firm. In general, raising your firm’s visibility through media exposure lets you talk about your website to a broad range of potential customers.
A Marketing Tool
Think of your website as a marketing tool like the others you use to promote your business. Because its return is hard to gauge, your job is to learn how to get the most from the web. “Why would someone want to visit my site?” That’s your key question. If your site talks only about your company and how great you are, chances are, no one will come back. Attracting visitors requires magnets: things that excite people and make them return for more.
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Before you publicize your site, make sure you have an opt-in box on the homepage and throughout your site by using email capture software, also called an autoresponder system. This is a great way to develop customers and build your email list so you can send them valuable offers, tips, and resources. For more details on setting up email captures, visit AWeber at aweber.com and check out the opt-in tutorial. Click on “Support,” then “Videos.”
Savvy marketers master permission marketing, which provides incentives for customers to learn more about your product or service. Let’s say you run the Clicks and Bricks Bed and Breakfast in Vermont. Spring and fall are your off seasons. You’d like to reach out to former visitors and those who have sent emails inquiring about the Clicks and Bricks B&B.
Using the principles of permission marketing, you can:
Use your database of customer and prospect emails to build an audience for a promotional campaign.
Recognize that those consumers have indicated a willingness to talk to you. So find something to say to them. You could offer them a “three nights for the price of two” promotion or run a contest for a free two-night midweek stay. It’s offers like these that keep customers and prospects engaged.
Encourage a learning relationship with your customers. Send emails or print brochures about upcoming local events such as the annual Fuzzy Worm Festival, or offer two-for-one coupons for an upcoming art show. Remind them of Vermont’s allure in the spring and fall.
Deepen your communication as site visitors become customers and first-timers become return visitors. Send birthday or anniversary cards. Reward them with a glossy national B&B directory. Show them that you value their patronage.
Attracting Visitors to Your Site
The number of websites is well over the million mark with the potential of crossing into the billions. According to the 2014 Domain Name Industry Brief, published by VeriSign, the internet boasted more than 271 million domain names, more than 35 billion pages, and well over 183 million websites. With millions of websites out there, getting visitors to your individual site is often the biggest challenge. Your strategies for doing so may include search engines, paid search services, and affiliates. Let’s consider them one at a time.
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Using search engines is a matter of personal preference. Try some engines listed in this chapter to discover which return the most “hits,” or matches, with your keywords.
Search Engines
Search engines have become a ubiquitous part of American culture. Every day millions of Americans go online to search the internet or “Google” something or someone. According to a 2014 report from the Pew Internet & American Life project—which produces reports that explore the impact of the internet—87 percent of American adults use the internet, and 84 percent look online for information about a service or product they’re thinking of buying.
Perhaps the most important—and inexpensive—strategy in getting people to your website is to rank high for your preferred keywords on the main search engines in “organic” or “natural” searches (as opposed to paid ads, also known as “sponsored links,” which are often found on the right side of search pages or clearly marked as a “sponsored link”). In general, achieving a high rank is based on three criteria: competition, relevancy, and content.
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Adding widgets to your website and staying active on social sites, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, helps increase organic SEO rankings. What’s a widget? It’s a live stream of updates from your social sites that feed directly into your website. For more information on embedding widgets, type in “widgets” in the search box on each social site.
Think of “competition” like popularity. The more popular (talked about, linked to, and clicked on) your offer or website is, the more competitive you are. “Relevancy” is based on how well your offer or site matches the keywords. Your site should include the keyword, or be as close as possible to the keyword that’s being searched. Finally, your “content” should address the question being asked. Your goal is to answer the query as directly as possible. You want the end user to say “Yes, this is the answer I’m looking for.” The sooner you master these three criteria, the higher rank you’ll be able to achieve in search results. Mastering the art of search is not impossible; it just takes practice and time. Take the time to think about what your potential customers are really asking and how your offer or website answers their questions. Be persistent and consistent, work through the learning curve, and you’ll find yourself with a high rank in the search engines.
Search engine marketing (SEM) is also a rapidly growing and profitable segment of the internet. According to a study from Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization, conducted in partnership with Radar Research, SEM expenditures reached $26 billion in 2013, which is close to 10 percent of total U.S. advertising spending for 2013. Increasingly, ad budgets are being shifted away from offline marketing, such as print, direct-mail, and TV advertising, and directed toward online marketing.
There are many search engines out there, and they all differ in structure, search strategy, and efficiency. According to a recent report from online internet research firm Hitwise, most searches take place on the following sites:
Google-owned sites, such as Google.com or Google Image Search
Yahoo!’s Yahoo.com
MSN-operated sites, such as Bing.com, which is Bing and Yahoo!’s merged search engine
IAC-owned sites, such as Ask.com
For the best exposure, be sure your website is listed on most of these sites. To use search engines effectively to draw visitors to your site, the keywords you choose in your domain name, title tag, and the text of your main page can spell the difference in your search engine rankings. Keyword-rich domain names, title tags, and main pages boost traffic. And when using keywords, remember it’s important to have them appear naturally. You can check Google AdWords and Google Insights to get a good idea of what sort of words and phrases people search for in your category. You might even consider looking on Twitter at its trending topics for the prior few months for hints as to what people are talking about around the products or services you offer.
The easiest way to get ranked on search engines is to submit your domain name to various search engines. Maximizing the number of times your URL comes up in a search result is an ongoing process. It takes patience to monitor the search engines by visiting them frequently and studying your log files to see which search engines send you the most traffic. If you need to make changes in your website, particularly your opening page, to move up in the search engine rankings, do so. Spend your time submitting to the most-popular and frequented search engines.
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Think of all the keywords and phrases for your product or service, and put them in your URL. For example, try discountchairstore, discount-sofas-and-chairs, or buydiscountfurniture. The search engines are likely to pick up multiple keywords, thereby boosting your rankings.
Also check out SelfPromotion.com, a free resource for do-it-yourself web promotion. Here you can find information and tips about search engine submission, along with automatic submission tools that help you submit your URL to all the major search engines. Once listed, you can use free online tools, including:
SiteRankChecker.com: gives you an overview of where you rank on top search engines (and don’t be alarmed by the code that appears at the top of the page—your results are underneath)
SiteReportCard.com: compares your site with your competition in SEO-friendliness
LinkPopularity.com: lists all sites that have linked back to your domain name
If you get good results with Yahoo! Search using one set of keywords and do well with Google using another set of keywords, that’s fine. But keep in mind that Google’s share of search is well over 60 percent, so it’s important to spend time refining your keywords for Google success—that’s the engine where you get the most bang for your buck if you succeed in search.
Also keep in mind that the narrower the category, the better your chance of scoring unique visitors; for example, “percussion instruments” and “ice skating dresses” are more specific than “drums” and “sports attire” and have a better chance of scoring clicks.
Paid Search Services
Many companies are also using paid search services as a supplement to SEM. These services basically allow you to pay to have your website be part of the results of a user’s query on a search engine site. There are three types of paid search services: paid submission, pay-for-inclusion, and pay-for-placement.
In paid submission, you can submit your website for review by a search service for a preset fee with the expectation that the site will be accepted and included in that company’s search engine—provided it meets the stated guidelines for submission. Yahoo! is the major search engine that accepts this type of submission. While paid submissions guarantee a timely review of the submitted site and notice of acceptance or rejection, you’re not guaranteed inclusion or a particular placement order in the listings. Yahoo! charges $299 annually (non-refundable) for this service, which it calls Yahoo! Directory Submit.
Paid inclusion programs allow you to submit your website for guaranteed inclusion in a search engine’s database of listings for a set period of time. While paid inclusion guarantees indexing of submitted pages or sites in a search database, you’re not guaranteed that the pages will rank well for particular queries.
“Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.”
—MARK TWAIN
In pay-for-placement, you can guarantee a ranking in a search listing for the terms of your choice. Also known as paid placement, paid listings, or sponsored listings, this program guarantees placement in search results. The leaders in pay-for-placement are Google, Yahoo!, and Bing. These programs allow you to bid on the terms you wish to appear for; you then agree to pay a certain amount each time someone clicks on your listing. Costs for pay-for-placement start at around a nickel a click and go up considerably based on how high you want your site to appear—and competition for keywords has the biggest bearing on that. For example, a bid on “web hosting” will result in payment of a few bucks a click if you want to get on the first page of results. But if you’re promoting, say, lighthouse tours, you may be able to get on top paying just a dime a click.
In the Google AdWords program, Google sells paid listings that appear above and to the side of its regular results, as well as on its partner sites. Since it may take time for a new site to appear within Google, these advertising opportunities offer a fast way to get listed with the service.
In the Google AdWords program, the cost of your campaigns really depends on how much you’re willing to pay and how well you know your audience. It all boils down to knowing your own goals and letting Google know what they are. Google will grant the highest position to the advertiser with the highest bid for keywords and the highest clickthrough rate. Minimum costs per click start at just a penny.
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What’s the best day to send email marketing messages? According to Infusionsoft, a leading email marketing provider, in general the prime days are Tuesdays and Thursdays between 10 A.M. and 2 P.M.
The Bing Search, known as Bing Ads, doesn’t charge you to create an account; you only pay when someone clicks on your ad. The highest position is given to the advertiser with the highest bid for keywords and the highest clickthrough rate.
Yahoo! allows you to bid on the keywords for which you wish to appear and then pay a certain amount each time someone clicks on your listings. For example, if you wanted to appear in the top listings for “clocks,” you might agree to pay a maximum of 25 cents per click. If no one agrees to pay more than this, then you would be in the No. 1 spot. If someone later decides to pay 26 cents, then you fall into the No. 2 position. You could then bid 27 cents and move back on top if you wanted to. In other words, the highest bid gets the highest position on Yahoo!’s results.
Yahoo! displays its listings on its own search results, in addition to other partner sites.
Yahoo!’s minimum bid requirement is 10 cents. By carefully selecting targeted terms, you can stretch that money for one or two months and get quality traffic.
Another paid search program to check out is from Miva Merchant Inc. (mivamerchant.com), which is a major search player and also offers software and other solutions for small businesses just getting started on the web.
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If you’re willing to experiment with mobile advertising, you can use either paid search engines or display mobile advertising companies, such as AdMob, Smaato, Ad Infuse, InMobi, or Mojiva. Google AdWords has allowed marketers to select “mobile” as one of its ad distribution channels for some time. If you’re not sure if your mobile setting is on or off, log into your AdWords account and check your campaign settings.
Local Search
Want local customers to find you? Then try local search engine advertising, which lets you target ads to a specific state, city, or even neighborhood. A growing number of small businesses are using local search. Yelp found in 2012 that 85 percent of consumers use search engines first to find information online. Ipsos MediaCT and Google released a study which stated 88 percent of smartphone users and 84 percent of tablet owners turn to the web to search for local businesses, and another study showed such searchers are willing to drive up to 17 miles to get to a business they found in their search.
Like other search engine advertising, the local variety lets you track your account closely to find out which keywords are most successful at drawing customers and how much you’re spending each day.
As you can imagine, the major search engine companies offer local search options, too. You’ll find them offered on the main search marketing pages for each site.
Affiliates
Firms that sell products and services on their websites for commissions offer another way to draw site visitors. The web is democratic; a SOHO (small office home office) can be an affiliate of a Fortune 500 firm, as can other corporate giants, midsized businesses, and even charities.
Affiliates place merchant promotions on their websites to sell goods or services. They control the type of promotion, location on the site, and the length of time it runs. In return, the affiliate earns commission on clickthroughs, leads, or purchases made through the site. For example, your town’s Big Bank is the affiliate looking for local merchants to advertise on its site. It has a restaurant, an office supply store, a realtor, a law firm, and an accounting firm with ads or promotions on its site. Depending on what they negotiated with Big Bank, they’ll receive commissions on sales that initiated from their website. For every clickthrough that results in a sale, you’ll earn a commission, anywhere from 1 to 10 percent for multichannel retailers, or 30 to 50 percent in the software sector.
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Want to know more about search engines? Searchenginewatch.com can answer your questions. It compares the major search engines and tells you how to get listed. It also provides tips for searchers so you can learn to think like your customers and make it easier for them to find you. Plus, you can get a free newsletter.
You may want to consider joining an affiliate program network, which provides all the tools and services affiliates and merchants need to create, manage, and optimize successful affiliate marketing programs. Sites that offer quality programs include Rakuten Affiliate Network (marketing.rakuten.com)—which offers deals with Best Buy, 1-800-Flowers.com Inc., Lego, and Foot Locker, among others—and CJ Affiliate by Conversant (cj.com). Another route is using your favorite search engines to find companies that have potential as affiliates. For example, if you own a gym and sell workout products, you might want to affiliate partner with nutritionists, personal trainers, sports drinks, and vitamin and health-food partners. If you decide to run your own affiliate programs, Infusionsoft (infusionsoft.com) offers a complete email marketing system and everything you’ll need to run a successful affiliate program.
Reach Out and Email Someone
The Direct Marketing Association offers some practical advice on how to be more successful at reaching current and potential customers through email:
Encourage customers and prospects to add your email address to their personal “approved list/address book.” Being an “approved” sender yields higher response rates and generates fewer complaints and blocking issues.
Carefully consider the content and presentation of your marketing messages because recipients are increasingly labeling any email communication that’s not relevant or looks suspicious as spam.
Click the “spam check” button in your email program to see if your email is at risk for being marked as spam. A growing number of ISPs use spam-filtering software. This technology uses algorithms to determine whether incoming messages qualify as junk email and filters them out before they get to a client’s inbox. In addition, you should register for all mailbox provider feedback loops. In general, aim to keep complaint rates (total complaints divided by total delivered email) below 0.1 percent to avoid temporary or long-term blocks.
Adopt good list-hygiene and list-monitoring practices that help facilitate message delivery. Monitoring campaign delivery and open and clickthrough rates is essential because low open rates or high bounce-back rates may indicate a delivery problem.
Keeping Visitors at Your Site
A good website design and strategy for attracting visitors takes you three-quarters of the way to success. The final step is getting people to try your offerings and to come back for more. The best way to do that is to treat each customer as unique. Fortunately, the web lends itself to the kind of personalization that’s relatively easy and inexpensive for even the smallest business.
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Jim Daniels of JDD Publishing advises teaming up with other sites in your niche by forming joint ventures. Search for sites that serve a similar customer base, and get their mailing addresses. Then mail them a letter offering to send them your best product or service at no charge so they can try it out. If they like it, you’ll pay them a commission if they’ll recommend it to their site visitors and newsletter subscribers. If you found them easily on the web, chances are, they have lots of website traffic.
With a little effort, you can address each site visitor’s needs effectively. Combined with offline strategic work—such as hitting customers every other week with a free newsletter or offering them a two-for-one special if they haven’t visited your site in two months, readily available ecommerce tools enable you to personalize as nothing else can.
The basis for customization is the cookie—a morsel of information that lets sites know where customers go. A cookie is a piece of data that’s sent to the browser along with an HTML page when someone visits a site. The browser saves the cookie to the visitor’s hard drive. When that customer revisits the site, the cookie goes back to the web server along with his new request, enabling your site to recognize the return visitor.
Here are some ideas for marketing programs you can create from an analysis of stored cookies and email:
Send a postcard to customers who haven’t bought anything online in three months, offering a $10 or $20 reward for shopping online.
Send an email with a new promotion a few weeks or months after a customer makes a purchase.
Offer a chance to win something and make it easy for visitors who drop in at least once a week to enter the contest.
If personalization seems too complicated, you can still design your website to speak to different groups of people. Let’s say you’re a realtor wanting your site to meet several needs. Create a screen with button bars like these:
If you’re a buyer, click here.
If you’re thinking of listing your house for sale, click here.
If you’re a Realtor from outside the area, click here.
If you want to join our team, click here.
This form of customization addresses the needs of different groups. You have made an effort to provide information tailored to each market segment. It doesn’t cost a million dollars, yet increases your credibility and efficiency.
Getting visitors to stick around long enough to explore your site is just as important as tempting them to visit in the first place. Here are some tips on capturing your visitors’ attention.
Make connections. Hyperlink your email address; this means most visitors can simply click to open a blank message and send you a note.
Have fun. People who surf the internet are looking for fun. You don’t have to be wild and wacky (unless you want to). Just make sure you offer original content presented in an entertaining way.
Add value. Offering something useful that customers can do adds tremendous value to your site. For example, customers can track their own packages at the FedEx site or concoct a recipe for a new drink at the Stolichnaya vodka site. While it doesn’t have to be quite so elaborate, offering users the ability to download forms, play games, or create something useful or fun will keep them coming back.
Keep it simple. Don’t build a site that’s more than three or four levels deep. Internet users love to surf, but they get bored when they have to sift through loads of information to find what they’re looking for.
Provide a map. Use icons and button bars to create clear navigational paths. A well-designed site should have a button at the bottom of each subpage that transports the visitor back to the site’s homepage.
Stage a contest. Nothing is more compelling than giving something away. Have the contestants fill out a registration form so you can find out who’s coming to your site.
Make payment a snap. If you’re setting up an online storefront, give customers an easy way to pay you. Consider including an online order form, toll-free ordering number, or fax line.
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If you want to get noticed online, offer to provide content to others. Electronic newsletters and magazines always need new information. One of the best ways to create an online presence is to email sites and volunteer content on a regular basis.
The Ad-Free Zone
When you design your website’s marketing plan, remember that the internet is a community with its own set of rules that you as an entrepreneur must understand to be successful. The primary rule is: Don’t send spam.
Not only is it annoying to recipients, it is also illegal. In 2004, Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act (or Can-Spam Act of 2003) was signed into law. The law requires commercial email messages to be labeled and to include opt-out instructions as well as the sender’s physical address. It also prohibits the use of deceptive subject lines and false headers. A good way to get folks to opt in to your email list—which of course they’ll have the option of opting out of—is to offer a free monthly email newsletter.
Content is wide open, but effective newsletters usually mix news about trends in your field with tips and updates on sales or special pricing. Whatever you do, keep it short. Six hundred words is probably the maximum length. Another key: Include hyperlinks so that interested readers can, with a single mouse click, go directly to your site and find out more about a topic of interest.
Another tip to keep in mind: Don’t post commercial messages to newsgroups that have rules against these types of messages. For example, on the social networking site LinkedIn, don’t post massive messages that sound like sales pitches to any of the groups. However, if you’re offering valuable content and resources or if you’re looking to start a discussion on a topic, then by all means post away.