March 29, 2012
Every inte
rnet marketing out there is probably spending more time than they should be to create great tweets, website copy, and blog posts. Now, I’m not here to tell you that you should do the opposite. In fact, the more quality content you’re regularly adding to your site, the better. You know my feelings on this subject – quality content drives a successful internet business.
However, by learning how to stretch out your blog content a bit, you could end up with the same effect, all while not actually creating any more content. What you choose to do with the time you’ll save is up to you…
Reuse Audience Favorites
When you’re digging through the analytics for your blog, you’re sure to notice that some of your articles (based on repostings, indbound links, and page views) are markedly more popular than others. Take a few of these crowd favorites and republish them via different accounts.
So, while I wouldn’t advocate posting the some article multiple times on one blog, you can tweet out a link to a crowd favorite article every now and again, especially if its relevant to something that you’re talking about on your website or something that’s been popular later on a social media platform.
Take Advantage of Related Content
This is especially pertinent for customers who may find one of your blog postings via search engine. As you want to keep these readers on your site for as long as possible (every additional articles that they read dramatically increases the chance that they’ll become a long-term readers and ultimately a paying customer), you should provide links for them to easily navigate to other articles that you’ve written on related subjects.
There are two great ways to go about this. First, you can include a widget which posts links to related articles at the bottom of the articles. However, its even better to include the links within the body of your articles. So if you’re writing an article about SEO, include a sentence about keyword selection, and link it to the article you wrote last month detailing the basics of keyword selection.
Best of all, use both of these methods. The more interwoven your site it, the longer people will spend on it, and the more readers (and customers) you’ll ultimately acquire.
Thanks!
Sean
Internet Marketing Academy
March 27, 2012
Every small business owner should know the value of analytics. Whether you’re using Google Analytics, or one of the more advanced programs that we’ll look at later today, it’s essential to track what your readers are doing on your site, what pages they’re looking at, and how long they’re spending.
The first step to properly analysing customer behavior is thinking analytically. Every page, every button, ever link, represents a step into or out of s ales funnel. If you’re not looking at your site this way already, you need to start doing so.
A supermarket provides a great analogy. Every aspect of the store has been generated in order to drive the customer to buy more items. Item placement is tested, and if it makes a particular item start selling better, the new position will be retained. Supermarkets even test whether the temperature of the air in the store makes you buy more items. They’ve found that colder air drives higher sales, and have lowered thermostats accordingly. That is analytical thinking.
Taking analytical action then requires looking at where you customers are dropping out of your sales funnel. For testing purposes, you should design your site so that each page represents one step of the sales funnel. You don’t want to present people with five or six options on each page, because if they leave the page after seeing those options, you won’t know which choice drove them out of the funnel.
Instead, keep it simple and testable. Have your products on one page, and your prices on the next. That way you determine separately whether the item has sufficient draw and if the price is appropriate.
Which brings me back to the top – Analytics programs. Google Analytics will provide you the basics – how many visitors are coming to your site, which subdomains they’re visiting, how long they’re spending on the site, etc, etc, etc. However, what you really want are more detailed metrics. I counsel marketers to take a look at programs like Kiss Metrics and Mixpanel in order to get the kind of metrics and analytics that really drive companies forward.
But whichever program you go with, remember to test and analyse everything that you do.
Thanks!
Sean
Internet Marketing Academy
March 21, 2012
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is a potent weapon in the advertising arsenal of any business owner or internet marketing, but it is crucial to your bottom line that you really understand how to use it effectively.
While you can simply sign up for a Google AdWords account and start throwing money at it, you’ll make your advertising campaign much more cost effective, much more effective, and much more sustainable if you integrate your PPC campaign with the advertising efforts that you already have underway. Read on to learn how you can do just that.
Before you can get started with PPC optimisation, let me discuss briefly what PPC exactly is, and what it is not. PPC advertising is advertising whereby you pay a fee, typically somewhere in the range of a pound but often considerably more, dependent on the popularity of the keyword in question, each time someone visits your site by clicking on your advertisement. Google AdWords is the leading provider of PPC, but all major search engines offer a similar service.
So long as you understand the basics of how it works, PPC can be an effective way to quickly drive a large amount of traffic to your site. However, it is not the most sustainable business model, as you have to pay a set amount for each customer sent to your site. Obviously, it’s much more cost-effective to draw these customer through unpaid search results (SEO) and social media marketing.
With this in mind, one of the most effective marketing tactics today is to use PPC advertising to help build your brand. So when you’re just starting out , or you’ve just released a new product, you ramp up your PPC advertising considerably. This drives traffic to your site, and creates buzz on the social networks. This, in turn will drive more people to your site.
Over time, the high quality content that you’ll continue to add to your site, combined with the social media attention and the additional traffic that continued PPC advertising will cause your user base to reach a critical mass, a tipping point, if you will, and drive it into self-sustainability. Once you reach this point, you can start the phase out the paid advertising in order to usher in a more sustainable advertising model.
Nothing breeds success like success, as they say. Use PPC advertising to get success in the first place, and then once your site gets noticed, let it roll on its own from there.
Thanks!
Sean
Internet Marketing Academy
Internet Marketing Training – Internet Marketing Course – Internet Marketing Blog
March 20, 2012
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is one of the biggest things that business owners and web developers have to think about. Not only is quality SEO essential for website recognition and promotion, but the search engines themselves seemingly do all they can to make SEO as difficult as possible for us.
Naturally, they are not actually trying to make SEO difficult. They are just trying to make their search engines as effective as possible. Unfortunately for us, that means constantly updating the search algorithms.
Google has just recently announced that it has a major update in the works, which means that the other major players in the industry will be likely to follow. Today we’re going to take a look at what changes Google has indicated are likely to come, as well as what you can do to change your SEO strategy in anticipation of the changes.
For the last few years, Google has been moving in the direction of trying to ensure that its algorithms match the wants and needs of the people who are actually reading the sites. While this is obviously not completely possible, they are doing their best to try and make the algorithms much more flexible.
In SEO terms, this means that sites which have seen excessive levels of optimization are probably going to be penalized. In essence, if you don’t have much quality content, but you’re writing it specifically so that search engines will like it, then you’re probably going to see a drop in your search engine rankings.
On the other hand, if you’re consistently creating valuable content with your readers in mind, then you probably won’t see any problems with the new update. In fact, you may see you rankings improve as other, more heavily-optimized users drop down in the rankings.
What Google is doing here is hammering home a point that I talk and writing about constantly. Even in the modern internet marketing business, its all about the customer. When you are making your site, the first thing in your mind should be “how can I serve the customer?” If you are serving your customers and reacting to their needs and desires, then you’re in the best place that you can be.
March 16, 2012
A well planned and well executed Twitter presence can go a long way towards fulfilling your social media marketing obligations. However, what exactly you should do, what you should tweet, and how you should manage the direction and strategy of your campaign are some of the biggest points that I see potential marketing mavens struggling with day in and day out.
Today we’re going to talk a bit about that last bit – how to structure your campaign.
To begin with, make sure that your Twitter campaign has a target and a direction, and that all of your tweets should move with the central strategy. This sounds obvious, but it can be difficult to implement.
For instance, if you’re going to make a campaign to publicize the launch of a new version of your product at the end of April, then every post you make should be moving you towards that goal. This doesn’t mean that your Twitter has to be totally co-opted by the marketing campaign, but whatever hashtag you’re using for your marketing campaign should not be used for everything else. You do not want to dilute the focus of your campaign.
This should basically go without saying, but make sure that whatever your campaign is, it has a reason for people to participate, and a reason for people to fall in love with it. People have more inertia than you would expect. They are not interested in getting motivated to participate in your Twitter campaign unless you give them a good reason to do so.
A lot of the most successful Twitter campaigns today are including a certain number of prizes, and offering everyone who participates a chance to win a prize. Offer a year’s free subscription to your service to a certain number of people who follow your campaign, or who visit your website from your Twitter and fill out a quick form. When people stand to gain something, they’re much more likely to act.
Thanks!
Sean
Internet Marketing Academy
Internet Marketing Training – Internet Marketing Course – Internet Marketing Blog
March 13, 2012
The key to the success of any business is customer traffic. On the internet, that means driving readers and users to your website, and then hopefully interesting them enough so that they stay and possibly even make a purchase.
However, the whole process begins with traffic, and where you are driving your traffic from. After all, if you aren’t sending quality visitors to your site, then you’re just wasting your time. Read on for three of my favourite places from which to draw immediate, high-quality traffic.
Forums and Message Boards
Forums are far from being the “cool new thing,” in a large part because they’ve basically been around since the beginning of the internet. Hence, they’re often forgotten or overlooked when considering ways to drive traffic to your site.
However, a lot of people still use forums and message boards every day. Perhaps even more significantly, when a user is on a message board, they are typically looking for an answer to some question or problem that they have. Which means that if you’re posting answers in the right places, you are going to be attracting users who are not just passively browsing your site out of boredom, but actively searching for a solution, which very well may be your product.
Popular Blogs
Engagement with blogs is an absolutely crucial way to drive inbound links to your site. Follow the blogs of thought leaders within your industry, and read them regularly. When you see a relevant article, make a comment, and include a link to your site if your think it warranted.
For instance, if you’re reading an article about how to drive more traffic to your site, and you just recently wrote an article about high quality places from which you can draw traffic, you might want to think about making an intelligent and thoughtful comment, and leaving a link to your article. There’s a fine line to walk here between adding value and spamming. How the link is construed depends upon your relationship with the original poster, your place in the industry, the relevance of your comment, and the aptness of the link. You’ll have to be the judge.
Thanks!
Sean
(Image by A454)
Internet Marketing Academy
March 8, 2012
Successful internet marketing is all about adding value. Adding value for your readers, your followers, your customers, whoever. It’s not enough to simply tell people that you product is out there. So much can be had for free on the internet these days that you need to first offer something to your customers to draw them in (value!) and then make them a sales offer.
Of course, landing pages are no different.
But, too often when the conversation turns to landing pages marketers’ thoughts turn immediately to conversion rates and analytics. While the main purpose of the landing page is, of course, to move people farther into the sales funnel, it doesn’t mean that it can’t also add value.
And how do you add value to the landing page? The same way that you add value to any other page. With great content. Read on for some of the best ways to improve your landing page.
Speak in Terms of Value
Think about the typical person reading your landing page. They are already interested in your product. You know that. They’ve indicated their interest by clicking on your advertisement, or searching for your site. So you don’t need to sell them on generalities of your product. They’re already in the market. You need to sell them on why your product is better than everybody else’s.
Do this by using value-driven language which clearly and explicitly emphasizes the strengths of your product. Never focus on the weaknesses of your competitors’ products.
Use language such as “Increase site ranking,” “Double your monthly page views,” and “market leadership guaranteed” in order to drive home the point that your product is the best on the market, and that users of your product stand to benefit dramatically by using it.
Use Customer Testimonials
Customer testimonials can look outdated when they’re placed in print or static advertisements, but they’re the perfect fit for your landing page. As mentioned above, people who come to your landing page are already interested in buying. They’re already in the market. They’re just trying to determine who is offering the highest quality product at the lowest price.
Which is why it’s a great place to offer testimonials. Reach out to some of your best customers, and ask them to write a quick review of your product, or to give you a phrase that you can use as a testimonial. This will help you convince potential customers what you and your customers already know – that you’re offering the best product on the market.
Thanks!
(Image by Salvatore Vuono)
Sean
Internet Marketing Academy
March 6, 2012
There are few things that are as useful to a smart business owner as detailed information about the actions and behaviors of his competitors and his competitors’ customers. Fortunately, thanks to the wonders of the internet, you no longer need to hire a private investigator in order to get your hands on this type of information. You can get tons of valuable information on your competitors’ sites, customer base, and traffic models for free from Alexa.com.
What is Alexa?
Alexa is primarily a website ranking service. It ranks every site based on how popular that site is. So Google, for instance, is number one. And Facebook is number two. And this continues on down the list. While this information is valuable in and of itself, the site goes ahead and gives you even more detailed metrics. It breaks down the visitors into regions, tells you where most of the visitors are coming from, which percentage visited via search engines, and what the most popular search queries were. Additionally, it will estimate a bit of information about your audience, based on local and national internet trends.
How to Use It
This is a lot of information. However, it only really becomes valuable if you know how to use it to the advantage of your own business.
First off, you can build a list of your competitors, and then break it down based on each competitor’s market position. So say you have 4 major competitors in your industry niche. You can look at their monthly page views and determine how much of a threat each one poses to your business. Perhaps the competitor you thought was the biggest threat actually has a very limited internet presence.
Beyond this, you can get into more detailed metrics, such as which search queries led to the site, and how different sites are trending in popularity over time. These are both invaluable pieces of information, as they allow you to glean a lot of information about the company behind the numbers. Take search queries, for example. You can look at which search queries are leading to your competitors’ sites. So if you see one search term popping up again and again, you know that it is doing its job well, and is probably leading to a lot of conversions. It might be worth making a bid on AdWords, even if it’s an expensive one.
And how about popularity trends? Suppose that you notice one of your major competitor’s site visits going through the roof. What is causing this? What are they doing that you’re not. Take a look at their recent emails and newsletters (don’t tell me you haven’t signed up for all your competitors’ newsletter already), and see what they’ve been pushing.
Site visits plummeting? Do the same thing. Now you know which marketing moves are working in your market without spending a dime. And all thanks to the good people at Alexa.
This is valuable information that you’ve got in your hands – use it wisely.
Thanks!
Sean
Internet Marketing Academy
March 1, 2012
Creating A Winning Article Marketing Campaign
With search engines continually updating their search algorithms in an ongoing attempt to make results appear as organic as possible, a lot of small business owners are wondering if article marketing is still worth it as a way to drive business to their sites, or if their time and money could be better spent elsewhere, such as with additional focus on social media and emerging technologies.
While I do understand the frustration felt towards Google and its ilk by small business owners everywhere, even the most drastic search engine changes do not take away the intrinsic value of a well-executed article marketing campaign. Hence my answer is that although the market has seen some major changes and requires some major deviation from traditional business practices, article marketing currently is, and will remain to be for the foreseeable future, one of the best ways to promote your business online. The key is knowing how to do it correctly.
If you want your articles to benefit the rank of your website no matter what algorithm the search engine throw at you, you need to balance keywords with readability. Make your articles readable before anything else. Don’t try to write them for computers, because the computers are getting too smart for that. Write them for people, and people (along with computers) will appreciate them.
Additionally, focus more in networking than on adding mass numbers of articles. When you write a good articles, put it out onto the social network, and get it linked to. Based on the most recent criteria released by major search engines, one quality article that is networked into the spider’s web of social media is worth much more than 10 poorly written articles sitting in isolation on the back pages of your company site.
Ultimately, like so much in the marketing world, it ultimately comes down to quality. If you’re relying on poor quality articles that don’t provide anything of real value to the people who read them, then eventually a search engine algorithm is going to catch up with you and drop your site’s rank.
However, on the other side, if you are continually publishing high quality content that offers informative, engaging content to your readers, then you don’t have anything to worry about with search engine updates, and your website is extremely well positioned to benefit from a quality article writing campaign. In fact, you should be excited about the rash of search engine algorithm updates going around these days, because when lower quality sites get punished, yours will be left standing to rake in all the traffic.
Thanks!
Sean
Internet Marketing Academy
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rnet marketing out there is probably spending more time than they should be to create great tweets, website copy, and blog posts. Now, I’m not here to tell you that you should do the opposite. In fact, the more quality content you’re regularly adding to your site, the better. You know my feelings on this subject – quality content drives a successful internet business.
