Internet Marketing Strategy at the SES Conference

Internet Marketing Strategy at the SES Conference

Shari Thurow from Grantastic Designs was one of the speakers at the session on Chasing the Algorithm. Thurow describes herself as someone with programming skills who chooses to write content. She believes “Algoholic SEOs” see only the goal of page one positioning and that they don’t look at what occurs once a searcher clicks on that page one link.On the other side of the coin are the “Usability Experts” who are solely conversion focused. The trick to a sound Internet marketing strategy is to look at the big picture, balance business and user goals, says Thurow.

Good advice. Even the most perfect web site is no use at all if it is never found and seen by the right audience. Since a big chunk of traffic comes via a search engine, optimization is essential. Page one positioning is a valid business goal - 80% of all traffic from a search query goes to the companies listed in the top half of the first page of results. Very few searchers go beyond the third page.

However, once you get a visitor to your web site you have less than 10 seconds to keep their interest and get them to click into the site. On average, business websites lose 60% of their traffic off the home page and 80% within three clicks. Average conversion rates (turning visitor into customers) are a miserable 2%. So conversion goals are valid too.

Thurow said she likes to think of the balance between the two as ‘natural’ search optimization, where the goals are to increase positioning, quality traffic, page views and conversions. Now what business person wouldn’t want that? Search engine visibility, and good user experience once they come to the site, are linked at the hip. A good Internet marketing strategy has to be planned to achieve both goals. Search engine optimization has to start with the initial design and carry all the way through to the content.

Internet marketing strategy starts with keyword research. Find out what words people use when they look for a company like yours. Look into your log files and see what keywords or phrases are bringing visitors to the site now. Ask your recent customers what keywords they typed in to find your site.

Generate interesting content on your website based on these keywords. The more optimized content you have on your website, the better search engine visibility you will have.
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Many businesses with which I have worked focus in bringing prospects into their sites, and the most effort is in SEO. I believe that as this article states, there has to be a balance between being found and converting prospects into clients. Having said this though I also think that the goal of bringing prospects into a site is a worthy one. Once you have the attention of an audience it is easier to speak than to speak without one.

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Challenge your customers.

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Techniques to better websites

I have seen how some of my clients are more interested in the look
of the website, instead of little things behind scenes. Now, as I
always say: Please forgive my english, I am not a native speaker
and I am sure that you might find some small mistakes in the english
used in this text, but please pay attention to the lesson behind and as
a webmaster or a website owner you might find new material for your
clients or for your own internet business.

Technique 1. Pay attention to your clients, not to your company. If
you put your attention on your own company, then you would have a lot
of trouble providing the web content that your clients are really
looking for. Ask your clients directly and indirectly what are
the things that they are more interested in when they come to you.
Directly means, ask them by phone or by interviewing with them.
Indirectly is by accesing your log files in the server you can take a
look at the customer behaviour of your clients. You can check
where the clients are clicking and how many time they use in each page,
in this way you can check what are the most visited pages and get a
better idea of the content they are interested in.

Technique
2. Offer content for free and once you have enough knowledge of the
most visited material and what people are interested, then charge for
extended knowledge in those matters. The most common short term
problem in the web is that websites want to have clients without
offering nothing in exchange. Exchange in the web, as in the world, is
a very powerful one. Give to others and naturally they are going
to be willing to give back to you, it is the law of reciprocity.

Technique
3. Offer interaction. If your clients are able to not only access information but also become part by providing input then you would experience higher ROI.

I hope that this 3
techniques can help some of you starting in the business of
webmastering. Obviously for those with a little more of experience they
might look oversimple.

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Online marketing shaped by the need to become

One thing every online marketing specialist has to understand is that no matter what he does he always is dealing with individual persons. Once you get involved with analytics the first problem is to start thinking that since you can track behavior as a group of users, all of them are the same. It is very important to understand that in the marketing business you assume that a market has similar needs and desires, and that they want to fill them with great intensity. The more they wait to fill their desires the more stress they receive, until they release the tension by fulfilling the desires.

All of us have desires. Either is a real need: a car, a house, a cell phone, a lottery ticket, friends, love, hosting, bananas and others, or it can be an abstract desire: I want to know the secret because it is secret. For example: a tv show says: “in a few seconds we are going to show you the biggest secret of all times!” and instantly they create in the viewers the abstract desire of completion. You want to know what it is. What for? It doesn’t matter. You just want to know.

The abstract desires can be created at any given moment by websites in different ways. You can create this desires by creating un-conclusive statements to marketing phrases: for example: ” This product comes loaded with all your favorite features!… What features are they talking about? Your favorite… How do they know my favorite features? By un-conclusive statements you transform the perception of the customer, because no matter what your copy says the brain has to process it and agree or disagree.

For example: Right now you can agree or disagree with this article, but by reading it you are changing your perspective because you ask yourself if you agree or not.

You can direct the attention of your online users by the way you transform their emotions. For example if I say:

* Think for a second about the smell of the ocean, the warm sand and the breeze, feel the sun burning your skin little by little, think about the feeling later when your skin is all red and it hurts to touch anything, you don’t want to do that.

If you read the last paragraph you don’t only read it and keep goind but you actually set yourself in the picture because most of us has experienced that and it is painful.

You can use online copy to create sensations that will move the understanding of your audience in many ways. Some will make them buy, some will not.

If you go in sweater store in the middle of the summer and it is 115 F. out and the store has this huge carpet with long hair and you happen to realize that the A/C is broken inside you probably won’t buy.

Same situation, the hottest day ever, you look up an you see a beach bar selling bear for half price, the bear is 33F. just when it is starting to ice, you can feel the little pieces of ice going down your trout… yes, it is very probably that you would buy.

Statement number one in Marketing: Life is about value. You, as everyone else, is fighting to be, to become. Things give us pleasure because they allow us to get closer to becoming or being. We buy food, cars, houses, pens, cds, magic cards, plastic bags, ice, cheese, stationary bikes. Get it? Just to become. The value of everything is determined by the ability to give that power> a glass of water from a neighbor won’t be of value most of the time, except if you need that water to survive in the desert.

If you want to market sucessfully products online, find that one characteristic that makes people become, and share it.

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Internet Marketing Tips

Internet Marketing is the combination between art and science with the intention of filling the clients needs, desires and preferences with the greatest intensity. Two new tips for starting Internet Marketers out there:

1. Use Google Base to increase your popularity by submitting quality content. Google Base brings the possibility of saving information on the web including blogs, websites, whitepapers and much more. Go ahead, submit content to increase the options of visibility of your site.
2. Do not overuse your keywords in the alt-tags of your page. Your alt-tags are intended to describe non-text elements in a site. Use them with accurate descriptive content and use different ways of naming your keywords.

This two small tips can improve your sites visibility and usability which will support your conversion efforts overall.

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Using Pain as an eMarketing strategy

First of all I want to say that every one of us responds the same way to stimuli. We all try to avoid pain and welcome pleasure. It seems to be inserted into our nervous systems. As an eMarketing consultant I have seen that many times it is productive to repeat to your clients of potential pain or pleasure related to the lack or provision of your product. For example: When you are finalizing the cart process and the client from a Third world country is ready to buy the laptop from your website, it seems like a good idea to remind him of the possibility of purchasing a surge protector. Surge problems are specially important in this environments because they can get rid of your investment in a second.

Maybe the client doesn’t want to be reminded of the extra charges that he may need to cover in order to feel safe, nonetheless it is better to know the possible problems and be prepared than to not know and blame it in the company.

Pain is a very good advertising mechanism. It seems that the more we are reminded of the potential complications we are more willing to do something today to avoid them.

Use pain in your eMarketing strategies, or otherwise you will experience pain yourself.

MBA. Alex A. Centeno

eMarketing Consultant

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off

Online marketing shaped by the need to become

One thing every online marketing specialist has to understand is that no matter what he does he always is dealing with individual persons. Once you get involved with analytics the first problem is to start thinking that since you can track behavior as a group of users, all of them are the same. It is very important to understand that in the marketing business you assume that a market has similar needs and desires, and that they want to fill them with great intensity. The more they wait to fill their desires the more stress they receive, until they release the tension by fulfilling the desires.

All of us have desires. Either is a real need: a car, a house, a cell phone, a lottery ticket, friends, love, hosting, bananas and others, or it can be an abstract desire: I want to know the secret because it is secret. For example: a tv show says: “in a few seconds we are going to show you the biggest secret of all times!” and instantly they create in the viewers the abstract desire of completion. You want to know what it is. What for? It doesn’t matter. You just want to know.

The abstract desires can be created at any given moment by websites in different ways. You can create this desires by creating un-conclusive statements to marketing phrases: for example: ” This product comes loaded with all your favorite features!… What features are they talking about? Your favorite… How do they know my favorite features? By un-conclusive statements you transform the perception of the customer, because no matter what your copy says the brain has to process it and agree or disagree.

For example: Right now you can agree or disagree with this article, but by reading it you are changing your perspective because you ask yourself if you agree or not.

You can direct the attention of your online users by the way you transform their emotions. For example if I say:

* Think for a second about the smell of the ocean, the warm sand and the breeze, feel the sun burning your skin little by little, think about the feeling later when your skin is all red and it hurts to touch anything, you don’t want to do that.

If you read the last paragraph you don’t only read it and keep goind but you actually set yourself in the picture because most of us has experienced that and it is painful.

You can use online copy to create sensations that will move the understanding of your audience in many ways. Some will make them buy, some will not.

If you go in sweater store in the middle of the summer and it is 115 F. out and the store has this huge carpet with long hair and you happen to realize that the A/C is broken inside you probably won’t buy.

Same situation, the hottest day ever, you look up an you see a beach bar selling bear for half price, the bear is 33F. just when it is starting to ice, you can feel the little pieces of ice going down your trout… yes, it is very probably that you would buy.

Statement number one in Marketing: Life is about value. You, as everyone else, is fighting to be, to become. Things give us pleasure because they allow us to get closer to becoming or being. We buy food, cars, houses, pens, cds, magic cards, plastic bags, ice, cheese, stationary bikes. Get it? Just to become. The value of everything is determined by the ability to give that power> a glass of water from a neighbor won’t be of value most of the time, except if you need that water to survive in the desert.

If you want to market sucessfully products online, find that one characteristic that makes people become, and share it.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »