Browsing all articles tagged with Requires
Sep
12

Achieving Your Business Objectives Requires A Holistic Marketing Strategy

Achieving Your Business Objectives Requires A Holistic Marketing Strategy

Several weeks ago, a Harris Interactive poll found that 80% of the U.S. adult population, 184 million people, are now spending an average of 13 hours per week on the Internet—doubling since 1999.

As the population continues to transition to using the Internet for business, purchases, finding information, and myriad personal uses, it is clear that traditional go-to-market strategies are no longer a guarantee that you will achieve your business objectives.  In fact, with the continued explosion of Social Media the fundamental role of business marketing itself is shifting, from “advertising” to “engaging”.  One measure of this is–recent studies show that 78 percent of customers value recommendations from their peers, while only 14 percent trust traditional advertisements.

So how does a small or medium-sized business succeed in such a rapidly changing, and diverse environment?  By understanding their target market– how they look for goods, services, and information– and leveraging the right combination of marketing tools and techniques to reach them, whether traditional or online. 

There is still a place for traditional marketing, and I advocate a blended approach.  However with the increased comfort that people have using the internet and with the increasing time people spend online, companies should consider re-purposing a significant amount of their marketing budgets to take advantage of internet marketing.

The key to success is taking a comprehensive and holistic approach to your internet marketing strategy.  A holistic approach treats marketing as a single integrated strategy and approach, rather than a list of stand-alone marketing initiatives.  There are a multitude of ways to reach your target market, including “push” based, “pull” based, “permission” based, and  “engaging” your market in an ongoing conversation.  To be most effective in achieving your objectives, you need to develop and execute a blended approach based on how your target market finds what it is looking for and makes decisions.

Your marketing strategy is influenced by a variety of factors, and will be unique to your company.  Even so, there are a number of core internet marketing techniques that you should consider when developing your go-to-market strategy:

Search engine optimization
Paid search marketing
Social Media marketing
Email marketing
Newsletters
Social bookmarking, social networking, social tagging
Blogging
Article marketing
Press Release marketing
Podcasting
Videos
Websites designed to optimize conversions

Yet when combined with traditional marketing initiatives like advertising, direct mail, telemarketing, and tradeshows, there are an almost overwhelming number of opportunities.  So how do you decide what to include in your go-to-market plan?

It goes back to knowing your target market and answering some basic questions.  Who are they?  What are the most prevalent ways they search for what they need?  Which marketing techniques enable you to reach them or be found when they are looking?  Is your website designed to welcome your target market and facilitate conversions?  What combinations of techniques ensure that you can lead the prospect through the cycle, from creating awareness to converting the prospect? How do you continue to engage and nurture your existing customers to retain them and keep them coming back for more? How big is your budget?  Do you have the expertise internally or do you need to go outside for help?

Developing a go-to-market strategy isn’t something you do every day.  But executing it is.  Create your plan annually, measure the results monthly and even weekly, and update your plan quarterly or as needed.  One of the benefits of internet marketing techniques is that they can be started, stopped, and changed almost immediately.  This enables you to react to and even anticipate changing market conditions and get ahead of them. 

It’s not as hard as may sound.  But you do need to commit to the process, and have someone lead you through it who understands digital marketing in this rapidly changing world and how to develop and execute an integrated marketing strategy.   

Aug
11

Internet Marketing requires an SEO Solution

Internet Marketing requires an SEO Solution

With SEO marketing you will see your profits soar. The SEO process is designed to allow the most people to find access to your website, your product or services. When you use the SEO marketing process you put yourself ahead of the others and become a true competitor. Use the SEO marketing process to achieve what you have always desired for your business.

The SEO marketing process will put you at the top of the pile. Just imagine millions of people searching for something that they need and that you offer. With the proper SEO placement your site will pull up instantly for those that are searching on the internet. At all different times of the day or night the SEO marketing process will allow others to find your services and products and the push of a finger.

Improve your business in a day by using the SEO marketing process. See for yourself the difference it will make for you. Increase business, get your name out there and produce results when you use the SEO marketing process. It will be a great benefit for you. The Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is something you need to do. It is a matter of placing your site for those that are searching with specific keywords that will attract them. Using the SEO process will attain great results. Begin using it and watch how your name becomes better known and your products more needed. This could be the added boost for your business that you have been waiting for. Make sure that you consider using the SEO marketing process to see how much of a difference it will make for you.

With SEO many people have found that they are now visible, whereas before no one could find them on the internet. Imagine just a few great keywords and then you too can be found whenever someone searches on the internet. It is all a matter of SEO marketing and you need to utilize the process as soon as possible. In the web world you have to be found and with the SEO marketing process you will become more visible than ever before.

Jul
22

Every Website Requires Search Engine Optimization

Every Website Requires Search Engine Optimization

If you plan on marketing online, you’re sure to hear the term Search Engine Optimization (SEO). So what is Search Engine Optimization? Search Engine Optimization is an online marketing strategy to make your website rank higher on a list of search engine results

Before a site can appear in search results, the search engines must index it. This is accomplished by a search robot visiting the site, analyzing it, and storing relevant information in the search engine database. Once indexed, the site can be displayed in search results. Search engines cannot display a site they have no information on. Some simple steps to get your site known by the search engines are:

1. Choose keywords and keyword phrases that accurately describe your site and that your target market will use to find your services.

2. Use those keywords and phrases throughout the content of your site.

3. Place links back to your site from other sites that are relevant to your keyword phrases.

There are many other ways to get search engines to recognize a new site and it would be well worth your efforts to study up on all that you can about search engine optimization. A well designed, informative site that cannot be found holds no value. The unknown is essentially nonexistent. Think about it, have you ever bought a product you didn’t know existed? Have you ever visited a place you never heard of? To be successful online you must find ways to give your site an online presence.

Search Engine Optimization has many aspects to it and requires work and persistence to attain the full benefits. However, the benefits are many and well worth your efforts. Some of the benefits worth mentioning are:

1. Online presence

2. Increased targeted traffic – Traffic – Traffic and more Traffic

3. Higher conversion rates

4. Higher rankings give you more credibility

5. Increased visibility – Global audience

6. High ROI – return on investment

Search engines are the most widely used internet tool to find information, products and/or websites. However, most people who use search engines rarely make it past the first page and many only look at the top half of the first page. Getting yourself on the first page and better yet on the top half of the first page, will make your site’s presence be known and subsequently generate more traffic that could lead to potential income and business. Search engines draw extremely targeted traffic. The visitor who finds your site through a search engine is already actively looking for exactly what you provide and therefore more prone to make the click to see how you can be of service to them.

Search engine optimization is a method of online marketing that should not be overlooked and included in every online marketer’s portfolio. Traffic is a key factor to online success and search engine optimization will definitely get your website targeted traffic.

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Jul
16

Successful Online Marketing Requires Effective Keyword Research

Successful Online Marketing Requires Effective Keyword Research

The fundamental building block of successful online marketing is keyword research. Unless you can identify what it is your customers – or potential customers – are searching for online and the words and phrases they use to describe the products or services they are looking for, there is little chance that you will be able to optimize the flow of web traffic to your site – or the site’s revenue.

Search engine optimization, or SEO, has aptly been described as a mixture of art and science. With the introduction of a new, more detailed key word research tool from the world’s leading search engine, Google, there has now been a decided shift to the science end of the spectrum – at least when it comes to identifying the key words you can focus on to drive web traffic to your site.

Google Adwords’ New Keyword Tool

Google Adwords, the pay-per-click advertising side of Google, recently introduced a new and improved Keyword Tool in July 2008. Where the key word research tools SEO professionals had formerly relied upon to gauge the web traffic associated with a particular search query – tools such as Wordtracker, a paid-subscription service, and Overture’s Keyword Tool – provided good approximations of web traffic for a particular word or phrase, Google Adwords new and improved Keyword Tool, provides a great analytic breakdown of the approximate search volume for keywords across the Internet’s dominant search engine.

Unlike the Keyword Tool formerly offered by Google, which showed only a rough approximation of traffic flow based on a series of green bar graphs, the new Google Adwords tool offers much more quantified numbers and trends for specified and suggested keywords.

Generating Keyword Ideas

Google’s new Keyword Tool offers two ways of generating keyword ideas and suggestions. Firstly, by entering descriptive keywords or phrases in its search box, Keyword Tool will show the keywords and keyword phrases associated with your descriptive word or phrase (and their synonyms). The list of associated keywords and phrases, with detailed metrics about the search volumes for these associated terms, will allow you to quickly identify which profitable keywords you have not targeted.

Secondly, Keyword Tool allows you to enter a specific website address into the search box. Keyword Tool then analyzes the keywords that Google associates with that website’s URL. This website content function of Keyword Tools provides two very valuable streams of information. It gives you valuable insight into what keywords your competition is focusing on and highlights keywords and keyword phrases you may not have otherwise identified. Moreover, by entering your own website’s URL addresses in the search box, it allows you to see the keywords that Google itself identifies as being related to the content on your web page. In many instances you may find that Google views and interprets your page in a much different way than you do. Difficulties in ranking a page may be quickly diagnosed and corrected to the extent that Google is seeing your page as being associated with keywords you have not intentionally focused on. Thus, Keyword Tools functions as a quick diagnostic tool that allows insight into the way your site, and its individual pages, is viewed and ranked.

Researching Search Volumes

The new Keyword Tool from Google Adwords also provides detailed metrics for each keyword or keyword phrase it identifies or suggests. Keyword Tools displays both the approximate search volume for the current month, but the approximate average search volume per month as well. Other valuable metrics include search volume trends. If the product you are marketing is seasonal by nature – for example you prepare tax returns, or distribute children’s Halloween costumes – Google will show you month-by-month the rise and fall in numbers of search queries for your particular keywords, as well as indicate which month the highest volume of search queries for each keyword appeared. (Not surprisingly, searches for children’s Halloween costume flatline throughout the year only to jump in September and peak in October.)

Google’s Keyword Tool is specifically designed to assist paid advertisers target the keywords they wish to purchase for sponsored links. Yet its usefulness to organic SEO is obvious. Even the estimated “cost-per-click” information available through Keyword Tool gives organic search SEOs vital information about the popularity, or perceived popularity, of keyword terms.

Value of Keyword Tools to SEOs

For most SEO purposes, the new and improved will function nicely alongside (and may even replace to a large degree) Wordtracker and Overture, although for niche marketing purposes the two programs that were formerly the preferred tools of experienced SEOs may continue to dominate. However, for many online marketing purposes the new tool from Google, which was formerly highly resistant to broadly disclosing the metrics of its search numbers, may prove to be a one-stop keyword research shopping experience. Much will depend, of course, on how “approximate” the reported approximate search volumes are. To the extent that reported search volumes accurately track web traffic on the search engine that handles approximately 80% of all search queries, Keyword Tool may prove to be a one-stop shop for online marketers.

For expert help with your company’s online marketing and search engine optimization needs, visit Wolf 21 Inc.’s website at http://www.smallbusinessmarketingwolf.com/search-engine-optimization/ or call us toll-free at 1-888-756-2444.

More Online Marketing Articles

Jan
10

Internet Marketing Requires Research and Analysis Effort for Individual Website!

Internet marketing is essential to the success of web sites. You can have a professional looking website but what good can it do if internet users are not able to find it when they need your products and services? That is where an internet marketing campaign comes into play.

“Your website has to magically appear before buyers when they need products and services.”

Internet marketing is similar to designing websites- it does not require much experience to do a good job, just good knowledge and a keen eye for details. It is fundamentally important for a good internet marketer to constantly update himself weekly, if not monthly, of online markets. There are many ways to market your website.

– Find A Competent and Reliable Internet Marketer –

Justify the costs of hiring an Internet Marketer – First of all, getting an internet marketer is not essential for every website. If your website is a business website or a website which you want to generate revenue from, it is good to seek a competent internet marketer to work on your website. For more details visit to www.ultimate-internet-marketing-tricks.com. The costs spent on your website for internet marketing has to be justified and often, they are justified by having more revenue and traffic to your web site.

Potential customers have to know that there are no guarantees in SEO. Since everything is fundamentally based on search engines, SEO work is at the mercy of major search engines like Google. Many SEO companies tried to secure customers with guarantees that they cannot fulfill, resulting in lawsuits or customers getting burned for hiring their SEO services.

– What an Internet Marketer can offer –

In short, an Internet Marketer oversees that your website
is built properly for visibility and promoted with the best dollar spent on your internet marketing campaign. It is no good having a website and not appearing in internet searches. Your website has to magically appear before buyers when they need products and services. Internet Marketers deploy search engine optimization techniques to make your website visible and targeted to internet users.

Internet marketing requires research and analysis effort for individual website, followed by optimization of website. For more details go to www.inside-the-minds-of-winner.com. Hundreds of hours may be spent on each website, depending on the size of your targeted market. You are essentially paying for the amount of effort involved, effectiveness of your internet marketer and daily sales tracking of your website.

How to choose Internet Marketer- Internet marketing requires constant updating of skills and knowledge. One crude way to test if your internet marketer is a genuine or fake- Ask your internet marketer about recent events that happened in his field. If he cannot answer that, he must have a genuinely good reason to back himself as a good internet marketer! At times, it is easy to fall prey into the hands of bad internet marketing companies as happened in US and other parts of the world.

It is also important for you to feel comfortable with the amount of money you are spending on getting your site popular before committing yourself to an internet marketing campaign. Internet marketing campaigns typically last a few months and requires monthly tune-ups to your website. Include the costs of an internet marketing campaign when doing your company’s advertising budget.