Recently I attended a seminar discussing landing page optimization; a web site page designed to match the search query of an online consumer.  The topic of thinking outside the box” was mentioned and I began to think how that term applies to many facets of life, both personal and professional. When you work within the same environment for a certain length of time your experience in your industry, company and department conspires to straightjacket you with invisible assumptions. It then becomes very hard to throw away all of your biases and beliefs and come up with truly original approaches and ideas.

Hence, whether you are more into Linkedin, Myspace, Facebook or Twitter, we all have similar objectives, just different paths on how to get there. So spread your wings and connect with extraordinary people “outside your box”, outside your comfort zone.

Kevin Conway
Boston eMarketing Solutions
www.emarketingsolutions.org

As an e-commerce entrepreneur and an SEM (search engine marketing) Consultant, I know firsthand that the most important objective is to first drive consumer traffic to our web sites.  And, the best method to accomplish this is to capture online consumers while they are actively searching for your product or service on the search engines, at the very moment they are desperately trying to find YOU.

This is where it begins to get fuzzy to most senior executives and managers.  Although many have heard the term  SEO (search engine optimization) , very few really understand the influence SEO has on an organization’s success in today’s web 2.0 climate. In brief, if your web site is not optimized for search engine traffic, your chance of success online is like competing in a bicycle race without wheels .  

So what is SEO?  It would take about 100 pages to really answer that question.  In a nutshell, SEO is working your web site until it ranks in the top 10 or 20 positions for your most profitable keywords. But, you can think of it as a “moving target”.  An organization’s SEO strategy must adopt and adapt to the latest changes in the SEO industry, such as the constant changing of the search engine algorithms (which determines how a web site is ranked for keyword searches).   That is why many companies are now hiring full time SEO Managers or Full Time Consultants to manage and monitor their web site’s optimization success, on a continual basis.  While SEO is still alien to many managers, some understand the dynamics of SEO. For example,  although your site is ranked #1 for the keyword “Ophthalmologist New York” , you could wake up in the morning after a “Google Dance” and find your web site ranked #100 for that same keyword search.  OUCH that hurts (I know)!  Such a devastating experience is why good online marketing consultants insure their clients do not “put all their eggs in one SEO basket”.

Nevertheless, explaining SEO and other online marketing techniques is often a challenge. For an SEO consultant, developing an elevator pitch is like the President trying to deliver  the State of the Union address in a 30 second commercial.  SEM Consultants intimately understand that a competitive SEO strategy is critical to an organization’s success today more than ever. But, to convey that message to a senior manager or owner who is lackadaisical about the benefits of a strong online marketing program, like SEO, is almost always the biggest challenge.

As a matter of fact, some “traditional marketing professionals”  don’t understand the significance of (or consequences of not) adopting an effective online marketing program. Recently I attended a Providence Chamber meeting and met a Marketing Consultant who said to me “Google? That’s just for consumer to business, it’s not for B2B”. I realized this was coming from a source of fear of the technology. However, that statement also summarized the risks of hiring a marketing consultant in today’s technology driven environment.

In my next blog I will discuss 5 questions to ask an SEO consultant before hiring him/her.  

Meanwhile, this morning I read this great article about the SEO industry and the growing demand for skilled SEO and SEM consultants.  It was no surprise to read that other SEO consultants have to turn away projects and be more selective in what projects to accept.   We recently have expanded our reach and accepted two projects from the west coast.   Take a few minutes to read this highly enlightening article.

Follow my Internet Marketing Success Tips (at least two each week) on Twitter 

Kevin Conway
Boston eMarketing Solutions
www.eMarketingSolutions.org

Kevin Conway is owner of Boston eMarketing Solutions  providing expert Internet Marketing Solutions to success minded businesses. 

I can recount, in agonizing detail the years of my life spent on the “sales pitch call”, the dreaded “cold calls” (YIKES!), attending shows and conventions, no-show appointments, and literally thousands of hours of wasted time in meetings.  But, not anymore.  I don’t go there anymore, they come to me. 

And, they’ll come to you!

Here are some questions you’re most likely thinking right now.

How do I make customers “come to me”?

In a nutshell, EXPAND YOUR BUSINESS ONLINE.  Promote and advertise your business to the millions of consumers searching on the internet for the product or service YOU offer.

What is Online Advertising?

The best way to explain this is by example. If you are in front of your computer go to Google.com.  Type in a word or phrase about a topic you would like information on, for example “vintage movie posters”.  Now look to the right hand column you will see “Sponsored Links”. Those are Google Adwords Pay-per-click (PPC) advertisements. These web site owners have created these advertisements to appear when a specific keyword or keyword phrase (in this case, vintage movie posters) is typed by the Google user (about 80% of internet searches use Google, about 40 billion each month).   These web site owners have created very specific ads, to display when that online consumer is actively hot for the advertiser’s product or service.

What does it cost to advertise my business on the internet?

Probably a small FRACTION of what you are paying for traditional advertising.  But, what is one of the most exciting benefits of PPC is you ONLY pay for visits to your web site.  For example, the average cost per click to my web site is 20 cents every time someone clicks on my ad. That is someone who saw my ad and was specifically interested in what I have to offer. I do NOT pay for impressions as is the case with print advertising that charges by circulation. If I buy an ad in the Boston Globe for $1500, because their circulation is 750,000, do I pay only for the people who see my ad and visit my store? No. I pay a fixed fee and just hope a lot of people see my ad. But, unlike PPC , with the Globe ad I will never get ad performance data.  Frankly, with print adveritiang I have no idea “if” or “why” it didn’t work.  NOT the case with internet/online advertising.

And, one of the best features of PPC advertising is, YOU have complete control over how much you spend. For example, you can place a limit of $5 a day. On the other hand, if you have an ad that is performing well, you can increase your ad budget and hence drive more targeted traffic to your web site.  I have a client who is making $3200 on average for every $200 she spends on her PPC campaign.

How do I know if my internet advertising campaign is working?

For the first time in advertising history we have the capability to extract accurate, highly accurate statistics representing advertisement performance.  With print advertising the best we have are surveys and coupon redemption, which compared to online advertising is quite primitive.  Online advertising offers the capability to track consumer activity almost to the behavior level. For example, with my PPC campaign I can not only track how many people visited my site, but also how long they stayed, WHERE they left, HOW they found me (exact keyword they used to locate and click my ad), and virtually every step the online consumer followed up to and including the purchase or subscriber opt-in process.   Just think for a minute the POWER this information provides you?

What if my ad statistics indicate my ad is not very effective, what do I do now?

Ahhh! I’m so glad you asked!

With print advertising, you never really know whether your ad is performing or not. However, with PPC, you know within a number of days (sometimes hours) if it is not working. And, unlike print advertising you’re not “stuck” with that “loser ad”.  With your PPC ad, you can edit it immediately and your changes take affect immediately.  You have the opportunity to refine your ads until you have a winner!  Not in several months or years as with traditional advertising (i.e., print, radio, TV).

But, will PPC work for my business?

If you offer a product or service PPC can be an extremely effective weapon in your business.  Just some examples of successful PPC advertisers include:

• Real Estate Professionals
• Attorneys
• Medical Professionals
• Business owners of all kinds
• How about an author taking a survey for a title to her new book ?

Check out this short video presentation  to see a small business success story, “How I went from ZERO to over 40 leads a month using Google adwords”.

But, we are in a recession I cannot afford to advertise!

OUCH! Get that thought out of your head ASAP!  You CANNOT afford to NOT advertise.  A sound, well-planned advertising strategy should be a top priority for your business success.   Recently there have been many articles on how even more consumers are turning to the internet for their buying needs. For example in a recent survey showed that 29% of the respondents said they will purchase on the internet even more then before because of the gas prices.

At a college in Boston it was reported that Summer course registration for ONLINE classes was up over 40% from last year because students couldn’t afford to  pay for gas to travel to live, instructor lead classes.  Can you think of examples where MORE of your potential clients are searching the internet to find someone who is offering the same products or services as you. Is your business positioned to “capture” these online consumers?

My objective is to provide information to help you do a better job of using your website to meet your business goals. Most people I meet at networking events either don’t have a web site or have a “dead” web site (a nice looking site that gets little or no consumer traffic).  The unfortunate thing is the majority of business owners and professionals do not yet understand the vast power and potential of a serious internet presence as a business tool.

For example, I would like to update you on the web version of the old management maxim, “What gets measured gets done.”  As you are reading keep in mind your traditional advertising ROI (print, radio, TV advertising, etc).

In order to double your results, (and many of you want to do that) you have to be able to measure how effective your advertising is. Until now, there has never been an accurate way to measure advertising performance, other then very primitive and inadequate methods like “coupon redemption”.   Recall when I mentioned the “AH HA” moment I experienced after my first successful online marketing program several years ago? It was at that point when I thought “why would I ever want to spend money on traditional advertising ever again”?  Well, what if you had the capability to “track” the performance of your advertising?  For example, below are some metrics you can follow for an online ad:

•        Number of unique visitors per day or month
•        Average number of page views per visitor
•        Which pages received the most traffic
•        Number of leads
•        Number of signups to your newsletter (more on that in a future email)
•        Number of product sales derived from an online ad visitor

Consider this analogy. Imagine if you knew exactly how many of your customers walked into your business as a result of an advertisement (yeah, I know you could always ask them, but this is not the 1960’s which required 10-100 times the labor to complete the same task today).  Also, imagine if you knew exactly what specific needs that customers had in their heads that lead them to your business. Finally, imagine if you ONLY paid for those who answered your advertisement and walked into your business as a result of your ad? 

Pretty powerful stuff, wouldn’t you agree?  That’s the advantage of online advertising and that’s why those embracing online advertising are leaders in their industries (or soon will be). Traditional advertising is dropping like a 100 lb sack of potatoes in a pool. Just research any statistic on advertising expenditures and you will see a consistent drop in what companies are spending on traditional advertising. However, online advertising budgets are skyrocketing. That in itself should tell you something.  

It’s really important that you have a clear set of goals on what your website is supposed to accomplish so when you start to watch your web stats you’ll know if you are succeeding.

One of the problems we see quite often is that a website is trying to do too many things at the same time.  My advice is for you is to get very specific with your website marketing objective.  For example, do you want to sell product online or do you want to collect email addresses from consumers who have expressed a specific interest in your product or service.  And, building a list of “qualified” email addresses that you can market to on a regular basis is one of the most successful marketing strategies in the history of capitalism.

I would like to invite you to Join my email list where I will be writing monthly articles and providing tips on doubling, tripling and more your business revenues with effective online Marketing strategies for your web site.  For example, I am currently writing an article “How to Direct Local Consumers in need of YOUR Products & Services to your Web Site”.   Then, a follow-up article swill be “Now to Convert Your Web Site Visitors to Customers”.

"My goal is YOUR Success"

Kevin Conway
Founder
Boston eMarketing Solutions
www.eMarketingSolutions.org