Below is a collection of general questions that I tend to get on a recurring basis from customers and colleagues about the how's and why's of marketing their websites. If there's something else that you would like to hear about please send me an Email, I'm always interested in adding more.Marketing FAQs in brief:
Getting good search engine rankings
Changing a website to become a primary sales tool
Getting distinction in an email campaign
Legitimate uses for web marketing
Q. What are the best methods to get good search engine results for your website?
A. To get the best listing on major search engines a number of basic strategies should be followed.
- Don't do anything to trick the search engine algorithms: they're way too sophisticated so it'll just get them mad (penalties and forfeiture of listing). Today's search engines have highly advanced software filtering and detection built on generations of careful analysis and responses to web developer attempts to curry favorable listings with inferior or misleading websites. It is, after all, the job and goal of every search engine to provide the user with ACCURATE information about what's available based on their search query.
- Do use the key words and phases (that your customers will use to find you) liberally throughout the top portion of copy on all pages. Use HTML instead of graphic images for page titles. Use image ALT descriptions with keywords wherever possible.
- Don't use framesets or super-dynamic technology on your top pages. Many search engines either won't see them or give them less 'result weight'
- Do use smart and useful content honestly and informatively. People will gravitate toward your site and, more importantly, link to it. Links to your site is one of the key metrics that search engines can track and will affect dramatically how successful your listing will be. Getting links to your site can't be understated. Initially it is even advisable to pay directories like Yahoo to list you because this will ultimately snowball into the search engines and expedite your site being picked up.
- Don't use instant redirects to customize entry pages for different audiences and keyword collections: this will get you booted from most of the major search engines.
- Do understand current practices and predilections of the current top search engines, a little time and proper submission techniques will help on directories (human built website indexes like Yahoo) and also might help get a fuller description / placement in some search engines.
Some analysis and tracking of search engine success can be service/software automated and help in creating a detailed analysis to effectively hone your company's web strategy. If it's essential (such as for a web-based business) some investment in a service that continually researches the search engine market is prudent as well as purchasing sponsorships and other placement enhancers in the top websites like Google, Overture and Yahoo. This becomes imperative in the more competitive industries.
Q. What should a website have to become a company's primary sales tool?
A. Gearing a website to become a primary sales tool requires the developer to focus on several vantage points and/or additions when creating or updating a business site.
First of all the obvious is to give the website user the opportunity to BUY the company's good or service. This is best achieved by utilizing the absolute easiest and most convenient payment methods possible and articulating them in the simplest and most intuitive presentation. Privacy must be guaranteed and security (SSL/encryption etc…) must be in complete evidence in any transactional environment. There should also be several payment options available for all types of customers and their respective comfort level with various purchase vehicles.
Secondly and even more importantly — especially in a more complex / value-added good or service being offered — is to answer the questions that most potential customers ask before they ask them. This, done with sound marketing communication structure, can bring better-qualified candidates to the sales representative's attention, save time in the process of sales presentation and also create greater product credibility and support when the customer is slow at "buying in" on the value and legitimacy of the product or service.
Third, the website should also integrate web-captured information into the same database and application structure that the sales force and company decision makers use, create a plethora of means for the customer to communicate with the company, receive a newsletter or E-zine, hear about future updates, contact forms with user information & qualities proscribed to yield usable "sharp" data and have internal (intranet) tools to create global advantages across the sales force. Automate all the processes that don't precisely require the "human touch".
Q. What would you do to get distinction in an email campaign?
A. Email campaigns must be as friendly and informational to the user as possible: let the website do the sales work. Email campaigns should be completely devoid of push and advertising, full of pull and helpfulness. Email campaigns should be completely 'give away' oriented with friendly links back to the website. Announcements for free seminars, product or industry news, or advice to deal with the customer's existing solution (whether it be the companies product/service or not). Email is about large outgoing numbers and small but measurable returns — the messaging should 'bend over backwards' to avoid the spam image — but in the persistence of large innocuous output build company branding, trustworthiness and general good image.
Q. What's the legitimate use for the web as a marketing tool and where's it going?
A. First, I see web-based marketing as a maturing tool and channel to reach certain target audiences in certain capacities effectively. Businesses that have markets that are unique, dispersed, uncompetitive or highly fragmented are suited well to the Internet being a front line for sales and communications. Investors will never again misjudge the viability of unproven business models like the late 90's and the web's frontier days, but with smarter research, experience and understanding of the web as a new breed of marketplace we have seen wildly successful ventures and new possibilities. Sales have doubled almost every year even during the slower economy of the 2000's.
Second, with a better grasp of where the web can still be useful for the "brick and mortar" companies the need for new web development and innovation will continue: the web will always have advantages that even the most mundane and pervasively located industry can still leverage. Online customer service, product support, communication, pre-sales, community building and other less tangible benefits can still differentiate a business from its competitors and compel it to seek the extraordinary low cost alternative or supplement that is the Internet.
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