SocialPMChick on Internet Marketing » keyword research

Internet Marketing. Piece of Cake?

SocialPMChick — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 15:23:20 +0000

I had a dinner meeting with a close friend tonight who is re-building her web site and we just chatted through some of the areas she needs to be focusing on to help promote her web site.

I was astounded to find that the company doing her web site was offering to charge her “x” amount for search engine optimization for 3 hours of work per month (and the dollar amount was way off), and made a brief mention of email marketing, but the proposal stated nothing about what they covered under the title of “SEO” and what they proposed for email marketing.

So I lend these thoughts – things to consider when searching for a “marketing strategist” for your web site. Plain and simple… find someone who knows what they are doing – and pay attention to the details they are providing you.

Internet Marketing has several layers to it. I will compare it to my favorite dessert – A Triple Layer Chocolate Peppermint Torte!

The bottom layer of the cake… What I consider the
“technical” pieces of your plan. This layer includes your search engine optimization, keyterm research, meta tags, page titles, image and file naming conventions, site maps and basically, the aspects that are addressed through your site’s code/tags.

The middle layer of your cake… Your content. Know your customers and what they are looking for and provide the content, products or services in your content that will answer questions easily and help them make their buying decision quickly. Your content should also be optimized using the information compiled when building the first layer of your cake by building your keyterms into your content allowing the search engines to find it!

The top layer of your cake… Listening to your website and making the necessary adjustments to content and product offerings. Modifying keyterms, building new content, adding new documentation and information as people your customer are looking for. Work your site through email marketing, blogging and much much much more! What I describe here only scratches the surface of working your site and continuously modifying your strategy to marketing your site to meet the ever-changing needs of your customers.

And then there’s the frosting… This outer layer is your brand, your persona, your online personality. Working your site by building your brand through Social Media and Social Networking. Think of it this way… The frosting on a cake is the first thing you see, and usually the first thing you taste on a cake. Relate it to your brand or persona – this is the first impression you make – the face of your business. Professional decoraters take great pride in the details of the impression their cake will leave (as it may result in more business for them in the beauty alone). The same should apply to you and the effort you put into to building your online personality through social media. (Cake image shown at right is a creation of Sincredible Pastries in Central NY)

The frosting does not refer to a flash heavy site with blinking images and glitzy appearances – remember that your site must function effectively and efficiently allowing your customers to find what they want quickly – AND allow the search engines to find your site as well. Flash has it’s place and when used properly can be a very effective tool – but that is a whole separate conversation.

The whole cake… This is just a birdseye view of how I see internet marketing and the layers that lie within. There are many aspects of marketing your website most of which I haven’t even touched on – I would simply encourage you to ask the questions to your marketing strategist and feel confident that you are working your site continuously and getting the desired results.

A note of caution – be sure that the baker of your cake is on the level… Recently I took on a client at work who was paying a third party company to manage their pay-per-click advertising. When I took over managing their AdWords campaigns I found that this 3rd party company was charging my new client a flat monthly rate for AdWords and my customer never realized that the amount they were paying was almost 3 times the actual amount being spent on their AdWords activity. Fortunately for them, we cut their AdWords budget by roughly 60% and they are still getting the same bang for their buck.

Find a strategist who is passionate about internet marketing and who will share your passion for success in YOUR business. That will surely be a recipe for success!

SEO = Search, Experience, Opportunity

SocialPMChick — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 15:31:01 +0000

(Originally posted on December 18, 2008)

SEO back in the day was the latest and greatest thing. People realized they could improve their search engine ranking through optimization of their site. Everyone jumped on the SEOwagon. It started with meta-tags, and people packing their sites full of invisible keywords to get ranking. You remember – white text on white background that nobody but the search engines could see. That just doesn’t fly anymore.

SEO is really only a very small part of Internet Marketing – and to do it effectively you have to consider several variables when selecting your keyterms and where you will place them. You will also need to know the why and the how. Lets examine the “S” the “E” and the “O” in search engine optimization. In my example SEO stands for Search, Experience, Opportunity.

S is for Search

Obviously we are optimizing for search so that is one of the key components – what are people searching for? To determine your keyterms you need to know the answer to this question to find your baseline. This comes from knowing your customer and knowing their product or service. One thing to keep in mind is that if your customer may sell 3 kinds of apples – they may consider “apple a” to be more popular than “apple b” or “apple c”. Does that mean you focus your efforts on “apple a” – Heck no!

There are more questions to ask before you can determine what your keyterms will be, and to take that a step further, to determine your baseline from which you will do your keyterm research. Ask your client… Which product are you most passionate about and why? What is your most unique product and why? Which of your products has the highest profit margin for you or perhaps which is your “loss leader”? How have your customers typcially found you in the past, and what are they NOT finding, but may be looking for? As you start to gather these answers, you’ll come up with other ideas for your keyterm research.

E is for Experience

You truly need an experienced marketer to assist with your keyterm research. When researching keyterms – you dont want to just pick the ones you think are most relevant. Using the example above, there is far too much competition on the word ”apple” – so we look for relevant AND related words that your customers may find you on.

Finding the right keyterms is only half the battle – you have to understand the competition and search volume on each keyterms and how effective you will be in utilizing that keyterm throughout your site. While “apple” may in fact be the most popular keyterm, you should consider the fact that if 5,000,000 other sites are competing on that term, the chances of you getting top 10 in Google is frankly slim to none and you’ll probably want to enhance it a bit.

Start to look for variations of your keyterms that have high search volume and low competition. Consider the differences between “apple a”, “apple b” and “apple c” and broaden your research. As you do this, you will start to see some suggested keyterms that may work for you with perhaps less competition but solid daily search volume.

O is for Opportunity

As noted above – there are opportunities in search optimization and what variations you may use. Lets for example say that “apple a” is actually a “chocolate apple”. You might want to consider common misspellings of the word “chocolate”. This does not work in all cases, but in certain situations if done properly – you can monetize that common misspelling by capturing those users who perhaps type a bit too quick and search on “chocalate” – believe me – it happens. You certainly don’t want to include these misspellings in your page content, but can strategically place them in your meta-tags.

Another way to look for opporunity is in examining the different products and competition for each. ”Apple a” may be your most popular product, but effective optimization on “apple b” or “apple c” can most definately drive traffic to your site, and the end result is that more than likely you’ll sell a bunch of “apple a” as well.

Consider also your customer’s expertise – perhaps beyond the products they sell. But your site content should include keyterm rich content related to your business – there is alot of opportunity in getting ranking on content pages that are informative and useful that will drive traffic to your product or service.,

SEO – A small piece of the puzzle.

While SEO is important – there is so much more to it than just loading your site full of keywords. You have to know where to place them, how to structure your meta-tags and where they belong in your page content. Be sure when you hire someone for the purpose of SEO, you hire someone who truly understands and has the experience to get you the results.

Add other aspects of Internet Marketing and Social Media to your online marketing and if done effectively can be a recipe for success. Continue to monitor the success of your keyterms. Find the areas of weakness and expand on them – your keyterms may still be the right ones, but you may need to reprioritize and develop relevant content to support those keyterms.

Listen to your site and what it’s telling you. Work your site and be proactive in updating content, adding products and getting involved in related online communities. Always promote your site continuously through the various avenues of online marketing.

Good luck with your SEO – Hope to see you in Google’s Top 10!

These are just my thoughts on SEO, I’d love to hear yours! Leave me a comment or find me Tweeting as @SocialPMChick.