Recently I took a poll at one of my networking groups (Business Leaders Network) and asked them the following:
“Regarding Internet marketing, what are you most interested in learning?”
The consensus was for my recommendations – in order of priority – as to what business owners should be focusing on. This is difficult because every business is different, and although there are some commonalities, there are always exceptions to the rule.
That being said, here is my list:
1. Quality, professional website design – Don’t be fooled by do-it-yourself sites. Your website is many times the first impression that your potential customer will have of you. A poorly designed website will not convert website visitors to paying customers.
Example: We had a client recently that had a three-year-old, fairly simple website. He was getting business and was happy, but we knew that he would get a much better response with a properly designed site. Two days after we launched his site he called to tell me that he was getting five times the number of conversions!
2. Quality hosting – It may seem like any old host company will do, but in reality a quality cloud hosting is truly best. Even though it costs more, it has less risk of being hacked or “down time” than traditional servers.
3. Market test/analysis – This is the proper way to test your market and discover how consumers respond to your website. Many Internet marketing companies use pay per click, combined with analytic tracking, goal tracking and live on-site site analysis. This enables you to find out the keywords people are truly responding to and how they are interacting with your site. They may get frustrated, for instance, if they are trying to click on things that are not clickable.
4. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – Try to think like a customer that doesn’t know your name and see if you appear in an Internet search under general terms like: “insurance Vancouver Wa;” “car insurance Vancouver Wa;” “auto insurance Vancouver Wa,” etc. The higher up you are for your own website on page one of Google in the “organic” or natural listings, the better. Keep in mind, 95 percent of consumers don’t go past the first page of Google for local products and services.
5. Pay per click – There is definitely a reason why Google collects billions of dollars a year from pay per click marketing. Although the overall usage is lower than SEO, you never know what keyword search your potential client might come from. This form of Internet marketing is highly effective if you are:
A. Trying to ensure you get complete exposure to compliment your organic listings.
B. You want to go after 50-100 search terms and/or a 50 mile radius, for instance (SEO is much more targeted).
C. You have a competitive advantage that can draw the potential customer to you.
6. Mobile websites/marketing – The sooner you have a true mobile website, the better. A “mobile-friendly” website is not the same.
7. Google reviews – We have become a review-oriented society. As a rule of thumb
you want to have close to twice the number of good reviews than any competitor to really stand out.
8. Social media marketing – Depending on the business, there are different venues that do better than others. For instance, if your business is primarily business-to-business, you should focus more on LinkedIn. Facebook is great, but most businesses are confused as to how it plays a role in their business. Similar to word-of-mouth advertising, it’s a referral system to a degree. It’s a great place to keep your clients or potential clients informed of upcoming events, specials, interesting industry news, special projects you may be working on, etc.
This is an area that you can intrigue someone to use your services, but more importantly it’s a place where your current customers know you will listen to their feedback (good and bad), suggestions, and that you are responding.
9. Off-line marketing (to help online marketing) – The following should be on every form of print promotion you have for cross promotion (invoices, flyers, business cards, and even vehicles or front doors of your office):
A. Smart QR codes – With the popularity of smartphones and apps a lot of people will scan a QR code to see where it goes out of curiosity. They can include logos/links to your website, reviews, videos, etc. A Smart QR code can be changed without the configuration changing, and it also can be tracked.
B. Your social networks – Facebook, Google +, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.
C. Your website – This should be posted everywhere!
Monique Bushnell-Rice is VP of sales and marketing for Effective Web Solutions. She can be reached at 888.400.4002.
Photo courtesy Aevum Images
