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Internet Marketing – Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Why do I need an Internet marketing consultant?
You have a website. It looks good. So why would you hire someone to work on it after it’s done? Two reasons: no one knows it’s there, and it’s not making any money.
Think of Google as the Yellow Pages. If you are looking for a restaurant, you open up to the R’s and you can find hundreds. Now let’s equate that to the Internet. There are thousands and hundreds of thousands of lawyers, general contractors, chiropractors, etc. It is a vast resource. Research shows that when most people do a search they only look at the first page. If your website isn’t in those top spots, then the vast majority of people don’t know you exist. If your website isn’t being seen then it’s a major liability. Your website can’t make you money if people can’t find it.
So how do you test whether or not people can find you? Break your business down to its basic concepts. What does your business do? Where are you located? Now type these generalities about your business into Google, for instance — “general contractor in Minneapolis.” If you cannot see your site on the first page, or if you cannot find it at all, then you don’t exist on the Internet. If people can only get to your site by typing in its exact name, then they would have needed another piece of advertising to get them there. That’s not using the Internet as a resource. Instead it’s sapping your resources.
Now, when people get to your site does it persuade them to become your client? Does your website make people know, like, and trust you? Does it establish you as a leading expert in your field? Does it offer a clear, attractive, and easy path towards becoming your client? For most websites the answer to all of the above questions is “no.” This is tragic. Your website is a potentially huge asset. If it’s not productive then it does you no good and may as well not exist.
Internet marketing is not about making a website. It is about making a website visible and profitable. This is what I offer to you with my consulting services.
What exactly is Internet marketing?
I break Internet marketing down into three main parts: The Conversion Funnel, Traffic Generation, and Measuring/Testing.
1. Conversion Funnel: Turn Visitors into Clients.
The first step is to give your site a marketing makeover using things like:
- a good contact form
- strong calls to action throughout your site
- an autoresponder sequence to build credibility and goodwill
- trust symbols like BBB Online that increase people’s trust level
2. Traffic Generation: Feeding the Funnel.
It is essential to get as many targeted visitors to your site as is possible. These are the main techniques:
Pay Per Click Marketing (PPC - Inorganic) — PPC is buying small ads that are displayed on search engines when someone types in one of your keywords. You pay only when someone clicks on your advertisement and comes to your site. Price can range from a few pennies per click to a few dollars per click depending on what is standard for the market.
Why we use PPC marketing:
- The traffic flow can be controlled to stay within any budget
- If you can compete in the marketplace, the traffic is almost instantaneous, which allows for fast testing to determine the most profitable keywords and marketing messages. This information helps the efficiency of our other traffic generation strategies.
- If it’s profitable in Google, it can easily be expanded to the other main search engines (Yahoo and MSN) to double your exposure. Any profits can be used to fund the rest of the Internet marketing process. The investment can pay for itself faster.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO - Organic) — SEO is making your site show up in the search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN etc.) when someone types in a search phrase that your site should show up for.
SEO is possibly the most complex and rapidly evolving aspect of Internet marketing. It is also the most important. Our goal is to make it so the search engines can easily determine what is valuable on each page of your site for its users. Here is how that happens:
10% of it occurs on your site. We make sure that your web pages use the keywords we want to rank for in the title, body text, and in the code. This lets Google know what the page is about.
90% of it occurs off of your site. Google considers what happens off of your site to be more important because typically you have less control over it.
External Link Building — Getting high quality links (that say the right things) from other sites pointing back to your site is essential. Each link counts as a vote in the eyes of Google. These links often come in the forms of referrals from other websites and the links embedded in our written content.
Using Off-site indexes (like Yahoo! Local) — Regional indexes are important because oftentimes they already show up in the search engines for important keyword phrases. Getting listed on them (with a high quality testimonial when possible) can be a fast way to get visitors. Non-regional indexes can also be a source of traffic, but more often they provide a high-quality link which helps your rankings.
Social Media Sites (Web 2.0) — The search engines love social media sites like MySpace, Facebook, Squidoo, and Wikipedia. This is because most of their content is created by real people as opposed to companies. Most of these people write the content just to connect with others and share information. It makes the web a better, more informative resource. We can use these sites to help our website get traffic and increase our rankings as long as we limit the overt marketing messages and keep our contributions very informational. The potential benefit for using social media sites is astounding.
3. Measuring and Testing: Fine Tuning.
It is impossible to improve on a process unless we measure the success rate. Once we’ve established the baseline performance, we can then test new variations to improve the rate of conversion. This consists of using software to serve different versions of your webpage and measuring which version is the most successful.
Frequently Asked Questions
When can I expect to see results?
Search Engine Optimization is a slow process. The changes we make today may not have an effect for weeks or even months.
Pay Per Click marketing (PPC) is typically faster, once we have the conversion funnel set up on your site, a PPC campaign can start generating traffic and leads within hours or days. This, of course, assumes that we can afford to compete with existing advertisers.
What will I need to do aside from hiring you?
- Have a functioning website that's online and ready. If you don't have a functioning website yet, I can help get that set up correctly by talking with your designer, or lining up a designer for you.
- Fill out the questionnaire I provide you. The more thought you put into that questionnaire the better the final product is.
- Gather all existing content (if you have any) and get to me.
- Collect testimonials from existing clients.
- Get me access to your website's back-end and allow me to assume control of your entire Internet marketing process.
Are their additional expenses?
There are a few additional expenses, but some are optional, and others can be minimized.
PPC — PPC marketing costs money. I think it is worth it though since it can result in faster profitability and good information that will make our SEO efforts more efficient. Also, we can determine a budget and stay within that to control costs.
Paid Links — For the most part I avoid buying links. There are, however, several pay-for-inclusion directories (such as Yahoo’s Directory) which are worth paying for. Google places a high level of trust into these sites which can mean faster ranking capabilities.