Guideline to reach digital marketing peace of mind For beginners who want to start
~ Content 00. 01.
Introduction
Optimize your website for greatness Page Titles Meta Descriptions Headings URL Structure Mobile Structure
02.
Blogging for business success Content is the heart Why should I blog? What should I write about? Components of a great blog post
03.
Time to get social The importance of social media Tips for Facebook, Twitter & Linkedin
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04.
Convert visitors into hot leads The Problem and solution Coming up with a content offer Creating Calls-To-Action (CTAs) Creating Landing Pages Improving by testing, measuring and iterating
05.
Convert leads into customers Grow your business with email list building The magic to sending brilliant emails Re-converting with landing pages Measuring email performance
06.
How to analyze & refine all campaigns Metrics to track and report on Analyze and keep getting more awesome
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~ Introduction If you’re reading this, you know that marketing successfully online is crucial to your business success. Whether your business is minty fresh and new or has been around for sometime, this guide will help you brush up on the basics and help you implement a successful internet marketing strategy, step-by-step. You do not need to be extremely techsavvy. There are parts where I mention what might be a good idea for your developer to help you with. Hope you find this guide becoming part of your success. Cheering you on, Faith Lantz & Team Colour Code
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Chapter 1. Optimize your website for greatness
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01. Optimize your website for greatness
If you build iy they will come, right? That’s the plan! However, if you really want to attract potential customers to your website, you need to do more than simply have a website online: you must optimize it. Search Engine Optimization aka SEO, is the key to getting your website discovered through search engines like the big G, Google. The traditional approach to SEO involves two sets of tactics: on-page SEO and off-page SEO. Don’t worry, if that sounds like gooblygook, I will explain it in more detail in the coming pages.
~ You’ve got this! www.colourcode.hk
Getting started with SEO: 5 elements to optimize On-page SEO is optimizing your website with specific keywords, page titles, headers, meta descriptions and more.
Off-page SEO, refers to improving your website’s overall authority on the internet, which is judjed by what other websites are linking to you. What you want to do is have other authoritative yet relevant websites link to you. This is known as backlinks or inbound links.
SEARCH‌
Tip:
Search engines these days are smart. They can tell when websites are designed to game the system. So ensure you are optimizing your site for searchers, not the search engines.
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01. Optimize your website for greatness
01. Page Titles A page title is the text you see at the top of your browser window when viewing a website. It is also the title that shows up on search engine results. - Write page titles that describe a page’s content; - Make it fewer than 70 characters long. Longer titles will get cut off; - Include your company name at the end of the page title; - Use page titles for each page of your website.
02. Meta Descriptions This is a short summary describing the web page. This will show on search results in search engines. Make it enticing so your customers want to click it.
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For text that appear larger or more prominent like headlines, ensure you make them with HTML code <h1>, <h2> or <h3> so that search engines understand that this is the main point of your page. - <h1> tags carry the heaviest weight, then <h2> then <h3>. - Including too many headings dilutes the importance. - Use the <h1> tage once on a page.
TITLES T
03. Headings
- For text heavy pages, throw a few <h2> and <h3> as paragraph titles.
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01. Optimize your website for greatness
04. Images Images on a web page can make the page more interesting thus making it a better user experience. - Too many images can slow down the loading time of a page thus negatively impacting SEO and your user’s experience. - Ask your developer to add “Alt text” to each image. It should describe the image. - Your image file name should be saved with keywords of that page.
File Name: src=“purpleflowers.jpg” Alt Text: alt=“purple-flowers” www.colourcode.hk
05. URL Structure The URL structure refers to how the text in a URL is organized. - Separate keywords in the URL with dashes. For example, www.colourcode.hk/ marketing-resources is a good URL that captures “marketing” and “resources” as keyword. - Describe what’s on the page. Structure your URLs so that people can easily understand what the page is about. Example, www.yourcompany.com/ product-name is much better than www.yourcompany.com/yRga235/eh10
06. Optimizing for Mobile The best mobile websites are built using responsive technologies. Across all device sizes and types the pages adapt to fit correctly. Google prefers responsive design too because it allows for more efficent search engine crawling. 10
Chapter 2. Blogging for Business Success
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Content is the of Internet Marketing Now that your website is optimized, it’s time to create some compelling content. Content is the heart muscle to power an effective internet marketing strategy. By creating valuable, high-quality content that’s targeted at a well-defined audience, you’ll do more than just attract visitors. You’ll attract the RIGHT visitors who are much likely to become your customers.
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02. Blogging for Business Success
Most importantly, quality content helps with your website’s SEO.
Why should I blog? Search engines love websites that have fresh and new content frequently. The goal of your business blog should be to publish valuable, nonpromotional content. Use words and language your customers may use to describe your business or the solutions your business provides.
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02. Blogging for Business Success
What should I write about? What are you trying to educate your industry and potential customers about? This education should not only revolve around your product or service. Talk about common industry issues, address the challenges that your potential customers face.
~ Remember to let your expertise and passion shine through in your blog content Tip: www.colourcode.hk
A great way to start blogging is by answering the 10 most common questions you get asked by prospective customers. Do this once a week for 10 weeks and you will have the foundation of a successful blog.
Components of a Great Blog Post 01. A compelling title: As this is the first thing people will see, it should clearly communicate what your blog post is about. 02. Well-written & formatted text: Make your posts easy to read by breaking down your content with headers and bullet points. Remember, most people skim through. So make it easy for your reader to pick up the most importnat parts of your message. 03. Multimedia content: Add photos, videos, infographics and slideshow presentations to make your blog post fun and memorable. 04. Links Link other pieces of content from your website within the blog post to help your readers dig deeper into other resources within your site. 05. Call-to-Action (CTA): At the bottom of every blog post, include another relevant blog piece of content. More on that nextâ&#x20AC;Ś
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Chapter 3. Time to Get Social
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The Importance of Social Media Social media channels are a great way to distribute your content and increase your brandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s visibility online. There are many social networks available.
SOCI
03. Time to Get Social
For this ebook, we will focus on the big 3: Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin.
Tips for using Facebook, Twitter & Linkedin for business 01. Fill out your company information completely. 02. Invite existing contacts to like your page. 03. Integrate social sharing into your website. 04. Add value by sharing relevant content created by others. 05. Get visual by sharing rich images and videos. 06. Show some behind the scenes. Show your culture. 16
Chapter 4. Convert Visitors into Hot Leads
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~ Turning Visitors Into Leads By this point, you should have already optimized your website, launched your blog, and started using social networks.
Just one tiny problem… All of that traffic to your site isn’t generating any new business. People are visiting your site, but those visits aren’t becoming new customers. So what do you do?
Simple:
~ Focus on Conversion.
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04. Converting Visitors into Hot Leads
~ How Conversions Work 01. Coming up with a CONTENT OFFER The content offer is the most important part of any campaign. A content offer is an ebook, template, tool or other gated resource. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the initial magnet that attracts your website visitor that gives them a reason to fill out a form where you get to capture their information. Your offer should be attractive to the type of person you are trying to work with. Buyer Persona exercises help you gain a solid understanding of exactly who it is you are trying to target. A Buyer Persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer.
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Product focused offers such as custom consultations, free trials and demo are also a great way to start a conversation.
02. Creating Calls-to Action (CTAs) A Call-to-Action is a button, link of image that grabs a visitorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s attention and direct them to a Landing Page. They are the lead trigger behind lead generation online. Make them enticing so that visitors really want to receive your content offer. Think of your CTA as the bait to lead them to the next step, which is the landing page.
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04. Converting Visitors into Hot Leads
03. Creating Landing Pages The Landing Page is where your visitors arrive after they click on your call-to-action. The Landing Page must have a form that visitors need to fill in order to receive your valuable offer. The â&#x20AC;&#x153;Thank-Youâ&#x20AC;? page is the page where the visitor who has submitted their information can access the offer you promised.
Landing Page with Form
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Thank You Page with Offer
TEST
04. Keep Learning and Improving by Testing, Measuring & Interacting Content offers, calls-to-action, and landing pages are the core elements of the conversion process. However, if you only have a single conversion pathway, you have very little insight into the way the process is performing. In order to improve conversions, you need to constantly measure and experiment. Test different CTAs, landing pages, and offers. For example, if a CTA banner has been on your homepage for a month, vary the messaging or swap it out for an entirely new design, and after another month, measure which one performed best.
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Chapter 5. Convert Leads into Customers
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05. Convert Leads into Customers
~ Email Marketing Best Practices 01. Grow your business with List Building Add forms and pop-ups on your website that allow visitors to enter their email address and to receive your messages. Give them a good reason for them to hand over their email address to you. Only send messages to people who have explicitly opted in.
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05. Convert Leads into Customers
02. The Magic to Sending Brilliant Emails 01. Send email that are relevant to the interests of your contacts. 02. Be personal in your communication. Use a real sender name and add a personal signature with all your company wide email communication.
03. Make the value clear in the subject line. 04. Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t rely on images as some email clients donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t load images automatically.
05. Pick a sending schedule and stick to it. Be consistent and set the right expectations.
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03. Re-Converting Landing Pages 01. Each email should have a goal. Make it very clear on the action you want your recipient to take. Are you encouraging them to read an announcement on your blog? Are you inviting them to download your new ebook?
02. Make sure the Call-to-Action is clear and that it links to a landing page.
03. Remember that the landing page is part of your email campaign. Landing pages are where the conversion takes place.
04. Make sure your landing page and emails use similar images and language.
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05. Convert Leads into Customers
04. Measuring Email Performance 01. Click-through rate (CTR). How many of the people you emailed clicked on the links in the email? The CTR can give you a sense of how compelling your offer is to your recipients.
02. Open Rate. This is an unreliable metric as major email companies do not load the images necessary for tracking who opened an email. Instead of worrying about open rate, focus on the number of clicks the links in the email receive.
03. Unsubscribe Rate. This measures the percentage of recipients who back out of receiving your emails. Again, this is not reliable as many subscribers wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t bother to go through the formal unsubscribe process but will just stop opening, reading and clicking on your emails.
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Chapter 6. How to Analyze & Refine all Campaigns 28
06. How to Analyze & Refine Campaigns
METRICS METRICS
Metrics to track & report on 01. Traffic. How many people come to your website? Which channels brought in the most amount of visitors? With that knowledge, what can you do to drive even more people in? 02. Leads. How much of your traffic are you converting to interested potential customers? This number needs to grow to ensure a steady flow of revenue. 03. Customers. All your campaigns lead back to this road. How many customers where you able to acquire through your marketing campaigns. This is how we can measure the ROI (Return of Investment).
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04. Customer Acquisition Cost. How much money was spent on the campaign in order to get a customer? 05. New vs. Repeat Visitors. Both are good. Attracting new visitors means your SEO is performing well. Return visitors means you are giving people good reason to come back to your site.
Analyze and Keep Getting More Awesome 01. Identify Opportunities. When you review all the hard work you have put into it, think about how you could make it even better. Get into the mindset of constantly looking for new opportunities. 02. Set a Metric for Success. Your metric shoule be quantifiable and involve a set time frame. For example, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Increase website leads by X% over the next Y daysâ&#x20AC;?. 03. Refine your Strategy. Review what has been working and improve on it. Think deeper into how some of your other efforts which are performing poorly might need some added love.
~ Practice Makes Perfect! 30
Need any Internet Marketing Help? Come, letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s talk! www.colourcode.hk