Internet Marketing Guide
Contents 1. Internet Marketing 2. ROI 3. High Rankings 4. Internet Marketing: Techniques and options 5. Google PPC 6. Landing Pages 7. Conversions and Usability 8. SEO 9. Onsite Optimisation 10. Offsite Optimisation 11. Analytics 12. Implementation Model 13. FAQs
Internet Marketing Internet marketing is simply being visible online in the places that your customers visit whilst providing them with information and/or content that they are interested in. Internet marketing contributes to new sales opportunities by increasing the brand’s reach over the Internet. This includes improving results for: •
Search
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Advertising
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Shopping Comparison
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Consumer Reviews
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Affiliate Marketing
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Social Media
Not all channels are relevant for all businesses but, just like traditional marketing and advertising, we have options and we have to choose the right ones that provide the best ROI. Simply put, if your competitors are more visible online than you, they will get the opportunity to sell to what potentially could have been your prospect. Your website could be and should be one of your best sales people. Let’s think about it for a second…
Does a website ever sleep? Does it ask for commission? Does it drive an expensive car and rack up huge phone bills? Is your website limited to only dealing with one customer query at a time? Recent research reveals that up to 97% of online consumers research products, services and brands online before committing to buying or making an enquiry. Your website should be your best salesperson, designed, written and developed to build trust, answer questions and be persuasive enough to convert visits to a sale or enquiry. An Internet marketing campaign is designed to attract more relevant ready to buy visitors that, without it, would never have heard of you and, worse still, will end up buying from a competitor.
ROI In order to provide you with ROI figures, we need to understand your market incredibly well and from this we can make an honest assessment. Is Internet marketing right for your business? In most instances, and especially if you already have a strong traditional approach, the answer is yes as it sucks up those online queries that you are currently missing out on. In some instances where we have completed our audit and we understand your market better it could be suggested that there are other more traditional options which will be more successful short-term. Remember we provide a full marketing service and we are not bias towards any technique. We just want to provide the one(s) that work best for your business.
High Rankings It is easy for us to say that we will achieve higher rankings for a specific search term. We have a system and good people to deal with that, but a higher ranking on a search term does not mean more sales. There is an almost infinite combination of search terms for any business. Some will contribute to significant sales and some won’t. Our job is to work with you to best understand the types of search terms your potential customers would be using to search for your products / services. We do this by using a number of techniques: • Understanding your business and agreeing together what terms we should use • Powerful software • Focus groups / speaking to existing and potential customers • Set a test campaign live and measure what is working and what isn’t
If we recommend Internet marketing then we are confident that you will, in the medium term, receive a return on investment.
Internet Marketing Like any good marketing campaign it should have a plan with measurable KPIs. It should be staged and we should start off with smaller test campaigns. We only expand once we know what is working and what we know needs improving or deleting from the campaign. Options will differ from business to business and not all techniques will be set live at once. Our recommendations for your business can include: • •
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Google PPC Google PPC ad extensions •
Google places
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Consumer review sites
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Adsite links
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Call extensions
SEO •
Onsite optimisation
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Google+
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Link building campaigns
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Search engine friendly content • Videos • Images • Articles
Google PPC PPC (pay per click) by Google is, by far, the largest advertising platform on the Internet. PPC allows us to quickly build a campaign with carefully chosen keywords and, as we only pay for adverts that get clicked on, it allows us to be more experimental with wider search terms. A campaign can be built quickly and instantly launched. Once the PPC campaign has launched we can start analysing results, tracking keywords and highlighting those that are successful. Google PPC ad extensions A Google PPC campaign is another good indicator of understanding the market, the audience and their search habits. Once we know what keywords are successful we can then start to analyse whether they are worth adding to an SEO campaign. Depending on results we may recommend that we use a combination of PPC and SEO. Studies show that brands that show up twice on a search, once by a PPC advert and once by an organic search listing are 85% more likely to be clicked on. This is explained simply by the brand taking up a substantial amount of the search engine screen real estate
We will use Google PPC ad extensions to increase the click through rates by increasing the size and relevancy of the advert. They are free to use, it is additional work and needs an element of set-up.
These include: • Review extensions: Relevant for both product and service based businesses. The review line stands out to the eye and increases click through rate. • Local extensions: Help nearby consumers find or call your nearest location. • Call extensions: Connect users to your business directly by phone. • AdSite links: Promote more pages within your site beyond your main ad landing page.
Landing Pages Landing pages are used to create relevant content related to a keyword search. We only ever want targeted warm leads to come to our website; this is the backbone of our Internet marketing campaign. We target relevant consumers and we persuade them to click on an advert or organic listing through using the right keywords. Once our consumer has clicked on an advert / listing it is essential that they are taken to a webpage that has the information they are expecting to find. A landing page allows us to match keywords with relevant content. We build highly affective landing pages on brand, with persuasive copy and professional images. If required, we can even include special offers, contact forms, trackable telephone numbers all designed to improve conversion and tracking.
Conversions & Usability Once we have converted consumers to spend time and look at the website we need to persuade them to take some form of action: •
Make a purchase
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Fill in an enquiry form
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Download a free brochure
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Make a telephone call
Analytics can only go so far in providing us with information that allows us to make informed decisions on how to structure information and website architecture that improves visitor experience and ultimately increases conversion rates. We use mouse / eye tracking software to track visitor clicks and mouse movements. Features include: •
Heat map tools
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Scroll map tools
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Overlay tools
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Confetti tools
The information we gather here together with the information we collect from analytics allows us to make informed decisions on how we better structure the website for maximum customer experience and usability. The ultimate aim is to maximise visitor conversion rates and achieve best efficiency with the Internet marketing campaign. It allows us to:
• Test landing pages • Understand the best position for the important information • Find usability errors • Increase click through rates • Increase conversion rates
SEO SEO or search engine optimisation is an Internet marketing technique with the aim of displaying your website higher in organic searches than a competitor for strategically chosen search terms. Any traffic resulting from a click in the organic searches is free there is no charge from the search engines. However there is a cost relating to the SEO specialist who has spent their time and used their experience getting the term to the top. In addition to the cost it takes time for a chosen keyword to make positive movements up the search engine rankings. In some instances it takes some months depending how you currently rank and how competitive the keyword is. What we don’t want to do is spend money, time and effort getting a keyword to the top of a search engine only for it to generate few visits with no return on investment, regardless of our best research and intentions. This is why we often recommend using a Google Ads campaign in addition to our research and tools at the beginning of the new campaign.
Onsite Optimisation A website has to be built technically to a good standard and, in addition, there is a list of good practice requirements that once completed to a high standard will provide you with a solid platform for your SEO campaign. We use software that quickly scans your website and provides recommended improvements in over 50 areas within your website. We then put a human eye through the report and then start improving the site based on the information in the report and the experience of our SEO technician. These areas include* *Please note this is done as standard within an optimised website build. HTML Code
Duplicate Content
Meta Data
Internal Links
Keyword Densities
URL Canonicalistion / Friendly URLs
Site Architecture
Content Writing
Site Maps
With recent updates to Google algorithms (Panda and Penguin) on-site optimisation is playing an ever more crucial part in the success of an SEO campaign. Google are penalising websites with poor content or content that has been written to ‘game’ the Google system. Content has to be excellent, engaging and noteworthy of recommendation.
Websites, now more than ever, need to be optimised around user and usage metrics. This includes: •
Time on the site / page
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Bounce rate
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Browse rate
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CTR from search engines
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Diversity of branded search and direct traffic
Particular time and effort has to be paid to the content of the website not only to please Google, but, more importantly, provide quality content that will turn visitors into enquiries and then into paying customers.
Offsite Optimisation Offsite optimisation covers a range of techniques that enhances search directory ratings of a website. This is in addition to onsite optimisation. Usually this consists of a link building strategy, but can also include social media activities. Offsite optimisation has historically been the key activity to building a better reputation for your website. The game has, however, changed. Offsite optimisation, although still key, has been integrated with new rules that Google has provided us to play with including the most recent Panda and Penguin updates giving more emphasis to onsite optimisation.
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Analytics If you don’t measure you can’t manage and make informed decisions. We will install enterprise grade server stats and Google analytics. Features are wide and powerful they include: •
Analysis tools
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Content analytics
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Social analytics
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Mobile analytics
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Conversion analytics
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Advertising analytics
Using these tools you can understand how your website is performing and drill down on important customer usage information. This allows you to make informed decisions on how to improve your marketing activities.
Implementation Model Research with estimated results
Google PPC
Evaluate
Google PPC
Onsite Optimisation
SEO
FAQs Q) How much does Internet marketing cost? A) We see any Internet marketing as an investment. Done properly Internet marketing is a robust tool to specifically track online methods of marketing and analyse exactly what is working and what isn’t. We have everything we need to test, tweak and roll out campaigns that give you a return on investment. You will, however, need a sensible monthly budget and this does depend on a number of factors. Expect to budget at least £3000 for a campaign over a period of no less than 3 months.
Q) You mention Google a lot. Will people find my website on Yahoo and Bing? A) Google is by far the most used search engine in the UK and we will pay specific attention to Google. If budget permits we will also run additional campaigns on Yahoo and Bing and compare results.
Q) You said you would achieve organic page one rankings for our search terms. This has not happened, what are you going to do?
Q) I really don’t understand Internet marketing where is my investment going? A) Internet marketing is a broad subject often shrouded in mystery not helped by frequent changes to search engine algorithms and changing advertising options. In very simple terms, Internet marketing is about getting your target audience to find your website and then take some form of required action (make a purchase or enquiry). How we do it does depend on the strategy that works for your business but, be assured, we will fully explain what we are doing and provide a report each month.
A) We will continue to work on your search terms until we achieve our goals. Alternatively, if we do not achieve a page one ranking within 3 months after the agreed target date, we will refund in full your investment and leave all of our SEO work in place.make informed decisions on how to improve your marketing activities.
Optimised Salters House, Salters Court, 156 High Street, Hull, HU1 1NQ
0333 772 9892
info@optimised.today