On Line Marketing

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Internet Marketing Nirvana

Different types of internet marketing methods can all yield great results used separately, but use them together and optimise the way they interrelate and the sum is much greater than the individual parts.

Lets look at how and why using a combination of Pay Per Click (PPC), Search engine optimisation (SEO), Email marketing and website landing page optimisation does the business.

Pay Per Click


Many people use pay per click as their only form of online marketing - its easy, everything can be monitored and theres no need to make large scale changes to an existing website.

Just make sure you do the basics right:-

- choose a large number of relevant keyphrases (so you capture the 'long tail' as well as the volume terms)

- make sure your ads are written effectively (ensure the keyphrase searched for is repeated in the ad and that the ad entices a click through; and ideally ensure the url of the landing page contains the keyphrase)

-drive searchers through to an appropriate, optimised landing page.

If you do these things your campaigns will be effective and you will receive a reasonable to very good return on your investment.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Consider this search for 'dr martens':-



As you can see here Cloggs have two snippets in the top positions - a pay per click ad and also a SEO snippet.

In average terms you can argue that this is at least doubling your return on investment. Because once the SEO snippet is there its there for free so you are getting two click throughs for the price of one - actually its better than this because in average terms you get three times the click throughs on the natural, or SEO results, than on the paid-for ones. Any way you look at it your ROI is improved dramatically.

Landing page Optimisation


Consider this page - the landing page for a search for 'Worcester Greenstar Boiler':-
(Click on image to enlarge)



After doing the search for 'worcester greenstar boiler' and clicking on the snippet this is the page you land on, which is optimised, and by this we mean:-

- the searcher knows he's found what he's looking for - it says 'Worcester Greenstar Boiler' at the top of the page

- there's also an image of a greenstar boiler and a comprehensive description

- There are appropriate 'calls to action' that is the searcher can go on to buy the product if he wishes by using the ecommerce functions on that page OR, and very importantly, he can call the supplier via the very prominent phone number at the top of the page.

This is what we mean by landing page optimisation, a page which maximises the chance of soliciting the desired response from the searcher. (in addition to being optimised for natural SEO results)

You may know also that google promotes a PPC result higher in the rankings based on the effectiveness of this landing page. (ie what people do when they get there) and there is a further bit of synergy here between SEO and PPC. This page is optimised for both.

Email Marketing

Where does email fit into the picture?

Its an unpalatable truth folks that most people visiting your website wont do what you want - that is they wont buy or wont make contact with you, and certainly they wont try to remember your url for later consideration.

So the onus is really on you to keep the communications going, and this can best be done by asking them for their email address when they visit (obviously in return for something they will value in a regular newsletter) - educational information, seasonal offers, promotions - whatever is relevant to your audience but really the key is to keep the name in front of them for when they are ready to buy
(incidentally 4 to 5 of you reading this will become customers of ours as a result of this communication - so be careful!)

Collecting emails is simply done:-



The point is:-

-Dont ask them for anything other than an email address

-Spell out the advantages of what they'll get in return

-Make sure you include sign ups on many pages - not just one or two (AND, certainly on all your optimised landing pages)

So there you go, a well put together blend of SEO, PPC, Email and landing page optimisation will do the trick for you and deliver a huge return on investment compared to any other form of marketing you will do.

Please call if we can help and have a Great Christmas and New Year

Jan Klin - 01928 788100 - jan@janklin.com

Incidentally if you are a Manchester based manufacturing company (I know, its only a few of you) you can get a 50% grant for your ecommerce web projects - call if you need more.