Internet Marketing Service Advantages
With the growth of the business potential of the internet employing the strategies of quality internet marketing services has become a must for all businesses. If you own a business opting for Internet marketing services will ensure that your site isn’t just a static billboard on the web that no one but yourself and your employees view, but that it is actually being found on the web and is bringing in business.
Internet marketing services have enormous potential for generating business through the web. But why should you opt for these services for your business?
Why Use Internet Marketing Services?
Well firstly the web allows you to break down the geographic barriers of your business, as well as produce more cost effective results from your marketing dollars with real time tracking and detailed analytics. Not to mention that more and more people are turning the web to find not only information about products, but information about business, if not buy the product directly online. Internet marketing services obviously integrate the latest internet marketing strategies into your business website’s marketing campaign to increase your website’s exposure.
The most common areas that an internet marketing services will help you with include:
- Search Engine Optimisation (SEO): Search engine optimisation is one of the core services provided and its focus is on increasing your website’s exposure in search engine’s organic rankings through a process of remodelling your sites content and keyword focus to specific terms important to your business as well as link building given it’s an important element in search engine’s ranking algorythm.
- Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC): Pay Per Click Advertising or PPC is where businesses bid for their ad to be placed alongside search engine results of various search terms. When an ad is shown the advertiser only pays when an ad is clicked. This method of internet marketing can be highly targeted making it an efficient and popular form of Internet marketing.
- Email Marketing: Email marketing mainly focuses on building an opted in mailing list to allow you to send direct emails to all potential or current customers. This method of internet marketing is great way to get repeat sales from previous customers as well as help build branding and mindshare. This method can be outsourced to an internet marketing service though many businesses chose to keep this an in-house operation.
- Social Media Optimisation: Social media is an emerging method of staying in touch with your consumer and fan base, though at least in Australia there doesn’t seem to many companies that specialise in providing this service. In principle social media optimisation focuses on managing various social networking sites, like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. SMO is great way to keep an open channel of communication with the public, though may not be fruitful for all types of businesses.
- Affiliate Marketing: Affiliate marketing in a nutshell can be described as generating a sale of someone else’s product on their behalf for a commission or fee. This method of marketing may well be a viable option for your business, though once again there are not a lot of Australian internet marketing service consultants that specialise in this field or offer the setup of this service.
- Article Marketing: Article marketing is most commonly used by those that offer internet marketing services as a means of building links in an SEO campaign. It basically consists of writing an article with links embedded within it and then distributing that article to article directories which will then publish it.
- Link Building: These days to get ranked well for competitive terms the search engines need to trust your site. The most common element of building trust in the eyes of the search engines is having links pointing to your site; thus the value of link building.
- Conversion Optimisation: Conversion optimisation is the process whereby a site is better optimised to turn visitors into leads or sales. This is generally through a process of making your website more user friendly, increasing calls to actions as well as their prominent position in addition to minimising buying friction that inhibits people from taking action.
In Australia there are a number of firms which offer Internet marketing services based out of all of the major capital cities like Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne.
The Value Of Internet Marketing Consultants
In recent times advertising of products or services through the Internet has become a major focus for small business. However, the success of such campaigns relies on the strategic application of an internet marketing plan. Obviously if a small business lacks the in house experience to spearhead an online marketing campaign then an Internet marketing consultant will greatly aid the success of any online marketing plan.
Responsibility of an Internet Marketing Consultant
An internet marketing consultant improves the likelihood of the successful application of an internet marketing strategy by performing various tasks including;
- Planning a business’s online marketing strategy: Through highlighting the strategic objectives of a business and how best to achieve this objectives via online opportunities. The marketing plan will not only take into consideration business goals, but also budget constraints.
- Market research: One of the many advantages of the internet is the volume of market information that is available which experienced internet marketing consultants can utilise to better set and reach business goals. An internet marketing consultant’s analysis and market research might include keyword research, volume of searches, your website, competitors websites, pay per click value, link building strategies and other opportunities.
- Building a website: It is essential to make a website well optimised for both search engines and user friendly, yet at the same time has the main objective of achieving business goals. An internet marketing consultant can help with finding the right balance.
- Common Internet marketing strategies: The success of Internet marketing strategy is normally focussed on driving more traffic to a website and then optimising the conversion rates of that traffic once it has reached the site. Common methods of driving additional traffic to business website include, search engine optimisation, pay per click advertising, email marketing, viral marketing, social media optimisation, link building and affiliate marketing.
- Competitors’ website analysis: Often the most valuable information an Internet marketing consultant can provide is the analysis of your competitor’s websites. When it comes to internet marketing the name of the game is being better than your competitors. A few positions higher in the search engine rankings and a better conversion rate makes an exponential difference online.
Internet Marketing Consultants – A Must Have for Small Business
Whether it’s about promoting their products or services online, getting traffic to your websites or ranking well on major search engines, an expert internet marketing consultant can make all these things possible and will help differentiate your business from your online competitors and leverage your current business assets.
Australian Internet Marketing Consultants
In Australia, a number of expert Internet marketing consultants and firms are based in the major cities like Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth etc. The rates charge by consultants obviously varies according to their services and expertise. Whilst there are internet marketing consultants that offer cheap rates, when it comes to internet marketing you tend to get more than what you pay for, and remember that in many cases small improvements can yield exponential rewards.
In Conclusions
Hiring Internet marketing consultant will help you analyse the various aspects of your online business, evaluate your needs and devise an innovative strategic plan that suits your business objectives and budget. This strategic plan will enable you to drive more traffic, for less expenditure and will strengthen your online presence.
Finding Internet Marketing Services Worth Hiring
I have already spoken at length about signs a SEO company is bad, but I thought I’d flip it the other way and offer you some tips for finding internet marketing services worth hiring. Below are some things you can look for when hiring an internet marketing service.
14 Tips For Finding Internet Marketing Services Worth Hiring
- Do they rank well for their major terms? So if they were based in Sydney they should rank well for terms like “Internet Marketing Sydney”, “SEO Sydney” and “Email Marketing Sydney”. Ideally they should rank well for the broad terms of “Internet Marketing”, “SEO”, “PPC” and “Email Marketing” without the local term of “Sydney” being added to the search query.
- Do they have Google, Yahoo and Bing accreditation? Yes internet marketing service providers can get search engine accreditation signifying their proficiency with search engine marketing platforms.
- Do they offer a broad range of online marketing methods? These days the best internet marketing strategies will include a combinations of internet marketing disciplines such as SEO, PPC, email marketing, conversion optimisation, social media optimisation, affiliate marketing, local listings, etc. So it’s best if the internet marketing firm offers and is experienced with at least a couple of these internet marketing specialisations.
- Do they have a good portfolio of past/present clients that they have achieved good rankings for with industry competitive terms?
- Do they have informative and positive testimonials from happy customers? This shows they can not only can achieve good rankings but are good to work with. If you’re serious about finding the best internet marketing agency then you could even consider contacting some of their past clients and request further details about their performance and how they were to do business with.
- Is their own site neatly laid out, with the good use of headings and relevant information in a readable format coupled with multiple calls to actions? If they don’t look after their own website and use best website usability practices they are unlike to employ them on yours.
- Make sure they don’t use a lot of flash. A small amount of flash (maybe a flash header image) is OK, but a site made largely in flash is a sign that they don’t understand a lot about online marketing and making their site both user and search engine friendly.
- Do they have a couple of years experience in the internet marketing industry? Though working in the internet marketing industry for longer than five years would be preferred.
- Do they specialise in internet marketing or just offer the service on the side? Most web designers claim to offer internet marketing services like SEO with their designs, but most rarely integrate SEO best practices into their design nor do they understand that off page elements are often more important than the onpage web design.
- Do they offer informative articles on their own site that explain elements of internet marketing like SEO, PPC, email marketing, social media optimisation, etc? If they don’t they probably don’t understand the simple concept of quality content is king on the internet.
- Do they have a fair and justified payment structure? Assess the value of the service not the price, because like most things in life you get what you pay for and you should be looking to maximise value not minimise price. Whilst you need to consider what is best for your business, when it comes to internet marketing services the difference between ranking first and fifth can be huge often making the cheapest service the worst option.
- Do they offer free site analysis or reports? If so get one. Many internet marketing services offer these. So you can look at the detail and information supplied in the reports to compare and contrast between the quality of services.
- What makes them different from the competition? Sometimes asking the prospective internet marketing agency the blunt question of “what makes you better or differentiates you from your competition” will reveal a lot. If they try to sell you spin they are probably talkers not walkers, if they give an articulate and honest answer about what their strengths and weaknesses are then you can assess their viability from their response. Good businesses understand they can’t be everything for everybody and shouldn’t try to be.
- Do they set realistic time frames? Internet marketing is generally a gradual process. There are things you can do instantly, but a lot of it takes at least a few weeks to produce good results and often even longer to perform quality testing and optimisation.
So that’s a good starting point for choosing an internet marketing service, but be sure to also be on the look out for signs that they are a bad at SEO.
BEWARE of Free Internet Marketing Seminars Promising Riches
As the old sayings goes, if it seems too good to be true it probably is.
Someone recently forwarded me an article from the local newspaper which after reading I felt compelled to write about; free internet marketing seminars claiming to be able to fulfill your dreams of making money while you sleep.
The internet marketing industry is being inundated with new internet marketing seminars and training programs promising to make you a fortune with websites that are on autopilot. Now I have no problem with individuals and companies making money offering internet marketing workshops and training programs, these are not the problem, the problem is the internet marketing training companies locking their clients into training course contracts under which they can’t realistically get out of once they realise the course information is weak.
These sham internet marketing seminars operate like most shallow get rich quick schemes. They stage a FREE seminar which attracts a large gullible audience then after a day of building trust they move into a well crafted sales pitch that plays on the hopes and dreams of the unwitting, pitching the “potential” rather than the “reality”, selling how “easy” it is rather informing them of “the years of experience and system building” required to truly make it “easy”.
Of course despite the hard sell and obvious holes in these training products dozens of audience members end up handing over credit card numbers paying hundreds sometimes thousands of dollars a month for the “privilege” to have repackaged information that’s freely available online sent to them monthly over their 12 month contract.
But How Quickly These Shams Fall From Grace
It was only a couple of months ago when Geedversity was being featured in the news positively:
Mr Stenning teaches people how to make money from the web; how to rank in Google “within 24 hours of launching a web product” and how to market a business – sometimes without spending a cent.
“In the past 18 months we have had around 2000 participants (in the seminars) with 27 per cent (of participants) seeing returns in the first six weeks of start-up and 42 per cent making enough money to quit their day job after six months,” claims Mr Stenning.
Now, according to the courier mail, the company is facing legal threats from disgruntled customers who were sold hope but purchased a nightmare.
A company promising to teach internet marketing techniques that would let people quit their jobs is facing cancellations and threats of legal action. Internet marketing company Geekdom spent months spruiking the benefits of its course in Australia, New Zealand and the UK.
Clients paid up to $21,000 to learn of internet marketing strategies including trading advertising traffic, affiliate marketing and domain name trading.
One client said, “we were not making money to the extent we were told. We were told we would make our money back in the first six months. We were paying $1,800 a month, a total of $8,000, plus other costs up to $9,000!”
“It could work however there is more work involved than they ever suggested. They said it would take a few hours a week to maintain, we were working 10 – 12 hours a day”
Geekdom’s chief executive officer then goes on to say “we are doing our utmost to offer refunds to people who qualify, those people who have put in the work.
My Recent Get Rich Quick Internet Marketing Seminar Experience
Intrigued, I personally went to one of these free internet marketing seminars a couple of weeks ago (though I won’t name names). I was of course skeptical given the cost of the seminar was the princely sum of nothing (I’m a big believer in you generally get what you pay for). Nonetheless I wanted to see the up sell, and maybe learn thing or two, and most importantly meet the seminar leader who I felt might be a good joint venture partner in the future.
The seminar targeted beginners (real beginners) though there were even one or two valuable insights even for an old dog like me, but in whole the outline of internet marketing that they pitched was VERY incomplete, not that a beginner would know that. The concept of making money online was pushed as being “easy”, “simple”, “anyone could do it” which of course prompted the question from a skeptical audience member, as to why wasn’t he doing it himself if it was so easy, but he dodged that bullet very well.
The Money Is In Selling The Sizzle Not The Sausage
Of course the real reason the speaker no longer focused on scraping together a living selling ebooks (he did at one point but no doubt his markets got saturated) is that he could make a fortune selling hopes and dream for thousands of dollars to people who wanted to know the “secret” method of how you make ebooks and sell them online.
At the end of the day I tried to count the number of people that signed onto the $4000 course, it was close to 45. Making $150,000+ in a day never looked so easy. It truly was eye opening.
Warning Signs That A Internet Marketing Training Course Is A Sham
Of course amongst all sales hype there were a number of obvious warnings signs that clearly weren’t registering amongst the masses of individuals who were too busy stampeding towards the back of the room to sign up.
Firstly the guarantee was very conditional. This to me just screamed of a lock in contract with little opportunity for recourse.
Secondly, the limited time offer and the hard sell. I mean if their training course is legit they shouldn’t care if you sign up today, tomorrow or next week. It makes no difference when you are selling a pre-packaged info product.
Thirdly, the speaker himself wasn’t involved in the training process. Sure he put together some materials, ebooks, audio, videos etc – but once you signed the dotted line he cashed the check and walked away. If you had any problem you could always ask an under trained outsourced assistant or post your question on a forum that was provided.
Finally, and most alarming, as a “bonus” for “buying now” each member would receive the same couple of already packaged mini online ebook businesses ready to go. Of course the head smackingly obvious problem with his was that 45 people were going to get the exact same ebooks and landing pages. Last time I studied economics competitors selling an identical product cause price competition destroying profits for all firms. Not to mention Google doesn’t look fondly on duplicate content.
Know Who Your Buying From And Selling To
Despite my opinion that the product was incredibly over priced, I wasn’t there to buy it; I wanted to speak with the seminar leader personally. I wanted the opportunity to introduce myself and meet a peer in the industry. So I hung around and waited for the masses of new students to disperse from around the seminar leader. Though what I heard as I hung around waiting for the chance to chat to him blew my mind.
One individual asked point blank “what are the chances I’ll fail at doing this”, which floored me, I don’t know why anyone would ask such a subjective question. It’s like asking “what are the chances I won’t be able to run 100m in under 11 seconds”. Unfortunately many people just don’t have the genetics to run that fast not matter how good the training.
The real tragedy was that I was sitting near this individual in the seminar and watched him ask a number of relatively simple and in some cases blatantly obvious questions throughout the seminar. This young kid clearly wasn’t the brightest bulb in the pack and if I had to make a snap judgement I’d say he was going to struggle with the course, but of course the response from the seminar leader was a very unconditional “you won’t fail if you just do what I tell you”.
I cringed and watched that kid walk away with the look of renewed confidence that he wouldn’t be burned again on another get rich quick scheme.
At the end of the day I got my couple of moments with the seminar leader and in those few moments I realised he wasn’t the guy I thought he was. He wasn’t as altruistic as he claimed. He wasn’t as informed as he claimed. He wasn’t as experienced as he claimed and he had just made $150,000 selling a prepackaged info product. I walked away jaded, but it gave me the inspiration to start this blog.
You CAN Make Money Online
The internet provides many money making opportunities, but the fundamentals of business on the internet apply virtually the same way they apply in the real world, you just have greater opportunity for scale and distribution online. And just like traditional get rich quick schemes don’t’ work; they don’t work on the internet either.
Competition is fierce and what were great ways of making money in 2007 are not today. Everything evolves online, and quickly, website are made redundant and market positions are difficult to defend given the few barriers to entry. However there is lots of money to be made for those willing put their head down work hard and be smart.
I’ve been working for myself online since 2005, but it’s only been achievable through working hard and working smart. There’s no silver bullet and there definitely aren’t any internet marketing courses out there that will make you millionaires themselves – a lot of it is up to you. At some point you are going to have to do what every other successful person on this planet does – work hard and work smart.
I’m not saying going to conferences, buying ebooks and even joining internet marketing training courses are a bad idea (I’ve attended, read and tried lots myself) but there sure are a lot of junk products out there so make sure you’re learning off those that are worth learning off when it comes to internet marketing. Or better yet wet your appetite with the HUGE range of free ebooks and blogs scattered all over the web on how to make money online so that you can differentiate the wheat from the chaff.
You can start by subscribe to this blog now. It’s FREE.
Email Marketing In Brief
Basics of Email Marketing in under 500 words.
Email marketing is essentially direct mail marketing using email. Its advantages over traditional direct mail marketing include; lower costs and higher ROI, improved tracking capabilities, better database segmentation, faster delivery and response rates.
Email marketing is a simple, cost effective platform for business to stay connected with its established customer base. Building targeted email lists is one of the most sustainably, profitable ways to market online.
Email Marketing List Building
- Feature Opt-in Forms Prominently – Subscribers are valuable. They’re signing up to hear from you regularly.
- Provide Incentives to Subscribe – People need reasons to take action. Couple free reports, discounts, benefits etc for subscribing.
- Use Double Opt-In – Ensure subscribers want to be listed. It also weeds out bot registrations.
- Get Their Name – You’re building a long term relationship. So knowing their name is important.
- Tell Them You’ll Protect Their Privacy – Then actually do that.
- Leverage Joint Ventures – Advertise your mailing list to readers on similar mailing lists.
- Refer-a-Friend – Offer bonuses to subscribers who refer friends.
- Add Customers – Customers already like your products/services. So suggest they sign up.
Email Marketing Campaign Tips
- Keep Emails Relevant and Offers Compelling – People only want relevant and valuable information and offers.
- Personalise Email – Use personal data, like their name, in emails to improve response and reading rates.
- Test Headlines – Headlines are about getting the email opened whilst hinting at what’s inside. Test various headlines. Focus on benefits.
- Beat Spam Filters – Symbols and words like “$$$” “FREE” “MLM” will get your email filtered.
- Welcome New Subscribers – Say “thank you” in your welcome email. Be friendly, reiterate benefits, set expectations, ask to be white listed, link to additional resources.
- Use Autoresponders – streamline email delivery and relationship building with autoresponder.
- Deliverability – Use reputable email marketing services who can deal with ISP issues.
- Optimise Preview Pane – Many people use preview panes. So put what’s important first.
- Frequency – Keep in contact without being overbearing. Try every 4 – 14 days. Keep your mailing schedule consistent and each email valuable.
- Track Everything – Bounce rates, open rates, CTR, which links were click, etc.
- Use Email Segmentation – Helps keep emails relevant and targeted.
- Use Landing Pages – Direct visitors to the relevant page. Replicate graphics of the email on the landing page and prefill forms where possible.
- Timing – Send emails at times most likely to be acted on. Not when readers are busy or inundated with other emails.
- Be Personable – Don’t be corporate. Readers delete corporate junk. Use your name and a conversational tone. Don’t always be selling. Build trust then “recommend”.
- Test Everything – Headlines, images, calls to action, link placement; everything.
- Re-Engage or Remove Inactive Subscribers – Remove once proven non-responsive.
Email Marketing Warnings
- Make Unsubscribing Easy – It’s better someone unsubscribes that report you as SPAM and you get blacklisted.
- Email Compatibility – Provide both HTML and text based emails.
- Don’t SPAM Subscribers – Opting to receive emails from you doesn’t mean SPAM irrelevant junk. Readers will unsubscribe or worse – report you as SPAM.
- Don’t Buy Email Lists – They’re poor quality and there are legal implications.
And that’s Email Marketing in 500 words or less. Please leave your questions and comments below:
Provide Value Through Cost Effectively Solving People’s Problems
So many people talk about what’s most important when it comes to the success of a business website and internet marketing campaign, but like most things in life it all boils down to one thing.
Providing value for your visitors through cost effectively solving their problems.
People have problems. We all have problems. Every one of us pays good money to solve problems, whether it’s buying groceries to eat or buying a porsche to build esteem, we pay to have our problems solved every day.
Truly successful businesses, products, people, websites, etc all do the same thing – they cost effectively solve people’s problems.
Example of Cost Effective Problem Solving
Google costs nothing but connects people with the information they want in seconds – talk about providing massive value. Amazon is a one stop shop for thousands and thousands of products, which can be delivered at discount prices directly to your door without leaving the comfort of your own computer chair.
Many of you reading this are subscribed to this site because of the valuable content I cost effectively provide you. Of course the information on this blog is free in a monetary sense, but it costs you a couple of moments of your time and attention with each post and that’s worth something to most people. This is the very reason why I’m committed to providing truly valuable information because I know everyone who has subscribed to this blog highly values their time and if I waste it I’ll lose them as a subscriber.
Communicating You Provide Great Value For Money Is Key
It’s always good to reflect on the simple fact that money never leaves the consumers hands unless they perceive they are going to get “value for money”. So before you SEO your site, before your optimise conversion paths, before send your marketing emails, first make sure that you are providing “great value” in the eyes of the consumer by cost effectively solving problems that are important to them.
Knowing this, you need to ask yourself, when a visitors comes to my site can they quickly and accurately conclude that you are going to be able to help solve their problems at a good price? Because if they can’t you just lost yourself a potential sale/lead/subscriber/ad click.
It’s one thing to be able to solve people’s problems, but you win sales by being able to “cost effectively” solve people’s problems. This principle is the life blood of business. People have problems, but in the majority of cases they can solve them themselves, but of course this would be highly inefficient if a business can solve the problem for you more cost effectively.
So remember that the foundation of the success of your business website’s marketing campaign is centred on you being able to communicate to your visitors that you will cost effectively solve their problems.
How To Sell Products With Faces
I’m a big fan of Roger Dooley and his Neuromarketing blog with its practical examples for marketers about the natural condition and function of the brain that justify the modern day marketing.
His piece on using faces, particularly the focus of face, to direct viewers attention to areas of importance on a website really highlights the subtle things that can be applied to help sell products on your website. Whilst I have yet to implement this feature into my own site design, I will definitely be be looking to employee it in future site designs and I’m very eager to see how it performs in practical experiments.
Here are some of the finer points on the results of the experiment.
When the subjects were presented an ad with the baby looking straight out of the page, the heat map below shows that viewers fixated on the baby’s face, and gave quite a bit less attention to the headling and ad copy:
No big surprise, perhaps, but watch what happens when a side-facing baby image is positioned to “look” at the ad’s headline:
We see that the baby’s face is still a major hot spot, but now the ad headline and copy get far more attention! Breeze concludes, “In advertising we will look at what the person we see in an ad is looking at. If they are looking out at us we will simply look back at them and not really anywhere else.”
Why You Should Partner With The New Business Heavyweights
This is post is for all the small to medium business owners who are in the process of dipping their toes into the world of internet marketing.
With the advent of the internet a new class of business entrepreneur has emerged, the resourceful, independent, flexible, strategically scalable internet marketers. Many of these new internet entrepreneur are now not only staking a claim in digital industries, but are increasing moving into the traditional business realms of local business products and services. I’m hearing more and more stories of local businesses moving online to chase their customers only to realise that a new exotic competitor has already staked a claim. The internet entrepreneur.
Who Are These New Internet Entrepreneurs
Many of these new internet entrepreneurs that are moving into localised business are affiliate marketers, seasoned SEO experts, domainers and bloggers who are looking to leverage their talents and skills in the less competitive yet highly lucrative waters of localised business as a result of the increasing competition in their former markets.
These internet marketers have their new breed of marketing skills, knowledge and know how coupled with their often large and leverageable portfolios of developed sites, refined strategies and premium domains. They are the cutthroat competitors that have risen to the top in the most competitive market in the world – the web. With few barriers to entry many have already made their first moves and hold key positions within local markets leaving traditional business owners scrambling for market share.
Whilst these new competitors won’t offer great products or services they understand the web better than traditional business owners which will ultimately force many incumbent business owners to negotiate buyouts of these new internet entrepreneurs to climb back into the new economy, but this won’t come cheap.
Don’t Bite The Hand That Leads
I , as have some of my associates, have already had a few run ins with misinformed business owners and their threats of “stay out of my industry” remarks as they cling to their former business models, but unknowingly to many of these businesses owners, it’s them walking onto the turf of the new business heavyweights. However these new internet entrepreneurs are not the enemy, they are just the leaders of the pack, and in many cases could be supremely valuable allies in the migration into the online world of business.
It’s important to note that many of these internet entrepreneur are simply flowing the money trail and don’t harbour intentions of participate in local business long term. As such businesses should be looking to work with rather than compete with these internet entrepreneurs. They have a lot to teach traditional businesses owners about the new world of the web, but their time valuable and the best of them are not available for hire so you need to work with them or be ready to pay a large price for their slice of the pie.
If You Can’t Beat Em; Join Em
All over the internet, marketers are talking of the money that can be made working in partnership with local business. Local businesses would be wise to seek these opportunities and find neutral ground, because as mentioned earlier many of the best in this industry are not available for hire. However, the internet entrepreneurs achilles heel to their dream of making millions, is their lack of ability to deliver tangible products, which for most business is their biggest strength. Out of which perfect partnerships are born.
Last year my father finally decide to call me in to have a chat about his own business website design. Initially I was only consulting on the matter of selecting the best web design company to redesign his site. However over a few conversation on what was really possible in regards to his online marketing campaign a collaborative partnership was formed.
The Potential Of Partnership
Now without sounding too full of myself, I was able to single handily take his online source of leads from 3% of his business per month to 43% within a few short months, investing no more than a couple of hours a week. This makes a massive difference to a company whose yearly revenues were already in excess of 10 million a year. Of course my father paid quite handsomely for the performance, but like most things in life you get what you pay for.
Now there are many who would argue that businesses can compete with these internet entrepreneurs by hiring their own SEO firms or inhouse online marketers, but once again you get what you pay for, and in my opinion the biggest argument against hiring an SEO or web marketing firm is if they were so good at it why aren’t they doing it for themselves. Many of these firm apply a systemized optimisation process which will yield “some” results depending on the competitiveness of the industry, but at the end of the day the difference between ranking 1st and 10th is 1400% so companies that promise you they’ll get you on the first page aren’t even worth the phone call. You need someone whose got some skin in the game and is looking to rank nothing short of “as high as profitably possible”.
So the moral of the story is going forward many small to medium businesses looking to capture there own bit of the online pie may need to be looking for collaborative partnerships with the new business heavyweights (the internet entrepreneur) rather than merely hiring low end SEO services.
Why Your Conversion Optimisation Is More Important Than SEO
ShoeMoney
I get emails every day from people who rank in the search engines for their keywords but are not getting any leads from it. When I send them a list of like 20 things to do to improve their conversion they tell me “but could this affect my keyword ranking?”.Annoying…
Continuing on from the previous post – Is Your SEO Focus Destroying Your Sales Conversions? – too many online marketing campaigns are focused on SEO as their internet marketing solution rather than just a small part of the equation.
Diminishing Returns of SEO Optimisation
Whilst the click through rate difference between 1st and 10th can be as much as 1500% there comes a point where SEO won’t yield the return on investment that optimising a site design for conversions or integrating optimised landing pages into PPC campaign will. Often refining the average site design to convert better can produce just as significant a ROI, if not even more so, than SERP ranking improvements in addition to giving you a longer term strategic advantage over unoptimised competitors in paid traffic mediums.
Over Reliance On Google
Also far too often people forget that Google is a law unto itself, it’s not obligated to rank your site for anything, and if all your eggs are in the SEO basket be prepared for some tears and a business model break down. If your online success is over 70% dependant on Google that’s a single point of failure if I have ever seen one. Now I’m not saying Google and SEO shouldn’t make up a very important chunk of your online marketing campaign, but it’s not the be all end all that many SEO companies sell. Rather it should be seen as the very healthy bonus to an online marketing campaign.
Poor Conversion Optimisation Helps Your Competitors
Aside from over reliance on SEO and Google, the reality is with your competition just a click away users don’t waste time trying to work your site out or spend too long trying to find the products and services they are looking for. They literally conclude in a couple of short seconds whether you have what they want. Failing this test they will be browsing your competitor’s site seconds later.
So not only are you missing conversion opportunities you’re giving your competitors a bite at the cherry, not to mention that in our fast paced world empirically it’s been shown that customers first point of contact is many times more likely to make the sale than following points of contact. So making it simple to get find the information they need then proceed down a sales funnel and/or get in contact with you is vitally important.
You need to remember that in the world of business, sales are more important than potential prospects. So keep your website focused on best serving your customer, rather than focusing on primarily serving Google.
Plan For The Future Of SEO
The web is the most competitive place for businesses to compete and having a site unoptimised for conversion will hurt you more in the long run than having a site that is unoptimised for search engines. With Google’s algorithm constantly evolving many top search engine marketing experts are speculating that websites that engage their users as well as continue to build an aging link profile are gaining a first mover advantage if/when Google decides to build user based data into their their ranking algorithm.
Internet Marketing Darwinism – Survival Of The Fittest
With SEO many feel search engine traffic is free therefore conversation optimisation of it isn’t essential, but the reality is every visitors that leaves without buying, subscribing or clicking an ad is a missed opportunity that you may not get again, or worse is gone to the competition. If your competitors utilise their opportunities better than you, it doesn’t matter if you out rank them today because Darwinism is alive on the web and the fit, strong and flexible organisations and individuals using best practices will eat into your market share and increase user retentions which will indirectly lead to eating into your rankings well over the longer run.
Sell Because People Want To Buy
Many site owners fear being overly focused on conversion optimisation or being “too aggressive” in selling themselves, but at the end of the day the strong will rise to the top and weak will be filtered out of the web like any other competitive system.
Plus when was the last time you visited a random site and went “man I’d love to be friends with the owner of this site?” That’s right, never. Your visitors don’t want to be your friends, they want you to help solve their problems.
And when was the last time you said “wow this site provides great value, but I hate the fact that the owner had the nerve to place ads on his site.” Once again, rarely.
So remember that people have come to your site to solve a problem, make that as easy as possible for them, and if you can cost effectively solve that for them, you’ve created a win win situation which is the principle under which business is done. Don’t be afraid of selling to people who want to do business with you and don’t get caught up on SEO – it’s not the primary part of your business.
Is Your SEO Focus Destroying Your Sales Conversions?
ShoeMoney
I get emails every day from people who rank in the search engines for their keywords but are not getting any leads from it. When I send them a list of like 20 things to do to improve their conversion they tell me “but could this affect my keyword ranking?”.Annoying…
ShoeMoney’s above comment reminded me a little of my own online story which engaged me to review the topic which I have split over two posts, this being the first, the second being Why Your Conversion Optimisation Is More Important Than Your SEO.
Once upon a time I too was guilty of being too focused on the traffic side of the revenue equation and the penny didn’t really drop for me until 2006 when I found the real secret lay in striking a balance between SEO and increasing ePV (earnings per visitor).
The “It’s So Simple It’s Stupid” Online Revenue Model
Producing online revenues in it’s simplest form is just a function of “visitors x ePV”. It seems so simple, yet the vast majority of people running websites online neglect one or the other.
Most businesses websites have a good product focus that’s complemented by good copy and prominent calls to action as a result of their experience with traditional marketing formats like print media, but still lack the know how to drive visitors to their site nor are they aware that they should be employing an internet marketing agency to help drive visitors to their site. Most have just bought into the “build it and they will come model” purported by their web designers who claim to offer well SEOed site design with Google doing the rest.
On the other side of the coin you have many passionate bloggers and hobby site owners who find their sites have outgrow their own ability to maintain on a part time basis as popularity follows their passion to produce quality content, products or services. In most cases if these hobby sites and blogs were better monetised it would justify a greater commitment from the webmaster, ultimately producing a better user experience for the visitors and everyone would win.
Finding the Balance Between SEO and Conversion Optimisation
When it comes to finding the balance between SEO and conversion optimisation eyeballs are more important than earnings in the beginning. However with the diminishing marginal returns of SEO coupled with the rising opportunity cost of neglecting on page conversion optimisation there comes a tipping point where a greater ROI can be achieved through focusing on extracting greater value from each visitors.
This turning point is different for different sites and different business models. For your typical blogger blogging about their passion monetizing their site primarily with Google AdSense the turning point comes around the 500 visitor/day mark when a serious analysis of revenue optimisation should be undertaken.
For a local business website the turning point occurs at much lower levels of traffic due to the higher margins of selling a tangible product or service. For many business websites a serious conversion optimisation review should be done when receiving in excess of 50 visitors/days. Additional consideration should also be given to businesses competing in auction based advertising markets, like Google AdWords, as they can better compete over the long run if their website produce higher rates of conversion than their competitors justifying a higher profitable max bid.
Evolution Of The New Internet Marketing Firm
There seems to be a large gap in the market within Australia (my local market) for firms that produce quality, usable web designs, that are well optimised for search engines yet still have a focus on conversion. Moving forward it is difficult to not see major SEO, PPC, web design, copy writing firm converging into one stop shops of online business presence given their mutualism.
It would seem that at this stage most small businesses continue to primarily gauge the success of their business website almost holistically on traffic and as such almost exclusively pursue methods of increasing search rankings. This is perfectly highlighted by the fact that there are over a 1,200,000 results when searching for “search engine optimisation” in Australia, but less than 15,000 results for either “conversion optimisation” or “landing page optimisation”. In the not too distant future the smart small business operators will not be solely looking for SEO services alone rather a more comprehensive internet marketing service.
The moral of the story is to know what you’re in the game of optimisation for; sales not traffic – Why Your Conversion Optimisation Is More Important Than Your SEO.