To ensure prospects find you on the Web, you need to take actions to drive people to your site. These actions can be direct marketing programs, public relations, advertising, handing out your business card, or Internet marketing techniques, to name a few. And one of the Internet marketing techniques is to enable people to find you through search engines.

Search engines and directories generate over 90% of Web traffic by users who are trying to search the Web for information and services. Search engine optimization is the act of developing your web site to make it easier for search engines to index your site and make it available to those who search on certain keyword terms. So if you have a Web site and you want to be found, here are just a few tips that will help.

• The page titles of your Web site are one of the most important parts of your page as far as search engines are concerned. The title tag has to contain your major keyword and it should be between 4 and 12 words. Tightly focused titles with your important keyword at the beginning perform best with Google and help with many other engines.
• Whenever possible, use text links in your web pages and NOT images to link to other pages in your website. If you must use images, make sure the text links show up first in the source code, because search engine robots need to read the text to find to any particular page.
• Make sure your content contains your keywords and try to put them in your headers and bold them when possible.
• Page descriptions and keywords in meta-tags make a difference in some search engines. Since they don’t hurt for any of them, define them wisely for each page in the site, ensuring they are different. Some search engines compare the page descriptions, titles and keywords to see if the content on the page matches. If not, it can hurt your ranking, not help it.
• If your site has many pages within different areas (such as a resource area that contains articles, information and links), you need a site map. A site map links to every page on the site. This will help the search engine robots find every page with just two clicks. For small sites, a well-defined navigation scheme will perform just as well.
• Make your site popular. Get links to your site from other sites that add value to yours. Buy links from reputable sites to help, but work out exchanges with people who have the same type of clients but do not directly compete with you. The quality of links are important – pick your links as you would pick your friends.
• If your site has a consistent theme throughout, that will help you in the rankings. The spiders are looking for consistent, valuable and fresh content to serve up. Make sure your site provides the value they are looking for.

Still need more information about search engine optimization? Stay tuned. We will be covering search engine marketing and all of its components in detail in future articles.

What is Pay Per Click?

A Pay Per Click (also known as Pay Per Ranking, Pay Per Placement or Pay Per Position) search engine enables you to list your site at the top of the search engine results. You don’t pay to list your advertisement; you pay only when a user clicks on your listing and connects to your site.

How your advertisements get displayed is based on two factors: what keywords from which you wish to be found and how much you are willing to bid to get a better ranking. If your keyword is very popular, you will pay more. If it is not, you can get clicks to your site for a few pennies.

To get the best traffic to your site, you need to select keywords that refer to your product or service. Your advertisement must, in very few words, convey a call to action for someone to click through. For each keyword you determine how much you are willing to spend. The higher you bid the higher you will appear in the search results.

What Does Overture Provide?

Overture provides cheap, targeted web site traffic. They have become one of the leading PPC search engines. You have many tools available to you to help with setting up your keywords, the advertisement, and your maximum bid. Your bid for rankings can go from 10 cents to $50 max. Since you can write the description and title you want for your advertisement, you can play with your campaign to determine which ads provide the most highly targeted traffic to your website. The best part of the Overture capability is that you can control your bids at all times and adjust them, based on the quality of your results.

What Does Google AdWords Provide?

Google’s self-service AdWords program charges a per click fee, similar to Overture. AdWords charges a $5 activation fee, and bids on keywords are from 5 cents to $100. However, there are other differences.

Where Overture ranks the advertisements in order by those who bid the most, AdWords are ranked for placement by a combination of cost per click (CPC) multiplied by the click through rate. Thus, even if two ads have the same CPC, the ad with the higher click through rate gets listed first. In other words, Google ranks ads based on its total value to Google.

Conversely, Google will penalize those ads that do not have a good click through rate. Really bad ads — those that get below 0.5 percent in clicks after appearing 1,000 times, will be prevented from appearing at all.  The rationale for this is to increase the value of the PPC real estate on the page.

What Makes this Type of Advertising Affordable & Effective?

There are many benefits to using a PPC service for advertising your business.

• You pay only when someone actually visits your site.
• You can guarantee relevant placement of your advertisement.
• The results are highly quantifiable, particularly when you use sales conversion tracking.
• The process involves nearly zero risk. No $50,000 media buys. Not even $2,000 media buys. You pay one day at a time.
• Your listings appear only when a particular keyword is requested, thereby appearing only when a user is actively searching for your product or service.
• You can present a title and a description for your product or service that will give a lot more information, specific to their search query, than banner advertisements allow.
• You pay nothing for impressions (a term used to indicate when your advertisement appears), unlike banner ads where you pay a dollar amount for every 1000 impressions (similar to traditional media costs). For example, you will be charged $50 per 1000 impressions for a banner ad. Of those 1000 impressions, standard click-through rate is approximately 3%, about 1-2 people.  If your search term is reasonably popular, chances are you would bid well under $50 per click (more likely $1- $2 for a more specific keyword) and still have your advertisement prominently displayed. Depending on your bid price, that same $50 would get you many more qualified visitors to your site than a banner ad would.
• The conversion rate (the number of people who buy from you that click through) for your PPC advertisement is higher than the click through rate of banner ads.

What Should You Do?

If you have a small budget and it is important for you to drive targeted traffic to your site, using a service like Overture or Google AdWords can have a great return on investment. The benefits are many, and you can control your costs and you can track and test your results to improve your click through rate. All of this can turn into more sales leads and more business for you.

• Pick a name that is memorable – Many believe shorter is better, but you want people to remember your domain name. Your domain name should correspond to your business or product name as closely as possible. Get both if available and point them to the same web site.
• No acronyms – Unless your business is well known by its acronym, get a domain name that uses the full name for your marketing materials. Unless you are IBM, it is more memorable to use your company’s full name.
• Get what Search Engines like – Getting a domain name that contains your main keyword helps with the search engine optimization. Also, domain names with hyphens sometimes rank a bit higher in the search engines.
• Hyphens are ok – In the crowded world of the Web, domain names that are short, easy to remember, contain no hyphens and still represent your company or product name are hard to get. Try all combinations of your desired name, with and without hyphens to see if you can get the .com version. It is far better to get a hyphenated .com domain name than a non-hyphenated .net or .biz name inmost cases. Hyphens also make a longer domain name easier to read. On the other hand, keep hyphens to a minimum. Too many hyphens will be harder to remember and a pain to type.
• Don’t get a name close to your main competitor – If your direct competitor has your desired domain name without the hyphen, consider a different name. Check first before you invest. Find out who your prospects are finding if they type your name wrong or without hyphens.
• No funky spelling – Spelling your domain name wrong to get something close to what you want is also not a good idea. People won’t remember how to spell the name. Some companies have dropped characters to shorten the name or at least be close, but all that does is confuse your audience.
• Register your domain name now even if you don’t plan to build your site yet – Planning to write a book, build a new product, or develop a new service? A good domain name that can be used to market those efforts is a good investment to make now. Don’t wait thinking it will always be there. The cost of registering a domain name today is cheap (most registrars offer 5 or 10 year registration at less than $10 per year).
• If you can not find a good .com domain name – What happens if you can not find a good .com name for your domain? Getting a .com domain name is the best, however, .net is fine as well. I would only get .biz, .info and .name domain names to protect your brand if you do have the .com or .net. If your company is a non-profit or you feel your company would benefit from its association, get the domain name with .org. There are no restrictions on the use of .org for businesses. If you do get a domain name with a .net designation, your marketing must include the entire domain name to ensure people know how to find you.

Choosing a domain name is as important to your brand and marketing as your logo and design. Do not just take anything for your domain name. Make sure your domain name represents your company, product and image, and you’ll be setting a great foundation for your marketing efforts.

This article concentrates on the fundamentals of Internet marketing – web sites, search engine optimization and online advertising including banners, pay-per-click, and directory listings. Future articles will cover some of the newer digital marketing options such as blogs and podcasts.

Benefits of Internet Marketing

Spending some time and money on building an Internet marketing strategy can be the difference between a good year and a great year for your business. Some benefits of engaging in online marketing include the following:

• Your online presence can give the impression that your company is far bigger than it really is. Done right, you can get an incredible amount of visibility that far exceeds your business size or the ability to compete through traditional sales and marketing channels. The Internet has leveled the playing field for businesses of all sizes. Planned and executed correctly, you can achieve a large portion of marketing online for a reasonable budget.
• A professionally developed web site and expert content can build credibility for your company faster than traditional methods. Using your web site as an educational vehicle for your prospects makes it easy and convenient for them to learn about what you do, how you do it, and the knowledge you possess. Make sure you take advantage of this key capability that your Web site offers that many other marketing efforts do not.
• You can generate a large number of leads that convert to prospects and customers. Capturing and generating leads through the Internet enables you to build a prospect list that you can continue to nurture either through sales activities or through marketing activities such as an online newsletter.
• The world becomes your marketplace. You can reach prospects globally, 24 hours a day, every day. There is no other marketing activity that has extensive reach at minimal costs. Conversely, if you only want to do business within a 50 mile radius of your business location, you can choose where and how your advertising is displayed. You get to choose how to advertise your company on the Web that benefits you the most.
• If you combine Web based marketing with traditional off-line marketing activities such as direct mail or public relations, you can increase your exposure to your products and services, improve your image, and support your marketing activities at reasonable costs.

Getting Started with Internet Marketing

As with all marketing activities, you need to develop a plan, execute it effectively and measure the results. The basic elements of the plan should include a professional web site, expert content, and a combination of search engine optimization and online advertising using banners, directory listings and pay-per-click. Working together, these components of Internet Marketing can raise the visibility of your company and help you achieve quality inbound leads.

When considering your budget for Internet marketing, make sure you include the cost of developing and hosting your web site, developing the search engine optimization strategy, developing the content if you can’t do it yourself, and the individual campaigns you want to run. Keep in mind, however, that the cost of marketing is only relative if you don’t get any new business from the activity. A $500 marketing program may not seem like a lot, but if you don’t get business from it, it is too expensive. However, if you spend $500 on a sponsored link in an appropriate and relevant site and you gain a new client that brings in $3000 of income, then the $500 is well spent.

Internet Marketing can Work for You

If you think Internet marketing doesn’t apply to your business, you are missing a wonderful opportunity to easily and cost-effectively grow your business. Virtually any business today can benefit from a quality web site, sound search engine optimization practices and strategically placed online advertising. If you want people to find you online, then you need to engage in effective online marketing.

Your web site is an effective sales tool for many reasons:

• Easy to access from anywhere
• Easy to update with new information
• Can be used to collect leads
• Can offer interactive sales presentations from the comfort of your office
• Can present the image you want your prospects to see

In addition to providing a good image and information about your company, your web site can be developed so that it sells for you.

Leading the Visitor

Your web site needs to lead your visitors through the site with the purpose of helping them decide to call you or buy from you. If you let the visitor wander aimlessly without clear paths, you run the risk of them getting confused, frustrated and leaving. Web site visitors are amazingly impatient. If they don’t see exactly what they are looking for in a few seconds, they will leave. However, once they find something that interests them, they will read the entire piece.

When planning your web site, ask yourself the following questions:

• People visit your site for a reason – do you know what that is and can you provide them with what they need so that they are satisfied?
• Are you holding their interest and making them want more?
• Is every thing they are looking for easy to find and presented in terms they understand?
• Are you wasting their time with elements on the page that don’t add value?

Asking the Visitor to Take Action

A “call to action” in marketing refers to active copy that compels a user to take action. When developing your web site, think through how you want to weave effective calls to action into its structure. You want to do this because if you don’t, you are leaving it up to chance that they will figure out what they are suppose to do and actually do it. The obvious ones are “register for this seminar”, “subscribe to our newsletter”, “buy now”, or “add to shopping cart”.

Other more subtle or non-invasive calls to action are those used to move the visitor through the site on an information gathering process. Hyperlinks that help the visitor walk through a set of pages, next and back buttons, or hyperlinked phrases such as “read our success story” are all types of calls to action that get your visitor to stay at your site longer.

Summary

You should use a clear call to action on every page of your web site and interspersed in the copy. Don’t leave the path to a sale up to the visitor – guide them through the process with a flow that takes them to a decision. Understand your sales process and develop your site to mimic the process as best as you can. You still need the great design, clear content and a professional image for your web site, but don’t forget to tell your visitor exactly what you want them to do.

• Provide an opt-in mechanism to get permission;
• Have a working opt-out mechanism;
• Be truthful in subject fields, and
• Give your real world contact information.

Recently, four new rules have been added to the Can Spam Act, none of which really impress me as a marketer. All of these rules are already being demonstrated by most good Internet marketers, so I’m unsure of what this update will do for most of us getting a slew of email we never asked for nor do we want.

The new rules are:

• People cannot be required to pay a fee, provide information other than their e-mail address and opt-out preferences if there are multiple lists or take any steps beyond sending a reply e-mail or visiting a single Web page to opt out of receiving future e-mails from a company. This may have an effect as it now eliminates anyone using multiple pages to sell you something, ask for authentication or require a password before you actually can opt-out of a mailing list. In other words, a simple unsubscribe or one web page that takes your email address and removes you from all lists.
• The definition of “sender” has been modified to make it easier to identify who has to comply with the Can-Spam requirements when there are multiple advertisers on one email.
• A post-office box can serve as a legitimate postal return address under the requirements of Can Spam.
• The definition of “person” has been extended beyond a human person and now includes group, unincorporated association, limited or general partnership, corporation, or other business entity.

So although there are changes, I’m not sure any of us will see a huge reduction in spam to our inbox based on these changes. Filters will continue to be needed for the long term and those of us who want to eliminate the disruptive nature of spam.

Although I think email marketing is still a very valid marketing activity, one has to be very particular about how you build your list, asking permission and respecting those who give you that permission. Then use email to stay in contact with your customers and prospects and provide them valuable information.

With this AdWords feature, Google automatically uses an advertiser’s excess budget to post ads against keywords other than those the advertiser is actually bidding on. Not all advertisers have been invited to test this new feature, but from what I have read not many may want to. According to Google:

Automatic matching shows your ads on relevant search queries not already captured by your keywords. It works by analyzing the content of the landing pages, ads, and keywords in your ad group. It then shows your ads on search queries relevant to this information. The system will continually monitor your performance on these queries and adjust its matches accordingly. Automatic matching aims to show your ads only on queries that yield a high clickthrough rate (CTR) and a cost-per-click (CPC) comparable to or lower than your ad group’s current average CPC. This way, your ads receive additional targeted traffic at a similar cost to your current traffic. Automatic matching won’t allow your spend to exceed your budget, and it also won’t affect the traffic you’re currently receiving. In addition, automatic matching will have no impact if your campaigns already capture the majority of relevant traffic.

The challenge of this new feature is covered well in Scott Clark’s post about the 9 things he dislikes about automatic matching.

For those running your campaigns inhouse, I would decline this option for now and stay in control of your campaigns and budget. Be diligent about monitoring your CTRs on your keywords, test different landing pages and ads and adjust based on your conversion rates. My first impression of this feature is to not put it into practice until you understand its implications on your campaign.

Whether the SEO and Google Adwords specialists agree, not all B2B companies can afford to hire someone dedicated to their Adwords campaigns. And with many marketing departments getting smaller, the person in charge of the campaign most likely monitors it part time.

But developing Adwords campaigns are definitely not for the faint of heart. Changes have occurred that need to be understood so that your ad dollars are not wasted. And it more important than ever to monitor, track, measure and adjust your campaign so that you can maximize your campaign’s effectiveness.

In the past few days, I’ve seen a number of posts regarding some of these changes. This post is part one in a four part post that discusses Google Adwords features that you need to understand to avoid issues with your campaigns. These posts will include:

• Extended Broad Match
• Automatic Matching
• Landing page load times and quality score
• Display URL policy changes

Extended Broad Match

Keyword matching options within Google Adwords includes exact, phrase and broad. Exact keyword matching is just that – enter [social media marketing] and your ad will only display when someone searches for that phrase exactly. Phrase keyword matching will display your ad when the phrase is used within the search. So “social media marketing” would display when someone searches for “using social media to market your business”.

Originally, broad match was a way to ensure your ad displayed on any search that contained your term. By entering your keywords without brackets or double quotes around it (the default way keyword entries are added), your ad displays not only when any of the words are used within the search, but also when Google feels there is relevancy to the search and your ad. So your social media marketing keyword phrase would display for any search that contains “social”, “media” and “marketing” and possibly for someone searching for a PR agency.

At first glance, that sounds reasonable, but one must be cautious. Depending on the phrase, broad match can result in the ad displaying for terms that are not relevant.

To avoid wasting your budget on non-relevant clicks, you can:

• Avoid broad match all together and stick with exact and phrase match. This gives you total control over when your ads will run.
• Use it for phrases containing four or more keywords to lessen the chance that your ad will be displayed for non-relevant searches;
• Diligently identify non-relevant terms where your ad gets displayed and add them to your negative keyword list. Negative keywords eliminate your ad from showing when a search is made with that term in it. If I didn’t want my ad showing for searchs on real estate marketing, then I could add “real estate” to my negative keywords to eliminate my ad from showing when someone searched for “social media marketing for real estate”.

The next post will cover another broad match extension called automatic matching, where your ads will show on a broader set of relevant keywords chosen by Google.

As a B2B marketing person, you might think this list is overwhelming. However, in my view this is a wonderful list of potential tactics that you might employ depending on the goals you plan to achieve this year.

If you are new to Web marketing or have only dabbled in some search engine marketing, email campaigns or Internet advertising, this is a great list to get you thinking about other ways to get your message out or better, let your constituents get your message out for you.

If you are a veteran Web marketer, this is a great checklist to help you stimulate news ideas for your marketing plan.

In all cases, develop the plan, research the opportunities and execute effectively. Web marketing is no different from traditional forms in this respect.

Does the web development firm include marketing expertise as part of the project team?

The firm you choose may be a great Web development company but if they don’t understand marketing, they could develop a site that never meets your marketing expectations.

If you want to be sure your web presence achieves results, hire a marketing company to help you get the site you want. A marketing firm approaches a web site or blog from the perspective that it is a tool to help you market your business and can put a plan in place to help you do that. Having the marketing person as your point of contact makes the process simpler for you, eliminating the need for you to work directly with the web developer. This person can also translate what you are trying to achieve into what needs to be developed to ensure you get the desired results.