Sep 10
13
Internal Linking
Since not all the content on your site has equal value, one simple way to establish greater authority for any given page(s) on your website is to create your own additional internal links that point to those pages.
Although that value can develop naturally over time as incoming links from external sites begin to point to your more important pages, you can give those same important pages an advantage by indicating to the search engines, as well as visitors, which pages are more important, by simply creating internal links (within your own site), that point to those pages.
For example, let’s say you are selling vitamins. Although your website may have many pages on all kinds of vitamins, if you have determined that a handful of all those offerings are more popular and/or more profitable, then by creating more internal links that point to those pages, you are increasing the importance of those pages within your own site, which can help make them more visible externally, as well.
As another example, here is an internal link to Driving Website Traffic with the SEO Triangle. That post has greater overall interest to a larger audience, than this post, and it also has a training video that makes it more valuable. However, the subject matter is related. So, by directing visitors to that post with an internal link, I’m indicating to search engines and to visitors that there is a more important page to serve up to searchers.
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Posted in Link Building by .
One of the common questions I get from clients trying to figure out how to manage their marketing budgets is “Should I use search engine optimization (SEO) or pay-per-click (PPC) advertising to generate more sales for my business?”
SEO embraces all the ways to drive visitors naturally to your website to take advantage of low-cost traffic, including the use of social media.
PPC is simpler to understand, since the concept of paying for ads to drive visitors to purchase products and services is about as interwoven within the fabric of our commercial world as the concept of exchanging money for goods.
In most circumstances, my answer is “You should be using both.”
Although it’s quite common to categorize SEO and PPC as opposing disciplines, they are truly complementary, as explained below.
First of all, let’s review rudimentary points about each.
SEO ADVANTAGES
♦ “Free” Traffic (The traffic may be free, but there is labor involved)
♦ More Traffic (More traffic flows through natural than paid listings)
♦ Building an Asset of Ongoing Traffic (The traffic continues even if you stop doing SEO)
♦ Better ROI (Low-cost traffic means better return on investment)
♦ Competitive Advantage (Fewer business understand and use it)
PPC ADVANTAGES
♦ Instant Results (Set up a campaign now and monitor your results in minutes)
♦ Very Quantifiable Results (Abundant analytics available for paid traffic)
♦ Full Transparency (Each penny can be accounted for)
♦ Ability to Adjust Quickly (Change your ads now and get different results now)
♦ Easy to Target Specific Audiences (Very powerful advantage)
♦ Does Not Require IT Skills (Marketing guys can control this, without consulting with Information Technology professionals)
SEO and PPC SYNERGY
As noted above, it’s best to drive traffic using both SEO and PPC channels to generate better short-term and longer-term performance.
However, they can be used in conjunction with each other to gain greater results.
For example, the immediacy of paid search advertising can be used to determine which keywords would benefit from organic SEO strategies.
Conversely, proper search engine optimization of landing pages leads to better performing paid advertising results and lower costs.
Finally, by having your business show up in natural and paid listings on the same search engine pages, it presents a more dominant presence for a business’s products and services.
For more information, visit The Two Primary Sources of Internet Traffic.
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Posted in Pay Per Click by .
Marketing is the activity and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers and clients. (Definition of Marketing).
Traditional marketing has broadly relied upon these channels:
• Word-of-mouth
• Fliers, brochures and other printed support materials
• Print ads in newspapers, magazines and trade publications
• Radio and Television commercials
• Billboards
• And much more
However, undercutting all the traditional marketing channels that might potentially carry a message, would be the words of the actual message itself.
• What concepts would inspire a recipient of such a message to seek out more information?
• More specifically, what message would move a person to make a purchase?
By virtue of the myriad experiences that each and every individual already possesses, it could appear to be a complex process to understand the needs and desires of so many unique persons.
As an example, would an individual fresh out of college respond to the same message about purchasing a health book as a middle-aged parent who is seeking to improve their physical fitness?
Heck, do the terms “health” and “physical fitness” even mean the same thing to disparate age groups?
MARKETING MESSAGES
Although crafting messages that generate purposeful response can be complex, the art and science of marketing is founded upon a rudimentary concept of seeking to understand similar characteristics of smaller groups, which can then be analyzed to ascertain similar buying behaviors and characteristics. Such segmentation can be by age, gender, geography, interests, and by many other criteria.
Understanding what messages are the most effective at generating interest in any product or service are gained through market research, including surveys and market testing. A common form of market testing is the process of comparing different marketing messages and advertisements, side-by-side, to analyze which generates the best response. Such results are then used to further refine a message to maximize the response of the presentation.
As an example, let’s suppose you happened to be interested in increasing your personal fitness level and you observed two separate advertisements in your local newspaper, which said:
• “Get healthier and feel better now, call 123-456-7890”
• “Increase your personal health and fitness by calling 123-456-0987”
Which might pique your interest the most?
The answer won’t be the same for every person, but one of those messages may be more effective for a majority of individuals at driving responses.
“Health” products and services are potentially appealing to a large swath of individuals in modern societies. Since that’s a pretty broad category of buyers to understand, more useful insights can be gained by looking at similarities associated with a marketing subgroup, characterized by age.
Advertising to different age groups is more sophisticated than simply having young actors in a TV commercial drinking a certain brand’s health drink to promote that product to that group, and/or depicting a mature couple on a beach sipping the same health drink to appeal to older consumers. (Even though effective use of imagery to demonstrate different age groups would be a minimal requisite).
GENERATIONAL CATEGORIES
Marketing as an art and science to generate more potential customers is akin to the way you and I and everyone else in our world relates to each other: we find it easier to understand and trust others that already have similar ideas and views. Understanding the ideas and views of different age groups simply makes it easier to present products and services to subsegments of society in a way that is more likely to be appealing.
Joe Marconi, in his book, Future Marketing, details characteristic pertaining to several age groups, including those briefly summated as follows:
A) Baby Boomers (born between 1946 and 1964): Image-conscious, yet sensitive and nostalgic
B) Generation X (born between 1965 and 1980): Cynical, yet ideological
C) Generation Y (born between 1981 and 2000): Independent, enigmatic
Additional characteristics identified with these age groups have been detailed this way:
A) Baby Boomers are noted as achievement-oriented, confident, career-focused and responsible. They are said to welcome exciting and challenging projects and further desire to make a difference with their lives.
B) Generation X values freedom and responsibility. This generation is typified as being technologically adept and representing a casual resistance to authority and structured work hours, and particularly, a dislike of being micro-managed. Generation Xers are said to work to live rather than live to work.
C) Generation Y represents the youngest age group of talent in the work force. Generation Yers are said to desire attention in the forms of feedback and guidance and wish to be kept in the broader communication loop. More so than any other age group, Generation Y has grown up being plugged-in 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and is the most technologically savvy of these age groups.
More to the point, how does one use such information to communicate to potential new customers?
Although the best answer to that question would be resolved through surveys and market testing, there is available research that can be readily leveraged for greater promotional effectiveness.
SIMPLIFYING THE “AGES” FOR MARKETERS
Much of the point of this article is simplified by Lisa Johnson in her book Mind Your X’s and Y’s: Satisfying the 10 Cravings of a New Generation of Consumers. Johnson categorizes the combined Generation X and Generation Y as the “Connected Generation.” She examines the buying behaviors of 18- to 40-year-olds and depicts these “multitasking, constantly upgrading customers who grew up in the Internet era” to base their decisions upon ten “consumer cravings.”
Johnson identifies such cravings by using terms such as:
1) “Extreme personalization”
2) “Adventure”
3) “Loose connections” by way of social networks
4) “Intuitive design”
5) Helping to “sift through the clutter” by way of interpersonal editors and filters
6) “The rejection of push advertising and the rising influence of peer-to-peer networks”
7) “Connected citizens explore their creative power and influence change”
8) Delivering “a dramatic sense of theater”
9) Finding common ground through “Spiritual hunger and modern media”
10) And finally, by giving back through “volunteerism and the meaning of contribution”
Although a separate series of articles could be devoted to the myriad ways all ten of these “cravings” can be extrapolated to better market health products – or any products and services – what is immediately pertinent is the channel that most engages the “Connected Generation”: the Internet, and especially social media.
In other words, although market surveys and testing would yield more responsive messages to engender more clients, customers and patrons, by simply leveraging social media services such as blogs, YouTube, Facebook and many other related platforms, businesses that are seeking to sell to Generation X and Generation Y would be engaging them via media that is already more intuitive to them in terms of making purchases.
CONCLUSION
The takeaway for this article is that the marketing messages that have been effective at bringing in new business for your company, may or may not be working as effectively as they used to, simply because a large chunk of the buying public has moved their buying research and decision-making to the Internet and to social media.
Although the potential for increasing new sales for your business could be increased via more specific messaging, facilitated by surveys and market testing, easier marketing gains (more sales) may be achieved by conveying your existing messages more effectively via media that is more engaging to both Generation X and particularly Y: The Internet. And more specifically, by way of channels that facilitate user engagement, such as blogs, Facebook, YouTube, and many other types of Social Media.
George Alger is the Principal of Skyworks Marketing, a digital advertising agency specializing in leveraging technology and social media to efficiently generate more leads and sales for increased profits. Contact George, via http://SkyworksMarketing.com/contact/
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Posted in Social Media by .
Since keywords are so fundamental to Internet marketing, an online marketer is required to determine which keywords are the most relevant to one’s products or services.
However, such research often results in a long list of related keywords. If you are trying to sell a product or service, which keywords should you focus on?
Certainly “Testing” the response rates for specific keywords via PPC advertising is the best way, but what if you knew certain keywords reflected a higher probability for a sale than others, wouldn’t that be valuable?
Microsoft has a free online tool for “Detecting Online Commercial Intention” that helps to sort that out.
Here is how Microsoft describes this Commercial Intention tool:
“Web page searches display two levels of commercial intent: informational and transactional. This tool can detect customer intent to acquire information or to purchase products based on their search queries or recently visited URLs.”
This is a very simple and easy to use tool. However, it is not altogether accurate, which is problematic for any mathematical and rules-based search query (think of your own Google searches, which are sometimes immediately fruitful, and other times require more work). I have found this tool to rate some keywords incorrectly, relative to their observable commercial intent.
For example:
1) “Motorcycle” is rated at .98
2) “Harley Davidson” is rated at .87
3) “Harley Davidson Road King” is rated at .95
4) “Harley Davidson XR1200″ is rated at .63
First of all, let’s just ignore what each of the numbers represent by themselves. They are only useful as comparative references to each other.
Of course a narrower (more specific) search term reflects a higher intent to purchase, since the user is drilling down to a particular product or service, which is the standard pattern for a searcher looking for more specific information on their path to making a purchase.
In this case, a more refined keyword, such as example 3, indicates a higher commercial intent (.95) than example 2 (.87). So the tool is correct.
However, example 4 is observably reflective of a higher commercial intent (a specific motorcycle) than example 2, but the tool indicates a lower intent (.63). In other words, the tool is wrong for example #4.
Even more telling is example #1 which observably represents the lowest commercial intent in this group of search terms, since it is the broadest keyword, but the tool gives it the highest ranking (.98). This is a dramatic failure for the tool!
However, I have used this tool for other searches where the indications were correct. I chose these 4 examples to illustrate that it can be wrong, so it is best used with experience and a fundamental understanding of how keywords work.
NOTE: Since the tool also displays a yes/no user feedback poll, it is likely this tool will continue to become more accurate over time and therefore more valuable.
Further, it should be used with other tools to help determine traffic volume as well (see link below for other keyword tools).
If you have a keyword that shows a high commercial intent with very low search volume, you may want to consider another keyword with high commercial intent and higher volume.
Ideally, you would find some balance between traffic and intent.
In simple terms, if you can optimize your content and/or your online advertising to generate high traffic using keywords that have high commercial intent, you are setting yourself up for more visitors and more sales.
MAY 2011 UPDATE: Alas, Microsoft discontinued this service.
Also, click the following link for more Search Engine Optimization tools.
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Posted in Keyword Marketing by .
Jul 10
16
Direct Response Copywriting Formula
How many times have you purchased something from TV, or via postal mail, email, a magazine ad, or a website? Any time you’ve made such a purchase – especially via TV – you may have passed through the following copywriting formula. The whole point of direct response copywriting, whether used via TV or radio commercials, in direct mail solicitations, for website sales videos, email marketing, etc., is to get you to “respond” directly to the message by purchasing from the advertiser right now.
Copywriting Formula for Direct Response Advertisements
1. Get your attention. Successful copywriting is designed to boldly grab your attention now. The opening message or headline should ideally pull you from your life right into the message in such a way that you will ignore the conversation you are having, or the magazine you may be browsing, or your desire to run to the kitchen for a snack, or anything else you may be doing or about to do. If your are not instantly engaged, the rest of the copywriting will not likely move you to make a purchase.
2. Pose a problem. Whether it’s your weight, your hair, your breath, how you prepare food, personal finances, debt, health, the performance of your car, or countless other issues, you were presented a problem. Such can even include positioning something you hadn’t previously considered to be irksome as old and problematic. The more generally troublesome something can be presented, the more you are likely to relate to it.
3. Solve your problem. Yay! The product you purchased was demonstrated to save the day. On TV or web video, this is often represented by visually showing benefits and results as effectively, quickly and easily as possible. With written text, the words will be woven to create similarly strong visual impressions.
4. Offer you a great deal. This is where you were presented a special price, purchasing instructions, added incentives, bonuses, and anything that increased the value of what you purchased.
You were directed to call a toll-free number by showing and/or repeating it over and over and over. Whether on TV, radio or in a written advertisement, that number was presented so that you would take advantage of it now!
If the copywriting directed you to a website to complete your purchase, the web address was shown, announced and/or featured prominently enough for you to get some paper and write it down (even if you had to run across the street to borrow paper and pencil from a neighbor).
5. Guaranteed! The guarantee was designed to lower your resistance and assure you that you made a right decision to purchase the product or service because you could get a refund for any reason. A “no risk,” money-back guarantee would have been emphasized to ensure you reach for your wallet and make that phone call.
As a bit of counter-intuitive benefit to advertisers, in many cases, the longer the guarantee period, the less likely a refund will be requested. It doesn’t make sense, but I have conducted tests that have shown longer guarantees to be more effective in generating sales and still result in less refund requests (obviously this would not hold true with an inferior product). Better guarantees should be longer than 30 days, and in some case can go as far as offering “Lifetime guarantees.” (Although the latter is less effective for companies that are not well established and might even raise doubts about the sincerity of the guarantee for a new company).
6. Call to action. This is when you were told to “BUY NOW,” “ORDER NOW,” and/or “CALL NOW.” This was likely accentuated by emphasizing that the product or service is available only for a “limited time” and/or “while supplies last.” The success of many direct response offers, whether by commercials, infomercials, website ads, direct mail ads, email marketing, magazines, newspapers, etc, is a result of impulse decision making, which diminishes rapidly with passing time.
Furthermore, successful direct response campaigns have had each of these elements (and more) tested and tested and tested again to refine the copywriting and the presentation for the purpose of generating the most sales or responses. (For more complex or expensive products, the “response” may not be a sale, but a sales lead or prospect, who has requested information in exchange for their contact details).
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Posted in Copywriting by .
One of the things that makes search engine marketing challenging, exciting, frustrating and energizing and any other positive and/or negative attributes you care to assign, is that changes occur quickly and dramatically in the digital marketing industry.
Heck, even the term “Search Engine Marketing” (SEM) has not established a universal definition. To many folks SEM refers to the various forms of paid marketing, such as pay-per-click advertising.
To others, SEM encompasses paid search marketing and search engine optimization (SEO), for developing non-paid traffic.
Regardless of the terminology, paid advertising and SEO are the two general ways to get more traffic to your website.
Ideally, your website marketing efforts would include both, however the most non-optimum circumstance is not taking advantage of either.
How about you? What do you do to get visitors to your website?
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Posted in Website Performance Marketing by .
Although Facebook is a popular social networking platform, from an advertising perspective, it’s more noteworthy as a large marketplace replete with a generous amount of user demographic data that can be readily translated into more targeted ads to carry your message. But not all products and services are profitably suited to advertising on Facebook.
What Products and Services Sell Best on Facebook?
Facebook primarily caters to individuals inclined towards communicating about their lives to friends and family. Hence, products or services that are business-to-consumer oriented (B2C), have a better opportunity at establishing positive results than a company which is advertising business-to-business (B2B) products or services.
Having said that, if you do sell B2B products/services, recognize that you are more likely to successfully advertise to small business owners who are on Facebook, rather than larger company buyers. (Statistically, there are more of the former).
Facebook is a good advertising channel for generating business for art, music, clubs, shared beliefs (ie. political, religious, social causes, etc.), live events, travel, entertainment or for marketing custom or personalized products, as well as things that express individual tastes and preferences.
Facebook Advertising is Not for Everyone
Some examples of B2B products or services that would not likely yield positive results on Facebook would be technical, industrial, or complex products/services.
Also, if you sell products that can be readily purchased anywhere with a price that is well known, then – unless you have a compelling price – your product may not do well on Facebook.
Facebook Advertising Conclusion
Facebook offers a unique opportunity to demographically target a large audience of users, with qualifiers such as likes and interests, geography, age, gender, single or married, and education level.
Even so, if you have a product or service that fits the criteria outlined in this article, then you would be wise to stick your toes in the water first via market testing to develop and refine your advertising, rather than diving in head first with a large ad budget just because it appears so promising.
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Posted in Pay Per Click by .
Download the Details: Pay-for-Performance
TV Advertising and Internet Marketing!