Online Marketing for Local Business
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Purchasing Content: More Effective Than Web Advertising?
15 years
by admin
in Uncategorized
You have probably heard many sources online, including Hat Trick Associates, talk about the future of the Internet and how vital web content has become to the search engines and your SEO efforts of your website. Ideally, you want new content on your site every single time the Google crawler or one of the other large engines index your website. So a common question we hear from clients is, what is more effective for growing my website and doing more business in the future: Using my online marketing budget on advertising, or using those same resources to create more fresh content?
The answer may surprise you! Here are more vital web content-related statistics:
- More than 8 out of 10 Internet users look on search engines first to find information on the products or services they want to buy
- Up to 86% of searchers will ignore paid listings, or other advertising they know has been purchased as opposed to organic results
- On the flip side, 64% of the top natural (organic) listings will get click thrus
The reasons are fairly simple – people typically want to feel as if they have “discovered” the solution to their problem – the product, service or brand that they need – on their own. Which is why natural search results convert 35% higher than Pay Per Click campaigns! That’s a significant difference.
That doesn’t mean that web advertising should have no place in your marketing mix. But how many folks spend thousands upon thousands of their marketing dollars on Pay Per Click or Pay Per Impression campaigns, and then spend very little, or even nothing whatsoever, on their ongoing content? The answer is: many more than who actually should! And that is certainly a business mistake.
Sowing the Seeds…..Grow Your Email List
15 years
by admin
in Uncategorized
Email newsletters and other marketing is quite cost-effective, timely and very flexible. But these benefits will do you no good if you don’t have anyone to communicate with in the first place!
How can you grow your email list(s)?
The first step of course is utilizing all the addresses you already have. This means the friends, colleagues and other business associates who reside in your email contact list(s). You should also go through that pile of business cards you’ve been collecting since 1996* in your top drawer.
Next, ask all of your contacts on social media sites to join your list as well. Facebook fan pages, Twitter feeds, LinkedIn accounts, etc. Offer them something of value if they join your list. A special discount or other giveaway could work well.
Lastly, continue to build from there. Make it a point to ask for email addresses from new customers, members, clients, participants or donors. If you provide price quotes as part of your business, add these folks as well. Periodically re-contact your social network, since most people continually add new folks to their networks.
And for those with a large customer base already, create ways to add the email information for all the people you do business with. An “Enter to Win a Cool Prize” contest, with an email address needed “to notify the winner” could work well.
Just remember, your database of email contacts is one of your most valuable resources – don’t abuse it! Provide interesting content, thoughtful commentary, and value… like special discounts, coupons or exclusive information, and you shouldn’t have any problems.
*Don’t actually include email addresses from 1996! (if they even still function, that is…) There is no “law” written in granite regarding your old contacts and using their email addresses. But one rule of thumb is: if you’ve done business or spoken with the contact within the last 2 years, they’re fair game for your new list. But every business, and list, is different!
Do You Even Need a Website?? (Yes. But not as much as before…)
15 years
by admin
in Uncategorized
It was recently announced that many popular search engines, including industry leader Google, are beginning to use content from social media in their search results.
The newest service to be added to organic results is Facebook. As of now only business accounts (or “Fan Pages”) are being indexed, not regular user pages. For now, that is.
Often times these real-time results are prominently featured on the first page of results. This has the potential to change web marketing strategy, as these accounts begin to compete with well established (and far more $ $ expensive) traditional websites.
Which brings me to an article I recently read, one that questioned the need to even have a website anymore. The author was being provocative; no one is advocating abandonment of your website in 2010. But just the fact that the topic came up is interesting.
The concept of a new business or brand operating w/o a standard home page at all – taking advantage of social media accounts and using other tactics like email marketing – is a completely new one.
By adding the content produced by these accounts to organic search results, the engines are taking this idea and moving it one step closer to reality. And making it all the more important that your organization get “on board” and create your own accounts, too.