Posts tagged online marketing
Every Web Page Should Be A Marketing Page
Jul 26th
Your website’s content will get noticed (read) if you use your headline and first paragraph to let readers know precisely “what’s in it” for them. Here are some techniques to make that happen.
First, you can’t know which page web visitors will see first, since there are many different ways to enter a site. Some will land on the homepage for sure, but blog posts and other content will show up in search engines (that’s the hope, at least!)…so don’t assume that any one page is more important than the rest, although the homepage does deserve the most attention.
Second, only a tiny percentatge of visitors will be responding to even the highest quality ads. You’ll have to work a bit harder for the rest of your readers. To get conversions, you’ll have to use the content on all your web pages. Who Is Your Site For, What Do They Want?
When you’re busy creating content, it’s easy to focus on SEO and forget that your website exists to sell your products and services! Even if you don’t forget such a thing, can the same be said of everybody who writes for you? It’s sometimes hard for experts in a field to put More >
Content Is King - Part II
Apr 12th
When talking about content, the first premise to consider is that for most companies, competing online via “new technology” has become more and more difficult. The truth is, regardless of company size, there can only be a select few winners in the contest to be the best “technology-driven” business online.
True, the technological lead sometimes changes hands, like it did away from AOL and MySpace to the current leaders in their respective fields. But those occurrences are becoming rare. Companies such as Google have gained so much mass, brand equity and momentum that it may be years before they are supplanted in any meaningful way. They won’t be handing off their lead in many categories anytime soon.
No, the way to compete today is by becoming a purveyor of content. Drive traffic to your website, platform or service by creating and sharing valuable information to your target audiences. Fill a niche market. Find a group or segment with unmet needs, and fulfill them.
And this is exactly what AOL and MySpace have done. AOL bought the blog network Weblogs, home to many popular blogs, such as Engadget and Joystiq; and they now employ over 3,000 freelance writers and more than 150 full-time journalists. More >
Get The Balance Right
Mar 29th
Which is more important for content, the ability to communicate directly with visitors… or the search engine rankings it creates?
On the one extreme, imagine a website (or blog post, etc.) that is complete nonsense gibberish. Maybe envision something written in Chinese characters, assuming that’s a language you don’t understand. Now let’s say these random bits of code or symbols somehow rank quite well with the search engines, the very first organic result in fact.
What have you accomplished as a business or organization in this case?
Sure, loads of people may stumble upon your website, but once they get there what do you think will happen? Do you think they will “convert” to customers?
On the other end of the spectrum, imagine a block of written text that is so eloquent, so persuasive… that once a visitor reads it, they instantly want to become a customer, or donor, volunteer, etc.
However, because of the way it is written, it actually has zero SEO value. As such, it is invisible to the search engines, and no one who doesn’t already know your website exists will ever find it.
What has your business accomplished here? This example is marginally better than the first one; at least you More >
