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October 31st, 2011 - Are You Sick and Tired of Not Having a Social Media Strategy?
October 31st, 2011 - Are You Sick and Tired of Not Having a Social Media Strategy?
Have you researched the impact that social media could have on your business? Have you registered your company with those websites and done all of your back linking to your company’s web site? Could your social media strategy be affecting how Google and other search engines rank your site? Do you have a quality analytics program for tracking your social media results? Get the answers to all your questions and a free social media consultation. Click on the PDF to the right to read more....
Back to TopWinning the search engine wars with effective Pay Per Click marketing
In the online world, getting in front of relevant searchers is what matters most to your web success. With about 92% of searchers never going beyond page 1 of search engine results, the importance of being on page 1 is obvious. The war to dominate organic search results through SEO (search engine optimization) can be long and frustrating, often seeming complex. While you may feel discouraged in going head to head against larger competitors, you can easily outflank them online in just a few minutes.
Often overlooked even by your competition, Pay Per Click (PPC) marketing can be a very cost effective means of leaping ahead of the thousands, if not millions of webpages, in the search results. Whether you’ve recently launched your website or are looking to expand your web marketing reach globally or locally, PPC can attract new visitors and test new markets instantly.
All the major search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing offer PPC advertising opportunities. With Pay Per Click advertising you can quickly get qualified leads on a per-click basis by bidding for top positions on your selected keywords. These PPC results are often displayed along the top of the organic search results, and along the right side of search results. In this way, your ad can get prime positioning on page 1 of search results.
With Pay Per Click you only pay for the clicks on your ads, and you can manage your bids and daily ad spend budget. You can ever further target your ads by geographic location, language and even the time of day to show your ads. The flexibility of PPC is ideal for new website launches to attract new visitors, promote new and seasonal products, and test new markets instantly.
Along with instant traffic to your website, a well managed PPC campaign can give you real time data and market knowledge. With the power of PPC and the tools available, you can immediately see how receptive your audience is to your marketing message or marketing initiatives. For example, if you were thinking of expanding your products or services to a new city or region, you could be testing the waters in that market with PPC. The data feedback from a PPC campaign would include how many clicks you got on your ad and how many visited the webpage you directed them to. On this note don’t forget to make sure that the webpage your ad is sending visitors to is properly designed to quickly capture qualified leads. If your web page content is strong, it will mean more leads and more sales.
Your marketing feedback can also enable you to quickly determine the effectiveness and sales potential of new product ideas or launches. With the PPC account management tools, you can quickly measure the market interest in your new product or idea. At the executive level, PPC provides qualified and quantifiable data about your message and product. Most importantly for executives, PPC marketing can provide immediate market insight and a direct ROI on your PPC marketing investment.
In the world of branding, PPC can also have a profound impact on your brand’s footprint. When a search term is used, even if your ad is not clicked on during the impression, there is strong value in appearing in the paid search results. When you appear in search results you are constantly benefitting from the ongoing exposure. Visitors may not click right away but will become aware of your company and possibly visit your website in the future. When a competitor’s brand shows up in search results and your brand doesn’t, there’s a drop in impact for your brand. While there may be restrictions on bidding on competitors’ copyright brands or trademarked terms, branded industry terms level the playing field.
The secret to a successful PPC campaign and why some may have felt discouraged in using PPC is in its execution. Too often, first time users will take the easy way out and bid on too many unrelated or irrelevant keywords. They may also try to lump all their keywords into one ad, thus diluting the relevancy of the ad for each keyword phrase. Along with including too many broad phrases and unrelated ad copy, businesses bid wildly. Add poor webpage content to the equation, and in the end, companies end up spending hundreds if not thousands of dollars with poor results.
Pay Per Click management is as much a science as an art form. It begins with researching the right fertile keywords to bid on. It ultimately should be conducted by experts with years of PPC account management experience. Their expertise also includes quality ads, which entice the searcher and deploying prudent bid and budget techniques. Equally important is keeping the “search scent” alive throughout the marketing process to ensure the web copy delivers on the expectations and the promises. If any one of these steps are broken, then so is your marketing process.
Those considering setting up and running your own pay per click campaign with no experience, think again. Time, experience, and proactive campaign management will be required for success. If you aren’t in a position to manage, monitor and fine tune the details, you’ll be frustrated with the results. Hiring the right people or engaging an expert PPC firm can make the world of difference. PPC is not just exposing your message to more people, it’s targeting the right people and building value. Properly connected, the steps to PPC success can bring a wealth of new clients, expose new opportunities to grow your business and beat your competition head to head online.
About the author:
Keith Kidwell is Vice President of Internet Marketing, with Think Profits.com. He can be reached at keith@thinkprofits.com, or 604 638 1188
Web guru’s passion drives Net success
Business Edge News Magazine
November 20, 2009
Page 1
by Trevor Scott Howell
For Shawn Moore, the entrepreneurial spirit came to him early in life. The founder, president and CEO of Vancouver based Internet marketing firm ThinkProfits.com first ventured into the business realm by lending friends copies of his own MAD magazines — for a nominal fee of course. It was an auspicious beginning for the third-generation Vancouverite, who, bouyed by his mother’s encouragement, pressed on with a string of business ventures.
After a number of years in the consumer electronics industry, Moore went to B.C.’s Douglas College with two preliminary business plans in tow: a concept of a production company that would produce a technology show, and a plan on Internet marketing. The latter garnered more favorable feedback and convinced Moore to pitch his idea to Dominion Directories, who awarded him a contract to help launch the website bcyellowpages.com (now superpages.ca).
“Douglas College was instrumental in some of the instructors helping me put pen to paper,” says Moore. Armed with a business plan and a freshly inked contract, Moore deposited $13,000 into a bank account, opened an operating line of credit for $35,000 and started his business in 1997. He specialized in search engine optimization (SEO), a process that improves the amount of visitor traffic to one’s website by using keywords to place it near the top of a web-engine search.
Moore persevered through the dot-com market crash at the turn of the century — a move that has paid off in spades. His company, which boasts more than 1,100 customers, is now recognized internationally as one of the top web-marketing, e-commerce and website-design firms in the world. As an SEO expert, Moore is also a highly sought-after keynote speaker, drawing in large crowds seeking his advice on Internet marketing.
About Shawn Moore
Title: Founder, president and CEO of Vancouver-based Think Profits.com
Raised/born: Vancouver, B.C./1963
Awards:
- Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year nomination (2009, 2002)
- Technology Business of the Year Award (2008)
- Canada’s Top 40
- Under 40 Award (2002)
- Corporate Showcase (2001)
- Surrey Business Excellence Award (2000)
- Entrepreneur of The Year Award (1999)
- Canadian Government Technology Delegate (1998), Dominion Directories
- Development Company (1997)
Co-ordinates: www.thinkprofits.com, 1.877.597.7888
Back to Top.Tel shakes up the global domain market
Telnic creation touted as ‘phonebook of the 21st century’Business Edge News Magazine
September 11, 2009
Page 17
Telnic Limited, the developer of the new top-level domain (TLD) “.Tel” recently announced that over 200,000 domains had been registered in as little as two months of public launch.
The .Tel domain is a remarkable business opportunity. With .Tel, you can publish all your contact information and keywords under a unique domain name — without the need for a website. .Tel reinvents the way people communicate online and has been celebrated as the “phonebook of the 21stcentury.”
“Considering our new economy and the increased need to advertise your business online, the .Tel domain is a smart choice,” says Shawn Moore, President and CEO of Vancouver Internet marketing company Think Proftis.com. “It has skyrocketed, and protecting your corporate identity online by registering your .Tel domain before it’s too late is essential.”
More about .TEL domains and how they work
The .Tel domain works as a single point of “Quick Access” contact for all your related business services and products. It is also potentially a full-blown global portal that can be accessed promptly, even from mobile devices. Using your company.tel, you can publish all your co-ordinates, including phone, mobile, fax, websites, VoIP, IM handles and email addresses. You can store web links, geographical signifiers and keywords describing your business that are being well indexed by Google and the other major search engines.
.Tel domains provide worldwide coverage, full-control and real-time updating in more cost-efficient and intuitive ways than other directory services.
Your customers are quickly redirected to the department or location of their choice. The navigation structure of .Tel’s revolutionary domain name service technology is easy for all end-users.
For example, says Moore,“If you had registered pizza.tel, you could provide a directory of all your retail locations around the globe. Customers in every city could access the contact information for their nearest location — quickly and from any device that connects to the Internet.”
Rapid access
“The .Tel domain is fully optimized for all mobile devices,” explains Moore. “It uses small and fast domain name system (DNS) lookups instead of slowly loading traditional website HTML content. In today’s world of rapid-access technologies, .Tel appeals to consumers who want information quickly and at the drop of a hat.”
Interactive
.Tel domains are interactive and fit for a new generation of web surfers. One can integrate and manage time-sensitive tasks such as SMS voting for a favourite TV reality show with one-click functionality. Viewers can vote for their favourite celebrities using a list of choices under your .Tel page.
.Tel also complements Blackberry and iPhone users. In May 2009, Telnic announced that .Tel superbook for iPhone and iPod touch is available to download free from the Apple App store. In July 2009 Telnic announced that Blackberry users similarly can manage all their .Tel information through a single directory built for their phone. Customers can visit Blackberry App World to download this application.
Revenue generating
By purchasing a generic services name such as hotels. tel or roofers.tel, a business could list multiple subdomains to drive customers to local providers. The .Tel acts as a modern phone book, replacing cumbersome paper directories and slow-to-load website contact pages.
Your .Tel domain can also be used as a virtual storefront where you can collect payments for downloads, products or services.
Removing barriers
The .Tel domain is available in 11 languages including English, Arabic, Chinese, Russian, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish. User guides are also available in multiple languages, removing barriers for domain owners all around the world. Moore adds, “Whether you area restaurant in Morocco or a shoe store manager in Italy, you can publish your workplace co-ordinates inexpensively and to the entire world.”
The .Tel domain lends itself to many opportunities, from individuals promoting themselves online to large organizations completely revamping their existing business models based on .Tel technology. “This is an exciting time for us to be exploring new Internet marketing breakthroughs,” says Moore. “Even through the challenging economic climate, .Tel domains have succeeded — a testament to the changing advertising needs of business owners.”
Want more information about .Tel?
Vancouver based Internet marketing firm Think Profits.com has over 12 years of experience in domain-name management. “Think Profits has experience managing the .com phenomenon and has helped thousands of clients who dominate and drive profits from their domains,” says Moore.
.Tel is unique in that it requires no hosting and offers unlimited folder capacity that can accommodate even full-blown, online portals. For an example of a .tel domain administered and created by Think Profits.com, see www.homesforsale.tel.
Think Profits.com can help with both .Tel domain registration and full administration.
For more information, you can reach Think Profits at www.thinkprofits.com or call toll free in North America at 1.877.597.7888.
Back to TopTrade Secret To Get Your Site To Come Up on Page 1 of Google “Intelligent Keyword Research”
If you’re like the majority of web site owners today, you have not been able to find your web site on the search engines when you do a “primary keyword” search for your main products or services - right?
Well,... join the crowd. Did you know that 99% of all web sites never see page 1 results for any of the search engines? Sure, you may come up when you do a search for your business name; you may even feel that this is good enough for your business. It’s possible that you may feel that your branding is the reason that you will have success on-line; particularly if you think that everyone knows who you are and also knows the name of your company – recognition that companies such as Coke or Microsoft enjoy. But is this really the big picture opportunity or potential that your web site provides to you?
If you are Microsoft or Coke, it might be. For most of the rest of the world, I think not! You see, what most businesses fail to realize is that one of the biggest benefits to publishing your web site is in attracting NEW clients and prospects. These are people who don’t necessarily already know who you are. For example, in the B to B world, a company may be looking / searching for a new supplier and typing in the keywords on search engines to find what they are looking for. If I am a purchaser working for a retail hardware store or chain, I may have had a recent outing with my current supplier who I buy metal brackets from. The fastest way for me to find options will be by looking for a new supplier / manufacturer who makes metal brackets buy going to Google and typing in “metal bracket manufacturer”. These are referred to as “primary search terms” or “primary keywords” on the internet. I suggest that you get to know these three words well, because if your business is looking at any kind of growth and expansion on line then you will need to market your web site using primary search terms to capture new leads. Conversely, if you are a consumer looking for a product or service you may type in something like this to a search engine. “Outdoor patio furniture”. This is referred to as C to B or consumer to business on line. So if you’re in either of the business groups above, you will want your web site to come up in the primary keyword searches that potential surfers (and consumers) are typing in hence attracting NEW business from people who never knew who you were. I would recommend that you ask you web developer if they know how to do this work for you. The difficult situation business owners are in is that, unfortunately, 99% of web developers don’t know how to do this work and you will have to seek out an SEO (search engine optimization) specialist. Much the same as you would not ask your book keeper to offer you sophisticated tax strategies or get your corporate lawyer to give you family law advice, the same professional specialist issues exist in the internet web development world. Having said that, it‘s easy to find the best ones. Go to Google or any search engine and type in the primary keywords “Seo Company” followed by your city and if they are good at what they do, you may find one at the top of the list. Happy searching.
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Back to TopWhy Being On Page 1 Of Search Engines Is Critical To Your Success
If you’re like the majority of web site owners today, you have not been able to find your web site on the search engines when you do a “primary keyword” search for your main products or services - right? Well,... join the crowd. Did you know that 99% of all web sites never see page 1 results for any of the search engines? Sure, you may come up when you do a search for your business name; you may even feel that this is good enough for your business. It’s possible that you may feel that your branding is the reason that you will have success on-line; particularly if you think that everyone knows who you are and also knows the name of your company – recognition that companies such as Coke or Microsoft enjoy. But is this really the big picture opportunity or potential that your web site provides to you? Well, if you are Microsoft or Coke, it might be. For most of the rest of the world, I think not! You see, what most businesses fail to realize is that one of the biggest benefits to publishing your web site is in attracting NEW clients and prospects. These are people who don’t necessarily already know who you are. For example, in the B to B world, a company may be looking / searching for a new supplier and typing in the keywords on search engines to find what they are looking for. If I am a purchaser working for a retail hardware store or chain, I may have had a recent outing with my current supplier who I buy metal brackets from. The fastest way for me to find options will be by looking for a new supplier / manufacturer who makes metal brackets buy going to Google and typing in “metal bracket manufacturer”. These are referred to as “primary search terms” or “primary keywords”on the internet. I suggest that you get to know these three words well, because if your business is looking at any kind of growth and expansion on line then you will need to market your web site using primary search terms to capture new leads. Conversely, if you are a consumer looking for a product or service you may type in something like this to a search engine. “Outdoor patio furniture”. This is referred to as C to B or consumer to business on line. So if you’re in either of the business groupsabove, you will want your web site to come up in the primary keyword searches that potential surfers (and consumers) are typing in hence attracting NEW business from people who never knew who you were. I would recommend that you ask you web developer if they know how to do this work for you. The difficult situation business owners are in is that, unfortunately, 99% of web developers don’t know how to do this work and you will have to seek out an SEO (search engine optimization) specialist. Much the same as you would not ask your book keeper to offer you sophisticated tax strategies or get your corporate lawyer to give you family law advice, the same professional specialist issues exist in the internet web development world. Having said that, it‘s easy to find the best ones. Go to Google or any search engine and type in the primary keywords “Seo Company” followed by your city and if they are good at what they do, you may find one at the top of the list. Happy searching.
Written by Shawn Moore
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Is Your Ecommerce Shopping Cart Losing Business On-Line?
Q: We contracted a company that installed a shopping cart on our site and our sales have not improved. We don’t get many complaints but we expected a lot more from this new installation? Do you have any suggestions on what can we do to improve our results?
This is one of the most common complaints that I hear each week from people who write in. The fact is that installing a shopping cart to your web site is not as simple as plugging in to a cart and then sitting back and taking orders all day while you kick your feet back on your desk. Choosing the right shopping cart “experience” is probably the most crucial decision you will need to make when installing this feature on your web site. The challenge is that each cart is typically built for a particular type of business and the nuances of your business is anything but typical. Your shopping cart will need to run the way that your regular business runs, and that is going to be unique for every company. Therefore, when you are planning the construction of your shopping cart, make sure you choose a developer that is very strong on database development as well as design because they will need to customize your shopping cart into a database that serves up your product offerings in a manner that not only works well for your “customer experience” when visitors come on to your site, but also for your internal operations when it comes to order processing. To complicate things even further, your database needs to be configured properly so that search engines index your products and or services. Make sure you ask the developer doing the database programming if they also are familiar with implementing an SEO (search engine optimization) friendly design to ensure that the likes of Google will also like it! If your developer doesn’t know what you are talking about, you should consider interviewing more suppliers until you are satisfied that you have found one who does. It’s also important to get a marketing angle on this experience by effectively crafting language (words) to help describe what the client is or should be experiencing when they actually order through your site(example: “Three simple steps to order your ‘blank’ today”). You can do a Google search for “seo ecommerce companies” and you may find some qualified options to consider. The bottom line with your cart and database is that it needs to be intuitive and easy for the visitor to use. It must allow your customers easy access to getting what they want - fast, and checking out when they want to, NOT when the cart lets them. It should gather credit card information easily & securely, have a return policy statement and a privacy policy statement. I recommend that it also be written professionally with your sales process in mind. In other words, focus first on converting your leads to a sale before you introduce too many other choices for them to consider. I would suggest that you have as many people go through your ordering process on your web site as possible to give you their feedback and experience when it come to doing business with you online. There are also professional marketing firms, consultants & companies who perform “web site audits” on your shopping carts experience and they will provide you with valuable recommendations and feedback that you can then take back to your developer for implementation. This will immensely improve your results and sell-through.
Written by Shawn Moore
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Grow your Company’s Bottom Line & Install HR Tools On Your Web Site Today!
Q: We spend a significant budget each year on attracting & hiring new people for our team. Much of my time is consumed with interviewing and hiring people. Can we leverage our web site to do more in this area to reduce our expenses?
Absolutely! Many businesses these days are installing some form of HR component into their web site. The benefits are significant. By now you are probably familiar with Monster or other employment sites on the net. You may even subscribe to one of these services yourself. These web sites essentially allow you to post your jobs online quickly (same day in fact). Their software program will allow you to screen applicants by region, skill set, experience etc., and will do this for a fraction of the price you would pay for listing a job posting in a local newspaper, hiring a headhunting or recruitment service, or a going with temp agency. One of the major benefits to doing this online is that you are also assured that you are getting a fairly savvy internet user who is using the technology to find employment. This means they know how to use a browser, can conduct internet searches, value their time, can type, etc. In general you will be a attracting someone with stronger computer skills, which will always be good for your business - particularly with the inevitable direction we are all going with the internet and technology in general. Big employment sites like Monster are great but, unless you religiously post your vacancies there, you are not in the game. One of the most popular strategies that I see many businesses employing these days is actually building a “mini Monster” on their own site. You see, when people start looking for a job they will go to the main sites but they will also type in the industry, area and service categories. They may even know who you are and go to your site to directly look for opportunity within your organization. Installing an HR function on your site will not only allow you to have full control over attracting and hiring new people, it also has the ability to save your management team an amazing amount of time! When you build your own custom interview system on your web site, you can even integrate the interview process -and many companies go as far as grading their applicants with their online system. This way, HR managers are contacting only the most qualified of those who apply, which has the potential to save them literally hundreds of hours every year. This of course makes them far more efficient, adding to the company’s bottom line. In some instances, companies can eliminate their HR advertising budget altogether because the web site becomes so proactive with employment resume/application acquisition that they don’t have to run ads any longer.
So, in the end, it’s a triple win: your business saves money on running ads, HR saves time with more efficiency, and you ultimately get a better qualified applicant who has actually taken the time to read through you web site and learn a lot more about your company and what you have to offer in terms of corporate culture, products, vision etc., providing you with candidates who are generally a better fit for a long term future with your company.
Written by Shawn More
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Why Understanding Web Metrics Is Crucial To Your Success On-Line
Q: I get these reports each month from my web team on hits & traffic to my site. I get business from my site each month but we are not taking the time to really look at these reports, and I feel we may be missing an opportunity. The problem is that no one knows how to read them and our web hosting company doesn’t really seem to know either? What is the purpose of these reports and what does it mean to my web site?
Well, the simple fact is that these reports are the lifeline to your ongoing success online. If you look deep enough in to the reports they will tell you who came to your site, how they found you, what words they typed in to search engines and what country they are from. They can also tell you where you lost the visitor and how long they stayed on your web site. In fact there are several hundred separate analysis reports available in the top statistics programs available for your web site. I recommend Web Trends, Urchin or Google analytics Google for the best web analytics. It is crucial to review these metrics on an ongoing, and ideally monthly basis if you want to learn more about your web visitor. In essence, the more that you can learn about the people that visit your site and their usage patterns and experience when they navigate your site, the better you will be able to continually improve the “customer experience” on your site so they keep coming back. You don’t want to simply look at the hits any more, as this actually provides very little valuable insight. What you do want to look for is “user sessions”. This will tell you more realistically the amount of people rather than computers who are visiting your site. In order to track this user information, you will need to get your web development team to install code on your site that is called “UTM” code. It’s a simple code that separates the people from computers being tracked on your site. Garbage in garbage out! Always start by getting the right data to analyze from the start. Speak to your hosting company and ask them if they support either of the two programs I mentioned above. You will find that most of the top hosting companies will supply, if not support these tools. If they don’t, they should be able to refer you to a company that can. Once you know you have the right software tracking program installed, the key factors that you will want to concentrate on are: 1. what pages they most visited. I usually focus on the top 3 and the worst three so I can improve the content on those pages and make it more valuable to their experience next time. It also tells you which pages / sections to expand upon in your next editing meeting; 2. How long they stayed on your site. This tells you how much value you have created; the goal is at least 2 minutes, depending on your product or service offering; 3. How many sales or leads that you generated from those users. You will need operations to track this and give you a summary so you can compare it to your stats program and look for the sources of weakness in your conversion ratio; 4. What your conversion rate of those leads/sales were; 5. what keywords they used to find you . This helps you determine how well your primary search terms are working for you through your web site’s search engine optimization and pay per click, if you are working with that strategy; 6. what search engines they found you from. This helps you learn how well your site is optimized for each of the primary search engines like Google, Yahoo, msn, etc. It would be a fantastic start if you reviewed this information each month. There are SEM (search engine marketing) firms that specialize in offering you consulting on these reports. The good ones will also provide you with a process to review the metrics monthly and then take it to meaningful and actionable conclusions for you in a nice executive summary. They are as valuable as good accountants and lawyers on your team and can definitely help take your business to another level online.
Written by Shawn Moore
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What is Email Capture & Should I Install it On My Web Site!
Q: I keep hearing about email marketing from my marketing department. They say we have to do it but all I can think about is how much I hate spam and don’t want to do that to our clients or, for that matter, anyone I know. Can you explain to me how this works ?
Well, this question is really what separates the men from the boys and the ladies from the girls online. At the end of the day, the internet is all about who has the biggest opt-in email list. I’m not talking about spam here. Opt-in refers to email that you have captured from people who have given you the right to market back to them in some form. For example: a visitor to your web site buys something from you. During the process you ask them if they would like to receive additional information on upcoming deals or specials, or possibly receive your monthly / quarterly newsletter. If they say yes, then you have a double opted in confirmed email list subscriber who has given you the right to market back to them. Conversely, someone may have visited your website and never purchased from you but may still opt in to your list if you give them an incentive like a free giveaway or coupon to be used at a later date. The people who have the largest amount of emails gathered in these forms are sitting on a GOLD MINE. The key is that you now have to do something with this list! You actually have to follow up and send them emails with special offers. Why not? Did you know that there are sophisticated email programs that you can engage which will even give you the ability to preprogram sequential offers so it runs automatically for your business? Imagine how powerful this could be if you segregated your existing client base and scripted offers that were tailored to their specific service level, moving them along each step of the way to purchase the next product or service that you offer. This also keeps your name top of mind for them as they are seeing your brand on their desktop several times over the course of your marketing campaign. The simple fact is that, when compared against traditional direct mail campaigns which typically give you return from .05 to 2%, email marketing returns are averaging 6%. That’s a minimum of a 300% higher return over sending snail mail and, best of all, the cost is a fraction of the direct mail cost because once you have chosen the software and installed it, there are NO ongoing printing or mailing costs! Sure, you will have to sit down with marketing and write out the offers but, after that, it’s like a digital sales rep that works for you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Best of all they never phone in sick, ask for a raise or leave your company. You’d be surprised at the people I speak to every month on this topic, some with very large lists who have still done nothing with them? So, in summary, if you want to grow your business online, take email marketing seriously. It has the power to grow your business exponentially.
Written by Shawn Moore
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Are You Sick And Tired Of Not Finding Your Company’s Web site On Page 1 Of Google?
Q: People tell me that I’m not coming up in Google searches but I can find my web site when I type in my company name every time? They say they are doing searches but not finding me. What are they referring to, and is it worth addressing?
If you’re like the majority of web site owners today, you have not been able to find your web site on the search engines when you do a “primary keyword” search for your main products or services - right? Well join the crowd. Did you know that 99% of all web sites never see page 1 results for any of the search engines? Sure you may come up when you do a search for your business name; you may even feel that this is good enough for your business. It’s possible that you may feel that your branding is the reason that you will have success on-line; particularly if you think that everyone knows who you are and also knows the name of your company – recognition that companies such as Coke or Microsoft enjoy. But is this really the big picture opportunity or potential that your web site provides to you? Well if you are Microsoft or Coke it might be. For most of the rest of the world, I think not! You see, what most businesses fail to realize is that one of the biggest benefits to publishing your web site is in attracting NEW clients and prospects. These are people who don’t necessarily already know who you are. For example, in the B to B world, a company may be looking / searching for a new supplier and typing in the keywords on search engines to find what they are looking for. If I am a purchaser working for a retail hardware store or chain, I may have had a recent outing with my current supplier who I buy metal brackets from. The fastest way for me to find options will be by looking for a new supplier / manufacturer who makes metal brackets buy going to Google and typing in “metal bracket manufacturer”. These are referred to as “primary search terms” or “primary keywords”on the internet. I suggest that you get to know these three words well, because if your business is looking at any kind of growth and expansion online, then you will need to market your web site using primary search terms to capture new leads. Conversely, if you are a consumer looking for a product or service, you may type in something like this to a search engine: “Outdoor patio furniture”. This is referred to as C to B or consumer to business online. So if you’re either of the business groups above, you will want your web site to come up in the primary keyword searches that surfers (and consumers) are typing in, hence attracting NEW business from people who never knew who you were. I would recommend that you ask your web developer if they know how to do this work for you. The difficult situation business owners are faced with, is that, unfortunately, 99% of web developers don’t know how to do this work and you will have to seek out an SEO (search engine optimization) specialist. Much the same as you would not ask your book keeper to offer you sophisticated tax strategies or get your corporate lawyer to give you family law advice, the same professional specialist issues exist in the internet web development world. Having said that, it‘s easy to find the best ones. Go to Google or any search engine and type in the primary keywords “Seo Company” followed by your city name, and if they are good at what they do, you may find one at the top of the list. Happy searching.
Written by Shawn Moore.
Back to TopThe Internet is probably the most powerful and yet misunderstood medium to have ever hit the planet
To complicate this further, the common perception for a lot of small business people is that it is free! This perception could not be more false.
For new businesses and old alike this can be very challenging. Do we jump in or do we stay away? To which capacity do we commit to the Internet? Everybody else is there. The hype is enormous and my friend said they could do it for me!
Having said that, it is definitely more affordable in comparison to traditional mediums like newspapers, radio, TV and brochures. Having said this, it does NOT mean that you do not have to use the other mediums to realize success with your business, just compliment them and redo your marketing budget to reflect the business climate changes. The Government of Canada suggests 10 to 15% of your overall marketing budget should be set aside to focus on your Internet program.
I can tell you that the Internet WILL effect every one of your businesses, regardless if you are in professional, consulting, manufacturing, distribution, or retail it will effect how you do business today and in the future. Your challenge is to take the time to learn HOW. Then choose a strategy that will work for you that you are comfortable with and committed to manage and grow. Web sites do not simply get built once and you walk away and make a million dollars. They become an integral part of your business, which means that someone has to manage it. This is not rocket science just another job function which comes with it's own set of tasks and responsibilities.
Business People Use The Internet For Several Reasons
- To advertise and reduce related cost's with a higher return on investment that is measurable!
- To improve communications through email!
- To generate Profit through incremental sales via email and on line commerce!
- To procure staff through your web site. This saves you ad cost's, time and brings you a better educated employee!
- To provide more information on your company to your clients with a multi page web site that explains more of what your company offers!
- To provide you with an information resource to grow your business!
Companies Use The Internet To Advertise
- To advertise and reduce related cost's with a higher return on investment that is measurable.
- Run an ad in the paper and it's gone in 1 day, 1 week.
- Receive pre-qualified email directly from your site with no long distance charges!
- Email order forms
- On-line commerce
- On-line brochures, Web site Design
- With increased traffic to your site you can actually sell advertising space if you choose!
- Traditional advertising/marketing is very difficult to quantify unless you have a disciplined measurement system
Companies Use The Internet For Communications
- To improve communications through email!
- More than 600 thousand people use email today in BC! If you are not on line you can't communicate with them.
- Email lets you respond on your time schedule and assures your message is conveyed without having to play voice tag or leave messages!
- You can list your clients on a group list and keep in contact with them on a regular basis with 1 letter! (no mailing cost's)
- Many people will put a newsletter out through their email groups rather than direct mail.
Companies Use The Internet To Increase Profit
- To generate Profit through incremental sales via email and on line commerce!
- The average cost to sell something on line compared to traditional methods is staggering.
- Commerce is the ability to do transactions through your web site and even clear the cash with a merchant account!
- This can be selling your products or services
- This can be having your vendors or suppliers order through your service!
- Bank fees per transaction are drastically lower than Traditional merchant accounts
Companies Use The Internet To Find Staff
- To procure staff through your web site.
- Most companies will put up job postings with an application on their site!
- This saves you ad cost's, time and brings you a better educated employee!
- Ads can stay up as long as you like!
- This prescreens your candidates for you!
- It also typically gives you a computer literate person.
Companies Use The Internet To Provide Information
- To provide more information on your company to your clients
- With a multi page web site that explains more of what your company offers people can get more information on your products or services without even asking 1 person!
- They can even print themselves your brochure
- Or better yet bookmark your site for frequent visits
Companies Use The Internet To Research & Grow
- To provide you with an information resource to grow your business!
- You can go and see today what your competition is doing on the web to give you creative ways to improve your business!
- You have access to large directory databases for free to find new clients
- You can form strategic alliances with companies who sell different products or services than you do to compliment your busines
- You can source new products and services to sell!
OK now you have considered the above information and you are ready to take the leap! Having made the decision to enter the Internet, probably the best advice I could give readers of this article is to build your foundation first! (Strong foundations hold strong structures, weak ones will collapse with too much weight on them) This means, buy your company name.com. The process is similar to what you have had to go through to register your company name to start your business. You have to do the same thing for the Internet. The only difference is that when you buy your company name for the Internet you are securing it for the WHOLE WORLD not simply BC. You can do this for approximately $300.00 or less depending on the services you include with it. Example: whether you want email or a web site attached to it etc. You can do this yourself on line if you know what you are doing for about $150.00. If you are not comfortable then find a web registration service company you feel comfortable with. Most ISP’s (Internet Service Providers) can do this for you.
In closing I would like to leave you with 2 thoughts:
Ask you’re self this question. "If I am not managing my Internet program / web site, who is?" If you answered this question and do not know the answer to it then you have to rethink your strategy and get some help.
Always think of the “end in mind” with your Internet Program and you will always be more successful with your outcome.
Written by Shawn Moore
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