Online Marketing for growth and business succes
Marketing your brand.
Online. Effectively.
Growing your business.
When designing and creating a website (i.e. the foundation of your online marketing efforts), there are numerous things you have to take into account if you want to create and sustain an effective website – one that is visible, accessible, and able to create new leads for your business. It is almost like playing different games simultaneously. Here are a few you actively have to work with when doing online marketing:
1. Playing the Google game
When asked, people will tell you that Google is a search engine. While this may sound true, it actually is not what Google is. Google is a search engine only when viewed through the eyes of an internet surfer.
In reality, Google is a service provider. People surf the internet searching for a service or product…. Google looks in it’s databases for the best answer to your search… and then present the the best answer (according to Google’s logic, databases ande algorithms) to you. Thus, it functions as a service provider.
The primary implication of this reality as that an internet marketer never markets your business to your clients. To be effective your online marketing should first and foremost be directed towards Google. And with the intent to show and convince Google that your service or product presents the best answer to the search query of the internet surfer. Google will then present your business as the answer…. and you might win new clients. And if you fail to take in into account, you will loose.
3. . Playing the web design game
When more people started to use the internet to market their business, it led to a boom…. a boom in web designing done by trained graphic designers. Combined with the problem of coding these web pages, it led to the idea that graphic designers was the ideal people to create websites. The only problem was that they were trained in graphic design – not in online marketing.
The result of this was (and sometimes still is) that too much attention is given to the arty side of web design. It has to look extraordinary. With glitzes and moving parts. And this is done with the assumption that the looks of the website wil convince internet surfers to become customers.
Research done in the field of internet marketing paints quite a different picture. Moving pictures (especially the ones they cannot control) results in people clicking away from your site. Complex websites takes longer time to load and convince people to go to another website.
In the end it is a balance between design, esthetics, good information and easy accessibility (to the specif information they need) that will convince people to stay on your website…. and maybe try your services or product.
If you do not take this reality into account when doing online marketing, you will not be able to design and build an effective website.
2. Playing the internet surfer game
If Google is the main concern when creating an internet marketing strategy, the typical internet surfer is the second big player. Long befopre you think about your great products and services, you have to consider the potential customer searhing in the internet. And how they operate in the wat they search, must be the second big considerations when creating an internet marketing plan.
You have to have an avatar (a list describing the details) of of your preferred customer. You hav eto understand the typical word (called keywords) they use to search the internet. You have to discern which keywords are money keywords and which ones will never bring you any new customers. You have to know (and take into account) the way they scan the screen your website is one…. where there attentions naturally takes them on teh screen. You have to know how information that is not easily and readily accessible on your website will make you loose a potential customer.
You have to consciously take search behaviour into account when marketing your business on the internet
4. Playing the internet trail game
Having a website is like having a grain of sand in the Sahara desert. Your website will be one of bilions and billions of websites. All competing for Google’s attention.
To get Google to give attention to your website you need to erect signs all over the internet – signs showing Google the way to your website.
This implies that one website might not be enough. You moght need one primary website PLUS several smaller websites if you really want to catch Google’s attention. You also have to have a lot of references to your website/s – all over the internet. These referneces (called “links”) will result in Google taking note of your website.
A large part of internet marketing is about these behind-the-scenes-work that has to be done (on a constant basis) to ensure that Google takes note of your website and present it in reaction to a surfer’s query. The process is called SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
It consists of building primary or large signs to your main website (eg a Facebook page, a Youtube channel). It also consists of numeroes small signs (eg references in articles, listing in local business listings, etc).
Without a conscious and ongoing effort to erect these signs, you will not be able to create and maintain an effective website – one that brings new customers to your business.