Internet Marketing Blog | Search Consulting Service

An interesting article in the LA Times that deals with the issues of late life unemployment. This may be one of the first times I have read the word SEO in a major newspaper! I forget how few people know of the web world, especially a niche like search engine optimization. In the article a women in her 50’s and recently unemployed has taken an unpaid position at a web start-up.

That was useful. I just completed a 95 lesson on-line course that entailed the taking of 18 tests. Since the art and science of search engine marketing is new and changing, keeping updated is important for my clients. If you are interested in seeing what the course covered click on the certification icon below.

Typically I urge my clients to add content to their website, but this content should empower a goal, not inhibit it.  Usually the website’s goal is to either directly produce revenue (an e-commerce website) or the website is intended to attract people to contact my client (a lead generation website).  Quite often we lose site of these website objectives. Images, text, movies, and other glitzy media is added to the site without regard to purpose. Other times “administrative” information is added for a select few customers or because we can. Does this content aid the decision process of a potential customer, or does it detract? If you were a salesperson, would this information help the sale or would it make the sale more difficult? These are questions you should ask yourself when looking at your website.

Sales people are always thinking about their sales funnel. A sales funnel describes the conversion of prospects into stages from inquiry through to the final sale. Prospects start at the top of the funnel and convert into a sale at the bottom. The success of this conversion reflects the quality of prospects at the top of the funnel and the sales skill at each conversion stage.

I constantly harp on adding content to a website. You want your website to be the source of quality information on the topic you know about. However if it is either costly or time-consuming to add content, all the cajoling in the world isn’t going to make you want to change your website. Enter CMS or Content Management Systems. A content management system is software that keeps track of every piece of content on your Web site, much like your local public library keeps track of books and stores them. Content can be simple text, photos, music, video, documents, or just about anything you can think of. A major advantage of using a CMS is that it requires almost no technical skill or knowledge to manage. Since the CMS manages all your content, you don’t have to.

I often get asked: How do I turn a website visitor into a paying customer?  I believe the question might be better framed as: How do I get customers/clients to visit our website? You will always get visitors who have no intention of buying your goods or services. The trick may not be to change these visitors into customers but to find more potential customers. To find a customer, consider offering them something they want, but that is not necessarily your product. And two, develop a relationship with them.

Make News

The elements of a press release are fairly well established. PRLog has a good summary of these components.

I’d like to discuss the finer details of a press release – that is, what makes it interesting.

I usually assist my clients in deriving 10 or so keyword phrases. These are phrases that a prospect would  use to search Google and find my client. An example of a keyword phrase for a local bike store might be “Bend Oregon Bike Shop”. Now that you have these keywords what do you do with them? What we do with keywords is as important as finding the correct keywords.

Click to view Small Business Internet Marketing: Design vs. Promotion presentation. This works best using MS Internet Explorer browser. You can view it as a slideshow by clicking “Slideshow” in the bottom right of the screen after you download. In the normal viewing mode, you will be able to view my speaker notes. Thank you and please feel free to leave a comment below.

Blog vs e-Newsletter, which should your business use? The quick answer is both. The purpose of both blogs and e-newsletters is to keep connected with your customers. By bringing customers into the fold, they feel like they are a valuable part of your business. Both communication devices are valuable to promoting your business and therefore increasing sales, but there are significant differences between the two methods.