What I mean, when I say that, is Feed The Customer!  On the Internet that means, feed their current desire.  Which means, find out what they’re looking for and then feed it to them!

If your small business sells red shoes and your keyword research shows that yellow shoes are in higher demand, wouldn’t you look for a yellow shoe distributor?  Wouldn’t you add yellow shoes to your inventory of products?  Your audience is looking for them.  That’s the “fetish” this month, this quarter, this year.  Whatever.  If your audience wants it, if they’re hungry for it, feed it to them!

Here’s a great article at Suite101.com about putting the customer first in your Internet marketing campaign.

But if you’re one of the millions who have gone down this path, you may be wondering how to begin or improve your marketing campaigns?  Now that you’ve got something to sell, how do you let others know that you’re here?

One of the (if not THE) cheapest marketing venues today is the Internet.  Now, when I say “cheap” I mean monetary.  Don’t think it’s completely free and easy.  The cost comes in time.  So, yes, it can be practically free to do most if not all of the Internet marketing yourself, but it takes time and quite a bit of it.  Just wanted you to know!

Anyway, back to Internet marketing for small businesses…

There are multiple ways that a small company can market their services and/or products on the Internet.  The key to remember in anything you do on the Internet is to KNOW WHAT YOUR AUDIENCE WANTS.  In other words, find out what they’re searching for and then give it to them.  Here’s an example:

Acom Communications provides business phone installation services as well as selling new and refurbished phone systems for offices of all sizes.  They do this in the Atlanta Georgia area.  So, one keyword phrase they would like to use is “business phone installers atlanta georgia“.  Okay, that’s good.  But is their audience looking for that?  Luckily, there are ways to find out what people are searching for on the Internet, and that’s what we did.  Here’s how.

1) We used tools like SEMRush.com and Wordtracker to find the keyword phrases people are using AND the keyword phrases the competition is using.
2) We used Google Adwords Keyword tool to find the keyword phrases companies are bidding on.

Come to find out lots of people were searching for “avaya phone installers” – so we created a page to market just that phrase.  Now, without this keyword research this company would have only marketed the main phrase for “phone installers” but the research gave us data that allowed us to narrow down the keywords to specific brands which the audience are already looking for.

Some Small Business Internet Marketing Tips You Can Start On Today

Okay, so now you know that the very first step you must take is getting the list of keyword phrases you’ll be marketing.  The second step is to WRITE.  Yes, I know, it’s horrible.  I mention this to some prospects and then I never hear from them again!  If you absolutely can’t write, find someone who can.  There’s no getting away from the fact that in order to market on the Internet, you actually have to write.  Personally, I just tell my prospects and clients that “…if you can talk, you can write…”

So, what to write about?

Well, you have your list of keyword phrases.  Take one phrase and write 3-4 paragraphs about it.  You can follow the old rules we all learned back in junior high.

Who, What, When, Where, How and Why

If you’re writing about Avaya Phone Installers then answer the questions…

1) Who are you (your company I mean)
2) What do you do exactly and more important, what can you do for ME?
3) When can you do your work?  Monday – Friday?  24/7?  When?
4) Where do you do your work?  I know you’re in Atlanta but will you come as far as Cummings?
5) How do you do your work?  Can I trust you?  Are you licensed?
6) Why should I buy from you?

Aim your content towards the customer.  What I mean is don’t write JUST about your company and who you are, etc.  Your content should be about how your service can benefit the reader.  It’s all about them.

I will recommend that you use the keyword phrase you’re marketing in the title of the article, in the body of the article 2-3 times.  This is the very least you can do to optimize the content for that keyword phrase.

My 3rd Internet Marketing Tip for Small Businesses

So, now you know that you need to have the list of keyword phrases and that you need to write 3-4 paragraphs about each keyword phrase.  What’s next?

Well, this content now needs to be put out on the Internet.  There are multiple ways to do this.  Here are some…

1) On a website page.
2) On a blog post.
3) On Squidoo.
4) On Facebook.
5) On articles which are then submitted to article directories like Geckoe.com

Doing any one of these can help you to market your business, doing all can help even more.  There’s alot you can do for your own Internet marketing campaign, but like I said at the beginning, the cost may not be in dollars but it will be in time.  So, just be prepared for that!  Good luck!

Wait, what?  Did I hear you say “What goals?” – Are you one of the millions of website owners who don’t have specific goals for each website page?  Then,  what are you marketing?  How do you know you’ve succeeded?  Just because the phone is ringing more doesn’t mean there are more sales.  Just because there’s more email in your inbox doesn’t mean it isn’t more spam!

Here’s the basic concept:

1) Go to each page of your website and make a conscious decision of what GOAL do you want to achieve with that page.  Do you want the visitor to move to another page?  Do you want the visitor to call you?  Do you want the visitor to email you?  Do you want the visitor to click on a specific button?

2) Write these down and then put them on your website stats program to track.  In Google Analytics you can do this through the Goals section or thru the Event Tracking section.  Either way, track them!

3) Monitor the stats monthly to see what goals are being met and which ones are not.  Of the ones that are not (and there will be those, believe me) – do some investigating to find out why they aren’t being acted on.  Maybe the graphic is too far down on the page.  Maybe the phone number isn’t easy to find on the website page.  Whatever it is, investigate.

Oh, and in case you don’t think you can track phone calls easily on a website, guess again.  Check into Google Voice.  You can use a FREE phone number provided by Google Voice on your website.  Forward it to your office phone and that’s that.  You’ve got a tracking of incoming phone calls from your website.

Today’s topic is on Bounce Rates.  If you’re not checking your website bounce rates, you should.  So, let’s see if I can explain it to you and help you figure out what to do if your bounce rate is not so great.

According to Google, bounce rate means:  “the percentage of single-page visits or visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page.”

Basically, if someone comes in to your website on your Services page and then leaves your website without going to any other pages, that’s a bounce.

Is a high bounce rate a bad thing?  Well, it depends on what you wanted the visitor to do from that page.

If the visitor comes in to your website on the “Contact Us” you may want your visitor to call you.  So, a high bounce rate from this particular page would not be a bad thing.

But, if you do have a high bounce rate on a page that you shouldn’t, here are some reasons as to why that might be.

1) The information on the page isn’t what the visitor was looking for.
Solution: First, make sure that the keyword phrase you’re marketing is what’s on this page.  Second, make sure that the description  tag matches the information on this page.

2) The site design is poor, leaving the visitor confused as to where to go to next.
Solution: There’s a true art to website design.  It’s not just about the colors and the graphics.  It’s also about navigation.  Get as many different opinions from as many different people as possible about your site’s navigation.  Is it easy to find things?  Are the buttons clear?  Etc.

3) There’s no call to action on the page.
Solution:  In the process of designing (or redesigning your website) make sure that you set up an intended action for each page.  You want to know what action you want the visitor to take and you want to tell the visitor as clear as possible that you want them to take that action.

For Beginners – this tutorial at Mahalo.com is excellent.

For those who are a bit more advanced, here are some of our tips…

1) Take advantage of the Goals section.  Create as many different goals as possible to track as many different “campaigns” and “actions” on your website.

Some examples of what to track on your website…

a) number of visitors who fill out your contact form
b) number of visitors who take an action on a website page (like click on the “click here” button)
c) number of visitors who fill out any form on the site (free quote, get an ebook, etc.)
d) number of visitors that come to a certain page and then bounce off
e) number of visitors who come to the website from another specific website

Well, you get the idea.  Pretty much anything can be tracked and the point is, you should know what each page of your website is supposed to do and you should be able to track all of that!

2) Use the keywords section on Google Analytics to give you a list of the long tail keyword phrases that you’re getting customers for.  Find the conversion rate for each of these phrases and the ones that are giving you a decent conversion rate, well, add more to the website about that theme.

The concept is if ONE keyword phrase is bringing in 30 visitors a month and the conversion rate from that 30 is 10%.  Expanding on that theme should bring in more visitors and because it seems to be a “hot” topic, the conversions should then increase as well.

3) Analyze the pages that aren’t doing very well on your site and fix them!  Sure, you may not get it right the first, second, third or even fourth time.  But the point is to keep working on those pages until they bring in a decent amount of traffic.  (Decent being whatever you’re happy with!)

As a good friend tells me quite often, “Oh, it gives me a headache!”.

So, although all those numbers and graphs are interesting and fascinating for me to read, to my clients, they just give them a headache!

I stopped sending them that information and I started sending them a short analysis of those reports.  That turned out to be better.  At least for my clients.

But, knowing what I know (or maybe I’m just a die hard geek) – I couldn’t get by in my business with that little bit of knowledge about my website statistics.  I want to know what all those numbers and details mean!  So, although I agree that many small businesses just need to know the basic facts, I still think it’s important to have some working knowledge of the terms and information that website analytics can give you.

The folks over at WebTrends created an excellent alphabetized glossary of all website analytics terms and their definitions.  So, without further ado, here’s the list of Website Statistics Terminology.

http://www.webtrends.com/Education/Glossary.aspx

As the owner of an Internet Marketing firm that focuses on small business websites, we WANT our clients to engage in the Internet marketing process.  But in order for them to do that, they must know what’s going on, they need the information in order to make the best decision.  That’s where our monthly marketing reports come to play.  So, let me share with you what we focus on.

Keywords Report

One factor many website owners forget about is the continuous change that is the Internet.  Here’s a little tip I can give you.  Go to Code Monitor and sign up.  It’s free.  Enter in a competitor’s website and just wait.  In your email you’ll receive a notice every time that competitor makes a change on his website.  If that competitor’s website is in the top 3 on a Google search result, I can pretty much guarantee that they are changing their website often.  At least once a week.

Our Keywords Report helps you to add new data to your website by giving you 3 new keyword phrases that your website can market.  The idea is to keep adding, changing and upgrading your website.

Competition Report

Knowing what your competition is doing (and what they’re not doing) is a key factor in Internet marketing.  But what do you need to know?  Well, you need to know how many pages their website is marketing, how large is their social media marketing, what kind of traffic is that website bringing them, how many incoming links do they have and what keywords are they getting traffic for?

But you also need to know who your competition is.  Don’t get caught up in the thought that the store down the street is your competition.  On the Internet, your competition are the websites that are coming up for the keyword phrases you are marketing.  So, go to Google, type in a keyword phrase your website is marketing and hopefully you’re in the top 3.  If you’re not, who are?  Those are your competitors.  Find out what they’re doing and you’ll have a better idea of how to plan your Internet marketing campaign.

Your Website Pages

A few months ago Google changed many of their ranking rules (algorithims) and basically, they’re placing more emphasis on individual pages.  So, this forced us to place more emphasis on individual pages.  Everything from the links in and out, the page speed, cache dates and much more.

In this report, we outline each individual website page along with information about the keyword phrases it’s marketing, how it’s doing as far as bringing in traffic, it’s cache date and soon we’ll be adding page speed information as well.  The point is to give the website owner the information they need to make a decision on if and what type of changes a website page may need.

Recommendations Report

There isn’t one single day that goes by that something new isn’t introduced for website owners.  It can be a new social media site, a new method of communicating with visitors, a new form of video or audio, etc.  Just check out Killer Start Ups – you’ll see how creative folks are getting!

This report is our way of letting our customers know what new technology they may find useful for their website.  We try to cover everything that is the latest in Internet marketing.  (Did you know that Facebook is growing faster than Google?)  We want our clients to know that.  It’s to their benefit to take advantage of this information.  And to be honest, if the client does well with their website marketing, then we do well.

If your SEO firm is not providing you with this kind of information, ask them if they can or just call us at Eckweb Designs, Inc. We will help you to succeed.

http://www.mapenvelope.com/

Basically, you type in your office address and it prints it onto a template which you can then print, fold into an envelope and send it out to your clients.

It’s an interesting concept but how could you really use it?  I suppose it would be great for events (like parties, etc.)  Would it also be good for special sales at your place of business?

Hmm – what else?  Let me know if you have any ideas.

Here’s a great article by Moore Design Solutions that may inspire you and help you with your decision. 

Mobile Browsing: Get on Board or Stay Behind

The Days of Being Tethered to a Desktop Computer are Gone.

Desktop Version of a Website is Not Suitable For Mobile Devices

Every business should consider a mobile version of their company website. The full desktop version of a website is intended for large monitors and is definitely necessary for an online presence, however it is too large for handheld devices.

Catch Them If You Can

People are on the go and using their mobile devices more and more to access the web for services and products. To make sure to capture the traffic from mobile devices, businesses should have a mobile version of their company website.

In addition, people are using their mobile browser more often than their desktop PC to read and respond to their email messages. In fact, communication via social media communities like Facebook instead of using the traditional email method is clearly on the rise. Social networking is a big factor in driving the growth of mobile browsing.

They Don’t Leave Home Without It

Check out these statistics:

• 82% of Americans never leave home without bringing their mobile device.
  – Synovate, September 2009
• The number of smartphone subscribers increased 72% quarter-over-quarter, growing from 15 million subscribers in Q2 2008 to 26 million in Q2 2009
  – NielsenWire, September 2009
• Smartphone users are expected to increase four-fold by 2013
  – In-Stat, March 2009

People of all ages using mobile browsing to find services and purchase products via a mobile device are expected to double in 2010.

Bottom line: Every business should have a mobile version of their main website to capture the ever increasing traffic via mobile browsing.

But, if you’re a website designer, there is no reason why you shouldn’t, or couldn’t create websites for your customers that can eventually be marketed on the Internet.  Not only will your customers reap the rewards of a website that works FOR them, but you will also reap the rewards of referrals from your customers as well as additional work from your customers!  Can’t get more win-win than that!

One of my favourite blogs, SEO Design Solutions came up with 10 tips on how to build a website with SEO in mind…

1. Start with a theme (meaning your market and the top level keywords).
2. Use Keyword Research to build that theme into the site navigation, internal links, tags and naming conventions.
3. Determine what the tipping point is for the top 5 competitors and exceed them using time-released content.
4. Leverage internal links to select preferred landing pages.
5. Build a stable base of off page links from trusted sources first, and then ensure a fresh supply of relevant ongoing links.
6. Build pages properly the first time “optimal” using a pliable CMS system which does all the SEO / heavy lifting by default.
7. Use keyword research to integrate less competitive keywords (branches of the root phrase) into supporting posts, pages and off page content (then go back to point #3).
8. Keep site architecture flat and make sure to link to a sitemap for that segment of the site (if you use categories).
9. Make changes to older / trusted pages – If ranking priorities change, go back and edit and add additional links and content to leverage pages 4 months or older to link to new pages with supporting keywords.
10. Measure the results and rinse and repeat.

Granted, some of these are the responsibility of the SEO webmaster, but as a designer you should be aware of what will be happening with the website you created.