Transcript Document

Online Marketing 101
How to:
1. Connect Prospects to EWG’s Mission
2. Turn Prospects into donors using online
tools
Let’s talk
about online
activities
that
influence a
prospect
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From Curious Prospect to Donor
1.
2.
3.
4.
Make sure they can find you online
(natural acquisition)
Purchase names of like-minded people
(paid acquisition)
Make it easy for them to sign up
(conversion to list)
Convince them to Give (conversion to
donor)
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Strategically communicate with them
Engage them in your story (social media)
Make it easy for them to spread the word
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Which Tools to Use at What Stage
Natural Acquisition
Paid Acquisition
- Optimized Website
- Social Media Profiles
- Universal Search
- Paid media buys
- Paid search ads
- Email List relationships
Conversion to List
Conversion to Donor
- Email testing
- Landing Page testing
- Web usability studies
- Personalized welcome email
series
- Calendar of email messages
- Social Media & offline
engagement
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Natural Acquisition
“Being Found” Online
Search Engine Ranking 101
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Overview of Search Engines
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Why do we care about Search?
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91% of internet users use a search engine1
87% of people click on the natural results (vs. paid)
The Big Players
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Google, Yahoo!, and Live.com
Google has 70% of the search marketing share,
accounting for 70.77% of all US searches.2
Each has computer algorithm to rank your pages in the
search results.
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How Search Engines Work
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Google, Yahoo!, and Live create their listings
automatically. They use “spiders” or “bots” to "crawl" links
to web pages1 and add those web pages to their index.
Keyword Phrases
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When a human visitor to the engine puts in a keyword
phrase, the search engine is focused on serving relevant,
fresh content that the engines think is matched to the
searcher’s intent.
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It’s not about the keywords You
want to be found on.
It’s about the keywords the
searcher uses to find you.
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How people search
87% of people click on natural search
results
 Only 48% even see paid ads
 Most people search for information, smaller
% for commerce
 People click on the word in results that
matches their query word1
 58% of all queries are three or more words
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How People Search
The Long Tail of Search:
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3% of Excite’s search traffic was 3 keywords – 97% of the rest
was in the “long tail”
Amazon.com makes 57% of sales from keywords outside of the
“popular” terms.
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How Does a Search Engine
“Read” A Page?
Remember…it’s a computer
algorithm
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It’s a Translation Problem
A search engine tries figure out what your web page is
about through its pieces.
The spider reads just text, not images or flash. It also
evaluates inbound links to determine relevancy.
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Search Engines are Computers
A Lost in Translation example:
“My Apple is a lemon”
It could mean your page is about fruit
 If the words “computer” also appears nearby,
the spider determines that the phrase is about
computers.
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Writing Spider Friendly Online Copy
Writing tips for online copy:
Use contextual words in proximity to the
keyword phrase
 Repeat the keyword phrase & variations
 Use Headers like a table of contents
 Strategically link to the copy, and use the
keyword phrase in the link text.1
 Use alt tags for images, so that spiders can
“read” the image
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Every page matters
Search engines don’t see “home” pages
 Every page is an entry page for searcher
 Every page needs it’s own inbound link
strategy
 Conversions from landing pages for targeted
keywords can be improved through testing
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More Details about Google’s
Algorithm
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How Google’s Search Results Work
Algorithm has 200+ factors, some weighted
more than others. We know about 40 parts
of the 200.
 In 2007, the Google algorithm changed 9
times per week.
 Only 2 web pages are listed for one
company, so one company could rank for
the first 152 slots, but will only show up in
the #1 and #2 spot
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Rankings Don’t Matter
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Influenced by:
Geo Location (IP)1
 Previous searching history
 Personal search (login to Google account)1
 Universal search3
 Behavioral search (shopping vs. researching) 4
 Google Wiki
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So instead:
Focus on # of visitors and conversions
 Watch your web analytics
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Questions about Natural
Acquisition?
Search Engine Overview
Elements of SEO
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Paid Acquisition
Paid online advertising
Email List buys
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Paid Acquisition
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Two Online Methods
1. Pay per impression ads
2. Pay Per Click (PPC) –though search engines
and Google network
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Three Types of Email Buys
Purchase of email addresses (JohnKerry.com)
 Sponsored email
 Care2.com petitions
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Questions @ Paid Acquisition?
Traditional media buying
Pay Per Click advertising
Email buying
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Conversion to List
Landing Page Testing
Usability Testing
Web Analytics
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Conversion to List
Goal:
 Make sure that no one who interacts with
your landing pages, or website gets
confused or distracted during the sign up
process.
 Fix this through:
Landing Page Testing
 Web Usability Testing
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Questions @ Conversion to List?
Landing Page testing
Usability Testing
Improving web site conversions
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Conversion to Donor
Email welcome series
Calendar of email communications
Social Media & offline integration
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Starting a Conversation that Makes
Prospects Want to Donate
via Email
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Conversion to Donor - Email
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Converting new names to supporters requires
welcome series email
Best Practice for Welcome Series:
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Action email first, not generic welcome message or ask
Match action email to the prospect’s sign on issue
Ask for donation within the first week
Segment these names for at least 2 weeks before
adding to generic messaging
Test message elements to increase conversions (from
line, subject, copy, headers, link text, signer, P.S.)
Test landing pages to increase conversions
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Conversion to Donor - Email
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Personalize the Message
Segment list
 Ask for preferences in issue, frequency of
message
 Send them messaging based on preference
 Personalize based on donor’s info/web activity
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Calendar of Email Communications
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Create messaging so that it’s a building
conversation
Test individual messages
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From line, subject line, body content, links, headers, call
to action, signer, P.S.
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Email – Mobile challenges
Unique Challenges with Mobile users:
 Emails and web pages need to be designed
for mobile use, otherwise renders weird.
 Mobile traffic is not caught through
traditional web analytic programs because
JavaScript is not executed
 Additional mobile analytic programs or addons are required
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Conversion to Donor
Via Social Media
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Social Media
Definition: a community that creates a website together by
posting content (no webmaster)
Types:
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Social networking sites
Event Promotion sites
Social bookmarking sites
Content voting sites
Online news aggregators
Collaborative directories
Video Sharing sites
Photo sharing sites
Local Search Sites
Q& A Sites
Niche sites based on interest: Complete directory here.
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Social Media
Best Practices
It’s a conversation, not a push medium
 Engage in communities that have your
demographic
 Needs regular engagement
 Great for branding, not for direct fundraising
 Putting social widgets on web properties
makes sharing easy
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Conversion to Donor – Social Media
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Engage Them in Your Story
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Social media/web 2.0 = Web pages created by all users
without central control
Good for:
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Listening to better understand supporters (focus group)
Spreading the message about mission
Building attachment to mission
Building closer grassroots relationship among
supporters
Having donors help define national issue focus
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Conversion to Donor – Social Media
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Enable them to Spread the Word
Ask them to forward email
 Post online content that is easily shareable
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 To
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the prospect’s blog, Facebook profile, etc.
Ask them to invite others (to social profile, to
petition, etc)
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Conversion to Donor
Via Social Media
Blogging
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Social Media
Blogging
Blog - A Website that makes being social easy
 All SEO tips apply, blog without promotion is
not found
 Naturally more searchable
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Every blog post is a web page
 More frequently updated
 Written to encourage communication
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Blogging
Keep the Conversation Alive
Create an editorial calendar for your posts
 Start a dialogue with bloggers in your niche
 Ask someone to guest-post on your blog
 Thank your readers
 Participate in the comments on your blog
posts
 Stumped for Ideas? Brainstorm list here.
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Questions @ Conversion to
Donor?
Email welcome series
Calendar of email communications
Social Media & offline integration
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Measuring Overall Success
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Monitor how prospects navigate your site to
improve conversions
Traffic source (email, natural, paid, links from
other content?)1
 What do they do when they arrive?
 How many are converting?2
 Is there a drop off in traffic through funnel?3
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Keep in mind that web analytics is a
trending % process, part science/part art
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Measuring Email Success
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Measure success based on:
Rates for: delivers, opens, CTR, and landing
page conversions
 Cost per acquisition/email.
 Donation average per acquisition/email.
 Overall number and type of touch point per
donor/activist
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Measuring Social Media Success
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Testing & Improving Social Media’s role in
conversion
Track keyword activity cross social media
platform (online reputation monitoring)
 Track visitors/subscribers, stickiness, #of
comments, and conversion based on platform,
increased traffic to your website.
 Calls to action (eye tracking), frequency of use
of platform tools (posts, sent emails, etc) cross
campaign
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Measuring Blog Success
New vs. returning visitors, length of stay
 RSS Subscribers
 Conversation Rate - the Number of Visitor
Comments / Number of Posts
 Citations – # of people who link to your blog
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Summary
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Natural or Paid Acquisition
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Test Your Sign up
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Focus on words, links, analytics and testing
Use best practices, consistent messaging, and
test for usability
Getting them to Give
Personalize messaging based on prospect’s
interests
 Coordinated multichannel works best:
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 Email,
social media, DM, TM and face-to-face for
donor conversion and evangelism
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Appendix
More info
Additional Learning Resources
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How do you Tackle the SEO Challenge?
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Keyword research
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Competitive Analysis
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of site and current online marketing efforts
Analyze your site
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for each page
how each page ranks for each keyword
Repair/Enhance site
Submit non-indexed pages
Monitor rankings/Analyze reports
Fix/develop links & Universal Content
Repeat
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Some of the SEO factors we know about
Freshness1
Page Load time2
Complexity of Page Code3
Title Tag4
Meta Description tag5
Meta Keyword tags6
Heading Tags7
Alt attributes8
Links9
Body Text10
Keywords used11
Keywords in file name12
Number of outbound links13
Number of inbound links
Internal linking structure14
Keyword proximity to
determine meaning
keyword density on page
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Social Media
Social Networking Sites
Facebook - 130M active users
 MySpace - 110M active users
 Care2 - 1.3M visitors/month
 Gather - 874K visitors/month
 Parents.com - 1.7M visitors/month
 Babycenter.com - 4.1M visitors/month
 Livescience.com - 1.9M visitors/month
 RightHealth.com - 7.4M visitors/month
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Social Media
Event Promotion Sites
Meetup.com -1.9M visitors/month
 Eventful.com – 535K visitors/month
 Citysearch.com – 8.6M visitors/month
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Social Media
Social Bookmarking
StumbleUpon – 1M visitors/month
 Del.ico.us – 362K visitors/month
 Mixx – 2.2M visitors/month
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Social Media
Online News Aggregators
Digg.com - 11.4M visors/month
 Reddit.com – 1.3M visitors/month
 Technorati – 2.5M visitors/month
 Propeller - 1.5M visitors/month
 Newsvine - 1.2M visitors/month
 Fark - 1.9M visitors/month
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Social Media
Collaborative Directories
Wikipedia – 75M visitors/month
 Dmoz.org – 2M visitors/month
 Zimbio.com1 - 2.1M visitors/month
 Squidoo pages2 - 3.8M visitors/month
 Ning.com3 – 5.9M visitors/month
 Craigslist – 21M visitors/month
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Social Media
Video & Photo Sharing Sites
Video
 YouTube – 71.4M visitors/month
 Yahoo Video – 1.8M visitors/month
 Google Video – 6.9M visitors/month
 Facebook2
Photos
 Flickr3 – 23.9M visitors/month
 PhotoBucket – 36M visitors/month
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Web Analytics Terms 101
Unique visitors, not “hits”
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Hits – Measures every element that loads when a visitor request
a page (images, javascript, the html itself).
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A visitor requesting a page with 30 elements would register as 30
hits! This is an inflated # you shouldn’t measure.
Bounce rate – Measured in two ways:
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% of visitors who see just one page on your site, or
% visitors who stay on the site for a small amount of time (usually
five seconds or less).
Your homepage bounce rate should be 30% or less
Conversions – the # of visitors that did what you wanted
them to do when they were on your website
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For example: donate, download a .pdf, sign up for a newsletter
Industry standard conversion rate is 8-10%
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Additional Tools
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Analyzing your competition:
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Picking keywords:
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SEO for Firefox
SeoMoz’s Tools
Compete.com
SEO Book’s Keyword Tool
Understanding how the Engines see yrou
site:
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Google Webmaster Tools
Yahoo Site Explorer
Live Search Webmaster Central
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Learn More – Search Marketing
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My blog: Search Marketing for Nonprofits Blog:
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How Search Engines work:
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http://www.seomoz.com
Bruce Clay’s blog
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http://www.ericward.com/
SEOMoz
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http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2168031
The expert on linking strategies:
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http://Searchmarketingfornonprofits.wordpress.com
http://www.bruceclay.com
Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day (book)
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http://www.yourseoplan.com/
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Learn More – Web Analytics
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How web analytics is like using Evite for a holiday party
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Occam’s Razor by Avinash Kaushik
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Web Analytics Demystified (book)
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http://www.webanalyticsdemystified.com/
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Google Analytics 2.0 (book)
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Web Analytics: An Hour A Day (book)
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Learn More – Social Media
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Social Media Today
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The Original Signal – Web 2.0 blog
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http://www.originalsignal.com/
Social Media 101
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http://www.socialmediatoday.com
http://www.slideshare.net/joannapena/social-media-101-creatingconversations-in-social-circles/
Groundswell (book)
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http://www.forrester.com/Groundswell
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Questions?
Katherine Watier
Watier Creative
Nonprofit Search Marketing Consultant
301-793-6121
[email protected]
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