Transcript Marketing Your Small Business in the Internet

Marketing your Small
Business on the Internet
Lilly Buchwitz
Farmington, NM
April 14, 2004
your site
Overview
Part I
your Web site
Part II
search engines
Part III
email marketing
Part IV
everything else
Part I
Your Web site
Your Web site
 Your Web site is your most important
marketing communications tool
 Your Web site is the face of your business
 Your Web site is on the World Wide Web —
your customers are more likely to come from
Montreal, London, Paris, or Tokyo as they
are from New Mexico
Before you promote your site
 know your area of service, and make it clear on your
site
 know who your target audiences are
 think about what they might expect when they arrive
on your site
 then design your site with your audience in mind
 keep it simple!
 The number one reason why anyone goes to any
Web site is to find information
You never get a
second chance to
make a first impression
Who’s the audience?
What’s the product?
What’s the
product?
Part II
search engines
What you need to know
about search engines
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
A search engine is not the same thing as a directory.
There are only three search engines that matter today.
Understanding how search engines work and how people
use them will help you “get found” on them.
You must carefully prepare your Web site before you
submit it to the search engines.
Submitting your pages to the search engines takes less than
10 minutes.
The only person who can prepare your site and submit it to
search engines – effectively – is you.
search engine
marketing
is a lot like
painting
your home
Search engines that matter
There’s only one directory
that matters
Specialty directories
 Search for “directory” and “search engine” on
Yahoo! for a list
 When you find a directory specific to your business,
check it out to make sure it’s appropriate
 Then (and only then) submit your site
 You may have to pay for a listing — and it’s
probably worth it
How search engines work
database
submit URL
(Web page
address)
How directories work
database
$$$$
submit listing
How people search
 they start with broad, general terms like “travel”
or “wine”
 narrow it down by adding more specific words
(“travel Spain” or “wine Merlot”)
 they will not search for your company by name
 they will never search for the words
“welcome to”
Preparing your site to get found
(this is the hard part)
Choose 10 words that describe your
business, service, or products.
Take your time.
Think like a searcher.
Let’s look at an example…
beer
wine
Toronto
make wine
brew on
premises
make beer
grapes
Using your keywords:
html title
 The html title of the page is what you see at the top of your
browser when you are on that page.
 It’s what displays as the link for your listing on a search
engine.
 Keep it under 75 characters.
 Make each title relevant to the page it’s on.
 Spend the most time writing the title for your home page.
 Write a title for the starting page of each major section of
your site.
“Best place to make beer and make wine in Toronto:
Fermentations”
Using your keywords:
meta description
 The meta description tag describes in a little more detail
what’s on your page
 It’s what displays below the title in your search engine
listing
 Keep it under 150 characters to be sure it doesn’t get cut off
 Make each description relevant to the page it’s on
 Try to entice potential visitors with clever copy, so they’ll
click
more…
Using your keywords:
meta description
 It’s not really about ranking, it’s about describing your page to
potential visitors
 Not all search engines use it, but if they do, it’s what shows up
on the search results page below the title of the page
 Here’s how it works:
<META NAME="description"
CONTENT="Fermentations: Toronto's
favourite place to make beer and wine">
Using your keywords:
meta keywords
 The meta keywords tag can be the same for all
the pages on your site
 Not all search engines use this tag when
ranking sites – but it can’t hurt to include it
 Use a list of words and phrases with no
commas in between (search engine spiders
are programmed to read only a certain number
of characters in the keyword tag if they read it
at all – commas just take up space)
Using your keywords:
meta keywords
Here’s how it works:
<meta name=“keywords” content=“beer wine
toronto brew on premises brew your own
beer make your own wine make wine from
grapes”>
Using your keywords:
ALT tags
 every image on your Web site should have a
carefully written ALT tag
 the ALT text is what visitors see if they move
their mouse over an image
Using your keywords:
file names
don’t use abbrv.
Using your keywords:
on your home page!
 Work your keywords into the copy of your home
page (and on other pages, if you can) as many times
as you can without making it sound ridiculous.
 This may seem obvious but it ain’t necessarily so.
 Focusing on your keywords when writing the copy
for your pages also helps reduce jargon.
an example…
What NOT to do
 Don’t load your meta tags with irrelevant keywords just
because they get searched for a lot (like “sex”).
 Don’t repeat your keywords several times in a row.
 Don’t hide text on your pages by making it the same colour as
the background.
 Don’t use a string of keywords for the title of your page.
 Don’t submit exact copies of pages with different file names.
 Don’t use re-directs or other technology that will confuse the
search engine’s spider
Submitting your site
(this is the easy part)
 Bookmark the submission pages of the three search
engines that matter or bookmark my page
 Highlight the URL of your page, press CTRL/C,
then go to each submission page and paste in your
URL. You can submit one page to all the search
engines in less than five minutes.
 If your site is small enough, submit all your pages
this way. It will be an hour well spent. If your site is
large, submit the first pages of the main sections of
your site — the pages with titles and descriptions.
Wait…
(this is also the hard part)
 it can take from two weeks to four months for your
site to be included in the database
 it can take weeks after that before you see your site
appear in the search results
 every time the database is re-indexed, your ranking
will change
 re-submit every month and monitor your results
Don’t pay someone else to
do it for you
 no one else understands your business as
well as you
 it will take more time for you to explain your
business to a stranger than it will to do your
search engine optimization yourself
paid
placements
FREE
Part III
email marketing
Waitress: Well, there's egg and bacon;
egg, sausage and bacon; egg and
spam; egg, bacon and spam; egg,
bacon, sausage and spam; spam,
bacon, sausage and spam; spam, egg,
spam, spam, bacon and spam; spam,
sausage, spam, spam, spam, bacon,
spam, tomato and spam; spam, spam,
spam, egg and spam; spam, spam,
spam, spam, spam, spam, baked
beans, spam, spam, spam and spam…
(Vikings start singing in background)
Spam, spam, spam, spam, spam,
spam, spam, spam, lovely spam,
wonderful spam… spam, spam, spam,
spam, spam, spam, spam, spam…
The importance of email
 Email is your most important
communications tool
 Make sure your email address is credible and
set up properly with a display name
 Prepare a detailed contact page and make it
part of your main navigation system
 ANSWER YOUR EMAIL!!!
What to send via email?
A newsletter
 A newsletter is understood to contain
information
 People who subscribe to, or pick up, a
newsletter usually read all of it
 Whatever your business, you are an expert in
that subject
 Give people information!
Educate customers about
your product
 Present information about your product, your
product category, your industry, in an
objective, informational way.
 Teach your prospective customers.
 Give them valuable information.
 They will appreciate it, and come back for
more.
What else to send?
 special offers
 invitations to enter a contest
 invitations to…. visit
 coupons/discounts
Rules for email marketing
1. the most valuable list is the one you build
yourself
2. always get permission before sending email
3. make it frequent, regular, and brief
4. include “why you’re receiving this”
5. include options for unsubscribing
6. suggest they pass it along to a friend
GotMarketing
(www.gotmarketing.com)
Part IV
everything else
Banner advertising
 Like all forms of advertising, they’re
expensive.
 Even if you find an inexpensive site, you still
have to pay someone to design the banner
 Banner advertising doesn’t fit into the
marketing budget of most small businesses.
Sponsored content
 think: advertising Calloway golf clubs on a golf
news or golf info site
 paying for a link on a relevant site might be a
good investment for your small business
(especially if you serve a niche market)
Run a contest
 best way to collect names and email
addresses
 prize can be your own product/service – or
partner with another business so you both
benefits
 you must offer the site visitor something in
return for their contact information
Include your Web address
on everything!
 business cards
 brochures
 signs
 yellow pages ad
 t-shirts, hats, pens
 your car or truck
Measure your success
 How many people (unique visitors) come to
your Web site
 How many times (in a month) they come
 Where they are coming from (referring
URLs)
 Whether they subscribe to your newsletter
 How many calls you get saying “I saw your
Web site, and…”
Remember Yahoo! wasn’t
built in a day!
Let me know about your successes!
[email protected]
http://home.eol.ca/~lillyb/