In middle school I read “The Bridges of Madison County” in Spanish.  At the time, I probably understood (hopefully) at least half of what I read.  If I attempted to read it again, it would be as if I was reading the instruction manual on how to rebuild a car engine.  No matter how hard I try, I just wouldn’t understand it without a lot of research, practice, and patience. 

Small businesses approaching web marketing may also be faced, like a deer in headlights, without knowing and understanding what to do.  With over 150 million people surfing the net each day, it is vital that any business (small or large) confront the headlights coming at them directly and aggressively.

Making your website noticeable is like finding the needle in the haystack.  There are so many ways to get started and keep it going, it is often overwhelming.

Let’s break it down into some simple steps for you:

- Why do you need a website?  Are you looking to drive sales, drive leads, or recruit team members?

- Who is your target market?  Figure out who you are trying to reach and make sure your copy and message are appropriate.  If you’re targeting prospects, have information to support the buying process.  If it is to serve current clients have a FAQ page that can be used as a resource. If you are trying to reach new clients, the information should sell them on the benefits of why they need to buy or work with you.

- How much do you have budgeted for Internet Marketing?  With a conversion rate of 1 – 2 %, research online with Google Adwords or Yahoo Search Marketing to determine how many clicks your site might get.  Then use basic ROI calculations and you have yourself a figure.

- Build your website.  Hire an expert to help you. There are plenty of options to meet your needs. Check with your current email or web hosting provider. Companies like gWave can also provide you with a website proposal.

- Promote.  Engage in online promotions through pay per click advertising, search engine placement, email marketing or even Facebook!

- Measure.  Do you know how many website visitors you get a month? If not, now’s the time to sign up for a free web traffic account with Google Analytics.

- Follow up and make sure you haves someone assigned to stay on top of your online marketing strategy..

  With that being said, here are 7 ways to drive traffic to your site:

• Build a strong business foundation. Design a business plan, marketing plan, and Internet marketing strategy that reinforce your business goals.
• Brand your company.  Be consistent and make sure you use the same logo, colors, and motto throughout the website and marketing materials.
• Your business and website need to convey trust.  Build trust through servicing your customers online or through your newsletter.
• Add  “recommend this site” or “add to my favorites/bookmark.”
• Search engines look for certain things - titles, headings, Meta tags - so it is crucial to make sure your site is "search engine friendly.”
• Title Tags - should be 60 characters and include some keywords
• Header Tags – are numbered from 1 – 7. They should be used for each title
• Meta Tags – add no more than 15 – 21 keywords. Submit your site to industry specific directories.
• Submit your site to industry specific directories.
• Start permission based marketing. Build a relationship with your clients. Make it easy for them to contact you and to subscribe to updates or a newsletter.  If you are updating articles, make sure you submit them to article banks.

  So now, sit back, re-read the article, and know that it is not as scary as it seems.  With proper research and help, your website can easily be the needle found in the haystack.

Online social  networks are vital to the growth of any business in today’s rapidly changing  online marketplace. They are designed to  foster human interaction, which in turn can build trust for you and your  business. You can coordinate social  media, Search Engine Optimization, and paid search marketing through one single  marketing platform. With a little time  invested, some of the benefits you will see are increased revenue, powerful  customer relationships, increased traffic to your website, and brand presence.

The newest way to tap into the online social network is by the use  of Facebook. Like a college fraternity, socializing is the key to success. Originally created for college students, it  is now open to anyone. Recent statistics  show Facebook grows by about 3% each week with 25 and older being the fastest  growing segment of its users.

Your Top Facebook Strategies:

- Create  a fantastic profile. Enter as much  professional information as possible, and make sure your profile relates you to  the same group as your target audience.

- Join a  network and a group. Facebook puts  people into social networks based on workplace, region, or school. Your regional network should be based on the  area you want to target.

- Post  relevant content. Build credibility by  adding content to your page and links to articles you have written or link to  your blog.

- Create  your own group. By starting your own  group you have complete control over the content as well as who it reaches.

- Interact  with others online. I said it before and  now again, socializing is the key to Facebook. Start a new topic in the discussion board, comment on profiles, play games,  etc. This will increase your exposure to  other members.

- Continue  relationships beyond Facebook. Facebook  is a great beginning, but your focus should be on extending past that. Try  www.linkedin.com

  Marketing on Facebook is very similar to marketing through other  online networks. You can build your  brand, drive website traffic, or sell  products. Facebook is an open-source  application, which allows any programmer to create an add-on. You have the  ability to add onto the site and customize your applications.  Some have created drop-down menus or added music  capability. Having the ability to create  add-ons will allow you to reinforce your branding. You will have the  opportunity to market yourself by creating tools others might find useful. Another  way you can market is to create a flyer or banner. You can post your ad for a small fee on  different networks. Your ad will be  served 2500 times a day per $5 investment. You also have control over the  target it reaches. It even allows you to target based on keywords or utilize performance  based pay per click programs.

With some careful planning, you can become involved in many social  groups. Thankfully, you avoid the hazing that some encountered in college, and  you can still be part of the popular crowd.

Cyber Monday is right around the corner. Affiliates and retailers are preparing themselves for, hopefully, a very lucrative holiday season. Are you getting ready? Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving) sets the pace for physical retail stores nationwide. Cyber Monday gives online retailers something to look forward to. Or at least, this is what is believed. Actually, according to Business Week, Cyber Monday is only the 12^th busiest online shopping day of the year. A term named in 2005, Cyber Monday is not thething to start planning for, but the entire holiday shopping season.

Many holiday shoppers log on to search for the best deals. They may possibly go to their favorite sites or hit shopping comparison engines, such as shopping.com, or bizrate.com. However your online shoppers find you, the best way to prepare is to fully track and analyze which page they are on and what they are looking at on your site. But most importantly, don’t forget to track your shopping cart abandonment rate and improve your check out process.

The upcoming holiday season is a critical time for online retailers. In Q4, online retail sales should be in the billions and for many companies that means 20-40% of their sales occur during this time. With the holiday season signaling the countdown to gift-giving, online retailers should execute online marketing campaigns to drive shopping behavior around this key time period.

Here are our top marketing recommendations for the holiday season:

• Launch personalized email campaigns, increase paid search daily budgets and per-click bids, and optimize shopping comparison site placements
• Communicate a sense of urgency and drive customers to shop prior to inventory limitations, high shipment costs, or inability to deliver on time

Throughout the holiday season, you can also:

• Promote top gifts available on your site (use gender-specific, hard-to-shop-for friend, or life-stage searches)
• You can offer e-gift certificates for the hard-to-search-for friend or for convenience for your shoppers
• Try to use gorilla marketing to engage in customer reviews and/or referral promotions

Happy Holidays!

We recently read an article that talked about getting an email for concert tickets. The subject line of the email was “Korn and Disney on Ice: Princess Wishes Presale.” What do they have in common? Basically nothing. It would be like sending a message stating “The New BMW and Kia Have Arrived,” two things that have a much different target audience. If you are interested in tickets to go see one of these shows, most likely you are not interested in the other. They do not have a direct relationship to each other, and, even more likely, a very small percentage of the readers have a relationship with it themselves.

If the ticket company targeted its audience, its response would have been dramatically higher. I am assuming that most people deleted the email right away. The juxtaposition of the two items in the heading probably diminished the response immediately.

They instead, should have segmented the readers’ interests and promoted relevant events rather than pairing two things that likely don’t match. By advertising rock music concerts with the Korn presale or family events with the Disney On Ice presale to those who have an interest in either of the two, more readers would not only be interested, but may also purchase tickets for multiple events.

• Ask your customer what interests them and gear messages to that targeted group. By knowing what your audience is looking for, you can be more successful in taking steps to connect with that audience.
• Segment your visitors based on their past online and offline behavior
• Segment based on what your viewers are looking at on your website
• Use the results of different offers that you send out to segment who responds to what

Defining, segmenting, and tuning your message to the right audience will give you a higher lift rate than sending out blind messages. The most important tool you have is to understand what your audience is after and, then, finding the appropriate way to communicate your messages and approach.

After months of working with numerous start ups, I have come to the conclusion that some particular clients think the Internet is going to make them rich over night. What happened to sound business plans and planning for the future? All to often, a client believes they can set up an Internet marketing campaign and double their company revenue in one week with little to no effort.

1. Have proper expectations. The Internet is a marketing channel and not a get rich quick platform. You will lose faith quickly if you think the Internet is your only means of a marketing plan.

2. Realize that your target market will find you in the offline world. I literally had to remind someone the other day to not forget networking in their business community. Face to face relationships are very important - still!

3. Understand that setting up a Google or Yahoo PPC campaign doesn’t guarantee that your target audience will click on your ads and convert into a lead. Markerters can create and write compelling ad copy, but we can’t make people click on your ad. If PPC isn’t right for your business we will know and try something else. Keyword - try something else. Everything Internet marketing avenue is not a for sure thing.

4. Understand the basics of email marketing. No you can’t buy a list of emails from a slime company. That’s called spam. You have to build an opt-in or permission based list. By spamming people you are literally breaking the law and just plain ol standard business ethics. People open emails from senders they trust and more importantly you’ve sent them something in the past that contained value. Here’s a great write up at WilsonWeb on this.

5. Understand the bare bone basics of how much traffic your website is actually getting.I speak to hundreds of businesses a month about improving their online strategy. If you don’t know where you are now, how in the world will you know what to improve.  You may be sitting on a gold mine and not even know it.