Blog

How to be a Champ Online - It all begins with a Strategy

Fri, 12 Nov 2010 18:43:00 GMT

No matter what industry your business is in, there is without question a need for an online presence. For every business this means something different. Some businesses require an online portal for customers to communicate; others may only need a basic brochure website. Regardless of the business you are in – the business’ online presence and how it is perceived by web users searching is becoming essential for survival in today’s economy.

Before deciding to take on a large web initiative you should ask yourself the questions posed in my previous post: “Start with the end in mind.” These questions range from: “How do you want users to communicate with you?” to “What is the desired action do you want a user to take?”

By answering these basic questions before starting your web project you will be on your way to creating a strategy. A web strategy for a business needs to go way beyond the boundaries of a website. Businesses that integrate branding, traditional marketing, social media, and web assets are succeeding at a much higher rate than businesses that are trying to patch these pieces together on needs basis.

After you have answered the questions about how users will react with you online and what you are looking to ultimately achieve; you are ready to sit down at the drawing board and get started.

First, you must clearly define what you want to accomplish. For example, if you are a local hair salon owner, you will be looking to provide web visitors a site to find you easily, contact you to make appointments and get directions to your location. Other things a small service business like this may consider while in the strategy phase is what online community platforms are relevant for the business to be associated with. Great examples of these types of sites are: Yelp!, FaceBook and Groupon.

On the other side of the spectrum if you are a larger business with an existing client base, you may be in need of a cleaner way to communicate with your customers rather than traditional (expensive) mailers. An online portal for customer invoicing or customer service can mean big dollars saved. Sometimes adding something as simple as a FAQ section to a website can minimize unnecessary expenses on internal resources – not to mention unneeded headaches. Every business has a few questions that all people ask, by clearly stating these answers on the web you can negate hours of work.

The underlying principles behind any successful online strategy are to understand the goals, requirements, and functionality needed before starting. That’s right – functionality.

Defining functionality required early-on will ultimately lead to the implementation of your strategy but don’t let functionality requirements destroy creativity. When creating a strategy, be sure to remember what our kindergarten teachers used to tell us: “there is no such thing as a bad idea.” If you allow yourself to think creatively abd generate fresh ideas, then you're already on the way to success.

Local Search Engine Optimization – Dynamically Generated Pages

Wed, 03 Nov 2010 21:15:00 GMT

Recently we had a client in need of a localized search engine optimization strategy. We were able to come up with creative ways to market using traditional PPC avenues such as Google AdWords and we created a FaceBook campaign but it just wasn’t enough. Also, both PPC and FaceBook advertising require time and energy on a daily basis.

So we went to the drawing board. The question that needed to be answered was how to get a site to rank for 20 keywords in 170 different towns. The issue is the keywords were too general for optimizing as it would make no sense for a Massachusetts company to rank for keywords in other states. Imagine if you were in Boston and you searched the keyword “hair salon”. What if the search results that were returned were in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Phoenix?

With this search engine optimization issue affecting so many local businesses, we decided to study other industries and see what was working online. After scouring the web and researching hundreds of potential strategies, the decision was made to dynamically generate a page for each town and each keyword. After this strategy was implemented, long-tail search increased dramatically as well as conversions because the traffic is now more qualified.

A few things to keep in mind when implemented dynamically generated localized pages:

Create SEO-friendly code
Use variables within the content to dynamically generate pages per region
Figure out a way to include unique content for each town to avoid duplicate content penalties from Google

Google AdWords Best Practices

Thu, 29 Apr 2010 19:15:00 GMT

If you have a small business and are interested in advertising online, Google AdWords should be your first stop. Google is the #1 search engine and they make a conscious effort to help website owners get exposure to potential customers. There’s no doubt that paid listings (Google AdWords) can generate quality business leads but the proper strategies and techniques must be employed to run a successful ad campaign. If you’re not using AdWords best practices you could be throwing money down the drain. So, in an attempt to prevent that here is an entry level lesson on Google AdWords best practices.

Start With the End In Mind

This is a concept I’ve borrowed from my boss who builds websites based on the motto “start with the end in mind”. Before you plan your ad campaign it is important to clearly understand who you are targeting? Who is online looking for your product or services? Who is going to actually buy from you? Let’s assume from research and experience you know your target market fairly well but have no clue how to find them online. Have no fear Google’s “keyword tool” will guide you through the darkness.

Keywords are phrases that describe the essence of a topic in a given website. Simply enter the phrase or words most relevant to your business and the keyword tool will give you the most popular keywords based on the terms you provide. Go through the relevant keywords carefully to make sure the terms are related to your website and the services and products you offer. If you find a keyword that gets a high amount of clicks per month but is not directly related to your business do not use it, you don’t want to appear for irrelevant searches. It is imperative that you continually check your keywords for effectiveness as they are the building blocks for your ads.

Making the Ad

Once you’ve determined the best keywords to use it’s time to build your Google Ads. The buying customer knows exactly what he wants – so be specific. There a few strategies and techniques to always keep in mind as you are writing and testing ads. Page Christenbury from Roi Revolution lays out the three key ingredients to writing effective ads in her “Easy Recipe for Successful Ad Text” blog post:

Keyword Relevancy: This is plain and simple: have your keywords in your ad text. If possible place the keyword in the headline, also in the description lines and the display URL.

Differentiate From Competitors: This takes a little more work. Study your competitors' ads. What do you do differently? What sets you apart? Whatever it is, make sure it is in your ad copy (and stands out)!

Call To Action: Engage the visitor to take action on your site. Offer them a free report, a free consultation, ask them to call now, buy now, browse more. Whatever call to action makes sense for your industry and is the most powerful.

These three elements provide a great foundation on which to build your ad text. However, one other essential practice to ensure a successful Google Adwords campaign is to continually rewrite and test multiple ad texts. One of the great features of Google AdWords is that you can run multiple ads simultaneously. Take advantage of this! If you continually test your ads (to beat the current best performer) you will constantly improve the performance of your campaigns.

Landing Pages

Once you’ve developed some great ads that receive lots of clicks you need to make sure those links are sending people to the appropriate landing page on your site. You put all this time and money into getting ads that people click so it’s very important to send users directly to a page that displays exactly what they are looking for. If people don’t find what they are looking for within seconds they will have left your site and head to a competitors. Also, you want to direct people to a page where they can purchase your product or service right there. That’s the whole point of this! If an ad gets very high click-through, developing a customized landing page may make sense. Learn more about landing pages here (http://landingpages.blogspot.com/).

Web Site Strategy – Start with the End in Mind

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 02:59:00 GMT

I have a good friend that does business and lives by the motto “Start with the End in Mind.”

When planning a website or web-based project of any kind it is important to take this approach. Time and time again, companies and organizations constantly make the same mistake – they rush into a web project and choose a great looking design but they don’t think to plan how users will navigate and ultimately convert on their site.

Below is a list of questions that you should answer about your business or organizations before deciding to invest time, energy and money into the web:

What is the end goal of the website?
What action do you want users to take?
How will users navigate through your site?
Will it be complicated for users to take the desired action?
Do you have content that clearly describes what product or services you offer?
How will you make users feel comfortable communicating with the organization?
How does the website fit into your overall business strategy?
Are their offline initiatives that can compliment your online efforts?
How are you going to track the effectiveness of your online presence?
Are you prepared for the investment of time that is required to have a positive web presence? No matter what business you are in – the more you are involved with your website – the more success it will have.

If you can answer every one of these questions with confidence before entering a website project and you are sure to incorporate each answer into your planning process than you’ll be off on the right path from the start…. Hence the motto “Start with the End in Mind.”

Tis’ the Season to be.. The Importance of Seasonality in Online Marketing

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 16:19:00 GMT

With the holiday shopping season upon us, every retail store is offering massive discounts and pouring money into advertising. During the winter holiday season, 45% of Americans use the internet to compare prices, research store locations, and look for gift ideas before going shopping – 34% of people admit the internet influences their holiday purchases. So it is no surprise store owners are inclined to spend more on advertising than during the “slow seasons.”

The phenomenon that takes place in our local malls after Thanksgiving isn’t restricted to just stores and businesses with walls, a floor, and a ceiling – businesses online can take advantage of seasonality spikes as well. In my experience marketing businesses in a variety of industries – I have learned that every industry has a “hot season.”

This time of year is not necessarily the “hot season” for all companies. For example, a business that sells flowers should concentrate more on Valentine’s Day, a company that sells allergy medication would want to spend a bulk or their advertising dollars during the spring time, and a website that sells costumes might consider running a “trick-or-treat” campaign in October.

No matter what time of year is best for your business it is important to be proactive about understanding your seasonal trends and acting on them. Implementing a strong online marketing strategy before your industries “hot season” can yield results year-over-year for your business.

How to be a Champ Online - The Secrets of the Internet

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 16:28:00 GMT

I’ve always wanted to write a book – it’s been one of my life-long dreams since before I can remember. This blog is intended to not only inform you of news and events at Champ Internet Solutions - but it is also intended to educate and share the secrets of being successful online. Whether the blog post be about PPC Landing Pages, Web Design best practice standards, or any other of the services Champ Internet Solutions offers – it should provide useful information to help you.

Now that you know my goal is to provide an on-going guide to being successful online; educating and sharing the secrets of the internet. As the blog grows with your comments and feedback – we will publish the content into a book titled How to be a Champ Online – The Secrets of the Internet. Subscribe to our RSS feed and follow the blog as it grows every day. If you have any suggestions or comments - be sure to let us know. Enjoy!

On a side note, I have some other big aspirations in life. Below is a list of a few of these dreams:

Getting a Hole-in-One
Winning the lottery
Becoming a participant on Jeopardy
Owning a professional sports team

If anyone can make any of these a reality – please contact me here. Thanks!.

AdTech 2009 – New York City

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 18:51:00 GMT

AdTech is the event for Digital Marketing – annually AdTech is the largest gathering of online marketers in one location - bringing brands, agencies, publishers and services providers together to share, network, learn and do business (www.ad-tech.com/ny).

Champ was there!

Although overwhelmed when I first got to the conference, my first task was to register – not such an easy feat when over 10,000 people were trying to do the same thing. After waiting quite some time I got my chance at the kiosk of laptop computers that were set up for attendees to register; once I had my conference badge it was off to the showroom.

As you go down the escalator to the exhibiting hall you enter the room from above with a view of the madness through the glass windows. Once on the ground level with my badge around my neck – I started walking the room. Booth #1 = FaceBook, no surprise the biggest social media giant of our generation would have the best location at the conference. Continuing through the room was a challenge - as every booth was passed it needed to be carefully inspected for what the company was offering and consideration had to be given to every technology company for potential partnerships.

After lunch with one of New York City's brightest lawyers and hours of schmoozing with the advertising giants such as: Google and my good friends at AdKnowledge – I decided that I had a enough free giveaways for one year and hit the road to try to beat rush hour in the Bronx on a Yankees game night – big mistake – my next mistake was stopping at Foxwoods on the ride back to Boston.

With yet another successful year of AdTech under my belt, I learned a few new things on this trip.

You can’t park for free anywhere in Manhattan
If you own a website – you have to go to AdTech
Never split 6’s – dealer pulled a 21…. Meant it was time to go home