Web Marketing (including SEM, SEO and Web Analytics)

Your website should generate leads for your business or organization. If it doesn't then it's like buying expensive outfits that you never wear, or buying an expensive car that you never drive, etc. You have invested money and are not getting a return.

Driving traffic to your website is the first step; converting that traffic into sales is the next step. Don't make the mistake of simply plunking a site online (however beautiful or technically impressive) and leaving it to its fate. Make it work for you!

Where Do You Start?

Ideally your web development process went something like this:

You commissioned a website. The site structure and content was created to be Search Engine Friendly and utilized SEO principles (discussed below). Your content reflects your ongoing marketing goals. You've added your web address to everything you can -- your business cards, letterhead, invoices, any print, radio or TV advertising that you do, etc. Once your site was up you conducted (or had someone conduct for you) a linking campaign (discussed below). A well-built site with good content and solid incoming links will begin to climb in the organic search engine rankings. This is the minimum that anyone should do. If your site was not built to be search engine friendly and usable you are at a disadvantage right out of the gate.

Typical problems that hinder search engine friendliness are poorly coded sites, Flash-based websites and frame-based websites. Limited, irrelevant or poorly organized content will hurt you even if the site is well-built technically.

The Next Level: Web Marketing

There are numerous ways to use the web to increase your business. You can email an HTML or Text newsletter, or send coupons or special offers to your email list. You (or someone within your organization) can post articles on your website, or distribute them through web-based article distribution services, or both. You can start a blog or post a comments board. You can write an e-book and make it available on your site and on complementary sites. These are all "soft-sell" options that can reap large rewards. We can help you figure out what will work best for your needs.

You may also decide to do some paid advertising on the web (discussed in the section about SEM).

Finally, you begin analyzing your web logs and hosting reports and based on the data, make adjustments to your site to improve performance.

SEM (Search Engine Marketing)

SEM is paid advertising for the web. You can't buy a spot in a search engine's Organic Listings (discussed below), but you can bid for spots in their Sponsored Listings and post ads on other websites that will drive traffic your way.

Currently the 2 most prominent paid advertising avenues on the web are through Google and Yahoo. (MSN is aggressively attempting to improve the usage of their search engine and increase their paid listings but at the present MSM is a distant 3rd to Google and Yahoo.) The beauty of their offerings is that they are measurable. If you post an ad you will get reports telling you how many click-throughs your ad generated (and a lot more).

SEM has been shown to be very successful for companies / organizations that work regionally, nationally and internationally, or that provide products or services that people need to research. Companies that serve "local" areas can benefit from running small-scale campaigns focused on appearing on the page when a searcher is seeking a local provider.

Any SEM campaign is 2-pronged - you need to run the campaign through Google and Yahoo, and you need to make sure your website pages directly support the campaigns.

For example, if you sell Wines and someone searching for Rieslings clicks on your ad, they should be taken to a page that discusses or at least includes Rieslings. When your page content is directly applicable to your ad, you increase conversions.

Like everything else on the web, the information is out there and you can do anything on your own. The questions become: "how much time and energy can you apply to learning about how to successfully conduct an SEM campaign? How much time can you spend building or modifying landing pages and writing ads? If you have the time, interest and aptitude, go for it! If not, we can run your SEM campaign for you!

What are Conversions?

Conversions are when site visitors convert to customers. That is the goal.

Conversions result from a variety of efforts that include but aren't limited to people arriving at your site through a search engine. People may come directly to your site or come through a link from another site. When they arrive, they want the site to provide the information they are seeking. Using Web Analytic tools to analyze your site's traffic patterns can help you evaluate it's performance and make improvements as needed.

What is Web Analytics?

Web Analytics is the interpretation of data collected by the servers where websites reside. As more and more businesses seek to develop a greater presence on the web, it has become increasingly important -- particularly for businesses engaged in e-commerce activities -- to get specific answers to some basic questions: How much traffic visits the site on a yearly, monthly, weekly, daily or hourly basis? From where did the traffic originate? How long does the typical visitor stay at the site? Are visitors viewing pages where critical information resides? What's the number of visitors to sales generated ratio? (the conversion rate.)

With these types of analyses and working in conjunction with an informed web development/design team, you can tailor your site to work in concert with all of your marketing efforts.

Let us help you figure out how your website is doing and how it can be improved!

SEO (Search Engine Optimizing)

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a process that makes a website search engine friendly and helps the site rank well in the search engine's organic listings. At TH Design, every website we create utilizes SEO principles for construction and content.

What does it mean to be "search engine friendly?"

When a site has been constructed with optimization in mind, search engine "spiders" (also called "bots", short for robots) can find the site and "read" its pages easily. The information gathered will then be transmitted back to the Search Engine and the website will be properly categorized in the Search Engine's database.

What are "organic listings"?

Organic listings are the search engine's "free" listings. Search engines also serve up "paid" listings. Google's paid (or sponsored) listings appear on the right-hand side of the browser window.

What does it mean to "rank well?"

To rank well means that your website appears at or near the top of the organic listings that come up in response to a search engine query.

The organic listings' results are completely automated. You can't pay for a Number 1 listing - your site will rank based on it's merits. Furthermore, Google imposes a waiting period for new sites or newly optimized sites. It typically takes 6-9 months for your site to rise to it's natural position.

What are SEO Principals for Construction and Content?

They include:

• Clean Coding
• Top-Heavy Content Placement and Site Architecture
• Solid Content that is optimized for Keywords and Phrases
• Use of relevant keywords in Page Names, Content and Alt-Tags
• Use of Alt-Tags for images

In addition there are steps that should be taken either by you or by us. A link campaign is an example.

Link Campaigns

The search engines have a variety of automated techniques that they use to select the results they serve up in response to a search query. One of the variables they measure is the quantity and quality of incoming links to your site, i.e. websites that have linked to yours. The theory is that if outside sites have chosen to link to your site it must mean that your site's content has merit. Google in particular "favors" information-heavy sites.

A link campaign is a process of researching relevant and complementary sites and requesting a posting or link exchange. (Relevance is critical - getting a whole bunch of unrelated sites to link to yours will not yield positive results.)

Link campaigns take time, and their results aren't instantaneous. But over a period of months a good link campaign will help raise your site's rankings for your selected search terms.

So SEO involves both the construction of the website and its content.

Want more info. about SEO, SEM, Web Marketing? Give us a call! 330-869-4680.

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