16 July 2008

Measuring Your Website Marketing

When business slows down you still need to keep pushing and competing for clients and customers, or you may as well simply shut up shop and hibernate.  Marketing is essential for keeping your brand in front of existing customers, and for acquiring new ones.  The key is to assess all your current marketing channels and to focus on the ones that are targeted and getting measurable results.  If you are spending a large sum on 'shot-gun' mass marketing simply because you always have, or because your competitors do, then you need to stop and assess what return you are getting from it.  Is it targeted?  Is it hitting the right audience?  Is that audience receptive given the negative economic environment?  What would happen if you stopped that marketing?  Could you save the money, or invest it in other channels that are working better. 

Two channels that we have heard from clients are working at the moment are website marketing, and direct calling.  Website marketing works well because it is very targeted.  If someone is searching on Google for a product or service then they are already pre-qualified - they would not be wasting their time unless there was some level of interest.  Of course your website needs to be well optimised and have a search engine marketing strategy in place, usually managed by a search engine marketing company.  You can measure the success of your web site marketing quite clearly by reviewing your website statistics to see how many people you are attracting to your website, as well as how many are contacting you or converting to a sale.  This of course varies depending on your business model whether you are B2C or B2B and whether you sell online, or refer visitors to retail outlets or other end points. 

The other strategy worth considering is picking up the phone and calling existing clients on your database.  This personal approach can be the difference between keeping or losing customers.  For many clients it will come as a surprise when they see all your competitors retrenching while you are proactively pushing forward.  It is a lot harder to gain a new client than it is to retain an existing one, so make the effort to keep relationships strong with existing clients.  When business is booming it is easy to take things for granted and forget the basics, but in tougher times you need to get the hunger back that you had when you first started your business.  More regular contact and better service with clients will help retain them and also get potential referrals from them.   Apart from the fact it takes time to call your client-base, the overall cost may be a lot less than some of the other non-targeted mass-marketing methods that lose their effectiveness in a slowing economy.  The key message is: when things get tough don't freeze up, simply think and act smarter.


19 May 2008

Free Websites

With websites, as with most aspects of business, generally you get what you pay for and if something seems too good to be true it usually is.  Many diy website templates lack the professional finish of a custom designed website and may have limited functionality to alter or improve things on the site.  A common catch is to be stung for large fees if requiring something to be customised on your free site because it requires coding work to be done, or because no service fees are quoted as part of the 'free website'.  Another catch is to be billed for features that are standard with other designers but considered extras on a free website (similar to the business model where you are attracted to a restaurant by the cheap menu only to be charged through the nose for drinks).  You may have invested so much time and effort into creating your website that you simply have to follow through and end up paying more money than you anticipated.

Another situation we see fairly often is where a person has started with a free diy web site and been dissatisfied with it.  They then move onto a cheap designer who does not deliver what they want, so they pay for the work completed and then move on again.  Finally they take their web site seriously, prepare a proper design brief, research designers and choose one to work with.  Eventually the person has a credible web site developed that meets their needs.  Unfortunately it has taken twice as long and cost alot more because they mucked around with trying to cut corners at the start.  Free websites can be great for people who want to 'dabble' or for clubs and societies, but for commercial enterprises it is often safer to bite the bullet and go through the process properly with a designer.  The result will be a better representation of your company, which is likely to be done in less time and with less stress than trying to cobble something together yourself.

22 April 2008

Handling Multiple Domain Names

A common approach is to have a copy of your web site on each domain you have.  In the past this has been a 'cut and paste' solution that is easy, but now can result in penalties for duplicate content that can have a negative effect on your website's rankings in Google and the other Search Engines.  In addition it can cause confusion when the Search Engines index your different copies of websites when they really just want one website on one domain to index and keep track of.

The safest option is to ask your web site developer to setup a .301 redirect at root level to the main domain you want to focus on.  This way you have just one copy of your web site sitting on your main domain and if anyone does type in any of your other domain names their browser will refresh and they will see your website in front of them.  This way the Search Engine spiders will always go to the correct website and you will not risk penalties.  When choosing which of your domains to use as your main domain it is a good idea to download the Google toolbar and use it to assess each of your websites.  The one with the highest homepage PageRank from Google and the most inward links to it will be the one that Google values the highest.

5 March 2008

Search Engine Marketing - Geo-targeting

Google offers the option for a searcher to search the web, or to narrow a search down to 'local' websites, for example only US websites in the US, or only German websites in Germany.  Therefore every website needs to be tagged to a country.  If for example, your website is a .com and is hosted on a server in the US and you sell to Canada too, then when someone in Canada clicks 'pages from Canada', Google will filter-out your site and not show it in the search results.  If you want to be found in Canada as well then you need another website with a .ca domain name and it ideally should be hosted on a server in Canada.  Most web developers can find and arrange hosting in other countries.  The problem is that you may have extra costs for another web site such as hosting, content management system, search engine marketing, and also require new content creation.  If you just cut and paste your existing web site you may be penalised by the Search Engines for content duplication.  The situation may be overwhelming for companies on smaller budgets, but the benefits of being aware of geo-targeting and the way Google handles web sites is that you can at least prioritise and plan around which markets to focus on, and also not waste money on markets if your website cannot adequately cover them.