Is Google a Monopoly – Infographic

Posted on December 1, 2010 by Michael Cooney

Is Google a Monopoly?

Research by Scores.org

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Strategy for Better Profits, Targeting and Conversion.

Posted on June 16, 2010 by Michael Cooney

Industrial Buyers Want Targeted Results

A lot of companies within the industrial marketplace ask me ”How can we get to the top of Google for our products?”  They want to be found for search terms like ‘pumps, valves, heat exchangers, mixers, drives, PLC’s or power cables’.

Try this: search for pumps in Google and you will see the first 10 results of about 63,700,000 results. Yes, 63 Million results! That’s a lot of competition. You will also notice that you are also competing for positioning against shoe stores for ladies ‘pumps’.

It’s not impossible to achieve page 1 positions for pumps but it will require a whole lot more than great content, good website structure and a couple strong links.

Would you like to hear a strategy where it is easier to get page 1 positions, more targeted traffic, awesome conversion rate and better profits?

We have used this strategy for clients that service the MRO (Maintenance, Repair and Operations) market place and it’s changed the way these companies operate today.

This strategy is not rocket science.  It’s pretty obvious and plenty of companies have been able to pluck the low hanging fruit while their competitors are fighting over broad terms that deliver visitors that don’t convert very well to customers.

Get ready for this, this is gold…

Imagine you are the resident field engineer on a gold mine. A worn slurry pump needs to replaced. You are responsible for the ongoing maintenance of the mine and are well aware that every hour the plant is shut down due to a pump being out of action the plant is losing money and lots of it.  What do you search on Google to replace the slurry pump?

‘pump’?

Not in your dreams.

Do you search ‘slurry pump’?

This search is better than ‘pump’ and will deliver a more targeted pump, but you can’t replace the existing slurry pump with any pump, you need a pump that is going to replace an existing pump  Not only do you need the same type of pump, you need an exact replacement because if the dimensions and ratings are not exactly the same, the replacement pump is not going to fit as it should and your plant is down for longer, losing far more money than 10 pumps would cost.  What you are going to do is find the ‘nameplate’, write down the manufacturer and model number, load up Google and search for a ‘sureflow 3000F‘.

How much competition is there for ”sureflow 3000F’ ? Only about 120 results. If your company is on the first page of Google for “sureflow 3000F” you are going to get an urgent RFQ from an engineer who needs that pump like yesterday.

Guess what? The price of the pump is not all that important, if you can deliver on time the price is hardly a consideration.

Have you seen the power in the above scenario? You are going to get an order quickly and you can name your price, don’t bother to sharpen your pencil.  That my friend is gold and only a few of your competitors are using this strategy.

I’ve seen this strategy with pumps, valves, PLC’s, drives and heat exchangers.  There are 4 really important things to notice here…

1. People searching pumps are a targeted audience, but they are no where near a purchasing decision if searching for ‘pumps’.  They are still researching and looking.

2. The competition is crazy for ‘pumps’.

3. Even if you did get a top position, you would get lots of traffic but no much interaction that leads to a purchase.

4. The more specific you are, the less visitors you attract, the better the conversion, the higher the profit margins, the quicker the order process.

I hope you get the idea.  There are many ways to get targeted people to your website when they are looking for your products when they need it.  That is why search engine marketing is so effective, you can leverage targeting and timing together, they are coming to you at the exact time when they need your product. Powerful if you grasp it.

If you want targeted results for yourself, or if you’d like to chat, email me and I’d be happy to help.  Contact Me

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Can You Visualize Your Online Marketing Success?

Posted on June 3, 2010 by Michael Cooney

People struggle to visualize what a new kitchen will look like, that is why they stage houses to show people what the empty house could look like. Many people just can’t visualize what the house could be, so the clever people who sell houses create the ideal setting for a family and they sell the lifestyle instead of just the structure with a roof on it.

My wife and I want to upgrade our kitchen counters to granite. Now I’m trying to imagine what the different colors and grains of granite would look like in our kitchen. Should I use a dark or light granite? If I go dark, do we want gold or blue highlights? My wife is keen on the blue highlights, but I’m not sure if a blue will work with our kitchen cabinets. What helps is if we look through some books to see a few examples of kitchens to get a better picture of what we ultimately want.

How do I explain or show someone what a successful online marketing strategy looks like?

I’ve had meetings with countless executives who just don’t get online marketing. They can’t see it, don’t understand it and don’t trust it. However, some business owners and executives have trusted me enough to risk it, give me a opportunity to show them what a successful online marketing campaign does. Many of these have tasted the fruits of a successful online presence and have since become ardent believers. For all those companies who have forged into the online marketing and enjoyed great results; there are countless more who have been tepid, wary or burned by unsuccessful campaigns and hide behind “once bitten, twice shy” mentality.

Are we selling the invisible?

Selling our online marketing back in the 90′s was pretty interesting (interesting sometimes translates to dinkum difficult) practically selling the invisible to companies.  We were competing with the Yellow Pages, they had been around since Grandma fell off the bus. It was the days when a Yellow Pages sales rep would walk in the door, slapped down a great big yellow book on the desk and demonstrate exactly what you were getting for your money and how many people it would reach. As the Yellow Pages rep walked out the door with a grin on his face (I swear I saw mock pity in his eyes), I think he’s got the sale in the bag with a tried and tested product.

It’s 1998, I extend my hand to greet the business owner, my hand shake is firm, I’m not going to let some smug Yellow Pages dude wear me down. I’ve seen the future and it is definitely online marketing without a doubt. While we start with small chat, I boot up my laptop computer to open his eyes to the future of marketing. I notice that he doesn’t have a computer on his desk, doesn’t know how to turn one on he tells me. Not a problem I can show him all on my laptop. I begin and the business owner is starring wide eyed at the computer screen clearly impressed with how fast I type with all 10 fingers, he demonstrates his 2 finger typing prowess, I get him focused back on our screen. This is important, I’m going to layout where the future of marketing is going and open a browser.

“What’s a browser?” he asks, I excitedly tell him “we use a browser to view websites on the Internet” I can see the cogs turning in his mind, trying to get his mind around what the internet is. I think he has got it as I patiently explained interconnected computers.

“So if I just open this website and click this link?”

“What’s a ‘hyperlink’? Isn’t that something on a rocket ship?” he asks.

“No, its a link to another page?” I clear up.

Then the questions are coming fast “Where is that page? In a website? I’ve heard of Meta Tags… ”

Those were the difficult days and things have certainly improved now even Grandma has a Facebook account. At least everyone is comfortable with the internet, websites, links, Facebook….

In the 90′s we were selling the invisible, possibly even the magical, now it’s 2010 and we’ve all heard wonderful success stories  and the monetary results are very real. However, we still have companies that shy away from committing to online marketing and I’m beginning to wonder if we are not staging online marketing the way Realtors sell houses, because there are still too many companies in the world that are homeless in the online marketplace.

How do we Stage an Online Marketing Strategy?

I’ve never asked myself this question in this context, yes we have marketing material, case studies, introductory emails and websites that tell companies what we do and how we have generated results for other companies. We even show examples of websites we’ve produced. How do we present a model online marketing strategy?

Would a time lapse video work? A video where we show from beginning to end how we plan, develop, launch, promote, measure and grow an online presence for a company. Would a video like that be compelling to you? What other methods could you see working? As an advertisers what information do you need?

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Cloning Me didn’t work, all I got was frizzy hair!

Posted on May 24, 2010 by Michael Cooney

Is your time management like mine?

You start something and before you get into it the phone rings, you get an email or a colleague walks into your office to send you on another tangent…

 

You know you are in trouble when on your to do list is an item called ‘Organize To Do List’.

I tweeted an article “Eat a Frog first thing every morning” meaning you get that one main item you need done for the day done first before anything else. I tried to implement, I really did, until a client phoned, then my brother arrived from half way around the world to surprise me and my frog was barely even nibbled… Soggy frog… YUCK!

You’ve got to delegate to someone who can do the job better than you.

This may be basic advice and I know it’s hard to believe but there are people out there who are actually really good at stuff that you are not that good at. I’m an engineer and we believe we can do anything and everything, including diagnosing symptoms better than the doctor, I will even give advice on how to take a photo to my professional photographer wife… just before I get the look… you know what look I’m talking about.

The secret is finding the right people to do these tasks

If it’s not a key function of your company, find someone or company that can take it off you hands, what to look for:

  • Find companies – Make a short list of the companies who seem to provide what you looking for.
  • Ask Questions – Make sure you understand what you want achieved and ask questions relating to your expectations. For example, if you want someone to manage your Adwords campaign, what do you want to achieve? targeted leads? Sales? Increased targeted Traffic? Ask these questions to see if you are on the same page.
  • Establish Performance Metrics – If you want targeted leads, how are you going to measure it, you want to be able to measure the success.
  • Get References – Make sure it’s not all talk, ask for examples, case studies

Adwords is so easy to do myself, why should I delegate?

Because, you don’t have the time and experience to do it right, your half baked attempt is going to cost you time money for a bad to average performing campaign.

I know it’s tempting to try it out, do it yourself and its exciting something new and shiny to play with. Believe me when I say we have taken over more Adwords campaigns for clients where they started it themselves and it ended up being a money pit.

  • Exhibit 1 – Client didn’t set a budget correctly and a couple days later had exceeded their credit card limit. $10k gone in 3 days.
  • Exhibit 2 – Client started a campaign using very broad keywords, later to find they had 1000 visits for their $1000 but 98% of keywords were irrelevant.
  • Exhibit 3 – Targeting specific keywords, but the landing page isn’t setup and visitors arrive to a Page Missing error! $2000 POOF!!!

Do what you are good at and what makes you money, delegate task to people who are better than you.

Action Point:

Have a look at your things to do or want to do. Can you find someone who is better than you to do it?

What’s your take?

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Beware of Facebook Instant Personalization Pilot Program

Posted on May 19, 2010 by Michael Cooney
I visited the PCWorld website to read an article and noticed that on the top of the screen it had “Michael … Sign Out | My Account”

From PCWorld website

That’s strange I thought, I have never signed up for a PC World account, how do they know it’s me?

So I did some digging and discovered that Facebook thought it would be a great idea to sign me in automatically to PC World because I was signed into my Facebook account.

BEWARE: There is a FB NEW PRIVACY setting
called “Instant Personalization” that shares data with non-Facebook
websites and it is automatically set to “Allow.” Go to
Account>Privacy Settings >Applications and Websites > Instant
Personalization, and uncheck “Allow”. BTW if your friends don’t do this,
… they will be shari…ng information about you. PLEASE SHARE THIS WITH
EVERYONE. It’s called a Pilot Program.

This is what Facebook say about the program:

Using Facebook to personalize your experience on the web

When you visit one of these sites while also logged into Facebook, they can automatically use information you’re already sharing with everyone to improve your experience.

Select partners (currently just Microsoft Docs, Pandora, and Yelp) have the ability to automatically give you a more personalized experience when you’re on their websites.

I can see where this is useful, but let me choose which sites I want to login to.

Here is the link to turn off the feature.

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Want to see a $20,000 Logo?

Posted on May 17, 2010 by Michael Cooney

Do I think too small? Is my perception of value skewed?

I read this blog post from Chris Brogan, what caught my eye was this excerpt….

“Let’s talk about my logo for a moment:

chrisbroganlogo

This was designed by stresslimitdesign, and it normally would retail for around $20,000 USD (or that was the rate around the time it was developed). It’s a good logo, with lots of thoughtfulness to the design. The process was good, with lots of iteration, etc. It’s a powerful thing.”

Did you see that the logo above would normally retail for $20,000!

Okay, so let’s try and justify the cost of $20,000. Remember you can buy a car for that.

If a graphic designer charges $100 a hour, that will give the designer 200 hours to design the above logo.

So how long will it take to design a logo?

Let’s use my company’s logo as an example. The problem with logo’s are that they are subjective, open to interpretation and not everyone likes the same thing. Our earlier logo was designed by me in early startup days with CorelDraw and over the years we realized that the logo had limitations for some branding projects, so we set out to design a new logo.

Old Logo

New Logo

If you look at the change in the logo you would think all that is needed is a few hours, and that is true, once we finally had agreement a few hours was all that was needed to produce the final logo. However, to get our team to agree was another story, we designed about 20 different logo’s at different stages, tried different designs, colors and fonts. Half our team would like one logo but others didn’t like it.  We did the new redesign in-house but if I take the hours spent and apply a commercial rate for all the hours spent on the new logo design, I think we would have spent between $4000 to $8000.

Can I justify a $20,000 Logo?

After going through this thought process I believe I can justify it. Would I sign an order for $20,000 to have a new logo designed… well that’s another story and depends on a number of factors.

If you have a business that is going to invest millions in the branding of your company, you need to have a good logo but does that logo need to cost a lot?

Is a $20,000 logo better than a $300 logo?

Spending more doesn’t mean that you’ll get a better logo.  You’ll have talented experienced people that will increase the chance of you getting a good logo, but sometimes a good logo just happens by chance.  Consider the ‘Nike Swoosh’…

The Nike “swoosh’” is a design created in 1971 by Carolyn Davidson, a graphic design student at Portland State University. She met Phil Knight while he was teaching accounting classes and she started doing some freelance work for his company, Blue Ribbon Sports (BRS). The Nike Swoosh logo represents the wing in the famous statue of the Greek Goddess of victory, Nike, who was the source of inspiration for many great and courageous warriors.

BRS needed a new brand for a new line of athletic footwear it was preparing to introduce in 1972. Knight approached Davidson for design ideas, and she agreed to provide them, charging a rate of US$2 per hour. In June 1971, Davidson presented a number of design options to Knight and other BRS executives, and they ultimately selected the mark now known globally as the Swoosh. “I don’t love it,” Knight told her, “but I think it will grow on me.” Davidson submitted a bill for US$35 for her work.[3] (In 1983, Knight gave Davidson a diamond Swoosh ring and an envelope filled with Nike stock to express his gratitude.) source:wikipedia

Normally I would say “You pay peanuts, you get monkeys” but with something like a logo I think you can find a graphic designer who is able turn your idea into a logo without spending a fortune. On the other hand, there are some really great creative companies that have a lot of experience, put a lot of thought into branding and will deliver more than just a logo, they will be help you to develop and entire brand image.

I know I like to scribble out a few ideas, think about what I want to communicate and see where we go with our graphic designers. If I wasn’t totally happy with the logo and was planning on spending a decent amount on branding, I would try and find someone or an experienced company to deliver something I would be happy with.

What do you think?

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Will I Remember You? How To Stand Out In This Busy Marketplace

Posted on May 11, 2010 by Michael Cooney

This weekend I watched Iron Man 2 and do you know what made the movie for me? No, it wasn’t Robert Downey Jr. or Gweneth Paltrow.  The star of the movie was ‘Mickey Rourke’, when you watch the movie you’ll see why, he is fantastic in his role. Did he make the most noise? Was it because he created this amazingly destructive weapon? No, but he had my attention from the beginning… I can’t put my finger on it, but you just knew the man was Trouble… I think he only spoke his first few words half way through the movie and when he did I was convinced he had grown up in the worst neighborhood of Russia.  I think Mr. Rourke’s performance saved the movie from being a great big flop.

So what makes this actor stand out from everyone else, why do directors put up with the crazy actor antics and pay them millions when there are literally millions of people around the work who would love to be an actor even at a tiny fraction of the fee?  I’ll be James Bond for 10% of what they pay Daniel Craig… I don’t think the producers will jump at my offer.

How do You stand out?

In your industry, does your company stand out from the rest of the crowd? Will I remember you? Marketing has changed, in the past you would physically meet with your customers or at least speak with them on the phone. I’ve met sales people who just leave a good impression with everyone they speak to, they have character, full of energy with great ideas. These sales people are memorable. How are these sales people going to be remembered now? How is your companies website going to be remembered when a prospect has visited 10 different websites? In social media being remembered and follow worthy means you have something of value to offer, what is that value?

How do you stand out in today’s marketplace?

Be useful… I’ve noticed that in online discussions people begin to notice the people that add value, start good discussions and provide good advice consistently. It’s the same in everyday situations, you know the people that just want to make a sale and then forget about you, the ones you end up avoiding. The sales people that don’t see themselves as a sales person but as a solution provider, they have the approach “How can I provide the best solution for you or your situation?”

If you are one of the people that has a website that says “here are my products, wanna buy?” you’ll get sales but will probably need to offer the best price.

What if you had a website that communicated “These are our products, do you have a specific need or would you mind if I also showed you how we have helped people in similar situations as you?”

Remember when dealing with people on the phone, in person, on your website or in social media; people value others who can help them.

Well, there are two ways to stand out today:

1. You could just be very talented and have directors begging you to act in their movie; or

2. You can leave a lasting impression by asking yourself every morning “Who can I help today”? and ”acting” on it.

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Social Media Vs. Search Engine Marketing

Posted on May 5, 2010 by Michael Cooney

I’m not the first to jump into a new technology.  When there is a new release of software I wait for the dust to settle. I let the hype die down and give it a little time to get all the bugs worked out. I have an iPhone, but again I waited for the 3rd generation and I’m glad I did. I want an iPad, but I think I’ll let the developers catch up with the applications and let all the bugs of a first edition get worked out.

When I first started hearing about the massive growth of facebook I stood on the sidelines and observed, eventually I opened an account and dabbled, I enjoyed seeing the photos of old school friends and how people had changed. After my initial buzz of checking out photos of friends I lost interest, and just when I was turning away I received a friend request drawing me back in and the more friends I connected to the more requests I received. This is when I had that ‘Aha!’ moment, so this is why Facebook is getting all the attention.

My Aha! Moment. Search has a competitor!

I’ve been experiencing the huge benefits of search engine marketing since 1999. The power of search marketing is that you can target a user when they are looking for your products when they want it. The targeting alone is awesome, but couple that with timing of when the user wants the product or service and you have the most powerful marketing medium available and the reason why Google earned $20 billion from advertising in 2009. It’s a no brainer how powerful search marketing is.

When I evaluate social I’m evaluating for industry purposes

My interest lies with helping users and companies use media in industry, so my comments are slanted toward industry businesses.

Social Media is growing up

I would say I’m still dabbling on the sidelines of social media, I haven’t fully immersed myself, but I’m now not just watching I’m beginning to participate in a careful way. I’m trying new things and analyzing the results before proceeding further. This is why I finally have a blog, after 6, 7 or 8 years wondering if I should start a blog.

What does Social do that search doesn’t

The interesting thing about social is that the user doesn’t go out to find the information, they drawn in through other people, just like I was drawn into Facebook by friends wanting to connect. No search engine was needed.

What Social does not do well – ad targeting

With social the main revenue stream is advertising, just like search marketing. Social however is not nearly as targeted as search marketing. There is some targeting based on interests, but at this stage social hasn’t figured out how to really monetize their huge growth the way Google has monetized search. With a PPC (pay per click) campaign I can select very targeted ads and keywords and experience a click through rate of up to 15% for highly targeted terms, anything above 2% is good in the PPC model. Compare that with a Facebook ad campaign and you are lucky to get a 0.1% click through rate. I don’t think the big opportunity for social marketing is in buying advertising.

Social is getting closer to a solution – Where is the value in Social?

When I consider the future of marketing and where social is going, we may find that buying advertising is only a part of the revenue for the social networks. I see services, tools, payment services and communication being valuable tools that many business will be willing to pay for. The value in social is in linking with like minded people, building a following or creating a network of people with common interests. Imagine you could create your own personal TV channel made up with programs that interest you, you can build and customize this channel to view any information you find interesting.  This channel will help you select content by you following other like minded viewers, building a rich viewing environment with totally customized content for your viewing pleasure.

The viewer can choose what content he/she wants to watch just by clicking a button, so as a company wanting to reach your target audience it would be a good idea to be included into as many custom channels as possible.

How Do I Get onto Your Custom TV Channel? Should you invest in Social Media for Industry?

There is value in building a following for your company and it’s products and services. Does your company launch new products, do you currently send out a newsletter? Do you have an email subscriber base? Do you participate in discussions or forums? IF YES, then I would say you are already well down the road on social marketing.  All you need to do is replicate your content into the different channels and interact with these new channels. So far the biggest investment is TIME, it takes time.

You have to offer something of value that the viewer wants to see. Ask yourself this, what does a viewer want to watch? People definitely don’t want to be bombarded with advertisements from your company, but they may want to hear about…

  • New technologies
  • Industry news
  • Independent product reviews
  • Effective solutions to problems
  • Product offers (depends on product type)

The difficult part of social marketing is generating the content that your followers will consider worthy of following.

Search Marketing is still King… BUT…

If I’m going to spend money in advertising, it would go towards search campaigns, SEO, PPC, etc… Search is a wonderful medium for delivering targeted buyers to our websites and communicating a specific message, however search is growing up and competition and costs are increasing, so you need to make sure you are getting the most out of the dollars you spend. After you have paid to have a new visitor reach your website and they move on, we are missing out on business down  the road… this is where social media is powerful!

Social will affect search in the future

Another thing to consider is that search will be affected by social media in the future. I have no doubt that Google will begin to apply ranking points to Twitter accounts with many followers. Search will become more timely, accurate and relevant enhancing their results with social content feeds.

The companies who stake their claim in the social media world now will be better positioned for the future. Search can deliver new targeted buyers and with social media we can build a following, where you can nurture relationship with overtime.  Use search on the front end and keep them with social on the back end.

It’s not either OR it’s both….

At the moment search is much more effective attracting new clients, but that is changing, so use search to get new visitors and turn them into followers.  That way your search results will be guaranteed in the future and you are building a moat around your business by interacting with social media.

Posted in Advertising, Pay Per Click, SEO, Search Engine Marketing, Social Media | View Comments

Guess What Facebook? Keep My Personal and Professional Life Apart

Posted on April 28, 2010 by Michael Cooney

In the online marketing world, the social media companies are buzzing with excitement and hype, social media is hitting critical mass. Last week facebook launched a whole lot of new features that set the twitter world a buzz. We are running a survey to find out how the latest marketing methods are changing the sourcing of suppliers in industry. One of the questions we asked was “Would you prefer to sign in as a free user on a industry website with your facebook account?”

"Would you prefer to sign in as a free user on a industry website with your facebook account?"

"Would you prefer to sign in as a free user on a industry website with your facebook account?"

Shocking Facebook feedback !

The survey is ongoing but so far out of the 180 people who have filled in the survey, 80% of the people have said “Never” or “Rarely” to using their facebook account as the preferred method to sign into an industry website.

With all the hype around facebook I was expecting a decent number of people wanting to use their facebook account to sign into other websites instead of creating a new user account for every website.

Facebook is awesome, BUT….

There is very good reason why facebook has attracted $760 million in funding to-date, it attracts huge amounts of people in its social network. People love sharing personal details and photos with friends and family, but they don’t want to mix business with their personal lives. Now that I think about it, I don’t want to share work related items with my family and friends. People want to keep their personal/private lives separate from work and I don’t blame them…

I should have also asked “Would you use your LinkedIN account to sign in” as LinkedIN is focused on the professional rather than the personal. I want to communicate my work life with my professional network.

What your take?

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Website Lessons Learned from Professional Golfers

Posted on April 21, 2010 by Michael Cooney

I only really have time for one sport at a time, my wife says “one obsession at a time”.  For me to enjoy a sport I need a goal where I can engage my mind and work toward a goal. During my golfing days my aim was to reduce my handicap and join the top players within our club. I would practice regularly, study technique, get all the advice I could, I videoed my swing and even took a few private lessons. You can see why my wife says ‘one obsession at a time’.

The important lesson I learned from professional golfers

You have to build from the fundamentals. You will hear this common thread from all professional golfers, they know that if they get the basic fundamental elements correct, you are then building from a solid foundation. To be a professional golfer you need to be consistent and you can only consistently repeat the same motion over and over again if your initial setup is the same every time.

When website fundamentals are ignored

We manage a successful website and one day I looked at it and thought… “How did this website become so cluttered? I need a search box just to find something on the Homepage…” The website had become a victim of it’s own success. What started out as a 10 page website that looked great, had the correct message, well structured navigation, a good flow from the homepage to the internal pages and we enjoyed a good conversion rate. Over time the website had become cluttered with several hundred pages and a mixed up message. We were noticing that our bounce rate was increasing, which meant more people were leaving before engaging with the website.

How did we get here?

We forgot our fundamentals, we were so focused on getting great search engines positions we lost sight of the goal for the website.

Fundamentals may not be exciting as working with the latest shiny new technology. Let’s look at golf again, here is a sport that has been around for a few hundred years and the fundamentals for playing a good game are the same today as they were hundreds of years ago. Even though we now have better technology in the golf clubs and balls, you still swing the same way and the very same fundamentals apply to this day.

Does Your Website Play a Strong Game?

Okay, enough with the golf analogy, what are the fundamentals for your website. What website fundamentals should you focus on?

  • Who is your target market? Don’t start yawning! This is a fundamental step that should always be analyzed, only by answering this question effectively can you deliver a targeted experience. Who are the visitors that you want to attract?
  • What do your visitors want? Once you have identified the target market, let’s find out what you users want from you website.
    • Detailed product information
    • Product overview. General product overview to see if your company can supply their needs
    • Up-to-date inventory level
    • Order tracking
    • Technical Support
    • Pricing or Request for Quote functionality
  • What is the objective of your website? I know this is basic! You need to to have a clear objective for your website, what are you expecting it to deliver?
    • Targeted sales leads
    • Improve product knowledge
    • Customer service
    • Process efficiencies; e.g streamline ordering systems
    • Employee management
    • Online sales management tools
    • Product selection tools
    • Language translation to reach wider markets
    • Better Search Engine Results to attract new customers
  • What primary message do you want to communicate? I know that you have a lot to say and many messages you want to communicate. It helps to prioritize your messages so that you don’t end up with a website that has no clear message. If you have multiple messages you want to communicate this can be achieved in a number of ways, the important thing is to identify the message/s you wish to communicate and then decide on the best strategy to communicate those messages.

The above items are what I consider the base fundamentals for any marketing, not just for your website, if you get these fundamentals defined you can then roll out the next step of implementing your website strategy. The next step we will look at are things like keyword research, competitor analysis, content, navigation, website structure and functionality.

Stay tuned as I add more posts and let me know you thoughts or questions…


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