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Cost-Per-Click Campaigns
Newsletters
Web Analytics
Visitor Conversions
Marketing FAQs

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Search Engines & Directories
SEO Defended

Marketing FAQ's

What is a “search engine-friendly” website?

One that pays attention to the communal needs of search engine spiders and website visitors. That's one of the great beauties of the medium: search engines and visitors are essentially looking for the same things. They want headlines with meaning, textual content that's deep and layered, lots of easy to follow links to different content areas of the site and regular content updates.

How do I generate traffic to my website?

The short answer is through search engines. As a very high percentage of visitors to any website originates with a keyword search, the focus of any website marketing program should be on search engine rankings. That's not to say that search are or should be the only thing you do, but they should be the start of your Internet marketing program.

The first thing you need to do is make your site search engine-friendly. This requires plenty of good content, content that changes regularly and content that uses your keywords. It also means that you should avoid design pitfalls like frames, splash pages and an over reliance on headlines and text that are images instead of HTML.

Once your platform is ready, the site needs to be registered in the primary search engines, including those that require payment. Registration should by manual submission. Then you need to repeat this process on a regular basis, as you make content changes and additions.

Once you've tackled the search engines, you can move on to marketing programs like Cost-per-Click Campaigns and other pro-active marketing programs we call Come Back Campaigns.

What is a Come Back Campaign and why should we consider one?

Most visitors who become customers do so after more than one visitor to your website. The job of the site is to encourage the formation of an electronic relationship with that visitor. Thus, it is imperative to do everything reasonable to get visitors to come back to your website. We call this effort a come back campaign.

Keeping content fresh and current is the first requirement. This will get interested visitors to return and eventually get them to tell you who they are. Once you have an email address, creating regular mailings (newsletters, special offers, new information, etc.) is the next step. The purpose of these emails is to get the visitor back to your website. The key is to do in a way that these people won't take offense.

So do you need to reach out to your potential customers? Absolutely. Relationships, electronic or not, require two-way communication.

How do I convert a website visitor into my customer?

By engaging that visitor in your story, then by helping him or her to see the benefits of a relationship with you and finally by having a means of response that meets the visitor's needs.

Conversion guidelines are simple. First, provide an adequate amount of content to satisfy the visitor (err on the side of more not less). Make sure you do NOT leave out important information - you're NOT writing a newspaper classified ad. Second, keep the content fresh. Visitors are more likely to become customers on return visits, but if you're content is out of date, you'll lose that opportunity. Third, don't ask more from the visitor than you can deliver. In other words, do NOT overreach when asking for information. At the very least you want to begin a dialog, which, in most cases, does not require that you know sensitive personal data.

Should I enhance the functionality of my website? If so, how?

Website functionality can refer to either the "front end" or "back end" of your site. The front end is the part your visitor sees. Front end functionality might include anything from a shopping cart to a formmail. Enhancing front end functionality really depends on your site's objectives. Obviously, if you're selling something online you need functionality to handle that. If you're collecting email addresses for a newsletter or marketing information for future campaigns, you have a couple of ways to go. Learn more about website functionality.

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