Marketing your website: Basics

Marketing your website:

You are done with designing your website. Ok! Now what do you do? How do people find your website or how do they know there exists one? First and foremost, register your website in directories like DMOZ it helps place your business in a relevant category. Then imagine what keywords or key phrases customers would search for your business—be specific--for instance, you have a furniture business in Nebraska, Arizona, and then the probable search keyword would be ‘Furniture store Nebraska, Arizona.’ Rather than giving a narrow keyword like ‘Furniture store’ or Furniture store in U.S.’ which actually leads to a much broader search results, a search result-- not directly helping to point out your hometown business, its not precise and moreover, the problem is, shorter the keywords; the more expensive they are, in a paid search. Ask your close associates or friends as to what key search terms or key search phrases they would use to search for your business and make a list of it, it helps! Use them to the best of your advantage. It doesn’t mean you should overuse keywords or key phrases—‘stuffing keywords’ (Google considers it ‘spamming.’)

Take a look at your website, at some point of time; you’ll feel ‘there’s scope for improvement.’ Or may be few things should have been fixed, be it the navigation feature, tone, usability, or maybe the overall look and feel of your website. It is an ongoing process, a constant pursuit for perfection, a process of continuous refinement to see your website reach up to a certain level, or be it simply that you’re just trying to weather the change— technically speaking its called ‘Website Optimization.’

First study your competitor’s website (it is the easy way!), do a research as to what factors or features made your competitor so popular. Pick those best features/ideas from your competitors’ website. While you can always ‘copy and improvise’ those features to your advantage and trust me sometimes the best of ideas come from cross-industry; may not come from your relevant industry. But on the converse, Online business reputation, credibility, and customer trust can only be built over a period of time—there’s no duplicating/ mimicking your competitor in this matter, especially when he is on top. There’s no short cut to success when it comes to earning trust or building reputation, but it has to be done through hard work, and proper customer-oriented approach.

Most important question one needs to ask when thinking of having a website-- why do I need a website? Who is my audience? What is that I want to communicate through my website? -- Have your answers figured out for those above questions. It gives you a great relief, like ‘clear clouds appearing’, ‘landscape will start looking better and promising for you.’ It may look silly but at least it’ll leave you with a satisfaction of having a clear goal and you’re fulfilled that you’re heading in a right direction after having those basing questions answered and the best part you really don’t have to look back at your past.

How to use Social Media for Online Marketing

Social Media Marketing (SMM) and Optimization (SMO) is an important – perhaps even critical – Internet marketing strategy. Internet marketers are pretty unsure as to how to use social media as a marketing strategy or even if they should use it at all.

Social media needs a Multi throng approach: To start with SMM make way into social media, make a slow but steady approach in impressing your users-- initially go in a 'stealth' mode. Attenuating to the fact 'social media' has transformed the total internet landscape forever (and it’ll continue to do so) and the way it works, by and large. It's probably because of the seamless, magnanimous ‘influence’ factor that it brings within itself for its users. Helping users to make a better choice through vote of opinion, ratings and discussions related to products or services or it could be just about anything. Truly ‘Word-of-mouth marketing’ rules, in all forms of marketing- be it traditional or Online marketing and it benefits marketers and users as well. And that is where all advertisers, media buyers and all the top brands are busy creating a buzz! making themselves more visible to users-- entering into social media--finding effective ways to reach and vie up for every possible attention of its users; capitalize on your target/prospect customers-- pushing every little step (but cautiously) in getting closer to their customers--to know, understand them better and to deliver better.

Funneling down the right prospects: Identify the most buzzing places in social media-- the popular blogs, forums, and social networks related to your subject area and slowly start introducing yourself by contributing your voice and surely but steadily make it a habit to consistently post your views or solutions in those social networks. Become more kind of an opinion leader for others in your area I am sure it'll reap benefits in the long run.

Eventually over a period of time people tend to notice you and bear your Online presence--good! if they feel you're contributing to the Online cause and growing into something big, sooner or later they start listening to you and probably trust you and that's where your conversion point starts--make your first move--put your business proposal softly, but most importantly win their confidence first--that is the gateway--an entry point where you'll really start conversing with your audience effectively with vigor and intent.

Things are transforming fast in Online. Hard sell doesn't work in Internet marketing--Internet users don't simply sit and meditate in front of the internet and see as to what internet marketers are trying to say, the message should be simple, direct and expressive enough to convey your message ; ‘at their own terms’; the pushy kind of tone : that typical sales pitch...is a strict no!...no!. Internet users have a short attention span so keeping them engaged through your website, proposing the right product to the right person and finally converting them is a very tough task.

I always felt ‘share information selflessly' for free(Google did a class act, for that matter) and it'll payoff big one day ! How many times have you heard people saying 'I've got this thing for free Online!' People always love carrying home some free stuff! It pays to provide some free stuff. It might not bring you a fortune, in a shorter period of time but it'll sure help you in attaining your long term goals and one day you'll see yourself doing consistently pretty good job. Believe me! the very feeling of doing well--it motivates you to do better (considering the kind of tough competition you have Online) and I am sure it'll give you a great deal of satisfaction and it'll leave you with a sense of fulfillment and joy.

Last, but not least, please be very passionate about whatever you do Online--Online marketing demands specialization else, chances are you're soon forgotten and you discover yourself being part of history and it's not easy to make a comeback once gone.

Conclusion:To conclude Online marketing with context to social media though initially may look tough and complicated, but can be made easy by rigorous and careful study. Remember Delivering work at the highest level always becomes an art form. I am sure one day, like a steady mountain goat you’ll see yourself reaching the summit. Bye the way it just remembered me of the quote below. Good Luck!

It's not just a question of conquering a summit previously unknown, but of tracing, step by step, a new pathway to it.
-- Gustav Mahler (mountaineer)

Social Media

Although technically not SEO, Social Media is such a growing factor in getting your web site noticed, that it’s an important element to include in your plan.

Social media ranges from social networks like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn — to social bookmarking sites such as Delicious, Digg, StumbleUpon and many more. There is a lot of relationship building involved, but as you build your own networks and build quality content on your web site or blog, you’ll see traffic to your web site increasing, as well.

As with any relationship, it is a give and take. Don’t just expect to join a site like Twitter for the pure sake of pushing your content. That just won’t fly — your true intentions will stick out like a sore thumb and do nothing but turn people off.

Even if you are on the site purely for networking reasons, the key is to make friends. Help out members of your network if they ask for a “retweet” or Digg, give helpful advice if asked, etc. You’ll see the same in return.

If you write a great post and have built meaningful relationships with peers in your niche, you’ll often find that friends will submit your posts and give you votes on the social bookmarking sites. The more votes you receive, the more likely your post is to be noticed by others and shared around, often resulting in additional link backs from other blogs, etc.

Link Building

We’ve probably all heard of Google Page Rank — it seems to be every web site owner’s dream to have as high a page rank as possible. While the algorithm for determining page rank encompasses many elements, and is constantly changing, one item is the number of links pointing to your web site.

Now, you’ll want to steer clear of link farms and other spammy attempts at getting links to your site. However there are many reputable and niche directory sites that you can use to submit your web site, or specific blog articles to.

With genuine content — especially if you have a blog — you’ll be able to generate links with other web sites and blogs, as well. It’s somewhat of a give and take, in that if you link out to other sites, you’ll find sites linking back to you — and hopefully see your page rank going up, as well!

Relevant Content

Having content relevant to your main page or site topic is perhaps the most important SEO aspect of a page. You can put all the keywords you want in the meta tags and alt image tags, etc — but if the actual readable text on the page is not relevant to the target keywords, it ends up basically being a futile attempt.

While it is important to include as many keywords in your page copy as possible, it is equally as important for it to read well and make sense. I’m sure we’ve all seen keyword stuffed pages written by SEO companies that honestly don’t make much sense from the reader’s point of view.

When creating your site copy, just write naturally, explaining whatever information you’re discussing. The key is to make it relevant, and to have it make sense to the reader. Even if you trick the search engines into thinking your page is great — when a potential customer arrives at the site and can’t make heads or tails of your information and it just feels spammy to them — you can bet they’ll be clicking on the next web site within a matter of seconds.

XML Sitemap

My last post referenced the sitemaps used by web visitors to help them navigate through your site themselves. However, there’s another version — XML sitemaps — that are used by the search engines in order to index through your site, as well.

This list of ALL pages / posts / etc. of your site also includes information such as the date the page was last modified, as well as a priority number of what you feel the most important pages of your sites are. All elements that help the search engines properly find and link to all content of your site.

Title Attributes on Links

Including title attributes on links is another important step that any good web site will have. That’s the little “tool tip” that pops up when you place your mouse over a link. These are especially important for image links, but equally useful for text links.

As a note, you should use descriptive text for your links. “Click here” doesn’t really tell a person – or more importantly, the search engines — what the link is. At the very least put a title tag that will explain that “Click Here” really means “Web Design Portfolio” for example. Better yet – make the main link text something like “View my web design portfolio” — this will give some value to the link showing that the resulting page is relevant to searches for portfolio’s.

Alt Attributes on Images

Putting alt attributes on your images actually serves two purposes. In terms of SEO, putting a brief yet descriptive alt attribute along with your image, places additional relevant text to your source code that the search engines can see when indexing your site. The more relevant text on your page the better chance you have of achieving higher search engine rankings.

In addition, including image alt attributes help the visually impaired who access web sites using a screen reader. They can’t see the image, but with a descriptive alt attribute, they will be able to know what your image

Proper Use of Heading Tags

This is a very important element to consider when writing out your site copy. Use of heading tags helps users, web browsers and search engines alike know where the major key points of your copy are.

Your main page title should use the tag — this shows what your page is about. Use of additional tags, such as and are equally important by helping to break down your copy. For one, you’ll see a visual break in the text. But as far as the search engines are concerned, it will automatically know what your topics are on a page. The various heading tags give a priority to the content and help index your site properly.

Title Tag

Near the very top of a web site’s source code you’ll find various meta tags — the standard ones being the Title, Description and Keyword tags. The title tag is technically not a meta tag, though it is commonly associated with them. The title tag plays such a large role in the indexing of your web site, that it is considered the most important of the three.

A page title is the first thing a search engine will look at when determining just what the particular page is about. It is also the first thing potential visitors will see when looking at your search engine listing.

It’s important to include a keyword or two in the title tag — but don’t go overboard – you don’t want to do what’s known as “keyword stuffing” which does nothing but make your web site look like spam. Most people will include either the company name, or title of the particular page here, as well.

Meta Tags

There are two primary meta tags in terms of SEO — the description and the keyword tag. It’s debatable whether the search engines use the description tag as far as ranking your results. However it is one of the more important tags because it is listed in your search result — it is what users read when your link comes up and what makes them decide whether or not to click on your link.

Be sure to include a few relevant keywords in this tag, but don’t stuff it with keywords either. The description tag should read like a sentence — not a keyword list.

Website Construction

After the whole dot com boom, more and more businesses are moving their focus on the Internet. These businesses seeking an Internet presence have seen the success other companies had with a well-combined online presence and are trying their best to follow their steps. However, things are not as simple as building a web site and hoping for the profit margins to rise significantly overnight. There is a lot of work and technology that has to be included in an efficient web site for it to be profitable. On the other hand, if the web site is well built, it is a very effective, economical and easy to maintain way of advertising your company, your products and services. Many people that have built a web site for their business make the mistake of believing that their work is done after they have finished it. If you want you web site to attract visitors and possible clients, you have to constantly update it with new and interesting information and to optimize it as much as you can for the popular search engines.

Building a web site that is indeed effective requires a lot of work, both in its informational side and its graphical part. You should first know very well what kind of web site you want. Do you want it to be an informational site only or do you want to perform business through it. You should also make sure you have enough information about your company and your products to post on the web site for the visitors and potential clients to be able to see. Another important thing you should know is that a site requires constant maintenance and you should see if you have personnel to do this job. Finally yet importantly, you should consider that if owning a web site is necessary for the type of business you are conducting and if you could be better off investing that money into something else.