Internet Marketing can be a powerful tool for your company but has a way of intimidating the majority of business owners. But internet marketing

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Contents
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Step 1: Create a Keyword Strategy
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Step 2: Optimize Your Website To Get Found
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Step 3: Create a Blog & Marketing Offers
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Step 4: Promote Content Through Social Media
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Step 5: Convert Website Traffic Into Leads
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Step 6: Nurture Leads By Using Targeted Messages
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Step 7: Optimize Your Marketing For Mobile Viewing
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Step 8: Analyze & Refine Strategies
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3. 1
Step Create A
Keyword Strategy
How do your customers find products or services on the web? Unless
they have a site already bookmarked, they likely use a search
engine to find what they are looking for. If you are trying to build
your business, you have to make sure that your website comes in
at the top of those search engine results. Building your keyword
strategy is essential.
Keywords are those words or phrases someone types into a search
engine to find information they want. Keywords also work in social
media sites like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. A keyword can be
a single word or an entire paragraph, though most are two or three
words long.
Why is Building a Keyword Strategy So Important?
According to a 2011 survey, over 75 percent of Internet users do
product and service research online. To take advantage of this
traffic, you need to optimize your website so it ranks high in search
engine results. Keywords are a cornerstone of optimizing your
website and social media profiles for search engines.
Predicting with 100 percent accuracy which keywords will give
you the most traffic is impossible. However, you can do research
on which keywords are popular and competitive. You can also test
keywords by adding content to your website and seeing who visits.
Doing keyword research is an ongoing process. As trends emerge
and fade away, so do keywords associated with them. Checking
your keywords periodically will show these trends. This allows you to
keep your website at the top of the search engine ranks.
Optimizing your website means you can grow organic traffic. When
you get traffic through organic search engine ranking, you can save
money on pay-per-click campaigns through Google Adwords or
another PPC company.
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4. How to Create a Keyword Strategy
When selecting keywords for your website optimization, keep these
things in mind:
• What words or phrases would someone use to look for
your service or product? For example, if you are a plumbing
company in Chicago, a couple of keywords might be
“plumber Chicago” or “Chicago plumbing services.” Think of
as many keywords as you can.
• Local businesses need to include all the communities
they serve. A Chicago plumber may also offer service in a
neighboring city like Oak Park. A keyword might be “Oak
Park plumber.”
• Unless you are a large corporation, own a highly
recognized brand, or are a famous local business, your
keywords will not include your company name. Most people
will not look for “Joe’s Plumbing” unless they know you
personally.
• Be sure to include long-tail keywords. These keywords
are the ones that are more specific to your company.
For a Chicago plumber, a long-tail keyword can include
“residential plumbing services Chicago Illinois.”
Ultimately you want to create a list of 10 to 20 keywords for your
products and services. In the next step, you are going to whittle that
list down to three to five keywords.
Selecting Your Final Keyword List
When you have your list ready, you need to rate each entry for
relevance and competition level. The ideal list will contain relevant
keywords that offer plenty of traffic without being too competitive.
Some keywords are very competitive. Think of how many entries you
will see if you search for “plumber Chicago”. For small and mediumsize companies, getting to the top ranks of highly competitive
keywords is very difficult and expensive. You need to get traffic from
the less competitive keywords.
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5. How do you rate a keyword for competition level? You can use a
tool like Google Keyword Tool. You type in the keyword and it gives
you back the amount of traffic the word has and its competition level.
You want one that has higher traffic numbers but a Low or Medium
competition ranking.
A bonus of the Google Keyword Tool is that it returns a list of related
keywords and their statistics. You may find some terms on that list you
had not thought of.
The next step is to rate whether a word is relevant to your business.
If a person is trying to find a plumbing parts dealer, they will search
for “plumbing parts Chicago” or “drain pipe Chicago.” If you are a
plumber providing service and do not sell parts to the public, those
keywords might not be relevant.
Now you likely have a shorter list of keywords at this point. Go through
them and use your knowledge of the business. You have to strike a
balance between relevance and difficulty. You want keywords that
match your business very well. But, you do not have to have a perfect
match out of the gate.
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6. Design and Optimize Your Website Around Your
Keyword List
You have your list. It is time to make them a part of your website.
Adding keywords in the right places is search engine optimization.
You can add them to your content, as descriptions for images, and
in your social media profiles.
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7. 2
Step Optimize Your
Website To Get Found
When you see a newspaper at a newsstand or in a box, the first part
you see is the top half of the front page. That is the part of the paper
considered “above the fold.” It is where the big headlines sit and
where every newspaper reporter in the world wants their by-line.
What does that have to do with Internet marketing? You want your
company to come in “above the fold” when it comes to search
engine ranking. You want that top spot so visitors will be more likely
to come to your site instead of your competition’s.
What Does It Mean to be “Above the Fold”?
How do you get your company in that coveted position? The answer
is with search engine optimization, or SEO.
In most cases, to come in “above the fold” means having your
company appear in the first page of search engine results. The top
three spots are the most coveted. But, for a big industry with a lot
of competition, you want to appear in the first couple of pages.
You have to optimize your website and your social media profiles to
make that happen. Both work together to propel your company to
those lofty ranks.
A note on content: While Google says you
need to design your website for visitors,
not search engines, you need to keep
search engines in mind when you optimize.
Balancing quality content with search engine
optimization is the best route to take.
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8. What Do You Need to Know About SEO?
You will find two categories of SEO: on-page and off-page.
•
On-Page SEO refers to how your website content plays to
search engines. This counts for 25 percent of how search engines
rank your site or a particular web page.
•
Off-Page SEO refers to what other websites say about your
site. If other sites reference your site using inbound links, this lends
credence in the eyes of search engine bots. This counts for 75
percent of how search engines rank your site or page.
Even though on-page SEO counts for only 25 percent, this needs
to be your area of first concern. You can make changes to it
immediately. Off-page SEO is something that takes time to build and
refine.
Nine Essential Components of On-Page
Website Optimization
What do you need to do?
Component #1 - Page Title
When you look at the top of your browser on a web page, the
text you see is the title of the page. In the HTML , it is what appears
between the <title> tags.
Here is how you optimize the page title:
•
The title needs to include keywords
•
Make your title 70 characters or less since Google search
results only show that much. That count includes spaces and
punctuation.
•
Put keywords close to the start of the title for the most impact
•
The title needs to appeal to site visitors and give relevant
information on the page’s contents
•
Include your company name at the end of the page title
•
Use different titles for each page and use different keywords
on each page.
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9. Component #2 - Meta Description and Meta Data
Meta data are HTML tags that provide a holder for page
information. This can include the author, the language, and the last
modified date, among others. The meta description tag is one of
these tags.
The meta description does not display on the web page itself.
However, Google will display it in the search engine results as a
description for the web page. While it does not influence search
engine rankings, the description does provide the searcher with
pertinent information. Using keywords and providing some detail
in the description can get the searcher’s attention. Ideally, the
description will be 150 characters or less since that is what Google
will display.
If Google does not find a meta description in the HTML tags, the
default is to show the first few words on the website.
Component #3 - Headings
If you look at the HTML in any website page, you will see tags like
<h1>, <h2>, or <h3>. These are heading tags. They make certain
pieces of information more prominent than others on the site.
Search engines give more weight to any words or phrases inside
these header tags. Those with the <h1> tag will get more weight
than those with the <h2> tag. The <h2> tags will have more weight
than the <h3> tags.
How to use your headers for search engine optimization:
• Use only one <h1> tag in the page.
• Do not over use any header tags. Too many will dilute
the weight placed on your headers.
• While <h4>, <h5>, and <h6> tags exist, they carry no
value with search engines.
• Use keywords in headers for added weight.
• Throw in a few <h2> and <h3> tags to break up
paragraphs in order to make reading easier.
Headers help with human readability, but you can also use them for
SEO.
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10. Component #4 - Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
Most modern websites use cascading style sheets (CSS) to handle
the format and visual aspects. Older websites only used HTML
markup for these functions.
Using CSS can improve your search engine ranking. Search engine
bots read the HTML text in your web pages. If you have a bunch of
formatting information in your web page, this dilutes the weight of
your content in the eyes of the search engine bots. If your website
currently only uses HTML markup for formatting, transition to CSS for
more impact.
Component #5 - Images
Images are part of the visual package you are presenting to your
visitors. They enhance the user’s experience. For SEO purposes, you
need to keep a few things in mind:
• Use a small number of images. Putting too many
images on a page can slow down the load time. That will
be a negative for the user’s experience and it also counts
against your search engine ranking.
• Keep the size of your images to the smaller side. Let’s
say you have only one image on your site. That is great for
SEO, right? Maybe. If the image file is too large, you will
get a slow load time and have the search engines count it
against you.
• Always associate text with images. Each image should
have ALT text added to it because search engines do not
know what a picture contains. You can give a keyword rich
description in the ALT text to gain SEO traction.
• Make your image file name relevant and keyword rich.
Many people visit a website first because an image draws
their attention. Separate keywords with a dash in the file
name.
Component #6 - Domain Information
How long have you extended your domain name commitment for?
Most people renew their domain name every year or two without
thinking about the impact it has on their search engine rankings.
The search engines actually love sites with a long registration time.
It indicates that the site is less likely to be spam. You can stretch out
the registration time for many years and see a positive impact to
your SEO results.
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11. Component #7 - MOZ Rank
The MOZ rank comes from an algorithm that ranks a web page’s
authority from zero to ten, with ten being the highest. This algorithm
looks at both on-page and off-page SEO. When you make changes
to your on-page SEO, it can bring your MOZ rank up. You can find a
few places on the web where they will show your MOZ rank when
you type in your URL.
Component #8 - Google Crawl Date
You want Google to crawl your site as often as possible. When
their search engine bots crawl your site, they update the indexing
information related to it, including your keywords and SEO efforts.
You can get Google to look at your site more often by doing regular
updates with fresh content.
Component #9 - URL Structure
The URL of any web page is the web address people and search
engines use to get to that particular one. Your URL structure can
actually work in your favor when it comes to SEO. Adding keywords
to your URL and making it humanly readable makes it search engine
friendly.
Here are some more tips for making your URL structure SEO friendly:
•
Apply a 301 Redirect when appropriate. A 301 redirect allows
you to redirect an old URL to a new one. If you change the URL of
any page on your site, make sure to put a 301 redirect in for the
new page. Also, make sure you put a redirect in place between
the name of your website with and without the www in front. For
example, put a 301 redirect for yoursite.com to www.yoursite.com.
If you do not do this, search engines may count the two names as
separate sites. That will cut your SEO impact in half.
•
Keep URL nests to one or two levels only. Here is an example
of a deeply nested URL: http://yoursite.com/about/management/
president/contact/phone. This URL has five sublevels. This type of
nesting gets less SEO credit. A better site design will help improve this
problem.
•
Include keywords in your URLs. If you have not purchased
a domain name yet, find one that has a keyword included. If you
already have a domain name, don’t worry. You can get keywords
embedded in the titles of your internal pages.
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12. •
Separate keywords with dashes. Replace any spaces in your
URLs with dashes (-). For example, http://yoursite.com/inboundmarketing/ is a good URL since it captures “inbound marketing” as a
keyword.
•
Create static URLs/Avoid dynamic URLs. A static URL is always
the same. The example http://yoursite.com/inbound-marketing/ is
an example of a static one. A dynamic URL can change in different
circumstances. An example is http://www.yoursite.com/forums/
thread.php?threadid=12345&sort=date. Search engines love static
URLs. Because dynamic ones can change, they will have less weight
with the search engines. Most content management systems offer a
way to set-up static page names.
Balance is Critical
No Stuffing
Avoid keyword stuffing. A major mistake some
web designers make is trying to maximize the
use of keywords by stuffing as many of them as
possible on a single web page. You have seen
pages like this. Let’s say the keyword was “dog
food.” The text of the web site reads something
like this: “Dog food is great. Dog food is nutritious.
My dog loves dog food. Your dog will love dog
food.”
They think that using as many keywords in the shortest amount text
possible will enhance their search engine rankings. In fact, the exact
opposite happens. Search engines bots are getting smarter and
smarter. When a page comes back with too many keywords, the
search engines will rank it lower.
Improving Off-Page SEO with Inbound Links
As pointed out before, off-page SEO makes up 75 percent of your
search engine ranking. It’s simple. Search engines look at what other
websites “say” about you. If other websites have plenty to “say”
about you, you will get a higher authority ranking and a higher search
engine ranking.
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13. How does the search engine know what other websites are
“saying”? Inbound links.
Inbound links are a major indicator of a website’s authority. An
inbound link happens when another website links to one of your
website pages. The easiest way to get those links is to create highquality, easy to share content, then start sharing it through social
media. When you start spreading the word to your followers, they will
start linking to it. Also, share it in industry forums and on other places
where you talk about industry related topics.
How does the weight of inbound links differ?
• The higher number of inbound links you have, the
higher your authority level. Links from one site count less
than links from 10 sites.
• The authority rank of the linking website carries weight.
For example, a link from a major newspaper site would rank
higher than one from your local chat group.
• The linking page’s title counts towards the weight. If the
title is generic like “Home,” it will count less than a title that
is similar to your web page content.
• The anchor text used on the link also counts. Much like
the title, if the anchor text is relevant to your page content,
that link counts more.
That is how you increase your “link love.”
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14. 3
Step Create A Blog
& Marketing Offers
Blogs are a powerful tool in Internet marketing. They attract people
interested in what you are talking about. They also give the perfect
introduction for your company, your services and your products.
When paired with other content like eBooks and webinars, you have
the start of a powerful marketing program.
Today, with platforms like Wordpress and Blogger, publishing a blog
is easier than ever. There is really no excuse for a company not to
have an active blog.
Stop and Think Before You Start Blogging
When you blog, you need to have a purpose. For a business blog,
that purpose is to attract potential customers and to keep current
customers engaged. Think of your blog as a magazine that highlights
your company and what you do. You are going to offer value
to your customers with this blog. This means thinking more like a
magazine publisher sometimes than a business owner or manager.
Choosing your words carefully is the best approach to business
blogging. You have a keyword strategy in place. You are familiar
with the way your customers view your company, its products, and
services. You need to use your customers’ language in your blog
instead of industry jargon. For example, a web designer’s blog would
talk about new features available for customers in language they
understand. It would not use technical jargon about how those
features work.
Integrate Your Blog into Your Website
Many companies make the mistake of using a blog that sits on
someone else’s site. Instead of having a URL like Blog.MyCompany.
com, they may have a URL like MyCompanyBlog.OtherSite.com
that they link to from the company site, MyCompany.com. This shift
of URL is a mistake. Put your blog on your site and have it use your
company’s domain name.
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15. Why is this important?
•
Visitors are weary when one site takes them to a different
domain name. Even though it would be to the company’s blog, this
shift can drive some visitors elsewhere.
•
Putting the blog on another company’s site means there is
a disconnect between the look and feel of your company website
and the blog. That shift can turn some visitors off.
•
Search engines love fresh content. In order for your blog posts
to count towards that fresh content, they must be on your company
website.
Platforms to Consider for Your Business Blog
Popular blogging platforms include Wordpress, Typepad, Drupal,
Blogger, and Posterous. All of these offer the functionality you need
to run a successful business blog. Some key features included in the
content management system for these platforms are:
•
Add content without the need for a webmaster
•
No need to know HTML
•
Schedule posts in the future
•
Update and edit posts on the fly
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16. Creating a Great Blog Post
A good blog post has a few critical elements. Every one of your
posts should have each and every one of these elements:
• Compelling Article Title - Your title is a major deciding
factor in whether someone clicks through to read the
article. If your title is boring or vague, you will see very little
traffic. Be compelling, clear, and specific on your topic. This
attracts readers and prompts them to share with others. You
want titles that also appeal to search engines. Try to use a
keyword in your title for SEO purposes.
• Professionally Written and Formatted Text - Your blog
needs to include text which looks and reads professionally.
Use header tags to break up long lengths of text. Use
bullet points to create easily digested bits of information.
Paragraphs should contain three to five sentences at most.
Use plenty of white space in your formatting. If you are not
a professional writer, consider hiring a ghostwriter instead.
• Add Multimedia Content - Try to add at least one
relevant piece of multimedia to each blog post. Relevant
multimedia content will make your article more memorable
and easier to read. It breaks up the text and makes the
piece more visually appealing. You can add images, slide
show presentations, videos, and infographics as features.
• Add Links - Your articles should give links to relevant
content. These links help your readers get more information
and find other resources on the same topic. You can point
to internal pages to help generate more internal traffic. You
can add links to landing pages to generate leads. You can
add external links to help your SEO.
• Call-To-Action - Every blog post needs to have a
relevant call-to-action. Calls-to-action direct your visitor
to do something. It might be to a relevant eBook or white
paper you will give them in exchange for their name and
email address. It might be to an upcoming webinar you are
holding.
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17. What Do You Write About for Your Company Blog?
You need to start your business blog with a purpose in mind. What do
you want to educate your audience about?
Do not make the mistake of using your blog to talk only about your
products or services. A blog needs to give useful information to the
visitor that goes beyond your products or services. You can write
about common industry issues, problems your customers may be
facing, and the solutions your product or service can offer to handle
those problems. Your products and services get mentioned, but in
the context of solving a problem.
A great way to get started blogging is to tackle common questions
customers ask in your industry. You might answer one or two a week
for the first ten or twelve weeks. You have set the stage for your
business blog. At the end of that time, check your blog analytics to
see which articles are most popular. Use those popular topics for the
next series of articles.
If you are running low on ideas, consider interviewing someone
important in your company. Now, if you are the owner and only
employee, that is very difficult. But, if you have a head technician, or
a sales manager, you have the perfect interview subject.
Always let your passion and experience shine through your blog
articles. Always keep these best practices in mind.
What is the Ultimate Goal of Business Blogging?
Lead generation.
You have a fantastic opportunity to generate
leads with your business blog. A blog allows you
to attract organic traffic while engaging your
audience with quality content. However, the focus
of your blog is always to generate leads and drive
conversions. That is why all posts need a call-toaction that links to landing pages. On the landing
page, you can give the visitor access to in-depth
materials such as an eBook, white paper, or
webinar in exchange for becoming a lead.
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18. Your calls-to-action should appear in the post and in a sidebar to
the blog. You can include CTAs with images, buttons, and text in the
blog itself. Add two or three CTAs to each blog entry sprinkled from
start to finish.
A CTA can include any of the following:
•
Downloading some content
•
Following the business on social media
•
Subscribing to the blog
•
Joining the newsletter.
When placing your CTAs, make sure they resonate with the content
in your blog post. If your blog focuses on nutritional foods, your blog
might focus on how quinoa is a great addition to a healthy diet. For
the CTAs, you could encourage the reader to download a report
that lists 25 other healthy additions to any diet.
Do not use too many CTAs. Too many calls-to-action will interrupt the
flow of your blog. It also looks like spam and will turn visitors away.
Download The Full List of
25 Healthy Diet Additions!
Web Content for Marketing is More than Blog Posts
For internet marketing purposes, blogging is valuable. However,
producing longer-form content is a useful lead generation activity.
These can include research reports, white papers and ebooks.
Adding non-text content like slide shows, videos, and webinars offer
even more choices.
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19. These longer-form content options will feed your lead generation
and conversion efforts. Visitors will love the value these industry
resources offer. The content can educate on basic concepts, enrich
existing knowledge, or just entertain. The richness of this content is
powerful. It can help achieve the information exchange of having
a visitor filling out a lead capture form to get the resource. That is
critical in the sales cycle.
Do not offer content randomly though. Based on marketing
analytics, you need to select your rich content carefully. Reporting
insights will help you select the content to get your target audience
in place. Plus, on-going analytics will help you refine your offerings.
For example, if more people chose to download a white paper than
to view your webinar, you need to put more effort in text-based
content than video-based.
Closed-loop marketing helps find the offers with the highest
conversion rates and then leveraging their power appropriately.
Get Information
Give Resources
Grow Leads
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20. Step
4
Promote Content
Through Social Media
Social media plays a major part in successful Internet marketing.
Leveraging social networks can spread business content and
increase inbound links to your website. As your network grows,
it increases the number of people listening to what you have to
say. All of this can help your business revenue grow. Social media
allows for direct communication between you and your customers,
prospects, and employees. You can use it to drive brand visibility
and recognition online.
While there are dozens of social media channels out there, the top
three players are: Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Before you run
out and open up your social media accounts, you need to check
marketing analytics and create a plan.
Marketing Analytics Begin with Monitoring Social Media
In order to use social media for your company, you need to tap into
industry-related conversation already happening. This offers you vital
information and the opportunity to respond. Certain tools can help
with these efforts:
•
Google Alerts - Set-up Google alerts for your company,
your brand, your products, your company leaders, top industry
terms, your competition, and anything else that will help you tap
into industry conversations. You can have them delivered as they
happen or in a daily digest. This information gives you insight to what
people are saying about your company as well as relevant keywords
for your industry.
•
Hootsuite - This tool allows you to save keyword searches in
a live stream so you won’t miss what people are saying about your
brand, your industry, and your products on social media.
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21. Twitter for Business
If you didn’t already know, Twitter is a social network where people
share 140-character messages to their network. People subscribe or
“follow” another person or company’s network to receive messages.
Spending a bit of time seeing what people are talking about in
regards to your business or industry will help you decide if Twitter is a
good addition to your marketing efforts. If Twitter is a good fit, you
can set-up a free account in just seconds.
Use these tips when setting up your business Twitter account:
• Use your business name as your Twitter username. For
example, if your company is XYZ Company Inc, you can set
up your Twitter name as “@XYZCompany.”
• Use your company logo as the profile image for the
account.
• Create and add a custom Twitter background for
your profile page that offers more information about your
business to visitors.
• Use tools like Hootsuite or Tweetdeck to identify industry
leaders and potential customers that your business should
follow.
Facebook for Business
Facebook is the most popular social media site today. As of
December 2012, the company had over 200 million active users and
one billion accounts created. This audience offers a place to build a
community of followers and to increase word-of-mouth marketing.
You can set-up a business account on Facebook for free.
• Take time to set-up your profile and use SEO practices
throughout
•
Make your logo your profile picture
• Use your new Facebook account to follow industry
leaders and potential customers
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22. LinkedIn for Business
Business people created and grew LinkedIn as a professional social
media site. Many people use it to connect with potential customers
and employers. In November 2012, the company reported over 187
million members. It has become a major place for lead generation,
especially for B2B companies.
Much like Twitter and Facebook, you can get a free account on
LinkedIn when you sign up. Take time to set-up your profile and fill
it in completely. Optimize the profile with links to your company
website and blog. This is the page where other companies will come
and check you out. Make it accurate and show your passion.
If you want to leverage LinkedIn even more, there are two features
that you want to concentrate on:
• LinkedIn Groups - Join industry-related groups in
LinkedIn. These groups offer a place to take part in industry
topics and to interact with industry leaders. It offers a place
to make business connections and to share content.
• LinkedIn Answers - When someone has a challenge
or need, they can post a question to LinkedIn Answers.
When you find a question that your company can answer,
you have a great opportunity. You can give the answer
with links to your company’s products and Use tools like
Hootsuite or Tweetdeck to identify industry leaders and
services that address the issue. Not only will the person
who originally asked the question see the answer, so will
others who search for a similar answer. You can generate
high-quality traffic and see a good number of leads from
just answering a question. potential customers that your
business should follow.
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23. After Setting Up Your Social Media Accounts
When you have your business social media accounts in place and
optimized, you need to take a step that many companies fail to do
or only partially do.
Integrate those accounts into your marketing efforts and start using
them:
•
Add links from your website to those profiles to allow people
to follow you.
•
Offer “Like” buttons on your blog posts
•
Add your profile information to online (website, newsletter,
etc.) and offline (business cards, brochures, etc.) marketing
materials.
•
Post updates routinely when you add a new blog post.
•
Integrate social media campaigns into your marketing plans
Make Social Media a part of your marketing efforts.
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24. 5
Step Convert Website
Traffic Into Leads
So, what have you done so far?
•
Started your blog
•
Applied SEO to your website
•
Got started in social media
•
Began promoting your content via social media
If you have been at this for a few weeks, your traffic numbers should
already be on the rise. You have a growing number of people
visiting your website every day.
Yet you still have a problem. Your new traffic is not generating any
business. Why go to all that effort to have no increase in sales? Take
heart, the process is not done yet. You have set the stage to take
the next step: converting website traffic into quality leads.
All that traffic is poised to enter your sales funnel. Now you will start
moving those visitors further into the sales funnel by converting them
to leads.
How Do You Convert Traffic to Leads?
•
Create a compelling offering
•
Launch a landing page where visitors will give their information
in exchange for the offering and don’t forget to say “Thanks”
•
Create a call-to-action to promote the offering
•
Test and Measure the results and repeat.
23

25. The Detailed Steps for Converting Traffic to Leads
•
Step #1 - Choosing The Compelling Offer
Your offering is what will draw people to your website - the visitors.
It must speak to your target audience and give them a reason to
fill out the form to get access to that prime offering. If you are a
vegetable gardening expert, you want to create an offer that will
attract someone who wants to grow their own vegetable garden,
even if it is for the first time.
You can use product-focused offers as well as
content-based offers. You might offer a free
consultation, a 30-day trial, or a live demonstration of
your product. Use your imagination. You may come
up with a unique offering that no one else has used
in your industry. If you think it will work for your target
audience, try it.
Anything you offer is designed to start a conversation
with your target audience. Whether you are the only
salesperson or if you have a full sales staff, these offers
will get the conversation started so you can lead that
prospect into becoming a paying customer.
•
Step #2 - Create a Landing Page and
Download / Thank You Page
In order to give people the opportunity to sign up for your offering, you
need a landing page. This is where your various calls-to-action will take
visitors. Having a call-to-action with no place to take action is a mistake
made by many. It will frustrate visitors and make them go elsewhere.
Your landing page will contain two elements: a description of the
offering and the form where visitors fill out information before gaining
access to the offering.
•
Offering Description - The description should offer a concise list
of bullet points about the benefits the offering provides. Integrating
graphics into this description is also good. Use clear language with
what you are offering: “Download the whitepaper here” or “Get your
copy of the eBook here.”
•
Visitor Form - The information you ask for on the form is what
you will use for sales and marketing purposes. Do not ask for too
much information as this can turn away people who do not want to
become spam victims. Get the information you need to start the sales
conversion process. You can gather more information later in the sales
process if needed. Many start with name and email address.
24

26. As soon as the visitor gives the basic information, immediately
redirect them to a thank-you page where they can download the
offering.
Not all leads are the same. In the future, you can start filtering out
leads for quality. At this point, getting leads in the pipeline is the
goal.
•
Step #3 - Creating Calls-to-Action
You have your offering and a page where people can sign-up to
download it. You are ready to start integrating calls-to-action to direct
people to the offering.
A call-to-action is a button or link that grabs the user’s attention and
takes that person to the landing page. You can use many types of
calls-to-action throughout your website, in email, on blog posts, inside
offers, and in any other marketing efforts you send in a campaign.
The call-to-action and landing page need to align in message and
look. If your CTA offers “Download this industry leading whitepaper
about X,” your landing page needs the same message. If you change
the landing page message to “Get this eBook about Y,” you have
lost your audience. If you are using a graphic element in your callto-action (button, image, etc.), be sure that look is also present on
the landing page. Make sure your message tell the benefits of your
offering.
When creating a CTA, make sure it links properly to your landing page.
Check it several times before publishing it so your visitors do not get
confused or lost. With compelling calls-to-action, you will start seeing
leads signing up.
Download Free eBook
Download Free eBook
THANK YOU!
Download
25

27. •
Step #4 - Test and Measure Results
To get an exact measure of your conversion efforts, you need to
look at a few critical marketing metrics on the basic elements in your
conversion process: calls-to-action, landing pages, and offerings.
Here are the metrics to watch:
• Click-through rate (CTR) on the calls-to-action - You
may have two or three different CTAs for a single landing
page. You may find that one of those CTAs stands out for
pulling people in while the others are only mediocre. This
allows you to focus your efforts on the CTAs that work with
your audience.
• Conversion rate of the landing page - Your CTAs bring
them to the landing page. How many of those people
are taking the next step to fill out the form and become a
lead? You can offer more than one landing page. Measure
which one of the landing pages has the better conversion
rates.
• Number of new leads and sales from a particular
offering - Your landing pages and CTAs are bringing in leads
to a particular offering. Once you offer more than one
offering, you can begin to measure and compare which
offering is drawing the largest number of leads.
These metrics give you an idea of what is successful and what is not
in your conversion process.
To find what is working best, you have to test different CTAs, landing
pages, and offers. Make changes every three to four weeks to your
CTAs and see if it improves your numbers. Add a different offering
every couple of months and see which one gets the most leads. Test
different versions of landing pages. Keep a copy of the older ones,
you can always switch back if the new version doesn’t work.
In a few months, you will begin to get a good idea of what your
audience likes in the conversion process and what they do not. But,
do not stop experimenting. You can continue to get those numbers
to climb.
26

28. Step
6
Nurturing Leads By
Using Targeted Messages
Here are some statistics to ponder:
•
A full 50 percent of leads are looking for what you have to
offer but are not ready to become a paying customer. That statistic
comes from Gleanster Research.
•
Another survey, this time from Forrester Research, indicates
that companies who have active lead nurturing plans gain 50
percent more highly-qualified leads at 1/3 less cost than other
companies without a plan.
•
MarketingSherpa found that up to 65 percent of companies
have not established a lead nurturing plan.
What does that add up to? A smart company needs to invest time
and effort into developing a lead nurturing plan. This plan will boost
qualified leads with a lower cost than the competition. All of this
effort will put you well ahead of your less ready competition.
Lead nurturing involves building a relationship with your potential
customer. You do this by sending targeted, relevant messages to
your leads in a timely manner. The goal of this effort is to get them
to convert from being a lead into a paying customer. It also lays the
foundation for them becoming repeat customers.
The Concept of Lead Nurturing
Lead nurturing is a plan and a system you put into place to
pre-qualify an early stage lead. Most Internet marketers use an
automated series of email messages to do this.
Getting leads is fantastic. Not all leads are ready to become paying
customers when they are visiting your site. In fact, anywhere from 75
to 95 percent of visitors are not ready to make a purchase. They are
in research mode.
27

29. How much time does it take your sales funnel to move a lead from
the first inquiry to becoming a paying customer? Does this time
vary based on what product or service they ultimately buy? This is
information that can help you in establishing working lead nurturing
plans. You can create campaigns designed to maximize this
marketing channel, to find quality leads, and to enhance your sales
effort.
Best Practices for Email Marketing
Your lead nurturing plan should include a comprehensive email
marketing plan. You need to look at the bigger picture besides
nurturing leads through targeted email messages. You want to grow
your email database, follow metrics closely, and use conversion best
practices.
•
Building your email list
A major challenge for Internet marketers, both experienced and
newcomers, is creating opt-in opportunities. These are the chances
you offer to visitors to opt-in to receive your email messages.
You need to give them a reason to sign up to receive your emails.
This all goes back to your marketing offers. You need to offer unique
and interesting information in emails, like a newsletter or industry
update. When you offer a form for them to sign up, offer clear
reasons and benefits as to why they should do so.
Do not send emails unless someone has explicitly opted in. They
should have to check a box that says they want to receive emails.
Just adding an email without this explicit permission is inviting your
emails to be seen as spam.
28

30. •
Sending Emails
Before sending emails, you need to keep one thing in mind.
Leads respond better to personal messages not broadcast ones.
Each email needs to be relevant to the person receiving it.
What offer brought them to you in the first place? How can you
follow-up to nurture their interest and engage them further?
Here are some points to remember:
• Use a real email sender name and add a personal
signature. It can be the owner of the company or a sales
person.
• Personalize the message and remind them why
they came to your site. “Thank you for subscribing to our
newsletter” or “You recently downloaded the X white
paper.”
• All messages should offer value to the recipient. What
will that person get from your email content? Project that
value in the subject line and the email body.
• Avoid sending emails touting your company and its
products. Keep the sales message subtle to be effective.
• Do not rely on images. Some companies send out an
image that has text instead of a text email with an image
to enhance it. Use images as clickable content in the
email, but your main message should be text.
• Be consistent in communications as this builds trust
with customers. Pick a schedule and stick to it. Keep the
same format and template for the email message.
•
Converting Email Followers into Customers
Make sure each email you send out has a clear purpose and a
call-to-action. What do you want that person to do when they
open your email? It might be to direct them to a landing page on
your website. It could be to share an offer with friends and family
over social media. It might be to download a new white paper or
ebook on your website.
29

31. Even if someone is on your email list, that does not mean they are a
qualified lead yet. You can send out an email asking them to go to
a landing page. That landing page may offer special promotions
or discounts. The landing page can take them further into the sales
funnel and make them more likely to become a paying customer.
When they sign up for this further offer, they are re-converting
themselves into more qualified leads.
The landing page is part of your campaign. Your email messages
and landing pages must be consistent in message, offer, and look.
This will promote the visitor’s trust in the offer.
•
Measure the Performance of Your Marketing Email
You can find many ways to measure your marketing emails. Some of
the metrics include the rate of successful delivery, the rate messages
are opened, the rate of unsubscription, click-through rate, list growth
rate, email-forwarding rate, and many others.
Here are a couple of key ones to follow:
Click-Through Rate (CTR) - This metric measures how many people
you emailed actually clicked on the embedded links. This metric will
give you an idea of how effective your marketing messages really
are. You can try different offers, change email subject lines, create
new CTAs, and tweak other parts of the email campaign and see
the effect on the CTR.
Conversion Rate - This metric measures how many clicks-throughs
actually turned into re-conversions on the landing page. How many
people opt-in for the offer or product? This is the greatest measure
of how well your email marketing actually does. The higher this rate
is, the more relevant and compelling your offer is to your target
audience. Your conversion rate depends also on your landing page
and the effectiveness of your offer. Test different offers and different
landing pages to find the ideal mix.
30

32. A couple of other metrics get a lot of attention, but do not offer a
reliable picture of what is actually going on, specifically:
Open Rate - This metric shows how many people actually opened
the email. Most email clients measure this by measuring how many
individuals loaded the images that are part of the email. This is
unreliable because many major email clients do not automatically
load these images.
Unsubscribe Rate - This metric measures what percentage of
recipients opted out of your email communication. This metric does
not give a reliable measure of your email list health. You will have
some people who do not unsubscribe, but who simply stop reading
and opening your messages instead.
Some More Thoughts
This section offered a look at lead nurturing and email marketing.
These are both essential components in a successful Internet
marketing company. It allows you to engage your customers on
an ongoing basis and to start pushing or leading those customers
further down the sales funnel. This merges quite well with nurturing
leads through social media and other platforms.
At this point, the next step is to think about behavior-driven
communications. Those are the communications based on your
lead’s full history of interactions on and off your site.
31

33. Step
7
Optimize Your Marketing
For Mobile Viewing
Mobile devices are a major player when it comes to Internet
marketing. Need to see some statistics?
•
Over 270 million people in the United States own some sort
of mobile device.
•
About 75 percent of mobile device users use their devices
for shopping.
•
Forty-six (46) percent of users will not return to a site that is
not mobile friendly.
•
By 2014, mobile device use will surpass desktops and
laptops for browsing.
What does this mean? You need to keep mobile devices in mind
when developing an Internet marketing campaign. This means
creating quality content that people can enjoy and share using their
mobile devices, like tablets and smartphones.
How Do You Optimize for Mobile Devices?
There are a couple of options for making your website friendly to
mobile devices: set up a redirect for mobile devices or use CSS to make
your site mobile friendly.
•
Setup Redirect for Mobile Devices - This option means creating
a second version of your website especially designed to work on the
smaller screen of a mobile device. When someone comes in, the
homepage determines the device screen size and if small enough
redirects to the mobile version. The downside of this option is that you
have to keep up two versions of your website.
•
Use CSS for Mobile Friendliness - This option is also known as
adaptive web design. With this option, your website rearranges the
images and text based on the screen size of the device coming in. This
option only requires a single version of the website. The downside is that
the coding for this is a bit more complicated than the other option.
However, most web designers know how to handle this coding.
32

34. Both options are being used by companies around the world. At first,
only the big companies had mobile-friendly websites. Today, the
expectation is that most companies will.
Before deciding which option is best for your company, you need
to assess your website content. What information do you need to
present to mobile device users? These users want useful information.
They need to access key information with easy to use navigation.
They do not want to wade through tons of text to find what they
need. You may need to remove some content for mobile users or to
shrink images for mobile device viewing.
Remember that many mobile device users use their fingers for
navigating. Buttons should be easy to press with the fingertip. Font
sizes may be different for easy viewing on a mobile device.
The Essential Elements to Optimize for Mobile Devices
Make sure your entire website works well for mobile devices. However,
there are a few elements you want to make sure are mobile friendly
for marketing purposes. If you have a web designer working for you,
ask about these elements. Keep them in mind if you are doing it
yourself:
• mails - Emails should be concise and offer a link
E
to a mobile friendly landing page.
• alls-To-Action & Landing Pages - Graphics used
C
in calls-to-action need to scale appropriately for
mobile devices. Landing pages should also adjust
for optimal viewing on a smaller screen. Keep
descriptions short and concise but still compelling.
• ownloads - Be sure to show a download size
D
on any files. You do not want the visitor to get a
surprise when they use a good deal of bandwidth
on a big download.
• ideo - Videos are big users of bandwidth. Either
V
give a short summary of the video or create a very
short version that hits the highlights.
33

35. Mobile bandwidth costs will likely continue to rise in the near future. To
keep your visitors happy, keep your videos and downloads very small.
Give the visitor a concise text summary of video or slideshow content.
That means they can get the gist of the content without eating into
expensive bandwidth. If they are on a WiFi connection, they can view
the full-sized version of the video.
Now, all the Internet marketing strategies are in place. You have
a working engine that is producing traffic, generating leads, and
enticing customers. The next step is to make these stategies efficient
and working at optimal levels.
34

36. Step
8
Analyze &
Refine Strategies
Conclusion
You have all the pieces in place. You have people coming to
your site. This shows up as increased web traffic. You have people
becoming leads. The lead count keeps climbing. You have people
going further down the sales funnel and showing more interest by
re-converting for more offers.
Now is the time to start making adjustments to find what is working
and what is not.
Let’s look at some metrics you should be monitoring and get some
suggestions on how to refine your Internet marketing strategy.
35

37. How to Analyze and Refine Internet Marketing Strategies
•
Get an Analytics Program in Place - Analytics tools help
you gather key measurements that show how well your marketing
efforts are really working. The software ties into your customer
relationship management system. It will give you a great deal of
information on traffic and leads. It will also track new customers
coming in through various channels and campaigns. One example
of this kind of software is Google Analytics. There are other
packages available as well.
•
Identify the Next Opportunities - As you go through your
marketing analytics and activities, look for areas to improve. Do
you want to increase your blog traffic? Do you want more leads?
When something hits you, make a note of it. You can put it on your
next steps list. Always think about your next steps and what you
need to improve.
•
Set Goals for Success - When making a goal, be sure
its quantifiable and has a solid timeline. Let’s say you want to
increase traffic, your goal might be “Increase new visitor traffic by
20 percent by the end of the 2nd quarter.”
•
Refine Your Programs - You have programs in place. Check
how they are performing and make changes. Your intention is to
achieve your goals. You do this by doing more of what works and
changing what is not working. As you make changes, measure
their effectiveness. This is an ongoing process.
•
Evaluate Performance - You have a goal set. You should find
out if you are going to meet that measurement. If you are, you
have made a positive change. If you are off track, what can you
do to change that? Making changes will help you meet goals and
keep your business growing. Monitor your ongoing progress shortterm and long-term.
36

38. Metrics You Need to Follow
Certain metrics will give you critical information on how well your
changes are doing. Before looking at making improvements, you
need to understand what these metrics are and what they stand for.
•
Marketing Grade - The marketing grade offers a measurement
of the weaknesses and strengths of your marketing efforts. The report
will show you information that you can use to optimize your website
and marketing efforts.
•
Traffic - Traffic is critical for measuring how many people are
visiting your site. Which channel has the largest volume? Which one
has the least? You now have a blueprint of what is working and what
is not. You can make changes and launch campaigns to increase
traffic numbers.
•
Leads - How many of those new visitors decide to become
leads? You should see a healthy volume of lead generation. Which
of your channels are generating the most leads? Which ones are
not?
•
Customers - Every customer you get came through a
particular channel. A particular campaign drew them in. You want
to know which campaigns and channels are drawing the most sales.
How many sales did you get this month? Are you improving over last
month? When you see a growth trend, you are on the right track.
You can tell which campaigns and channels are giving you the best
ROI.
•
Keyword Effectiveness - Back in the first section, we looked
at keyword strategy. You now want to know which keywords are
getting people to come visit. Google Analytics makes this easy.
Which keywords are getting you traffic? Which keywords ended up
with the highest lead generation? Which keywords ended up with
the highest sales?
•
Cost of Acquiring Customers - All marketing efforts count
towards the bottom line. You want a low cost of acquisition in
comparison with the amount of money a customer can spend. So,
how much are you spending to get a single customer? Outbound
marketing is expensive with direct mail, pop-up ads, and PPC
campaigns. Inbound marketing is lower in cost and should yield a
very low cost for each new customer.
37

39. •
Comparing New Visitor Count with Repeat Visitor Count - You
want to attract both new and repeat visitors. New visitors show that
your marketing efforts are attracting fresh people to your company
and message. Repeat visitors means you have given those visitors
a good experience and they want to get more. You want to find
the right balance. Some suggest that you need about 15 percent
repeat and 85 percent new. But, your company may be different.
•
Channel Effectiveness - Keep an eye on your channels. Which
ones are sending you the most traffic? Look at this metric long-term.
Some channels will get a spike on occasion. Also, look for referring
sources. Are some external links bringing you a significant amount of
traffic?
Suggestions for Improving Your Results
Here are a few suggestions to improve the results you have seen so
far:
•
Keywords - You can add new keywords or try new versions
of your keywords. Each web page offers an opportunity to use a
different keyword. Add a new web page with new content and a
new keyword. See how much traffic hits it.
•
On-Page SEO - Make a change to an on-page element and
see what happens. You might change the meta description or the
page title. Make a single change and measure if the page gets more
traffic. If not, make another change and measure again.
•
Landing Pages and Conversion Forms - Make a change to
a landing page. Try a new image on a conversion form. A simple
change may make a big difference in the amount of opt-ins you see.
Just be sure to keep your channels consistent in message and look.
•
What Types of Content - If you have followed the strategies laid
out, you have a variety of content for visitors. Look at what people
are visiting the most. You might have a video or webinar getting traffic
or your blog articles may be tops. This tells you that you need more of
that content and you need to adjust the other types of content.
•
Social Media - Like you watch search engine traffic, you need
to check your social media traffic. Which social media channels are
giving you the most visitors? Which ones are getting you leads and
customers? Add more to the successful channels and change your
performance in others.
•
Email Marketing - Experiment with your email marketing
strategy. Try sending emails more often or less often. Change your
CTAs. Keep making changes and measuring the results.
38

40. Conclusion
When someone first mentions Internet marketing, most people see
it as too difficult to even tackle. But, when you break it down step
by step, you can see that you can do it. You will see results. The
information provided here will give you a solid foundation on which
to build your business.
Now you know the fundamentals of building a keyword strategy,
optimizing for search engines, getting traffic to become leads,
nurturing contacts into customers, and how to look at the entire
structure for improvements. All of the industry secrets have been
revealed.
Master these concepts and apply them to your existing strategies
or create new strategies based on these fundamentals. You will
not only see immediate results but will conquer the mysteries or at
least the perceived mysteries of successful internet marketing.
Request A Free Internet
Marketing Evaluation
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