Tag Archives: Web Marketing

Does Your Website Make the Phone Ring?

Are you the type of business person that likes getting phone calls from your website?

Do you get worried when the calls stop? You should.

I have clients call me all the time when their business slows down.  I normally check the Web Analytics to see if the traffic decreased and if there were any economic changes that could affect their visitor traffic. I talk with my clients to see when this started then try to piece together a picture of what is going on and create a plan to get that traffic back.

I notice that several things need to be in place:

  1. Have your phone number visible on the website – normally in the header.
  2. Be sure to have a contact form on your website to send e-mailed requests.
  3. Do not place your e-mail address on the web apge unless you want to have your e-mail address harvested by the giant spam machines out there.
  4. Are you adding new content on a regular basis? – You need to keep your website up to date.
  5. Is your web hosting working properly? Does your website ever go down and how often? Did you have web site monitoring in place?
  6. Do you have call to actions in place? Like asking people to call or contact you for that special you posted?

These are but a few ideas – but you need to look  over your website on a regular basis and keep checking your web analytics.

A Quick Overview of Web Marketing

I talk with clients all the time about how to market their websites and what they need to think about and expectations.

  1. The fastest way to get traffic is to use pay per click marketing with Google and or Yahoo
    - You pay a small amount of money every time someone clicks on your ad – no guarantee that the person will purchase
    - This can result in traffic within one day
    - This can have a higher cost, but measurable. Let’s say you have a marketing budget of $10.00 per day and each click costs .50 – so you can get 20 visitors per day. Out of those 20 visitors you may get 1 person to purchase. Then you measure the cost of the sale versus the cost of the pay per click advertising – essentially measuring ROI to determine if this way of marketing is cost effective.
    - Most of the time it works out in favor of the website owner, but there are times that we discover issues. Sometimes the visitors may not like what they see or how the sale process works. The ads may need to be tested to find the right combination of phrases. The keywords need to be expanded to find the right quality of keywords that results in traffic and conversions. We also need to determine negative keywords so your ad does not appear for things your marketing should not be displayed for.  The good news if one thing does not work, we can test other keywords, ads, landing pages, correct shopping cart issues, etc.  to find the problems to correct – that will work.
  2. The second way to market is the natural method – Optimization and Link Building, this is a much longer process to get traffic.
    - This method can take 3-9 months (or longer depending on competition) before any traffic is seen. Many times I suggest more of a refined or small market to target – like South Florida. As the site is built up in one market and sales are resulting from that work, we begin another market, North Florida, then Georgia, etc. This is a very long process, but it will eliminate the cost per click avenue.
    - Optimization is preparing each web page for a particular keyword phrase (or phrases). The search engine will view this web page and decide that that keyword phrase will be the one you may be found for. Depending on the competition, plus other Search Engine factors, this will dictate your Search Engine ranking placement (SERP).
    - Now to help your SERP, you must help those ranking results by increasing the number of incoming links from other websites – this is the Link Building side of the equation.
  3. The third and most popular way to market is to do both Pay Per Click and Natural. This is the most expensive, but it will result in a solid marketing process. The pay per click marketing is used for immediate sales and should last for about 3-9 months covering the time it takes to get the natural link building process in place. As the Natural Marketing Method takes hold and top rankings become evident, you can then ease off the pay per click marketing.

This is the short answer for marketing a website.

There are other marketing tools that can fit well into this marketing like Press Releases, YouTube Videos, Blogging – writing articles that will pull your products into each article,  plus other web marketing opportunities.

Good luck in your marketing, you know where to call if you need help.

Kindest Regards,
Lee Smith
Smitty’s Search Engine Marketing & Optimization
Office (954) 423-2785

When Was The Last Time You Updated Your Website?

by Lee Smith

There are many reasons for updating your website. You want to keep the information current, accurate and relevant.  You want visitors coming for the right information, not for things not related to your business.

First, Keep your information current, if you change an address, phone number, or and  email address – you contact information needs to be up to date – otherwise you could be loosing leads, sales or future business.

Second, To add new products or services.  The web site is a pure reflection of your business, so let people know exactly what you are offering to the public. You could even be cutting back on your products or services, this can also be an opportunity to tell people why you are doing that. You could also be upgrading products or services with an explanation of the new products. This way you can piggy back on the marketing previously performed.

Next,  You can add more content about information concerning FAQ’s or  glossary of terms. There is always something to add as far as a definition, something that is always asked or a new term that people use.

Finally, updating your website gives the search engines more information to index about your products and services.  To become a recognized resource by the search engines, you need relevant information for them to increase your rankings.

Relevant Content is the foundation of all web based marketing. Adding content on a regular basis is one of the keys to successful web marketing.

Good luck in your marketing

Smittysholdings.com