Website Marketing Fundamentals and Your Look and Feel Upgrade

If you are in business or are a professional, you probably have a website or are thinking about creating one. A website can be a powerful marketing tool if used correctly.

Your first consideration is to have your website fit in and be a part of you marketing strategy. You and your company have a strategy whether it is informal, formal, written or simply by "default;" that is, reactive rather than strategic.

Clearly if your website does not match up to your marketing strategy and plan there will be a disconnect.

If your website is "disconnected" from your marketing plan you will join the millions of business owners and professionals that have static websites that are more like newspaper or magazine ads.

This old school approach is becoming very old school. Those companies and individuals that are leveraging web technologies for marketing are gaining strong competitive advantages even in regional and local markets.

But as the saying goes, without a map or plan you can end up anywhere and anywhere is not smart business, especially in marketing.

What do you want your site to do? Maybe sell a product, relay information, generate an inquiry, set an appointment, request more info; the possibilities are endless.

That is why you need to decide first what you want your site to do and it should be a solid business decision, in fact one of your most important business decisions.

After you determine you goals, you should assess how appropriate is your site in meeting those goals. Who is your target market? What are your target market's demographics and interests?

In web sales and marketing terms you want to look for the conversion or next step from your target audience. If your product or service is low consideration such as a product sold directly through e-commerce, then your conversion would be a direct sale.

If your product or service is high consideration, such a kitchen remodel or roof, your conversion may be a phone call, inquiry, email, appointment or in-person visit.

If you have no site, determine your budget first and then your timeline. If you have a site that needs to be updated and upgraded, also determine your budget and timeline.

Unfortunately many older websites cannot be upgraded or made search engine friendly and you may have to start again.

Before doing anything, look carefully at the keywords and keyword phrases that your viewers will use to find you. Make sure these keywords are 'loaded' on your site, especially your homepage.

Viewers find your site through keywords and keyword phrases; if these keywords are not on your site how will they find you?

You can pay for ads and pay-per-clicks, the big advantage being you can target your audience. Don't forget that more and more search engine algorithms are tending toward fresh original content also known as organic search engine results.

The good news is that your "organic" content is permanent, or at least until you remove it. Unlike a paid ad that goes away when you stop paying for it, organic content lives on indefinitely making it an excellent value for your marketing dollar.

An important fact to remember is that if you don't update your site regularly the search engines stop making spider and crawler house calls to your site. If your goal is to attract the search engines then you must update your content regularly.

Use promotional interviews, promotional articles, quotes, blogs, links, backlinks and anything else you can to create content and make the search engines take notice. It's all about your content.

Make sure your site, especially your homepage, is full of your logo and brand. If you have neither, develop them. Remember that many expensive logos and brands don't work and you don't have to spend a fortune to get a good one.

If your site is new, you need to optimize it for search engine accessibility. This is known as search engine optimization or SEO. If your site has been up for some time and has lots of content, SEO will be less effective but still may be of value.

Search Engine Marketing or SEM is a more comprehensive marketing strategy plan than SEO. SEM usually implies paid marketing but increasingly free marketing has become very effective depending on the market or space your company is in.

Don't forget your site's look and feel which should match your company's look and feel. If you sell luxury boats you don't want your site looking like you are CraigsList.

Conversely, if you sell discounted goods from China you don't want your site to look and feel like Macy's website.

Clearly some content is better than other content and remember that your content should parallel your marketing plan. But don't forget that even minimal content is now better than no content.

"There may be talk of recession and consumers may be less susceptible to advertising than they used to be, but consumers are still human," says Julia Hyde of Creative Search Media in Scotts Valley, California, "and the science of psychology will still make them spend their hard earned money. The goal is to persuade them to spend it with you."

The bad news is technology is allowing your competitors the same access to web marketing as you have.

The good news for you is hopefully they haven't heard about it yet.


About the Author

Jack Deal is the owner of JD Deal Online Marketing and Deal Business Consulting, Santa Cruz and Monterey, CA. Related articlesmay be found at http://www.jddeal.com/blog/marketing and http://www.freeandinquiringmind.typepad.com/marketing

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Tips on Promoting Your Garage Sale

Begin your enterprise by cleaning out your own attic, closets and basement or garage. Talk with your relatives and friends; tell them what you're doing, and ask for donations (or at least consignments) of unwanted items. It's here that you'll get your first experience in negotiating, and you'll usually get enthusiastic cooperation. You'll find people explaining that they really don't have a use for a specific item, don't want to keep on storing it, but for sentimental or other reasons, they have just hung on to it.

Once you have a little bit of experience, you'll be able to advertise in the newspaper that you purchase garage sale items, or take them on consignment for a percentage of the final sale price.

Its best that the wife or woman of the house handles the garage sale itself - that is, let a woman be the one who greets the potential customers, shows them around, and generally engages them in conversation. If it's a woman staging the garage sale, then arrangements should be made for a second one to 'mind the store' while she's out digging up more items for display and sale, If you are running a really big sale, a second or third per son can be very useful in selling, and just generally keeping an eye on things.

The advertising angle is really quite simple, and shouldn't cost you very much, either. Check area newspapers, and select the one that carries the most ads for garage sales. You shouldn't concern yourself too much with competition from other ads. People who go to garage sales either go to all of them they can locate, or else only to those within a 3-to-5 mile radius of their homes.

You should run a small classified ad in the newspaper of your choice for about three days in advance, and up through the day of your sale. Once you're operating on a full-time, every-day-of-the-week schedule, you'll want to change your ad schedule and the style of your advertising. But in getting started, stay with small classified ads simply announcing the fact that you're holding a garage sale, emphasizing that you've got everything from A to Z - something of interest to everyone. Such an ad might read:

Big Garage Sale! Hundreds of interesting items.
Through Saturday, July 16th. (address)

To get ideas on how to write your ad, check your newspapers for a week or two. Cut out all the garage sale ads you can find. Paste them up onto a piece of paper - then with a bit of critical analysis, you will be able to write a good ad of your own from identifying the good and bad features of the ads you've collected. Keep in mind that the bigger and better your sale, the bigger and better you're 'getting started' ads should be. Always remember that in order to increase your profits in any business, you must increase rather than decrease your advertising. At the bottom line, you'll find that the greatest single reason for a garage sale failing to turn a profit is the lack of promotion and advertising used to publicize it.

You should also have an old-fashioned "sandwich board" type sign to display in front of your house when your garage sale is open for business. The purpose of course, is to call attention to the fact that you're holding a garage sale and are open for business. This will pull in your neighbours, if you haven't already informed them, and attract people driving by. Sandwich boards are also sometimes set out at key traffic intersections not far from the site of the garage sale. These will attract attention, and point the way. However, check your local ordinances to be sure that this sort of advertising is permitted.

Another 'sign idea' practiced by a few really sharp operators, is the old 'Burma Shave' type roadside pointers. Here, you simply make up a few cute sayings (verse or one-liners), write them on pieces of cardboard, tack them onto the power poles at about 200 yard intervals on the thoroughfare leading to your garage sale, and you're sure to create a lot of traffic for yourself. People are amused by, and drawn to people who do something a little different, unusual and creative in promoting a sale of any kind.


About the Author

Uchenna Ani-Okoye is an internet marketing advisor.

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