Aligned Marketing Blog

The challenges, however, are twofold:

1. Very few of those potential customers realize they need SEO. I heard a speaker claim that 85% of the websites in existence get fewer than 5 visits a month. I don’t know if that’s true but the point is there’s a lot of wasted investment in the online world. Why would anyone invest in a website and then not invest in driving traffic to that site? “Build it and they will come” is a horrible strategy.
2. The reason people are reluctant to invest in SEO is because it’s an inexact science. Google and the other search engine tell you a little about their search algorithms and we learn a lot through trial and error but, in the end, SEO is part guesswork and there is no perfectly optimized site. There’s always more than can be done and there’s nothing you can do that your competitor can’t do as well. In theory it’s a level playing field (see below). SEO is a necessary investment but not a sure investment; more stock than bond.

To overcome these difficulties I use blogs, emails and social media to educate my target audience on both the importance of SEO and the basic tactics they can employ to improve their search ranking. For example,

1. When you perform a Google search you get a page with 10 results. Those 10 results drive approximately 42% of the search traffic. If, however, you’re on page two, search results 11-20, you can be expected to get 21% of traffic. That’s a big difference! You could double your traffic by moving up to page one.
2. The difference between page one and page two on Google is often something very minor, perhaps something as small as a Header. The lesson is small differences can result in big results and, depending on your business, huge increases in visits or even revenue.
3. Since no site can be perfectly optimized the goal is make sure your site is more optimized than your competitor’s site. For my SEO clients we pick one competitor to benchmark against and then, once we’ve overtaken them, pick another site to benchmark against, and so on. Picking one competitor at a time allows us to define our own playing field and create a competitive advantage. A rifle approach produces more targeted results, is easier to measure and, often, less expensive than the shotgun approach where you try to do everything perfect.

Lately I’ve tried a new marketing tactic and it seems to be working. I find a website that I know needs work and provide a free evaluation along with 3-5 specific recommendations for improving the site. Call me if you'd like to evaluate your site for free.

Done with tact, most people seem to appreciate the comments and, as a result, some new work is coming my way.

Steve

800-707-9150

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I talked with two well-regarded companies last week, both leaders in their industry, and came away with the feeling that their marketing teams are being dumped on. Their stories are remarkably alike.

Their IT Departments built capable websites years ago under the direction of senior management. Both sites contain useful information, have comparable functionality to their competitor’s sites, and represent their brands well. They are, in effect, brochure sites designed to communicate a general message to a general audience. Both sites were developed based on generic business goals.

Sometime between the birth of those sites and today senior management figured out that a website is a strategic asset. A website needs to be part of an overall business and marketing strategy. I know, shocking.

Senior management goofed. Now they want marketing to lead complete makeovers of these websites and, in addition, launch the company into the world of social media. The word "world-class" was used by both teams. As Sportscaster Keith Jackson would say, “Whoa Nellie!”

First, this is a great opportunity for marketing to step up and make a major contribution. The problems are:

1. The existing marketing teams have minimal competence in online marketing. They have a basic understanding of the web, as consumers, but lack the deep understanding needed to create an exceptional web-strategy from the ground up.
2. The existing marketing team has always been a support group, the nice people that create brochures, so they have little strategic capabilities and the requisite confidence needed to lead effectively.
3. Senior management has failed to articulate the business goals that are necessary for successful online marketing.

That last point is critical. As mentioned, both teams have been told they need to build “a world-class website.” As I told them, I’m in the business of building websites and I don’t know what that means. No one does without a clear understanding of the overall business goals.

Here’s why. A world-class website must be tied to a business goal. The architecture of a world-class website built to drive lead generation can be markedly different from a world-class website built to be a central repository for technical information, a library of support, if you will.

Can the two goals co-exist on one website? Sure they can. You bet. In fact, every page should have a business goal. The same applies to social media.

The company’s social media goals need to be well defined. Are you trying to become or extend your role as thought leader? Is the goal to reduce customer service costs by utilizing platforms such as Facebook and Twitter? Or are you just trying to drive more traffic to your website?

There’s no absolute right or wrong here. I take that back. I think it’s wrong when senior management fails to do their job and then dumps on marketing.

Steve Hartkopf

800-707-9150

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Does your company have specific business goals for your social media activities? If not, you should.

In a November 2009 survey MarketingSherpa discovered that approximately ninety-four percent (see chart below) of those surveyed use social media to increase their website traffic, which is not surprising.

What might surprise you is twenty-one percent don’t actually measure their results and five percent have no specific objectives for their social media activities. So I can only assume that they’re on LinkedIn and Tweeting, for example, because they think it’s the right thing to do.

Doing something for the sake of doing it doesn’t sound like real business to me, does it to you?

The other thing that surprised me was the relatively low number of respondents who use social media to reduce their customer acquisition and customer support costs. I mean, the tools are free!

The bottom line is social media is a free and easy to use platform for promoting your business and communicating directly with your customers and prospect, so use it.

If you’re not sure how, give us a call.

Steve Hartkopf

800-707-9150

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