Building An Online Marketing Strategy

This slide show was presented by Peter Kent on May 25th, 2005, for the Boulder Writer’s Alliance.

The presentation is © Copyright Peter Kent. You may review this presentation, and forward to friends and colleagues, but must not use it for presentation purposes or any kind of publication, without the permission of Peter Kent.

Peter Kent720-771-3246Peter@PeterKentConsulting.comwww.PeterKentConsulting.com

Peter Kent

720-771-3246Peter@PeterKentConsulting.com

Building an Online Marketing Strategy

May 24th 2005

Why Have a Web Site?

Hand Out a Business Card Sell Offline Customer/Technical Support Provide General Company Information

(a you’ve-got-to-have-it Web site) Sell Online

Hand Out a Business Card

Prominently Displayed URL

…combined with…

Simple Web Site w/Contact Information

Sell Offline: W2S = Web to Store

4th Qtr 2004 Survey (ShopLocal.com) 83M People: Research Online, then … Spent $250 online Spent $400 offline Spent an additional $200 on products not

researched

2005 Web2Store Benchmark Survey, The Dieringer Group

“W2S shoppers rely on the Internet nearly twice as much for local purchasing information compared to traditional shopping media, such as newspaper advertisements and inserts; local TV and radio ads; and other media”

“Off-Channel Shoppers”

Most Internet users are “off-channel” shoppers

Spend more $ offline after online research, than online

Almost half spend extra $ once in the store

Forrester Research

Ways to Sell Online

Auctions – Primarily eBay Marketplaces –

Amazon, PriceGrabber, Overstock.com, uBid.com, SmartBargains.com

Your Own Site

Auctions

eBay Yahoo! Auctions Amazon Auctions

“corvette” Amazon: 31 (0 bids) Yahoo: 55 (2 bids) eBay: 20,887 (10,000 –

11,000 bids) 900 cars

eBay

14,000,000 items listed right this moment! 7,000,000 will sell within the next few days 264,000 eBay Stores 1.7Bn listings/year (~50% sell) $44bn sales/year 61m active buyers

34 Ways to Get People to Your Site

1. Build it and they will come

2. Search Engine Optimization

3. Pay Per Click

4. "Banner" Advertising

5. Trusted Feeds

6. Advertise Through Existing Offline Ads

7. Dedicated Offline Advertising Campaigns

8. Push People to the Site from Your Brick-and-Mortar Store

9. Offline PR10. **Directory Registration

(Including Specialty Directories)11. **Link Placement12. *Reciprocal Linking13. Yellow Pages14. **Local Directories15. *Selling on eBay

16. Direct Mail

17. Shopping Directories

18. **Community Marketing

19. **Blogs – Your Own

20. **Blogs – Other People’s

21. *(?)Affiliate Programs

22. Coupon, Discount, & Freebie Sites

23. *E-mail Newsletters – Your Own

24. *E-mail Newsletters – Other People’s

25. E-mail “Bulletins”

26. *“Giveaways” on Other People’s Sites

27. **Content Syndication

28. *Product Syndication (wallpaper, utilities)

29. Browser Toolbars

30. Viral Marketing

31. Specialty Directories (e.g., Knowledgestorm)

32. Offline Promotional Tie-Ins

33. Customer Referrals

34. In-Package Promotions

Push from Brick-and-Mortar

Local Directories

Shopping Directories

Toolbars

Community Marketing

Coupon, Discount, & Freebie Sites

Content Syndication

Viral Marketing

Specialty Directories

In-Package Promotions

SEO: You’ve Got a Problem

Few Web designers understand SEO There’s a lot of misinformation The Search Engine companies

encourage misinformation Basic mistakes can ensure your site is not

found

Which Search Systems Matter? Google (=AOL, Earthlink, Netscape,

Amazon, etc.) Yahoo! MSN Open Directory Project (=Google,

AOL, 300+ others) Teoma/AskJeeves (=About.com,

Mamma.com, etc.) = 99%+ of all searches

Other Search Engines

Only two reasons:

1. Specialty Search Engines

2. Provide Links

Are You in the Google Index?

How many pages in a site?:site:bwa.org

Particular page?:http://bwa.org/resources/index.htm

You Can Hurt SE Visibility

Frames Invisible Navigation Dynamic Sites, Generated from Database Session IDs Required Cookies

You Can Help SE Visibility

Understand the Keywords Use the Keywords! Simple Pages Text Links Site Maps 404 Pages

Frames

SE May not go through frame definition Each page indexed separately Can’t link to particular page

Real problem with Froogle, et. al.

Solution . . . Don’t use Frames! …. Or….

FRAME DEFINITION Add TITLE Add METAtags Add <NOFRAME> with Indexable

Content

INTERNAL PAGES Add TITLE Add METAtags Add simple text navigation Use <a href="index.html" TARGET =

"_top">Home</a> links

iframes Add internal link to help SEs find

documents

<iframe src="page.html"><a href="page.html" target="_blank">Click here for more Rodent Racing information if your browser doesn't display content in this internal frame.</a></iframe>

Flash & Images

Quick and dirty way to create a Web site Search engines can’t read images Search engines often won’t read Flash If they do, don’t weight text well

Invisible Navigation JavaScript scripts JavaScript links (href="javascript:void(0)"

onclick=" ) Java Applets Flash

Finding Invisible Navigation . . .

Turn off JavaScript Turn off Java Look in source code Loading Java Applet msg

Solution …

Add Text Links … preferably near the top if large pages

Dynamic Web Pages

Sites can be totally invisible

Look at the URL

http://www.cartoys.com/cartoys/category.cfm?&DID=7&TopCat_id=20008&CATID=20105

Search for Page…

Google Toolbar i button cache: Type URL site:domainname.com

Solution…

Create static pages Remove ? / # * % & Reduce parameters to one URL rewriting – mod_rewrite

Session IDs

https://www.savingstreet.com/quickRegistrationPopupHome.do;jsessionid=703E3D0DD00EC53B9A088A6D8B5800E0

Problems: Won’t Index Wrong Page

Solution…

Allow searchbots to crawl w/out session IDs Cloaking Cookies

Required Cookies Turn off cookies and try moving around in

site

Searchbot must be able to receive page w/out accepting cookie!

You Can Help SE Visibility Simple Pages Understand the Keywords Use the Keywords! Text Links Site Maps 404 Pages

Pick the Right Keywords

Overture Google Wordtracker

You Need Content Real text, not images Content rules Multiple pages, interlinked

Use the Keywords! One or Two Phrases per Page

TITLE DESCRIPTION KEYWORDS <H> tags Bold Italic Bullets, etc. Title Case <STRONG>

Keyword Prominence Keyword Density

CSS Vs. <H>

H1 {

font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;

font-size: 16px;

font-weight: bold;

color: #3D3D3D

}

Other places for keywords…

ALT text Comments <!-- -->

Internal Links Dense interlinking Site Map 404 with site map

Use keywords on links! No click here links

Site Structure Keywords in domain names Keywords in filenames Keywords in directory names Flat directory structure

Remember LocalSearch Include zip code, address, on every page Include address info in TITLE &

DESCRIPTION Find other reasons to mention city name

in content

Local Search – Register Your Business

Register with Yahoo! Register with Google MSN soon?

Entering the Search Engines

1: Submissions (sometimes) 2: Search Engines Find You 3: Paid Inclusion

Registration?

Registration often doesn’t work You need Links! “Paid Inclusion”?

www.lumbermansexchange.comwww.lumbermansexchange.com

www.LumbermansExchange.comwww.LumbermansExchange.com

wwwwww.Lumbermans.LumbermansExchangeExchange..comcom

www.orlythematchmaker.comwww.orlythematchmaker.comwww.OrlyTheMatchmaker.comwww.OrlyTheMatchmaker.com

www.horanandmcconaty.comwww.horanandmcconaty.com

www.HoranAndMcConaty.comwww.HoranAndMcConaty.com

wwwwww..HoranHoranAndAndMcConatyMcConaty..comcom

www.horanandmcconaty.comwww.horanandmcconaty.com

wwwwww..HoranHoranAndAndMcConatyMcConaty..comcom

www.relaxtheback.com www.RelaxTheBack.com

www.mallofamerica.com www.MallOfAmerica.com

www.sanyolcd.com www.SanyoLCD.com

www.sprintpcs.com www.SprintPCS.com

Peter Kent720-771-3246Peter@PeterKentConsulting.comwww.PeterKentConsulting.com

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