Marketing your website

The internet is a crowded and competitive market place, with millions of sites jostling for people's attention, it is up to you to rise above the clutter and make sure your website is found.

Search engines

Any online marketing plan must take into account the major search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Ask and MSN. This is the first port of call for many surfers and a high ranking can mean the difference between someone visiting your site and never finding you. How search engines find and rank websites differ, but the common themes tend to be:

Meta tags: Meta tags allow website owners to describe their website for search engines to categorise and rank their relevance for an enquiry. The Meta tag description is a short summary of the website which is displayed in the search engine results. The Meta keyword tags are a list of words associated with the website's subject matter so that search engines can evaluate what the website is all about. The importance of these has reduced over the years due to misuse (constantly repeating one word to get a higher ranking). In fact search engines penalise sites that repeat words excessively in the Meta keywords.

Content: The frequency by which words relevant to a search appear on a website increases the level of ranking. In essence the search engines ‘read' submitted pages to find keywords or key phrases. Experts suggest having 5-15% of the opening text made up of the keywords. The methods used by search engines to rank pages also allow them to identify and distinguish between new and old content and the frequency of updates. Those sites that are seen to regularly update their content will be ranked higher.

Links: Another way search engines rank the importance of a site is by the number of links going to and coming from a site. They work on the assumption that the more links there are to a site, the more likely it is to be useful.

Site map: A site map will make it easier for the search engines to follow the links from pages around the site and make sure your entire site is indexed.

Paid for listings

There is contrasting evidence as to the effectiveness of PPC (Pay per click) adverts on search engines; however, there is no denying that they represent a much quicker method of getting your site listed than using the natural listings.

With PPC adverts you only pay when people click on your advert and you can set a daily budget to make sure you do not overspend, however the more competition there is for a keyword, the more expensive it will be to advertise.

E-Mail

A common misconception is that using emails to advertise your website is quick, easy and allows you to contact anyone whose address you can get hold of effectively and efficiently. Any business that takes this approach is at best going to irritate customers and at worst be brought up on criminal charges! The key factors that every business should always consider before starting an email campaign are:

The law
The campaign objectives
Target audience
Response mechanism

The law

Above all else you must make yourself aware of the laws surrounding email marketing and the implications of non-compliance. The law states that a company can only send e-mails to individuals who have agreed beforehand to receive them, or where they are already existing customers¹, (it is still legal to send unsolicited emails to businesses.) An email is classified as spam if it is both unsolicited and part of a bulk mailing whereby the recipient's identities are largely irrelevant to the content². Under current UK legislation, those who are considered to be sending spam could be fined £5,000 in a magistrates court or an unlimited penalty from a jury³. The best way to get consent from non-customers is to offer information they really want. On your website let them know the benefits of signing up such as latest news, special offers open only to them, prize draws etc., obviously along with the ability to register.

Campaign objectives

As with any marketing campaign you must clearly define what you hope to achieve and how you will measure success. For example, do you want them to read the email, click through to your website or actually purchase something? Email campaign objectives can usually be grouped into:

Special offers: Offer your customers discounts, new products, refer a friend, prizes...

Invitations: Social event, seminar, club...

Relational: Keeping in touch with company/ product news, upcoming events...

Target audience

Language, content, and design should all be created in combination with your brand and the target audience in mind. If you were a marketing company you wouldn't send an email to professionals providing definitions of basic terms.

Response mechanism

There are various methods of providing the ability to act.

Links to your website
Call a member of the sales team
Buy a product or service
Sign up a friend

A popular feature with many marketing emails is "sign up a friend" to increase the size of the contact list. If you decide to do this, make sure it is clear in the email why the friend has received it and who signed them up, otherwise you may be perceived as spam.

Always give the recipient the option to unsubscribe from future mailings. From a social stand point it is rude to continue mailing someone who doesn't want to be mailed, and from a business stand point it is a waste of your time and could be damaging to your brand in the long term if you develop an unwelcome reputation.

The advantages of using email marketing include, low costs, it is instantly measurable and it is proven to work. But this is only when it is done correctly and treated with the same care and attention as any other form of traditional marketing, such as print advertising. If you are struggling to think of anything interesting to say, it is likely your respondents will find it hard to find something interesting to read. Utilise email marketing as an integral part of your communications mix in support of other traditional efforts and not as an after thought or a token gesture.

Marketing to your existing customers/ visitors

Successful marketing is not just about gaining new customers, keeping people coming back is vital for any website as it is far more cost effective to keep a customer than to always have to go looking for a new one. Ideas include:

Provide free regularly updated information (to help with your search engine rankings) such as recipes from a grocer, research papers from a marketing site, or guides to keeping a car running from a garage.
Ask for feedback from visitors and customers and act upon any good ideas. By doing this you will receive honest and constructive thoughts on how your site can be improved. You will also break down the traditional barriers by demonstrating to your visitors that there is a human behind the technology.
Offering incentives and rewards for people to become regular customers/ users. E.g. 10% off tenth purchase.
Show information about more expensive items or services when they are browsing to encourage them to trade up.
Create a members area which has features not available to non-members e.g. research papers, forums, exclusive product/ company news etc.

Other methods

Word of mouth: If you provide you visitors with an interesting, unique, and/ or user friendly experience, you can be sure that your name will be passed on to family, friends or colleagues. You can encourage word of mouth by offering incentives to recommend someone with vouchers/ money off for the referrer.

Link building: Getting yourself listed in sector specialist directories is a good idea as they tend to dominate the search engines, which means in turn you will be found as well. Also have a look for any sites that are not in direct competition with you that may wish to have reciprocal links e.g. a site about the Lake District and a campsite in the Lakes. This will direct targeted visitors to your site and increase your standing in search engines.

Forums: Be very careful if you intend to go onto forums to answer queries by offering your service/ product. It may result in a backlash from the very online community you want as customers.

Press releases: Your local newspapers, chamber of commerce magazine, trade publications, and industry specific news sites are all highly receptive to receiving and running news items. The advantages of press releases are that they are free, have a high degree of credibility attached to them by readers and they are good profile raisers amongst your target audience. Some simple tips:

Summarise the full story in the first paragraph
Start broadly and get more specific as the story goes on
Do not send anything longer than a side of A4 (1.5 spaced lines)
Put a border around the page
Use quotes if stating an opinion e.g. John Doe, Managing Director, commented "..."
State when it can be used e.g. For immediate release
Provide your full contact details at the bottom
Provide information on where an editor can specifically find sources in a footer if you have used 3rd party statistics

¹ theregister.co.uk/2003/12/10/uk_antispam_law_goes_live/print.html
² spamhaus.org/definition.html
³ news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3120628.htm