Category Archives: Online Marketing

Online Marketing, SEO

Submit a Sitemap to Google, Yahoo, MSN & Ask

1 Comment

Customers are always calling us and asking how they can rank better in the search engines. This is really a question about “search engine optimization”.

While there are a lot of different pieces to the search engine optimization puzzle, one of the first things you should do is submit your sitemap to the major search engines. This is like telling them “Hey guys, here is where you can find all the pages to my website””.

Basically, a sitemap is an XML file that lists the URLs for each page on your website, along with some additional data that can include things like the last time the page was updated, how often it typically changes, the relative importance to other URLs on your site, etc.

Don’t worry if words like XML sound intimidating, since there are a lot of programs (both free and commercial) that you can use to create the sitemap with just the click of a button. You may want to visit http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/ as a free option, or if you have more advanced needs, you can download A1 Sitemap Generator.

Once you have created your sitemap and uploaded it to your server, it’s time to tell the search engines to look for your sitemap. This part of the process is particularly helpful because not only do you tell the search engines all about your website, but many of the search engines will give you detailed information about your website, such as errors and other potential problems.

To feed your sitemap to the search engines, use these URLS:

Google Webmaster Tools: http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/
MSN Live Search Webmaster Tools:  http://webmaster.live.com/
Yahoo! Site Explorer: http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/
Ask: http://submissions.ask.com/ping?sitemap=http%3A//www.the_URL_of_your_sitemap_here.xml

You can also make your sitemap easier to find by updating your robots.txt file (if you don’t have one of those on your site, you should!) with a line like this:
Sitemap: <sitemap_location>

For more on the sitemaps protocol you can visit http://www.sitemaps.org/

Submitting a sitemap to the search engines won’t get you amazing search engine optimization results right away, but it will take you another step in the right direction.

Email Marketing, Online Marketing

Should You Promote a Product in Your Email Marketing “Happy Holiday” Campaigns?

Leave a comment

All week long customers have been calling in discussing their plans for sending out holiday email marketing campaigns next week and the week after. Tis’ definitely the season to harness the power of email marketing to spread your message!

One customer posed an interesting question to one of our support representatives. He asked whether it was appropriate to advertise one of his products alongside his holiday wishes. When you really think about it, this is an interesting question.

Does it diminish the thoughtfulness of your holiday eCard if it comes across as a promotional piece?
Do people see your holiday eCard as a promotional piece anyway and expect to see advertising?

Personally, I would keep my product promotion out of my holiday email marketing campaigns. I think there is an implicit brand promotion in your holiday eCard without explicitly highlighting a product. Your holiday email marketing campaigns are a time for you to tell your customers that you are thinking about them and to wish them a happy new year. Doing this scores serious brownie points for your brand and I think you lose out on that if you say “Happy Holidays, Happy New Year, Click Here To Buy This Product”.

That being said, there is nothing wrong with putting a link back to your website (… I’d definitely encourage that!) You can even put a message saying you have many new products coming out in the upcoming year to get your customer’s excited.

If you try to do too much in one email, then you run the risk of accomplishing nothing. So, ask yourself, what is the real goal of your holiday email marketing campaigns and you should come up with the exact right answer for what tactic you should adopt.

Offline Marketing, Online Marketing, Random Thoughts

Give Thanks… For Your Customer’s “Attention”

2 Comments

Seth Godin wrote an interesting Thanksgiving post where he thanked his readers for giving them a wonderful gift, their “attention”.

This is a very important concept that many business owners I talk to seemingly overlook. In today’s world there are a million distractions. Between TV, radio, books, billboards, iPods, bus advertisements, web sites, email ads, text messages, cell phones, Blackberry’s…well, the list goes on and on. The point is, there is always something vying for your attention. With only 24 hours in the day, that makes someone’s attention a highly sought after commodity.

Often times I hear business owners say something to the effect of “I don’t understand why my customers didn’t read all the way to the bottom of my email advertising campaign”. Then, I’ll take a look at their email and it appears to contain half the text from the Encyclopedia Britannica! I then ask the business owner if they would have time to read the whole thing, to which the reply is often a hesitant delay (realizing their blunder!) and then the statement “maybe not”. Well, if you won’t give you own content enough attention to get all the way to the bottom, you better believe that your customers are willing to invest a whole lot less than you are!

This is why it’s vital to put the most important pieces of information at the very top of your web page, your email, your hand-written memos, etc. If you assume that people are only willing to give you 15 seconds of their time, then you can strategically approach the way you present your content.

So, this Thanksgiving, while you’re giving thanks, don’t let “attention” slip your mind because if you don’t appreciate your customer’s attention, then it may not be long before you lose it.

I thank you all for reading this =)  […I guess it’d be hypocritical to not say that!]

I’ll close with this quote:
“On Thanksgiving Day all over America, families sit down to dinner at the same moment – halftime.”
— Unknown

Have a great Thanksgiving!

Online Marketing

Conversion Tracking Is Vital For Search Engine Marketing

1 Comment

Today a customer called and spoke to one of our Account Executives. This customer had just launched a brand new website selling holiday baskets targeted towards children and was very excited about it. The website looked good and their product seemed solid.

They told their Account Executive that they were looking to drive as much traffic as possible to their site and had just started doing all sorts of search engine marketing. She initially setup accounts on both Google AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing.

When their Account Executive asked the following question, the response was very alarming:

Account Executive: “Did you setup conversion tracking for both Google and Yahoo?”
Customer: “What’s conversion tracking?”
—
Me Listening From The Hallway: “Oh brother!”

You must and I mean must have some type of conversion tracking in place if you are going to do search engine marketing. One of the biggest benefits of online marketing is that you can get key measurements in real-time to maximize your results.

Conversion tracking essentially means “tell me which ads actually result in the person (or potential customer) reaching my desired goal”. This goal may be purchasing your product, signing up for a free trial, joining your newsletter, contacting you for more information, or anything else you may think of.

If you are not measuring your conversion rates for search engine marketing (SEM) then you are flying blind! And, while you’re flying blind, you’re dumping more and more money into certain ads that may not be producing anything positive for you at all.

There is no excuse for not measuring your conversions since both Google and Yahoo embed conversion tracking options into your advertiser control panel. And, it’s very easy to setup, since you typically just have to copy and paste a little bit of HTML code onto your ‘conversion success’ page.

Conversion Tracking

With 30 seconds of effort you’ll have vital conversion information at your fingertips that Google and Yahoo even show you prominently on the page as you review your account. With this information you can make better decisions to help boost your online marketing initiatives.

So, stop flying blind…welcome to the information age….make sure you HAVE some important information you can use!

Email Marketing, Online Marketing

Don’t Overlook Landing Pages for your Email Marketing Campaigns

Leave a comment

I just finished writing an article about driving sales with landing pages, which you can find in email marketing university.

But, I wanted to post that topic here as well because so often it is overlooked by marketers.

Just like search engine advertising produces better conversion rates, email marketing has the same reaction.

With so much clutter in the marketplace these days, it’s vital that you guide your customers down a very fine path. Don’t give a link to your homepage, if you know they’re interested in a specific product.

It’s amazing how many email campaigns I see where someone is selling widgets and it’s a featured item in their current newsletter. Below the sales blurb about the widget, there is a learn more link. Clicking that link should definitely absolutely positively be bringing me to a page about widgets. But, instead it brings me to their companies homepage where I am bombarded with a ton of other distractions and messages coming at me.

You know what… maybe this customer was willing to click ‘buy now’ or ‘add to cart’ if it was right their on their screen with some more product info. But, now you’ve dropped them into a maze and said “you work for it if you want to order this!”

Not really a good email marketing or general marketing strategy.

The quickest way to get your customer from point A to point B. That’s what you’ve got to be thinking about!