Express Marketing Memo

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It’s been a fascinating week with a diverse workload. I’ve had the opportunity to work on a couple of new projects, including copy and layout for packaging and a sell sheet for a new product launch, did some ghostwriting for a new client, and I’m knee-deep in a web site development project.

No, I’m not a jack-of-all-trades, but rather a single point of contact for busy customers. I manage projects, write all copy and provide a layout, but outsource graphic design. I’d like to outsource web site coding, and will someday … all in good time.

My fascinating, diverse and very welcome workload has put a crimp on this week’s blogging. I’m hoping to get back on track this next week. Until then, here’s a short link roundup of articles about marketing your web site:

Startup Nation offers an in-depth series of articles called “Five Steps to Marketing Your Website.”

Junta42 blog explains content marketing as simple terminology for a complex process. Content is information that meets your customers’ needs. Content marketing is distributing and promoting that information to your target audience:
Putting the marketing in content marketing: Six key principles to content promotion

Converstations recently published this Glossary of Blogging and Social Media Terms.

Link Spiel’s exceptional post outlining the basics of building incoming links:
Help! I’m new. I need links. What can I do?

Small Business SEM explains how to use Flickr photos to build inbound links.

That’s it for today. Have a great weekend!

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“Words are electric; they should be chosen for the emotional voltage they carry,” according to Ray Bard, author of “Secret Formulas of the Wizard of Ads.” This rings true regardless of the media displaying your message. Whether we’re talking about web sites or print advertising, content is king.

Bard goes on to say, “Weak and predictable words cause grand ideas to appear so dull that they fade into the darkness of oblivion. But powerful words in unusual combinations brightly illuminate the mind.”

Yes, grand ideas require powerful words. But so do simple ones.

How powerful is your web site copy? Are your words relevant to your market? Do they carry emotional voltage?

To know if your words are relevant to your market, you’ll need to do some research. This falls under search engine optimization (SEO).

Before writing the first line of copy or code for a client’s web site, I want to know the actual phrases people type into the Google search box to find a similar business. So I head over to Wordtracker with a basic list of phrases that my client and I consider appropriate.

Wordtracker answers the question, “What are people searching for on the Web?” It helps identify keywords and phrases that are relevant to your business and most likely to be used as queries by search engine visitors.

Using these phrases properly throughout each web page is the beginning of search engine optimization. But for the purposes of this article, we’re focusing on your copy’s overall relevance to your market. In other words, to the extent your site is search engine optimized, you will draw traffic from Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc., but for now we’re laser-focused on drawing that visitor in.

You’ve done your research; now what? Add electricity – emotional voltage. Speak to your audience as one person. What are his hot buttons? What is her point of pain? What problem does your product or service solve?

Throughout the process, weave in those keyword phrases you found during your initial research. Don’t just toss them in for the sake of search engines; carefully weave them in for the benefit of your visitor.

As a copywriter, I’ll admit that this explanation is a bit oversimplified. There is so much more to consider. Yet this is the beginning of the process that results in powerful copy.

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Is your web site working for you?

Is it producing leads or sales? As many as you’d like? Or is it a monthly expense with little to nothing to show for itself?

Effective online marketing isn’t mysterious. If your web site isn’t performing as needed, there’s a reason for it. Let’s look at some common reasons that web sites perform poorly.

Web site Purpose:

Whether your web site’s purpose is to provide information, collect leads or sell product, realize that it’s only one tool in your marketing arsenal … but a very important one to most businesses.

So let’s start there, what exactly is the purpose of your web site? How does it help you meet your business goals?

Without a clearly defined purpose, even the most highly promoted web site will not succeed. Have a fresh set of eyes review your web site and ask, “Does my web site accomplish this purpose?”

Search Engine Relevance:

At least 80% of all new traffic is the result of a search on Google, Yahoo, MSN, or one of the lesser search engines. Each search is performed on keyword phrases relevant to what is being sought.
• Do you know what keyword phrases people would use when they’re looking for what you offer?

• Are those phrases woven into the headlines, body text, hyperlinks, and lists on your web pages?

• Are they used in your META tags, including page titles, description, and keywords?

• Were they taken into consideration when you built the navigation for your site?

• Does your site have incoming links from other relevant sites?

• Have you added alt text to all of your images?

Your search engine results to a large extent depend on positive answers to these questions.

Visual Appeal vs. Ease of Use:

Flash animation on your home page might look great, but it stands in the way of web site results. Search engines don’t see past the Flash, so all those great keyword phrases are wasted. And since many people still use a dial-up connection, do you really want to slow down their search for your quality web content?

Photos not optimized for the web will slow down the loading of your web pages. Rather than wait for large photo files to load, many people will simply move on to another site.

Navigation must be clear, easy to follow, and duplicated on every page of your web site. Without navigation on every page, a visitor may end up landing on a page that goes nowhere, without any idea of how to get to any other page on your site. Make it easy for your visitors to find what they’re looking for.

In future posts, we’ll take a more in-depth look at each of these components of an effective, results-driven web site.

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