amyrivers.com

In answering web marketing questions for my clients, I often find myself thinking “this information could really benefit all of my clients” or “this is just what Jane asked me about yesterday.” In an effort to share information and encourage open communication, I’ve created this blog.

I’d like to ask my readers to send me their questions and comments regarding website marketing. Whether you have a general question or something specific about your site, please post your comments here and I will try to provide answers that will benefit everyone.

Looking forward to seeing your posts!

Inbound links, links leading from other websites to your website, are very important in achieving higher search ranking and direct traffic to your site (provided they are high quality links and relevant to your business). The activity of link building allows you to connect with other businesses online, creating a strong online network and opening the door to professional relationships. Here are five easy ways to make link building a natural part of your business process:

1. Ask for links anytime you begin work with a new client or vendor. Whether you’re on the giving or receiving end of a product/service, its important to ask for a link and to be willing to provide one for the client/vendor - its mutually beneficial.
2. Ask colleagues, business partners and mentors to link to you. These are people who know you and can provide not only a link, but some related information to provide context for site visitors.
3. Request a link from any organizations  you belong to. And once the link is live, verify that the information is correct and that the link works.
4. Post press releases on online PR distribution sites like PR Web and PR Newswire. Be sure to include a link to your website in your press release.

Extra tid-bit: Allocate 5 minutes everyday to identify new websites that would make good link partners for you. If you make this task a part of your work schedule everyday, it will soon become second nature.

When optimizing a website, you’ll need to first identify the keywords that are most relevant to your business and are most likely to be used by potential customers to search for you. There are a variety of tools online that you can use to come up with your list of keywords, but before you start using a tool, I recommend brainstorming a basic list yourself.

First, think of all the words and phrases you would use to describe your core services. If you sell necklaces, perhaps you’d use keyword phrases like “buy necklace” or “jewelry store” to describe your business.  Try to think of at least 10 phrases relevant to your business.

Next, use the thesaurus. While you may use “car sales” to describe your business, your customer may be looking for “auto sales” or “buy new truck.” It’s important to think about the different ways a potential client might try to find you.

Then, look at competitor sites! It’s always a good idea to know what your competitors are up to, and they may have thought of wording that you hadn’t considered.

Finally, once you’ve come up with the widest variety of possibilities on your own, then you can use an online tool to figure out how many people are searching for the keywords your chose. You can use Overture, Wordtracker, or a variety of free tools you’ll find by searching for “keyword research tool” in Google or your search engine of choice. These tools allow you to search for a keyword and find out how many people searched for it over a period of time. You can use this information to prioritize your keywords.

For instance, if 1000 people searched for “auto sales” but 10,000 searched for “car sales,” you might want to use the higher volume phrase in your optimization efforts. On the other hand, more searches means more competition and it may be harder to rank high for high volume words. Tools like Wordtrackerwill also allow you to run a competiton search to see how competitive each keyword you chose is.

It’s one thing to think about marketing your website. It’s another thing entirely to actually have a plan and write it down. I cannot stress enough the importance of establishing a plan for marketing your website before you start (or hire someone). 

Now, I’m not saying that you need to be an expert or even know anything at all about Internet marketing to come up with a plan. But the important thing is to really think about what it is you’re trying to accomplish. Are you trying to increase sales? Improve traffic? Create a better message? Whatever your particular goals are, its important to have those goals in mind when you start the the process of marketing your site.

Moreover, it is really critical to have an idea of what you are trying to accomplish before you hire a consultant or SEO firm to work with. The reasons: 1) if you don’t know what you want, it’s going to take extra time to define your goals (a task which, hopefully,  your website marketing consultant will do first thing). 2) if you don’t know what you want, its going to be difficult for you to measure success. This is really important, because, when you invest time and money into your website, you want to feel like you’re seeing a return on that investment. Without knowing what you are trying to accomplish, it is impossible to tell whether you’ve gotten there or not.

 Okay, so enough theory. Here’s how you can put this into practice:

1. Brainstorm: Sit down either by yourself or with members of your staff and think about all the things you’d like the website to do (even if some of these things are “long-term” goals, it”ll help you understand the bigger picture).

2. Write it down! I cannot emphasize this enough. Don’t waste your time trying to remember what you brainstormed about. Write it all down so that you can easily review and prioritize your ideas.

3. Review & prioritize: Read through your list and prioritize based on relative importance to your business and on the resources available to you. If you know you cannot afford to add live video to your site now, this should not be your #1 priority. On the other hand, don’t be afraid of the costs at this point. You may find that there are inexpensive solutions to items on your wishlist.

Whether you’re doing your own website marketing or hiring a firm to help you, coming up with a basic plan - a list of priorities and goals - will put you in control of the situation and allow you to better measure success!