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Using Your Web Site For Alternative Business Communication

In the wake of the recent terrorist attacks, with business travel not returning to historical trends, our need to communicate via alternative means has peaked. Often our need to communicate information to customers, employees and other parties extends beyond the public domain, where your company information is accessible to anyone.

Having the ability to provide your customers, employees, distributors and other interested parties with private and confidential information is now an essential element in your communication strategies. Providing private information to anyone who has a relationship with your company and a need for custom, confidential or otherwise non-public information will help reduce costs by improving the speed, efficiency and accuracy of your communication.

Not only will this benefit you by publishing information that would otherwise be more expensive to communicate, but it is also an excellent way of creating a cycle of communication between you and the other party. By providing a reason for them to visit your web site, you are both reinforcing your identity and providing an opportunity for additional communication back to you.

There are many applications for having private or secured information on your web site. Here are a few worthy of mention:

Pricing

Companies maintain private pricing information on their web site when they do not want their competition to have access to their entire price list, when they want their customers to access prices only after having a level of initial contact, or when they provide customized pricing for high-volume or special clients.

Account Information

Offering clients access to their account information, including historical activity, is a great way of creating a barrier to competition. By offering account information that is both useful and convenient, it makes it difficult for the client to consider doing business with another company. It would be hard for a customer of your car service company, for example, to use a competitive service if you offered a historical vehicle maintenance records on your web site. Choosing a competitor would cause the historical records on your site to be inaccurate and therefore, they would become less meaningful to your customers. There is a value to this kind of service that would be reflected in less client churn and higher profits.

Staging Areas

If you have a business where the service you provide needs client approval or is accomplished over a period of time, you might consider developing private client staging areas. Each area would be focused on a particular client and display status reports, progress descriptions and pictures of the client's project. You can even include feedback forms for the client responses.

Forms, Guides, Etc.

Account forms, user and help guides, and other documents that are useful for doing business with your company should be posted to your web site, making it that much easier for you to share and distribute the materials.

Other Confidential Information

From clients lists to employee policies, your web site can and should be used to communicate information that is needed on a repetitive basis. The benefits are mostly obvious, but sometimes they can be less evident. For example, by maintaining this information on-line, you will never get the excuse that someone lost or did not receive the material: your web site is always in the same place and always accessible.

Keeping Pages Private

There are many ways to keep pages private from public viewing on your web site.

• The easiest way is to create what are called 'orphan' pages. Orphan pages have no direct links from your public web site. That way, no one viewing your web site will accidentally find them. When clients need access to these pages on your web site, you simply send them an email with the link (URL) in the email message, which they can then easily click on.
• Another method is to secure a specific area of the web site, requiring entry of a single user name and password for anyone to access this section. To set this up, you will need to make some simple changes to the settings on your web site host server.
• Still another method is to require each individual to establish an account with a unique user name and password, to access the private section. To set this up, you will need to create and maintain a database and web site scripting.

Sometimes it takes extreme times for us to change our behavior. In this case, the need for communicating via your web site provides many important and effective benefits and few, if any, disadvantages. And, once explored, you will find many additional uses for it than you originally thought.

Battling the Search Engines

Four years ago, the major complaint about search engines was how difficult it was to get relevant results for many searches. Searching on a phrase like "new england clam chowder", for example, would bring up results in categories ranging from hotels in New England to how to find for clams. It is of no great surprise that with the exponential growth of web sites and the explosion of advertising revenues, search engines have dramatically improved their abilities to match web site listings with search phrases.

With use of search engines at an all time high, it is increasingly important for web site marketers to be well positioned. At the same time, the difficulty in obtaining a good position - somewhere in the top twenty listings - is critical to achieving maximum exposure. Obtaining these hard sought-after top listings requires implementation of a wide range of tactics. Following are some important concepts as it relates to search engine positioning.

How Search Engines Rank

There are literally hundreds of search engines yet there are only about 18 major search engines with enough traffic to matter to most web site marketers.

There are three steps to being found in the search engines. The first step is to be accepted into the search engine's results database. It is important to understand that search engines do not literally search the world wide web at large, rather they utilize a highly structured and organized database. Becoming part of this database is critical to being found. Some search engines develop and utilize their own database. Many use databases provided by other companies and many use multiple sources.

The second step is to be part of the list presented when key words are searched on. The third step is to be found at the top of this list.

Each search engine uses a complex and proprietary algorithm to determine how to deliver listings from its database. There are three primary aspects to getting listed:

Relevancy - The search engines will attempt to rank your web site based on how confident they are that your web site content correlates with what the viewer typed into the search box.

Popularity - Many engines use a measurement of how popular your site is to determine how to rank it. Popularity is measured both by traffic to your web site from within their search engine, as well as how many other web sites (including other search engines) link to your web site.

Paid Placement - Some engines offer advertising opportunities to web sites for specific phrases. Companies can bid on phrases they want their web site to be found under. You pay only when someone clicks on your web site listing.

Types of Search Engines

Search Engines fall into five major categories:

Search Engines

Search Engines have an automated method of analyzing web sites and recording information about them for their database. Popular search engines include Alta Vista, Excite, Lycos and Hotbot.

Directories

Directories look and feel exactly like search engines except that they use humans to review sites and determine if and how they will be placed into their database. Yahoo, the most popular search engine of all, is a directory, as well as LookSmart and GoTo.com.

MetaEngines

MetaEngines search the results of other search engines and directories. MetaEngines do not maintain their own database of results. DogPile and MetaCrawler are examples.

Feeder Engines

Feeder Engines provide database listings and results to other web sites. Virtually every major search engine uses the data and results of other search engines. Engines that provide data to others include Inktomi, The Open Directory Project and LookSmart.

Pay For Placement

Some engines have moved to a paid placement listing methodology only. There is only one popular engine offering this service (GoTo.com), but expect other engines to consider this plan soon.

Getting Found

Getting Found in the search engines, as described above, depends on whether your site is found in the search engine database, how relevant your site is in relation to the current search, and how popular your site is in comparison to other sites. Fortunately, you can have a major impact on all aspects of this process.

Content - It all starts with the content within your web sites. Having a good web site, with solid content, will help in getting accepted into directories and to being considered relevant against a wide range of searches.

Preparation - Preparing your web site for the search engines is a science, with many companies specializing in these services. Because the search engines electronically analyze web sites, it is possible to prepare your web site in a way that will increase its ranking. Techniques to accomplish this task include editing your site's title, keywords, and descriptions. Also critical to your success are the opening words of your pages, and whether the key words you want to be found under can actually be found on our web site. There are many other detailed techniques that can help raise the ranking of your pages.

Submission - Submitting your site to the search engines is a critical part of the positioning process; it can not be taken lightly. Directories require that you select one or two categories and enter a title and description. They will often modify your entries to suit their needs, provided they even review your submission. Keep in mind, that you can submit more than one page to each of the engines, but not the directories. There are programs and services which offer to automate much of this process but be aware that no program can handle the directories and all the engines automatically.

Guaranteed Reviews - Yahoo and Looksmart, perhaps the two most important players in the search engine game, both offer pay for review services, guaranteeing your submission will be reviewed within a specified period of time. Serious web marketers should consider these services, as without them your site is likely not to make it into Yahoo at all and will probably not obtain the highest ranking possible in Looksmart or its feeder sites. Inktomi is soon to announce a guaranteed review service.

Paid Listings - Pay for placement opportunities (in search engines like GoTo.com) are very often economical investments, with many phrases costing a penny or two to have top ranking.

Measurement - Unfortunately, preparing your site and submitting it once does not always work, and circumstances change over time causing current rankings to falter. Therefore, it is necessary to review your positioning with respect to your key phrases in all the search engines, as often as every two to three months. Once these results are analyzed, it is usually prudent to make some changes to your site and resubmit to the search engines.

Web Site Maintenance: Why You Need Keep Your Web Site Current and How to Make It Easy

Build it and they will come, right? Famous last words for most web site owners.

Gone are the days when you could expect your target audience to visit your web site specifically looking for your products and services. Today's searchers are often-times conducting research to answer their questions that may ultimately lead to a purchase. It's because searchers expect to find sites that answer their questions that they continue to surf until they find what they're looking for.

But Nothing's Really New ... Not !

To make your web site stand-out amongst stiff competition, your site needs to be current with content that anticipates your customer's needs. Depending on your industry, you may be able to develop a web site with all the right ingredients that is evergreen and never needs to be changed. But, that's not likely.

The more likely scenario is that your industry has lots of updates for things like product improvements, technology changes, product use, environmental conditions, demographic changes, industry news, event schedules, current events, etc.

You can think of it this way: If your site is not current, your potential customers who are searching for information related to your products and services will find one that is.

Is that incentive enough?

Your Web Site Maintenance Options

There are many methods for web site maintenance, including these: Web Editors, Web Based Administrative Systems, and Enterprise Content Management Systems.

Web Editors

Web Editors offer a basic level of building and maintaining a web site. These include two popular tools: Microsoft FrontPage and MacroMedia DreamWeaver. Virtually all web editors enable you to edit and maintain the basic components of most web sites (html, images and java-script), some better than others.

The web site files reside on a host server, and typically you will maintain these files on a development computer (your desktop) and post them to the server. This is all accomplished through a simple FTP (file transfer protocol) connection allowing you to transfer files back and forth. This works even when you did not originally develop your web site.

Web editors do require some training and a basic understanding of html, although most people can get by learning as they go.

Web Based Administrative Systems

Web-based admin systems come in a variety of shapes and sizes, most customized for your particular web site by a web site development company. The vast majority are designed to maintain a database that stores and displays information, including text for specific pages, images for a photo gallery, event information for a calendar, articles for a news archive, and so on.

The web based admin system, if designed properly, won't require any additional software. You simply access a secure web page through your web browser, and edit the database by clicking on intuitively labeled links. Good web-based admin systems allow the computer neophyte to maintain their own web site with minimal training.

Some web editors now include, or are associated with, web-based administrative systems.

Enterprise Content Management Systems (CMS)

There are two version of CMS. The first is where you as the customer subscribe to a web site hosting company's "do-it-yourself" online web service. The second is when you own and maintain your own CMS.

Content Management Systems produce the entire web site through complex database driven features, with multiple layers of permissions and users. They are typically very expensive to buy and maintain requiring teams of people in all aspects of support. For that reason, CMS are usually reserved for the big-boys. You would already know it if you needed one or if you were using one.

If you're subscribing to a web-based CMS service, the typical business model is to pay monthly, which will include web hosting. Such CMS services typically will have many features that go well beyond the learning curve of the average web site owner. But, CMS can also have design and functionality constraints that will leave the progressive web marketer wanting more, left to pursue the options described above.

Whichever method you find yourself using to maintain your web site, the point remains the same - a well-maintained, current web site will attract the largest most qualified target audience possible.

E-Commerce Checklist (as seen in the Kansas City Small Business Monthly - October 2007)

Planning is key when deciding to set up an e-commerce business. By Cassie Woolworth

Is an e-commerce business your dream? Before you start to sell on the Web, you first must determine what you are going to sell. What is your product or service?

Next, determine the "variations" in your product (or service). Is there a need for size or color selections, for example? Will you need additional information from your customer, such as the size of a room? All of these factors need to be considered before you begin designing your online presence, so that you build a site that meets your business needs.

One of the most important considerations in e-commerce design is ease of use for the customer. You need to set up your store so customers can buy using the "three-click" method. You don't want to make the sales process so difficult they quit halfway through the purchase. The three-click rule says visitors should never have to visit more than three pages after the home page to find the information they want.

Issues to Consider

Below is a checklist of issues surrounding an online store and the questions you need to ask. Don't worry if you haven't yet handled all the issues, just start now.

1. What will you sell?
   This seems easy, but you have to determine what you will sell and how you will get product images on the Web. Do you have a digital camera? Will your supplier provide a catalog image?
2. How are you going to structure your store?
   Will you put multiple pictures on a single page? Maybe a single item with its description on the page? What will the page look like?
3. What is your pricing?
   Are you going to give discounts for multiple products? Will you offer coupons?
4. How will you take payment? Credit card merchant account, Paypal, C.O.D. or checks?
   If you decide to take credit cards directly, you will need to decide on whether you want to do the processing online automatically or by hand (with equipment rentals). The fees are lower with equipment rentals. Keep in mind that Paypal only charges when you get an order, while credit card processing through a merchant account has monthly minimums.
   You also must determine a refund policy. Will you give cash refunds or exchanges only? Will you charge a restocking fee?
5. How will you ship?
   Are your shipping fees applied per item or by weight? You might want to link directly to UPS or FEDEX for specific rates, or you may need to add a handling fee. Do you need "threshold" shipping?
6. How will you fill the orders?
   Does your supplier "drop ship," or will you have to get packing materials. Do you need to talk to a fulfillment house?
7. How will you promote your store?
   Will you link from your company Web site? How about search engine optimization? Just as in the "real" world, you have to get traffic to your store to sell.

Building Your Site

After you have addressed these issues, you need to decide how you will build the e-commerce site. Will you hire a Web developer, or by an "off-the-shelf" software solution. If you decide on a software package, find a product that will help you sell online with all the features you need. Often the best solution is to get the basic package and expand from there¾adding the features you need.

Lastly, will you build the online store and maintain it yourself, or do you have a Webmaster? If you are going to manage the store, you may want to look for a site that has store templates provided. Remember, working the online store is just as important and difficult as working your "bricks and mortar" store. There will be an ongoing process of updating inventory, adding products, changing prices and handling payments, so this might be a good time to train yourself on the system. Remember, this is a business, and you must treat it as one.

Laying The Groundwork - Part 1

Marketing a business on the Internet requires a wide variety of skill sets both in depth and breadth. No matter how we approach it, the web is a medium through which we communicate to our customers, distributors, employees and other important stakeholders. Though it may be the most important arena for this communication; it is not the be-all and end-all to our business. Behind it, your business must be supported by the same types of knowledge and talent found in successful businesses in the physical world.

The dot com roller-coaster we have all witnessed over the past few years have taught us a few important lessons about the world-wide-web. Some of these include:

• Successful online businesses don't just happen. There are few overnight successes and even then, disaster can strike if you don't have a good balance between your revenues and expenses. Sooner, rather than later, your business must be profitable.
• It is possible to build a strong internet business through association with a physical business. In fact, pure on-line plays struggle with problems of attracting and servicing a new customer base while existing businesses can rely on current clients and a built-in infrastructure.
• Striking it rich on the Internet is not based on luck (although luck never hurt). It is based on sound, fundamental and well executed business plan. Marketing an online business requires a well organized and focused strategy.

About This Series

First, let's begin with what this series is not. It is not a step by step process for earning a million dollars with your computer in your spare time. There are no hidden secrets divulged, or proven steps that will make any site successful. Rather, it is a thoughtful review of what makes the web tick based on sound, practical analysis of why people visits sites and why they ultimately become customers. Along the way, we will introduce many specific suggestions on how to take advantage of attracting a targeted audience to your web site. We will introduce many proven techniques for marketing your site both on and off the web. We will focus some specific energy on the search engines as an important vehicle for promoting your web site. And, we will also provide you with design recommendations as it relates to marketing on the web.

With this in mind, we will go forward into the first of this twelve part series on marketing a business on the internet.

Let's Begin

In order to fully appreciate the concepts we will discuss in this series, it is first necessary to lay some groundwork. Having a common understanding of some of important marketing terms and being exposed to the current demographics of the internet will prepare us better for what lays ahead. Here then are some concepts, terms and statistics to better understand.

What Makes The Web Tick

The exponential growth in popularity of the web since the mid-90's is the result of several key factors. Here are some of the most important:

• HTML: Hypertext Markup Language, the basic code behind almost every web page, is easy to use and easy to learn. The fact that the HTML coding of any web page is "open" and available literally to make self-taught experts a daily reality.
• HyperLinks: The links on web pages we follow from text and images make it possible for us to be transported to any Internet Host computer file anywhere in the world, without first having to know the address.
• Search Engines: Paper Directories were once produced and available for purchase in book stores, never mind the fact that they were obsolete the second they were published. Search Engines provide us with the sometimes frustrating ability to locate web sites, through complex algorithms of categorization, popularity rankings and relevancy to your searches.
• Browsers: The software you use to view web sites makes it irrelevant what type of computer you are using. With browser software (typically from Microsoft or Netscape), MacIntosh and IBM PC's can see the same web site anytime anywhere.

Laying The Groundwork - Part 2

Basic Terms

Now on to some basic terms to help you sharpen your marketing saw. The following terms relate to traffic on your web site and to banner advertising on your site and others.

Page Views: The number of page views on a web site represents the number of times various pages on your web site were seen by an individual. A page on web site can be longer than one computer screen; in fact it can be infinitely long. If one person saw the same page twice, it would count as two page views.

Hits: Hits are contrasted with page views in that hits represents the number of files that are seen (or delivered from your server) on your web site. The number of hits on a web site virtually always far exceed the number of page views on a web site. That is because each page usually contains references to many files, including every separate image that is shown on the page. For example, a page with a background image, eight buttons, and one logo will count ten hits (9 images plus one html file) compared with one page view.

Clearly, you will only want to know how many page-views a particular site has, if you are interested in advertising on it. So, if someone is reporting the amount of traffic on their web sites in terms of hits, you must either ask the question "What exactly do you mean?" or walk away quickly since they may be trying to misrepresent the facts.

Sessions: A session is a term that represents a visit by one person to your web site. If the person returns at a later date, then a new session is recorded.

Impressions: Impressions refers to how many times an advertisement is seen on a site. It usually correlates with page views, since an ad is usually seen on every page view.

CPMs: CPMs stands for Cost Per Thousand and refers to how much you will pay for one thousand impressions on a web site.

Click Thrus: Click Thrus represents the number of times someone clicks on an advertisement and can be measured as a percentage. It is helpful to compare historical click-through percentages of your own advertising versus other advertisements.

Important Statistics

Here some facts and figures that are helpful in giving us a barometer of the present marketing environment.

Finding Sites: There are now well over 1 billion web pages in existence, with thousands being produced each day (perhaps each minute). With such an incomprehensibly large volume of information out there, it becomes increasingly difficult for web marketers to be found on the net. Despite the fact that search engines are extremely difficult to be listed in, 46% of new web sites are found via the search engines, while another 22% are found through Internet links and ads. Just 8% of new web sites are found as a result of traditional media, leaving the source of the remaining 20% to come from word of mouth (1).

Advertising: Advertising click-thru rates and CPMs have been dropping precipitously over the years. This does not mean that there is no value in advertising, as we will discuss in great detail later. It does mean that you should be very aware of what you are buying. You can expect a click-thru rate in the area of .3% and an average CPM of about $30 (2).

Spending: Consumer online spending is on the increase, with an expected annual purchase of $550 per person in the year 2000 (3). The average person went online over 300 times last year (2). So, when you figure that an average purchase will be somewhere in the range of $20 to $100, that's a lot of sessions where no purchasing was going on. It may be prudent to ask ourselves what everyone is doing on the net when they're not buying.

Design Limitations: Consider the following when you design your web site. We'll discuss how this should translate into your web site later on in the series.

Colors: Just under 20% of the population has computer screens that can see 256 colors or less. Photographs and images that are not part of the browser's common color palette are changed without your control.

Screen Size: About 20% of the population has a monitor that can see only 640 pixels across (meaning that they can not see a page that is wider than that without having to scroll left to right). Furthermore, most people do not have their browsers set to be the maximum width of their screen, meaning that most people would have to scroll to see 800 pixels across.

Netscape: Netscape browsers represent about 34% of the market. All those nifty applications and programming that work exclusively with Microsoft do not work with Netscape, shutting out over 1/3 of the market. Yet, it is quite possible to design a superior web site for all browsers to enjoy.

Broadband: Just about 6% of the population enjoys high-speed internet access, such as DSL and Cable Modems. About 94% of the population are still on dial-up modems with speeds far less than 56K. Think about this when you want to provide streaming media and other high-band width plug-ins on your web site.

That's it for this issue. Stay tuned for our next issue in this series, when we dive right into Marketing a Web Site and the difference between brochure-ware and highly effective, targeted web sites.

Glorified Advertising Billboards

It's A Sin

Do not commit the sin of creating a Glorified Advertising Billboard on the Internet.

When you're driving down a highway with thirty seconds or less to look at a billboard, all you really have time to absorb is a short concept or message. The sponsoring company is hoping to connect with the driver and cause them to take a subsequent action, because, after all, you can't do business with a billboard. So, if the transaction is successful, the billboard will have enticed the viewer to call the company, or perhaps visit their web site.

Billboards are pure marketing devices. They serve the company's purpose by promoting reasons for doing business with them. Billboards do not offer valuable information; rather, they point interested consumers in the direction of additional information.

On the web, producing a site that has little more than marketing information on your company is the equivalent of creating an electronic billboard for a web site. While it is virtually never wrong to promote your company on your web site, merely offering 'brochure' type information on your web site does not take advantage of the full power the internet has to offer.

Media Similarities

To understand this better, it is first important to recognize that the Internet is not unlike other commercial media, such as radio, television and newspapers. By evaluating what makes the traditional media tick, it is possible to apply similar tactics to this new communications environment.

On T.V., we generally tune in to watch a show, the news or some other educational, informational or entertaining program. Spread throughout this programming are advertisements sponsored by companies who want to be associated with the respective programming. The advertisers know that some viewers will be influenced and respond positively to their messages, either quickly or over time.

The same is true about newspapers and radio. We don't turn the radio on to hear a commercial, but the advertiser is banking that its message is reaching a targeted audience who will respond. Similarly, the advertisements on newspapers are positioned according to the section of the paper and whether, presumably, there is a match between the reader and the message.

Programming Versus Advertisements

The rule here is that consumers do not read, view or watch their favorite medium for the advertisements. They are there for the programming, or what I call "content". The advertisers know that over a large number of consumers, associating their ad with the right content leads to more sales.

So, we must ask the question of ourselves on the Internet: why would we expect someone to show up to our web site if all we have on it is advertising?

If all we have on our web site is marketing material, this assumes that the viewer has pretty much made a decision about needing your product and service and is just looking for the right company to do business with. However, the vast majority of consumer related traffic on the internet is done by individuals conducting research and gathering information, not in the purchase itself. If our site only contains advertisements and marketing information, we have missed the boat on what consumers are looking for.

Exceptions

There are, of course, exceptions to this rule. That is, people will read the newspaper specifically to read ads. For example, we will use the vast collection of reliable ads within the automotive section to help us in our car purchase decisions.

Another example, on television, are the shopping channel shows which offer a combination of entertainment and advertising. Viewers tune in to watch and shop knowing full-well that they are being sold too. However, the difference here is that the advertisement is also entertainment and can be considered 'content'.

What Is Content

The essential element of any effective web site is the content it has to offer. In our next installment, we will discuss how we determine what content is appropriate for our target audience. For now, we should consider three essential elements of content that must adhered to. They are:

Content is Free.

If you charge for the content in any way, or make it associated with the purchase of a product, you have defeated the purpose of posting content on your web site. It must not cost anything for your viewers to read or enjoy. They should be able to take it with them (e.g. print and run) without any further obligations.

Content is Valuable

As defined by each individual viewer, the content must be what they were looking for or else it is of no significance to them. Matching the content with the viewers needs and your target market is difficult but not impossible, as we will read in our next installment.

Content is Not Tied To Your Company

The content you use on your site must be free and valuable and unrelated to any product or service you offer. The viewer must not have to buy your product in order to consider the content worthwhile. For example, if you offered a Free Tips and Tricks manual on using the software you developed, this would only be worthwhile if the viewer had or was about to buy your product. That means it is worthless to a prospective customer.

In our next installment we will take a look at what content means from the viewer's perspective. We will analyze the psychology of the web, and identify what it takes to attract your target audiences by developing the content they want that is free, valuable and unrelated to your product line.

Stay tuned!

Content For Clients

In our previous editions, we reviewed the concept of content, what it means, how it works, and how to develop it for your target markets. In these discussions, we have been focused on the goal of attracting prospective customers to your web site. Content for prospective clients is not the only content that you should be concerned with, however; content for your existing client base can be just as important, if not more important to understand, develop and utilize.

Content Criteria

A review of the essential criteria for creating content provides a helpful orientation:

• It is free to the viewer. No charge is incurred to see, read or interact with the content.
• It is valuable to the viewer. It is something they have been looking for and / or it is helpful in achieving their mission while on the Internet.
• It is useful regardless of whether the viewer becomes a client or not. This means the viewer can absorb the content, leave the web site, and feel as if the content was useful to them.

Content for clients has the exact same criteria, except, of course, the viewer is an existing client. So, you might ask how does criteria number three fit, if the viewer is already a customer. How do you tailor content for a client that is useful regardless of whether they become a client or not? This sounds paradoxical. Well, in fact, it is not.

Criterion number 3 refers to the viewer becoming a client in the future, or in the case of an existing client, purchasing another product or service in the future. Content for clients is developed that may be useful to clients based on their previous sales, and is independent of any future sale. Despite this, as you will read, this content is designed solely to maximize the chances of these clients continuing to stay clients.

An Example
Let's take an example of content for an existing client, and discuss its merits. Let's assume for the moment, that we are in the business of repairing vehicles. We run a car service and repair shop. The content we have developed is providing access to our customers to their historical repair records with our shop. Customers are issued a password to access their vehicle records online. There is no charge for customers to access their records.

For many people, historical maintenance and repair records will not be useful or valuable at all. But for others, it will be extremely important to them as they prepare to sell their car or turn it in to the leasing agent, proving routine care of the vehicle. The percentage of people who this appeals to may not be large at all, like 15%, but if used properly, the resulting impact of this content can more than justify the expense for this minority of users.

Creating Barriers

For those customers how find this free content valuable, they will log onto the web site and, perhaps, print off the information provided. More importantly, they will most definitely think twice about going somewhere else for service for as long as they have that vehicle. If they were to use another shop, the chain of historical information would suddenly be broken, and the information provided would become much less useful, if not useless.

Therefore, a monetary value could be assigned to the information provided. If another shop offered a service at a discount, our customer in theory would not jump ship because the historical data is so useful. There is a point at which the discount would be so compelling that our customer would leave for the competition. That point is where the value of the data and the discount are equal. Consequently, it means that we would, in theory, be able to charge more for our services or, at the very least, be able to avoid certain discounts offered by the competition, because our value added historical data provides that extra incentive to do business with us.

Creating Incentives

So, let's take a look at what this kind of content has done for us.

First, it has created a stronger relationship between you and your clients. To the extent they find this content valuable, they are provided with free information that makes it very difficult to leave you for another service provider.

Second, it increases their brand awareness of your services. They are exposed to your web site, name and logo more frequently than otherwise, and in a presumably favorable way.

Third, it opens the door to increased revenues for additional services. As clients return to your web site, you are able to present promotions and advertisements on services that they may not be taking advantage or even aware of.

With the web's almost limitless ability to serve content based on who that individual is, you also have the ability to customize advertisements and promotions based on that client's historical experience with you. Furthermore, all of this can be closely tied into an email campaign which would create a cycle of communication to that client, offering specific promotions based on information you may have gained on the client's needs. For example, you may know that the client needs new tires and send him an email with a link to a promotion on the exact tires required.

Conclusion

Content for clients should be considered as relevant and as high a priority as developing content for your prospects. The power of strengthening a long term relationship with a client should not be overlooked, as we all know from our Marketing 101 classes that it is less costly to sell to an existing client than it is to acquire a new one.

In our next edition, we will start looking at effective ways of proactively marketing your web site.

Attracting Your Target Markets

In last month's edition, we looked at the concept of Content and how we differentiate it from marketing material on your web site. By developing content that fits the three criteria presented in the previous edition, you position your web site as having a resource for potential customers who are not interested your marketing material.

In this edition, we will look at this concept from the perspective of the Internet user: the individuals surfing the web who fit into your target audience. By my definition, these are the individuals who, if you had the opportunity to meet with them and present your case, would seriously consider becoming your customer.

The Psychology Of The Web

It is helpful to think of your own Internet experiences when considering how your potential customers view your web site. Think about the times you have "surfed" the web looking up various web sites, particularly those you had not discovered previously.

How did you find them? Did you visit a search engine? Did you find a link on another web site? In any event, one thing is certain; you were what I call, "self-directed". You were in control of your mouse, and you determined which web site you visited. It's possible that you were 'duped' into thinking that a web site actually had what you were looking for, but in these cases, you likely left the web site quickly.

We Are On Missions

It is my proposition that virtually everyone gets on the web with "mini-missions" in mind. Mini-Missions are little goals which characterize what we are searching for on web sites. They may be as simple as checking the weather in a city you are about to visit, as clear-cut as finding out the dealer's price on a vehicle you may purchase, or as convoluted as researching the possible causes of health problems you or a loved one are experiencing.

It's quite possible that when you log onto the Internet, you have more than one Mission you are seeking to accomplish. It's also possible that you don't achieve a mission in a single session, or ever for that matter. But one thing is for certain, your missions are always approached in a sequential fashion. You are not trying to accomplish more than one mission at a time. And, should you choose to abandon a mission mid-stream, it is because a new mission is being tended to in its place.

Anticipating Missions

Another interesting aspect about these mini-missions is that for any one subject matter, there are countless variations of mini-missions. Take, for example, your business, and begin to consider how many different missions could be conducted around the product and services that you offer. Step back a bit and consider that your narrow business niche is part of a bigger vertical market, where a larger set of mini-missions are all being conducted. You will begin to see that there are many more ways for people to become interested in your products or services than you probably every imagined.

Then, you are in a position to begin anticipating what missions your target market are conducting that relate to your products and services. Better yet, you should consider which missions indicate a possible match-up with your products or services. By doing this, you will be placing yourself in a position to develop content that helps your target market achieve their mission.

Though we will cover this in greater detail in subsequent editions, it should not go without saying how critical the description is where your target market first encounters you. Whether it is in a search engine or a link on a partner's web site, your description must indicate that your web site will help with the mission they are currently on. If not, they will likely bypass your web site and move on to another web site that does help them achieve their mission.

Target Market Steps

So, how do we take this theory and put it to practical use?

• The first step is to identify all the target markets you serve. This entails categorizing your target markets by characteristics that make sense for your business. For example, you may need to break your markets into demographic factors such as: age, geography, income level or job title. And, you may also need to categorize them by interests related to your products and services such as: how they use your products, where they use their products, how often they use your products. It does not matter how many categories you create, the more the better at this point.
• The next step is to anticipate the possible missions that each of these groups could have as it relates to your products and services. The more creative you are the better. These are missions, as you define them, that would indicate the people conducting them are potential customers.
• Thirdly, you should now evaluate the entire set of missions you have created and combine them into groups, by subject matter or by other factors that make intuitive sense.
• Finally, to the extent your list is complete, you are now in the position to understand what types of content you should be considering for your web site. The content you develop that is appropriate for your target market is the content that would help your target markets achieve their mission.

At this point, it is quite possible that the entire set of content you have described is beyond your resources to develop, or is much larger in scope than is practical for the profit opportunity you anticipate via your web site. That's o.k., and it's actually critical to qualify the relative importance of the potential content for your web site.

You will use financial and other resource considerations to determine what content you develop, what content you associate with and what content you do not approach.

In a later edition, we will discuss how to associate your web site with other web sites that have the content you have not developed. In the next edition, we will focus on developing content for clients, not just prospective customers.

Marketing Tactics
Online Interactivity

Our fourth marketing sin "Believing that all you do is Build It And They Will Come" starts our first issue on how to effectively marketing your web site. Over the next five issues, we will explore proven methods of proactively and reactively marketing your web site to a targeted audience.

We have already covered the most important and fundamental aspect of marketing your web site, that of creating focused content for your prospects and customers. Now, understanding how to capitalize on the fact that you have valuable material on your web site that is attractive to your target markets, will be the focus of our attention.

Our discussion will be broken into five segments, as follows:

• Online Interactivity
• Email Marketing
• Free Internet Promotion
• Paid Internet Promotion
• Traditional Promotion

Online Interactivity refers to the tactics employed within the web site which allow you to continue to communicate with your visitors, developing and strengthening a relationship with them, and furthering their position towards becoming a (long-term) client. Some of these tactics include:

Capturing Client Information

Think about it. You have opened your (web site) door to business. Viewing your content is free of charge and people come in and out without talking to you. Many have no interest in doing business with you and leave your web site with no desire for future contact. Others, however, will sustain and even increase their level of interest in your product and services, based on your content and / or your product line. It is critical that you encourage these people to leave you with contact information, regardless of whether they have an immediate need for your products or services.

How you capture their contact information can vary significantly. From email newsletters (which is the subject of our next issue), to offers to send additional content material, to free evaluations, these tactics will encourage customers to leave their contact information, after which you can use other tactics to keep a cycle of communication flowing.

Keep in mind that the more contact information you ask for, the less response and the less accurate responses you will receive. At a minimum, you should solicit for their email address.

Cycle Clients Thru

Got their email address? Now you need to consider what you can do to create and continue a cycle of communication. Utilizing a broad marketing mix of tools you can keep your company's brand and messages on their mind.

Cycling your clients means that you communicate with your clients after they have left the web site in some other way. You can send them email with links back to your web site. You can send them a post card with a creative promotion encouraging them to return to the web site.

Getting someone to return to your web site as a result of some other form of communication can have a powerful impact on their perception of your business. They will have willingly returned to your web site and return to a place that they are already somewhat familiar and thus comfortable with. Your credibility and their confidence in your business increases with each exposure.

Context Sensitive Content

Web site programming has advanced in sophistication to enormous degrees in the past few years. We are able to track and record most every action a visitor takes on a web site. This gives us the ability to respond to what a visitor sees on the web site and deliver content that is more targeted to what you perceive their interests to be. Context sensitive content, therefore, is delivering web site pages that change based on what the visitor has already seen or interacted with.

This can be extremely effective. As an individual expresses interest in certain content, you can then deliver additional content related to that subject, or present them with the links to that content. Additionally, the history of the individual can be remembered for their next visit, so that upon their return, you can deliver more customized information.

Admittedly, developing the programming necessary to deliver dynamic content has costs associated with it. There are many products on the market designed to perform this task which cover a wide range of features and expense. However, the results of delivering essentially customized content can be well worth the reward.

Smart Sales, Upsales

Extending the concept of customized content is the concept of presenting related product offers to someone once they have placed an item in your shopping cart. Presenting them with an offer for additional related products based on their existing purchases can, in effect, be a good deal for them and obviously increase your profits.

Creative Promotions

Liberally sprinkle advertisements and promotions throughout your content to market specific items. Offer incentives and discounts for taking advantage of your services that will save them money and encourage them to do business with you.

Clearly, you will want to consider how much of a discount to offer; you don't want to un-necessarily reduce your profits. But, the right promotion may be just enough to turn a browsing visitor into a paying customer.

The above tactics are some of the more effective tactics to employ on your web site. In our next issue, we will discuss in detail one of the most important tactics for your complete marketing efforts: the email newsletter.

Marketing Tactics - Email Newsletters

Marketing On The Internet Series
Marketing Tactics - Email Newsletters

Email Marketing is the subject of this edition. Email Marketing has fast outpaced any other internet advertising tactic as the most effective method of reaching a qualified audience.

Banner advertising, for example, is now yielding average click-through rates of less than one half percent. Conversely, a well-executed email advertising campaign can yield results well over ten percent.

Email advertising can take many subtly different forms, but the primary effective tool is called the email newsletter. Whether you are producing the email newsletter yourself or advertising within someone else's newsletter (commonly referred to as an e-zine for email magazine), the basic rules are the same.

Another tactic which we will not address in this edition is a pure email advertisement. The reason for this is because if the advertisement is sent to a list of recipients who have requested to receive the email, it is almost always a part of the larger marketing program, including the email newsletter. On the other hand, if the ad is sent to recipients who have not requested to receive it, then it violates one of the essential rules of email advertising that we follow.

These rules include:

Opt-In

Never send the newsletter to anyone who has not requested it. These days are being literally inundated with "spam" (unsolicited) emails and the shear volume is making it much more difficult for legitimate emails to be seen and welcomed. Each of us should assume responsibility for conducting ethical business practices.

Privacy

You should state your privacy policy on your web site, which should include what you will or won't do with the individual information you collect. The more you keep individual information private, the more likely you are to collect it from viewers.

1^st Message Acknowledgement

Make sure your first email newsletter sent out to your reader reminds them that they have signed up for the newsletter. There may be a delay, or some forgetfulness that would make this information helpful.

Unsubscribe Instructions

Each email should include instructions on the reader can be removed from the email list, as well as modify it, if necessary.

Content

The secrets to a successful email newsletter campaign can be found in our previous editions. The primary tactic is to include content within the email itself. People will read the newsletter for the same reason that they will come to your web site.

Having long paragraphs of text within email newsletters is not recommended, as reading so much text is difficult on a screen. Additionally, viewers will be more apt to scan short emails or emails that are broken into easy to read sections. Therefore, it is recommended that your content be short.

Cycle Them Thru

A highly recommended technique is to include brief summaries or abstracts of your content within your newsletter. Then, have links that lead back to specific pages within your web site. This will have the effect of cycling your readers through your marketing mix. They have already been to your web site (to sign up for the newsletter) so when they receive your email and click on a link they will be returning to a familiar setting. It is a great opportunity to reinforce your brand and image.

Advertising

Obviously, the entire point of this process is to encourage your readers to do business with your organization. Your email newsletter has the opportunity to increase the credibility of your business, your products and services. You should be careful not to include too many advertisements relative to the amount of content within the newsletter.

Personalize It

There are many great, free email software packages which can merge with a database. The database can include all sorts of personal information that can be used to customize email messages. Simply having the reader's name in the body of the email newsletter can increase the likelihood that it will be read. Then, applying additional information that has been "freely" collected can be added as well.

An enhanced level of effectiveness is achieved when the email content and advertisements are customized based on the reader's interests. This information is obtained by collecting behavior and purchase information from your web site. This data can be added to your database and associated with the email address to create a unique email newsletter for each reader.

Email newsletters are a great vehicle for communicating with your readers. It is a most effective method of creating a relationship with your web site visitors long after they have left your web site.

Marketing Tactics - Free Internet Marketing

Though the novelty of the web has warn off in many areas, fundamentally the internet remains an essential part of an organization's marketing mix. Your company's web site is often viewed as the window into your business. Credibility can be established solely on the effectiveness of your web site. At the same time, proactive measures can and should be taken to attract your potential market to your web site.

As we have discussed in previous editions, the principal behind an excellent web presence is having the right balance of content and marketing material on your web site, giving you the ability to attract the widest, yet most targeted audience. It then depends on your ability to get adequate exposure for your web site through as many channels as possible.

Fortunately, aggressive Web Marketers have always found a wide array of free and effective methods to market their web sites. Your ability to take advantage of these avenues is only limited by your time and commitment to them.

Getting Found in the Search Engines

The term these days for getting your web site listed and found in the search engines is called Search Engine Optimization. An entire industry of companies specializing in the practice of boosting your presence on the search engines has sprung up to help companies in this increasingly competitive environment. We will discuss some of the ins and out of the practice in our next edition. However, there remain free opportunities to getting your site listed, and listed well, in some of the most highly trafficed engines.

To begin with, study up on the key elements of preparing your site for the search engine. Proper execution of your page titles, keywords and descriptions is critical for even moderate success. However, there are several other factors that can be controlled within your site that are too numerous and go far beyond the scope of this article. Fortunately, there are many free resources on the net for you to get a great education. For example, start with searchenginewatch.com to get a good taste of the resources available and to get an idea of the scope of the work involved.

Once your site is prepared properly, you can begin submitting your site to the search engines that accept free submissions. The following are a few sites that accept free submissions:

• Alta Vista
• Hot Bot
• Google
• AOL
• Netscape

• Lycos
• Open Directory
• Excite
• MSN

Each contains simple instructions on how to submit your site to their database. Our next edition will explain the major differences between these and other engines, and describe the present landscape of paid submissions and listings.

Reciprocal Links

Sharing links between sites, often referred to as reciprocal links, is a common way to increase traffic to your site. This is based on the concept that sharing links between compatible but not competitive businesses is a great way to get at the same target markets. If some other site has the market you desire, obviously, you want to be there. The price for this free access is a link back to their site.

The process for finding compatible sites and creating the links is quite easy. Surf the web for the sites you want to have access to. Email them at their designated email address and request a reciprocal link. On your site, you should have established a page that will contain their links. You can decide if you will allow banner images, text descriptions or both. But, realize that you should not expect any more exposure than you will provide them in reciprocation. Also, be prepared to reciprocate only with sites that do not generate advertising revenues or which command large volumes of traffic.

Shared Content

Recall the necessity to make available rich content on your site in order to attract your target market. Clearly this content would be valuable to other web site owners, as the markets are sure to overlap with a large population of businesses on the web. Consequently, your content could be posted on other web sites.

Arrangements such as these typically work in a way that provides a link back to your web site, in exchange for your content. The receiving web site benefits by having content that will, in theory, attract more people to their web site. You benefit by having, in effect, another doorway back to your web site.

Email Newsletters

In our previous edition, we explored in detail the benefits, processes and rules of producing email newsletters. An effective newsletter campaign uses an opt-in sign up process and accumulates a list of people who are genuinely interested in receiving the email. The email will contain a balance between valuable content and creative advertising, which in turn will drive qualified traffic back to your web site and ultimately increase sales.

In our next edition, we will explore the increasingly confusing and competitive landscape of the search engines.

Marketing Tactics - Paid Advertising

In The pricing and effectiveness of advertising on the Internet has changed substantially over the past year. While the novelty of advertising banners and eye-popping side bars may have worn off, pricing for these avenues has dropped accordingly. At the same time, wise marketers have always been careful to advertise only where their target markets are sure to be, thereby avoiding spending advertising dollars exposing their message to people who have no interest.

Before agreeing to any advertising program, it is first important to understand the economics of acquiring a customer. Web marketers should understand the value an Internet client will bring to their business and make projections about what percentage of prospects who come to their web site will become actual paying clients. With this information, it is then a simple matter to then determine how much you can spend on any one advertising campaign.

For those who seek them, there continue to be very cost effective ways to advertise, as follows:

Search Engine Paid Positioning
This industry has literally exploded over the past year. Overture was the first search engine to make it big and continues to have almost a monopoly position. Paid Positioning offers marketers an opportunity to guarantee positioning for specific key word phrases whenever those phrases are searched on.

There is almost no risk in taking advantage of this opportunity since the marketers bear costs only when someone clicks on their listing. Even better fees for the majority of phrases can be secured for pennies, meaning a lead can be generated from a listing for almost nothing.

The biggest problem with the majority of paid positioning engines is that they do not generate substantial traffic to their listings which turn into clicks for the paying customers. Overture solved this problem by supplying their listings to major search engines, such as AOL, Netscape, Alta Vista and others, making Overture a major player itself.

Standard Banner Advertising
Average banner click-thru rates have dropped from about 5% three years ago to a low of about ½%. This means that for every 1000 exposures of your banner, just 5 people would be expected to click on it and go to your web site, whereas 50 people would have been expected to click through to your web site just three years ago.

This is not a problem provided that the price for banner advertising has dropped respectively. It has dropped, but not by 90% as the click through rates have. Current rates are anywhere from 2 to 3 cents per click, whereas three years ago, the rates were in the range of 5 to 10 cents. The resulting cost of a click-through (at ½% yield and a 3 cent cost) is about $1.50, far higher than the price of a click when comparing to the paid positioning opportunities.

Still, banner advertising can offer wide exposure to a narrow market. Marketers should be careful to place their ads on pages where the content of that page will attract their target markets. The more focused the better.

Media Rich Banner Advertising
While the percentage click-thrus for traditional banner advertising is quite low, banner ads that incorporate flash or java based programming are yielding substantially higher numbers. These new forms of ads allow for better graphics, motion and even user interaction. The cost of production is substantially higher and mostly out of reach for small business. And, it is too early to say whether the higher yields are only due to the novelty of the designs.

Web Site Sponsorships
Similar to banner advertising, deals can be struck where small or odd shaped banners are permanently placed on web site pages. While the pricing may be fixed or priced differently than banner ads, the evaluation is the same. You should understand the possible exposure for your ad, what the historical click through rates have been, and then attempt to calculate the true cost of acquiring that customer.

Email Newsletter Ads
There exist thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of opt-in email newsletters on virtually every subject matter where advertising can be purchased. Costs for email newsletter advertising can run in the pennies (5 to 10 cents) per email with yields as high as 10%. Finding the right newsletter for your target audience is a challenge, however, because there are few good sources for finding these newsletters.

Email Advertising
For the record, we strongly discourage any email advertising that is not opt-in based, otherwise known as SPAM. We simply view it as a violation of business ethics.

Affiliate Relations
Affiliate Relations is simply when other web sites market your products with listings or descriptions on their web site. Because of the power of the internet, it is possible to know which web site brought that customer to your web site. And, therefore, calculating commissions based on the sales of that customer is relatively simple.

Providing incentive to other companies to market your products makes great sense, the majority of expense is variable, since you only pay if a sale is made. Many shopping cart programs offer this ability as a feature of their programs. So, for small web sites, it is relatively easy to implement affiliate programs.

These programs represent the majority of paid Internet advertising opportunities. To be sure, there are many other creative and low cost ways of marketing your wears on the Internet. You should be open to new avenues and even experiment with them to see which is right for your target markets, though the principals of evaluating their effectiveness are all the same.

The Impact of Web Design

In previous editions of this series, we have discussed methods of marketing to target audiences dealing primarily with your web site content and how that content is used. Other suggested tactics have focused on proactively finding your market through selective advertising techniques, such as email, strategic relations and search engine listings.

Now it is time to focus on web site design. Design is important for many marketing reasons. Despite the fact that your web site design is subjective, there are several impacts of your design that can be easily controlled to ensure a positive experience by your visitors. Obviously, a positive experience is essential to encouraging visitors to extend their stay, and ultimately take the next step towards becoming a customer.

Here, then, are some key points to consider with regard to the design of your web site.

Navigation

• Keep your primary navigation buttons (those buttons that are found on your home page) to a minimum. Having too many links on your site will only serve to reduce the intuitiveness of how to get around and find important parts of your web site.
• Always have your primary navigation buttons clearly visible on every page. Give your visitors the ability to get to any section of your site at any time. Always have your secondary navigation visible within every page of the associated section.
• Follow the three-click-rule. That is, you should be able to get any page on your web site within three clicks.

Common Design Parameters

• Design your web site to be viewed properly within both Netscape and Microsoft browsers. Keep in mind that up to 20% of your viewers will see your web site in a Netscape browser.
• Keep in mind that there are significant differences between browser versions. For example, earlier versions of both Netscape and Microsoft browsers do not have the ability to interpret java-script or java. While this is now less of an issue, since most people are using versions that support these scripts, not all browsers understand all the commands available within the scripts. Therefore, you should be careful to learn the differences.
• Recognize that a significant percentage of people will see your web site in no more than an 800 pixel wide-screen. At least 20% of the population will see your web site in less than 640 pixels. What this means is that if you design your web site so that it is wider than 640 pixels, you will be forcing viewers to scroll to the right to see your entire page. This is an inconvenience that a high percentage of people will not tolerate.

Images

• Recognize that over 90% of the Internet population is connecting to the internet through dial-up modems, not through high-speed access. Therefore, you should design your pages to load as fast as possible.
• Compressing your images and having as few as possible to complete your design is important. With both JPG images (primarily used for photographs) and GIF images (primarily used for line art), you have choices in how to compress the image.
• Keep in mind that both the number of colors and the dimensional size of the images you use contribute to the overall file size of the image.

Other Best Practices

• If you have a shopping cart, make sure your shopping cart icon is visible on every page.
• Use trusted symbols to increase the credibility of your business, such as Versign, Visa, and the Better Business Bureau.
• Post your contact information on every page, to the extent it is not complicated. Make it easy for people to get in touch with you.
• Provide immediate confirmation whenever someone completes a form on your site. Assure your visitors that you will respond to their inputs.

There are, of course, dozens of other considerations to the design and marketing of your web site. In some cases, the recommendations above can be contradicted due to special exceptions. However, good marketing is always done consciously and proactively.

Web Site Authority & Social Media Transformational Web Solutions

Incoming Links are widely regarded as a necessity for top ranking in the search engines, which view links to web sites as a vote in favor of its importance. The more authoritative a site is the more powerful the link. The authority of a site is implied by its Page Rank (PR). Therefore, obtaining links from higher PR sites is an important strategy.

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