Think Big Blog

Online marketing, most of us believe, has one singular purpose - to get our website noticed in order to increase web traffic. That’s part of it; but certainly not all of it. Any online marketing company that sells you on a campaign to simply boost web traffic is missing a significant piece of the puzzle. Sure, we all want to better our search engine rankings and subsequently increase web traffic; but if we don’t draw the attention of the right kind of web traffic it does nothing to increase our sales. The bottom line is always to better business, increase sales and earn more money. Targeted web traffic results in a higher likelihood of conversions and the bridge between the two is the choice of keywords.

So think of online marketing as the building of a bridge between your customers and your website. Helping you build it - one rung at a time - is your website optimization firm; a company that knows a thing or two about positioning you appropriately in the online market.

Step 1. Put it all on the table. What is it that you do? What do you offer? What makes you different from other companies? Who are your customers and how do they traditionally find you? This is very much a case of knowing where you were before you can know where you’re going. If your customers are finding your competitors online and not you then chances are that they are positioned in a better location because of their choice of keywords. Know your audience and how they are searching for your type of products and service online.

Step 2. Define what you do and what you offer. This is all about the keywords and keyword phrases; finding the words and word combinations that are being used regularly by your customers. What are they plugging into an online search to find what you have to offer?

Continued in the next post…

Most of us will often hear that it’s the tortoise that wins the race - the slow, the steady, the consistent; and surely many of us have had cause to see that first hand in our own lives. It’s the losing one pound a week that keeps the weight off in the end, it’s remaining consistent and unfettered that allows us to emerge victorious in whatever our pursuit; no get rich quick, no magic pill, no secret formula - just doing the work day in and day out. This is very much the case when it comes to organic SEO. There is no tactic that will give you longer lasting results - consistent results - than consistently working the search engine optimization of your website.

This is the reason that companies turn to a website optimization firm to help build their website traffic and expand their business; because of the daily work that it takes to not only get a site to the front of the search engine results pages but keep them there consistently. Each piece of an organic SEO campaign is important and must be worked consistently; a website optimization firm offers the benefit of their consistency and their singularly focused drive and management. A company offering reputable SEO services will:

Examine the intricacies of your business. Who is your audience? What sets you apart from the competition?

Determine how your audience is finding you - or your competition - online. What keywords and keyword phrases are people using to find products and services like what you offer? What are the most competitive phrases? How often are they being used?

Determine what keywords and keyword phrases will serve you best based upon that research. Keyword research - thorough research - is crucial to good SEO. The research will help determine what phrases you should be using to attract your audience.

More in the next post…

Generating website traffic is - for websites - the obvious goal in their online marketing but it is much more than that; it is finding more website traffic among their own unique audience - those that will ultimately have an interest in what the website has to offer. Conversion as well as traffic is the goal of any website so any online marketing programs that are considered should work towards those objectives. In other words, it is one thing to get people to stop and check out your site, and quite another to attract those people who are more than tire kickers; who are there because they have a real interest in your services and can be swayed to eventually become a customer.

Those who are just embarking on their campaign of online marketing may feel encouraged to do anything and everything to simply spike traffic but in the long run it’s the tailored marketing efforts that will increase your bottom line as well as the traffic to your site. To this end, working with a reputable website optimization firm that can offer guidance through pay per click and search engine optimization will enhance your site and ready it for the appropriate audience. But first you need to find your audience.

A website optimization firm will work with you to identify your online audience - those who are interested in your products and services. What keywords and keyword phrases are they using to find you or companies like yours? These are the keywords that form the backbone of your online marketing campaign; that will form a bridge directly between your website and your online audience.

Working with SEO services allows companies to really fully explore the ways in which an audience may find them online and to tailor their message to find that audience.

While building web traffic may seem to be something that happens by a stroke of luck (someone spots your website, likes it, and spreads the word), there is much more to it than that. Sure, luck doesn’t hurt and a great buzz surrounding your website never hurts either. Word of mouth will continue to be one of the great ways that you can increase web traffic, create a following, and increase your sales. However, there are the nuts and bolts of website traffic that can’t be ignored and they are typically addressed by professionals who understand the steps that are integral to the process. Above and beyond anything - before the linking strategies and the content building and the attention from the search engines - there is the choosing of keywords based on extensive and pointed research.

Choosing the right keywords is absolutely essential to building web traffic because in the end it is the search engine users who will determine if you are worthy of higher rankings simply by virtue of visiting your site. And why will they visit your site? Because you have what they want and to prove it, your website showed up in the search engine results when they used particular keywords. In order to choose the right keywords you need to know what it is your audience wants, how they go about finding it, and what words and phrases they typically use - in terms of an online search - to find the products and services in which they have interest.

A website optimization firm will help you determine what your audience is searching for and how they are searching for it. They will also determine which of those keyword phrases are most competitive - how many times they are being used - and how you can have a piece of the pie.

Those who have built a business from the ground up share the entrepreneurial spirit with others in the same position; the motivation and passion that allowed them to initially head down such a road. They will have found - as so many do - that while there is a team of people at their disposal and perhaps those who are just as invested as they are in the success of the business, that in many ways they feel on their own. After all, starting your own business is something that is fiercely personal and it costs blood, sweat and tears as the saying goes. Unfortunately this means for many business owners that they wind up taking on way too much; they don’t know how to delegate or they feel uncomfortable and out of control in doing so. What this translates to, ironically, is many things can fall through the cracks because - like it or not - one person can’t do it all and this includes online marketing.

Of course, a company’s online presence is absolutely crucial to its success in this day and age. Those businesses without a website - and a successful one at that - are not capable of reaching the entirety of their audience and the potential for failure is high. It is therefore absolutely necessary that any company interested in success pay careful attention to their web presence and their ability to garner qualified web traffic; and doing so successfully often means turning to others for their professional guidance. This team mentality is so very important to the success of a website and a company as a whole.

Those looking to increase website traffic and build their online business must be brave enough to delegate such work to a qualified and professional website optimization firm that can lead the way in optimizing a site for success.

When people reference working in a vacuum they mean working in the dark - void of any outside stimulation or information. Many times people are working in this manner and have no idea they are doing so. They are so accustomed to working in a particular manner that they continue to do so regardless of what is going on around them. They don’t pay attention to changing environments and trends, they don’t call upon outside professionals for support or an outside opinion, and they ultimately fail to notice that they are getting left behind. Getting too comfortable is a dangerous situation for any business especially a business that has an online presence and expects to stand their ground in a highly competitive environment. If you work in a vacuum your business winds up in the dark.

Instead new heights can be reached and you can increase web traffic through consolidated efforts between you - who knows your business - and a professional online marketing company that can best lead you in the appropriate direction for branding yourself and attracting targeted web traffic. When you think that you don’t need the help of professionals, you’re working with your nose to the grindstone each and every day, and still you are not realizing growth in your business or traffic on your site this is precisely the time to pick your head up and take a look around; because the competition could easily be passing you by while it goes unnoticed by you.

Time is money; don’t waste time online. Work with a website optimization firm that can give you a realistic, unbiased opinion of your site and the state of the online market and put real and measurable strategies in place to help you not only keep pace with the competition but even come out ahead.

In the last post we talked about online marketing and whether or not it is something that the average website actually needs. The short answer is yes; online marketing is imperative for a successful website. The longer answer rests with the manner in which you achieve this success and who you call upon to help you. In terms of attracting targeted web traffic to their site people call on the professionals to implement a pay per click (PPC) campaign or an organic SEO campaign through which a plan is put into place and action is taken to naturally move the website up the search engines’ rankings without having to have a paid spot.

As we said previously, the success of an organic SEO campaign directly relates to the work done on the website’s behalf. Plans must be implemented but once things are up and running is when the real work starts. A professional website optimization firm that runs an organic SEO campaign understands the importance - and ultimately the absolute necessity - of ongoing management. The Internet changes and grows every day - it is, for all intents and purposes, a living thing. Those who simply launch an online marketing campaign - whatever that may be - and are content to rest on their laurels will ultimately be surprised and disappointed when they discover that taking their eyes off the road will result in almost immediate crash and burn.

The elbow grease put into an organic SEO campaign - by a professional website optimization firm - can propel a site to the top of the search engine rankings. Yet, in the end, the work put in must remain consistent and ongoing in order to ensure continued and future success. Look for an online marketing company that has shown its ability to adapt and thrive in a changing online market and that can help you do the same.

Establishing yourself as an online business - even if you have a thriving traditional business and an established and recognized brand - can be a challenge, especially when you don’t necessarily understand the dynamics of the Internet. So it’s not surprising that so many businesses turn to a website optimization firm for help in educating them about the online arena and integrating their website into the world of online commerce. You can launch a website but this does not guarantee online success; in fact it doesn’t guarantee much of anything at all other than the fact that you have your own corner of the online world. With strategic online marketing, however, as managed by a search engine optimization company, you can take that piece of the world that you now occupy and transform it into a living billboard for your products and services. This is, of course, only successful if such marketing is done correctly; marketing which usually begins with a strong organic SEO program.

In addition to an SEO campaign - typically launched to reach out to targeted web traffic - other things can be done to ensure that a company gets as much attention from the search engines and the online audience as possible. Most importantly, businesses must establish their ground in a competitive market and what better way to do that than by establishing themselves as experts?

Look for opportunities to post articles on industry news. Write and submit your take on particular topics.

Answer questions in ask and answer forums. The more you do this the more you will earn credibility in your industry and shed light on your company by extension.

Get out the word on your company by continually submitting press releases announcing news. Keeping your name in front of your audience is always important whether you operate online or through traditional methods.

The minute that most of us get out of bed in the morning we are bombarded by thousands of messages - from our televisions and radios to the information that comes at us online. When you really stop to think about it - how is it possible that all of these messages are delivered? That all of them reach their intended audience? The answer, of course, is that they don’t. With so much coming at us rapid fire everyday, a ton of information falls through the cracks. It is only the savvy marketing person that can craft a message that tunnels through the interference and it hits its mark. Of course, this is the most important concern for everyone promoting a product or service - and especially a website that competes in an often chaotic online arena everyday. Online marketing is one of the toughest things to do successfully because so much of what we deal with online is not tangible - we are dealing in things we can’t really see but must still measure. We need to be able to get the attention of targeted web traffic and deliver them to our site.

Define your business through keywords.

Any business that has worked with a website optimization firm or online marketing company has been introduced to the concept of keywords. This is much more than just choosing keywords that can be used throughout your website content. These are the words that truly define your business in the ways that are most important because - if done right - these are the words that are most likely to be used by your targeted web traffic in an online search. An online marketing campaign will use these keywords to target website traffic with pinpoint accuracy - to the people who are most likely to be interested in what you have to offer and be converted into customers. More in the next post…

In the last post we talked about how traditional marketing and advertising is not only about getting the attention of the intended audience, it is about establishing and sometimes changing perception. You want those who could potentially be customers to have a positive image of you in their mind and you set forth your plan in an effort to grow brand loyalty. The same goes for online marketing where the competition is clear and the fight to get to the top of the search engine rankings wages on a daily basis. Perception - in the mind of a consumer - is reality; and should they type in a keyword phrase for something that you claim to be an expert in doing and they find you on page four, five, or twenty on the search engine rankings your credibility is going to be diminished in their eyes. Ranking is important; there’s no question.

As we said earlier the best way to manage an online campaign so that you are reaching your audience through targeted (and well researched keywords) is by working with a professional and experienced web site optimization firm that can strategy the best campaign and take you through the paces. There needs to be a certain amount of flexibility inherent in such a campaign as things change day to day online; the best online marketing campaigns are able to adjust and move on towards their quest to attract qualified web site traffic.

A reputable web site optimization firm will help you put together a search engine optimization plan that they will not only implement but manage on a day to day basis. This ongoing hands-on management can be the difference between mediocre results and true success in gaining a foothold in a particular industry and certainly in the online market.