Website marketing should bring qualified traffic and conversion
We know that the Internet has changed the way consumers find
products and services. Now it is influencing the business to
business sector as well. According to a survey published in late
last year in "Electronic Design" magazine, reaching 96% of your
audience is possible if you include a carefully crafted
Internet marketing
strategy.
When asked, "Where do you find the most useful information about
new products and technology?" respondents ranked print magazines
(54%), Web searches (23%, Google primarily), and E-mail
newsletters (19%) as the top three sources. This covers 96% of
the bases, surprisingly relegating old favorites like trade
shows (2%) and word of mouth (2%) to the sidelines. These
figures show that while print is still important to BtoB buyers,
the Internet has become equally as important. And of the online
part, Google searches account for a big percentage. If you are
not including website optimization in your Internet marketing
strategy this year, you will be missing a chunk of your
audience. Do a Google search on the best keyword for your
industry and see who does show up on page one. Although
optimization may seem like black magic, it is possible to get
high rankings in the organic search in Google. In a recent
report Marketing Sherpa wrote, "If you think you're covered
because you have a paid ad (PPC listing) in a search engine for
a search term that's important to your business, think again.
Organic results (free listings) are far more important and can
get more viewership and clicks." This is borne out by the eye
tracking studies that show only about 35% of all searchers click
on the paid ads.
A website is not a static brochure. It has to be updated with
relevant optimized content. . Optimization of the site, fresh
content and using RSS feeds to distribute the content across the
Internet is the name of the website marketing game in 2006.
About the author:
Sally Falkow is the author of WebSense: effective website
marketing strategies for entrepreneurs and an expert author at
WebProNews. She is the president of Expansion Plus, an Internet
marketing and PR agency based in Los Angeles.
http://www.expansionplus.com
