I've mentioned before on this site the importance of doing keyword research before you start thinking about how to get your client's web site to the top of the search engines.
Should we target the term "helicopter rides" or "helicopter flights"? Which term would get searched the most?
Good questions and I had no idea what the answers would be.
But I know how to find out - here's a great way to figure out which term to target.
Go to the Google AdWords Keyword tool and type in your 2 terms. You'll get a very good idea on how many searches are done each month for each term.
Use Google AdWords For Research
The absolute best way to gauge the search numbers is to set up a Google AdWords account and bid on the 2 terms.
Within 48 hours you'll have an excellent idea on the number of searches completed for each term as this data is provided in your reports.
Ths can go a long way to avoiding some confusing data from the keyword tool.
For example, here are the search numbers for the terms from the tool:
helicopter rides - 18,100
helicopter flights - 2,900
Seems pretty clear cut doesn't it. You'd expect the terms "helicopter ride" and "helicopter flight" to have a similar proportionate gap.
Nope.
helicopter ride - 14,800
helicopter flight - 27,100
Get As Much Data As You Can For The Right Decision
Hmmmmm.
That doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. In a case like this I'd go to Google AdWords and test all terms and get the real time results.
As you can see, if you choose the wrong term to get a high ranking for it can be a terrible move.
Sure, you'll work hard and get a # 1 rankings but you could have gotten your client x6 times more potential customers if you had targeted the more highly searched for term.
Makes sense and can mean a lot more $$$ for your client.
Q. What's the most important metric for a web site?
Easy - sales. No other metric even comes close.
You can talk about conversion rates, unique visitors, page views and more all you want but all that really, truly matters is sales.
Q. What's the best way to start to market my new web site?
Almost always the answer is Pay Per Click advertising (i.e Google AdWords). Not only do you get visitors fast, but you also get fantastic data about marketing your site that you can use in developing a comprehensive marketing strategy.
Q. What's the best way to make money on the Internet?
By best, you probably mean easiest.
By easiest, it's setting up a site and putting Google Adsense ads on it.
One of my colleagues - Dan over at Web Circle - forwarded through an email someone sent him a few weeks back.
Dan provides search engine services and had some Google AdWords advertising this. He received an email from a very angry ant!
"Why in the hell would anyone want to use your SEO and web marketing service when you cant even get your own site on the first page of google. You have to use PPC."
I hear comments like this all the time and, basically, they're from people who don't understand what they are talking about.
Here's why:
Getting a high Google ranking for a competitive term (a word or phrase that gets searched on a lot) takes a lot of time and hard work. It can cost a lot of $$$.
People might search on 100 different terms to find the thing you're selling.
To optimise your web site for all of these terms - especially if they're all very competitive terms would be incredibly resource intensive - in other words, it would cost you a ton of money to achieve it.
Simple Way To Let People Know Of Your Product or Service
A very simple way then is to let people know about your services via Google AdWords. Cheap, easy and relevant.
So no, if you see an ad on Google for a search engine optimisation expert it doesn't mean he's rubbish at getting high search engine rankings.
It just means that he sees a better return on his resources by running ads at that time.
Cheers
Brendon
P.S: The next question might be why do I mention a competitor in a nice way and give him a link to his web site?
Well, aside from the fact that I find Dan endlessly amusing - last time we had lunch he ended up with more food on his shirt than in his mouth - he's a good guy doing a good job.
I guess he's a competitor, but there is tons of work for everyone and it's important we all build the industry to get the best job for clients to help the industry grow.
I've referred clients who are better suited to Dan's skills than ours before. Oooooooh sorry Billy, I don't think I've referred anyone to you. Have a cry ya big baby!!
That Michelle over at refrigerated transport company Gaby Cool thought it was hilarious and different and contacted us for some work is just one example.
So keep writing about your business, your industry, your expertise - it's all solid stuff to market your business.
One of my clients sends a monthly (or so) newsletter.
In most newsletters (70%) he includes some sort of special offer on his products.
His sales always increase immediately.
But here's the thing - the special offer usually comprises only 20% of the sales made.
The vast majority of sales are at full price.
It's all about keeping top of mind with your customer.
It's about reminding them you're still about.
It's about contacting them on a regular basis to keep the relationship going.
Send a regular newsletter - you'll make more sales.
I've used Constant Contact (above) for years and they are the best I've ever used - simple, easy, cheap, brilliant tracking (i.e you know how many opened the email and lots more) - Very highly recommended.
Over the past week or so I've had a ton of people email and call us after reading this report (it's a pdf file) I wrote back in 2004.
It's all still relevant today if you want a truly successful web site.....and of course there is even more stuff to be aware of (like social media).
10 secrets of successful web sites
The real secrets for a successful web site as developed by us after completing hundreds of sites and owning a hugely successful site ...click here for more
And no, there are no forms to fill in or emails to give.
You click and it opens up. Easy.
Brendon
P.S: Heh, that could be another secret for a successful site: don't annoy your visitors with roadblocks to stop them getting what they want quickly and easily.
What's the best time to send an email to your database of email subscribers?
(Assuming you have one - if you don't check out the very reasonably priced and excellent Constant Contact to enable you to have visitors sign up to a newsletter).
We've always found Tuesday to be the best day. As for time, we've never tested this but we tend to send emails at 10 am.
We send at 10 am because we assume people come into their office, check their overnight emails, delete whatever isn't urgent and then get down to business.
1 of 50 Emails or 1 of 2
If we send our email at 10 am we avoid being 1 of 50 emails, and (hopefully) are just 1 of a couple downloaded. Thus increasing the likelihood of being looked at.
Like I say, we've never tested the timing - but the Marketing Sherpa case study has....... read the full results here.
(And remember to keep testing and measuring.)
Cheers
Brendon
P.S: Yes, I know this advice to test and measure goes against what I said here but that's marketing. You gotta change it up.
Being a man, it stands to reason that I'm an ego maniac.
Being an ego maniac it stands to reason that I love getting praised.
The thing I get praised most about, apart from my magnificent legs and incredible good looks, is The Web Design Business Kit.
"You Are A God!"
I always enjoy the emails that compare me to God and rate the Kit as a 'bible'. Heh, what can I say?!
It's that good!
Anyhoo, I had someone call me a "bastard" today - but it was said with affection! This from the email:
Hello Brendon,
I normally wouldn’t contact someone right out of the blue like this, however, having just finished your marvelous business kit I feel a little bit like General George Patton saying “You magnificent bastard, I read your book!”
I'm not saying you should buy the kit............what I am saying is you'd be insane not to.
I'm not calling you crazy if you don't.......but others probably would :o)
The grumpy blogger - Shoemoney - basically just mouths off with great stuff, good stuff and complete rubbish in an effort to create controversy and get posts like this one written and linked to him (gives him more readers you see).
But, as is sometimes the case, he's writing complete rubbish.
Title tags are important for helping to achieve higher search engine rankings.
Search engine optimization is a very important part of any web site's ongoing marketing strategy.
Build A Great Site Is Priority # 1
Shoemoney suggests building such a great site that others will want to link to it (that helps increase your rankings within search engines) - true.
That should be the goal for each and every web site.
But working on your site to make it as easy as possible for search engines to find you and figure out what your site is about is just as important.
Doing that can make a tremendous difference to your web site's success.
It's a great example of how 1 guy (Shoemoney) uses controversy to increase his brand awareness and his success - just like young Corey below.
I'll give you some hard figures below, but before I do that I'll explain a bit.
I saw a client today for whom we're looking at redesigning his existing site. We did the current site about 3 years ago.
The current site is his biggest driver of business
The current site generates sales that are x4 times more profitable than sales from other sources
It's Not About The Design
Web design is only a small part of getting an operational web site.
Basically how it works is:
we plan the site out with the client's goals in mind (this is done with the client)
we plan the structure of the site to ensure it's logical and workable
we have a site designed
once the site has been approved we then 'code' the site - that is, make it into a html page
we have the site checked in various browsers, screen resolutions, etc to make sure it works fine
That's just the design.
Of course there is plenty of backwards and forwards with the client to get the right balance between looking good and being functional. It's Not About The Design (cont)
But, like I said, it's not about the design.
You can have the most beautiful site in the world but if it doesn't get found by the target market, then it's a waste of money. We get sites found.
Aside from search engine rankings, there are numerous ways a site can be found:
Your site needs to be developed with these aspects in mind. Convert Visitors To Buyers
Once the site is found you want to be sure that the site converts visitors to buyers - that's where quality copy writing comes in.
Good copy writing is a time-intensive art. Prepare to pay good money for a quality copywriter.
What I'm Saying Is This
What I'm saying is this: anyone can design a web site. But to get a professional, well coded web site that works, well, that costs a little more.
What A Web Design Costs
Monster Template - a site where you find a site design you like and buy it for about $60 US. The sites are sometimes quite nice.
Remember, you need to get the site coded (they do come coded, but the code isn't usually very good), pages replicated, content added, optimised for search engines, etc.
SitePoint Contests - another place to get a nice design, with the added bonus that you'll have a number of designers competing for your work.
You give the brief and the guys and gals do some great work.
It will cost about $500 for an uncoded site and about $1,000 for a coded site.
A Design Firm
The huge advantage about using a design firm is that the designer will get your brief and provide a tremendous amount of added value to it.
Instead of, like with Monster Template and SitePoint, having to provide the full brief - even if you really don't know what you're talking about - when you engage a design pro, you get the advantage of having the opportunity to provide goals, needs, wants and then have a chat about the range of aspects that influence the design.
You'll pay $2,000 for a quality coded site.
(Sure, you'll find someone to do a full site for $200, but it will lack lots of the essential ingredients to make it successful.)
But remember, that's just the design.
Then you still have all that other stuff to consider. Depending on what you want and need, the price, naturally enough, goes up.
An enormous part of having a successful web site is gaining the trust of your audience.
Gaining trust is all about credibility. Years ago (2002) I read a comprehensive report from Stanford University titled "How Do People Evaluate A Web Site's Credibility?"
I've just stumbled upon, on Grokdotcom, this report cut down to a slide show.
# 1: Fire the committee. No great website in history has been conceived of by more than three people. Not one. This is a dealbreaker.
# 8: If you hire a professional: hire a great one. The best one. Let her do her job. 10 mediocre website consultants working in perfect harmony can’t do the work of one rock star.
Our 2 Most Successful Website Clients
Our 2 most successful web site clients are those who said:
How much for you to do the best job you can? Get it done please. Now tell me what I should do.
Then they did what we told them.
Both clients have life changing web sites. Life-changing as in toss in their hated jobs and run their web site very successfully from home as their full time job.
The image is of the stats on a site we've developed and the list of words I've covered in red are the top 10 keywords the site gets found for in search engines.
# 1 keyword - 3,494 visitors, down to # 10 keyword - just 87 visitors.
You can also see in the columns, the number of pages per visit and the average time spent on the site.
As you can see, keyword # 10 attracts visitors who look at 11.98 pages (compared to just 2.71 pages per visit for those who find the site via searching on keyword # 1).
Keyword # 10 also attracts people who spend an average of 8 mins 52 seconds on the site (keyword 1 visitors stay for 4 mins 12 seconds).
Despite attracting 1/40th the number of visitors of keyword # 1, keyword # 10 visitors have provided us with the most sales by far. Not on a % or ratio basis either, but just on simple numbers.
And keyword # 1 was, we believed, a brilliant keyword for this site that would attract the exact visitor we needed to have the highest conversion rate.
Looked At The Stats
But then we looked at the stats.
Unsurprisingly, we're now desperately trying to get keyword # 10 to a top position in the search engines (it's currently at # 60 in Google).
Best Indicators For A Sale
The 2 best indicators for a conversion from visitor to buy are:
Speaking with a client earlier today for whom we've tidied up their site a bit, written some copy and done some basic search engine work (work to get their site higher in search engines).
We worked on the site 1 month ago.
Leads from their web site convert to a sale 80% of the time.
A sale is $620. They work on a huge margin.
They've only ever generated 1 lead a month from their site.
18 Leads In Month 1
This past month the site has generated 18 leads.
That's 14 sales.
That's $8,680 per month in sales.
That's $104,160 per year in increased sales.
Took just 10 hours work. And this past month is traditionally their slowest time of the year.
** Winner Web Design Library - Best Book of the Web Industry 2004 **
The Web Design Business Kit is a compilation of everything Brendon has ever done and every document he has ever used to build and grow his business!
It contains two huge ring-bound folders with over 700 letter size (8.5x11) pages, plus a CD-ROM which has everything you need to build a thriving Web Design Business...
To find out more about The Web Design Business Kit click here
I had a neat example the other day - I have a client who provides helicopter rides on the Gold Coast.
