Web site marketing - Article 1 in the series

"How do I market my web site?"

It's a common question - and a question with a sometimes complex answer.

But before we get started I'd like to mention the goal of this article series. At the end of the series you'll have a great idea on the basics of marketing any web site. And what I'll talk about here are the exact same strategies we've used for years.

High search engine rankings - follow our steps and you'll rank higher and faster than ever.

Google Adwords? We currently spend $1,500 a day on them. I'll talk you through how we get the biggest bang for our buck (and believe me, when you spend $500,000 a year on one form of advertising it has to be effective and efficient!).

Need to get links to your site? (The answer to that is Yes, Yes, Yes.) I'll show you how to get the best links the best way.

A Lot To Web Site Marketing

There's a lot to web site marketing - hope you can join me as we cover the fundamentals I've learnt over the years (and a few tricks I've learnt).

Let's Get Started

So let's get started.

Firstly, different web sites will have require different marketing strategies. A niche product - let's say high end video cameras - will need a different focus than an everyday item like shoes.

The high end video camera web site may find great success in building an email database list and keeping prospects updated. A nicely optimised web site won't have a lot of competition in the major search engines. And targeted print media may also generate a steady stream of visitors to their site.

Whilst the shoe site might benefit from a dedicated pay per click campaign, complemented by large stock volumes at low prices to encourage repeat purchases.

Implement The Right Strategies The Right Way

Deciding on what strategy your web site will have must be a major part of your focus. It's not enough that you implement the strategies correctly. They have to be the right strategies for your web site. So spend some time on that - taking a good look at your site, your market, the influences on the market....and then pick the strategies that you'll implement.

That's a great start.

Some Assumptions

Before we get into it, I'll make the assumption that you already have a domain name selected (short, descriptive, easy to remember) and a web site. I'll talk about what needs to be on your web site a little later.

On with the shoe............

The King - Search Engine Optimisation

Search engine optimisation is the King....no doubt about it.

(Note: Feb 5, 2005 The day after I wrote this article, Wired published an article that attempts to quantify the impact of a high search engine ranking. The impact, as you'll read, is astounding.)

Search engines have the ability to deliver tons and tons of visitors looking to buy your product or service. And they do it all for free. There's never really been anything like it before in the history of commerce.

Having your site rank high in the search engines is an absolute must for almost all web sites. But there is a key............

And That Key Is This.....

The key is this: ranking high for the 'right' phrase or word.

Just looking at my web site statistics now tells me that if you type the phrase "Rob Mills the singer" into Google you'll get these results returned.

See how my page is number 8 in the returned results. (Note: Now here's a good example of search engine optimisation in action! Because I've mentioned the phrase "Rob Mills the singer" a couple of time on this page, this page you're reading now, has gone to # 1 for that phrase.)

That's useless to me. And it's useless for 1 main reason:

• People searching for "Rob Mills the singer" won't be interested in the Tailored web site.

(Add to that the fact that very, very few people search for "Rob Mills the singer".)

What Would Be Better....

What would be a whole lot better for my web site marketing, web site development, web designer assistance-type web site would be if this site ranked high for a keyword such as "web site promotion".

After all, according to the Overture Suggestion Tool, that phrase receives about 129,897 searches per month.

So developing the web site to rank high for that phrase would be far more beneficial than ranking high for the phrase "web site marketing strategy" - just 4,505 searches done per month.

Find The Best Phrase Or Keyword For Your Web Site

Okay, with me so far? (If you ever have any questions as we go along just shoot me through an email at brendon@tailored.com.au)

There are many ways to figure out what would be the best search terms for you to target. As we established above, the best criteria is to find what key words or phrases are relevant to your web site and ensure that those key words and phrases are what people are actually searching for.

Start by doing this.

• Sit down and think what you would type into a search engine if it was you looking
• Ask your customers what they would type into a search engine

2 good ways to start. But here are some more tools to help you see what people are searching for (and to provide a few ideas):

• Overture Suggestion Tool - type in the phrase and the page will display a list of associated phrases along with the number of searches completed last month for that phrase.
• Digital Point Suggestion Tool - a handy little tool will show you the results of your query from both Wordtracker and Overture for determining which phrases are searched most often.
• Wordtracker - more comprehensive tool than the 2 above....but it does cost a few bucks per month to use.

Figure Out The Best Key Word Or Phrase - Based On.....

The first thing you need to do when optimising your web site for high search engine rankings is figure out the best key word or phrase based on the relevancy of that key word or phrase to your site and whether or not it's the key word or phrase that your prospects/customers are searching for.

If it's not, then it's the wrong key word.

Make a start with the tools provided above. With the correct key word or phrase to target your search engine optimisation campaign will be off to a flying start.

The next article in the series - "Page Titles, Meta Keyword Tags & Meta Description Tags" - will deal with optimising the page for the search engines with page titles and meta tags. Click here for more...

[ Current Article ]

[ Article 2 ] - Page Titles, Meta Keyword Tags & Meta Description Tags

[ Article 3 ] - On Page Ranking Factors

[ Article 4 ] - Linking For Web Sites

Here is a seo book review I recently did that may be of some interest.

Brendon Sinclair