Archive for SEO
Are you just an accommodation provider?
April 25th, 2010 • Comments Off Marketing, SEO, Web media
Or do you offer a more complete holiday experience?
Kerikeri Court Motel has introduced an interesting element to their website by including an Insider page – Our Town – which tells potential visitors about some of the gems within Kerikeri Township and the wider Bay of Islands. The inclusion of this page shows a level of care and attention; you’ve bothered to think about your favourite things to do in the area and share them with your guests. They list the local wineries, favourite cafes, a beautiful DoC walk as well as links to the cinema website and the Centre. This ‘extra mile’ might well from a crucial point of difference between you and your competition, helping you to convert a website hit to a guest booking.
It also provides links out of the site which can potentially be turned into incoming links (you scratch my back…). Furthermore it means that your website is packed full of keywords that are used meaningfully to describe your region, which does no harm to your search engine rating.
This simple exercise is about “leveraging” your website – making the most of the tools available to expand your audience.
A blogroll frenzy
March 3rd, 2010 • Comments Off Copywriting, Marketing, SEO, Social media, Web media
Don’t trust me! I’m a blogger.
I just learned here that it’s unlikely I’m going to have a mental breakthrough (hmm, too close to mental breakdown, how about an epiphany?) as a result of what I’ve read in a blog. Fair enough. Most of what I find online is utter flim flam. But there are nuggets of genius out there. And when you’re working from home and all alone, you need input from like minded individuals to remind you why you decided to quit the office. But where do you start? Though I hate to admit it, Twitter’s helped me out.
…but I’m good at finding the blogs you should read
In an inspiring 20 minutes I have stumbled into some really useful blogs, all from one click on one tweet (Copyblogger’s of course) that has led me into a spider’s web of links and leaps through all the online marketing genius you could wish for. Well, if not genius, at least some very down to earth marketing/business blogs which I will henceforth follow as though they were my slightly superior office colleagues on whose words I might hang like an overwrought kitten.
Audience. Audience. Audience.
First up, Joe Hall has contacted a bunch of business marketing gurus and they say this about The Most Important Thing for New Entrepreneurs to Understand (his title, not mine – such a teutonic approach to capitalisation makes me scratch nervously). Also I question the adjective ‘New’ here – you either are or aren’t entrepreneurial by nature surely? Anyway, it’s a motivating read. Go have a look now, don’t worry if you click it won’t take you away from this page (do I look stupid?).
Chicks online.
After that I found Outspoken Media which is like an all-female rock band but with more than just a pretty face and loud noise to recommend it. I like their style.
Why is everyone’s else site better than mine?
And just when I’m weeping into my boots because everyone’s blogs are so much cooler than mine, along came the solution in the form of this guy who is clearly a Wordpress genius and who (obviously) has a way better Wordpress site than I do. I want one. Can I have one? Can I? Yes, if I listen hard to The Most Important Thing for New Entrepreneurs to Understand and make a bit more money so I can afford to pay Langford Ink’s web developer to build it for me. Gah!
Happy reading. Come back for more untrustworthy blogs soon. I’ll try not to disappoint.
A bit about online marketing
December 6th, 2009 • Comments Off E-newsletters, Marketing, SEO, Uncategorized, Web media
Online marketing is perhaps the easiest kind of marketing to get into and potentially the cheapest form of promotion, but also the most elusive in some ways and certainly the most mind boggling for its vastness.
It’s easy, because you don’t have to actually talk to anyone (although I suppose it does require a modicum of internet savvy to get started) and somehow putting an electronic facimile of yourself out there is less excruciating than direct sales in person.
It’s cheap, because you’re not paying for expensive print runs and one good website will act as an anchor around which your work can be done – although how much you spend on the website itself is a “how long is a piece of string?” question.
Elusive, because it’s not a physically tangible thing and also the success of online marketing can be hard to measure, which isn’t to say it’s not being effective, it’s just difficult to quantify its effectiveness. But a bit of time spent looking at the capabilities of Google Analytics can help you understand who’s visiting your site, which pages they like and when, historically, you have had most hits – analysing these results over time will refine your approach and skills so that your online marketing is optimised for your own business.
Mind boggling, because that’s the nature of the web; trying to grasp the extent of the world wide web is a bit like trying to grasp the extent of our universe.
What I like most about online marketing is that it is totally customised to an indiviudal’s business. There is no ‘one size fits all’ approach. Granted, there are a number of core essentials – a search engine friendly website is at the top of the list for which some standard procedures apply; registering your site with search engines, including appropriate keywords, regularly updating your website with value content, obtaining appropriate links and so on. And, by the way, this is just a minuscule introduction to the 21st century Holy Grail (a.k.a. Search Engine Optimisation).
Apart from these givens, how much you do in the way of promoting your business online and the particular way you do it is down to the needs of the business itself: the type of industry, client’s ambition, time available and, of course, budget. What’s guaranteed is that there’s something to suit everyone. And regarding budget, it doesn’t have to be a big budget; you can pay for listings in multiple sites and spend thousands, but a bit of research and some canny placement can achieve the same results for considerably less cash output.
So where to start…?
For example, this case study is a very simple online marketing campaign that doesn’t even require a website. What would make this campaign more effective is to include an embedded link to the website taking you to a page that is regularly updated with new menus, events etc. so that those people interested might bookmark that page, send it to friends and become a regular customer of your website and your establishment.
Web marketing is an area I address with clients, week-in week-out, in one way or another – but I am rather flummoxed about where to begin describing ‘how to’ as it’s such a vast area. Let me think about it and I’ll come back to you next time with another case study to illustrate how you can apply some simple online marketing strategies yourself.
In the mean time, if you’re feeling brave here is a maze rich in resources on the subject of search engine optimisation, including linking, keywords, copywriting etc. Danny Dover is a Seattle-based SEO consultant. He might be King Arthur too.