Online marketing and advertising | internet consulting

Most ad agencies only design the site, and most web firms only build the site. There has not, until now, been a company that specialises in online marketing consulting, driving traffic to your web site, and improving both your site and online marketing activities to ensure a consistent stream of new business. Alexanders Internet Marketing recommends you dedicate between 10 and 20% of this year's budget to online. Here are some tips on where to start:

Web seo: search engine optimization

Search engine optimization or web seo is the process of tweaking your site and building links until you get a higher position in searches (important because 80% of people only look at page one of Google search engine results, and 80% click on one of the top three results).

I: Onsite optimization

There are logical content tweaks that can be done on your site to help ensure the search engines rank you. The foundation building blocks are Keyword Analysis and a Technical Brief.

Keyword Analysis

Start with volume analysis of traffic on hundreds of relevant phrases that are commonly used in your product categories. At Alexanders, we look to see which phrases have more traffic, combined with which ones are hotly contested. We select up to a dozen to 15 key phrases to compete on (no more than 3 per page). A map details which pages will be optimized for which set of phrases. This is a critical step, which will focus following work on the language and phrases actually being used by prospects, not the ones that a client or agency “guesses” are the ones.

Technical Brief Based on the above, these phrases need to inserted into your web site in seven key places. The number of pages that need amending depend on the number of similar clusters of keywords. Typically it’s 5-7 pages that need updating. At Alexanders, we develop a technical brief for your web team to upload that outlines specific text, headings, coding that needs changing to improve your position on selected keywords. The uploading of this technical brief is normally done by you if you have a content editing site, or your web team.

Updating site The above analysis informs changes that need to be made to your existing site, e.g. you may require new “landing” pages optimized around specific words. In some cases a new site is needed e.g. you want to move to a content editing system, or your site has out of date technology. Alexanders is happy to work with your existing set up if you are happy with it, or guide you to a new system. Normally minor tweaking is required to the menu structure. It’s a good time to add quick links to popular items, or re-skin the header if the look is dated. It’s your choice to use existing provider or us to implement changes depending on project scope.

Monitor position difference in ranking In order to tell what improvement these steps create, it’s important to prepare a ranking report before and after (and regularly thereafter), on selected key phrases on all major search engines to see if you have made page one of Google and where extra work is required to get there.

II: Off site optimisation

This is work done off your site to generate traffic to your site. It is harder, and takes longer, but is essential if you want to improve and maintain your position in the search engines.

Blog writing

Create blogs around keywords and ping these automatically to relevant groups to generate traffic to your site. We can provide a platform to reduce duplication for managing multiple blogs, tweets etc. Our creative writer, Joanne, is an expert in blog writing and turning existing content into appealing, flowing text that encourages click through.

Link building & article submission

Work monthly to obtain links and generate articles on relevant sites to generate traffic.

Pay per click advertising

Offline, online optimization and Pay per click go hand in hand. Adwords gives you instant traffic, and also directs traffic to your site for the hundreds of phrases that don’t have enough volume to be worth developing specific content for. But there’s no point in doing Google Adwords if you are not also doing organic search engine optimization (so you appear in searches on the left hand side), because 27% of people who respond to an online ad actually search for the product or brand using a search engine rather than clicking on the ad. Therefore if you do not come up on page one, you lose that lead to your competitors.

Google Adwords

Google Adword groups need to be set up using keyword analysis above. It generates immediate traffic to your site. Your ad appears the second someone is searching for your product. Many clients find Adwords complicated and we usually set up and manage Google Adwords accounts. Alexanders monitors monthly for the first three months (thereafter quarterly), and tweaks ads to improve click through based on results.

Facebook advertising

Globally if Facebook were a country, it would be the third biggest in the world with over 400 million active users. The fastest growing group is women 45-55. Imagine the very moment someone typed in your product phrase, your product ad pops up – and only to the age group and region you want. Talk to us about this targeted medium.

SEO Plan

Not sure where to start? We review your competitors who are outranking you online. We determine how they are beating you, and develop a strategy to outwit and outrank them. We work out which sites you need to get links from. Then you will have a plan to implement monthly thereafter, some of which you can do and some of which may require ongoing help.

Social Media Strategy

Decipher how and where to reach your market on Social Media sites Twitter, Facebook, Linked In, You Tube etc. Alexanders suggests a social media strategy for where you can set up discussion forums, what to monitor on Twitter, devising your corporate Facebook/Twitter pages and strategy.

Online Video

Streaming video is big – 80% of web users watch them. Create multiple videos, posting on You Tube, creating your own You Tube channel, embedding in your site. These links all help with getting a good position. Whether they are short ones using picture and slide shows, intro’s from a company staff member, or more creative ones that set the scene, speak to us about putting something together.

Emarketing

There are two commercially available email databases where you can target selected people by age, region, interest group, income etc. Or we can help you to set up an online template and online enewsletter system to communicate with your existing customers and prospects. Alexanders has a good module if you don’t have one inbuilt into your web site. We normally assist with importing your database, creating and sending the first enewsletter.

Online advertising

Alexanders can deliver a report to determine sites most visited or which are the best match to your target audience. Then we can recommend a media plan built based on your budget. The next step is to build interactive ads linking to your site. Campaigns we have done have featured on Press Online, TradeMe, Smile City emarketing, ODT, NZ Herald, Stuff, MetService, Facebook.

Alexanders specializes in online marketing for New Zealand companies, and can help to guide you through these the steps to help you with effective online marketing. Please get in touch to tell us a bit more about your target market and we can formulate a strategy to take you forward.