‘Marketing & Selling Online’ Fiona McMahon School of Communication University of Ulster Today’s objective:  Focus on how to improve the effectiveness of your website through a better understanding of Internet marketing techniques Why online?  In the UK:  There are 40,000,000 (aged 2+) that are using the Internet  Almost three quarters (73%) of those who have bought books / CDs / films in the last six months have done so at home using online devices  Only 10% have bought these products face to face in store in last six months  Almost three quarters (74%) researched books / CDs / films online before purchasing  Less than a quarter of people who have bought electronic goods in the last six months have done so in store (23%)  Over half (57%) have bought electronic goods online at home in last six months  87% of people researched electronic products online before purchasing Source: Internet Advertising Bureau Why online?  UK internet economy was worth £100 billion in 2009, and is growing at a rate of 10% per year  Despite the economic downturn and austerity measures imposed by the UK Government in 2010, consumers spent £58bn online (up 16% year-onyear) and over a third of them spent between £100 and £500.  Of the 45 million active mobile users in the UK, 23 million have now engaged in m-commerce Source: Internet Advertising Bureau Web offering:  Contact - marketing, communication, brochureware, visibility  Interact - information exchange, communication, interaction by searching  Transact - commerce, transactions  Relate – two-way relationships, integration of Internet capability, social media Your web offering:  It’s your customer’s answer to the question: What makes this company valuable? Zappos.com - Powered by service  The Zappos website loaded faster than any other retail site.  The company’s free-phone number was prominently displayed on all its web pages. The average call is answered in less than 20 seconds and operators are empowered to resolve virtually any issue.  Zappos used professional photographers to take eight photos for each style and colour of shoe, from different angles – to allow customers to view the item they are interested in, in the desired colour, from a number of different perspectives. Zappos.com - Powered by service  The website includes detailed descriptions of shoes, including ‘added value’ information that would ordinarily be provided by experts at a shoe store, such as choosing the right size and style, and the importance of ‘gait’ when choosing a running shoe.  The site also allowed customers to provide feedback on their purchases, which were not edited (within reason – bad language was removed) with the most recent comments displaying for each shoe.  If you are interested in the Zappos story and philosophy check out CEO Tony Hsieh’s book: ‘Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose’ The consumer decision journey: Source Court et al. 2009 Google slide © Fiona McMahon http://www.youtube.com/watch ?v=3Sk7cOqB9Dk Right message, right people, right time = Advertising & Marketing Conversion to sales = Website content and usability Where are you now?     Google Analytics? Free Establish a baseline Key Performance Indicators: Visitors, Page views, Bounce, Keywords,  http://www.google.com/intl/en/analytics/iq.html  http://www.google.co.uk/trends/ Monitor & Measure Performance The Bounce Rate is the percentage of bounced visits to your site. The following situations qualify as bounces:  A user clicks on a link deep into your site sent by a friend, reads the information on the page and closes the browser  A user comes to your homepage, looks around for a minute or two, and immediately leaves  A user comes directly to a reference page on your site from a web search, leaves the page available in the browser while completing other tasks in other browser windows and the session times out (30 mins) Optimise your site  For users as well as search engines! When writing for the Web…  Chunking  Relevant  Accurate  Brevity  Scannable  http://blog.davechaffey.com/ Source: Smith & Chaffey, 2010 seo Title tags:  Check for default titles  Create unique, accurate titles for every page  Search query terms are bolded (so do your keyword research!)  Title tag for home page might include name of business/website, location, key offerings/value proposition  <65 characters Description meta tag: clip art  Develop a description tag for each page that accurately summarise the page’s content  Search query terms are bolded (so do your keyword research!)  <150 characters Screen dump of title tag On-page Optimisation Source: www.seomoz.org On-page optimisation. Include keywords…  Once in the title tag, as close to the beginning as possible  once in the H1 Header Tag  approx 3 times in the body copy  at least once in bold (<strong> or <bold>)  at least once in the alt attribute of an image  once in the url  in the image filename; enable image Search in your Webmaster Tools  Don’t forget the human beings! www.hallam.biz/blog Identifying keywords/phrases  Key phrases for ‘natural’ search and paid search  Use Google tools - Google Adwords Tool - http://www.google.com/insights/search/?hl=enGB Google Insights for search  How do your customers search? -Navigational - Informational - Commercial - Transactional Google Adwords & Pay Per Click     www.google.com/adwords/beginnersguide Google Adwords Tool Organise campaigns by theme One theme per campaign, at least 3 ad groups for each campaign and each ad group should then have a highly related set of targeted key phrases (between 5-50 for each group) and ads that match the specific theme.  In each campaign, create separate ad groups for each of your products, brands or types of services you offer. Google Adwords & Pay Per Click  Use specific key phrases that directly relate to the theme of your ad group and landing page.  Key phrases that are too broad can lower your performance by generating many ad impressions but few clicks  Match keywords to ad text  Think like your customers  Use negative keywords  Review and Refine Google Adwords Source: Google Match keywords to ad text Continual cycles of improvement:        Site structure Site content Key phrases Build inbound links Have a blog Existing measures New measures  Allocating and managing time and costs In- bound link building:  Customers, professional associations, trade bodies  Identity relevant audiences (online and off) create content of interest and generate awareness/interest  http://www.google.com/blogsearch  Emailing bloggers with content of interest to them and links to your site  Submit sites to directories  User-generated, non-editorial <a href="http://www.shadyseo.com" rel="nofollow">Comment spammer</a> Thanks for listening… any questions? [email protected] www.ulster.ac.uk/dmc T:@dmc Thanks for listening… any questions? [email protected] www.ulster.ac.uk/dmc T:@dmc