Friday, September 10, 2010

Tips on Creating a Compelling Ad For Online Marketing


All businesses need to promote their business and write an online “ad” at some point. Knowing how to create a compelling ad is an essential skill you need to have for  your web marketing efforts.  Here are some tips for writing ads that not only make people think, but also respond.

The main thing you need to narrow down when you are writing a promotinal ad is the “principle selling position” (PSP), also know as unique selling position (USP). This is the best benefit your product or service offers. “In order to determine a PSP, ask yourself how your product or service is different than your competitors. Are you faster? More reliable? Do you provide better customer service? Make sure to paint a picture that shows your potential clients and customers exactly how your product or service will improve their life or solve their problems.” For example, McDonald’s new commercials all highlight how their food is all natural and made from fresh ingredients. That is their latest PSP. How about a Cingular ad that states, “Hate dropped calls? Switch to the network with the fewest dropped calls.” Can you guess what their PSP is?

Another important feature to remember about writing advertisements is to write directly to your target audience. Is your demographic women, men, kids, college students, moms, etc? You need to understand what issues are important to your target demographic and address those issues specifically to them. For example, Victoria’s Secret new Pink line is targeted directly at teen girls. To this end, they put together a whole website, Facebook page, Twitter page, etc. simply promoting their new products to this age group.

Using video or audio as part of your online ads is another proven strategy to make your ads more compelling. Studies have shown that people are more likely to believe what they read or hear if it is accompanied by visuals. Engaging more of people’s senses also helps them not get distracted by other things around them when you want them to be focused on your advertisement. The first part of an advertisement is the most important. Just like professors used to tell me in English class, “the first sentence should grab you and make you want to read more.” Advertisements are the same way. Introduce your PSP in the first couple of sentences to create the most powerful ad possible. Your strongest selling points should be at the beginning of your advertisement rather than the end. Draw the reader in and by the end, you’ll have made a sale.
Thursday, July 29, 2010

Repetitive Marketing- Effective tool for Social Media Too!

There is a lot of “clutter” associated with advertising. For the consumer, it is everywhere; on magazines, in newspapers, on TV, on the radio, online, billboards, buses, shop signs, etc. “Every single day, consumers are exposed to over 3,500 advertisements.” With that amount of competition, how you make sure your ad grabs their attention? How do you help a consumer remember your brand?

Marketing experts suggest that “consumers need to see your message between seven and twelve times before they even pay attention to it.” This is why repetitive marketing is key. When you advertise online, say on Hulu for example, it is important not just to have your ad run once or twice. Consumers need to see it many times in order to remember it. Magazine, newspaper, and television ads work the same way. Consumers need to see them many, many times before they register and remember your brand. 

Successful campaigns practice this idea of repetitive marketing. For example, the “Got Milk?” campaign runs virtually the same ad in magazines all across the country, and everyone can tell you what their ad looks like. Having a jingle or characters can help with repetitive marketing since it helps people remember. The Geicko gecko is an example of this.

Repetitive marketing is effective on social media networking sites too. If you are engaged in several different social sites such as Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn you are more likely to attract people’s attention since they can “friend” you on all the different sites. This is an easy and free way to get more exposure over a wider area.  It works the same way as traditional promotions.  The more people are exposed to you and your brand, the more likely they will think of you when you need your product or services. Email marketing can be effective as well. The key is to build your email list from people who visit your site and to offer them interesting and informative email content.
Monday, June 14, 2010

Importance of Keyword Research

Why is keyword research important?
Keywords are the way people find items they are searching for on the internet. What ever you are looking for online, keywords are the way you'll find it. With this in mind, it is highly important for websites to select keywords that encompass the products, services, and information they offer. Without the right keywords, even a well-designed website with good content can fail because search engines rely on keywords along with other off page factors such as incoming links to “rank” sites in the SERP results. In order to optimize your site for a search engine, it is extremely important to do some comprehensive keyword research.

So, where do you start?

Well, a good place to start your keyword research is by simply brainstorming to narrow your keywords down to fifteen or twenty, one to three word phrases that you believe people might use when searching for your website. Then you can take those phrases and use one of the many online keyword tools to find out how many people are searching for those terms, related terms you might want to consider, and similar useful tools. “Facts are sacred in website optimization as they provide the exact data of what people are actually searching for, thus saving you from starting on a wild goose chase.” Keyword online tools are also helpful for expanding your inspiration and finding keywords that apply to your site that you might not have thought of. Identifying your target audience and forming your keywords around the way that audience searches is crucial to reaching consumers that are interested in your product or services. Once you have performed the appropriate research, changing or tweaking your keywords in your website content can make the difference between having tons of traffic to your website each day and maintaining a ghost town website, so remember keyword research is a vital tool for search engine optimization and marketing your website effectively.
Monday, May 10, 2010

How to get your website out of Googles sandbox


If your website is one of the unlucky many websites that are placed in Google’s probationary “Sandbox”, don’t despair. While you can’t control what limits Google places on your site or for how long, there are techniques you can apply that will not only help you be released from the Sandbox, but will make your website stronger in the long run.

First of all, do not attempt to get out of the Sandbox by resorting to spammy "tools” or unethical tricks. This is a good way to get yourself banned permanently from Google since the whole point of the Sandbox is to filter out spammers and con artists. Links are the lifeblood of search engine rankings, so obtaining quality, dependable sources such as “.edu, .gov, and .mil” domains is not only important for proving you are credible to Google and getting released from the Sandbox, but also for the general health and ranking of your site. Building quality links is a slow process, but it will strengthen your website as a whole. Don’t be tempted to purchase links from link brokers, as buying a bunch of links in a small period of time is one of the characteristics that will get you sent to the Sandbox in the first place.

Relevant, useful, accurate content is one of the main things Google’s robots are looking for when they crawl your site. Adding new content, even when your site is in the Sandbox will help you get out and will help your rankings in other search engines. Generally, one of the top issues that put sites in the Sandbox is using popular or controversial keywords. Since keywords are a integral part of search engines it is very important that you use words and phrases that pertain to your site. There are often dozens of keywords you can use for any particular site and be sure to look for long tail keyphrases. If you are having trouble thinking of them, try one of the many keyword tools available online such as Googles free keyword tool to help you brainstorm.
Monday, April 5, 2010

SEO = AUTOMATIC SALES (NOT!)


If you own or manage a website, you already understand that optimizing the site for the search engines is an extremely important task (especially if your business relies on getting sales from the website). If you plan on optimizing your site for the search engines, you should understand that search engine optimization does not automatically mean you will get sales and conversions. What?

That is correct, the primary goal of search engine optimization is to increase your ranking in search engines. Although, it’s true that it normally will also get you more targeted traffic, you should not automatically expect a huge jump in your sales just because you began to optimize your site. In order to ensure sales conversions, you need to take many other marketing factors into consideration, such as web design, usability, landing pages, navigation and of course-- does your product offer visitors exactly what they are looking for and at a great value? The benefits of SEO are numerous, but they are longer-reaching and should be combined with proven marketing techniques in order to increase your sales. Don’t confuse search engine optimization tactics with sales tactics.

Understanding your sites statistics is another vital part of search engine optimization. For example, do you know how many people are visiting your site? What are they looking at? How long are they staying on each page? These questions will give you a good picture into what needs to be changed on your site and what is working well. If you don’t understand the analytics of your site, how will you know if the techniques or content you are posting is successful? “When things are going well, even if best practices aren't being followed, it can be wise to match up data and trends to see what's made a real difference.” Don’t neglect the statistics of your website; they can be a great resource to help you with your web marketing objectives.

While organic SEO strategies can be a great way to improve your website, don’t forget about the other media and tactics you can take advantage of. SEO isn’t a replacement for traditional marketing, social media networking, printed advertisements, etc. Remember, marketing a business website is a lot like driving a car. If you get too focused on the road in front of you, you may ignore the pedestrian stepping into the road at the corner and likely cause an accident. Likewise, if you get too focused on SEO tactics, you will miss the other strategies such as social media marketing that could really help your business. So, the moral of the story is don’t focus on SEO to the exclusion of other business tactics and SEO does not necessarily mean that you will get sales conversions without taking any other marketing tactics into account.
Thursday, March 18, 2010

Can You “Over Optimize” Your Website?


Yes! It may seem strange, but believe it or not search engines look at various different criteria on your site for ranking purposes and will penalize you if they decide that you are trying to trick them in any manner.

What they are looking for is any type of unnatural behavior that they will flag for “over optimization” reasons. Basically, this means that you will rank poorly for relevant key phrases in your niche. This is one of the reasons why it is so important to have your site optimized by a professional SEO company or at least someone who is very familiar with what the search engines are looking for and what the latest trends are.

Here are some tell tale signs that you may be over optimizing your website:

• Identical Page Titles and H1 headings
• Excessive internal links
• Keyword stuffing
• Excessive poorly written text below the fold (for the search engines and not the users)

If you find that your website is using any of these tactics, you should make adjustments as soon as possible to get your site back on the right path. The search engines are getting smarter everyday and the best optimization you can do has always been in regards to content. Content is still king! You should always write for the intended audience and not the search engines. Stuffing keywords is definitely old school, but I am often surprised when analyzing prospective clients sites and just surfing the Internet that this tactic is still going on and quite prevalent.

Internal linking is a great strategy and you should definitely use it as part of your on-page SEO arsenal, but be careful not to over do it as the search engines can easily spot this. Finally, please make it a point to write unique title tags and headings for each page and never create a block of optimized copy exclusively for just the search engines (below the fold of your website), which again is obviously not intended for your users and the search engines can easily detect.
Thursday, March 11, 2010

Making the Most of Twitter to Promote


Pick your favorite restaurant. Any cuisine, any location. Now search for it on Twitter. Chances are, if it is a larger company or chain, you will find it. If your search doesn’t result in an official page, send out a tweet asking if anyone else has heard of the place. “A recent study from LinkedIn and Harris Interactive showed that only 8% of advertisers and consumers think Twitter is a "very effective" promotion tool.” That is quite interesting. However, it is much easier in some respects to measure the effectiveness of a Twitter campaign than traditional forms of advertising.

For example, Taco Bell has a Twitter page. They use it to inform their customers about new coupons, contests, and interact with fans. How effective is their Twitter page? Here are some basic ways any business can track their Twitter statistics and compare them to traditional media metrics. “For raw broadcast reach, your number of Followers is the leading indicator because it quantifies your baseline Twitter audience.” Taco Bell has 16,040 followers. Not bad when you compare it to McDonalds’ 16,727 followers. Pizza Hut, which often partners with Taco Bell locations, has 26,454 followers.

Google Analytics is one of my favorite tools to use to see how much of your website’s traffic is coming from Twitter or any site for that matter. “What are they looking at? What is working? What is not?” Third party tools come in hand and are a valuable way to easily see how effective your Twitter page is. For example, check out Tweet Stats, it puts all your tweets into an easy to read graph that shows you how much you tweet and how often other reply to your tweets. “@Replies, Twitter’s public conversation feature, is the most significant engagement quantifier because your audience is responding to your message.” Taco Bell has an average reply rate of 30.37%. See how simple it is to find the effectiveness of your Twitter promotions?

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Glen Andrade
I started Digital Synergy in 1997 as a web design and development company. As the industry changed, we kept right on pace with the latest developments especially with search engine marketing. I am actually a pretty laid back kind of guy... usually like to keep to my self for the most part, but with the advent of social media taking over web marketing, I had no choice but to thrust myself into this awesome medium as it offers so many great opportunities that were not available in terms of marketing just a few short years ago.
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