Internet Marketing for Small Business :: Tutorials, Tips and Fresh Ideas

Reviewing and analyzing the volume and behavior of the visitors to your site can help you identify opportunities to save money and increase sales. The best stats tracking service I’ve found is actually free!

Google Analytics is a fantastic service that will give you detailed statistics about your website visitors. Analytics’ incredibly detailed reports will tell you just about anything you can imagine about your visitors:

• How many visitors your site is getting (and you can generate reports by date range for all statistics)
• How many page views your website receives
• Where your site visitors are geographically located
• How your visitors find your site (e.g. search engines, links from other sites)
• The bounce rate — in other words, how many visitors are viewing only the first page and then leaving your site
• The keyword phrases your visitors are using to find you in search engines
• Your visitors’ browser versions and connection speeds
• How often your visitors return, and how recently
• How deeply into your site your visitors click
• How long they spend on your site
• The typical paths users take on your site

Google Analytics can track your conversions for sales, newsletter signups and other goals of your online marketing — even providing breakdowns for different traffic sources. In other words, you can directly compare your return on investment for purchased clicks from many sources.

Using such detailed statistics can help you invest wisely in marketing. You can end ineffective campaigns and increase spending on campaigns that are giving you good ROI. You can save money by test marketing before starting larger marketing or advertising campaigns.

Google Analytics is quite easy to integrate into your website. Go to Google Analytics and either create a Google account or sign in with your existing account. Then set up a website profile for your website. You’ll receive a code snippet. This snippet should go on every page of your website right above the close body tag. Install the code, or ask your web developer to do so (at Simply Brilliant Solutions, our content management system websites have Google Analytics integration so that you can just copy the code into a box in the administrative control panel). Then, go back to the Analytics site and check to make sure that Analytics is receiving data.

Do you have experience with or comments about Google Analytics? Please chime in below!

Welcome to SEO Tuesdays. Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of creating a website that enjoys good search engine rankings for the search queries your potential customers are likely to use when searching for products or services your business provides.

Last week I talked about keyword research and showed you how to come up with a list of about a dozen keyword phrases to target. The idea is that when somebody goes to Google or some other search engine and performs a search, these are the phrases for which you want your site to be ranked well. Now you may be asking, “Okay, what do I do with the keyword phrases to make that happen?”

Search engine optimization efforts can be roughly divided into two separate categories:

• Onsite optimization, the changes you make to your actual website to improve its ranking; and,

• Offsite optimization, everything else you do to help improve your search engine ranking (most of this work involves developing inbound links to your site from other sites).

Today we’re talking about onsite search engine optimization. Both onsite optmization and offsite optimization are critical in search engine optimization. Think of onsite optimization in terms of the foundation of a house. A foundation is not a whole house, and similarly, onsite optimization by itself will not make you achieve your search engine optimization goals. However, without properly optimizing the coding of your website, all offsite optimization in the world will not give you high search engine rankings.

Onsite search engine optimization is a complex subject, and many businesses opt to hire a search engine optimization professional to make the decisions about onsite search engine optimization and implement the coding changes. However, if you are starting from zero and do not have the budget for outside help, here are the basics to help get you started.

First, make a list of all your site’s pages. For each page, choose two or three of your keyword phrases that most closely match the theme of the text content. Repeats are okay. We’ll call these your target keyword phrases.

Even if you are not comfortable editing your site’s HTML code, the information below will serve as a guide so that you know what to look for and how to instruct your web developer to change your site. For each page, here are the elements that should contain one or more of your target keyword phrases:

URL: The URL is the address of each page of your site (starts with http://). Ideally, each page of your site should have it’s most relevant target keyword phrases as part of its URL (e.g. www.thisisyoursite.com/target-keyword-phrase.html). If your site has already been online for more than a few months you should consult a search engine professional before changing the URLs of any of your pages to avoid losing the search engine benefits that you may have already developed.

Title tag: The title tag is the piece of code that determines the title of your page. You can see the title of any page at the very top of your browser screen, above all your toolbars. Your title tag will also be the title Google uses when displaying your site in search results. The title should be summary of the content of the page and it must contain one or two of your target keyword phrases. Keep the title length to one reasonably short sentence.

Meta description tag: The meta description tag will not be visible on the page itself, but Google and other search engines may display it as the description of your site in the search results. Therefore, this is a good opportunity to persuade searchers that your site has what they are looking for. Write a short paragraph, one or two sentences, that ideally contain your target keyword phrases and make a well-written summary of your page.

Header tags: Header tags go around the headings in your page’s content. Search engines treat headers as an important indication of your site’s content. Make sure your headers include your target keywords.

Text content: As mentioned above, your target keywords should be related to the content of the page itself. Therefore, it should not be difficult for you to make sure that the target keywords appear naturally in the text of the content of your page. Make sure you have at least three to four paragraphs of content on each page.

Image ALT tags: The image ALT tag is meant to contain a description of the image to which it relates. If you are using the Internet Explorer browser, you’ll see the ALT tag pop up when you mouse over an image on a web page. Starting with your target keyword phrases for the page, work in ALT tags for each image that are accurate and also contain your keyword phrases. Once you have used up your two target keyword phrases for the page, move on to other keyword phrases in your list of 12 in order to create the other ALT tags for images on the page.

There are some other important things to know about onsite search engine optimization:

Site navigation: It’s very important that some of the navigation elements on your site are hyperlinked text rather than images. If your main navigation uses images in order to look nice, make sure you at least have a text footer menu. If you can use a target phrase in the navigation links pointing to your pages, even better. If your site has more than 10 pages, a site map would be good idea.

A word of caution: Keyword stuffing is the name for packing too many keyword phrases into your URL, title tag and other page elements. More is not always better and keyword stuffing frequently results in lower, not higher, rankings. Don’t keyword stuff — stick to one or two keyword phrases for each element of your page. About a decade ago meta keyword tags were important to search engine rankings, but because of rampant keyword stuffing and spam almost all the search engines now disregard meta keyword tags. If a service provider tries to convince you that he can get you to the top of the rankings just by manipulating your site’s keyword tags, run — you are being scammed.

Next week we will talk about some of the ways to start building your offsite optimization strategies. Be sure to subscribe to the RSS feed in your reader or sign up for free email updates at the upper right of this page.

Do you have any onsite search engine optimization strategies to share? Please comment!

You spend a lot of time and money to get visitors to your website, and then the majority of them will leave again without contacting you or making a purchase, never to return.  Turn some of those “not today” visitors into future customers by persuading them to join your email list.

Here are the five steps to building a healthy opt-in email marketing list for your small business:

1. Use a third-party email marketing service provider.  I prefer Aweber.com — other providers include ConstantContact.com and GetResponse.com.  Why should you pay for a third-party service?  Your website host or ISP is not really geared to handle your email newsletter needs; if you don’t use a third-party provider, you’ll find that many or even most of your subscribers do not receive your emails.  Packages start at $20 a month and it is well worth the investment.
2. Put an email collection box (the little form your visitors fill out with their name and email address) on the front page of your site, and ideally on every page.  Make it easy for your visitors to sign up to your list.
3. Make an irresistable offer to induce your visitors to subscribe.  Offer free information, a discount coupon, insider deals:  anything that will appeal to your audience.
4. Tell your visitors exactly what they are going to send them in their email.  A weekly newsletter?  Special discounts?  Recipes?  And then stick to your promise.  Give them what you promised them, and not a bunch of other stuff.
5. Send marketing emails on Wednesday.  Statistics show that emails sent between Tuesday and Thursday stand the best chance of actually being opened.

Need help getting your email list and website collection boxes set up?  Contact me at catherine@macdonaldonmarketing.com

On Saturdays I’ll be sharing great posts from other bloggers — fresh perspectives on online marketing for small businesses.  Today’s post is about the value of a custom 404 page for your site, with a tutorial that shows you exactly how to create your 404 page.

What’s a 404 page?  It’s the file not found page that comes up when you click on a broken link.  Ideally, your website will not contain any broken links, but hedge your bets and create your own 404 page to help your site visitors get back on track.  ConversationMarketing.com writes “How To:  Create a Great 404 Page Not Found Error Page”.

Photo credit: raster

This is the first post of a weekly feature, Five Minute Fridays, in which I’ll suggest something to boost online marketing for your small business in just five minutes. This week we’re talking about your email signature.

Do you have an email signature? An email signature is the block of information that your email program can automatically insert at the bottom of every email you send. Just think of how many times emails are forwarded and you’ll realize that this is a free marketing opportunity you should not miss.

A good email signature should contain the following five lines:

1. Your full name.

2. Your website URL (make sure this starts with http:// so that it will be clickable in every email program.

3. A brief description of what you sell or offer.

4. Your telephone numbers (this is optional of course — depending upon whether you want to encourage telephone leads).

5. Your email address (make it clickable by prefacing your email address with mailto:).

Here’s an example:

——————————————————————-
Catherine MacDonald
http://www.MacDonaldOnMarketing.com
Internet Marketing for Small Business: Tutorials, Tips, Fresh Ideas
Office: 555.555.5555 Cell: 555.555.5555
mailto:catherine@macdonaldonmarketing.com.
——————————————————————-

There you have it, a five-minute way to increase your online visibility.

Have you seen a particularly creative or effective email signature? Please comment!

Google Maps information is now frequently showing up at the top of the Google search results page for user searches that include place name keywords. This post explains how to get your business into these Google search results.

Ever do a search on Google and get images, news, YouTube videos or maps at the top of the results? This is thanks to Google Universal Search. The pictures to the left (click to enlarge) show examples of these results.

If you’re a small business owner with a bricks and mortar location, here’s how to get your site into the Google Maps results for searches that include local keywords.

Go to Google Maps Local Business Center and enter your business information (name, address, website, etc.) into the form. Then you will be able to upload photos, videos, select categories, tell customers your payment options, business hours, and more.

How does Google make sure that your location information is accurate? Google will actually mail you out a postcard containing your PIN: your listing will not be activated until you log in again and enter your PIN.

One of the most exciting new features (see the second thumbnail) is the way Google indexes reviews of your business from many different websites. Soon we’ll be talking about social media and ways to turn your most loyal customers into evangelists for your small business.

Did you find this tutorial helpful? Make sure to add our RSS to your reader so you don’t miss future posts.

Have you added your business to Google Local Business Center? Please comment below to let me know the results.

Every small business owner is an expert. The secret to attracting visitors to your website and building their trust in you is to share your expertise generously online.

What’s your area of expertise? Hotel and restaurant owners know their region’s tourist attractions inside out. Real estate agents have lots of information about relocating to their communities. Printing company owners may be experts on wedding invitations or brochure design. Exterminators know all about preventing and dealing with pest infestations. Professionals like lawyers, accountants, veterinarians, health practitioners and dentists all have answers to people’s questions.

Remember, to be an expert, you do not have to know more than anyone else knows about your topic — you only have to know more than 95% of the general population.

Positioning yourself as an expert is a gradual process, and you must resist the temptation to flog your products and services; instead, take the time to build your credibility. Become a trusted expert and the sales will follow!

Here are five starting steps to leverage your expertise into more visitors to your small business website.

Find out what people want to know.

When your customers, friends, family and neighbors ask your advice, what questions do they ask you? Start brainstorming a list of questions and topics to write about. People type all sorts of questions into search engines too. Do a little keyword research at Google Adwords and WordTracker to find more questions and to find out which questions are the most popular. Come up with a list of five to ten popular questions to get you started.

Add information pages to your website.

Add an information or FAQ section to your business website. For best search engine results, use a separate HTML page to write about each separate topic or question. (I’m going to be talking about how to optimize your site’s pages for search engines next week, so make sure you add our RSS feed to your feed reader or sign up for email updates.)

Start a blog.

Blogs are the single biggest bang for your buck in terms of generating visitors from search engines and links from other sites. If you have the time to write something fresh and on topic at least once a week, blogging is the best way to share your expertise on a topic and build relationships with your customers and potential customers.

How do you get a blog? The best option is to have a web developer integrate a blog as part of your small business website. If you don’t have the budget for this, go to WordPress.com or Blogger.com and sign up for a free hosted blog.

Once you are blogging, take some time to participate in the blogging community by reading related blogs and making informative, focused comments. You’ll be able to get a link to your blog from your comments, which will invite people interested in what you say to come take a look.

Participate on forums.

When people are interested in a topic and have questions, they frequently turn to online communities called forums or bulletin boards. These forums provide a place where people can register to post questions and comments related to their interests. There are forums on every topic: diets, beauty, legal issues, hobbies, travel, you name it. Search Google and identify the most popular forums related to your business.

Forums each develop their own formal and informal rules and guidelines about participants’ behavior. Take the time to read and get to know the tone and rules of the forum before you jump in and participate. You may be allowed to post your business site URL in your signature — check the forum rules and if this is permitted, do it. Take time to post good insights and advice instead of just pushing your products and services; gradually you will become a respected and trusted authority.

Add our RSS to your reader or sign up for free email updates to make sure you don’t miss my follow-up posts on search engine optimization. I’ll show you how to turn the inbound links you will generate by sharing your expertise into higher search engine rankings.

Do you have more ideas about how to share your expertise with people who are looking for information and solutions? Please post in the comments!

Photo credit:  Mai Le

Welcome to SEO Tuesdays. Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of creating a website that enjoys good search engine rankings for the search queries your potential customers are likely to use when searching for products or services your business provides.

Getting good search engine rankings for your site is a longterm project that never really ends, but the results of good SEO are worth it. Statistics suggest that 85% of people who use Google click only on the “organic” search results and completely ignore the paid search listings. Therefore, SEO is worth a significant chunk of your online marketing time and/or budget.

To successfully improve your site’s search engine rankings, you need to understand the four basic steps of good SEO:

1. Identifying keyword phrases
2. Optimizing your website
3. Developing inbound links
4. Tracking your results

Today we’re going to cover the basics of identifying keyword phrases to target in your search engine optimization efforts. When people who are looking for your products or services go to Google, what do they type? You need to identify the phrases your customers are likely to be using to search so that you can begin to optimize your site to improve search engine rankings for those phrases. In SEO terms, these are called keyword phrases.

Brainstorm for a few minutes and will have a list of phrases to start you out. Keep these tips in mind:

• Think Laterally: If you sell aboveground pools, in addition to all the pool-related keyword phrases, what about phrases like summer fun, backyard improvements, etc.?

• Go Local: If you have a bricks and mortar location and you primarily serve a limited geographic area, include geographic keywords in your phrases. You have a much better chance of building a good ranking on “Bangor bed and breakfast” than on just “bed and breakfast” and people who are searching for “Bangor bed and breakfast” are ready to make a booking.

• Use Tools: Use the Google Adwords Keyword Tool and the free keyword suggestion tool from Wordtracker to find new keyword phrases and get an understanding of the search volume for each phrase.

• Prioritize: Choose no more than a dozen of the best phrases on which to focus your SEO efforts to start. The best phrases will be very specific to your products, services, and possibly geographic area and have a reasonable search volume. Beware of picking phrases that are too general, because while more people may be searching using these phrases, there will be far more competition from other sites for top rankings.

Now what? Put this list in a safe place — you’ll be referring to it over and over again as you optimize your website.

Next week I’ll show you how to start putting these keyword phrases to use in your SEO efforts. We will cover website optimization, followed by inbound links and analytics. Be sure to subscribe if you’re interested in learning more about SEO for small business sites.

Have you been working on search engine optimization for your small business website? Please comment and share your thoughts and results!

Photo credit: cambodia4kidsorg

Planning your small business website?  Choosing your site’s domain name is one of the most important decisions you will make.  You’ll want to get this right the first time around, because your domain name will be the foundation of much of your online marketing.

Here are eight tips to help you through the process:

1.  Always choose a .com domain name. People assume that your domain will end in .com, so if you choose a .net website you may end up sending your customers to your competitor.  The only exception to this rule is if you exclusively do business in a country other than the United States.  In that case, your country-specific domain (e.g. example.co.uk or example.ca) would be better.

2.  Your domain name should contain your brand or business name, especially if you have a bricks and mortar business.  This will make your domain name more memorable, and also reinforce your branding.

3.  Keywords in your domain name can really boost your eventual search engine rankings for those keywords.  If you have a short business or brand name, consider adding a keyword to the domain as well.  For example, GreenPointHats.com instead of just GreenPoint.com.

4.  Forget about hyphens. Hyphens confuse your customers and they will end up typing in the non-hyphenated domain name instead.  Choose MyGreatWebsite.com instead of My-Great-Website.com.

5.  Shorter is better, but shorter is not everything.  Try to keep the domain three words or less if possible.

6.  Make sure that your domain name is spelled like it sounds, without any possible ambiguity.  Watch out for words that sound the same or words that are tricky to spell.

7.  Register your domain with a reputable registrar. I always recommend GoDaddy.com for domain registration (but not webhosting).

8.  Register your domain name for at least several years at a time. Domains that have a long registration period tend to end up with higher search engine rankings in Google.  Make sure you keep your email address, phone number, and mailing address up to date with the domain registrar.  Your registrar must be able to contact you for rebilling when your domain name registration expires!

Stumped?  Nameboy.com and Bustaname.com are a couple of fun tools that can help you find available domains.

How did you choose your small business domain name?  Please share your experiences and ideas in the  comments below!

Photo credit:  Chrstopher

Welcome to MacDonaldOnMarketing.com. I’m Catherine MacDonald, Internet entrepreneur and small business owner. I’ve been involved in Internet marketing since 1998.

Over the years, I’ve learned a lot about the process of marketing products and services online. When my husband and I founded our web development firm Simply Brilliant Solutions and started developing websites for our small business clients, we noticed something. As our job of creating a website for a client finished, the client’s job was just starting: attracting visitors to the website and converting those visitors into new customers. Many of our clients, experts in their own industries but unfamiliar with online marketing, were unsure how to get started. That’s the reason for this blog.

I aim to make MacDonaldOnMarketing.com the place for small business owners to come for tutorials, tips and fresh ideas about web marketing. I’m not going to be writing posts full of insider jargon and obscure technical debates. We’ll be discussing the basics of online marketing in a way that anyone can understand.

The topics I’m going to cover include:

Small business websites: Internet marketing obviously starts with your website, and we’ll discuss tips and strategies to make sure that your site starts you off on the right foot.

Ecommerce: You may already be taking orders and payments online, or perhaps you are making plans to do so. Ecommerce can help you increase market share and expand into new markets, and we’ll be discussing the different options in easy-to-understand terms.

Search engine optimization (SEO): Everybody wants to get top results on Google and other engines, but most people don’t know how to make this happen. I’ll show you what needs to be done to improve your search engine ranking.

Search engine marketing: SEM is a fancy name for buying paid listings in search engine results on a pay-per-click (PPC) basis. Google Adwords is the most well-known example. Learn how to get the best value for your SEM dollar.

Blogging: Writing a blog (you’re reading one now) can be one of the most effective online marketing strategies for small business. Learn how to increase search engine rankings and build a loyal customer base by creating a blog your customers look forward to reading.

Social media marketing: Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and more — find out how to leverage communities like these to make it easy for your happiest customers to spread the word.

Email marketing: We’ll look at good and bad examples of email marketing and discuss how to build a list of people who want to hear from you about your products or services.

Analytics and feedback: How do you know what’s working and what isn’t in terms of attracting visitors to your site and turning those visitors into customers? We’ll talk about ways to track your website traffic statistics and invite feedback from your visitors.

Questions, comments, or feedback about these topics and my posts? Please jump into the conversation in the comments sections of the posts or email me at catherine@macdonaldonmarketing.com.

If you’re a small business owner interested in getting the most out of your Internet presence, subscribe now. Thanks for visiting and come back soon!