Hi all,

Welcome to our May Newsletter.

The Evolution of Internet Marketing is our first article, something interesting I found in the Marketing Consortium about the changing face of the internet and how technology is changing our perspectives and approaches to marketing online.

In Marketing 101, we’ve got Keyword Research - a helpful insight into choosing keywords and phrases for your internet marketing campaign, and some helpful tools to help you along the way. In Marketing 102 in our Part Two newsletter, we will further this topic with keyword selection and placement.

Have a fantastic month.

Enjoy!

Robyn

We would love to hear any questions, comments, or ideas for future articles… just email us at info@optymise.co.nz.

In this issue:

• » The Evolution of Internet Marketing
• » Marketing 101: Keyword Research

“Old” Internet Marketing

In the beginning, the Internet was cool. In a nod to modernization, many Global 2000 companies dabbled in the Web with experimental web sites, often nothing more than technology-light brochure sites. These experiments were purposely separated from day to day operations given all the unknowns relative to business impact, claiming dedicated people, business processes, technology, and information. The Web was commonly run by the jeans-wearing ponytail set as opposed to the blue suits carrying sales bags. Throw a pizza into the “conference-room-cum-web-lab” now and again and all was right with the world. Web marketing largely consisted of mass, outbound e-mail blasts and getting e-mail right became a huge focus of Internet marketing. E-mail technology jockeys found themselves acting as new-age marketers and it became more about crafting the perfect e-mail than about getting the right message to the right customer via the right channel. Thus the foundation was laid for the most critical mistake organizations have made with the Web to date: failing to integrate the Web into their overall marketing strategy.

Things improved with the advent of “pull” marketing and all its implications: customers would proactively pull companies to them on their terms, via their preferred channels, and when they are ready. Banner ads are a classic example of pull marketing: the banners are ubiquitous (and presumably targeted at a user’s current behavior), but a customer can choose to click through or not.

“New” Internet Marketing

We now know the Web experiment has succeeded, and the Internet as a commercial tool is here to stay. Consumers are purchasing goods and services more than ever via the Internet, and marketing spend on media such as online classifieds, search marketing, and display advertising is fast following. Indeed spending on Internet marketing is projected to increase, depending on who you believe, between 7% (Winterberry Group) and 20%+ (eMarketer) over the next 4 years.

We are transitioning from static sites to dynamic and personalized sites, from broadcasting to narrowcasting, from information dissemination to actual commerce. But, we can also look forward to an “infoglut” of unimaginable proportions, Web sites that run into the millions of dollars to build and maintain, and massive data warehouses about consumers that are networked together across companies and continents. Imagine, personal (software) agents will surf the Web in our place, and thus Web sites of future will be designed more for our agents than for us. And privacy will be a thing of the past: web sites will know your buying patterns, your interests, your salary, your level of education, even your credit record!

Sources: Marketing Consortium, McDar Directory

Keyword Research

Choosing effective keyword phrases is one of the most important ways to ensure your website reaches your target audience (in short, quality keywords equal quality traffic).

The goal is to optimise your pages for the keywords that bring the highest number of prospects. You will need to find the keyword phrases associated to your industry that your target market is searching for. Keywords are called that for a reason; they're one of the keys to making sure your web site is seen by searchers who want what you have to offer. But how do you choose them?

Knowing what people are searching for is obviously a fundamental part of keyword choice. If you don’t know what people are searching for when looking for something related to your product, service or company name, then you won’t be able to choose effective keywords that will improve your campaign and ensure that people know about you.

Brainstorming for Keywords

Initially, you need to give yourself some time to construct a list of every word or phrase that you can think of that describes what it is that you do. You should include your company name and anything that is related to you in some way. Every word that you think of may not actually be used in your final list of keywords, but don’t worry.

Technical and Grammar: Look for common spelling mistakes for words and add these to the list. Many words are spelled incorrectly by many people; in some searches, incorrect spellings are searched more often than their correct counterparts (for example “accomodation”, opposed to “accommodation”). If phrases of more than one word are a feature of your list, think about any variations between hyphenated and non-hyphenated versions of the phrase and whether the words can be used with or without spaces.

Get into your customer’s head: You need to take a step back from being an expert to your product or service and think about how your target customers will think about you. General members of the public may not think about your product in the same way that you do, and will therefore use completely different search words from the ones you would use. Choosing effective keywords is about putting yourself in your customer’s shoes. Thinking about how you would describe your product or service to someone that has no former experience in it may help you here.

Localise it: We recommend localising your advertisements by properly including local information in your key phrases. If your web page is targeted for local search, then customers will know to frequent your business when they need a particular product or service. If your customer is looking YOUR business, wouldn't you expect them to find you when they search online? That's what optimisation does for you. Now add localisation to the mix and the same people can easily figure out how close to you they are, and how to get to your location!

Extra help: For an extra bit of help, try www.wordtracker.com, http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/, or http://adwords.google.com to help generate some more keyword ideas and find out the popularity and competition for them.

Finally…

Once you have narrowed down your list to almost the final draft, containing just the keywords that you are definitely going to use, you should enter each of them into the popular search engines to see what sites they turn up. Do they return sites the sell or provide products or services similar to your own? This is what you are aiming for. Drum up a list of about 30 possibilities and stay tuned for Part Two of our newsletter later in the month for keyword selection and placement tips.

CONTACT US today to find out about any of these services, or to fill out a brief outlining your business and website goals. We will assess your needs and be in touch with our recommendations.