Online Marketing Articles by Web Profits

Creating A Successful Brand

A successful brand is the marriage of your own strengths with what your customer base wants.  That’s why it’s essential that you don’t rush into any kind of business before you decide what your brand is all about.

So what exactly is a brand?

Put simply, a brand is essentially something that you can offer to your customers that no one else can.  They say there’s nothing new under the sun, but you need to find a fresh spin on something that is already being offered by other people.  Think about the difference between the brands of Pepsi and Coca Cola, for example.  They are both unique, very different brands for a very similar kind of drink, but most people would agree they look for one or the other when they go shopping to buy that drink.

So you need to start with what you want to sell, and research that market thoroughly.  What can you offer that isn’t already being done?  It may be a specific way of selling the product.  It may be a unique recipe or way of presenting the product.  It could be the fact that you supply a free gift with each purchase.  You might decide to market your offering in a different way, to reach a slightly different audience.

All these factors can influence how you create your own brand – and they are just the beginning.

A brand can also relate to how your product or service is perceived visually.  Think about all the big name companies in the world… and how recognisable their logos are.  A logo can strengthen your brand and make it more familiar, which is essential to your long term success if you are selling a consumable product which you will want people to come back and buy more of.

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How Important Are Graphics On A Website?

We always hear that the content of a website is the key to its success. Without good articles, news, blogs and similar items, a website is doomed to fail.

But what about the graphics? How important are they to the overall success of a website?

Let’s look at an example. When you are surfing the internet and you come across a website, what makes you decide whether to stay or carry on surfing? If a website uses neon colors and flashing banners to try and catch your attention, the chances are you will click away quickly. But if that site is well presented, with a good mix of graphics and text, you may well stay for a closer look.

Content is important, but the graphics help to balance out the text, breaking it up and making it more readable. They also support the text – so they shouldn’t just be there for the sake of it. All good graphics have a purpose, which is to draw the casual surfer in and get them involved in the site – and preferably encourage them to order something.

Graphics can create a compelling image and persuade a surfer to buy your product. Think of ‘Buy it Now’ buttons, for example. These sometimes appear with the graphic of a mouse arrow over the top of the button, prompting the surfer to click onto the next page to make their payment.

Graphics can also make all the difference between a sale and a near miss, especially when it comes to products like e-books. Because e-books are downloaded straight to the buyer’s computer, there is no eye catching cover or real solid product to show the purchaser. This problem is solved by creating a graphic of a book which has a stunning cover to promote the product itself. The color of this graphic often matches the overall color tones of the whole website – especially if used on a so called ‘mini site’, which promotes a single product only.

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Creating A Successful Viral Marketing Campaign

Have you ever tried a product and recommended it to other people? That, in a nutshell, is what a viral marketing campaign is all about.

In order to create a successful campaign, you need to create buzz around your product. You need to give it the wow factor, so much so that when people read about it they will automatically want to tell their work colleagues, their friends and their family about it.

If you have an email list already, think about how you can spread the message beyond that list by getting the recipients to do your work for you. You should ensure that you find a good strong angle to promote as your wow factor, as it’s usually something unusual, different or quirky that gets the message to other people beyond your immediate circle of influence.

Don’t underestimate the power of using forums either. Be careful here though – don’t advertise your product or you’ll be kicked out. But you can generate some curiosity by adding a quirky signature line to every post you make.

All good viral marketing campaigns have real value at their center. To get people’s attention about your new product, you could write a free report giving away some information that will tempt people into going ahead and buying your product. Make the report worthwhile and valuable, and you’ll be giving people a reason to recommend it to others.

Luckily for internet marketers, the word of mouth effect is transferable to the internet, and the upsurge of sites such as YouTube has made it much easier to reach a specific audience with a viral video that gets you noticed.

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How To Dramatically Improve Your Website’s Conversion Rate

You may have heard the term before, but you might not be aware of what it means – especially what it means in terms of you and your business.

It will have the greatest impact on website conversions, yet it is the one thing that most website owners neglect when designing their website.

The ‘call to action’…

All good websites have at least one (usually several) calls to action, and they generally prosper because of them.

In short, a call to action is something that asks website visitors to do something. It’s your job as a website owner to make the process of ordering a product, requesting more information or signing up for a free report as easy as possible, and providing a call to action is the most important part of that process.

Let’s suppose, for example, that you have a weekly newsletter that you send out by email to your database. You want to get more subscribers to this list so you include a box on the home page of your website asking people to fill in their details and click ‘Subscribe’ to start receiving the newsletter.

At the bottom of this box there will probably be a big button bearing the word ‘Subscribe!’ in big letters, with an arrow pointing to it. It may sound like you are holding the hands of your website visitors and leading them to take a specific action, and in reality you are, but this call to action makes it clear what they need to do to receive some kind of benefit – in this case a free newsletter.

But there is more to the call to action than directing people to press a button or click their mouse. You can also make it more enticing and add a certain urgency to the task you are encouraging them to perform.

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Writing Content That Is Credible

It certainly helps to have the big wow factor in your sales copy, but it’s a fine line between making the most of the truth and extending it into fiction. The latter can also get you into trouble, so it’s vital that you write your content carefully and double check every aspect of it before putting it on your website.

A good starting point is to spend some time thinking about the product or service you are writing copy for and making a list of all the benefits it has. The golden rule that lies behind all good sales copy is that it doesn’t promote the product itself – it promotes its benefits. Consider how your customers’ lives could be improved if they had your product, and tailor your copy accordingly.

The key aspect to remember is not to exaggerate. Not only will it destroy your credibility, but people also find it more difficult to believe hugely inflated claims. It’s a fact that an ad which states you can make a million dollars will attract less interest than an ad which states you can make ten thousand dollars. Good copy isn’t just credible – it’s believable as well. People must be able to relate to what you are writing.

Being honest and truthful in your copy isn’t just important for selling your products now. It also helps to establish you as a trustworthy website owner, and over time that will increase the amount of repeat traffic you are getting. Good and credible copy has lasting effects – and so does bad copy that makes claims which can’t be substantiated. The lesson here is not to write anything that goes for short term gain – write truthfully and take your time to build an audience that will come back to read more again and again.

Credibility doesn’t just relate to your sales copy however. It relates to all areas of your website. An essential part of creating a dedicated customer base involves the need to divide promotional writing clearly from any editorial comments you put on your site. If you try and slip in some advertising “under the radar”, the customer is likely to spot it and will start to look at the rest of your copy with more suspicion.

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The Real Value of Search Engine Optimization (Video)

Google Universal Search

Big changes are happening at Google. If you regularly use the Google search engine you will soon be affected by these changes – although there’s a chance you may not even notice them to begin with, as they will be in the form of links in the blue bar which appears along the top of the search results page.

Put simply, the Google Universal Search is Google’s answer to making their search engine more comprehensive and more useful when it delivers results to your search query. Depending on what you search for, you may have links to the web, to book results, to images, and even video images that are relevant to your search term(s).

The links you see in that blue bar will depend on the nature of your search. A TV program or movie might have images or video options included, while searching for a breaking news event would have the web, news and possibly images as part of the results.

This is packed with potential for website owners, as it gives you further possibilities for marketing your website. If you haven’t yet delved into the marketing advantages of making short instructional videos, for example, now might be the time to start.

For example, you could make a video that is relevant to the content on your website, and distribute it for free via a site such as YouTube. If you take time to create a good description of the video (packed with relevant keywords of course…) you can eventually expect to get the video indexed by Google, and there is every chance you will then appear in the Universal Search results once it rolls out worldwide.

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Creating A Profitable Website

In order to compete in today’s marketplace, your website must be of the highest quality. Several elements must combine in order to present a persuasive website that is capable of raking in the profits.

To this end, you must start with a headline that is targeted towards your customer base. Concentrate on presenting the best benefit of your website in a single sentence. Don’t promote your site – simply tell your customers how they will benefit from staying on your site. Keep the headline short – according to research you have about eight seconds to capture their attention and prevent them from surfing elsewhere. Use those eight seconds wisely and make every word count.

You also need to ensure your website is easy to navigate. Everything should be geared to the fact that people online have a short attention span, so don’t expect them to search for information. Ease of use is vital – make sure your website has an accurate site map and menu to allow them to explore easily.

When it comes to the sales copy, don’t underestimate the value of rewriting it over and over again until it’s tight and coherent. Every single word must earn its place and it should all be positive and encouraging. Good sales copy that does the job paints an accurate picture for the customer, telling them exactly how they will benefit from buying your product or service. Invest in a manual by a top copywriter to polish your copy and produce even better sales results.

You might think that telling your customers exactly how to order by walking them through it step by step is akin to talking down to them, but this is exactly how it’s done online. By all means direct them to ‘click here’ when you get to the big red order button that takes them to the payment page; if your sales copy has been persuasive enough people will continue to follow your direction as they go through the ordering process.

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Using The Google Traffic Estimator

If you are thinking of using Google AdWords to beef up your website’s advertising campaign, take a look at the Google traffic estimator before you make any firm decisions on which keywords to try.

This relatively new tool allows you to try out specific keywords and phrases to see what the likely results would be if you actually tried them for real. You can find out:

• How popular a keyword or phrase is likely to be
• How many times that keyword is typically clicked on per day
• What the average cost per click would be to you
• How many clicks you could expect to get per day, depending on the budget you set

The Google traffic estimator is a useful tool for all website owners, but it is likely to save many novice owners from making expensive mistakes with their advertising budget. A key point to remember is to put a price on what you are prepared to pay per click. You can then find out where that puts you in the grand scheme of things – Google might estimate that there are ten other people who are prepared to pay more than you, and so they will tell you roughly how many times your keywords will be clicked on each day.

Obviously the more popular the keyword or phrase is, the more you can expect to pay for each click. A neat trick for competing with high demand keywords - such as ‘credit card’, for example - is to narrow your focus; try something like ‘credit card rewards’ instead. Getting traffic to your website is one thing, but getting highly targeted traffic is far better as these people will be far more likely to buy from you.

Experiment with using the Google traffic estimator to find more carefully targeted phrases to use in your ads and on your website. You can test any number of targeted phrases (within quote marks) without it costing you a thing. This will help ensure your website is optimised to rank as highly as possible in the search engines. In this sense, the Google traffic estimator can benefit you in two ways:

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Tips For Using Social Networking Sites To Market Your Website

The possibilities that sites such as Squidoo, Facebook and MySpace offer are huge for savvy online marketers. They allow you to introduce your business to a whole new group of people, provided you use them correctly.

It all starts with your profile. This should tell the world about you and your business, and provide an essential link to your website. The beauty of social networking sites is that they allow you to introduce yourself to the world, rather than just your business, so make the most of your profile and add valuable content which gives real value to any passing visitors. If you can attract people with interests similar to those of you and your business, the traffic to your website is likely to increase as a result.

Allocate some time in your schedule to visit the profiles and pages that belong to other members of these sites. Leave comments wherever you can, but remember to be polite and respectful – people can always trace you back to your networking page and be equally negative about you. That won’t help your business at all.

The main aim of this networking exercise is to get people to return the favor and visit your profile or website. As you start to receive more comments and backlinks in this way, your profile will start to appear in search engine results – which will lead to even more traffic.

Many social networking sites have a plethora of groups you can join to raise your profile even higher. Joining a group which has a specific interest means you will be effectively plugging your business into a market which you know will be interested in what you have to offer. Make the most of it, and join as many relevant groups as you can.

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