Web site marketing extends your web presence to attract prospective customers to your web site. The average American spent 32 hours per month on the Internet in 2010. Targeted web site marketing can be an effective method to generate leads and secure new customers. According to a recent IAB Revenue Report, nearly half of the online ad revenue in 2010 came from search. It follows that a web site marketing plan should include search engine optimization and search marketing, direct and measurable methods of boosting online presence.
The following is a big picture outline of core web site marketing methods:
1. Search Engine Optimization
SEO is becoming the backbone of web site marketing as a preferred method of marketing your web site effectively and efficiently. SEO and SEM should utilize both on-page and off-page efforts to increase page rankings and build web presence.
On-page:
Quality content – captivating content will be re-posted, blogged about, linked, and shared amongst the online community.
User experience – Be sure to write for the user, not the search engine, when creating this compelling site content. Include keywords while concurrently making content meaningful.
Custom 404 – create a custom 404 page that matches the design of your website and has a link to your site’s homepage. A tailored 404 page will greatly enhance the user’s experience.
Off-page:
Linking – To increase page ranking, implement deep linking into your site with highly ranked, reliable sites linked to your page. Also include links on your homepage to move visitors to and between as many interior pages as possible. Lastly, one-way links and reciprocal links are two forms of backlinking that will improve rankings.
Anchor text – The text displayed as the result of the link and clicked on by the user. The more descriptive, concise, and formatted the anchor text, the easier the navigation will be for both the user and search engine.
Webmaster tools – Webmaster tools will better control how search engines interact with your website, thus getting useful information to the source and performing better in search results.
Mobile – Configure your mobile site appropriately to be indexed and crawled by search engines accurately. Creating a Mobile Sitemap and ensuring user-agent access will verify that the search engine indexes your mobile site.
2. Search Engine Marketing
SEM is a common element of web site marketing. The following outlines the basics of how to begin a promising search engine marketing campaign. Take special note of the last facet – web site evaluation.
Campaign themes – Create separate ad groups for each of your products, brands, or types of services you offer. Each ad group can then have a highly related set of keywords and ads that match the specific theme.
Keywords – Use specific keywords that directly relate to the theme of your ad group and landing page. Use the Keyword Tool to generate keyword ideas. Include your keywords in your ad text (especially the title) to show users that your ad relates to their search.
URLs – Make sure that the destination URL (landing page) you use for each ad is the most relevant page within your website.
Tags – Use title tags to indicate to both the user and search engine the title of your website. The meta tag is displayed under the page title to clearly communicate the page’s content matter.
Web site evaluation – Evaluation involves making informed decisions about how to optimize your campaigns, review your campaign statistics and continuously manage and assess your web presence.
3. Key Directory Submission
Submitting your site to relevant directories is a commonly overlooked technique of augmenting your web site marketing. A link from a directory will boost traffic as well as increase page ranking. A few directories to check out: Open Directory Project, Yahoo! Directory, About.com, and Business.com.
4. Article & Video Marketing
Article and video marketing are great tools used to increase page rank, in addition to targeting a specific market. Your web site marketing plan should certainly include article and video postings to enhance exposure and reach the appropriate consumer. Video marketing not only appeals to the consumer on a more visual level, but it also allows an opportunity to showcase your product/service. Both of these initiatives will promote backlinking as well, further supplementing page rankings.
5. Social Media
Social media should be a part of the overall web site marketing strategy. Building relationships and interacting with your community helps you build your brand, exposure and most importantly, a trusted community. Social media presence increases credibility. Social media marketing allows you to connect with the right audience, using SEO initiatives to meet measurable goals. Aligning optimization objectives with social media tactics will complement your overall web site marketing strategy.
Web site marketing helps companies and organizations build their online presence. Sparxoo Agency is a one-stop web site marketing resource, specializing in everything from web design and development to SEO and search marketing. Contact us today to take a deeper dive into your web site marketing strategies.
