Website Marketing- Overview

For a company to be successful online they must do three things...

They must get traffic
They must convert that traffic into sales
They must get those customers to come back and buy more

Sounds simple enough. Unfortunately it isn't.

The Three Types Of Online Marketing

Online marketing is done mainly three different ways... Site-Based, Pay Per Click, and Email Marketing. Each has its own particular strengths and weaknesses. But combined they form a powerful way to sell products and services online.

Site-Based Marketing

Site-based or content marketing is the most common form of online marketing and the type everyone should master first. Site content whether on a full-fledged site or on a Blog is a great way to attract search engine traffic for free. This organic or natural traffic has low cost and high value however getting this free traffic requires understanding how the search engines work.

Getting traffic is largely dependent on people finding your site and typically they find your site via the Search Engines. Potential customers see your listing in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Page) and if your listing is compelling and positioned high enough they may click and go to your site. So high search engine rankings and good ad copy are critical to getting initial traffic to your website.

SEO

The technique of optimizing a web site to get the best "natural" rankings in the SEs is called Search Engine Optimization or SEO. The beauty of natural listings is that the traffic is relatively free. Except for the time it takes to optimize your site those clicks from the SEs have no cost. But unfortunately the listings are unpredictable. SEs change their algorithms so a strong position today is not always guaranteed tomorrow.

Conversion Optimization

Once you get traffic the next challenge is to get those visitors to actually continue down the sales cycle and to buy something. The goal is to optimize that free and/or paid traffic so that it converts into a sale. The higher percentage of SE clicks that turn into sales the higher your sales ratio and therefore your Return on Investment (ROI). This is where analyzing quality of ad copy, positioning of navigation, shopping cart ease of use, use of testimonials, and many other factors all become very important.

Customer Buying Experience

Another factor in a quality customer buying experience and a major component of your branding message will be your sites look and feel along with your navigation. They say a brand is defined by how you look, how you act and how you treat your customers. Online you need to treat you customers in a way that makes the shopping experience easy and pleasurable.

Does your site look professional with consistent color usage and an inviting style that says "you can trust and depend on us"?

Great graphic design will help you maintain your credibility and brand wherever it is found including throughout your own and on affiliate partner sites. Banners, logos, and typefaces that are simple yet current, stylish, and truly represent your brand message are what separate the good from the truly great online experiences.

Landing Pages

As a merchant you want to offer as many different landing pages as you can. Your home page is not always the best place to land for your highest conversions. Your prospects are at different stages in the buying cycle. You always want to "meet them where they are now" in that cycle. The last thing you want to do is move them backwards. You may lose them or at the very least dis-engage them from the process.

A landing page that is intimately linked to their needs and allows your affiliates to help you move them forward is always preferable to sending them to your home page where they they have to start over. This can help raise your conversion rates. Give your prospects the shortest distance to the shopping cart you can.

As an affiliate you also want to be aware of what stage your prospect it at. Choose the right landing page that moves them forward. If they are ready to buy send them as close to the shopping cart as you can.

If you are doing PPC or email marketing develop landing pages that take them from your ad's or email's message to the next stage in the buying process. Continually test and optimize your landing pages until you know they are converting at their maximum potential.

Pay Per Click

An alternative to site-based marketing and organic traffic generation is to get high position in the SEs via Pay Per Click. With PPC you pay for your position. The more you pay relative to other bidders the higher your position.

Google AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing are the major players in this arena. To determine your placement you bid against other advertisers with the highest bid getting first position and the next highest bid getting second and so on. You also get to write your own advertisement copy.

PPC has evolved to be both an art and a science. It remains the best way to guarantee qualified traffic to your site. The traffic is qualified because you get to choose the keywords that your visitors respond to. If you choose the right terms you can find prospects that are in the latter stages of the buying cycle for your product or service. This leads to a much higher conversion rate.

Email Marketing

Once you get site conversion optimized an important next step is to leverage those new customers so they continue to buy and turn into lifetime customers. Your customers' lifetime value will be reflection of the quality of your shopping experience, the delivery of expectations and your follow-up email campaigns and marketing.

Email Marketing is a major component of developing customer lifetime value. Many online marketers insist that "the money is in the list." Visitor follow-up and ongoing customer relationship management is a critical component of maximizing a customer's longterm value to any company. Email marketing is a major strategy for maximizing customer value.

The best online marketers leave no stone un-turned when it comes to marketing. They'll use Site-Based, PPC, and Email Marketing wherever it fits the bill and generates more sales. Use all three and your online marketing efforts will succeed.