internet marketing - @omic Internet Marketing Solutions, London, UK

This page aims to introduce the concepts and secrets of Internet Marketing and show you where to go and what to do to make your presence known on the Internet. Although no-one can ever guarantee you success on the web, this page will show you the tools and techniques needed to give yourself the best chance of success.

Your web site is your virtual space to say what ever you want, but if no one can hear you, what's the point. Just putting up a web site isn't enough. If you simply put a page on your web space no one will find your site. You need to do some work. The following sections explain what, how and why? You can pick and mix the solution you feel best suits your needs.

This is the first thing you should do. It's reasonably easy and gives you a fighting chance. The objective here is to get your site listed on search engines so that when someone searches for a topic like 'Internet Marketing' or '@omic' your site relevant to that topic will appear in the results, and preferably first on the list. The lower you appear on the results page the less likely you are to get visitors (traffic).

The sections below explain in more detail what you need to do to successfully get listed.

But before you begin you need to consider your pages. What are you trying to achieve with each page, who is your audience, why should they want to look at your site etc. This is where Meta Tag's come in. While some search engines will consider all the text on your web page, others won't, they'll just look at the interesting bit for them - the Meta Tags. There are several available but the three of most interest are Title, Keyword and Description.

Title your site well, make sure it is descriptive of your site, if your site is on Monty Phython make sure you make it clear what you're talking about 'The Monty Python Weird British Comedy Page' for example, makes it clear we're talking about weird British comedy rather than your pet snake.

Equally with keyword which represent a summary of the content of your page and the sorts of words someone might be searching for if they wanted to find your site. In this case 'Monty Python, Monty, Python, John Cleese, Michael Palin, Life of Brian, Quest for the Holy Grail, Ministry of Silly Walks, The Parrot Sketch, British, Comedy', would all be words worth having in your key words.

[note: Weirdly this page now gets listed third on Google for searches of 'film releases monty phython' - so it does work!!! and these keywords are only in the text as examples!!!]

The description is simply an explanation of your site, a search engine may display this next to your listing so it is a great opportunity to sell the benefits of visiting your site.

(please note; you can't see meta tags on your web page, they are hidden in the head section of your html code).

One suggestion I've heard is that because the most searched word on the Internet today is 'sex' make your meta tags sound sexy. I'm not convinced, but the example would be if you've got a site about fine wines use terms like 'oral pleasure' in your meta tags.

If you still can't get to grips with META tags this form takes all the pain away. Type in the description and keywords in the boxes below. Click the button and the tags are created for you, just copy and paste them into the HEAD of your html document.

The Web Site Garage will also run a full check-up on your site to help you work out how effective you've been.

This is the bit that shouldn't take too much time, honest. First here are some sites which will allow you to submit to multiple search engines for free. An offer you shouldn't refuse.

These sites/software packages will typically ask you to fill out one form and then filter your response according to the requirements of the different search engines. Be a little careful however the list above has all the major search engines so the quality and value of the remaining several hundred is in doubt.

* We highly recommend Dynamic Submission 2000. It is easy to use, stops spam coming back at you and submits each page of your site with ease. You can also get a free trial download which is limited to submit to 10 search engines, directories etc at a time. The ranking feature to tell you how you're doing is also very powerful. (and we don't get paid for it!!).

Get listed (2)! Web Rings

Unlike search engines web rings don't use Meta Tags because they are run and moderated by entirely more intelligent machines - humans. In-order to get listed you have to find a ring which is related to your site and ensure that your site is of a comparable standard to others in the ring. Once you submit the URL of your site the ring master or council in charge of the ring will decide if your site meets the ring standards. If it does it gets added and linked into the ring. There can be any number of sites in a ring.

Because sites are added only in this way the web surfer can be sure that if he/she finds a ring on cats it will contain only sites on cats and only sites of a certain minimum standard. This is why rings are becoming a first choice for many surfers and why you should get your site listed. Being listed will also help with the section below 'Get Linked'.

Bomis is probably the first place to start and their iFAQ page is a must read.

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Power PR

Increasingly many publications are carrying sections about the Internet, announcing / reviewing sites sent to them. If you can convince the editor that your site is worth a mention you can generate considerable traffic to your site from readers. The old adage editorial is ten times more effective than advertising still holds true. There are plenty of places and resources on how to write effective press releases so I'll not bore you here. But target publications which are related to your field not just the general Internet Magazines such as Internet Magazine, .NET and Wired. If your site is promoting fish try specialist fish magazines - Fish of the World, Fish Lovers Weekly, Something Fishy etc.

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Newsgroups - announcing yourself (but be careful)

Newsgroups are places on the Internet where people of similar interest meet to discuss that topic. It's all based on email and the newsgroup links messages into threads which follow discussions. One person might have posted a message 'Is Russia serious with it's position on Kosovo?' all replies will read 'RE: Is Russia serious with it's position on Kosovo?' and will be grouped under the original message.

While getting mentions in newsgroups is very effective at getting extra traffic it is also the approach that needs most care. There are some newsgroups where you can post your own announcements and others where it is very unhealthy to do so. Homework time again. Know your newsgroups, lurk, read messages and get a feel for the group before you consider doing anything.

Newsgroups where it's OK to announce are normally called 'announce' somewhere in the title. If you're not sure try and find the FAQ for the group, this can be on a web site or can be posted to the group regularly. You can always ask for it in the newsgroup.

If the group doesn't accept announcements another route is to watch the group, if someone asks a question you can answer or your site will help with, you can reply to the message.

Ensure the signature of your email contains the URL for your website. This is another way to 'get linked' see later. This is because some newsgroups will publish old emails as web pages thus giving you another external link to your site.

WARNING: If you're new to the web or web promotion don't do anything until you're familiar with the netiquette. If you do and break netiquette you can be 'flamed' or 'bombed', both of which are nasty, can crash your email account and are to be avoided.

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Participating in the e-community (e-mail lists, discussions)

Get involved. If you actively participate in areas relevant to your site you're bound to find other ways to promote yourself. Email lists for example are like newsgroups but instead of appearing on a web site, messages are emailed to members either daily or weekly. You can even choose to receive each individual email as posted - although this will mess up your in-box unless you're careful, it's probably best to get the summary.

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Get Linked (by Web sites)

There are three main reasons why you should try and get linked by as many sites as possible.

a) the human factor

When someone searches for a site on cooking (and your site's on cooking) they may not jump to you immediately but if the site they do go to links to you, your site stands a good chance of being visited. It's like the first site recommending you. Often a web search is like tunnelling you go deeper and deeper following different links on the same site or to others, all the time getting further from your original search results but hopefully closer to the information you want.

With this in mind approach sites with a similar topic, (obviously be careful of competitors), if you're a business your supplier may have a site and be happy to link to you as a source of their products. There are lots of opportunities.

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b) robots

Back to the search engines. Some search engines use robots, their job is to spend every minute of every day following links. They follow every link they find and index everything they find at the target page, following every link on the target page and so on. If your site isn't doing too well on search engines you can improve your chances by getting links from sites which are. In this way when a robot comes to update references on the other site it follows the link to yours and indexes yours as well. Simple.

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c) search engines

The final reason is because some search engines will give you a higher rating based on how many sites link to you. They figure the more people consider your site worth linking to the better it must be - not a bad assumption.

ClickTrade is a quick way of getting links on other sites.

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Awards

Getting awards for your web site will ensure a) your site has perceived value because other web professionals have given you an award and b) those sites will link to you as their site of the day/month. This will mean that your site is getting linked from other web sites and help you move higher in search engine rankings. The Awards Jungle is an excellent first stop on your campaign for awards. I would however recommend that you only submit if you are sure your site has reached a point where it is worthy of an award and only submit to those awards which are relevant to your site.

Visit Awards Jungle

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Banner ads

Perhaps the simplest way to promote your site. But it costs cash. The thinking is the same as above, however here you pay to get a link in a key place on the host site and a nice graphical link at that. Don't waste your money though, make sure you have a good banner, normal size is w468xh60 pixels, it's worth doing something animated to grab attention. Some sites have rules on the size of graphic you can use (this in kilobytes (k) not pixels as above). Prices vary according to the amount of traffic,size of banner in pixels, the amount of 'hits' or 'clicks' a site gets.

Choose the sites you advertise on well and tailor your creative to the site.

Banners are often rotated so that one location can be shared by three or four advertisers. Make sure you know what you're buying, how much exposure you'll get. Search engines as major 'portals' (where people start surfing) can also link your advert to certain text strings searched for, this could mean that if 'flowers' are searched for your florist shop will be displayed as the banner. In this way you buy keyword banner space.

LinkExchange is a quick way of getting your banner out onto the web in exchange for carrying banners from other sites on your site.

A more detailed explanation of banner advertising including costs and examples of how to gauge your coverage is now available here.

By holding events on your site you can help to attract more visitors. Many search engines allow you to add pages for a limited period. It's probably best to start holding events when the buzz from your site launch or re-launch has died down. By holding events you have an excuse to email all your mailing lists.

While direct e-marketing can be extremely successful as with newsgroups be careful and check our netiquette guide first. Basically direct e-marketing is all about emails and lots of them. There are two types of email solicited (or opt-in) and unsolicited.

Solicited email is when you have asked the recipient if they want to get email from you and they've said yes. The first thing you need to do is install some form of mechanism to encourage people to opt-in. 'Join my mailing list' is perhaps the easiest way with an email address people can send to. However you need to differentiate between people emailing you in this way and people emailing you normally. There are several painless routes:-

Our favourite email client, bar none, is The BAT! strange name for an email package admittedly but it really is the dog's b*ll*cks. If you don't buy anything else buy this - and we don't even get commission on it :( This package will allow you to filter your messages as discussed above but additionally allows you to perform actions such as auto reply, to thank the person for the request, delete the original message, forward the message, create whole template emails with attachments and automatically send them and you can even add the address of people who ask to join to a sub folder in your address book. More importantly you can add a link at the bottom of each email whichy allows those on the list to opt-out by emailing you and then set-up a filter which deletes their address from your address book, very neat, simple and effective. Essentially this is all you need to start a mailing list and it can all be automated. Rant, rave etc. The uses you can put this email package to are limitless, go to their site read about it, download it, try it. Oh and it's less likley to be affected by viruses which normally target Microsoft Outlook and other well known clients.

We've discussed above how you can use email to get your visitors to join your mailing lists, however there are limitations to this approach, a) you can only get their email address (but it will be their default one which is used most often) and b) by using filters in combination you can glean some more information such as what they want to know about (normally one topic per email) but that's it.

Forms can allow you to gather more information about your visitors, they take longer to fill out, but give more detailed feedback (if you asked the right questions). You do need to install a CGI script on your server (talk to your ISP) which can be tricky and you won't automatically get their email - they have to fill it in. This can lead to abuse with people mistyping or deliberately giving a wrong email address. There are however some Javascripts around which can be used to ensure the email address is at least in the right format. i.e. sometext@a.domain.co.uk. One way of ensuring the email address is accurate is sending the user something of value to them via their email. For many sites this means sending passwords for login to the email address or awards details.

You need to find the solution that best meets your needs. Less information but accurate or more but troublesome.

There are many strategies which you can adopt to maximise the effectiveness of your campaigns. The first thing you should do is target your mailings just like in real world direct marketing. The viewers to your site can do this for you, if you've set-up your filters correctly. If you have several products/topics create a mailing list for each, create another general list.

It is good practice to give unsubscribe information in each email you send. The easiest way to control this is to set-up another filter to handle these requests (although hopefully you won't get many). An example would be to ask people to put 'please take me out of your list' in the subject line of their email and set-up a filter that looks for that string in the subject line of all incoming emails. With The BAT! you can create an action which will automatically delete that person from that list (provided they request it using the same email address). There are two reasons for doing this a) over time sending emails to people who don't want them costs money - why waste it and b) if someone has asked to be removed and isn't they begin to get irritated and could bomb / flame you personally or flame you in newsgroups - not nice, avoid. Increasingly the legal implications such as the Data Protection Act in the UK insist that you do this.

The next thing is always make your messages relevant to the reader if someone subscribes to a list about topic / product 'A' they won't appreciate long emails about topic / product 'B', a line announcing an update to product B with a web address for more info would be OK in a legitimate communication about product A.

Make it interesting. This is really down to you, your understanding of your audience and your ability to write interesting things.

The types of communications you can send are Newsletters, announcements (special offers, new products, site updates, improved service etc.).

A lot has been written about how to conduct effective Direct Marketing/mail shots in the real world, most of it is just as relevant to e-mail, go read some.

Remember: with direct email there is a cost to the reader mainly on their phone bill so the best mail to send are plain text emails because they're small. You can always refer to a web page so that if the reader is interested they can go and have a look. Big emails annoy people.

This is often know as Spam email. Spamming is the biggest social crime on the Internet. It wastes a lot of time each year. I'm sure it must work because people do it but if you want people to like you don't do it.

We've discussed The BAT! which works well for small scale sites and probably up to a couple of thousand contacts but once you've outgrown it what next?

ListMate should help you control your contact lists when they get too much. This package offers most of the features real world direct marketeers use to control lists of clients and contacts such as merge, purge, de-dupe etc.

e-Verify can help you purge your lists of email addresses that don't exist and save you all the hastle.

Many people see the Internet as a separate channel to their other marketing activities. This shouldn't be the case. Make sure your web address and email address are everywhere. Think about your web address as you would your phone number - only more important, with your phone number a customer can ring and speak to you (in office hours), with your web address they can visit your virtual shop front 24/7. A picture's worth a thousand words etc. and your site can have lots of images. Obviously workout what applies to you in the list below.

You can also check the effectiveness of different adverts / posters by giving each a different email response address in this way you can quantify how effective they have been.

One site worth mentioning is Position Agent which will allow you to gauge how effective your Meta Tags have been at getting you listed on search engines. But you're probably best leaving it for a few weeks before trying.

Once everything has started to take off you need to start your analysis. This will allow you to fine tune your future marketing. You should be looking for the answers to several questions:-

This is just the beginning because once you have these answers or a hint of the answer you have to start tuning your site to improve your chances of sales and/or repeat visits. For more information on analysis click here.

Pause here and consider that if you found for example that males under 20years old visit more regularly, this could totally change your whole business. You may just have stumbled on a market segment which is really interested in your product or service but isn't being served by anyone else in the market. Focus on that you could have a winning site if you tailored your content and approach to this audience. Scarey huh?

The old adage is still true it costs twice as much to recruit a new customer as it does to get a repeat sale. Try to encourage repeat purchase or viewing. If nothing else it will increase your hits per day and if you're trying to sell a service or product repeat business can be worth big bucks.

The old adage coined in the Costner film 'Field of Dreams' still holds true on the web. Don't forget that if your site is good, fulfils your customer's needs by being relevant and current, people will talk about it. Friends will recommend it, colleagues will refer to it and your site traffic will increase. The how, why and numbers will depend on your site and the audience it caters to.

We are considering producing a guide for small to medium businesses who want to use the Internet to generate sales. While this is still in the planning stages we would appreciate your thoughts and comments. If you would like to be mailed when we are nearer production please email us.

If you're looking for a book which is currently available to help you put together your Internet Marketing Strategy, 'The Internet Marketing Plan', by Kim M. Bayne is not a bad start. It's a little light, telling you what you should do, but not always how. It certainly has value for the thought processes it will trigger. Anyone in the field and especially those just entering should get a copy as a first reference. You can buy it through Amazon.co.uk by clicking on the cover below.

the @omic guide to web promotion