Internet Marketing - A Piece of Cake?

I had a dinner meeting with a close friend tonight who is re-building her web site and we just chatted through some of the areas she needs to be focusing on to help promote her web site.  

I was astounded to find that the company doing her web site was offering to charge her "x" amount for search engine optimization for 3 hours of work per month (and the dollar amount was way off), and made  a brief mention of email marketing, but the proposal stated nothing about what they covered under the title of "SEO" and what they proposed for email marketing.

So I lend these thoughts -  things to consider when searching for a "marketing strategist" for your web site.  Plain and simple... find someone who knows what they are doing - and pay attention to the details they are providing you.

Internet Marketing has several layers to it.  I will compare it to my favorite dessert - A Triple Layer Chocolate Peppermint Torte!

The bottom layer of the cake... What I consider the

 "technical" pieces of your plan.  This layer includes your search engine optimization, keyterm research, meta tags, page titles, image and file naming conventions, site maps and basically, the aspects that are addressed through your site's code/tags.

The middle layer of your cake... Your content.  Know your customers and what they are looking for and provide the content, products or services in your content that will answer questions easily and help them make their buying decision quickly.  Your content should also be optimized using the information compiled when building the first layer of your cake by building your keyterms into your content allowing the search engines to find it!

The top layer of your cake... Listening to your website and making the necessary adjustments to content and product offerings.  Modifying keyterms, building new content, adding new documentation and information as people your customer are looking for.  Work your site through email marketing, blogging and much much much more!  What I describe here only scratches the surface of working your site and continuously modifying your strategy to marketing your site to meet the ever-changing needs of your customers.

And then there's the frosting...  This outer layer is your brand, your persona, your online  personality.  Working your site by building your brand through Social Media and Social Networking.  Think of it this way...  The frosting on a cake is the first thing you see, and usually the first thing you taste on a cake.  Relate it to your brand or persona - this is the first impression you make - the face of your business.  Professional decoraters take great pride in the details of the impression their cake will leave (as it may result in more business for them in the beauty alone).  The same should apply to you and the effort you put into to building your online personality through social media.  (Cake image shown at right is a creation of Sincredible Pastries in Central NY) 

The frosting does not refer to a flash heavy site with blinking images and glitzy appearances - remember that your site must function effectively and efficiently allowing your customers to find what they want quickly - AND allow the search engines to find your site as well.  Flash has it's place and when used properly can be a very effective tool - but that is a whole separate conversation.

The whole cake... This is just a birdseye view of how I see internet marketing and the layers that lie within.  There are many aspects of marketing your website most of which I haven't even touched on - I would simply encourage you to ask the questions to your marketing strategist and feel confident that you are working your site continuously and getting the desired results.

A note of caution - be sure that the baker of your cake is on the level...  Recently I took on a client at work who was paying a third party company to manage their pay-per-click advertising.  When I took over managing their AdWords campaigns I found that this 3rd party company was charging my new client a flat monthly rate for AdWords and my customer never realized that the amount they were paying was almost 3 times the actual amount being spent on their AdWords activity.  Fortunately for them, we cut their AdWords budget by roughly 60% and they are still getting the same bang for their buck.

Find a strategist who is passionate about internet marketing and who will share your passion for success in YOUR business.  That will surely be a recipe for success!

Projects that Drive you

I make my living as an Account Manager at an Internet Marketing Firm in upstate, NY, and I am VERY passionate about my clients and helping them make their small businesses succeed online.  I love what I do, and take great pride in the little successes along the way that lead to long term relationships.

BUT... These past few months, I have been given the chance to work on some thing I have been  truly passionate about.  Our company's new web site. Working with Charles Broersma, the founder of our company, has been a challenge.  I mean that in a good way... because he is demanding, and probably more passionate than I am - but we have a great working relationship and we get 'er done!

In a previous life I worked as a project manager at another web development firm, where I was overseeing custom site development, and all aspects encompassing that from RFP responses, scope and budget development, team member selection and managment, risk mitigation, and so on - and I loved all of it.

My work now is somewhat different - in that my days in the hands-on development and input for direction of a new site being built from scratch does not happen any longer.  I now get the sites AFTER they are built and launched, and then run with them, developing strategies for my clients to make their new sites the best they can be, get them optimized, ranked and ultimately drive traffic and sales to result in new customer relationships for them.  

Shown here is a snapshot of the current site... soon to be a memory... This site development project has been exciting for me working with Charles to develop a message for the site, and then coming away from that with a concept - after several iterations and a few headaches here and there (mostly for Charles).  I miss the days of creative input & last minute stresses, trying to dot every "i" & cross every "t".  

Puzzled yet as to what the new site will look like?  Wait and See!

So here we are at the 11th hour and the site is due go live in the next 24 hours.  There are press releases to get out, email blasts to send and meta tags to be updated.  Final quality control check and few last minute tweeks and then we are good to go!

I remember the days of all the final details of a new site launch.  My favorite was a PBS site I worked on that was a complimentary piece to a documentary.  Warrior in Two Worlds.  When you are so passionately involved in a site's success there is a huge amount of excitement and anticipation that goes along with it's launch.

It's been a fun journey, and very rewarding - gaining the acceptance of my peers on this new project and having a team review that was very positive this afternoon.  I am mentally exhausted - yet exhilerated... and Ready!  

But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what what is ahead.  - Phillipians 3:13