Marketing & Selling Online Fiona McMahon School of Communication University of Ulster

Todays objective: Focus on how to improve the effectiveness of your website through a better understanding of Internet marketing techniques

Why online? In the UK: There are 40,000,000 (aged 2+) that are using the Internet Almost three quarters (73%) of those who have bought books / CDs / films in the last six months have done so at home using online devices Only 10% have bought these products face to face in store in last six months Almost three quarters (74%) researched books / CDs / films online before purchasing Less than a quarter of people who have bought electronic goods in the last six months have done so in store (23%) Over half (57%) have bought electronic goods online at home in last six months 87% of people researched electronic products online before purchasing Source: Internet Advertising Bureau

Why online? UK internet economy was worth £100 billion in 2009, and is growing at a rate of 10% per year Despite the economic downturn and austerity measures imposed by the UK Government in 2010, consumers spent £58bn online (up 16% year-on- year) and over a third of them spent between £100 and £500. Of the 45 million active mobile users in the UK, 23 million have now engaged in m-commerce Source: Internet Advertising Bureau

Web offering: Contact - marketing, communication, brochureware, visibility Interact - information exchange, communication, interaction by searching Transact - commerce, transactions Relate – two-way relationships, integration of Internet capability, social media

Your web offering: Its your customers answer to the question: What makes this company valuable?

Zappos.com - Powered by service The Zappos website loaded faster than any other retail site. The companys free-phone number was prominently displayed on all its web pages. The average call is answered in less than 20 seconds and operators are empowered to resolve virtually any issue. Zappos used professional photographers to take eight photos for each style and colour of shoe, from different angles – to allow customers to view the item they are interested in, in the desired colour, from a number of different perspectives.

Zappos.com - Powered by service The website includes detailed descriptions of shoes, including added value information that would ordinarily be provided by experts at a shoe store, such as choosing the right size and style, and the importance of gait when choosing a running shoe. The site also allowed customers to provide feedback on their purchases, which were not edited (within reason – bad language was removed) with the most recent comments displaying for each shoe.

If you are interested in the Zappos story and philosophy check out CEO Tony Hsiehs book: Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose

The consumer decision journey: Source Court et al. 2009

Google slide

© Fiona McMahon

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Right message, right people, right time = Advertising & Marketing Conversion to sales = Website content and usability

Where are you now? Google Analytics? Free Establish a baseline Key Performance Indicators: Visitors, Page views, Bounce, Keywords,

Monitor & Measure Performance

The Bounce Rate is the percentage of bounced visits to your site. The following situations qualify as bounces: A user clicks on a link deep into your site sent by a friend, reads the information on the page and closes the browser A user comes to your homepage, looks around for a minute or two, and immediately leaves A user comes directly to a reference page on your site from a web search, leaves the page available in the browser while completing other tasks in other browser windows and the session times out (30 mins)

Optimise your site For users as well as search engines!

When writing for the Web… Chunking Relevant Accurate Brevity Scannable Source: Smith & Chaffey, 2010

seo

Title tags: Check for default titles Create unique, accurate titles for every page Search query terms are bolded (so do your keyword research!) Title tag for home page might include name of business/website, location, key offerings/value proposition <65 characters

Description meta tag: clip art Develop a description tag for each page that accurately summarise the pages content Search query terms are bolded (so do your keyword research!) <150 characters

Screen dump of title tag

On-page Optimisation Source:

On-page optimisation. Include keywords… Once in the title tag, as close to the beginning as possible once in the H1 Header Tag approx 3 times in the body copy at least once in bold ( or ) at least once in the alt attribute of an image once in the url in the image filename; enable image Search in your Webmaster Tools Dont forget the human beings!

Identifying keywords/phrases Key phrases for natural search and paid search Use Google tools - Google Adwords Tool - GB Google Insights for searchhttp:// GB How do your customers search? -Navigational - Informational - Commercial - Transactional

Google Adwords & Pay Per Click Google Adwords Tool Organise campaigns by theme One theme per campaign, at least 3 ad groups for each campaign and each ad group should then have a highly related set of targeted key phrases (between 5-50 for each group) and ads that match the specific theme. In each campaign, create separate ad groups for each of your products, brands or types of services you offer.

Google Adwords & Pay Per Click Use specific key phrases that directly relate to the theme of your ad group and landing page. Key phrases that are too broad can lower your performance by generating many ad impressions but few clicks Match keywords to ad text Think like your customers Use negative keywords Review and Refine

Google Adwords Source: Google

Match keywords to ad text

Continual cycles of improvement: Site structure Site content Key phrases Build inbound links Have a blog Existing measures New measures Allocating and managing time and costs

In- bound link building: Customers, professional associations, trade bodies Identity relevant audiences (online and off) create content of interest and generate awareness/interest ing bloggers with content of interest to them and links to your site Submit sites to directories User-generated, non-editorial Comment spammer

Thanks for listening… any questions?

Thanks for listening… any questions?