Using Google to reach your Target Market
If all it took was a good idea to make a web site successful, millions of web sites would not fail in the first couple of years.
In reality, the web site is a very important component in the marketing of a business. For most of us who are selling B2B it is not the only tool in our marketing toolbox. However, most businesses are under utilizing this tool simply because they are not getting found by the people who are searching for the solutions they offer.
Most ad agencies and corporate marketing departments take the time to carefully plan who they are trying to reach and painstakingly craft what their message is. They detail why their company is the right choice to provide solutions to the potential client’s challenges. Many have a good grasp on when they want the customer to act by creating a call to action such as downloading a white paper or scheduling a demonstration.
Where many miss the mark is in the How to reach their on-line target market. They drive people to their sites from Trade Shows, mailings, trade publication advertising, public relations and other largely offline methods. Where many come up short is in getting the free traffic that is available to them from the search engines like Google.
Search engine optimization is the science/art of getting your site found on the search engine results pages when they search for the words that are related to you or your offerings. The search engines do not charge for this traffic.
Search engine marketing is buying ads on the search engine results pages IE: Google Ad Words to get listings. The price for ranking is as low as $.10 per “click” but competitive terms can cost several dollars per “click”.
Many web sites have not been optimized and they are not utilizing the tools or making the adjustments to the site that allow the search engines to send them free traffic.
Below is a quick 6 step assessment to determine if your site could benefit from Search Engine Optimization.
1. When the content of the site was created, were the words and phrases that are important to be found by customers and prospects woven into the copy of the pages?
Yes No
2. Does the URL of your web site contain one or more of the keywords that are important for your site to be found under? (IE: www.yourcompany.com)
Yes No
3. When you look at the pages of your site do the words displayed in the title bar (blue bar across the very top of the page) accurately describe the topic of the page, and do they change from page to page? Yes No
4. Do you have an online press release optimization plan in place?
Yes No
5. Can you find yourself in the top 3 pages for the five search terms, excluding your company name, that are most important to getting found by your potential customers?
Yes No
6. Do you use a tool to measure where traffic came from and the behavior of site visitors including conversion?
Yes No
0-3 Uh Oh, you need help and you need it now. The longer you wait the deeper your competitors - anyone who comes up higher than you do for your search terms, gets entrenched and takes more business from you.
3-4 There is a lot of room for improvement and your site can most certainly generate more leads by getting found by the people looking for your solutions.
If you scored 5+ Congratulations! Chances are that your company is doing very well and has a well thought out site that is keeping hr pipeline filled with quality leads.
Source: http://www.a1articles.com/article_224572_62.html
