SEO Review

How To Think About Webmedia

We’ve all seen Web video campaigns and television commercials that we actually enjoyed watching, not once, but over and over again. Whether it’s the Mac Versus PC ads or the thoroughly entertaining Visa Pizza Twirling Commercial, great campaigns are as memorable as great movies or television shows. When commercial presentations meet that standard, they transcend mere commercial status, and reach the level of Experiences.

Killer Campaigns is all about marketing campaigns that are memorable experiences, but why is that important; why should you care? Well if you want to grow your business, create, establish, or enhance a brand, or just plain sell more stuff on the Web, then you have to learn how to turn “advertising into content and content into an experience.”

What We’ll Show You

Each segment will feature an example of what we consider a great campaign that achieves memorable experience status. It may be a television commercial, a YouTube video, or even a video microsite, but whatever form it takes it will be worth watching, or more to the point, worth experiencing.

But just watching excellent advertising is not enough to understand why and how it works. You have to understand the technique used, and why it is effective. In some cases we may even show you failed examples of the same technique used, and explain why one campaign worked and one didn’t.

Our Perspective

We start with a particular point-of-view. You may agree with it or you may not, but by the time you’ve been through several segments of The Killer Campaign series you will at least understand how to think about great marketing concepts, and you will watch webmedia from a whole new frame-of-reference, and with a more critical eye.

Our perspective is deceivingly simple: we create marketing communication, that’s video campaigns, websites, and video microsites based on the notion that Web traffic is an audience, not prospects, clients, or potential suckers, but an audience.

The Technique and Why It Worked

The analysis we use to evaluate the effectiveness of these techniques is based on the preceding perspective of treating website traffic like an audience. Why you may ask don’t we do what everybody else does, and look at the numbers? And the answer is simple: numbers lie. Numbers themselves don’t tell you the whole story.

An effective campaign may fail because of poor implementation or faulty targeting, or any number of other reasons that don’t speak to the creation and effectiveness of the media itself. After all, one of the greatest commercials ever made, the introduction of the Macintosh computer, hardly ever got shown because certain members of the board of directors got cold feet.

Killer Campaigns: Words & Music

As powerful and important as visual communication is, without finely crafted, supportive words and music, the visuals will fall flat; they will lack the emotional impact that connects you the advertiser, with them, the audience.

The Visa Pizza Twirler Commercial with the Morgan Freeman voice-over is a tour-de-force of commercial communication. Take a look and listen:

Visa Pizza Twirler Video with Sound

But what would this presentation be like without words and music? Here’s a video of the filming of the pizza-tossing scene without any voice-over or music. The pizza-chef is brilliant but without the words and music it’s merely a pleasant distraction without emotional or commercial relevance.

Visa Pizza Twirler Video – No Words and Music

The Web and television are both multimedia communication venues that rely on visual impact and sound design combined with the element of performance, but at least one major difference makes commercial presentation on the Web a more difficult challenge: television watching is a passive exercise, while Web surfing is a proactive activity. You’ll suffer through bad television commercials to watch your favorite program but on the Web, people won’t tolerate it. That said, there are some great commercials that do get it right.

HTC You Campaign

The HTC You Campaign hits the proverbial marketing nail right on the head. This is a company that communicates the right message in the right way, because the message is not about the phone, it’s about what you need in a phone. Just listen to the tag line: “you don’t need to get a phone, you need a phone that gets you, and you, and you, and we are HTC.”

This is a presentation that transcends commercial status. At the heart of the video are words and music that form a hypnotizing poetic social commentary on our over-stimulated hectic lives, and it provides a human solution, not a technical one. The concept is brilliant: this is not a product, it’s a life enabler, and who couldn’t use one of those. There is no discussion of features or price. It’s not even about the phone; it’s about making life easier for you, and it does it with a brilliant script and a hypnotic musical score.

HTC You Campaign Video

Conclusion

In order for a commercial, a website, or a webmedia campaign to attain the level of an effective content experience, it must connect with an audience on an emotional level, the level at which decisions are made, and actions approved.

The HTC You Campaign illustrates how poetic words, delivered in an inspiring voice-over, supported by a hypnotic musical score, with associated images, turn advertising into content and content into an experience.

Does your website presentation or webmedia marketing strike this kind of cord with your audience, or are you still trying to win the hearts and minds of your audience with just another feature or price adjustment?

The Web is a different kind of communication venue. The old broadcast scenario of repeat, repeat, repeat, until they say your brand name in their sleep, just won’t work on the Web. You may only get one shot at any individual audience member, don’t screw it up.

About The Author

Jerry Bader is Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia, a website design and marketing firm that specializes in Web-video Marketing Campaigns and Video Websites. Visit www.mrpwebmedia.com, www.136words.com, and www.sonicpersonality.com. Contact at info@mrpwebmedia.com or telephone (905) 764-1246.

It was Friday night and I was enjoying a quiet dinner at home, when suddenly CRACK! – part of my tooth broke off! "Damn" I thought, "Now what?"

I immediately went online to see if I could find a dentist that is open on Saturday morning. So I searched and searched. The good news was there were plenty of dentists in my area … the bad news was that I couldn’t find whether they were open on Saturdays. After looking through various websites for about an hour, I narrowed it down to three dentists, who were open on the weekend. But in the end there was no competition as only one of the dentists had a professional looking website!

Don’t get me wrong the website wasn’t flash, but it was clean, easy to navigate and most of all, provided me with the information I was looking for. I phoned the next morning, made an appointment and even got to see a dentist that day!

After that experience, it really hit home … what a difference a professional looking website makes! I am sure most of the dentists in my area are great at what they do, but none of their websites portrayed that. As a result they lost a customer who will spend hundreds, possibly even thousands of dollars on their services.

So if you have a website and are hoping it will bring you lots of visitors who will turn into paying customers, it is EXTREMELY, let me say that again EXTREMELY IMPORTANT that your website.

1. Is Visitor Friendly

What this means is that your customers must be able to find what they are looking for easily and quickly. And that means a great navigational system. Most websites either display their navigation bar on the left or at the top. And since most people are used to this type of navigation, it’s best to stick with it. It also helps to include your navigation bar at the bottom of each page to save your visitors from having to scroll back to the top.

2. Focuses on your customer’s needs

Rather than trying to "sell your business", let your prospects know how your product/service is going to benefit them. Emphasize the benefits and solve problems. Make this the focus of everything you write on every page of your site. Don’t try to sell visitors your products or service, help them.

3. There are no spelling mistakes

Ensure there are no spelling or grammatical errors. Check that all links are working and graphics display correctly.

4. Proves credibility

Include testimonials from your current customers to show your potential clients that you are trustworthy, reliable and that you provide great service and/or products. Make sure the testimonials are real and if possible provide contact details of the person who supplied you with the testimonial. If you don’t have any right now, get them! Simply email your customers and ask for their feedback on your business and service. Most happy customers will gladly provide this.

You could also include before and after photos. Show the problem picture and beside it show the picture of resolution, with an explanation of your product’s benefits.

5. Has Contact details

Place contact details in as many places as possible. Make it easy for your customers to contact you. Create a special "Contact Us" page, include your details in "About Us" page and also at the bottom of each page. Information to include: business name, physical address, mailing address, telephone, fax, email, emergency number, website address and most importantly, don’t forget to include your business hours.

6. Offers a Monëy Back Guarantëe

The longer the guarantee, the more effective it will be. It could be 30 days, 60 days, 1 year or lifetime. Remember you are trying to take the risk out of doing business with you.

7. Provides information that people are looking for

If you don’t provide it, someone else will. Content is still the king. You should include as much information as possible – not only detailed descriptions and prices of your products and services, but also free resources, articles, reports, ebooks relating to your industry, service and products. You can easily source free information on the internet. This will ensure that customers will keep coming back to your website, even if it is just to get information. The more they visit, the more you will stick in their mind as an expert and the next time they are ready to order your products/services, you will be their first choice.

If your website features any of the following, your website definitely needs an EXTREME MAKEOVER or at least a face lift.

1. Flash intros, revolving globes, bevelled line separators, animated mail boxes.

2. Loads of pop up or pop under boxes.

3. Autoplay music. Allow your customer to play music only if they choose.

4. Hit counters of the free variety, which say "you are the 27th visitor".

5. Date and time stamps, unless your website is updated daily or weekly.

6. Busy backgrounds.

Ask yourself – does my website portray the professional image I want my customers to see? Have I provided all the information that my customers may want or need to know? If you answered no to either of these, call your website designer today or you could lose thousands of dollars as your customers head to your competitor’s door.

About The Author
Ivana Katz of Websites 4 Small Business makes it easy for you to get your business on the internet.

Increasing online visibility is the goal of most online business owners. After all, without visibility, you have no traffic and thus no business. However, when you start to research how to improve your online visibility, you discover many options, but find that there is little time for research and implementation. Where does an online entrepreneur turn first to get the visibility (and traffic) to promote an online venture?

New tricks and gimmicks come out every day, but unfortunately, most of them are like so many recording artists and become one-hit wonders. In my business, I’ve discovered that there are a handful that are able to stand the test of time. Some have been around for as long as websites have been around, while others are newer kids on the block. Here are my 10 most effective strategies to massively boost your visibility online:

1. Press releases.

Press releases are a well-known marketing strategy that have worked for years with print and broadcast media. In recent years they have found new life as an online visibility tool. Just like in the old days, your release should carry some newsworthy angle that has been optimized with a select few keywords by which you want your business to be found. Don’t waste your time submitting your release to the free press release sites — the release simply sits on the site and goes no where else. Instead, invest in a fee-based service (I prefer PRWeb.com), which will ensure your release gets the recognition it deserves.

2. Social Networking.

A "johnny come lately" to the online visibility scene, social networking now ranks near the top in terms of attracting visibility to your business for a very low cost. If you don’t yet have accounts on the two most popular social networking platforms, Facebook and Twitter, today is the day to hop on board and begin to network. Choose 1-2 social networking platforms where your target market hangs out, and then begin to work it by making connections, joining groups or networks, sharing resources, and asking questions. Dedicate 15-30 minutes each day to your effort to begin to see results.

3. Article Marketing.

Writing and submittíng articles to major article directories has definitely stood the test of time for online visibility. Article marketing will drive traffic to your site, establish you as an expert in your target market’s eyes, and give you valuable content to repurpose into information products. For maximum effectiveness, your article needs to contain a strong resource box (author’s bio) that drives traffic back to your site, needs to contain useful content that solves a problem of your target market, and be written in a tips-based fashion, like this one, since it is the easiest format for a website visitor to read and digest.

4. Blogging.

Business blogs (a web log or journal), have gained popularity over the last few years as an online visibility tool. Blogs use RSS feed technology to immediately get new posts and updates out to your blog subscribers through a feed reader. Unlike ezines or traditional websites, search engines index blog posts almost immediately, which help you generate traffic to your website. To use effectively as an online visibility tool, you need to post 2-3 times per week to keep your readers interested and coming back.

5. Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

Optimizing your site or your blog for organic (naturally-occurring) searches has been around from the beginning of Internet marketing. Use a keyword research tool and create a listing of keywords applicable to your business. Don’t forget to add things like "how to", "tips", or short descriptions of your target market’s problems to your research. Then, take a look at your page titles, page descriptions, page headlines, and formatted text on a page (bolding, italicizing, underlining) and include your keywords in those areas, as well as sprinkling 1-2 keywords throughout the content of your page. Make the SEO appear to be natural, not forced, and the search engines as well as your visitors will love you.

6. Email Newsletter (Ezine).

Regular publication of an email newsletter (weekly is most effective) will enable your prospects to get to know, like and trust you and have you be top of mind when they are ready to solve the pressing problems that fall within your line of expertise. If you make opting into your ezine the primary call to action on your website, you continually build your list with prospective customers. Best of all, if they like what you write, they are more likely to pass along the issue to their contacts, thus increasing your visibility yet again.

7. Signature Teleseminar/Speech.

Have you created your signature speech or teleseminar that you can present whenever you’re asked to speak to any type of group (face-to-face or virtual)? If not, design a signature speech or teleseminar that demonstrates your knowledge and expertise without giving away the store (focus on the what and the why but not the how) that compels your listeners to visit your website or request your client attraction device and get on your líst.

Then, begin to research groups that contain your target market both in your geographic area and online. Once you’ve landed a speaking gig, strategize your best call to action for the group — do you want participants to sign up for your ezine, purchase a product, or book a consultation? Add that call to action to your presentation.

8. Videos.

With the popularity of broadband Internet connections, it’s much easier for almost anyone to view online video these days. And, with high-quality yet low-cost web cams, video cameras, and screen capture software readily available, anyone can make a video today. You might record a live Q&A session on UStream.com and post it on your site. Or, perhaps you want to record a "how to" tutorial using screenshots from your computer and upload that to your YouTube.com channel. Remember to include your call to action in your video so that you drive traffic back to your site. Just think — your video may cause you to become the next YouTube star!

9. Expert question sites.

Most people conduct online searches to find free information that answers their questions. Many online entrepreneurs are registering as experts on an expert or answers site, like Yahoo Answers or AllExperts.com, in an effort to get visibility online. To be an effective expert on these sites, you need to seek out questions that you can knowledgeably answer as an expert. Your answer needs to be very detailed and as specific as possible. The more thorough your answer, the better chance you’ll have of getting chosen as the "favorite" answer, which is the one rated highest on the site and in the search engines.

10. Viral marketing.

Viral marketing involves creating a marketing piece (ebook, video, software) that gets passed along free of charge from person to person. Publicity Hound Joan Stewart does this quite effectively each year when she compiles the best tips she’s written about in the previous year in a "best of" ebook compilation that she gives away free of charge on her site. She also encourages her líst and website visitors to "regift" it.

You’ve got two options when you try to get online visibility: the "steady and effective over time" method or the "quick and short and probably get banned" method. I prefer to use methods that have stood the test of time and won’t result in my site being removed from the search engines. Use one or more of these time-honored strategies to get you the visibility you deserve online.

About The Author
Internet Marketing Strategist and Boomer Biz Coach Donna Gunter helps baby boomers create profitable online retirement businesses that they love by demystifying and simplifying the tools and strategies needed to market and grow their businesses online. To claim your FR*EE gift, TurboCharge Your Online Marketing Toolkit, visit her site at OnlineBizU.com . Ask Donna an Internet Marketing question at AskDonnaGunter.com .

If you own a business, chances are you do. But don’t pat yourself on the back too quickly.

By now it’s widely-accepted that if you have a business card you should probably have a website. It doesn’t matter what your company is selling – a website, however modest, has become a standard.

The real question is: what is your website doing for your business?

As a web marketer I often put this question to the business owners I meet. Not because I’m trying to lead into my sales pitch, but because I’m intrigued to hear the answer.

Most people get a certain "deer in the headlights" look in their eyes when I ask this question. To be fair, it’s not a question we’re used to hearing. But that’s not all that’s going on here.

Traditional advertising mediums – print, TV, radio, etc – are notoriously difficult to track. Sure, you’ll know how often the phone is ringing or how many people come in with a coupon clipped from the Sunday paper, but what you don’t know is how many people saw/heard your ad and whether they were interested, oblivious or, worse, annoyed.

Business owners are used to this. We all know we need to advertise – it’s a necessary cost of doing business – so we buy that half-page ad in the Yellow Pages or the local newspaper, we sponsor an event or a little league team, we have a radio commercial written (maybe even with a jingle) and we hope for the best.

This has been a given in marketing since the beginning. But the web, and analytics, changed the game.

So how should you be using your web analytics to grow your audience, and your business, online?

Track Everything

With web analytics on your site you can track:

• Where your traffic is coming from by
     - The referring website and page
     - The search engine and keyword used
• Your website visitors by
     - Their location
     - Their operating system, browser and monitor resolution
     - Their network
• Visitor behavior and actions by
     - Duration of visit (time on site)
     - Pages per visit (number of pages viewed)
     - Bounce rate (percentage of users who viewed only one page before leaving)
     - Conversion rate (percentage of users who completed a preset task)

If you’re planning on doing any kind of web marketing, be it through search engines, email or advertising on other websites, information on your past and current traffic is crucial. Not to mention you’ll want analytics in place so you can properly track the new traffic your promotions will, hopefully, bring in.

Tie Your Traffic Sources to Your Users’ Actions

When looking at your analytics data the behavior and action metrics mean little by themselves. If the bounce rate of your site overall is 75%, what does that tell you? Well, this is a pretty high bounce rate – you should at least be shooting to have a bounce rate lower than 50%. But does this tell you exactly what is wrong?

Likewise, if you have secured advertising or a listing on another website, the number of visits coming in from that site only gives you part of the picture.

Tying your bounce rate to a specific traffic source, on the other hand, can tell you a lot.

If a given traffic source is generating a bounce rate of 85% or more, for example, this indicates that users are not being satisfied. There are a few possibilities as to why:

• The users may not be well-qualified – or the site where you are listed or advertising might not have the best audience for your content/offer.
• The listing/ad may promise something that the entry page does not live up to (or, at least, the promise is difficult to locate once the user arrives at your site).
• Your site is simply not usable, is unattractive or unprofessional, causing users to leave immediately (and most don’t come back)
• Your users are not connecting with your content/offer.

There are other possibilities, but you’ll want to find the most likely answer here – and try to fix it. Then, using the same metrics (traffic source + bounce rate), you can see whether things improve moving forward.

Using metrics like these you can also get a sense of which advertisements are bringing you a return on your investment and which aren’t. With goal tracking in Google Analytics, for example, a conversion rate is added to just about every traffic metric, including referring websites. If you’re finding that a website is sending you plenty of traffic but none of it is converting, re-examine the referring website’s audience, how your site is being presented and the user’s experience when they click through.

The Point

Your website is more than a brochure. It’s an interactive tool for your users. The only true way to find out how they’re using it (or not using it) is to get web analytics set up properly on your website (including setting goal points to track conversions).

And the best way to improve your website in the aim of building your business is to use the information your web analytics give you.

The age of blind advertising – of throwing money at the problem and hoping for the best – is dead.

If you aren’t tracking everything, taking time on a regular basis to understand what the data reveals about your users and adjusting your efforts based on this information, you’re missing an opportunity to optimize your advertising and get a better return on your budget.

In this economy, is that something you can afford?

About The Author
Mike Tekula is the President of Unstuck Digital – a Long Island, NY web marketing company that offers proven solutions and training for growing your business online.