Building an online marketing strategy Heatherstone http://heatherstone.com Software, database, management, and search engine marketing consulting to businesses and professionals who prefer innovation to infrastructure. Rockville Innovation Center 155 Gibbs Street, Suite 530 Rockville, Maryland 20850 888.716.1521 Like us at Heatherstone on Facebook http://on.fb.me/HeatherstoneWeb Follow us @HeatherstoneWeb on Twitter: http://twitter.com/HeatherstoneWeb

1. Turning random online travelers into loyal customers Aaron Overton CEO, Heatherstone Building anOnline Marketing Strategy

2. Revenue comes from visitors that meet your goals. 1000 visitors x 1% conversion x $500 per conversion = $5000 Generating Revenue

3. A visitor “converts” when he does the thing you want him to do. What do you want your visitors to do? Examples Buy something Read an article Sign up for a newsletter Contact you for an appointment Conversion Goals

4. When a visitor meets a goal, it has a value. Knowing the value is key to measuring your results. What is it worth to convert a visitor? Examples Becomes advertiser for a year: $4000 Donates to my charitable organization: $250 Calls for appointment: $180 Conversion Valuation

5. Use the worksheet to define goals Identify your conversion goals. Determine the value. Describe the audience. Extra Credit Write task list to make conversion better (or even possible!) Your Turn

6. Nothing is more important than having the right keywords. What words lead traffic to you? Keyword Evaluation Relevance Popularity Competition Keywords

7. Google AdWords Example

8. Brainstorm keywords Work with a partner and write down as many as you can. Rate them for relevance on a scale of 1 to 4. Be specific! Extra Credit Add two hours to your calendar to evaluate your list. Your Turn

9. Visitors come to your site through search and advertising. How will you get visitors to your site? Examples Email campaigns Direct mail Advertising Search engine optimization Social networking Building Traffic

10. An inexpensive, highly targeted tool to drive traffic and measure results. How do you leverage your other networking? Use a Good Tool Examples: Constant Contact, Heatherstone’s Campaign Monitor Avoid spam filters Abide by opt-in standards Offer unsubscribe and use suppression lists Tie directly to website for better results and tracking Email newsletters

11. Pay per click advertising brings traffic by buying ads. Your ads appear on search engine portals, email portals, and other sites. You only pay when someone clicks on your ad. $500 of advertising ÷ $2 price per click = 250 visitors Pay Per Click Advertising

12. Relevancy is the key to being found via search. There are other ways to make your site found even easier. How will visitors find your site via search? Examples Be relevant Add new content regularly Connect to and from related sites Use a search engine friendly content management tool Search Engine Optimization

13. Keeping up with social networks can be time consuming. It can drive more traffic. How will you conduct outreach? Networking Success Wide reach: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and more If possible, add it to someone’s regularly duties Present as an organization Be prepared to work Social Networking

14. Define Your Strategy Use the worksheet to define your strategy. Fill in what you could do in all areas first. Narrow it down to those you will actually do. Extra Credit Pick one more thing than you did already and do it. Your Turn

15. Traffic, conversion, revenue. Check. How will you get this stuff to happen? Your Plan Get a site, any site, up and running Begin measuring No visitors? Buy ads. You need a conversion rate. Get conversion rate up Keep advertising so you continue to make money Optimize for search engines Measure, revise, test, repeat Getting it Done

16. It seems hard. I need help. What if you are already too busy, but need this done? Our Call to Action

17. More stuff we might not get to in the time we have. Appendix

18. Content is king. How do you keep your site up to date? Key Features Separates content from design Requires no extra software Descriptive URLs Notifies search engines of changes Automatic RSS feeds Consider: Dreamweaver, Contribute, WordPress, Joomla, Drupal Content Management

19. You know your goal. Does your visitor? You need clear calls to action. Form follows function. How will you achieve conversion? Examples Include prominent calls to action Provide at least two calls to action so visitors have alternatives Using landing pages with your advertisements Achieving Conversion

20. Ad copy: Make your next home green. Which will convert a visitor more often? Landing Pages

21. A few basic guidelines will dramatically increase your success rate. It will also decrease your costs. How do your visitors get to the call to action? Google Ads 101 Keywords. Repeat them. Keywords. Keywords as the title Benefit, then feature Landing page, not home page Effective PPC Advertisements

22. Your first ads will probably produce only lackluster results. Testing will improve them. How do you know what ads will produce results? Making Ads Better Build two ad campaigns Fund both and monitor results Delete the one with less performance and replace Repeat until you have the best ad you can get Improving Ads

23. There’s more than one way to skin a cat. Eww. How do you optimize a site for search engines? Examples Know your keywords and focus on the best Include 200-800 words of relevant content Use your metatags: title, description Note: keywords metatag is no longer of value! Examine your site in SEO browser and adjust Acquire incoming links from other relevant sites Components of SEO