Topics in Technology and Marketing Week 8 - Recap

The Purpose of a Business Website ● MAKE THE CASH REGISTER RING ● A website that doesn't drive leads or sales is worthless

3 Essential Internet strategies ● Attracting website visitors ● Pull Marketing (SEO) ● Push Marketing ( /PPC/SEM) ● Drive Marketing(Affiliate Marketing) ● Converting website visitors to purchasers ● Effective website design ● Converting purchasers to repeat purchasers ● Push Marketing with personalized content

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) ● SEO seeks to maximize: ● Search engine visibility ● Web traffic resulting from searches

Website Traffic ● Traffic - click-through (CTR) - is directly correlated to search results ranking ● Importance of being listed on Page 1 of a Google search return – Page 1 – CTR ~ 95% – Page 3+ equals commercial invisibility ● Importance of being listed #1 on Page 1 of a Google search return ● Page 1/#1 – CTR ~ 34% ● Page 1/#2 – CTR ~ 17% (~ 1/2 drop) ● Page 1/#3 – CTR ~ 11% (~ 1/3 drop) ● Page 2/#1 – CTR ~ 1%

Website Ranking ● Ranking is proportional to Google's assessment of BOTH: ● The degree to which the content matches the intent of the query ● The authority of the content

Maximize Credibility ● Establish business “credibility” ● Listings in local directories ● Listings in industry directories ● Listing in Google Places, Yahoo! Local, etc.

What It All Means ● A highly visible website will deliver streams of potential customers – for free ● An invisible website means that a business must invest ($$$) in advertising to generate leads in other ways ● SEO is primarily about content, not technical tricks ● Good content results in good SEO ● Yet – who typically does SEO? Techies... ● Good content is written to address the specific concerns of prospects ● Concerns expressed through Google searches using keyword phrases

Questions?