SUCCESSFUL INTERNET MARKETING AND CHOOSING A DOMAIN NAME

Successful internet marketing and choosing a domain name that include your keywords to help search engine placement

Knowing what I know now, I would not have chosen half the domain names I own but many are well known and long established websites set up long before the competition got too stiff. However, if I was going into a business tomorrow, with a limited marketing budget, I would try and choose a domain name where the words flowed into each other so that they created more words than it actually included.

Whereonearthgroup.com is not necessarily the best example but it does include a number of words - where, he, here, eon, near, ear, earth, art, group, up. Not the best set of keywords but the site does come up a lot when people are looking for something that is near something or asking where something is. This was all pure accident and not many people ask a search engine where they can find an ear near an art group; but the domain name has paid dividends a million times over the years.

CHOOSING A DOMAIN NAME THAT INCLUDE YOUR KEYWORDS

So when choosing a domain name, you need to think long and hard about which keywords to include, the order and the spelling - providing they are relevant to your business.

LOGO DESIGN

Think of Yahoo, Utopele, Google, eBay, Boogami, and I bet you can visualise their logos in your mind. Google's logo is so well known they alter it in keeping with times of the year like Christmas, Halloween, Easter etc without fear of diluting their marketing.

You will notice that the five companies I have chosen don't in fact have a logo as such but a recognisable brand name logo. Fairly simple, appearing almost amateurish, but clear and distinctive and no doubt cost a few grand for the designers to come up with the right concepts. You see, a logo doesn't have to be an image like Nike or the Olympic Movement to be instantly recognisable. It just has to be instantly recognisable once people get to know the name.

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By using your name as your logo you are also telling people who you are, rather than relying on someone having to recall who actually owns a particular logo. To create that type of brand awareness takes many years and millions of dollars.

WEBSITE DESIGN

David covers this subject in great deal under the website design chapter but it is worth covering website design from a marketing point of view here.

Your website is your shop window and, like everything else, you only get one chance to make a first impression. Performance in the search engines aside, if someone lands on your website you need to capture their attention immediately before they click out.

High quality images and attention grabbing captions on every page are essential. Don't forget that every page on your website is a doorway through which a potential client can enter if your website has been optimised correctly. Don't waste any page, as each is an opportunity to obtain a new client.

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Make your marketing message clear. Whilst it is important to give people precise information, I often visit sites where I am left wondering exactly what the company does. Here is an example of a strap line off the home page of one marketing agency's website I just visited:

"We are an award-winning online marketing agency, offering a unique blend of integrated marketing for B2B and considered purchase markets, competitor benchmarking, implementing creativity and digital marketing expertise. For new ideas, effective strategies and enviable results."

Now my guess is that most potential clients wouldn't know what "integrated marketing" or "considered purchase markets" or "competitor benchmarking" actually are; and marketing is about sending the right message to the right people. Why not just say:

"An award winning marketing agency with the expertise to help you increase sales."

Or

"Effective marketing to increase sales"

Or just

"INCREASE SALES"

SUCCESSFUL INTERNET MARKETING



In marketing, the shorter the message, the more powerful the message. Obviously, you have to then go on and explain what you do and how you do it, but at least do it in a language that a potential client will understand.

I appreciate that this is not always easy where technical jargon is required, but a marketing agency should be able to come up with a strong and understandable strap line for itself.

If a client lands on your website, the site has to have a clear and instantaneous message that a potential client is going to read and decide to investigate further. Plus it has to have a highly visible call to action button ("Click here for a free quote" or "Contact us now" etc). Most websites have a contact button that is unobtrusive and often lost amongst numerous other links. You will notice on our web pages that there are actually seven call to action buttons on each page and our contact telephone numbers are also highly visible.

PUBLIC RELATIONS

We own a Public Relations company headed up by one of the best PR guys in the business. Pound for pound, good PR can buy you more exposure both on and offline than any other marketing medium, but you have to have a good story that the press, media and internet companies want to publish.

Something that is newsworthy is going to get published and followed up by countless newspapers and possibly television companies. It is marketing that you couldn't possibly afford to buy and, in some cases, a story can go international.

A typical example of this was Boogami, the search engine built by James Wildish, the sixteen year old school boy who set out with the sole purpose of paying off his Dad's mortgage. During a period when the UK was suffering a credit crunch and people were struggling with their mortgages, here was a young man who came up with a solution to help his father. Good news factor, mortgage problems, teenagers on the streets carrying knives and drinking cheap cider, and here was a clean cut young man who epitomised exactly what the UK government believed the youth of today should be like. The timing was perfect, the press had a field day and James Wildish became a household name, and his search engine became an overnight success.

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