by Scott Frangos, Managing Partner for WebFadds.com

How goes your marketing effort?  Is it tough to get the traffic you need to convert to sales?  Here are five tips and related links for you:

1. Find out what keywords prospective customers use to find companies like your own, and then rewrite all of your webpage copy with them included — especially in headings.  This is a big step toward SEO — Search Engine Optimization.  Tool  link:  Do a keyword density check.  Then… do one for your most successful competitor and note the differences.

2. Develop and test a Google Adwords campaign.  Test is emphasized because most people do not take the time to test two different ads where just a change in one word in your headline can make a big, big difference.  Test.
3. Work on your “Link Popularity” — how many quality sites (not link farms) link to your site.  This is a big part of the formula for your site’s ranking at Google and other search engines.  Tool link:  Check out your link popularity.
4. Deploy a “smart” autoresponder.  An autoresponder sends an automatic email reply to someone who requests information — a prospect — at your site.  By “smart”, I mean you should use one that captures their name and other relevant information, then replies automatically to them, greeting them by name, and sends a series of helpful messages over the next several weeks.  This will increase your sales, if written properly (and assuming you have a good product/service).  You can also use a smart auto-responder to deliver a paid online course, etc. 
   
   Compare:  aWebber - a service that provides your smart autoresponders on their servers (tip: try the “testdrive” to see how it works), and AutoResponse - a smart AutoResponsePlus program you purchase and install on your own web server.
5. This is a three-part tip:  Do not forget offline advertising, do not forget offline advertising, do not forget offline advertising.  I’ve seen too many clients thing that their going to build their business using only online methods.  Remember the yellow pages.  Get business cards… and distribute them.  Tip:  Use a postcard campaign to save postage costs and make sure your prospects see your sales messages (a certain percentage of sales messages in envelopes are never opened).  Reference:  Take a look at Verticle Response — they offer both email and printed postcard campaign services.

Do these marketing tactics… over a period of years (that’s right… no matter what you’ve heard, it’s not an overnight thing), and depending on your product, price, and promotion — you’ll succeed.  Want more advertising ideas?  Visit the WebMaster’s Advertising Directory.

Tags: Advertising //