Making Good Impressions

In December 1995, AltaVista burst on the search engine scene with what, at the time, was a giant 21 million page index, well above rivals in the 1 to 2 million range. A lot has changed since then, primarily the sheer size of the World Wide Web. Although the internet as we knew it was only 3 years old, it was clear that helping people find information online was going to be a very big job. And the competition to have your business found first was just heating up.

Before it stopped displaying a count, Google claimed to have over 18 billion pages indexed in their search engine. On November 20, 2005, a report released jointly by Pew Internet & American Life Project and comScore found that the percentage of search users is almost equal to those who use e-mail.

Of the 94 million American adults who use the internet, 59 million Americans use the internet to search daily, up 55% from the 38 million reported in 2004. Now more than ever, it’s critical that as a website owner, and as a business owner you must be in the click.

To get in the click, to achieve high rankings, you must participate in some type of digital marketing.

What is Digital Marketing?

The use of the internet to disseminate information, communicate with the marketplace, advertise, promote, sell, and/or distribute products or services.

Search Engine Marketing: Search Engine Marketing specifically is the function of locating, researching, submitting, and positioning a website within the proper search engines for maximum exposure and effectiveness. SEM may also include the function of choosing the target keywords and keyword phrases for the website’s metatags

Search Engine Advertising: The process of paying money to search engines or directories to enhance a site’s position; paid placement and paid inclusion programs are included.

How do search engines work?

There are several different types of search engines, and the way they find and “index” or list sites differs between them.

Spiders – Relies totally on an automated process that literally crawls through all of the pages, linked to other pages, linked to other pages finding all of the sites that it can and then placing the sites based on predetermined criteria: relevant content, number of links to the site, description, etc.

Directories – like an old-fashioned card catalog at the library. Listed alphabetically, added by manual submission, the best are compiled with the assistance or total dependence of humans.

Now search engines are much smarter. Google & Bing take a variety of factors into account, not just spidering what’s out there but really evaluating the content of each web page.

Other Online Venues:

Banner Ads: Studies show banners aren’t terribly good at generating traffic through click-through but have a powerful branding effect.

Mailing Lists / Newsletters: ‘killer app’. Opt-in mailing lists can hit very, very specific demographics.

Sponsorships: If you ‘sponsor’ a section of a site you can integrate your advertising message and branding elements a bit more unobtrusively than you can with just a banner at the top. You might also be able to have your regular ads and have “these cool pages sponsored by”
Interstitials: usually pages or a variety of pop-up boxes that appear mysteriously after you click on a link but before you get to the place you clicked to get to. An interstitial page might open and close automatically. These can be highly effective if done well.

Rich Media: Rich media is a term for advanced technology used in Internet ads, such as streaming video, applets that allow user interaction, and special effects.

The entire, sole purpose of internet marketing, search engine placement, etc. is to make an impression on the people you want to reach the most.

There’s Gold in those Impressions!

What exactly is an Impression?

Impressions occur when ads are placed on the screens of shoppers who input keywords or phrases into search engines. Usually, there are 15 or so on a page. They can be either organic or paid Impression ads. When a shopper selects the ad they click on it to produce a visit to that site. When shoppers actually buy from the site they clicked, it creates a conversion.

The FIRST info your shopper sees.

The shopper makes a decision on which sites he/she wants to visit based on the content of each ad in the search results list. If the ad fails to convey either complete info or accurate info the impression will fail to produce a click.

The Impression is made of the info a Search Engine used to rank your site.

An impression contains the data the engine uses to rank its placement in the search results list. Different engines compile the ad using different formulas, but the major engines are fairly predictable in their procedures.

The best offer you can advertise online.

Having a great impression listing increases click-through rates and also increases conversions. Having an inaccurate impression ad results in fewer or no click-throughs or in clicks that frustrate shoppers who then never visit again.

Impressions are directly proportional to SE rank/placement.

Google uses the title content, the META description, and the URL to rank a listing. Yahoo uses those plus content and the various other engines use a combination of page content, titles, and META data to rank a site and cause impressions.

How can an Impression make my site any money?

If your site’s Impressions are presented to the shopper correctly they will entice that shopper to visit your site by clicking on the Impression ad. The average for the Internet is between 1 and 2% of the shoppers actually click through on Impression ads. Any site can increase this if they find the right combination of factors for their shoppers to see in their organic Impression ads. And of course, pay-performance ads are written by you if you buy the ad.

Impressions light the road to clicks.

It is imperative that the content of an impression be everything your market needs to make the decision to visit you. Some impressions need a toll-free number displayed, some need addresses for local clientele, and some need price info. What your market needs is what you want in that Impression ad.

Impressions are tallied to produce click-through rates.

When a statistics program compiles reports on your site activity it shows Impressions first. It then shows the number of click-throughs those Impressions received which gives the click-through rate in a percentage. When those click-through visitors actually buy something it tallies the conversion rate. Each search engine also provides this data for its paying customers. In greater detail. Plus they will make suggestions and give extras to their paying clients.

No impressions, no clicks.

If your Impressions created by the search engines are not achieving the proper rank, usually first-page placement, you have eliminated the majority of your market. It is clear that about 85% of all shoppers find your site using search engines. So the formula is that Impression ads are the method shoppers use to decide who to visit.

If they search your keywords, look over the impressions in the results list and see your ad, and then decide that they do NOT want to visit your site, you have also eliminated the vast majority of your market.

Do I have to pay for Impressions?

If you only target the organic listings, that is, those you pay nothing to the search engine for listing, they are very inexpensive. Not totally free, but inexpensive. If you target the pay performance Impressions they charge you only when the Impression results in a click-through to your site. That can run as high as $1000 per click on some engines or as low as a penny per click on others.

Impressions can be costly to have and even more costly not to have.

Gaining a good Impression ad can be budgeted to be relatively economic. Usually, the pay-performance efforts are a fraction of what a Yellow Pages ad would run monthly. Most people budget around $300 per month.

But NOT having ANY ads that show up, except maybe on page 10,000 of the results pages is a non-effort. That is like placing a brick-and-mortar store behind a shopping center and concealing the entrance from the public. If you cannot be found you cannot sell anything. And the prettiest site with the greatest products is useless if it does not sell anything.

How should I monitor my Impressions?

Impression content needs to be tested, changed when testing indicates, occasionally moved up in rank and page listing, altered through surveys, and experimented with.
Daily monitoring is the rule. If someone is not monitoring your impressions daily you really have no idea how fast markets change. Products become popular overnight and lose popularity overnight also. Plus laws change markets, competition alters strategies and product-producing companies go out of business, especially overseas suppliers. In addition, consumer tastes change.
Changes are routine and often. Changing the ads should be a constant effort. No one would attend a theater if the marquee outside never changed. No one would buy from a newspaper ad if the ad stayed the same for a month. The average shopper shops 4 times before buying. Most of them used keywords and saw your Impression every time. When they decided they had already been there they went somewhere else.

Every site page should have its own Impression.

It is amazing that most sites use the same URL or ad content for every product they offer. If a shopper sees an ad for a blue widget they want to go to that page of products. If they want red instead, they don’t want to go to the blue page. And if the title of the red widget page does not actually say “red widgets”, the competition that puts that into their title is going to rank higher than you and shove you down to a lower page. It’s that simple.

What’s next?

So now you’ve made all these great impressions, how do you make sure the traffic generated takes the next step?

First, the copy on the website needs to be full of benefits along with features. Talk to your visitors in terms of what’s in it for them.

Next, and most importantly, include an enticing offer & effective call to action.

A call to action is an instruction like “Pick up the phone and call now!” It’s the single most overlooked part of web page content – take a look at the majority of websites and you’ll see that while they may be friendly and informative, they are lacking in clear instructions.

There are 2 types of calls to action: signposts and offers for lead generation (or sales).

Signposts are fairly easy to create. They can be as simple as a “next” button or “click here.”
More often the signpost should include what will happen when the action is taken: “Find out how we ________.”

Creating an offer takes a little more thought. Here are 3 guidelines:

Offer something with a high perceived value to the visitor. Ideally, it would be something they would be willing to pay for. Something that is useful/ helpful/ desirable.
It must be cost-effective to deliver. It should qualify your visitor. Don’t give away a gift basket of fruit if you provide tax services.

Brainstorm a list of offers while keeping in mind the characteristics of your target audience.
Then, describe your offer in the most compelling and brief language. Then condense to a 5 – 8 word headline for your offer.

How do you know all of these efforts are paying off? Tracking through analytics programs, measuring the number of leads & sales.

Story of percentages.

100 business professionals consulted an digital marketing company for advice.

These professionals were from large and small companies, they were marketing directors, owners, and salespeople. Some of the companies were in manufacturing, some in the service sector, some in the political arena and some represented retail companies.

All of these business professionals were concerned about the effectiveness of their respective company websites.

The digital marketing consultants reviewed each website, made recommendations, and told the professionals how to improve the performance, position, and results generated from the websites. Each professional was given a to-do list that, when implemented, would assure improvement.

Thirty-six of the professionals immediately and enthusiastically went to work making the recommended changes and exploring the recommended venues. And, a couple of months later these professionals were so pleased and encouraged by the improvements that they put even more time and effort into marketing their websites. The work was paying off! Some even consulted the internet marketing company further to see what other options were available.

Sixty-four of the professionals immediately and enthusiastically went back to their respective businesses and gathered co-workers and employees to tell them about the exciting things they had heard and how all the changes they could make would surely improve the performance of their websites.

They rallied, held lunch meetings, and designed posters about the steps their company would take to get to their goal of a successful online marketing tool.

They hired staff to handle the additional emails, customer calls, and service needs. They did the training, and they covered every base – or so they thought.

A couple of months later these sixty-four professionals looked at their sales sheets and there was no change. There was no change because they failed to actually implement the advice of the internet marketing company.

While I have told this as a story – the facts are true. 64% of all companies fail to follow and implement the advice of their digital marketing consultants. Be sure your company is in the 36% that do follow the advice, implement the strategies, and come out on top.