Online Marketing Consultants

Split Testing Offers So Much To Online Marketing

david — Mon, 14 May 2012 12:35:33 +0000

What Is Split Testing

Split Testing is the ultimate marketing weapon. It is the process of rotating 2 different options to an audience of prospects in order to gain an insight into which option performs better. In a nutshell this means you create option A and option B, set them up so that they receive equal amounts of traffic, let the traffic run for a defined period eg 1000 visits then see which option has won. This is why in some circles it is known as AB split testing.

How do you know which option has won

In order to assess a split test you must define a goal that you consider to be a conversion. For example if you are split testing copy in ads in a ppc advertising campaign through Google Adwords then there are 2 common schools of thought regarding the best goal to track. The first one being CTR(Click Through Rate). Let’s say out of 1000 people seeing advert version A, 100 click on it because the copy appeals to them, this is a Click Through Rate of 10%, ie 1 in 10 people seeing the ad were curious enough to want to know more. Let’s say out of 1000 people seeing advert version B yields 80 clicks, giving a CTR of 8%. Statistically speaking version A proved the most popular advert and as a result wins the split test.

However the second and frankly more advanced view on split testing ad copy is to judge the success of an advert on a more valuable goal such as enquiries generated, sales made or optins to a subscriber list. This may well yield a different winner, to take the example above advert A may well yield a 10% CTR but it may also only yield say a 10% conversion rate eg 10 out of 100 visitors coming via advert A enquired/bought/opted in. Whereas Advert B with a lower CTR produced more conversions if out of the 80 visitors that clicked on it,20 converted to an enquiry/purchase/optin.

In the above example the conversion rate of advert A was 10%(10 out of 100) and the conversion rate of advert B was 25%(20 out of 80). As the end goal is to understand which ad copy produces the best ULTIMATE result we should take the ad copy of B and retest it against a new version to see if it continues to outperform and if not we will raise our performance levels even higher if we find a champion to beat the old champion.

The great analogy that comes to mind that mimics split testing is Sport. For example in Athletics Usain Bolt reigns supreme in the 100 metres and few would bet against him in the forthcoming Olympics, however assuming he performs to his best there may be an opponent who beats him in a world record time hence raising the standard for the 100m, the new champion may well then be beaten in a new world record at the next major Athletics Championships again raising the standard. This may seem overly simplistic but the facts are this in 1903 the world record for the 100m was held by Eric Frick of Sweden at 10.8 seconds,in 1968 it was held by Jim Hines of the USA at 9.95 seconds and in 2009 Usain Bolt of Jamaica ran 9.58 in Berlin. So between 1903 and 2009 the benchmark world standard for the 100m had improved gradually by 11.3%.

Split Testing Landing Pages

The incredible advantage Online Marketing gives over Offline Marketing(yellow Pages,newspaper ads,radio ads,tv ads etc.) is it’s flexibility. Split Testing website landing pages is the ultimate example of this flexibility. There are again 2 schools of thought amongst landing page split testers, test 1 variable at a time eg version A and version B are identical apart from either a different headline or a different image or a different call to action or a different set of bullet points or a different video….. the other school of thought is to test 2 completely different landing pages. This is obviously a lot more labour intensive but will likely give a more clear cut result. Despite it being far more labour intensive to create 2 different landing pages this is nothing compared to the impossibility of creating 2 different yellow pages ads,the other variables that come into play when you test 2 different newspaper ads(ie can’t be done concurrently),the difficulty and huge cost to split test 2 radio or tv ads. So the fact is this is a very manageable process to split test 2 unique landing pages in the context of the other options.

In the end split testing leads to progress, not split testing will resign your ambitions to stagnation. The incredible technology that exists and that we now leverage every day pushes knowledge and results ever higher.

Split Testing is now fundamental to Online Marketing progress in 2012 and beyond, if your adwords campaign is not based on split testing you can be sure the competition will be soon if not already.

Maximising Quality Score With Google Adwords

david — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 05:36:20 +0000

This week’s change by The Google adwords team to offer a more detailed insight into how quality score is calculated on keyword based campaigns is a welcome move forward to help improve the highly important Quality score for campaigns.

The image above shows the new breakdown that the adwords system gives if you hold the cursor over the speech bubble in the status column of the keywords tab. So to be clear:
In the top Menu: Campaigns (choose a campaign or look through all campaigns)
In the grey menu: Keywords
The column headed Status has a small speech bubble-lay cursor over it.

So the breakdown now gives an insight to where the major scope lies to improve quality score. In the above example it implies all 3 metrics are running at average, ie could be better could be worse.

Managing Clickthrough Rate(CTR)

The above images show that there are 3 levels of scoring within each metric, average,above average and below average. It is very unlikely that all 3 key metrics ie expected clickthrough rate,ad relevance and landing page experience carry the same weight, experience tells us that CTR is the heaviest weighting of the 3 because in the end the main outcome Google want is for an ad to be clicked and a low performing CTR is not good for the advertiser and especially not Google. Click through rate is managed by matching as closely as possible the intent of a browser(person searching for xyz product,service,problem solution) to the ad copy (hence ad relevancy) so for example somebody searching for a forensic accountant is likely to click on an ad identifying the advertiser as a forensic accountant vs a competing ad talking about being a general accountancy practice.

However even though ad relevancy is a large part of Click through rate there are 2 other major parts, ad positioning and bidding. Again these 2 are heavily linked, ad positioning reflects the average position gained by an ad(determined by quality score and bidding) and bidding simply reflects how competitive your bid for keywords are ie if you are bidding a maximum of $3 per click when there are 11 advertisers bidding more than that the adwords interface will tell you that you are below the first page bid.

Landing page Experience

The third metric landing page experience is undoubtedly the hardest to weigh up, other than you would assume conversions have to be part of that calculation. Google have denied this but surely there is a relationship because the optimum landing page experience for the user is that it has satisfied their purpose to the point where they purchase/fill in their details to receive xyz/fill in the contact form/look further into the site to glean more information…. In terms of managing landing page experience, split testing 2 separate landing pages, with common elements but 1 different photo/headline/call to action/banner…. is the ultimate way to ensure progress in managing that experience for the user.

It is clear that the Google adwords system is going to continue to evolve, the more power that the system can offer to the advertiser who invests in optimising their campaigns will yield a far greater return for Google and they know that, whilst frustrations will continue to be present as grey areas are left hanging in the ether, this is the way to find new customers and clients going forward.

YouTube Pay Per View Advertising

david — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 03:59:12 +0000

The Online Marketing Monster That Is Youtube

YouTube is now the third largest search engine on the planet and as a result gets enormous traffic daily all over the world, it is an online marketing monster

There is an average of 1 hour of video uploaded to Youtube every second of every day

Over 4 billion videos are watch every day

Youtube gets over 800 million unique users per month

More content is uploaded to Youtube in 1 month than the 3 major American TV networks have generated in their 60 year history combined

Only 30% of Youtube’s traffic is from the USA

Every week Youtube is showing ads on over 3 billion videos

98 of the world’s largest 100 brands are using Youtube advertising

Over 700 Youtube videos are shared on Twitter every minute

Pay Per View Advertising With YouTube

There are 4 different types of YouTube Ads that you can run. Similar targeting features to those offered by Google Adwords Advertising are available eg targeting your ad to show by the keywords searched for,targeting by location of the user,targeting by interests and demographics(not recommended).

The 4 types of YouTube Ads are:

TRUE VIEW IN STREAM

True view in stream ads play in one of 3 positions, either at the start before the video begins or in the middle or at the end after the video has finished. Once the advert has been rolling for 5 seconds the user gets the opportunity to avoid the advert or watch it then wait to see the video they have intended to watch. As far as the advertiser is concerned, YouTube only charge for a view IF the user has watched the advert for at least 30 seconds or to the end if it is less than 30 seconds.

TRUE VIEW IN SEARCH

True View In search ads are offered around the search engine in YouTube, offering to match ads based on keyword and category based searches in the same way adwords features paid listings at the top of a search results page. The advertiser pays when the user clicks on their advert.

TRUE VIEW IN SLATE

True View In Slate Ads give a user 2 options when they want to watch a specific video 1.To watch one of 3 adverts they are offered or 2.To get regular ad breaks during the video. Advertisers pay every time a user decides to click on their ad at the start.

TRUE VIEW IN DISPLAY

True View in Display ads matches advertisers to display content around the internet, display content generally being a blog or discussion based website where Google adsense is used to sell ads. If a user clicks on the ad their video plays and YouTube charge for the view.

Costs per View(Costs per Click in Video Speak) tend to be considerably lower than Adwords CPC as this market is still relatively uncompetitive compared to adwords, so the fact that Adwords cpc’s are still generally great value, as long as your adwords management is consitant and you understand the ins and outs of their system, YouTube advertising offers serious value though of course the cost of producing the video must be factored in. One strategy that would work very well for this medium is the CEO/Director/Boss doing a simple speech to camera exentuating the positives of the product/service offering and engaging in a way that suggests integrity and value. The Ultratune and the Aussie Home Loans tv ad campaigns would be a great fit for this medium.

Common Misunderstanding Among SME’s:The Difference Between Sales And Marketing

david — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 17:43:33 +0000

A recent conversation with a client led me to contemplate a commercial truth which is undoubtedly profound yet often misunderstood, that Sales and Marketing generally have a gulf the size of the Grand Canyon between them.

What Do I mean By That?

Well Salespeople tend to be closers, they tend to have a sense for the prize that other’s don’t(hence their great value). They often have a substantial interest in completing the sale so all they generally care about is talking to prospects who have done all their research and are ready to press the go button. Good salespeople also understand fostering long term relationships will generally yield a profit but they get up every day focused on the next client they can get over the line.

At the same time Marketers have their focus on sending as many people through their sales funnel as possible. Generating leads through understanding their market and delivering a message to them that facilitates an interest in an offering be it a product or a service. Leveraging channels that evolve, staying on top of their evolution and most of all staying in touch with their marketplace.

Why Is This Relevant?

This is such an important distinction to make because marketers and salespeople are so different that having 2 separate departments within your business is vital to give these 2 fundamentals their best opportunity to flourish……however it is also absolutely crucial that the 2 departments have a strong line of communication specifically in 1 area:

Salespeople must feed market information back to marketing to allow them to constantly hone their messages.

The discussion i had this week with a client for whom we are launching an online marketing campaign, had absolutely no idea at all of the message that needed to be broadcast to their market. Probing questions resulted in answers that offered a marketer nothing, yet through research and delving below the surface of the marketplace we have tracked down the ideal strategy. The client i refer to was a substantial part of the company’s salesforce and without a doubt a fantastic salesperson BUT had very little understanding of the marketing messages that were required.

This is very typical.

Talk to a salesman about their market and you will get a completely different view from a marketer who has been involved in that market, amazingly businesses continue to trade despite this massive bottleneck.

Of course this is a generalisation business people that have a handle on both of these departments have a huge head start against their counterparts and in the end if you had to identify why one company grows vs another that doesn’t over a period of time i would say there is a strong likelihood it is the sales vs marketing bottleneck that is throttling the underperformer.

How To Get Rid Of Your FAILED Online Marketing Strategies

david — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 06:23:03 +0000

The Most Common Online Marketing Mistake

Virtually every prospective client that approaches us,does so with one of 2 problems. The first problem is not having an online marketing strategy, the second problem is they have an online marketing strategy that has consistently failed.

Today i am going to talk about the second problem, how to identify it and how to solve it, because it has become a pandemic of a disease amongst businesses in Australia. The pandemic is mainly due to the fact that for the last decade business owners have been led astray through very poor advice. The reason for the poor advice is that a vacuum has existed for many years which was filled by web designers. Web designers became the answer to all online marketing strategy questions and challenges.

Yes Business Owners relied on Commercial advice from people who had gone to Art college and learned how to create attractive graphics.

When Woolworths,Heinz,Colgate or any of the other major consumer brands want to launch a new product or relaunch an old one,
Do they approach their packaging suppliers to brainstorm and handle the challenges of marketing their offering?

NO!

They turn to experts who understand all the small pieces of the jigsaw and particularly understand how best to create a platform where generating leads and sales happens without too much friction. You see friction is the enemy of any marketing process, in Online Marketing there are a range of typical frictions that have developed to reduce the opportunity for the businesses who fall victim to them,here are some of the main frictions AKA sins:

THE DEADLY SINS OF ONLINE MARKETING

SIN NUMBER 1.
Putting Artistic Design Ahead Of Practical Usage.

When Someone lands on your website they are generally there for a reason and they need to see you offer a solution to that reason very quickly. Message To Market! Quickly because like all marketing first impressions are vital. So when you use a Vast image that doesn’t speak to your market or mundane bullet points or a very busy message that is difficult to digest or bad navigation to allow prospects to delve deeper or use a rotating logo that distracts(just to show off)……..you are impairing your ability to convert that prospect into a client.

SIN NUMBER 2.
Allowing The Technical To Hamper Conversions.

As mentioned above speed is of the essence in delivering your marketing message so slow loading websites are the equivalent of printing your company brochure back to front forcing people to read it via a mirror. There is absolutely no need for it in 2012. You are effectively abusing your prospects because you can’t be bothered to present your services or products quickly and efficiently to them. Again the sin is generally commited by the art college graduate who values cool graphics for his portfolio above your ability to make sales.

Your Home page is the junction of your website, it is the central station to the railway network. It has to be effective in 2 areas: 1. Get your message across efficiently 2. Redirect prospects to areas of the website where they may answer further questions before getting in touch. It only has 2 objectives.

SIN NUMBER 3.
Not Identifying and Effectively Broadcasting Your USP.

Differentiation is the name of the marketing game. How is your service or product better than the competition? How are you placing your offering to stop the prospect from going elsewhere on the basis that your offering is a commodity……the same as everyone else. If you are not then why would a prospect want to do business with your firm.

SIN NUMBER 4.
Complication Is Your Enemy,Simplicity Is Your Friend.

Simple messages win business. Starting with your identified USP, simple messages that solve problems and differentiate are all that is needed to take the customer over the threshold of your Online Home(your website’s home page) to have a look around. However make your message veiled and tough to digest and you will lose your prospect in the blink of an eye.

SIN NUMBER 5.
Assuming Traffic Is An Entitlement!

Listed as Sin Number 5 but undoubtedly the most important Sin. Website traffic is the single biggest conundrum of the 21st century for businesses, bar none. Yes conversations like this really do take place: “We just need more traffic and we will be highly profitable” or “We’ve got everything else in place online but we don’t get any traffic”.

Hello! Traffic and particularly quality traffic is the single biggest factor for all marketing. Getting qualified eyeballs to come to your website(qualified eyeballs = prospective clients) is what everybody wants. Does the newly formed accountancy practice want KPMG’s traffic? Does the established but ambitious Small Engineering Contractor want to be seen by BHP and Rio Tinto on a regular basis? Does the insolvency practice want to get all the traffic from soon to be Bankruptcy candidates.

Oh yes.

It really is not a minor issue. Alongside Conversion It is the Issue!

THE SOLUTION

So Consider This As The Template To The Solution:

1. Assess Your Design In Terms Of:
Identifying Your USP
Efficiently Broadcasting Your USP
Efficiently Offering Solutions To The Problems In Your Market

2. Create An Outline Plan To Establish Those 3 Traits

3. Implement The Plan

4. Have Your Website Analysed For Google Friendly Coding

5. Establish High Quality Headlines(Meta Titles) and 150 character copy(Meta Descriptions) for every page.

6. Keyword Research Analysis identifies the phrases that your marketplace uses to find solutions to their problems.

7. Create A Content Flow Plan, Siloing the various departments and “solutions” your business offers.

8. Create A Traffic Strategy based on the following order of Priority:

SEO
Adwords
Facebook Ads
Relationship Marketing
Upstream marketing
Partnership Marketing.

9. Test,Track,Tweak.

That is a reduced version of our Full Integrated Online Marketing Strategy Plan that we follow for our clients.
It works.

Gerry Harvey On Online Marketing

david — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 02:58:55 +0000

High Street Retail Icon Accepts Online Marketing Is The Present And The Future

So for the last few years Gerry Harvey of Harvey Norman has been a constant naysayer about Online Marketing strategies. He has always taken the view that the internet and it’s impact on business was a fad and unlikely to be worth spending time in figuring out how to leverage it for his businesses(including The Magic Millions Thoroughbred Auction House). Gerry is without a doubt one of the iconic Australian retailers of his generation and a sharper marketing mind you will be hard pressed to find.

But he was wrong! Very wrong.

Why he was wrong is a bit of a mystery,i recall conversations with sophisticated business people around the turn of the Millenium that suggested the internet was doing nothing different and was simply an online brochure to display your products or services. I had numerous such conversations though they formed a small minority opinion and tended to be of Gerry’s generation.

So today Smart Company, a very good Australian online news source published an interview with Gerry today entitled “I do ‘get’ online”: Gerry Harvey responds to critics in online editorial – and he’s got five good points. It is clear that Gerry has moved a long way in his views on the internet and it’s impact on business. Whilst the Commercial property interests of his business must be taking a pounding as freehold valuations fall, online startups in his sector are undercutting or simply offering an easier purchase experience(think clicking 5 buttons vs driving to a store….parking…..wading through a sea of options……getting a sales assistant who you feel uneasy to trust because you suspect margins vary on products dramatically…….lugging the product to your car……finding it won’t fit in the boot……..using plan B transportation…..) as well as his bricks and mortar competition like JB HiFi being focused on their online profile for quite a while.

That said Gerry makes some interesting points…..but the most interesting point of all is the converstaion that happened between the lines……Gerry Harvey understands the importance of Online Marketing! He sees his bottom line bleeding to the 20 somethings who built a brand from their garage(probably just like he did), he sees ebay and gumtree doing a lot of business in his space and he is left wondering why did this happen. How was i blindsided by this seachange and is it too late to turn it around? My opinion is it could well be because he has allowed so much competition to set up through the cracks that he wasn’t covering and they are largely competition without Harvey Norman’s massive overheads of retail space and sales staff.

But the lesson Business owners must learn from Gerry’s about turn on Online Marketing is it is not ok to bury your head in the sand any longer. If your competitors steal a march on you now you will be forever playing catchup as long as they sustain their efforts. So make it a priority. A priority does not mean…..having a website…..having limited promotional traffic to the site…..and leaving it at that.

Making Online Marketing your front and centre priority means this:

Have a plan in place for Your Website….it’s development…it’s themes….it’s structure…..it’s focus….and most of all it’s conversion process.

Develop a traffic strategy in this sequence

1.SEO
2.Adwords
3.Facebook Ads
4.Relationship Marketing
5.Upstream marketing
6.Partnership Marketing.

Test and Tweak….Monitor and Develop.

Brainstorm New opportunities that arise and test them.

In the end if Gerry Harvey got caught out with his vast infrastructure of market feedback, team of consultants and marketing minds and network of people he talks to, it’s not a shock that others are struggling with the concepts involved.

Online Marketing 101:The Art Of Website Conversion

david — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 11:54:55 +0000

The Ultimate Guide To Website Conversion

You have 4 inches and 7 seconds to get your message across sufficiently to a prospective client in order that they consider taking the next step in your Conversion process. Your Whole Online Marketing Strategy needs to revolve around that simple fact.

Publishing Fundamentals:ABOVE THE FOLD IS PRIME REAL ESTATE

We are absolutely bombarded with information in 2012, there seems to be a new advertising media popping up every week, from park benches to new strangely shaped vehicles that tow even stranger shaped trailers as ad hoardings to lcd tv screens at the gas station and many more weird and wonderful ideas to convey a commercial offering.

On the internet studies have shown that the average window of opportunity to convert a web browser that has found your site through Google is 7 seconds and the “eye path” they are considering is an average of 4 inches deep.

This may cause many people to despair and wonder how you can work with such a small window but the reality has 2 key factors:

There are tried and tested methodologies

Website Conversion Optimisation is a process NOT an event(ie it is
an ongoing test and tweak situation not a set and leave)

There are 3 major questions that every website browser is asking themselves
when they land on your website:

If you are addressing those basic questions in your content then you are already building a foundation of conversion success. Here are 3 core considerations to position your offering at the next level:

1 The most important core factor is The Value Proposition that you are putting forward, this is based around your usp(unique selling points) and it’s relationship with solving the browser’s problem. It is a fact that most businesses have not created a strong definable USP, many believe they have a usp but it is not differentiating them from their competition.

2. Every page of your website must focus on minimising the Call To action. Keep it simple for the browser,don’t confuse them with multiple forms,optins, phone numbers etc. give them one clear next step.

3. An Extension of number 2 make the Action part of Call To Action clear. Give them a simple form. A Phone number in Large font, an optin that requires the minimum information. A shopping cart that can be filled in less than 1 minute.There are ways to ask for a lot of information that make it easy for the prospect but a long multi step form or a huge shopping cart process is definitely not the right way forward.

Once you have constructed your Clear Value Proposition,Created a Clear Call to Action and an Easy way of Transacting That Action You are then ready to start looking at the smaller detail of the job of Website Conversion Optimisation.

Reputation Management

david — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 07:08:39 +0000

Why Your Online Reputation Needs Managing

In Business your reputation forms an enormous part of your Balance sheet yet it is not declared or disclosed in your accounts. Its value can often be considered to be the fully capitalized valuation of your company. Without a reputation that offers your clients and prospective clients confidence in what they are buying from you,Business is unlikely to be brisk. One of the greatest examples of how fragile, Business Reputation can be was the extraordinary overnight demise of Ratners the Jewelers in the UK. Speaking at the Institute of Directors in 1991,Gerald Ratner who had created a vast high street empire from his mass market jewelry got a bit carried away and regaled his audience with stories of how cheap and nasty his products were. The company virtually collapsed the next day as the media took great delight in informing all Ratners customers and prospects of how Gerald Ratner had so little respect for his own products.

The Internet has opened up the world of Business to a whole new danger of Reputation loss. The plethora of review sites,forums and opinions cranked out on a daily basis creates a mass of conflicting views and arguments over good and bad. Restaurants are particularly sensitive to the online reviewer but individuals and Businesses of all sectors must be aware of their Online Reputation and take steps particularly if there are predators hoping to gain commercially by slurring your reputation. Tactics emerging here tend to be generated anonymously by the perpetrator either via a forum or comment in an article or via a web 2.0 property where they write using a pseudonym. Vengeance has never had so much leverage because if Google are featuring a particularly negative review or article or accusation in the search results around somebody’s name,business name or even phrase that the person or business is associated with, and that particular piece of content ranks 2nd,3rd,4th,5th or even towards the bottom of page 1, this will raise a big red flag in the mind of the prospect searching for the business by name(or in the case of an individual…it will look equally unattractive).

Online Reputation Management going forward will become vital to maintaining your Commercial appeal.

If you or your business has suffered from a detractor and you would like to remove a listing from Page 1 of the search results for your Brand or name, call us on 07 31032719. There is no instant solution but steps can be taken to solve the problem.

Of course in an ideal world Businesses would be protecting their reputation before they actually had to!

Domain Names:What You Need To Know

david — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 14:46:56 +0000

Domain Names: Frequently Asked Questions

What is a domain name suffix and what should i buy?

The suffix for this domain, OnlineMarketingConsultants.com.au is .com.au, for Google.com the suffix is .com, most countries have their own local suffix extension. If your market(ie your prospects and customers) are all in one country then get a domain with a suffix for that country, so if your customers are from Australia, buy a .com.au, if your prospects are in the UK, buy a co.uk. However if your prospects are in more than one country then you should strongly consider a separate website for each country or at least redirect a local extension to your main website.

How Much Do Domain Names Cost?

There are a very wide range of domain prices quoted in Australia, we have our preferred registrars but they change regularly, email us if you wouild like to know our latest reccommendation. You should not be paying more than $24 for 2 years(ie $12 per year).

For .com domains look no further than namecheap.com. Around $10 per year will be the cost and great value.

Exact match Domains vs Brandable Domains

An Exact match domain name is where the domain contains an exact phrase that you would like to rank well for eg CreditsCards.com.au if you want to rank well when people type “credit cards” into Google. Google certainly does give exact match domains a level of help to rank well but it is certainly not the only factor(there are over 200 elements to their ranking algorithm), in general an exact match domain should rank on page 1 for its exact match phrase if there are a range of other factors in place and if a great website built and optimised to be Google friendly is built on an exact match domain, it should certainly be an advantage to rank number 1…….but it is not an absolute given.

A Brandable domain refers to a domain where keyphrases are not taken into account and a new brand is established. An example of which would be cocacola.com, though sometimes a hybrid brandable domain may include a keyword.

In 2012 should you be targeting brandable domains or exact match domains? Well hedging your bets is the best advice, a brandable domain is probably the best long term option but you may well be giving up some short term qualified traffic as ranking high in Google with an exact match from scratch will happen sooner than with a brandable. Understanding your business plans and traffic projections before deciding on a domain name strategy is fundamental to launching a new website. For example if you plan to run a substantial Google adwords campaign from launching the website and planning to target a good organic presence over a 6-12 month period with a new domain, then brandable is probably the way to go.

Can Domains be Considered a long term investment?

Yes Indeed here are the top 20 domain names sold to date, in some cases the domain was included with an ongoing business in most not:

Here are the top reported Australian domain name sales(some sales are kept private):

What is the ideal domain name length?

As short as possible for getting direct type in traffic but exact match and brandable domains have intrinsic advantages that make a shorter domain name, in a world where short domain names are rarely available, low on the list of priorities.

Should Second Hand Domain Names Be Considered?

Yes. This is probably the most important domain marketplace going forward. Buying “aged domains” or “dropped”(let go by previous registrant) domains can provide great opportunities. An aged domain that has good history in Google can have great benefits regarding SEO and could easily be the ideal answer for a business startup or a new website,because new domains are not treated as generously by Google as a domain with history.

Domain names are often badly chosen and misunderstood, new startups would do well to consider acquiring their domain name or names before they decide on a trading name.

Should Businesses Have More Than One Website

david — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 00:47:31 +0000

Unique Content and Smart Website Design….Can You Have Enough?

So for the last 12 months many clients have wanted to discuss the Online Marketing Strategy of building multiple websites for their business. This is born from a strategy that was gaining momentum during 2009 and 2010 where big brands were rolling out a range of new websites on the basis that the more nets you had in the ocean the more fish you will catch. There is absolutely no doubt whatsoever this is a very powerful strategy IF you have the will and the resources to follow up and build out the portfolio of sites.

What Do We Mean By Build Them Out?

Anybody that builds a website these days ignoring Google and what Google likes to see in a well optimised page is clearly ignoring the most powerful commercial marketing platform the world has ever seen. In order to produce and manage a website to really garner the attentions of the big G, it needs to be built with specific architecture and treated like a young tree, offering it food,growth and light. Food can be considered a foundation and steady flow of great content, growth can be considered connections to the outside world via link building and light would be

the user friendliness and authority of the site to retain browsers

convert prospects into customers

and generally manage the flow of people through the site

to maximise your chances that if they came to your site looking for your product or service they don’t go to the competition. Simplicity is Beauty so the equation is no more complicated than

So Yes IF each of your multiple sites is built on the above basis then you are indeed producing a fantastic Net in which to catch the most fish, however what does it take to cultivate such a network?

1. A Great Plan. Do not enter this strategy without a full mind map of how the sites will interact, how they will be different but have the same purpose, how they will reflect your brand,where the content will specifically focus and where you want your traffic to come from.

2. Do not underestimate the value of Great Unique Content and make sure you are not spreading your resources too thin. This is the most common mistake, building 6 sites but only able to generate great content for 2 of them. Some businesses have a lot to talk about and find content generation straightforward others struggle terribly and rarely overcome the fogged mind that a blank screen and a keyboard can bring to you and even your more creative staff.

3. The single biggest resource hog will be your Online Marketing management. Assuming you ignore the enormous time suck that is Twitter and the long term relationship building device but mediocre lead generator LinkedIn, your Online Marketing strategy must be focused on SEO,Adwords and where relevant a strategy for Facebook(by relevant i mean perhaps a Funeral Director or even BHP may consider Facebook not worthy of specific investment of resources). SEO should be allocated 50-70% of your Online Marketing budget,Adwords 20-40% and Facebook where relevant 10-20%. Taking shortcuts with investing into your Website portfolio will drastically hinder the strategy providing great Return on Investment. Committing to a well planned and financed strategy however will lead to Online Domination in your niche and allow you to Farm All The Leads In Your Marketplace.

Why?
The dream result of this multi site strategy is that your portfolio of websites dominate all top listings for any of your major keywords so prospects look at the top 3 ranked sites for a specific keyword and all they see are YOUR sites but each with a slightly unique message and look, perhaps even a slightly different offering to both differentiate and test which offer matches the market best.

The Wobblers
Ok so nothing is quite so simple. The advent of Google Places and it’s directory listings based on common local searches has meant that local online real estate in the Google results pages has been taken up. Optimising your Google Places listing should certainly have you listed high but having more than one listing in the 7 pack or 3 pack is against Google’s terms of service unless it is a separate company. Also running adwords campaigns for more than 1 website on the same keywords in the same account is against Google’s terms of service so again impact there is limited unless you have separate entities to market.

So to cut a long story short, if you are sitting on a nice portfolio of keyphrase optimised domain names or you have just heard how some companies have cornered their market online, be aware of the dangers and the problems before you decide that investing all your resources to build,maintain and grow your main website and make it the best online portrayal of the fantastic product/services that you offer isn’t in the end the very best Online Marketing Strategy for your business.