Beware the helping hand that might not be so helpful after all

Website marketing advice is not always accurate - even from government funded bodies

Here in the UK, we small business owners are never short of advice from government bodies, all there to help us compete more effectively, hopefully employ more people and certainly to comply with a thousand and one new regulations. But how much should we trust all this information? Just because it has originated from a government department or government funded body, does that mean it has been properly checked?

I was forwarded one such document on Friday from a well respected and very active government funded body, namely one of the regional Business Links, on the subject of 'Marketing your website'. Naturally, as Search Engine Workshops provides training in this field, I read it with interest - and then disbelief and finally exasperation. The thrust of the article was that website marketing is important, and of course I agree with this, and secondly that it is easy, low cost and something that any small business owner can do in his coffee break. This is a myth and I was horrified to find such a high profile organisation propagating such a myth.

Marketing a website takes time, careful planning, constant effort and knowledge, both of online marketing and of the subject of the site.

Planning

Firstly the purpose of the site must be fully understood. How else can you measure success? This might be to increase sales, increase the profit on those sales, generate leads, re-route customers from a support telephone line to the website or simply to increase traffic, though this last one is only likely to apply to sites simply generating revenue from advertisers.

Once the purpose of the site is established, next a choice must be made as to which of the various marketing activities are to be used and with what budget.

Note that the last two use offline media. Don't forget that a website should be part of the total marketing mix, not something separate from it.

Pay per click

This has become extremely popular in the last couple of years and budgets are soaring. Why ppc is so popular is hard to explain from a marketing standpoint but the most likely explanation is that it is easy to do (though difficult to do well) and results are instant or nearly so. The downsides of ppc are that unless very carefully monitored, it can absorb vast amounts of money unnecessarily and secondly there is a lot of evidence to indicate that given the choice, surfers will favour a natural search result over a paid one.

Natural search

A natural search budget is a must for every webmaster serious about the long term success of his business. A word of warning though, the term 'free search' is a misnomer. Getting good natural rankings is not a matter of luck. It requires good site architecture, good site content and a well developed link structure. They don't come without effort.

Email campaigns and email newsletters

Once customers have bought into your website, then retaining them is only sensible. Regular email newsletters sent to existing customers will keep them updated of new products and prices, as well as keeping your name in their minds.

Email campaigns to generate new customers are more problematic. Buying lists is expensive and many people simply resent getting even legitimate emails trying to sell them something and most will delete them without ever reading them. They can work but need very careful implementation.

Affiliates

If you are selling a product or service, then taking on affiliates can be an excellent way of generating more sales. Quite simply, your affiliates sell your product for you online for a commission.

Offline advertising

If you are taking offline advertising in newspapers, magazines or other paper publications, then promoting your website in them is a must. It is worth thinking carefully about how to do this. You might simply take an ad showing the web address, you might offer a discount for sales through the site or you may decide that advising readers of the availability of more information on the site is the way to go.

Direct Mail

Sending out paper mailshots is another broadcast technique which works in some markets but can be a costly mistake. If it is something that has worked for you in the past then promoting your website this way may be very effective.

Traffic monitoring

The importance of monitoring your website traffic, traffic analysis or emetrics, whatever you like to call it, cannot be underestimated. It is vital. Without traffic monitoring you are flying blindfold and although this is the only way to go with offline advertising, not using emetrics for online promotion is nothing short of madness.

Visitor monitoring is not difficult but it does take some investment in learning how to get the information and how to use it. Although most website hosting companies provide 'stats', these are usually designed as much for the IT department as the marketing one and there are much better ways of going about the task.

There are two methods of gathering traffic information, either from the log files that are generated by every website, or by subscribing to an online hosted traffic analysis service. Both methods have their pro's and con's and both work equally well.

If you choose the log file route, you will need to invest in some traffic analysis software. We use ClickTracks which starts at about £250.

Online services are priced by the number of page views that are monitored on a monthly basis. The hosted version of ClickTracks starts at $49 per month.

Sally Kavanagh
16th August 2005