Welcome to the March issue of Biz Talk! This publication is a free, subscription-based resource from Five Sparrows, LLC, which specializes in new web site development, web site re-designs, and complete online marketing services for small businesses.

We welcome your questions, comments, or inquiries at editor@fivesparrows.com. Enjoy!

Watching for a Competitive Edge

You don’t have to be a spy to know that it’s important to keep an eye on what your competitors are doing. In fact, paying attention to your competition’s online marketing techniques can often spur your own thinking to come up with better, more effective ways to promote your business. By understanding what your competitors are doing with their marketing strategies, you can develop a more targeted, effective online marketing plan that can help your business gain a competitive edge.

First Things First
The first thing you must remember is that monitoring your competitors’ marketing techniques is NOT the same thing as actually spying on your competitors, engaging in corporate espionage, or anything that could be considered unethical. Stick with the information that is easily and publicly available to anyone, and don’t be tempted to use any unscrupulous methods – ever.

In the Public Eye
The good news is that you don’t have to resort to such tactics anyway. There are many useful public resources available that can give you plenty of detail about what the competition is doing. Once you have this information, you can evaluate the methods being used by your competitors and decide where to concentrate your own marketing efforts. Some of the types of information publicly available include:

• Company web site– visit the web sites of your top competitors. How does the design and professionalism of each site compare with your own site? Do the sites use current web technology such as a blogs, RSS, or web video? Or are they stuck in the past with outdated elements like Frames or Flash animation?
  
  
• Meta data – does the site correctly use meta tags and data? Do the title tags and description tags include targeted keywords? Can you see the keywords used in the visible text on the home page?
  
  
• Search engine rankings – do a Google search for a few of the keywords that you currently target in your own web marketing. Who comes up in the top five listings? Does your site display ahead of your competitors, or even show up at all? What page do you land on if you click on a competitor’s link?
  
  
• Online advertising – what types of online promotion do they use? Do they use Google click ads? Are they listed on related sites or quoted as industry authorities? Do they publish articles or send out press releases? All of these techniques are great inbound link builders as well.
  
  
• Inbound Links – go to Google and type in “link:www.competitorwebsite.com” (no quotes) where “competitorwebsite.com” is the actual address of your competitor’s web site. This will display a list of web sites that contain inbound links to your competitor’s site. However, Google only gives you a partial listing of inbound links, but it can still be helpful to see where some of these inbound links are coming from.

Keep It Up
By evaluating the techniques that your competitors are using, you can make sure you have coverage in the same areas as they do. You may even be inspired to try some new ideas and techniques that you hadn’t thought of before. Implement the methods that make sense for your business, and make sure that you test and measure your results. With so much information publicly available, it makes sense to watch what your competition is doing so you can make sure your business always stays a step ahead.

Motivational Marketing

Most marketing today can be considered motivational, since its ultimate purpose is to convince others to purchase your products or otherwise do business with you. Motivating your audience with a combination of a quality message and a clear call to action is one of the most effective ways to move them from browsers to buyers to loyal repeat customers. If you can provide your readers with a strong, benefits-oriented marketing message, they will be eager to take the next step – so don’t lose them! Make sure you motivate them to take action by using a very specific, obvious call to action.

The Call to Action
To be effective, a call to action should be very clear and direct. Specifically tell your audience what you want them to do, such as “sign up for our newsletter” or “download our white paper.” An example of a simple call to action is to put a “Buy Now” button beside your product or service on your web site that takes buyers to a secure online payment page. Customers who click on the “Buy Now” button know that they have taken action, which is both effective and reassuring for customers because they didn’t have to guess what to do next.

Although a “Buy Now” button is about as direct as you can get, sometimes it takes a bit more convincing to get readers to take a desired action. The examples below are for online marketing, but they could be applied to any type of marketing as well:

• On your web site, engage your audience with great copy and quality content, and focus on the end benefit they will get from doing business with you. Be sure to close with a strong call to action that encourages them to act right away.
  
  
• For e-marketing campaigns, consider offering special pricing or other incentives, and create a sense of urgency by including an end date for the offer. You may want to also include some testimonials from other customers or clients to help motivate recipients to take action sooner rather than later as well.

Loud and Clear
Often, the best motivator is a compelling call to action that states clearly and specifically what you want a customer or prospect to do. Don’t be afraid to ask for the sale, but also make sure it is easy to take the desired action (make your phone number or contact info visible, include links to your web site, provide live email links, etc.). When customers and potential customers are motivated to take action as a result of your marketing, your conversion rates will begin to show improvement – right along with your bottom line.

Keyword Optimization - Getting it Right

What’s the most important part of optimizing a web site to perform better in the search engines? If you’re like most people, you probably thought “keywords.” And that’s true, of course, as long as you include about a million other techniques and nuances when using keywords to optimize a web site! (Okay, maybe not a million…) But of all the strategies you can use to improve your search engine placements, using keywords effectively is the one that you want to get right.

In the Old Days
Using keywords used to be very simple; all you had to do was add the words that best described your business or web site content in the “keyword” meta tag in the HTML code of the site. Of course, people quickly found lots of ways to manipulate this, so the search engines began altering their search algorithms on a regular basis. The challenge for web site owners today is figuring out how to legitimately use keywords to get good search results, while competing with millions and millions of other web sites that are trying to do the same thing.

Choose Carefully
In order for your keywords to be effective, you must first choose the right keywords for your site, which requires some research. Doing this step is critical. Yet, if you are like many small businesses, you may have overlooked or skipped this step entirely. Why? Probably because you already have a good idea of what keywords you think your customers would use to find your business. However, what you think people will use to find your business is often quite different from what searchers actually use when they perform searches.

Once you have found the right keywords for your web site, there are some other basic keyword tips that you can use as well, such as:

• Optimizing for phrases - people don't search using only single words, they search on phrases containing two, three, or more words. Watch your web stats to find out which phrases searchers are using to find your site, then make sure you optimize for those phrases.
  
  
• Using “follow-through” words on your landing pages to show visitors that they have come to the right place. For instance, if a visitor arrived at your page from searching on “bright yellow widgets,” make sure that those words appear in that order on your landing page.
  
  
• Measuring keyword densities – make sure you use your keywords enough to be helpful to the search engines, but not so much that it could be considered keyword-spamming.
  
  
• Using your keywords in titles and headings whenever possible.
  
  
• Including keywords in your ALT tags for graphics and images.
  
  
• Using keywords in your filenames, including image files.

Keywords are Key
There are several techniques you can use to improve you web site’s position in the search engines, but using keywords effectively is probably the most powerful tool in your optimization toolbox. Remember, you are competing with millions of other web sites, and they all want to come up in the top 10 results. Choose your keywords wisely, and use them intelligently throughout your entire site. In the end, getting the keywords right can make a world of difference in your search engine rankings, your web site traffic, and the overall success of your small business web site.

Competitive Web Analysis

Biz Talk is a Free Publication of Five Sparrows, LLC

Five Sparrows is a Michigan web site development firm and search engine optimization provider offering a complete line of web site marketing strategies and services designed especially for small businesses.

Because Five Sparrows specializes in working with small businesses, we understand their specific needs and challenges.  We offer a full range of products and services at a fraction of the cost of what traditional marketing and web site firms charge, all designed to help small businesses get a big-company presence on a small company budget.

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