Recession Survival with Internet Marketing

What is Internet Marketing?

In simplest terms, and it can’t get any more simple, it’s using the Internet to Market your business. Whether you understand the following terms or not, this is largely about Google Analytics, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Pay per Click (PPC) which I’ll cover in a moment.

During periods of economic downturn businesses will immediately look towards cutting costs in order to maintain profitability and survive. One of the first cuts often made is marketing. During these tough times, consumers can afford to be picky; your business needs to be found and needs to stand out from the competition. Closing your doors to customers during these times could spell the end for your business.

The real benefits of Internet Marketing are the costs. The costs of offline marketing are considerably higher and far more difficult to target and control than Internet Marketing.

Internet Marketing provides you with the ability to pre-determine and control your costs and to target qualified customers, people actually looking for your products and services.

Google Analytics

Who are your customers? Do you know how they’re using your website? Do you know what turns them off when they visit your site or what keeps them interested? How can you access this information any turn it into something you can use to your advantage?

Google provide you with their Analytics tool free of charge, and there are no catches. All you need to do is sign up for an account and paste the tracking code into your site.

Google Analytics provides you with an in-depth report on how your site is being viewed; who is looking at your site, where they came from, what search terms they used, which page they landed on, how many pages they visited, how long they stayed and which page they last looked at. There are figures to help you understand which browsers and the versions of browsers your visitors use so that you can ensure that your sites are tested thoroughly, removing the risk of alienating groups of visitors. Having the data to hand is one thing but you need to use this in your marketing.

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Now that you understand more about your visitors you can begin to make decisions about Internet Marketing.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

SEO is about optimising the content in your website to help you appear higher in the search engine results pages (SERPS). Putting your website on the Internet is not a guaranteed way to be found by your customer. Your website needs to employ semantic HTML and be worded well to include references and links to your products and services. Semantic HTML is the format used to help Google and other search engines understand the content they’re reading on your website. In doing so, you’re able to control the information that the search engines index when they visit your site.

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Pay per Click (PPC)

PPC is a paid form of advertising online. Consider the millions of searches that are performed on Google each day, in fact, the numbers of daily Google searches are estimated at 30 million. If your main business is selling socks from your Newcastle store then you’d be interested in those people searching for “socks in Newcastle”, “Newcastle sock shop” and other similar variations. With search engine advertising you have the opportunity to bid for keywords and phrases. You set a pre-determined budget and are charged by Google each time a person clicks on the link through to your site. So, with a little homework to understand the best performing keywords for your business, even the smallest budgets can benefit from this form of advertising.

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In summary, if your business is cutting costs, make sure you set aside an amount for Internet Marketing. While offline advertising will remain costly and is difficult to target qualified customers, Internet Marketing looks for the people searching for your products and services and points them to your website.

Check the content on your website to make the most of this opportunity. Once a person has landed on your site you need to make sure they have the information they require to keep them on the site and for them to convert. Whether a conversion is them contacting you or purchasing a product on your website you need to help them through the process, give them the information they need and push them (gently) in the right direction.

Remember, Internet Marketing doesn’t have to be expensive to be effective.

Mancala are experts in Internet Marketing. If you’d like to discuss any of these options or understand how they could help your business, even if your marketing budget is tight, email us or give us a call. We’re always on hand to offer advice.