marketing a web site. 2 the dot.compost fallout new industry, so lots of “wanna-be”s. much of...

Marketing a Web Site

2

The dot.compost Fallout• New industry, so lots of “wanna-

be”s.• Much of the web is built like a

pyramid scheme – money was being made only from advertising referrals being passed around, not by offering products of real value.

• As the industry matures, fewer (but more stable) companies that are well-managed and deliver value will persist.

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The dot.compost Fallout• Some lessons learned:

– There is no substitute for business experience. • Not even genus will do.• Any business, even a web business,

needs a sound business model.

– Things can be cheap, or they can be convenient, or they can come with good service, but they can rarely come with all three.

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The dot.compost Fallout• Free is usually an unsustainable

business model. Duh.– Once you have offered something for

free, it’s darn hard to convince people to pay for it later.

• Long-term relationships matter most.

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The dot.compost Fallout• Branding, which is building an

image and recall, is important. – Studies show that the web is more

effective in driving recall than television, magazines, and newspapers. • Because it is more interactive?

– The web is more cost-effective in branding than television, radio, magazines, and newspapers.

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The dot.compost Fallout• Spend marketing money wisely.

– marchFIRST spent lots of money on marketing. They have filed for bankruptcy. Their TV ads in metropolitan areas were all about ego, not about product.

– Raynor example.

• “I know half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, but I can never find out which half.”

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The dot.compost Fallout• The key is target marketing.• We have learned to ignore

marketing on the larger sites like MSN and Yahoo!.

• Plus, most businesses can’t afford to advertise on the large, general-purpose sites.

• We do pay attention to advertising that comes attached to more specific sites in which we are particularly interested.

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Choosing a Domain Name• Choose a catchy, easy-to-remember

domain name. • May or may not be descriptive –

look at Amazon, Google, and Yahoo! • Check to see that the domain name

is available.– www.register.com or www.internic.net

or www.domaindirect.com – will tell you if it’s available, what other extensions for that name are/are not available, and the name and address of the domain name owner if the name is taken.

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Choosing a Domain Name• Purchase the domain name.• Consider purchasing other forms of

the name (.net, .ws, etc.) as well as commonly misspelled versions: RandMcNally and RandMcNalley.

• Once you own the name, you can redirect that name to your actual site through the organization that you used to register the name.

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Getting Listed on Search Engines

• 80 percent of users find web sites via search engines.

• “Search engines are the most widely used navigational tools and the most misunderstood promotional tools.” clickz.com/article/cz.310.html

• In November, 2000, Yahoo! Received 55 million unique visitors, and Ask Jeeves received 12 million.

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• Search engines are in financial trouble, in many cases. “Free is an unsustainable model.”– In the past, search engines relied on

selling advertising; that isn’t enough any more.

– Go.com is closed, NBCi (with all of its fancy TV commercials) is closed, and Altavista, Excite, and LookSmart have announced layoffs.

– A lot of popular search engines from just a few years ago have at least withered: Magellan, WebCrawler, Open Text, & Point.

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• With more than 400 search engines and directories on the web, it’s time for a shakeout.

• Since most of search engines are now charging sites to be listed, that is not necessarily a bad thing for web sites.

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• Two types of search tools:– Directories such as Yahoo! and Excite,

which offer hierarchical listings of known web sites.• These put your site into a special

category.• Submissions are verified by humans.

– Web crawlers such as Altavista, which use “spider”programs to constantly search the web looking for new sites. • When it finds a site, it is added to a huge

database according to keywords. • “Spidering” may happen only every few

months.

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• Top four search engines, as of November 8, 2000:– Yahoo!

• 53.4 - 69.1% • 67.8 million users in June 2000.

– AltaVista, 17.7 - 18% of web users, 50 million searches per day.

– Google, 7% (but supports Yahoo!’s Web Pages results).

– Excite, 6.7% • Offers more features for narrowing

content.

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• Open Directory Project (ODP) www.dmoz.org is behind many other directories and search engines, like At&T WorldNet, Direct Hit, Netscape, AOL, Google, Hotbot, Northern Light, Infoseek, and Lycos.

• Inktomi – listed only if you pay.

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• Most recent stats on search engine popularity:– www.mediametrix.com– www.netratings.com – www.statmarket .com

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• Other resources– www.networksolutions.com/en_US/catalog/

searchsubmit/index.html– www.irby-enterprises.com/tutorials/

searchengines.html– www.clickz.com -- various articles on search

engine optimization– cyberalley.homestead.com/submiturl.htm– www.searchenginewatch.com– activemarketplace.com/w.cgi?net-2013

(actually a book that is reviewing well)– SelfPromotion.com

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• Pay-for-listing: no position guaranteed.

• Pay-for-position: Guaranteed to come up on the first page of listings for the keywords you use.

• Pay-per-click: You bid for position based on keyword, paying by the click, 1 cent on up.– GoTo.com– Mama.com (meta-search engine that

also queries 10 other engines)

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• Both pay-for-position and pay-per-click usually offer short contracts so that you can decide if it’s worthwhile.

• Both also have the benefit of getting a listing within a couple of days, rather than weeks.

• Pay-for-position/pay-per-click is generally not worthwhile to maintain for a long period of time, but it can be worthwhile for a new site wanting to build site awareness fast.

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• Pay-for-performance: guarantees a certain number of clicks for a certain price.– Usually the most expensive, with

large setup fees, monthly fees, and click fees.

• Most search engines today require at least pay-for-listing.

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• Getting help with listings…• Yahoo!’s Business Express

– www.yahoo.com/info/suggest/busexpress.html

– One-time “editorial” fee of $199– Seven day listing guarantee and an

email response letting you know if your site was accepted, or, if not, why.

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• LookSmart – powers the main results at MSN, AltaVista, Excite, and Time Warner, and iWon.– www.looksmart.com– Reaches 52 million people per month,

or 74% of web users in the US.– One-time “editorial” fee of $99-$199

(2 days versus 6 weeks)

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• Professional listing services can do multiple submissions for you.

• They then also:– Verify that your submission was

accepted.– Verify on a regular schedule that you

continue to be listed, and your position in the rankings.

– Resubmit your listing request if necessary.

• Since all this is done automatically, things can fall through the cracks.

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• Some popular submission sites:– www.submit-it.com. $– www.trafficboost.com, $– www.all4one.com, free, but sends

only the title, not the list of keywords.

• There are a lot of professional listing services that don’t deliver as promised.

• Manual registration is tedious, but often more effective.

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• Every search engine has special requirements for getting listed, unfortunately.

• Check first to see if you are already in the database; submitting over the top of an existing URL in the database can lower your position.

• Fill out a separate form for each page, and print out the page for later reference.

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• Don’t submit a page more often than the guidelines specify, or the engine might remove you from the list entirely.

• Choose categories/keywords wisely, because if submissions are verified by humans, a site that chooses inappropriate categories will be denied a listing.

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Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

• It used to be, “Build it and they will come.”

• Now it’s, “Launch it and promote it.”

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• Tasks:– Create a compelling URL, title, site

description, and content.– Get listed under the correct categories

and document each submission.– Continually monitor, resubmit, and

update all of this.– Measure the traffic to your site from

each search engine and directory.– Compare rankings with your

competitors and check their keywords, etc.

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• This is already a specialty career.• It can take up anywhere from 1

hour to six months for a registered site to appear in the listings.

• What you are aiming at is getting having each of your home page and sub-pages as potential page #1 listings for the search engines.

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Choose Metatag Keywords • Meta are tags used less these days than

title and content because of keyword spamming – “show us the money.” Use them anyway.

• Can use up to 1000 characters including spaces and comas.

• Brainstorm: try to think the way your potential user thinks.– Come up with every possible word or phrase

you can think of to describe your site, then narrow the list later.

• Prioritize and edit the list. • Include commonly misspelled versions of

your chosen words.

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Choose Metatag Keywords• Combine and recombine these

words into various keyword phrases.– If you had the keyword “broadband”,

you might want to include “digital broadband,” “wireless broadband,” “broadband wireless communication,” “broadband news,” etc.

• Use both broad and more specific phrases: “broadband” versus “broadband communication security risks.”

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Choose Metatag Keywords• Check the keywords on your

competitor sites, and search on those keywords to see what comes up.– Strategically placing competitors

keywords on your own web page helps to get your site pulled up when theirs is.

– However, using the competitor’s tradename as a way of redirecting their traffic to your site is illegal and ticks off the search engine editors.

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Choose Metatag Keywords• Put a master metatag with all

keywords for the site on the homepage, but also use a subset of keywords for each subsidiary page.

• Limit the keywords on subsidiary pages to only those keywords appropriate for that page. – Some experts claim it’s best to use only

the single most appropriate tag for each subsidiary page.

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Choose Metatag Keywords• Put the same keywords in titles,

descriptions, and throughout the site.

• Some sites allow you to submit a tentative listing of keywords and then see how many hits those keywords received in the last month.

• www.wordspot.com to help you generate useful keyword strategies.

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Creating a Page Title• Choose a content-rich title for every

page in the site, incorporating your keywords whenever possible.

• Remember that this is the default bookmark description for your users.

• Don’t repeat your business name and site title in every sub-page – you are then wasting precious words with words that are already listed.

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Writing a Site Description• Often limited to 25 words,

sometimes less, so choose those words carefully.

• Don’t repeat the URL or title. • Do include the page’s keyword (but

only once), so that your site gets a double “hit” on that keyword and it goes up in the ranking for that keyword.

• Try to include a few other good keywords as well.

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Writing a Site Description• Make the description snappy and

compelling (so that it attracts the humans who read it from the search engine) as well as content- and keyword-rich (so that it is noticed and ranked highly by the search engines).– Hard to do both, unfortunately.

• Should be clear, concise, honest, and objective. – If it looks too much like ad copy, the

search editors might rewrite it.

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Writing Page Content• Some experts say that the visible

content of your page is more important than meta tags and link popularity.

• It’s the content that helps determine your relevancy, and therefore ranking.

• You need keyword-rich marketing text.• But, not at the expense of good, snappy,

“sticky” writing: writing that attracts your viewers.

• Include the major keyword in the first sentence of the content of the page.

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Writing Page Content• Include ALT tags on all images.• Include text links as well as

graphics links.

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Frames• Search engines have a problem

reading HTML within a frames site; they are baffled by the frames in a frameset page.

• However, they can read what is inside the NOFRAMES tag.

• So, make sure your NOFRAMES area includes:– Keywords, descriptions, and content.– Links to all of your lower-level pages

inside the NOFRAMES tag.

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Frames• If you use frames, all of the framed

pages will be using the FRAMESET title, so the title won’t actually be viewed by the users. Specify anyway, for the search engines.

• Make sure every framed page has a link back to the home page (for the use of the spider search engines).

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Monitoring Search Engine Rankings

• When doing initial submissions, create a set of bookmarks for the “submit” pages of the search engines.

• Also bookmark the search engine itself, so you can check your search results easily in the future.

• When checking, search on the following:– Title– URL– Keywords

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Monitoring Search Engine Rankings

• If not found, resubmit the site. • Software to aid in the process:

– www.topdog.com– www.webposition.com

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Banner Ads• Research shows that banner ads are

viewed for an average of one second, if that, and…

• The best banner ads have the following characteristics:– Uncluttered: fewer, not more, creative

elements on the banner; keep it simple.– Big logo.– Big banner.– Frequent exposure means greater

impact. ???– Banners that showed a human face had the

most impact.

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Email Marketing• Email is cheaper than regular mail.• Opt-in, not spam.• Let customers choose to get

information that interests them.– Newsletters seem to be the marketing

tool of the future; real content that users want to see, with advertising as a sideline.

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Email Marketing• To create email lists, start by

building a list of people who visit your site.– Offer them something of value, like a

free newsletter, if they submit the information you need.

– Use for retention marketing, because it is much cheaper to retain an existing customer than to entice a new one.

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Email Marketing• Can purchase lists of email addresses

for people who have stated they are interested in particular topics or products. – If legit, this is not spam (but make sure it is

legit, or you will get a reputation for spamming).

– These can cost 15 to 30 cents per email address, but they can be used over and over.

– www.postmasterdirrect.com -- 5, 780 categories of lists with several million email addresses.

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Email Marketing• Test the timing of the mailing…

Weekly? Monthly? Seasonally?• Entice the recipient with

– Interesting articles– Special sales and promotions– New product announcements– “Member’s only” announcements – Coupons– ???

• Use either list/email management software, or an outside provider.

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Viral Marketing• Creating email messages that are

compelling enough that other people pass them on for you: peer-to-peer.

• Examples:– Webshots– Quacking duck telephone message– Nordstrom shoes– A newsletter– Scope mouthwash – a customized,

animated, email “kiss” that reinforced the “kissably close” theme.

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Affiliate Marketing• Advertising with other web sites,

and paying only for referrals or completed sales.

• Best if used as niche marketing – introducing a clearly defined product or service to a highly targeted group of prospects.– The Gap markets to younger people,

not retired executives.– Chanel doesn’t market to college

students, but to people with high income.

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Affiliate Marketing• Going rates set by places like

CDNow and Amazon, which typically offer a 5 to 15% commission to any web site whose link to a specific book or CD translates to a sale.

• Other models are “pay per click” (usually 10 cents), regardless of sale, or $1 to $2 per lead.

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Affiliate Marketing• Software support for an affiliate

program:– Sign on with an affiliate solution

provider.• Example: Commission Junction, which

charges a $795 startup fee, plus 20% of commissions you pay to other sites. Also provides referrals for affiliates.

• Be Free Inc., $5000 startup, then 2-3% of commissions.

• LinkShare Corp., $5000 startup, then 2-3% of commissions.

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Affiliate Marketing• Purchase off-the-shelf software

program to monitor your leads.– Synergyx, $1500, which provides a

shopping cart, affiliate program, merchant account for credit card billing, and product delivery. (?).

• Build a solution in-house.– Only for the largest sites, with tech

staff to support.

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Affiliate Marketing• Even small sites can end up with

hundreds of affiliates. • Etour.com, matches 75-100

prospective affiliate sites that appeal to your target customers.

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Affiliate Marketing

• To announce affiliate programs to 50 or so affiliate directories through free services:– Affiliate Announce

affiliatetoolkit.com/affiliate-announce)

– Affiliate Broadcasting www.affiliatebroadcast.com

– Register with www.cashpile.com, refer-it.com, associate-it.com

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Affiliate Marketing• Unless you are an MSN or Yahoo!,

you won’t get lots of money by referring to other sites.

• On the other hand, sites referring you customers can make you a lot of money.

• Web search tools like Alexa.com categorize prospective affiliates according to popularity and traffic patterns.

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Reciprocity• I link to you, you link to me, no

money exchanged. • Many smaller sites are quite happy

with that.• Be sure to ask permission.• Microsoft’s Link Exchange

(www.linkexchange.com) organizes a network of small-business sites that share advertising.

• www.webring.com does the same, in a wide variety of of categories.

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Purchasing Ad Space on the Web

• Instead of based on referrals, it’s based on a monthly fee.

• E-zines are particularly attractive for this type of advertising.

• E-zine database at www.dominis.com/Zines

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Bulletin Boards and Newsgroups

• Simply sending an automated posting advertising your wares will annoy the readers of bulletin boards and newsgroups.

• However, posting a message that applies to the topic at hand, and including a link at the bottom to your site is generally not frowned upon.

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Online Malls• www.shopnow.com $240 - $1000 a

year or more, depending on how prominent you want to be in the listings.

• www.imall.com -- similar deal.

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Old Economy Marketing• You know, paper.• Don’t forget to list the company

web address on all the non-computer-related business paraphernalia, such as business cards and letterhead, print advertising, free gifts like T-shirts and calendars.

• Don’t forget word-of-mouth.

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