Pimp My Site E-Book

Paula Wynne

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 310

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

A complete course in do-it-yourself digital marketing in 14 bite-sized lessons

The global recession has sent tens of millions scrambling for alternative employment opportunities, and a great many of them have taken the leap into becoming their own bosses. As a result there is a crying need among small business startups, entrepreneurs, and independents working on a shoestring for expert guidance on marketing themselves and their businesses online. Pimp My Site fills that void. It is a complete, do-it-yourself toolkit structured as a fourteen-day course. Rather than fry readers' circuits with a lot of jargon-heavy technical descriptions, Paula Wynne, a successful publicist, marketer and award-winning online entrepreneur, takes a show-and-tell approach. Her step-by-step descriptions are concise and in plain English, and each step is illustrated with vivid screenshots and illustrations, making the coverage eminently digestible, even for complete novices. From keywords and YouTube to search marketing and optimization, Pimp My Site, offers much for beginners and advanced users alike.

• Notable experts describe, in their own words, quick, easy techniques for driving traffic to your site and achieving online success
• An excellent do-it-yourself resource for complete beginners as well as experienced users looking to plug a few holes in their online marketing know-how
• Provides practical coverage of all important trends and technologies, including optimization, search marketing, social media, YouTube, keywords, email marketing, and more

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Cover

Endorsements

Title page

Copyright page

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Introduction

How to Use the DIY Method

Introducing Our Expert Panel

Digital Is the New Black

Day 1: Digital Marketing

So What Is Digital Marketing?

Digital Marketing Strategy

Search Marketing

Search Engines

Organic vs Paid Search Marketing

Google’s Golden Triangle

Summary

Day 2: Keywords

What Are Keywords?

Leverage Your Niche

Knowing What Keywords to Use

Using Keywords Effectively

Keyword Strategy

Key Places to Use Your Keywords

More Places to Feature Keywords

Keyword Traps

Monitoring Keyword Performance

Summary

Day 3: Keyword Tools

Keyword Tools

Summary

Day 4: SEO

Search Engine Optimisation

On Page Optimisation

Off Page SEO

Good SEO Guidelines

Summary

Day 5: Marketing Tools

SEO Resources

Pay Per Click

New Online Marketing Frontiers

Display Adverts

Web Analysis

Summary

Day 6: Online Marketing

Bookmarking

Blogging

Article Marketing

eBooks

Summary

Day 7: Video Marketing

YouTube

Camtasia

Flip Video

Windows Movie Maker

Summary

Day 8: Social Networking

Brief History of Social Networking

To Be or Not To Be Social?

Online vs Offline Networking

Summary

Day 9: Social Media Tools

LinkedIn

Facebook

Twitter

Your Social Media Strategy

Monitoring Social Media

Summary

Day 10: PR

Public Relations

PR Strategy

Publicity Matters

Summary

Day 11: PR Tools

Press Release

How to Optimise Your Release

Online Newsroom

News Wires

Media Contacts

Photo Call

Interviews

Industry Expert

PR Pitch

Media Requests

Awards as a PR Tool

PR Monitoring and Measurement

Summary

Day 12: Email Marketing

Why Email Marketing?

The Email Marketing Process

E-news

Summary

Day 13: Email Marketing Tools

Email Marketing Solution Providers

Testing, Testing 1,2,3

Spam and Deliver

Permission Impossible

Building Your Mailing List

Legal Compliance

Summary

Day 14: The End of the Beginning

1. Always have a Positive Attitude

2. Recognition of People around You

3. Emulate Others

4. Be Emulated

5. Express Yourself

6. Exude Passion and Energy

7. Inspire Others

8. Keep the Inspirational Juice Flowing

9. Show Magnetic Force

10. Visualise Your Goals

11. Become a BIG Thinker

Summary

Jargon Buster

Useful Resources

Digital Marketing

Keyword Tools

Search Engine Marketing

Online Marketing

Social Media

PR

Email Marketing

About the Expert Panel

Toby Beresford, Pailz

Ross Jackson, Ross Jackson Consultancy

Ian Dodson, Digital Marketing Institute

Judith Lewis, Beyond

Anthony Quigley, WebKitchen

Dan Fallon, Search Star

Dee Blick, FCIM, Chartered Marketer

Andrew Seel, Qube Media

Alex Johnson, Journalist and Founder of Shedworking

Fiona Wright, Journalist, Founder SchoolBuzz

About Paula Wynne

More Praise for Pimp My Site

Index

“As a web novice, Paula’s book, Pimp My Site, feels like it was written just for me. Every web owner who wants to be taken seriously needs this helping hand.”

Ian Ogilvy, actor, playwright, novelist

“Aside from being an excellent toolkit and handy resource, this book will make you see online marketing from all angles. There is something in here for beginners and more advanced users who may be lacking in certain areas. From search marketing right through to PR and optimisation, this book is a must have for anyone confronting the challenge of pimping a website.”

Karen Hanton, MBE

“The one-stop-book for all things digital. It has everything you need to know about how to market your website. You can’t go wrong here: easy to read, easy to understand and easy to implement.”

Rachel Elnaugh, Entrepreneur, star of BBC TV’sDragons’ Denand award winning Business Mentor

“Clear, easy-to-follow screen shots and instructions will guide you through each task to market, promote and optimise your website from beginning to end.”

Caroline Marsh, Secret Millionaire

“As an entrepreneur in our digital age, I know how important the web is for getting the message out. When it comes to pimping your site at minimal cost, Paula’s book shows the way! Highly recommended.”

Toby Beresford, Syncapse

“Paula’s book, Pimp My Site, has everything to optimise, promote and market a website. A novice’s haven and a must have toolkit for web-savvy marketers.”

Debbie Bird, Editor ofBabyworld

“Crammed with useful, proven and easy to implement tips, Pimp My Site will be an indispensable asset for any business who needs to get ‘out there’.”

Jo Haigh, Bestselling Author ofThe Business Rules,An Entrepreneur’s Guide, andTales from the Glass Ceiling – A Survival Guide for Women in Business

“The internet is a vast desert of missed opportunity punctuated with the occasional lush oasis of profit. If you want to thrive in this harsh landscape, better get yourself a map. Paula Wynne’s book lays out a good guide for how to survive and prosper in the digital wilderness.”

Clem Chambers, CEO of ADVFN.com and author ofThe Armageddon TradeandThe Twain Maxim

“Paula Wynne’s book, Pimp My Site, is a great start for small businesses if they cannot afford professional experts to do their digital marketing.” Anthony Quigley, Digital Marketing Institute

“Paula’s excellent book covers everything you need to successfully promote your website. Keyword research, SEO, Pay Per Click, Social Networking, Email Marketing, Online PR etc. – it’s all here in one handy digital marketing toolkit.”

Ross Jackson, SEO and Search Consultant

This edition first published 2012

© 2012 Paula Wynne

Registered office

Capstone Publishing Ltd. (A Wiley Company), The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, United Kingdom

For details of our global editorial offices, for customer services and for information about how to apply for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book please see our website at www.wiley.com.

The right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books.

Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book are trade names, service marks, trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publisher is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold on the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought.

Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

9780857082428 (paperback), ISBN 9780857082503 (ebk),

ISBN 9780857082510 (ebk), ISBN 9780857082527 (ebk)

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

“The road to success is always under construction.”

Anonymous

Acknowledgements

Thank you for picking up this book and I hope you enjoy reading it. By the end, you’ll have a full Digital Marketing Strategy to optimise, promote and market your site. Firstly, I would like to say thanks to all the contributors and experts who have given up their time to offer you their best advice. And a special thank you to Karen Hanton for writing the Foreword.

Experts

Toby Beresford

Ross Jackson

Judith Lewis

Ian Dodson

Anthony Quigley

Dee Blick

Fiona Wright

Andrew Seel

Dan Fallon

Alex Johnson

A very special thank you to Iain, Jenny and the team at Wiley and Capstone for believing in Pimp My Site and being inspired to help bring this book to life.

I would also like to mention some of the special people in my life who have always supported my writing dreams!

My partner, Ken: you’re a constant source of words, wit, smiles, laughter and strength.

My son, Kent: you have lived through my dream and I encourage you and Jane, Jack, Caydon, Cameron and Tanna and all your cousins to pursue your dreams with every ounce of energy and to always reach for the sky.

My Mom: you have always believed in me, a Mother’s love sustains, builds and grows. Three people who are no longer with me, but I know they look down proudly: Penrose, Granny and Daddy. For my brothers and sisters and everyone in my family: for every dream we’ve ever dared to dream.

Foreword

When Paula asked me to write this Foreword, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Many of my friends have read her first book, Create A Successful Website, and agree with me that it is excellent. On receipt of Pimp My Site, I was delighted to see the in-depth analysis of the chosen topics, which are broken down into ‘Days’ for easily working your way through the book.

I was brought up on a small farm in the North East of Scotland where we were used to making a little go a long way. This approach has stood me in good stead in my business life and one of the things I find really appealing about Paula’s book is that it’s all about things you can do for yourself. Paula’s book sets out simple, easy-to-do ideas for creating a Digital Marketing Strategy which is a really refreshing change from so many over-complications in the digital world.

The book starts with the most fundamental aspect of website marketing – Keywords and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). Here Paula shows how she has tackled this complex subject and dissected it bit by knobbly bit. Starting with the perception of what keywords are and how they affect your search marketing, Paula’s knowledge and simple explanations make it understandable and enjoyable to know that you too can accomplish the mean feat of beating your competitors up the Google search ladder.

Moving on through SEO with On and Off Page Optimisation I was thrilled to see Paula’s wide scope of techniques for new entrepreneurs to ‘get found’ by their visitors. She has woven all the tricks of the trade through her chapters and given them added potency with advice, comments and tips from her ‘cherry-picked’ experts.

They bring important and precious expertise to what could be dry and crusty topics and for which an agency would charge you a fortune! In one practical and versatile guide you have the author’s experience relayed from a beginner’s point of view as well as industry experts’ talents. Nice.

Being a successful entrepreneur myself I know the value of a strong Digital Marketing Strategy. If a business is to achieve success in this area the subjects covered in this book, which range from SEO, Online Networking, PPC, Google Analytics, Blogging, Video and Article Marketing, Social Media and even Email Marketing, are all vital for Pimping One’s Site.

Paula’s engaging writing style will save many small businesses and digital marketers’ time and money and she even gives you a full set of ‘tools’ for each theme she focuses on.

I enjoyed the PR chapters and here Paula’s skill and expertise shine through – and I loved that she even has journalists involved by giving their own insider view of how to pitch to the media!

Aside from being an excellent toolkit and handy resource, this book will make you see online marketing from all angles. There is something in here for beginners and more advanced users who may be lacking in certain areas. From Search Marketing right through to PR and Optimisation, this book is a must have for anyone confronting the challenge of pimping a website.

In many respects, I wonder if we’ve only just come to the end of the beginning of internet marketing. Technology is again moving so fast, it’s really exciting to imagine where we’ll be at the end of another ten years.

Best wishes for Pimping Your Site!

Karen Hanton, MBE

Karen hails from the northeast of Scotland, but moved to London at the age of 18. After her initial training and career in HR, she became self employed at the age of 30. In October 2010 Karen sold her most recent venture toptable.com for $55 million.

Karen Hanton has received significant public recognition, including the Financial Times Moet Hennessy Extraordinary Achievers Award, and has been named as one of today’s top 30 entrepreneurs in New Business Magazine, and one of the top 100 most influential people in the first decade of the internet in an NOP/e-consultancy poll. Karen was appointed MBE in the 2010 Birthday Honours.

Introduction

The idea for Pimp My Site was sparked from workshops I run to improve online site performance. The title and subjects within ‘digital marketing’ are so vital, and the content so jam-packed with so many juicy topics, rich features and essential elements for today’s savvy marketers, they deserve to be on a book shelf. So Pimp My Site was born.

There are so many components to marketing and promoting a website. As we delve deeper into digital marketing (DM), your own digital marketing strategy (DMS) will start to form. At first it may seem vague with a scattergun approach, but don’t worry, it may slowly evolve as your focus tightens and you button down your pimping hatches.

Whenever I refer to the term ‘site’ or ‘website’, this includes your business, organisation and association. In fact, it refers to anyone who wants and needs to encourage more traffic to their online web presence. If you work in a marketing or PR capacity, ‘your site’ will refer to your marketing role. ‘Your site’ also indicates your business or company.

I love teaching myself new things and I’m pleased to say that I am still learning – and I have learnt so much while researching deeper into digital marketing. Be proud to be a lifelong learner. I am! You have taken the first step in investing in your ongoing online education and I encourage you to continue this journey when you finish this book. Digital marketing is always changing and evolving and thus we all have to commit ourselves to constantly studying and learning new ways to promote, optimise and market our websites.

I have enjoyed every minute of my own digital marketing journey and with this book I want to motivate and inspire you to reach out and dip your toe into this dynamic and endlessly shifting tide!

How to Use the DIY Method

The book is broken down into bite-sized chunks using days instead of chapters. Each day gives you various topics, tasks and templates with easy-to-follow steps and colour visuals – the quickest way to understand without having to dissect all the geeky jargon.

Work It Baby, Work It

You might already be asking: “How on earth am I going to stick to this daily schedule?”

“Don’t worry, you don’t have to,” is the simple answer. It is only there to guide you. You may want to do a few days in one go or you may feel compelled to race ahead and get it all done at once or dip back in whenever the need arises. You may even take many months to absorb and digest all that this book has to offer. Whatever your situation, use the daily schedule only as a working guide for the book’s format.

Tip Watch

As well as quotes and examples, watch out for the following symbols that point to expert advice, top tips and jargon busters.

Expert’s quotes

Tips and advice

Jargon Buster

Resources

At the end of the book, you will find a list of useful resources that you can use to double check everything you have learnt and continue with further research and learning on particular topics.

Introducing Our Expert Panel

I have gathered a team of experts that every digital marketer and website owner would dream of having as an in-house team to guide them through setting up a strategy and being on hand to support them in every turn of their journey. These experts have generously agreed to share their business knowledge and online experience:

Toby Beresford

Ross Jackson

Ian Dodson

Judith Lewis

Anthony Quigley

Dan Fallon

Dee Blick

Andrew Seel

Alex Johnson

Fiona Wright

Get to know them by checking out their biographies and brief business summaries in the About the Expert Panel section starting on page 241.

Digital Is the New Black

The internet has changed the business world, pioneering a revolution from traditional to new online search marketing techniques. With it a whole new industry has emerged, which is literally taking the world by storm. New media agencies are setting up daily to help businesses convert from old marketing methods to new ones. Along with these ventures, new learning is bringing the majority of small businesses up to speed with online marketing.

Digital marketing is the way to market your business. The digital topics we’ll investigate in this book will be:

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)Search Engine Marketing (SEM)Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC)Networking (Online)Social Media (SM)Online MediaBloggingBookmarkingInternet PublicityOnline PRPromotional ActivitiesEmail Marketing

Each subject has its own ‘kit’ with a magnetic set of tools for you to study, operate and cultivate. All of these topics will be explored over the coming chapters/days.

We are not going to be discussing telesales, print advertising, direct mail, printed brochures and trade shows or exhibitions in this book. Although offline or traditional marketing will still have an effect on your business, the results may be minimal and costly. We will focus on all things digital and discover how online marketing has taken over traditional marketing methods. Like me, I am sure you constantly marvel at how the internet has changed the world – the way we think, the way we find things, how we buy cool stuff on the net and how we have to think like our visitors to reach out to them.

So let’s get cracking, and find out how to use digital marketing to pimp your site!

Day 1 Digital Marketing

Today you will learn:

The basics of a digital marketing strategyHow to build an audience personaWhy you need to engage in search marketingHow search engines workThe difference between organic vs paid search marketing

So What Is Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing (DM) is selling, promoting and marketing your product or service online. One of our experts, Anthony Quigley, believes that digital marketing is now so fundamental in the marketing mix that people think about naming their company in terms of search expressions.

Digital marketing uses affordable digital channels and online tools, such as social media and email marketing. Most people start with Google when they need to browse, read, research, connect, join and buy, so you need to ensure potential visitors will find your product or service.

Ian Dodson on Digital Marketing

“Digital marketing is about what you need or want to market to your audience and relating that back to the audience and where to find them. Think of it this way – where are the people I need to talk to?”

Digital Marketing Strategy

So what do you do and how do you get started? Planning and delivering a digital strategy can be complex or really quite simple, depending on your objectives and targets. Most experts consider a digital marketing strategy (DMS) to be the process of planning, implementing and evaluating your vision and aspirations for your business or website. Elements that make up a full strategy will arise from your business or marketing plan or your online blueprint. Here I will cover the basics of a DMS and encourage you to read more and explore the subject in greater depth. The Digital Marketing Institute and many others offer their students a template and help them plan a full strategy.

“Companies who are successful online are successful in different ways. Whereas companies who fail online, all fail in the same way.”

Ian Dodson, Digital Marketing Institute

Planning a Digital Marketing Strategy

When setting out the most effective route to market or ‘pimping’ your site’s product or service, you need to decide on your goals, how to achieve them and how to promote your brand online. To keep things simple, I suggest that beginners to DM use a basic outline. As you grow in confidence and strength, and as your website shows improved KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), you can add to the plan and see it evolve, fatten and grow healthily to become a fully fleshed-out digital marketing strategy (DMS).

You may even need to create more detailed objectives to reach your main goal.

Basic Digital Marketing Strategy Template

Start with a structure to research and analyse your current site’s situation:

1. Situation Analysis

2. Audience

3. Objectives

4. Channels

5. Action Plan

6. Budget

7. Measurement and Iteration

Let’s take a quick look at each of these in turn.

1. Situation Analysis

This is where you get to understand yourself and your site and ask, “Where are we now?”

You may want to do an audit and SWOT analysis to gauge customers and competitors. It would be good to include trends and industry sectors.

SWOT: This analysis is a calculated way to plan and evaluate the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats involved in your online business.

2. Audience

Next you should evaluate and understand your customer or client who starts out as a visitor. A clear understanding of your target audience(s) will impact all aspects of your campaign, marketing media used, channel, message, layout and structure and content, right down to the words and language you use to describe what you do.

If you have several different audiences, such as B2B or B2C, rank them in order of importance and break down the categories further. You may have existing clients as well as future or prospective customers to flesh out, and you could possibly be talking to both B2B and B2C audiences.

For example, iHubbub’s business audience ranges from professional consumers who work from home, home-based businesses, journalists who want to use our site as a portal to get information on the home working world, to sponsors and corporate companies who want to reach this audience for showcasing their products and recruiters who may want to get their projects outsourced. So you should segment your audience down several layers to define each persona that you want to reach, albeit in different ways. Then allocate resources accordingly as you may not have time and ‘bodies’ to look after each audience. Once you understand your audience’s expectations and goals, you are better suited to prioritise which ones you will tackle first.

Character Building

Experts often refer to ‘being in your visitor’s shoes’ as building a ‘persona’, almost like an author would build a fictional character. A creative writing or screenwriting course will teach a new writer how to create a skeleton or bio of a character and then add meaty character traits to outline a whole, 3D, fully-formed personality.

For your DMS, you too will form a persona with human needs and behaviour in order to recognise who your customer, visitor or client is, what they do and where they go to make online decisions and purchases. Just as an author would give their character a home, you too will designate geographical locations for your personas. In some cases, this will be more relevant.

My Top Tip

If your business has a local base, regional office or national HQ, you need to reflect these locations.

Persona

Brainstorm your persona or use mind mapping techniques to fatten your persona’s torso. Try some of these ideas:

AgeEducational stageExperience levelTechnical, mechanical or industrial abilityOnline aptitudeRelationship positionFinancial statusProducts they buyPublications they readWhere they network, such as Twitter, LinkedIn or FacebookChannels they visit, for example their favourite TV channel or radio station

Digital Space

If you were to draw a large circle or pie chart to find where this ‘persona’ goes for making decisions about purchases, Google will most likely take up most of the pie with YouTube following closely on its tail along with other search engines. Networking sites, such as Facebook and social media platforms, gobble another chunky slice of your pie – all of which will be discussed in the coming chapters of this book.

3. Objectives

Set goals and objectives for your digital campaigns. You may even need to create more detailed objectives to reach your main goal. Bear the following in mind:

Specific: get down to the nitty gritty with a calendar timetable

Measurable: have systems in place to accurately track your campaigns and stay on target. This way you will experience the excitement of achievement, which will motivate and urge you to reach your goal

Attainable: the actions to influence this outcome are under your control, so plan your steps and create a time frame. Start a list and tick each activity as you go

Realistic: be reasonable about how long it will take to achieve the goals set and include rewards or little treats when you reach different milestones

Timed: set a deadline for delivering on the objectives with a trackable date. By doing this you will set your mind into gear, and without you being aware, it will be quietly working away at reaching the goal date. Setting a time also cunningly gives you a sense of urgency to ensure you keep making progress.

My Top Tip

Break your main objective down into smaller ones. When I set an objective to make my first book an Amazon bestseller, I had several other goals to help me reach this high target, such as several different ways to reach potential readers.

4. Channels

A channel is a ‘route to market’. This means the different channels and methods of reaching your target audience and where you detail the activities.

Include the following in your digital marketing mix:

Keywords and search engine optimisationSearch engine marketing, Pay Per ClickMarketing and online display advertisingOnline marketing including blogs, eBooks and articlesVideo broadcastingSocial networking and social mediaPR and publicity campaignsEmail marketing

Judith Lewis’ Top Tip

Like in search, social mentions rank better for people who comment, ‘like’ and ‘link’ more often or engage with a social media profile.

5. Action Plan

How do you implement this strategy? Start by defining and establishing the who, what, when, where, how and how much. Make prolific notes on activities you can do and, as you go through each section of the book, scribble away to your heart’s content. All new thoughts are creative so use them as food for thought and then strengthen each idea with research and nail down who is the best person to implement the activity (internal and external resources), exactly what you will do, when you will do it, where it will be done, how you intend to get all the elements organised and controlled and how much it will cost.

6. Budget

Get costs and quotes for your activities and then decide on your budget. Remember that your budget can go up or down during your campaigns so if you work for yourself there doesn’t have to be a fixed cost. However, having one or at least a budgeting goal will help establish how quickly you can get your DMS working to pimp your site.

“You can never have too much money for a Digital Marketing Strategy so take bite-sized chunks to find what’s best for your site.”

Ian Dodson, Digital Marketing Institute

7. Measurement and Iteration

How will you know your DMS has worked? There are excellent online tools to track, analyse and measure your social media campaigns. Do the same for each activity in the channels you choose. For example, if you are doing a PR campaign you can decide to pay for a PR monitoring service or you can track this via Google Alerts at no charge and keep a record of any press clippings.

It is also advisable to work out a Return on Investment (ROI), in order to establish which campaigns work best and why. This will inevitably help your future plans from both a cost and budgeting point of view and a success ratio for activities you undertake.

Set up KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), which help to identify and quantify key areas of your website as the best or worst performers. Think of your KPIs as the heartbeat of your site: they will indicate how your online business is growing, what areas are weak and need more work and which are strong and robust. This information will also show you what opportunities lie ahead. If you run reports in fancy graphs, they will quickly and clearly show you how well your site is performing and where to focus your energy. Try setting up graphs in Excel or PowerPoint to monitor your traffic, your products, different services, your revenue and any other important indicators of success.

Your Ongoing Digital Marketing Strategy

So, as you take your first steps towards creating your DMS by exploring search engines and how people search, make notes at the end of each day and by the end of the book your DMS should be crystal clear. It can be a daunting task – and I know this because I have been there and felt that I was drowning in a digital sea of marketing methods. Like me, I have no doubt that you too will be rejuvenated by the excitement and vitality of this new marketing medium.

The importance of a successful DMS is to understand what works for your site and reiterate your successes. Always optimise all campaigns because the result is traffic, which in turn drives visitor behaviour and ultimately expansion of your site. Best of all, you will get a huge buzz when you see your site growing. It is also great fun and highly satisfying when you see the graph on a steep upward climb, especially if you have taught yourself from scratch. Be proud to show off your growth!

Search Marketing

Search engine marketing (SEM) is the combination of Search engine optimisation (SEO) and Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising. SEO is the process of improving ranking in search engine results by making optimisation changes to your website. PPC, on the other hand, is an online advertising tool in which advertisers pay their host in advance. It is possible to be top of the ranking immediately with ‘paid for advertising’. However, to achieve this and to remain on top of the list can become costly.

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION: SEO is the process of improving your search ranking in search engine results. SEO is how ‘search’ ranks and delivers results.

“Promote your organisation by attracting people to your website through search engines.”

Ross Jackson, Ross Jackson Consultancy

Your site is found by search engines in several ways: by submission to the search engines and link building and getting search engines to find you through optimisation and social media links. My experience has shown that the correct use of SEO can bring in phenomenal results to a start up or new business. As a result, I have concentrated the next two Days on keywords and optimisation, which is broken down into on-page optimisation and off-page optimisation (link building).

“Search and social media are coming together. Each one has an effect on the other. For brand exposure, awareness and sales, the whole package together is more valuable than individual parts.”

Judith Lewis, Beyond

SEM is now the fastest growing form of advertising, and because of the complexities many companies rely on agencies to manage their search marketing. Advertisers spend billions in digital advertising, so I have included a separate chapter on search marketing tools, where we cover Pay Per Click (PPC).

LINK BUILDING: Pump up your website’s popularity by building links. Link building is important as search engines are known to trust websites with lots of high-quality incoming links. The most valuable links come from relevant websites which are already trusted by search engines.

The largest providers are Google, Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft’s Adcentre. SEM is often run in conjunction with SEO. An SEO strategy can take up to six months or longer to take full effect so you may want to implement an SEM campaign to ensure you appear in the results of the search while your SEO gets going.

My Top Tip

Think of SEO and SEM as the hare and the tortoise: SEO is the tortoise that sets a steady pace and doesn’t give up until it gets to the winning post, which is the pole position in Google. SEM is the PPC hare who darts up front, leaving the tortoise behind, determined to be first and beat competitors. The hare may, or may not, take a break (depending on budget), but it rests on the sidelines in Google’s right ‘paid for’ column, while the tortoise overtakes and becomes Google’s No.1.

Whichever you decide to do, the first few Days will cover each aspect in greater detail to ensure your toolbox is fully equipped.

Search Engines

Search engines search the entire internet for content using keywords that people use to search for something, now fondly known as ‘Googling’.

My Top Tip

Think of a search engine as a giant spider (yuck) crawling across a garden in search of bugs, mites or anything edible.

When potential visitors enter a keyword or key phrase into the search box, a results page pops up instantly, ranking pages in order of their relevance to the keywords used.

The Main Search Engines

The three main search engines use different techniques to rank websites. Of course, there are plenty of others, but we’ll just chat about the ‘biggies’.

Google

Google checks the quality and relevance of the content. It also checks links coming back to your site from other sites. You will find Google’s Webmaster Tools in your account so learn how they assess your site.

Yahoo!

Yahoo! began as a web directory, but it also offers link analysis tools so check out their SEO articles.

“What we do socially is now reflected in search results.”

Judith Lewis, Beyond

Bing

Formerly known as MSN, Microsoft’s search engine, Bing, will rank your website on the page content and how relevant it is to the keywords used. Like Google, it also ranks according to the number of quality sites linking back to you.

So, at a glance you can see how significant it is to have ‘relevant and specific’ keywords on each page in order to be optimised by these industrious and clever guys.

How Search Engines Work

Search engines use software programs, called spiders, robots or crawlers, to search the internet. These programs build an index, database or directory of the internet, providing a complex web of links, pages, keywords, descriptions, metadata and more. Remember the yucky garden spider. It will know where damp logs harbour grubs and bugs. Their ‘index’ directory is by no means comparable to web crawlers, but the idea is the same.

Index: This content and source code is then analysed and indexed according to the titles, content, headings or meta tags you have used. The search engines will find your pages, and millions of others in 0 to 30 seconds, Mach 4!

Query: The data is stored in order to be quickly accessible when someone types a search question into a search engine.

Cache: Google stores each word in every page it finds (imagine the storage size!). You may have seen Google giving you a ‘cached’ or copied page in a search result, look out for this.

ORGANIC OR SPONSORED?

Sponsored links are usually on the right-hand side of search pages but sometimes at the top of the left side, often on lightly shaded backgrounds. Companies pay Google Adwords and others to be featured here.

An organic search is always on the left-hand side and reflects Google’s ranking in importance to relevant keywords. On some occasions there may be a couple of paid results above the organic list, as mentioned above.

We’ll go through ways of submitting your site to the various search engines so you can get indexed and we are going to tackle keywords, how to find them and the best way to use them.

Domain vs URL

The difference between a domain name and a URL is that the domain name stops with the .com or .co.uk, etc, whereas the URL is the whole web address, including everything after the .com.

For example, www.remoteemployment.com/about-remote-employment.aspx is about our site, while our news page URL will be www.remoteemployment.com/news. This gives search engines an inkling of what the page is about.

Judith Lewis on ‘Search’

We have evolved to an age of page titles, descriptions, URLs, site links, video, news, recent results, images, blogs, shopping results, and more – all being fed directly into the search results in response to a user query.

This means that the Tweet you just put out could pop up in the search results for your company right now in a social search.

That image you uploaded to Flickr could now be ranking you or your company’s name.

Organic vs Paid Search Marketing

There are several benefits to being listed in the organic results on Google, which is the left-hand side of the search results. The most important benefits are:

No cost – your hard work is all it costs for being highly rankedMore traffic – most people know the difference between the paid results on the right and the organic links on the left and will invariably click those firstTraffic jam