Location, Location, Location – for Online Marketing Success

"Location" means online visibility which gets traffic to your website. Online real estate is critical in 2011 and becoming more so. Think of "location" as any place someone can go in the world online (or even offline) and then end up at your website. The more quality traffic the better. A cool looking website with little traffic is worth very little to your marketing efforts. In fact, a site with good content that is essentially invisible online to potential customers is also worth little.

Here's the thing, though, there is no such thing as a free lunch when it comes to online visibility anymore. Too many zillion pages on the Web, and too many folks vying be found. But Ranseen Marketing can help you choose the best options for your website pages to get visible and get you more traffic – within your budget – to get you positive ROI. There is no one best way to get more traffic, but I've learned much over the past decade regarding what options are more likely to work (or at least try initially). And ideally, you need a good mix versus being dependent on one source.

Your prospective customers get to your website 3 primary ways (which yes, are starting to overlap even more):

Search
Online Referrals
Offline Referrals (AKA Direct)

Search

If there is one prerequisite in your "location" mix, it is Search via the big (and small) search engines.

Using a search engine like Google (which dominates…with 65% of searches) or Bing or Yahoo (both accounting for about 30%), a visitor can see and click into a page on your site by using a keyword(s) in an attempt to find people, places, businesses, information, things to buy, etc. If your business has "Page One" url links – and the higher on that page the better – for the right keywords specifically related to your company, your products/services, the features/benefits you provide etc – then very targeted audiences are going to be able to find your website. In turn, this happens via

"Organic" search rankings on search engines (AKA, but not really "free" rankings often associated with SEO or Search Engine Optimization initiatives and
PPC (Pay-Per-Click) rankings on search engines based on bidding for specific keywords (with "ads" typically appearing at the very top and sides of search pages).

Ranseen Marketing is a big believer in using the SEO 101 approach to Search (tried and tested ways (also being cognizant that search engines are continually changing, and not telling exactly, how they compute their rankings) versus the endless "tricks" to earn high "organic" rankings. While a number of factors come into play, the two huge ones are the content (words) that you have on your site and the quality/number of links you have on other sites.

But still there is no guarantee, ever, of being on the first page of search results for a specific keyword – which is where you need to be – and for the best keywords for your business. If anyone does promise you that, they are lying to you. With PPC, though, there is that guarantee if you want to invest wisely in keyword bids – and that is the main reason Google has become the behemoth it has over the years. Both SEO & PPC are now interrelated, and both work well for Ranseen Marketing clients.

You can decide to ignore the power of Search, but so at your own peril…if you want to drive traffic (and business) to your site!

Online Referrals

Online Referrals involve clicking somewhere else online (another website, a blog, an email, etc) to get to more visitors your site – with some, hopefully taking an action. There is a proliferating number of pay and "free" digital media link types that visitors use to jump to your site from a wide array of online locations that can be words, images, video or audio (links). Search is great for many businesses and is highly targeted, but this broad category of "facilitators" is where a lot of increasing action is in 2011 and beyond:

Complementary Websites – other sites that like the content you have online re: your company/products/services, want your link(s) on their site, and or may not may ask to "trade" links; but these are typically "free."

Search Directories – types of manually edited Search Engines (and could be included in Search (above) but are important, not so much because of the keyword searches done on them but rather the listings themselves (that tend to impact engines and how they rank sites). The top 3 are still The Open Directory (free), Yahoo Directory (free or pay) and About (pay), but there are several others.

Online Business Directories – general (e.g. The Yellow Pages) or industry specific online directories… and can vary from local to international – most are pay but some are "free."

Display (AKA "Content") Pay Ads – can be links via text, images or videos, such as:

Google Adwords and MSN AdCenter, in particular, via their huge networks that includes hundreds of thousands of sites (and enable some targeting)
Facebook, as the new worldwide display ad leader, is its own separate category because of its unique ability to target audiences better than anyone
Direct partner sites that you make an arrangement with directly…and pay to put an ad (with link) of some type on their site
Affiliates that essentially run online ads for you (often on thousands of sites) and typically take a cut of the action (for e-commerce players).

Big Social Media Sites – where you can post free content and links such as on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc

Other Web Content sites – that post content for free and/or pay:

YouTube (of course owned by Google) and similar free video sharing sites (which could also be categorized as social media)… plus others.
Free specialty content sites (e.g. specific to an industry, product, interest etc)
RSS Feeds (and other site syndicators that are free or pay)
Press Release sites that are typically pay…and then may help distribute your releases as well

E-commerce broker, partner and other re-seller "shopping" sites like Amazon, eBay, OnSale and hundreds of others (that sell a variety of goods/services or are very specific) that that enable other companies to sell their e-commerce sales items via other sites.

Deal-oft-the Day E-Commerce Sites such as Groupon, Living Social, BuyWithMe and dozens of others that advertise major discount specials (and typically handle the transaction for their business clients)

Emails – that you send to your prospects and customers and include text, image or video links to your website (or partners send for you/or include your link for a fee)

...and various hybrids of this growing miscellaneous category that helps direct interested online visitors to your site directly (and/or handles transactions for you)

Certainly, not all Online Referrals venue above are applicable for every business, but there is a wide array of good options now for any businesses to get more visible online. You need to choose wisely…and that can take some trial and error. But it takes constant work – and is not a onetime thing – and also requires follow-up.

Offline Referrals (AKA Direct)

This is often an ignored venue for generating substantially more website traffic. Anything that you can reasonably do offline to promote your business starting with your business cards can help a lot – especially if you make it very clear what your main site address is. Whether people pick up your business card, get a direct mail piece, see a billboard, hear a radio spot, watch a TV commercial, read an advertisement in a magazine or newspaper, etc…if they are even interested at all in your company, product or service…the huge majority are going to check you out online as their very next step. And so don't forget about the traffic/visibility you can create via more traditional offline media – and the quality of your website content.

PS…One of the key advantages of developing great website content is so that you can leverage that work into offline marketing venues as well. One of the most naïve comments, I continue to hear from very smart business folks is: "So what's the big deal if people we want already know our company and/or brands?" We'll sure, if that's true, some will find you, but others are looking for the types of stuff and benefits you provide. Hence the billions of keyword searches per year.

If you have any questions, please contact Tom Ranseen by email or phone: 615-661-6042.