An Effective Website and On Line marketing
Web site design and organization is based on the goals you have for your site and the needs of your audience. Doing some planning beforehand will help you create a Web site that is well-organized and easy to use. You also need to consider what resources are available to build your site, and how the site will be maintained.
Clarify your goals :
Consider the following questions when thinking about the goals for your Web site.
What is the purpose of your site ?
Try to express the purpose of your site in a sentence or short paragraph. If you are clear about the purpose of your Web site, it will also be clear for your visitors. By defining the purpose of your site you also ensure that the Web is the right medium to achieve your goals.
Who are you trying to reach with your site?
A Web site should be designed for the typical user, yet it is often designed for those in charge of creating it. Be sure you have an understanding of the audience for your Web site, and keep the typical user in mind as you create and organize your site.
How will you know if your site is successful?
Defining specific objectives for your Web site will help keep you on target as you organize and create the site, and will allow you to design a Web site that works.
Will your site be updated? How often? By whom?
If your site includes news or information that periodically changes you must be prepared to update it regularly. Consider the cost, in both money and time, involved in keeping the site current.
Will the site grow?
Are you providing a fixed amount of information or will additions be made over time? This is especially important to consider early in the design process so that your site will have room to grow without needing a complete redesign.
How long will this site be posted?
Is your site only for use for a limited period - say for a school term - or will it be posted indefinitely as an information source? How long will your information be interesting and useful?
Determine your needs and resources
Take time to think about what resources, such as staff or software, are available to help you create your Web site, and determine what you need in order to create your site.
What kind of staff will you need to design and maintain the site?
If you plan to build and create the site yourself, you might want to start with easy-to-use software and modest technical goals. If you have technical and design assistance available to you, your goals for the site might be more ambitious.
Where will your site live?
UW Technology provides a suite of Web servers for the use of the UW community. Your department or organization might have its own Web servers or you can use a third-party Web hosting service.
What software do you need to create and maintain your site?
To create and maintain your site you can use CommonView, an easy-to-use tool developed and supported by the Catalyst team and available for free to UW students, faculty and staff. You can also setup a free Google site using UW Google Apps. In alternative, you can purchase one of the many desktop Web editors available. You might also need graphics or other multimedia software.
Organize your site
How will you "chunk" the content on your site?
Take an inventory of the content you want to include on your Web site before you begin creating pages. Think about how to best organize the content for reading on the Web. Web users like short "chunks" of content that can be easily read on the screen, and scanned for important information. Try to keep your pages short, and use headings and bulleted list to help your readers find important information. See Yale's Web Style Guide for more information about chunking content.
How will you structure your site?
The organization of your Web site should be clear and simple. You can choose from several organization schemes, depending on which best suits the type of information you have and tasks your users need to perform. The most common organization schemes are hierarchical, linear, web, and grid. See Yale's Web Style Guide for more information about site structure.
How will you organize the "backend" of your Web site?
In addition to organizing the information on your site, you need to think about how you will organize the files and folders that comprise the site. Will you keep all photos and graphics in a folder called "Images"? An easy-to-use file structure will facilitate maintaining and updating your Web site. It is also important to think about how you will name the files on your Web site. Choose a naming scheme that makes sense for you and helps you maintain the site.
Design a consistent layout for your pages
Think about design and layout early.
While design might seem to be a part of creating an individual page, it pays to think through the layout of all of your pages on paper before you actually start building the pages. Sketch several designs, choose one or two, and then refine them. Remember that an effective page layout is both interesting and useful. Users will have an easier time finding information in your site if the pages have a consistent layout.
Your home page is important.
The opening page to your site, or home page, is very important. It is a combination of cover, flap, and table of contents for your site. It explains the purpose of your site, draws the user, explains how the site is organized, and helps her find the information she needs as quickly as possible. It is good to include a list of links to the most requested pages on the site to help your user navigate through your site.
Remember the 'three click' rule.
Studies show users start to get lost and lose patience if they fail to find the information they need after three clicks - following three hyperlinks - from the home page. Users that cannot find what they need will be less likely to visit your site again.
Provide internal navigation links on every page.
Be sure to include a link back to the home page in every page, as well as search, index, or site map, if these features are provided. Providing consistent navigation on each page keeps the user from getting lost in your site.
Create a site map or index of your site.
Include a site map as either a graphical representation or as a list of links clustered into topics. It is probably better to organize the information logically rather than the way the pages are organized on the site. It is also good to have a site index, listing all the topics of the site in alphabetical order, with duplicate entries for alternate wordings.
Large sites need a search feature.
If you have a very large site, you might want to provide a search feature. Include a link to this feature in every page.
Date and 'sign' each page.
At the bottom of each page put the date when the page was last updated. This helps readers assess the currency of the information. Also include a way to contact the technical support or information provider of the site.
BUILDING ONLINE MARKETING PLAN
For any business right now, it is essential that an Online Marketing plan is built into your regular marketing plan. So what is an online marketing strategy (also called Internet Marketing by some) and how do you create one? Follow these steps.
Target market
Who is your target market? One way easy way to do this, is pull the info from your business plan. Don’t have a business plan? Think of your clients and pick your top three. How old are they? What do they do for a living? What do they do in their free time? Or are you starting from scratch? Install Google Analytics to your website and start a Facebook page. Both can deliver statistics on who your visitors and fans are. Every message you send out think of your target person.
What is your goal?
Is it to increase traffic? Brand awareness? Have people sign-up for your email newsletter? Buy a product? Have people attend an event? If you don’t pick a goal, you can not measure its success.
Keep your branding consistent
Repeat, Repeat, Repeat. Can your customers or clients tell your business by a glance at a brochure and at your website? Do they match? The core elements need to be there: logo, color scheme, fonts, images and tone of voice.
Who is going to manage it?
Before you start your facebook page or sign up for Google ads, make sure you have a dedicated person to monitor and make updates. If you, as the small business owner, are taking on this task, plan to dedicating at least an hour per day to get everything set up. Once you get the hang of writing blogs, tweeting, checking stats and sending messages you can spend as little as 5-15 minutes per day.
What is your plan going to cover?
Types of online media to consider for your small business:
• User-friendly website
• Blog
• Facebook fan page
• Email newsletter
• Online Ads
What is the budget?
Decide ahead of time how much you are going to invest in the above. Remember the marketing rule is it takes 7 times for a person to see something before they buy. Which way makes the most sense to reach your ideal customer? Some costs to consider:
Website: Is your site user-friendly? Is it easy for a potential customer to find what they are looking for? Are your customers exiting on your goal page, such as a shopping cart purchase or email newsletter sign-up? Do you have links with all of the different ways people can contact or follow you, such as email newsletter, Facebook, Twitter, and blog RSS? If the answer isn’t yes to these questions, it may be time for a site re-design.
Blogs: To keep a consistent brand make sure your blog matches the look of the rest of your website. Need a custom design? I offer custom blog designs.
Facebook: Free to set up, but to stand out from the competition you can add a custom “Welcome” page or a special page for a specific promotion. For a “Welcome” page example, view my Bauerhaus Design Facebook fan page. To see a great example of a special promotion page that they changes monthly, look at the Gap’s Facebook fan page. You can set it up so new visitors are automatically directed to your custom page.
Twitter: Free to set up. To keep branding consistent have a custom background with your look.
Emails: Don’t forget to research the cost of email marketing clients such as Constant Contact or MailChimp. This fee will depend on how many people you are mailing to & the frequency at which you send. Make your branding consistant with a custom email template that matches your website and print collateral. Make sure you only email people who have opted-in to your email list.
Ads: Are you going to invest in Google ads or Facebook ads? Or other sites? Set a daily budget on whichever you choose, so you don’t get any unwelcome surprise bills.
Frequency
How often are you going to post, blog or tweet? I recommend to my clients to start out slow with a message on each type of social media once a week, until they feel more comfortable doing more. Gradually increase it to 3 times a week than daily. For email marketing, again start slow with once a month. To keep track of when you are doing what, make a spreadsheet or add it to your calendar.
Content
Stumped for what to say? Research your competition. What do they write about on Facebook and Twitter? Is their tone of voice different in their emails? Once you have researched others, make a list of 3-5 topics you are an expert on. Now for each topic, list 5 questions that people ask you the most about. Talk about an upcoming event, a special promotion, or post a photo of a new product. And don’t forget to work in the keywords that I wrote about in 10 ways to increase your web traffic.
FIVE SMART WAYS TO PROMOTE YOUR WEBSITE ONLINE
Organic Search
Promote your website through free organic search results.
Best if you’d rather put work into your website instead of buying additional advertising.
Selecting the right text, images, and other content for your website can get your business
noticed by search engines—and customers.
Online Advertising
Be found by potential customers when they’re searching for products or services like yours.
Best if you want to show up when customers are ready to shop.
Online advertising gives you more control over when and where your ads are displayed,
so your ads may appear when searchers are ready to buy.
Local Online Marketing
Reach customers in your region, city or community with local business listings.
Best if you want to drive online customers into your offline location.
Most of people use the Internet to research products or services in their local area, and
local listings get your business in front of thousands of potential customers—often free
of charge.
Social Media
Build a community of customers with social media marketing.
Best if you want to build relationships with your customers—and their friends
and family.
Social media lets you get closer to your customers—start conversations, offer them
exclusive deals, and ask them to recommend your business to their social circles.
Email Marketing
Promote offers and updates to existing customers through email marketing.
Best if you want existing customers to come back for more.
Share promotions, product and business news to re-engage existing customers and earn
repeat business.
BUILDING A COMMUNITY OF LOYAL FANS IN ONLINE MARKETING
An online community is a group of people with a common interest who visit a particular website. Your community wants to hear
from you, and they will introduce others to your website, products and services.
1) Decide: what is your passion? What is the focus of this online community?
2) Decide: what content will you publish?
I am comfortable:
Writing a blog
Taking photos and publishing them on my site
Creating videos and featuring them on my site
Moderating an online forum
Creating an email newsletter
Any additional ideas for interesting content?
3) Evaluate what you’ve got
Your goal is to make the website easy to use, and compelling so visitors come back!
Is my website easy to navigate and use?
Is my content interesting for my audience? Ask for other opinions.
4) Promote yourself
Once your website is ready, tell people about it.
• Signs in your store
• Signs on company vehicles
• Business cards, estimates and invoices
Participate in related online forums, like Google Groups: groups.google.com.
Read blogs and publish comments on articles you like.
Connect with people via social networking sites like Google+ for Business
GOOGLE APPS FOR BUSINESS
In case you hadn't noticed, it's not Bill Gates' world any more. Sure, Microsoft remains the dominant office software provider, with 450 million deployed users, according to data from the company. But its downcoast rival, Mountain View, Calif.-based Google, has broken Microsoft's lock on office software products. More than 2 million firms and 25 million users now handle their e-mail, documents and other office tasks using Google's web-based professional office suite, Google Apps.
And for good reason.
Google's office tools offer a mind-boggling array of cloud-based productivity options to even the smallest firms: Essentially everything you do at work is now available anywhere, anytime, from any online connection. Better yet, it's all free for the standard version--or $50 per year per user for the Premier version, which includes additional storage and high-quality, unlimited support.
Great Tools
Google Apps Gmail
The cornerstone of any small-business venture, Google Apps Gmail supports your company's URL and looks the same from any web browser or mobile device. For example, it instantly turns even an iPod Touch into a work portal. Plus, Gmail has plenty of room for every employee's work e-mail, with 25 GB of storage per user (with a paid Apps account). Employees have complete remote access, and the system requires them to log in to do their work, for total accountability. Gmail conversations are "threaded," unlike most desktop e-mail clients, which means e-mails are grouped by similar subject lines, making it simpler to track intricate, multi-party exchanges.
Google Apps Calendar
Apps Calendar creates a common platform on which to schedule appointments and events throughout your entire business in real time. It lets assistants schedule executives' appointments from a remote location, and it lets your clients update meetings as they need to--again, as it happens. Quite simply, when it comes to group events, it's the scheduling tool of the gods--it even generates e-mail invitations that include a button to respond. When employees indicate they will attend, Apps Calendar automatically adds the shared meeting to your schedule and theirs. It also lets you merge employees' calendars with yours in order to manage your whole team's time with a bird's-eye view.
Google Docs
Google Docs gained the most in the recent Google Apps rebuild, which solved most previous problems regarding connectivity and collaboration. Offline content creation can actually work. Its collaborative word-processing features, which let multiple parties make revisions simultaneously, are a revelation for any fast-moving creative team. Suddenly, creating a proposal or a presentation is an almost-weightless task. Forget writer's block: Real-time chat and comments put the group's feedback right on the page, and changes are saved automatically and often. You'll never look at writing or editing the same way again.
Google Pack
This is our sleeper pick for Google products that also work for the small business--and the first thing you should download when you get a new computer. Google Pack is a free starter office suite that contains the Google Chrome browser, Google Apps, and Spyware Doctor and Anti-Virus, among other Google software, along with third-party applications such as Adobe Reader and Skype.
Google Sites
This drag-and-drop website development tool is useful to anybody who struggles with building team-based websites that work inside your business. If you are a Wiki shop building an internal site, or are struggling with Microsoft SharePoint, Sites will save you a ton of time and money. These websites all exist within your branded Google Apps domain and are easily edited by employees, with permissions set from the main account. It also integrates information from other Google Apps programs well, making it a breeze to organize Google Docs, Spreadsheets and deadlines from Calendar, along with Gmail messages relevant to the matter at hand.
Google Voice
This is an attempt to reinvent telephony with the one-phone-number concept, complemented by plenty of bells and whistles. When a customer calls your Google Voice number, they get a recording while it pings your registered numbers to find you or sends it immediately to voicemail. Voice also offers transcription, message sharing, multiple personalized greetings and some spiffy international calling.
Google Wave/Google Buzz
Wave is Google's attempt to create a medium-agnostic sharing tool that lets users create real-time content in the cloud as if there was no web browser. And Buzz brings social media to Google's arsenal of products by letting users collect ideas, clips, photos and videos online and share them among a group where everyone can comment on them. Both are simply fabulous technology.
Google Spreadsheets
This is Google Apps' major disappointment. Sure, you get basic spreadsheet functions and some pretty cool tricks (such as real-time updates of web data and automatic compatibility with Excel and any .xls or .cls file), but little else here impresses. Nice features include an autofill function that lets you avoid having to retype the same terms over and over, the ability to drag columns to new locations, and a streamlined copy feature that makes duplicates in one click.
INTRODUCTION TO ONLINE MARKETING
Advertising online can be a great way to promote your organisation.
How exactly does online advertising work?
The majority of our work is usually PPC (pay per click) based. This is where advertisers place an ad with the major search engines (Google, Yahoo and MSN) and pay [up to] a certain amount per click.
Next they outline a list of keywords that might be prospective customers’ search terms, so that when someone comes to the search engine, and types in one of these keywords, the search results show a list of relevant sites to visit. Search engines usually have a mixture of both free and paid results that show up, targeted to the search term the user has entered.
The advertiser can then direct the traffic to wherever they want it to go – it could be to their main website, or a specific landing page setup for the traffic.
What’s so good about online advertising?
The best thing about online advertising is its tracking capabilities. With online advertising, we have the ability to track every single click, and every single user to see if they ended up becoming customers. It is even possible to track how much that customer is worth to your business. With such data, you can then refine your campaigns, cease advertising to the types of traffic that don’t convert, and increase your budget to those that do, greatly limiting your expenses while increasing results.
What is the best online advertising model?
It really depends on your type of campaign or product. PPC is probably the most effective. There is also CPM (cost per thousand impressions), which is used more for graphical banners and advertising. Both can work well, it’s just a matter of getting the targeting right and refining the campaigns as you go.
Is online advertising right for all organisations?
Yes and no. I believe most organisations could benefit from online advertising, although depending on the type of business the model will be different.
For example, a company selling timber floor installation will use a completely different online approach to a local fish and chip shop. But both can definitely benefit from an online marketing campaign.
What should organisations think about before embarking on an online campaign?
Their desired outcome: what do they want their visitors to do? Buy a product? Enter a draw? Subscribe to a newsletter? Once you have established what action you want your visitors to take, then you can design your website around that action for the best results.
What makes a good online advertisement?
Again, it differs depending on the market and medium that you are using. With PPC, the best ads are the ones that offer something of value: not just a ‘Here we are, come visit us’ type of ad, but more of a direct approach. A ‘Click here for this reason’ sort of ad works best.
What makes a bad online advertisement?
General, non-specific ads. You need to remember that most people will see your ad alongside at least 20 other ads and links, so you need to stand out. An ad that offers no real benefit over the others will have an extremely low CTR (click-through rate), and not get much traffic at all.
What is the most common mistake you see?
No clear outcome. So many people just send traffic to their main website (homepage) and expect people to find their way from there. The best way to advertise online is to set up a separate landing page on your website that has a direct call to action for the visitor to take.
Another mistake I see a lot is the expectation that people will hand over their money on their first visit to your site. Advertisers are much better off trying to get their traffic to subscribe to a list or newsletter or something, so that they can start to build a relationship with website visitors, and then ask them for the sale (or donation) once there has been some level of trust established.
What online advertising results should organisations see?
Unfortunately most organisations that advertise online don’t understand the concepts outlined above, and most don’t see any return at all from their online advertising.if it’s done properly, online advertising can transform companies and organisations like nothing else can.
CASE STUDY:CAROLINA RUSTICA
Carolina Rustica is a 12-year old company that has has grown through the years by offering an honest, customer-focused approach to selling fine North Carolina furniture and lighting. We operate a large retail store in Concord, NC and a website. We operate them together as one business and serve customers all across the country. Our philosophy is to be as transparent as possible to our customers and our manufacturing partners. We want you to know who we are and how we operate to increase your comfort level in buying from us. We believe all websites should have complete information on the company (and how to contact them) behind the website. We are very proud of our retail store growth, having doubled our floor space every two years. 12 years ago, we started with a small 500 square foot booth in an antique mall. Now, we have almost 20,000 square feet to showcase over 100 furniture, lighting, and ceiling fan manufacturers.
October 2012: Carolina Rustica becomes part of the Mattress USA family!
On October 1, Carolina Rustica became part of Mattress USA, based in Brighton, Michigan. This dynamic, growing company operates several retail stores in Michigan as well as one the country's most active websites for mattresses, featuring Serta, Sealy, Stearns & Foster and many more. The company operates Carolina Rustica as a stand-alone division, but supports it with administrative and operational infrastructure. This also allows us to offer our customers access to these great mattress and bedding lines with great pricing and the outstanding customer service we are known for.
May 2012: Clearance & Closeout Gallery Opens
Gallery III is our newly-opened clearance center, with unbelievable deals from some of our most popular suppliers like Charleston Forge, Wesley Allen, John Boos and French Heritage. We also have our own clearance items, which experienced a little wear and tear during transit, but are being sold at or below cost. This unique space has a raw, unfinished industrial look to it, which sets a dramatic backdrop to some of our most striking pieces of fine furniture. If you like the thrill of the hunt, you will love the adventure of exploring Gallery III for some of the best furniture and lighting deals anywhere.
October 2011: Grand Opening of Gallery II
In the Fall of 2011, we opened Gallery II in our Gibson Mill location. This is a premiere, designer-oriented space that presents our high-end North Carolina lines as Century, Lexington Home Brands, Bob Timberlake, Bernhardt Furniture, Hickory White, Schnadig, and Habersham (GA). This beautiful furniture is accented by lighting from Currey and Company, Fine Art Lamps and Golden Lighting. Come visit us to see and touch these wonderful new products and meet with our designers to find that perfect piece or to create the exact item that will complete the look that you're looking for. This space also features full interior design services, with our IDS-affiliated design team. On October 8th, 2011, Carolina Rustica opened its 2nd Gallery and showroom here at our Concord, NC Gibson Mill location. We doubled our showroom space by adding another 5,000 square feet that features some of the finest furniture and lighting available today. We continue to add new mid to high-end furniture manufacturers and this space will allow us to display products from these manufacturers for you to come and see. We are proud to have recently added Bernhardt, Schnadig, Stanley and Habersham and there will be even more coming. Come visit us to see and touch these wonderful new products and meet with our designers to find that perfect piece or to create the exact item that will complete the look that you're looking for.
In business since 1996, Carolina Rustica specializes in hand-crafted iron and wood furniture and lighting,
including iron beds, bakers racks, bar stools, and dining tables. With an average 20% revenue increase each
year, rapid growth had brought new challenges: They were adding approximately 100 new products each week
to their online store, and this ever-growing inventory necessitated more powerful e-commerce site search
functionality.
Carolina Rustica had tried a number of e-commerce platforms, but every one lacked a robust search function.
Site visitors had to use exact search terms to find items, and the search didn’t accommodate misspellings.
Plus, those systems reduced site performance and clogged up server memory.
Most critically, the poor search performance – and the accompanying
poor results – was driving away frustrated prospective customers.
When shoppers can’t find the desired item, they’ll try another
destination. And that’s not an easy proposition to swallow, especially
when you’re competing with major furniture and lighting companies
like Lamps Plus and Bellacor. Carolina Rustica needed every possible
advantage to build and retain a loyal customer base.
Recognizing that poor site search performance was stifling revenues
and impeding growth, Carolina Rustica turned to SLI Systems.
Arpita Ghosh
Arpita Ghosh [ MBA from ICFAI ]
Works at Author & Free Lance Editor, Banker
Petals Publishers
Petals.Agv@gMail.com
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