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Online Marketing Q&A
Online Marketing Q&A I thought I'd take a break from my series on getting your website ready for 2007 and answer some of the questions I'm getting from my newsletter readers and clients. Q: What's a Google Sitemap? The Google Sitemap program is a relatively new program from Google that allows you to install a file on your hosting server that provides a map of all the pages you want the Google Spider (Googlebot) to find and crawl at your website. In other words, you can cross your fingers Googlebot finds all your pages by following your navigation links and reading your page code or you can help it find them more effectively - with a Google Sitemap. The program also includes some valuable website diagnostics to help you identify pages that may have other problems that effect your positioning at Google. I highly recommend you create and then manage/monitor a Google Sitemap for your website. http://www.bookmoreweddings.com/products/item12.cfm Q: Chris will a Google Sitemap help me at other search engines like Yahoo! or MSN A: Probably not. There's no indication they are using this same "map" file if you installed it for Google. Q: Should I have one and will it get me better positioning with Google. A: Yes and Not Sure (but probably). Anything you do to help Google learn more about your website is a WIN in my book - and remember, Google is asking webmasters to use a Sitemap. It's a fantastic tool. I think all things being equal (and they rarely are) if you have one and a competitor does not have one it could give you the edge you want and lead to better positioning. Google makes it pretty clear that a Sitemap is not a fast-track to top ranking, but I do believe it is an important factor in your overall search engine optimization strategy for Google. Q: Chris, our traffic is way off and our inquiries are falling off too. Any ideas? I'm hearing this a lot. Most of the problem I think is competition. You can't just sit back and get traffic (which in turn lead to inquiries) like a year or so ago. You have to have an effective online marketing strategy which includes a website that CONVERTS visitors into inquiries and sales, traffic that is qualified (not just "hits"), and an effective follow-up strategy. If you're taking a casual approach to your website and online marketing... you can expect your traffic and inquiries to fall off as your competition eats away your sales. Same question... another answer Q: Chris, we're not getting many inquiries from our website and I'm not sure what the problem is. Can you take a look and does anything stick out as a red flag? A: One problem is using an EMAIL link as your only contact option. Simple EMAIL links at a website work but rarely are they as effective as using an online form. If you use an email link most of your inquiries will come in with missing information, I guarantee it. You might not get a phone number, a full name, a wedding date, or probably most of the other information you really need to appropriately follow-up and pre-qualify your prospect. A simple web-based form solves that problem. Add an inquiry form to your website and make sure brides can find it. Look at your logs and find your most popular page. Add the form directly to that page (not just a link from it). That should help immediately, if you have quality traffic visiting your website. Q: Chris, should we be concerned about our Google Page Rank? Does it impact our position in other search engines? A: I wouldn't lose sleep over Google Page Rank, but I wouldn't ignore it either. PR is an indication of the importance and popularity of your website. It's an indication of the number of links TO your website from other websites. It's a Google term and measurement but the fundamentals behind it apply with other search engines. Q: Hi Chris, we're thinking of doing some pay-per-click advertising this year. What do you recommend? A: I recommend you start with Google AdWords. It's probably a bit easier to work with if this PPC stuff is new to you. I also like it better than Yahoo! Search (Overture) because (1) they charge you at the end of the month (you don't have to make a deposit), (2) generally speaking, I've gotten better results with AdWords (conversion), (3) their tools are fairly straight-forward as far as ease-of-use and understanding how it works. Like many of the more advanced online marketing tools available, AdWords is getting complicated. You might be better off having a professional manage it for you. I've worked with several clients who thought they were using PPC correctly only to find out they were wasting money. AdWords works, yes it does. If you're using it and not getting good results there is very likely a reason. Today's Tele-Clinic You won't want to miss this... 10 Reasons A Bride Will Leave Your Website Time: 12:30pm (East Coast Time) Is Your Website Ready for 2007 My Online Marketing Tune-Up will get you in top shape for 2007. More information and details at this link: http://www.bookmoreweddings.com/products/item1.cfm
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