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So, should you use meta keywords tags or not?

The answer is…maybe. Google has removed keywords from consideration but some search engines still include it – for now. History shows us that most search engines follow suit shortly after Google leads by example. For now, there is still some benefit from including a meta keywords tag. But there are risks, too.

While search engines may or may not notice your meta keywords tag, there is a certain group that will: your competitors. If you’ve played your cards right, you’ve probably spent a good amount of time and effort carefully researching your key phrases, and it’d be a shame for someone to drop in, view your page source and copy and paste your keywords for their own campaign.

On that note, if the competitor is you, you should be careful about stealing traffic and key phrases. Particularly, you should avoid using your competitor’s brand names as a keyword. This is not only unethical, in most cases, it’s illegal, too.

If you do choose to create a meta keywords tag, stick to 6 to 8 generic, relevant terms. Instead of including your “money phrases,” just include a couple keywords that give a general idea of what your topic is. This is helpful for content writers and coders as well, as it gives them a better idea about what the focus of the article is. It’s also a good idea to include locations.

You can include the meta keyword tag right after the meta description tag. It should look like this:

<META name=”keywords” content=”keyword 1, keyword 2, keyword 3, etc”>

Make sure that you separate your keywords with commas, otherwise they’ll appear as one long keyword.

Conclusion

So, to review:

• Meta keyword tags aren’t valued like they used to be. Using them or not using them won’t affect your Google search ranking.
• If you do include a meta keywords tag, stick to generic terms to avoid having your research stolen by competitors.
• Don’t use brand names or other trademarked material as a keyword – it’ll land you in hot water.

Meta keywords are somewhat of a vestigial leftover from the rough and tumble days of SEO. They have a much smaller place in today’s strategies, but the landscape is always evolving. You may want to continue using meta keywords as a habit, just in case they come back in vogue down the road.

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A call to action comes in many forms. It can be a short, two word hyperlink, the conclusion to a stirring argument preempted by an epic buildup or an eye-catching graphic or button. But no matter what your call to action looks like, there are certain elements that will make it more enticing, more effective and bring you more conversions. Here they are:

Actionability

“Click here” are probably the two most typed words on the Internet and in most cases, they do the job. But most of the time, you can do better. Instead, try “Download now” or “Learn more” or “Create your profile” or “Start shopping.” Instead of describing the mundane physical action they’ll be doing, take it one step further and let them know what exciting event that click will set in motion.

Urgency

Not only do you want people to take action, you want them to take action now. How many times have you come across something that sort of piqued your interest and maybe you even made a mental note to come back to it, but then, you ultimately never did? Many offers are like this and if you’re lucky, customers will take that next step if they happen to stumble across your site again sometime when they have the time to follow through. But most of the time, they won’t.

It’s your duty to make sure that action happens as soon as possible. Make it urgent, either by reiterating that it’s a limited time offer or simply using the word “now.”

It also helps to reassure a customer that it’ll only take a few minutes to register, or, if they truly don’t have time, remind them that they can bookmark the page, subscribe or follow you on Twitter or Facebook to keep in touch. Those last actions take literally seconds to do even if you’re browsing the web from a mobile device.

Value

Lastly, it’s important to let customers know what they get for taking action. As rational, value-seeking human beings, we like to make sure that everything we do has a return. A call to action that says, “Get your $50 coupon now” or “Start your free trial today” or “Download your free audiobook” is far more enticing than something that asks a user to click through so they can fill out your registration form, squint at a CAPTCHA and check their email for a confirmation code. By prominently displaying the valuable item they’ll be receiving, it’s more like they are collecting what is already theirs.

Conclusion

Of course, there are instances where you can bend or break the conventions of a call to action. But unless you have a truly inspired idea, you’ll get more consistent results by consciously including these three essential elements into all your calls to action. By using actionable, urgent language that clearly lays out the value in taking the next step, you’ll enjoy a higher conversion rate and more return on your marketing efforts.

Calls to action aren’t just better for business, it’s better for your visitors as well. Far from being a pushy sales tactic, a call to action is actually what customers and readers want and expect. That’s because whenever someone reads something compelling or interesting or inspiring, they instinctively look for the next step. They want to take what they’ve learned and apply it.

The Big Questions

• “Who do I talk to for more information?”
• “What can I do to help?”
• “Where can I read more?”
• “How do I try this out for myself?”
• “When are you open so I can come to your store?”

These are the questions that visitors implicitly ask once they find your website and decide it’s what they’re looking for. And if you don’t answer that question, you leave them hanging and lose a sale.

Of course, not everyone will take you up on your invitation to call for more information, start a free trial or buy now – but if you don’t offer it, they won’t be able to accept it. And because there are multiple entry points to any given website, you need to make the offer on every single page. It doesn’t always have to be a high stakes, make or break decision. In fact, sometimes a strong call to action can be offputting to readers who aren’t yet ready to commit to a purchase. Even then, simply asking them to “click hear to see more options” or “keep reading for the full story” is enough to engage them.

The key is to offer your readers something in exchange for their action. Even if it’s something as small as more pictures of a product or an additional story, it’s these small conversions that eventually culminate to a subscription, a consultation or a sale.

More Than Sales

When it comes to local Internet marketing, conversion is about more than earning business or moving products. Even if a potential customer doesn’t follow through today or ever, you can still benefit from their behavior. A call to action helps you analyze what’s working and what’s not. By creating a conversion funnel with different calls to action along the way, you can see which mediums are resonating and where you lose customers. For example, if you’re running an email marketing campaign, you can see the amount of people who are opening the email and how many are clicking through to your full website as well as which links they are clicking to get there. You can learn a lot about your customers just from the way they navigate your website – and the more you learn, the better you can serve them.

So, for every piece of content you create, whether it’s an “About Us” page, a product description or a blog post, make sure there’s a logical next step for your readers. As with many things in life, the key to getting what you want is to simply ask.

This is the first part of our ongoing series on creating effective calls to action. Subscribe now so you don’t miss our next installment on the three essentials of a call to action.

Dynamic URLs

Many dynamic websites, such as blogs, will generate notoriously user and search engine unfriendly URLs. The default WordPress permalink structure is a common example. Posts are typically numbered, rather than given proper filenames and will show up in your address bar like this: www.yoursite.com/?p=16.

This is a big missed opportunity for including keywords. Instead, setup your permalink structure to read www.yoursite.com/category/post-title and populate both those elements with keywords (without repeating). So, instead of having just one keyword in your URL (from your domain), you can have www.KitchenSupplies.com/Cuisinart/Pressure-Cookers, a total of three quality keywords.

URL Length

Brevity rules in almost all aspects of marketing. Shorter URLs tend to rank higher in search engine rankings and are easier to copy, paste and share. Some email and IM clients make it difficult to click URLs that span more than one line and the more gobbledygook that’s in your URL (numbers, symbols, etc.), the less trustworthy it looks.

Keyword Location

Just like search engines prefer keywords to appear early in the content, they also give more weight when they appear closer to the front of a URL. Avoid introducing lots of folders and subfolders. The KitchenSupplies.com example from above is better than say, www.KitchenSupplies.com/merchandise/C/Cuisinart/Pressure-Cookers.

Subdomains

The jury is still out on how search engines will treat  subdomains in the future. In the past, setting up a keyword as a subdomain was beneficial for SEO (i.e. microwaves.kitchensupplies.com) as they could be read as a different, highly relevant keyword relevant domain. But this opened the door to some abuse, since webmasters can register a virtually infinite number of subdomains free of cost.

Today’s best practices are to use directories and folders rather than subdomains unless you’re trying to clearly cordon off a section of your website with distinctly different content. For example, blog.KitchenSupplies.com makes sense, since it’s a different section from your merchandise. You won’t be penalized by using subdomains – but you likely won’t see any real benefit from abusing them, so it’s better to stick with what’s logical and intuitive.

Hyphens

Spaces in domain names must be separated by hyphens, but there’s a little bit more leeway for filenames and directories. You can choose underscores, periods or plus signs, if you want, but convention dictates the use of hyphens. There is little question regarding the fact that search engines read hyphens as spaces, and consistency is best practice as policies develop.

Image Filenames

You should pay careful attention to the filenames of all of your website elements, but images represent an even greater opportunity. There’s much web traffic to be garnered via image searches and the filename plays a large role in how your pictures are indexed. When uploading digital photos and other images, it’s easy enough to keep them with their default and generic filenames (DC00012.jpg or image2.png) but you’ll get much more mileage by giving it a short, descriptive filename (red-kitchenaid-mixer.jpg or granite-countertop.png).

Conclusion

The takeaway lesson when it comes to optimizing URL paths is to stick to what makes organizational sense and take every opportunity to include a keyword. Avoid obviously spammy tactics or exploitative “tricks” – the benefits from these tactics will likely be short-lived and may ultimately detract from the usability of your website.

This is part five in our on-site search engine optimization series. Read the rest here:

• Part One: Titles
• Part Two: 5 Tips for Effective Meta Descriptions
• Part Three: Keyword Placement and Keyword Density
• Part Four: Domain Names – Rankability vs. Branding
• Part Five: Filenames and URL Structure

Domain Registration

Your domain name is extremely important to your overall search engine ranking. There are two main considerations for choosing your domain name: rankability and branding.

Depending on the scope and approach of our business, one or the other may take precedence. Let’s look at both of these facets individually.

High Ranking Domain Names

Search engines take important cues from your URLs when determining the relevance of your website. Because of this, it’s highly advantageous to include a keyword in your domain name as well as throughout your URL structure (more on this in later posts).

This is hardly breaking news – and because of that, most of the high value domain names are already taken. You won’t get cars.com or creditcards.com or even helicopterpilots.com in a million years (unless you have a million dollars).

So, you’ll have to compromise. There are a few graceful ways to do so:

• Get specific – ITConsultants.com taken? Play to your strengths by going after CertifiedITConsultants.com or EnterpriseITConsultants.com.
• Add a location - This is helpful for local marketing as well as edging your way into competitive keywords. While you might never get lawyers.com, YourTownLawyers.com might be within reach. It also helps if other local businesses are doing the same with their URLs. For example, many Pittsburgh companies might add “pgh” to their URLs such as thelibrary-pgh.com or parkwayflorist-pgh.com. By following this convention, you can help target your traffic and help deepen the sense of community across local businesses.
• Hyphenate – This is admittedly not the best way to go – but it works in a pinch. Search engines read hyphens in URLs as spaces, so they’ll see “www.fresh-fish-depot.com” as “fresh fish depot.” However, hyphenated domain names are less attractive and harder to remember.

On that note, there are some methods for getting domain level keywords that you should avoid:

• Numbers - Nothing kills a brand and credibility like arbitrarily inserted numbers. This is okay for usernames and email addresses, especially when the number has some significance to your identity (i.e. the year you graduated), but it evokes shadiness in URLs

Well-branded Domain Names
In some cases, having a well-branded domain name will trump an SEO friendly domain. There are certain professions – such as doctors and lawyers – that lend themselves better to a business name than a keyword. This usually mimics the way these businesses typically advertise themselves offline. You’re much more likely to see signage for Dr. William Thompson, D.D.S or Steinberg, Bosco and Wilson, Attorneys at Law than something generic, such as Orange County Dentists or Jacksonville Law Firm.
Choosing a well-branded domain name also makes sense if you already have a well-branded business name. For example, if you’re using your website to supplement an aggressive print or television campaign, people are much more likely to type in your business name – TheWaterHeaterDudes.com, for example – when trying to find out more information. Asking them to remember a domain name like HopewellAreaWaterHeaterInstallers.com makes things more difficult and more prone to leaks in word of mouth marketing.
If you don’t already have a business name, take this opportunity to craft a meaningful, memorable and SEO friendly dba name to also use as your domain name. A good formula is to use a generic term – such as your keyword – and add something to differentiate it. Examples:

• PlasticSurgeonsSource.com
• Travelocity.com
• BakeryWizard.com

Other Considerations
This is the main ground to cover when it comes to choosing a domain name. But there are other factors that may help you get the most mileage from your domain name. Keep the following in mind:
Register your domain name for more than a year. Domain age factors into search engine ranking, and there is some indication that registering your domain name for a longer period adds credibility. Plus, you won’t have to worry about anyone buying it out from under your nose down the road.
Advertise your URL offline in a memorable way. On billboards, bumper stickers and other print material, include www. before your URL to signify that it’s a web address. Also, add capitalization to aid retention, (OhiosBestPlumbers.com) since URLs aren’t case sensitive.
Purchase multiple domain names. Register YourDomain.com, YourDomain.net and YourDomain.org to protect your brand and catch mistyped traffic. Pointing these other sites back to your main site is an acceptable practice and you won’t be penalized by search engines.

Conclusion
Choosing your domain name is an opportunity to boost your brand awareness as well as your search engine rankings. Select your domain name carefully to serve your marketing strategy the best. If you garner more word of mouth buzz than search engine traffic, focus on creating a well-branded, memorable domain. If you want to reach out to more first-time customers and gain more leads from search engine users, focus on a keyworded domain name.

This is part four of our on-site SEO series. Read the rest:

• Part One: Titles
• Part Two: 5 Tips for Effective Meta Descriptions
• Part Three: Keyword Placement and Keyword Density
• Part Four: Domain Names – Rankability vs. Branding
• Part Five: Filenames and URL Structure

Keywords

Since the beginning of our series on On-site SEO, we’ve been steadily moving through the page from top to bottom. We’ve already discussed creating search engine optimized titles and meta descriptions. Now, we’ll get into the meat of the webpage – the content.

As we mentioned before, there are two aspects of creating effective content for your website. The primary role of website copy is to communicate with readers. To this end, it should be actionable and conversion-friendly. But the other consideration is how search engines will see your text. That’s where keyword placement and keyword density matter.

Keyword Density

Keyword density simply refers to how often a certain keyword appears in your text compared to your total word count. For example, if your webpage has 100 words total on it and 4 of them are keywords, then you have a keyword density of 4 percent.

You might assume that a higher keyword density immediately means a better search engine ranking for that term. But that’s not necessarily true. Keyword density is just one factor in determining your search engine ranking. And as with all things in life, moderation is key.

If your keyword density is too low, it’s possible that you won’t rank at all for your targeted search terms. If they your density is too high, however, you run the greater risk of being penalized by the search engine or worse, turning off your readers.

Search engines have varying (and ever shifting) opinions on what’s the ideal keyword density, but in general, Google prefers the most conservative keyword density (between 1 and 3 percent) while Yahoo! and Bing see keyword density between 2 and 9 percent as acceptable. Given Google’s vanguard behavior  and market share in the search engine space, your best off catering to their preferences.

Keyword Placement

More important than keyword density is keyword placement. Google and other search engines give different weights to keywords depending on where and how they appear on your webpage. Most of the high value areas to insert keywords are logical, such as:

• Titles
• First 50 words of first paragraph
• Headings and subheadings
• Anchor text (i.e. link text)
• URLs and domain names
• ALT text

These elements introduce opportunities for highlighting the topic and subject matter of your webpage for search engines and their users – but these opportunities should not be abused. As always, you should use common sense when filling out these aspects of your webpage with keywords. Here are some areas where you should be careful:

Titles and Headings

Do not use the keyword more than once in a title or heading. It’s bad writing and it’s bad SEO.

ALT Text

As explained in this official Google video, the IMG tag on its own won’t tell search engines much about a picture. For robots that can’t see photos the way people do or for people whose browsers won’t render pictures (say, a mobile phone user), the ALT and TITLE attributes can fill this gap. Keep both of these short and sweet – the title should name the image in one or two words, as if it were a piece of art (“Cat on Piano” or “Poker Night”) and the ALT text should succinctly serve as an alternate description for someone who can’t see it (“A picture of a calico cat walking on a grand piano” or “A painting of dogs sitting around a poker table”). Trying to cram a keyword stuffed paragraph into the ALT tag is counterintuitive and unequivocally spammy and will ultimately hurt you both in terms of readability and ranking.

Anchor Text

It’s always better to use relevant keywords in anchor text (For example, “Click here for more vegan waffle recipes” is better than “Click here for more vegan waffle recipes”). But the operative word here is relevant. Including misleading links to internal or external pages will only puzzle and infuriate readers and search engine spiders alike.

Conclusion

When writing the content of your webpage, focus on readability first. But at the same time, work to create copy with a 1 to 3 percent keyword density and a diversified and strategic placement of your keywords. Use your keywords wherever and whenever you can without alienating your human audiences as well as in key, not always visible areas such as meta tags and ALT text. This will help your website both in terms of indexing and readability.

This is part three of our series discussing on-site SEO. Read more:

• Part One: Titles
• Part Two: 5 Tips for Effective Meta Descriptions
• Part Three: Keyword Placement and Keyword Density
• Part Four: Domain Names – Rankability vs. Branding
• Part Five: Filenames and URL Structure

Choosing effective meta description tags is a lot like crafting conversion-friendly titles, in that the driving quality is no longer skewed towards gaming search engine algorithms and is now more cleanly focused on enticing readers to click through. When Google, Yahoo and Bing display snippets below your title tag on the search engine results pages, they draw this content from one of two places: the meta description tag that you provide specifically for this purpose or an excerpt from your page’s content. It’s preferable to you, the search engines and your customers for you to craft a readable, descriptive and accurate snippet to accompany your search engine listing and writing a good meta description tag is the first step in achieving just that. Here are a few essential tips for creating clickable meta description tags:

1. Follow HTML Conventions

While not absolutely vital, it’s best to feed search engine spiders information in the manner they are accustomed to reading it. This means including the meta tag within the <HEAD> tag and just after the <TITLE> tag. So, it might look like this in your HTML editor:

<HEAD>
<TITLE>On-site SEO: 5 Tips for Effective Meta Description Tags</TITLE>
<META name=”description” content=”A quick guide on how to craft click-worthy search engine snippets.”>
</HEAD>

If you change this up a bit, it’s unlikely that the search engine will completely miss it. But it’s better not to chance it.

2. Avoid Ellipses

If your meta description tag is too long, it’ll be displayed with ellipses, making it look like an incomplete thought and a poorly crafted description. The major search engines will only display around 150 characters of your snippet. However, with that in mind, note that Google has officially stated that it doesn’t care if your snippet is 260 characters or 74 characters long as long as its descriptive and relevant. They’ll still use it, but just the first 150 characters. So, if you’d like to include a longer meta description, feel free. But just make sure it cuts off at a logical point around the 150 character mark.

3. Include Keywords Strategically

Keyword density in your meta tag won’t affect your search engine ranking (according to Google), but including key phrases in your meta description where it’s logical and natural has a couple benefits:

• Key phrases are bolded when snippets are displayed in Google search results, which makes your listing stand out a bit more.
• Having a key phrase in your meta description increases the chances that your meta description will be used as a snippet, rather than an excerpt from your page.
• If you’ve chosen good keywords, using them in your meta tag will help create a descriptive, relevant snippet.

With that being said, avoid keyword stuffing your meta description at all costs. Doing so won’t benefit your search ranking, click through rate or your chances of having your meta description used as your snippet in the least. On a related note, make sure you don’t unnecessarily repeat any words from your title. Your snippet will always be displayed along with your title, so doing so is not only redundant, but clunky and potentially spammy.

4. Create Unique Descriptions

This means unique to other listings and unique to your own website content as well. Don’t reproduce boilerplate content for each page, as this will lessen your chances of having your meta description displayed as well as make it more difficult for search engine users to discern what each specific page is about. Take time to create a relevant, specific and descriptive tag for each page. For example, instead of making all of your meta descriptions about how great your company is, tailor your “About Us” meta description to highlight an interesting fact about your history, promote your sales on your “Products” description and include your phone number in your “Contact Us” description.

5. Include a Call to Action

This was hinted at above, but it bears repeating. Just like your title tag is an opportunity to include a pitch or tagline, so too is your meta description. Treat your meta description like you would a one-line, 150 character ad in a magazine or newspaper. Tell them what you do, promise that you’re the best (or make some other compelling offer) and tell them what to do to get what you offer (call or click).

Conclusion

If you take nothing else away from this lesson, remember this: crafting your meta description tags with care pays. Although it won’t appear on your actual webpage, a descriptive, useful description tag is smiled upon by search engines and resonates better with potential customers. Give each page’s meta description the attention to detail it deserves.

Check out the rest of our series on On-Site SEO:

• Part One: Titles
• Part Two: 5 Tips for Effective Meta Descriptions
• Part Three: Keyword Placement and Keyword Density
• Part Four: Domain Names – Rankability vs. Branding
• Part Five: Filenames and URL Structure

We’re beginning with an entire post devoted to titles. Why? Because titles are incredibly important both to search engines and customers. Your web page’s title is as crucial as a headline is to a newspaper article. It can make or break your entire campaign. It’s often the sole reason why readers read or do not read your page. So it has to be perfect.

Credit: simononly

Selling the Click

For SEO purposes, the title tag isn’t as important as it once was. Once upon a time, including keywords in the title tag was a surefire way to get a boosted search engine ranking, but now search engines are paying less attention to keywords in titles. This is mostly due to abuse and misuse (too many spammers trying to game the system) and it’s debasement in search algorithm weight is actually to our collective benefit as readers.

With that being said, including keywords in the title (especially as the first words in the title) is still good practice – as long as it occurs naturally. But the de-emphasis on keyworded title tags gives web marketers more incentive to optimize title tags for human readership, which, in reality, is the fun part.

Now, the primary goal of crafting a title for your page is grabbing reader attention. This is more important than ranking number one on the SERPs. That’s because most search users will skim through the top 5 or 10 search results and will likely base their decision on the content of the titles and not the rank. They all have the same visibility, so if the third ranking has a more compelling title than the first ranking, it gets the click.

Taglines in Titles

One way to add hookiness to a title is to include a brief selling point or tagline to the title. Unless you already have wide brand name recognition, going this route rather than including your company name in the title will get you more mileage and more click throughs. For example:

• Good: MyCompany Inc. – Local Internet Marketing
• Better: Local Internet Marketing – Driving Qualified Traffic to Your Website

View the words in the title as an opportunity, not just space to fill. Those 65 characters will reach more eyes than any of the other words on your page. Make ‘em count.

Elements of Title Style

Because you’re dealing with a very small space with the title, you want to lavish a great amount of detail when honing and tweaking your title. This includes fine tuning everything from your word choice to your capitalization and punctuation placement. Of course, the typical rules of grammar don’t apply. Rather, you want your title to embrace as many of these qualities:

Legitimacy

Don’t write your title like eBay feedback or a phonebook entry. Listings aren’t sorted in alphabetical order, so including stuff like “#1″ or “!!” doesn’t matter. Also, using symbols, lingo and acronyms such as “A++++” or “FTW” doesn’t appeal as readily to a wide audience. The same goes for blatant keyword stuffing. A title such as “A+++ #1 lexmark ink cartridge lexmark refill lexmark printer discounts DEALS” sounds spammy and inhumane. Stick to natural phrasing.

Brevity

Avoid having your title cut off by staying within the character limit. Google displays the shortest titles at 65 characters, so try to work in your complete message into the space provided. Otherwise you’re title will be cutoff by ellipses, which looks untidy and unattractive.

Uniqueness

Standing out is key. Think of an angle that will make your website stick out. If you Google something like “Shoes” and all of the listings say “Shoes for Sale” or “Shoe Store” or “Online Shoes,” then you can get an edge by having your listing break the mold and say something like “Designer Shoes: 70% Off Retail Prices.” Introducing a bit of humor or wit never hurts either – as long as it’s genuinely funny. Clever puns get clicks, but groaners and awkwordplay get passed up.

Readable Formatting

As we mentioned before, the typical rules of grammar don’t apply, but for readabilities sake, stick to logical conventions. Always avoid ALL CAPS (reads like you’re yelling) and excessive exclamation or question marks (“Looking for cheap trailers????? CALL US TODAY!!!!!!”). However, feel free to insert some conservative punctuation to break up ideas within a title: “Responsive IT Support. Affordable Flat-fee Pricing.” This uses less characters than inserting a conjunctive word and is cleaner and has higher impact than using a comma.

Conclusion

There are two takeaway lessons here:

• Keyword stuffing titles isn’t as important as it once was, but including keywords is good practice if you can pull it off naturally.
• Craft titles to garner clicks – not to rank high.

When it comes to creating titles for your webpages, it’s all about getting those clicks. To do this, you need to stand out with a unique hook and reach people on a human level. SEO is always important, but there are better places to optimize your website than the title – especially when so much is riding on those five or six words.

Check out the rest of our series on On-Site SEO:

• Part One: Titles
• Part Two: 5 Tips for Effective Meta Descriptions
• Part Three: Keyword Placement and Keyword Density
• Part Four: Domain Names – Rankability vs. Branding
• Part Five: Filenames and URL Structure

Building Relationships with Customers

Many local companies get a vast majority of their business from repeat customers and the Internet provides a powerful new set of tools that help facilitate meaningful, effective customer outreach. Opening the channels for two way communication between you and your customers allows you to provide better customer service, understand your customer’s needs and opinions better and most importantly, keep in touch so you can spread the word about upcoming promotions, sales and other exciting events.

Email marketing

Direct mail has been the lifeblood of many a sales-driven business and email marketing takes it to the digital level. Email marketing is not only extremely cost effective, it’s also highly actionable – all your readers have to do is open the email and then click on the links within. Delivery time is instant, meaning you can hype your upcoming web event or one day sale at a moment’s notice. Plus, there is valuable potential for analytics and performance tracking for your email marketing campaign which will help you tailor your efforts for the best return.

Newsletters

Newsletters are the primary medium through which most email marketing campaigns are delivered, but they can also be archived on your website to show non-subscribers what they’re missing. Newsletters are a great way to show customers what’s new with your business and what they can look forward to. Newsletters are also a great way for customers to get to know the people behind your business in a personal way.

Autoresponders

Doing business online adds opportunity to an act as simple as confirming a purchase or sending a copy of a receipt. An autoresponder gives you a chance to not only thank your customer, but also to invite them to explore other items they may be interested in, sign up for your newsletter or follow you on Twitter of Facebook. A well-crafted email autoresponder can instantly transform one-time customers into lifelong fans.

List building

There are numerous strategies and considerations surrounding list building for targeted email campaigns. On the one hand, you want to reach the widest audience possible – but you must also comply with spam standards and be respectful of your customer’s privacy. Walking the line between aggressive list building and best ethical practices takes a bit of finesse – stay tuned for list buildings tips in future posts.

Reaching Out to the Blogosphere

Customers aren’t the only ones who you should be building relationships with. Other website owners and bloggers are your virtual neighbors on the Web and by forging strong connections with them, you can stand to build a mutually beneficial relationship. Connecting with other businesses, bloggers and publishers is an excellent way to reach new audiences and increase your visibility. There are written and unwritten rules of engagement when it comes to approaching other bloggers or online businesses in your area and industry and following them is key to the success of your outreach.

Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is a must for building relationships with current customers as well as reaching out to new audiences. Social media marketing is a unique mix of both public and direct communication and can help introduce an approachable, responsive and human dimension to your company’s online presence.

Conclusion

We hope this overview of The Anatomy of an Internet Marketing Campaign has served to give you a quick snapshot of the breadth and nuance of the various strategies that go into promoting a local business online. As you can see, there are numerous bases to cover and an infinite depth in every topic – from crafting website copy to branding your Twitter page and beyond. We’ll be moving methodically through each of these integral parts of a local Internet marketing campaign – so make sure you check back often (or better yet, subscribe to our RSS feed) so you don’t miss a thing.