Success Guide to Online Marketing for Small Businesses

[Quick note: This was originally written for SuccessMagazine.com, before the magazine's ownership changed. While this should be an accurate overview, it is not legal or professional advice and should not be taken as such. Additionally, the associated images have, unfortunately, been lost.]

The days of small business owners thinking they don’t need a Web presence are long over. No matter how big or small your business is, this guide will help you make money with your website now.

Introduction

The days of small business owners thinking they don’t need a Web presence are long over.

In fact, because a great site can make even a micro-business look big, establishing your business online is probably one of the best moves you can make. Properly used, online marketing techniques can slash the cost of acquiring and servicing customers and ‘spreading your message.’ The catch? The Internet is a vast space, and it can be hard to help potential buyers or readers find you — and even harder to get them to come back when they have so many other sites to choose from. Here are the top ways to get your site in front of the masses and keep them coming back for more.

The following people contributed their expertise to this Guide:

Let’s Get Started

The three strategies in this section are the basics of online marketing, and every site, whether large or small, whether an e-commerce hub or a social community, should use them in one form or another.

Natural Search Optimization

Also known as Search Engine Optimization (SEO), NSO includes all the techniques used to get your site noticed by search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN. Optimizing your site for search so you can achieve a top organic search ranking is arguably the best way to bring visitors to you, because organic search drives traffic to your site 24/7/365.

How to get started: First, make sure your site has lots of relevant content, and add fresh content on a regular basis. Next, avoid using Flash for navigation elements, and skip the Flash “intro” page; search engines can’t “see” the text or links within Flash so it creates a barrier to getting the rest of your site noticed. For those who know some HTML, review your code to be sure that the title tags (invisible pieces of code that help search engines categorize your content) of every page are unique and accurately reflect its main theme. Check to see that the most important headline on your page (which should be enclosed within what coders call h1 tags) and the page content contain the keywords you believe users will be searching for. Finally, if your site doesn’t have a site map, now’s the time to add one, and if you do have a site map, consider optimizing it for Google. ( See http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/ for more.)

Don’t try “tricks” such as keyword stuffing (filling your page full of keywords, to the point that the text no longer makes sense), using hidden content, multiple h1 tags, or link farms (pages that are merely long lists of links to other sites). Any of these can get your site sandboxed (excluded from search results altogether), leading to a costly loss of traffic. And don’t risk a temporary drop in rankings by doing a major redesign that changes the site structure, page names, and content of your whole site at once. Instead, change your site gradually over the course of several months, and inform important sites linking to you if any of the links they’re using have changed.

Because of the way search engines work (using programs called spiders to keep track of what content is where), it can take time to show up on Google and other search indexes. Don’t expect to see significant results from your NSO efforts for anywhere from three to six months. It isn’t unusual for companies to contract for one-year NSO engagements — avoid any companies that claim they can get you results immediately.

Your Investment: If you have an intermediate knowledge of HTML, you can probably do some of the most basic NSO work on a small site yourself, but larger sites or sites in a highly competitive category will need the help of an expert to win. Depending on the size of your site and your industry, costs can vary from $500 to $15,000 a month during the terms of your engagement. NSO isn’t a one-shot deal, either; plan on re-evaluating your position and strategy once a quarter after that if you want to stay ahead of the pack. And if you’re doing it right, NSO also makes your site as friendly to human visitors as it is to search engines.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC)

PPC ads (or ‘paid placements’) are displayed alongside organic search results. Your ad will only display with search results for the terms you bid, and no matter how many times they are displayed, you only pay when your ads are clicked. Unlike NSO, with PPC you control (through the amount you bid) where your ads appear, how much each click costs, and when your listings will be shown. If you want to get your site or brand noticed immediately, or you have a time-sensitive campaign to run for a sale or special event, PPC (or its new cousin PPA — pay-per-action) is the way to go.

How to get started: Google, Yahoo, and MSN all have do-it-yourself PPC programs, but even though it seems easy, don’t make the mistake of rushing into PPC. Each of the engines provides a keyword tool that will give you a sense of the relative popularity on their site of different terms, and you should spend some time using them to estimate the number of clicks per day at various bids and with different keywords before you jump into the PPC waters. Then make sure you can regularly devote the time to tracking which keywords convert into customers and how much that’s costing you.

For the best ROI, write your ads so that the main title contains the keywords you’re targeting; this greatly increases the ad’s click-through-rate (CTR).

Finally, don’t make the mistake many beginners do of getting caught up in the eBay-like excitement of bidding for a top spot: although it’s natural to want to be number one, it’s often not the best investment. For instance, if the top bid for a term is $1.25 per click and the second spot is bidding at $.75, it makes a lot more sense to bid $.80 than it does to spend another $.46 a click just to be the “top dog.”

Your investment: Depending on the keywords you bid, prices can range from pennies up to $40 per click. The good news is the total investment each month is completely up to you. It all depends on how much traffic you want to drive and what you are willing to spend to get it. If you can’t commit to managing your bids on a daily basis, you should consider hiring a paid media consultant. They’ll usually charge a percentage of the total spend per month (anywhere from 10% to 25%).

E-Mail Marketing

This form of marketing involves the use of e-mail to build your brand, keep visitors coming back to your site, and promote your products or services. There’s no more ubiquitous — or personal — way to reach an audience. Compared to “snail mail,” it’s more inexpensive, immediate, targeted, and easily measured.

How to get started: First, build up a database of subscribers by offering users the chance to “opt-in” to one or more newsletters or special offer categories on your site. Then send them frequent e-mails targeted to the interests they expressed when they signed on.

Consider using a “double opt-in” method, in which subscribers have to respond to an e-mail to confirm their interest after the initial “opt-in.” While this two-step process will definitely reduce the number of sign-ups, it also helps prove you are not a spammer, and can keep you off the “blacklists” (blocked senders list) of major Internet service providers.

You should never try to manage a large e-mail list yourself unless you have special expertise and the time to work with the various ISPs, should you find yourself blacklisted in error. Instead, outsource e-mail list management to companies such as Constant Contact or Cooler Email. Using their Web-based interfaces, you’ll be able to deal with all the non-technical aspects of sending e-mails yourself, while they juggle the details of bounces, removing users who unsubscribe, adding new users who sign up, and offering proof that you are using industry best practices, should any spam complaints arise.

Your investment: You can get started for as little as $15 a month, and send out thousands of e-mails for less than $100 dollars. One good investment you may want to make early on is purchasing leads from a reputable partner through a double opt-in, co-registration process. (This means that while users register for something on another site, they are also given the opportunity to expressly opt-in to your e-mail list.) You could pay up to $.50 per name for such an arrangement, but it will give you the chance to grow your list faster than you could on your own, especially if your site is new.

Don’t just track ROI from each e-mail sent — track it by customer over time; you want to know not only if your efforts are increasing sales, but if they are increasing sales per customer.

User Generated Content (USG)

USG refers to any kind of content which visitors can create and share with one another using your Web site as the platform. Allowing users to create content is great because it takes some of the burden off your editorial staff, but the biggest plus is the “viral” aspect of USG; since it is created by your users, it uniquely reflects their interests and they will often want to share it with others — leading to more traffic for you! Here are some of the most popular forms of USG:

Wikis

A wiki is an informational Web site, which allows any user to add or edit content. Wikis work as resources, letting community members share skills and knowledge in order to teach one another. For example, http://www.ebaywiki.com/ is the eBay wiki, where eBay users can use their experience to write articles useful for other eBay members. Any topic that you think your readers have a high interest in that lends itself to knowledge sharing is a good fit for a wiki.

Creating a wiki involves downloading the software (http://www.projectforum.com/index.html, http://www.socialtext.com/, among others), uploading it to your Web site, and following directions to set up. You will have to search to find a wiki that meets your professional needs — many variations are available for free, but free software rarely includes a guarantee or support, so you shouldn’t embark on the project without either a reliable source of help or an understanding of the technology involved.

Forums

Also called bulletin boards, forums are dynamic Web sites that allow users to register to start discussion topics or post comments on other discussions. Like wikis, some forum software can be downloaded for free, or you can purchase packages that include support. You can try http://www.fusetalk.com/products/, http://www.phpbb.com/, http://www.vbulletin.com/, or http://invisionpower.com, for information and pricing.

Your Investment: For all USG, your chief investment will be the time it takes both to set up the Web site initially, and to continuously monitor it to make sure that it is not being spammed or abused. Software costs for wikis or forums can be anywhere from free to $200-$500 dollars. They can also be purchased using an ASP model, where the software is hosted and maintained by a third party, and you are responsible for customizing it and doing the ongoing moderation.

Content Syndication and News Feeds

The method of Web content syndication used most often is called “Really Simple Syndication” or RSS for short. RSS automatically ‘feeds’ your content to individuals who have specifically asked for it (by setting up an RSS feed reader to let them know when there is new content on your site), and to sites like Google or Yahoo! news, where your headlines can get mass exposure and hopefully bring large numbers of new visitors. And having your content syndicated has another benefit: Each time a site lists your RSS headlines, you will have a new link back to your site. Because Google rankings are based in part on the number of inbound links, RSS feeds increase your chances of making it to the first page of Google for your relevant keywords.

How to get started: Most Web sites (particularly blogs) generate RSS feeds automatically, so users who understand RSS feeds can subscribe easily. But to optimize your RSS capabilities, set up an account at FeedBurner.com, the leading RSS feed provider, which can get your feed published in e-mail advertisements and on popular websites.

Your investment: Most FeedBurner services are free, though several advanced services may cost up to $16/month. FeedBurner also offers an “enterprise-level” service called FeedFoundry, which manages and tracks circulation and performance for large numbers of feeds, even across diverse properties.

You can also use a site such as Press-feeds.com, which collects your feeds and enters them on large news readers such as Google or Yahoo! news. The investment for this service is under $100 a month.

Experts estimate that when your feed hits the first page of results in Google news, you could see your traffic numbers double.

Another Technique: Another way to make use of feeds to build your Internet presence is through optimizing press releases, in a manner similar to the way a Web site can be optimized for search engines. Doug Hay, CEO of Expansion Plus and Press-Feeds.com, recommends optimizing press releases over the course of several months as a way to get feeds placed higher on sites such as Google News. The investment per release is $700-$900.

Multimedia and Interactivity

Using podcasts and videos is another move that content publishers should consider. Multimedia files can allow you to entertain while informing, providing opportunities to use creativity to engage your audience and keep them coming back. You can also allow users to upload their own multimedia files and share them, a strategy that certainly paid off for new-media giant YouTube.com.

Podcasts

A podcast is an audio program, usually in .mp3 format, which you record and distribute through an RSS feed at your Web site. To create your podcast, you will need a microphone and headphones, along with an audio editing program (such as Audacity, available free at http://audacity.sourceforge.net/). After you have finished your recording, save it in .mp3 format and upload it to your Web site. You then create a feed to distribute it for free at sites such as http://www.podcastblaster.com/podcast-feed/, http://www.feedforall.com/, or http://www.easypodcast.com/.

Videos

Creating a video for the Web requires, at a minimum, a camera that can record video to your computer and movie editing software, but unless you want your video to look “home-grown” (and that is not necessarily a bad thing), you may need to invest in more equipment or pay a professional to shoot and edit it. After your video is completed, follow steps similar to those of creating a podcast, by uploading it to your Web site and creating an RSS feed. There is a complete tutorial on video creation and sharing at http://www.freevlog.org/index.php/category/tutorial/.

If you have the staff available to monitor your site on a daily basis — including weekends — you may decide to set up your Web site to allow users to upload and share their own multimedia files, or make your own programming available on large, well known websites. For example, the creative team at Gmail (Google’s e-mail service) put together a video that demonstrates their service’s advantages over other e-mail providers — using puppets. The video, available on YouTube, is on the favorites list of over 900 members, and has been viewed nearly 1,000,000 times. People enjoy the entertainment, while Gmail reaps the benefits.

Retail Tricks

The Internet is becoming increasingly vital to smaller retailers. It allows them to open their doors to the world 365 days a year, twenty-four hours a day, building brand awareness and and attracting attention in ways that would be beyond their means in the brick-and-mortar world. Even thought takes less money to build and maintain a world-class e-commerce site than it does to purchase, maintain, insure and staff a huge retail store, online retailers still have to find ways to build traffic and convert visitors into customers. Here are two of the top e-commerce strategies used by e-retailers to make their Web sites pay off.

Shopping Feeds

Shopping feeds, also called product data feeds, get products listed on shopping search engines such as Shopzilla.com, Shopping.com, Froogle, and Yahoo! Shopping. The feeds themselves are similar to spreadsheets, with every row representing an individual product and its information. When consumers are searching for a product, shopping comparison engines are likely to come up much higher than the sites of individual retailers, so getting your products listed by these sites is the key to being found.

How to Get Started: Most large shopping comparison sites have simple sign-up forms that can be completed in a matter of minutes. The real work for you is gathering the data requested by each site and putting it in the site’s preferred format. Though both the required product data and the format will be different from site to site, standard components of the feeds include the product’s title, description, a link back to the product page on your Web site, and meta information (such as a UPC code or ISBN). How well your product does on shopping sites depends largely on the quality of information you provide. You should consider using a feed management provider such as singlefeed.com, which can manage both your data and the formatting needed by various market sites, and can even track your keywords — as important to shopping engines as they are to general search engines. Once you’ve opened your account and put in keyword bids at a site such as Shopzilla, your product should appear in their listings in 24-48 hours.

Your investment: Aside from time — which includes the time to manage your keywords — your investment is largely up to you. Shopzilla and other shopping search engines function similarly to pay per click ads; you pay for (or bid on) keywords relevant to your product. But rather than paying after the fact, you put down money upfront (a minimum of $50 at Shopzilla) and after your money has run out, your products stop appearing in search results. Some sites have plans where you can opt to be charged whenever your account empties, to ensure continuous exposure.

Affiliate Programs

Affiliate programs are relationships between merchant Web sites and individuals who operate independent sites, where the individual agrees to direct traffic to the merchant in return for a percentage on any sales that occur from that traffic. Affiliate programs are a highly cost effective way to acquire new customers, and has the additional advantage of getting your brand great exposure on the sites where visitors are most likely to have an interest in it.

How to Get Started: Many large e-commerce sites begin by finding a consultant to get their affiliate program off the ground, but with or without a consultant, the first step is to optimize your site for affiliates — avoid distracting layouts, make sure your images are high-quality, and build up a reputation as a reliable partner. You also will have to seek out and nurture relationships with key affiliate partners. Consultants can help you with these steps, and provide you with information about competitors in your industry and what the going percentage for affiliate deals is.

For a full consultancy, including optimizing your Web site for affiliate partners, you can expect to spend around $5,000 per month during the terms of the engagement. The percent pay-out to your affiliate partners depends on your industry and how much of the revenue per sale you can afford to pay out while still remaining profitable.

If you decide to use one of the big affiliate program management sites such as Commission Junction or LinkShare, expect to pay several thousand dollars to set up your program, and ongoing fees for the work they do to manage you program which will include reporting, payment to affiliates, ad serving and tracking, and training for your affiliate partners. Even with a management company, you’ll want to have someone on staff who is keeping tabs on the program and even contacting affiliates directly at various points.

Blogs

A blog (short for Web log) is a dynamic Web site updated frequently with diary-style “entries.” Many are personal journals or interesting link lists, but since 2001, blogs have also served smart businesses as ways to build up an online following and increase page rankings on search engines.

Blogs 101

There are several reasons to maintain a blog. First, blogs allow you to easily create new Web content, which will draw readers back to your site and increase your rank in Google and other search engines. Furthermore, blogs give your brand a voice, let readers get a feel for your company, and give your audience a way to engage you in conversation. The goal of this interactivity is to turn readers into brand evangelists, who will often link to your posts, recommend your products, and create a “buzz” effect that you alone cannot achieve.

How to Get Started: Before you start blogging, you should seek out blogs similar to the one you intend to create and figure out what you do and don’t enjoy about them, to help you decide what content you will provide on your blog, as well as what tone works. It’s also worthwhile to Google your company and find out what people are already saying about you and to make sure the keywords you use in your blog posts are the ones people are already using to find you.

Above all, be clear about your motivation for starting a blog. Corproate blogging generally fails miserably when it is used soley to push a marketing message out to your visitors, rather than as a way for you to honestly communicate with them. And blogging has to be done regularly for it to be really effective.

When you’re ready to jump into the world of blogging, you’ll need to choose an application, but you don’t need to make a big investment to get going; there are a number of free services that are easy to use. The most common is Google-owned Blogger.com, which advertises that it can help you create a blog in three easy steps. Other popular services include Typepad.com and WordPress.org, all of which will assist you in setting up your blog.

As with any web-based application, there is a learning curve when you start using blogging software, but most people seem to pick it up easily. Regardless of which system you choose for your service, you will log on to a Web site where you can enter content, including the title and text for your blog post. The application will allow you to preview, and then publish your new entry, and as soon as you click “publish” it will appear on your blog site.

A basic blog set up by a free service will not be very fancy: its layout will be one of several standard designs you can choose from, it will not have extra features, and it will be hosted somewhere like Blogspot.com or WordPress.com. After you have tried blogging and determined that it is a strategy that works for you — that you’re able to update it regularly with fresh content — you may want to move your blog to your own Web server and redesign it to match your main Web site’s layout. Moving the blog is easy; most blogging software contains the necessary tools to do so, and if you have questions, there is a wealth of information available on the Internet.

Your investment: Setting up a simple blog is free initially, requiring only the time it takes to create — and the time it takes to update. The more frequent the updates, the better your blog will do in search engines (and the more readers will come back to it). Keep this in mind when you decide to get started. (It’s also possible to have a ‘team’ of bloggers, so if, for example, everyone updates once a week, you will still be able to have new content nearly every day.)

The cost of hosting the blog on your own Web site (rather than a free site) should be included with the cost of hosting your current corporate Web site, as the blog will be a part of it. The more expensive side of your investment is likely to be the cost of redesigning your blog — if you don’t have the technical know-how to do it yourself, there are many companies that specialize in design, though it’s likely to cost between $800 and $2,800, depending on how complex your needs are.

As your blog becomes more widely read, you will find yourself listed as an expert on your subject. Search engines should begin to list your blog quickly, and it may climb the page rank system in as little as three months if you update regularly. You will also build up loyalty among your readers which in turn creates buzz, with people discussing your products and referring others to your Web site.

Blogging 201 — RSS Feeds

In module two, we discussed how syndication can help you build up your page rank in Google and other engines. This is also worth keeping in mind with your blog. Though every kind of blogging software comes with built-in RSS, it is worth the time it takes to set up an account at FeedBurner.com, which will not only provide only RSS feeds, but also will add your feed to e-mail and other forms of advertising. It also makes your feed “readable” so that someone who clicks on the RSS link will see the text, rather than the feed’s confusing-looking code.

Social Bookmarking

Social bookmark sites allow users to collect their favorite sites in a list, like you would normally do on Internet Explorer and other browsers, but because the list is saved online, it is available from any computer. It will also allow other users to browse any bookmark lists you deem public. These social bookmarking sites (such as del.icio.us and digg) also let users create keywords, called tags, and mark sites of interest with these tags. Other people can then browse through tags to find relevant material.

Though there is nothing you must do to make your site available to social bookmarkers, it is generally helpful to add clickable buttons to each blog entry, making it easy to bookmark or tag each individual entry. This can be done for free in a matter of minutes, by signing up at any social bookmarking site.

Resources

The Next Level

Unfortunately, not every online marketing tool is DIY. These strategies are more advanced and you’ll need outside help to use them, but they can be extremely effective as you grow. When you’re ready to “go to the next level” with your online marketing plan, you should probably consider them.

Micro-sites

Micro-sites are small, highly targeted Web sites designed around specific products or advertising campaigns. Companies with complex sites or sites featuring thousands of products will often create micro-sites to avoid “message mismatch.” This happens when Web surfers can’t find exactly what they’re looking for when they visit your site or click through your online ads. If your conversion rate from online advertising is lower than your industry averages, you should consider using micro-sites. By sending surfers to a smaller, more focused destination, you may be able to double or even triple your conversion rates.

How to Get Started: For optimal results, you should hire an outside firm that specializes in micro-sites and online marketing. Together, you will clearly define the goals for the project, decide what specific audiences you should target, and determine which keywords you want your site to rank for in order to reach those goals. Determining ahead of time the specific actions you want your visitors to take when they reach your new site is the way to make the money you spend on micro-sites pay off.

Your investment: The cost to set up a well-designed and well-thought-out micro-site can run anywhere from $10,000 to $20,000 or more. Often, the research that goes into the planning stage makes up as large a portion of the cost as the design and development of the site itself, but with micro-sites, micro-targeting is the key, and the rewards will be worth the investment.

Banner and Text Link Buys

Another effective advanced strategy is buying placement for a link to your site (as either a text link or a graphic element) on another Web site. Banner and text links can both work well, but text links serve an additional purpose: they don’t just bring in traffic — they also help with NSO, because inbound links (especially with anchor text that incorporates your keywords) give your site more credibility with Google and other search engines.

How to Get Started: Whether you decide to seek out sites to place links on yourself or hire an agency to do it for you is mainly a matter of money. If your online marketing budget is upwards of $5,000/month, it’s worthwhile to hire an agency to handle the details for you. If you’re handling this yourself, you should insist that your links are placed in prominent positions on the linking site’s home page. For text links, you should also specify what the text of the link should read, so that it can include your keywords — but be careful to diversify the linking text among different sites, so Google will not notice it’s always the same and penalize you. You should also have other sites link not only to your homepage, but also to several pages within your site to further increase your ranking. Experts recommend that about two-thirds of these links point to your homepage and one-third to other pages of your site.

Your investment: An interactive marketing firm or agency will charge 15-20% of your total marketing budget to manage your buys. If you’re handing the details yourself, you’ll have to negotiate with each site individually; it’s not unusual to pay between $10 and $25 CPM (cost per thousand impressions). Expect to pay the most to get your ads on sites that have detailed demographic information about their visitors and can show that their audience is a very good match for your product or service.

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