TOOLKIT

Online Marketing. Bottom-line Results.®

A step-by-step plan for leveraging Online Marketing to produce

Bottom-Line Results

2011 Edition

By Bob DeStefano

$249

B-to-B Online Marketing

LOOK INSIDE!

Sample a section from the full

Toolkit.

Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction................................................................................ 1 

Chapter 2: Create a Customer-focused Website..................................... 2 

What is a Customer-focused Website?...........................................................2 Qualities of a Customer-focused Website ................................................ 3 

Define Your Website Strategy ..........................................................................4 Identify Your Website’s Goals and Objectives.......................................... 4 

Identify Your Most Profitable Customers .......................................................6 Define Your Niche Audiences................................................................... 6 Understand Your Customers’ Needs and Motivations.............................. 9 

Analyze Your Competition.............................................................................. 12 Identify Your Top Competitors ................................................................ 12 Evaluate Your Competitors’ Websites .................................................... 13 Consider How You Can Beat Your Competitors..................................... 14 

Create Customer-focused Content & Features.......................................... 16 Identify Customer-focused Content ........................................................ 16 Use a Conversational Tone in Your Copy .............................................. 17 Make Strategic Use of Your Homepage ................................................. 18 Educate and Become a Trusted Resource............................................. 19 Offer Web 2.0 Content & Features ......................................................... 19 

Optimize Your Website for Lead Generation & Sales ................................ 21 Make a Call to Action.............................................................................. 21 Appeal to Prospects at Every Stage of the Buying Cycle....................... 21 Prominently Display Your Phone Number .............................................. 22 Design Your Forms for Leads & Sales ................................................... 22 Have a Process in Place to Ensure Immediate Follow-up ..................... 23 

Measure Your Website’s Success................................................................. 24 Google Analytics for Web Analytics........................................................ 24 Tracking Marketing Results with Google Analytics................................. 25 

BONUS: Lead Generation Checkup Checklist ........................................... 29 

Chapter 3: Search Engine Marketing......................................................32 

What is Search Engine Marketing?.............................................................. 32 Search Engine Optimization ................................................................... 33 

Pay-Per-Click Advertising ....................................................................... 33 Define Your Search Engine Marketing Strategy ........................................ 34 

What Goals Do You Want to Achieve?................................................... 34 Who Are You Trying to Attract? .............................................................. 35 Who Are Your Top Competitors?............................................................ 36 How Will You Measure Search Engine Marketing Success? ................. 39 

Choose the Best Keyword Phrases .............................................................. 40 Brainstorm about Your Customers ......................................................... 40 Ask Your Employees and Salespeople................................................... 41 Ask Your Suppliers and Partners............................................................ 42 Ask Your Best Customers....................................................................... 42 Review Your Competitors Websites ....................................................... 43 Compare Your List to Actual Search Volume ......................................... 44 Prioritize Your Keyword List.................................................................... 45 

Optimize Your Website’s Content ................................................................. 47 Create a Keyword Plan for Your Website............................................... 47 Write Great, Keyword-rich Copy............................................................. 47 Code Your Website for SEO Success .................................................... 48 

Attract Quality Links to Your Website .......................................................... 51 Assess and Improve Your Current Inbound Links .................................. 51 Create Link-worthy Content .................................................................... 51 Get Listed on Industry and Topical Directories....................................... 51 Submit Articles and Press Releases Online ........................................... 52 Review Your Competitors’ Links............................................................. 52 Avoid Link Building Mistakes .................................................................. 53 

Run a Results-focused Paid Search Campaign.......................................... 54 Determine Your Pay-per-click Opportunity ............................................. 55 Bid on Relevant Keyword Phrases ......................................................... 56 Tie Your Bidding Strategy to Results...................................................... 56 Write Relevant and Compelling Ad Copy ............................................... 56 Send People to a Relevant and Unique Landing Page .......................... 57 Test, Re-Test and Test Again................................................................. 57 

Measure Search Engine Marketing Success ............................................. 58 Measure Your Ranking in the Organic Search Results .......................... 58 Measure the ROI from Your Paid Search Campaign ............................. 58 Measure the Success of Your Website .................................................. 58 

BONUS: SEO Best Practices Checklist ....................................................... 60 

Chapter 4: Social Media Marketing.........................................................62 

What is Social Media Marketing? ................................................................ 62 Social Media Marketing is Peer-to-Peer Public Relations ...................... 63 You Need to Become a Content Marketer.............................................. 64 

Define Your Social Media Marketing Strategy........................................... 66 What Are the Goals for Your Social Media Marketing Program? ........... 66 Who Are You Trying to Reach With Social Media Marketing? ............... 66 How Do You Define the Community You Want to Participate In?.......... 68 How Committed Will You Be to Social Media Marketing?...................... 70 How Will You Measure Social Media Marketing Success? .................... 71 

How to Get Started with Social Media......................................................... 72 Social Networking Websites.......................................................................... 73 

LinkedIn .................................................................................................. 73 Twitter ..................................................................................................... 77 Facebook ................................................................................................ 80 MySpace ................................................................................................. 83 

Content Sharing Websites ............................................................................. 84 YouTube ................................................................................................. 84 SlideShare .............................................................................................. 85 Scribd...................................................................................................... 86 EzineArticles ........................................................................................... 87 

Measure Your Social Media Marketing Success....................................... 88 How to Measure Key Social Media Metrics ............................................ 88 

BONUS: Content Creation Questionnaire................................................... 90 

Chapter 5: Email Marketing......................................................................92 

What is Email Marketing?.............................................................................. 92 What Email Marketing Should Be – and Shouldn’t Be ........................... 93 Why You Must Produce an Email Newsletter......................................... 94 

Define Your Email Marketing Strategy ........................................................ 95 What Are the Goals for Your Email Marketing Program?....................... 95 Who Are You Trying to Reach with Email Marketing?............................ 96 How Are Your Competitors Using Email Marketing?.............................. 97 How Will You Measure Email Marketing Success?.............................. 101 

Build Your List and Gain Permission ..........................................................102 Build Your Email List Online ................................................................. 102 Build Your Email List Offline ................................................................. 103 Segment Your List to Tailor Content to Targeted Audience Groups .... 104 How to Effectively Use Rented Lists..................................................... 104 

Create Compelling E-Newsletter Content .................................................105 

Find an Expert and an Editor ................................................................ 105 Come Up with a Catchy Name for Your E-Newsletter.......................... 105 Write Relevant, Customer-Focused Articles......................................... 106 Focus on One Core Idea Per Issue ...................................................... 106 Have a Conversation with Your Readers ............................................. 106 Make a Call to Action............................................................................ 107 Keep Your Articles Short and Scannable ............................................. 108 Keep an Article Idea List....................................................................... 108 Establish an Editorial Calendar............................................................. 108 

Design & Deliver Your Email Newsletter ...................................................109 Design Your E-Newsletter for Success................................................. 109 Send Your E-Newsletter Monthly.......................................................... 110 Determine the Best Day to Send Your E-Newsletter............................ 110 Comply with the Anti-Spam Laws......................................................... 110 Use an Email Marketing Campaign Management System................... 111 

Measure Email Marketing Success ...........................................................112 Measure the Success of Each E-Newsletter Issue............................... 112 Ask for Reader Feedback ..................................................................... 113 Measure Emails Impact on the Success of Your Website.................... 113 

Chapter 6: Conclusion............................................................................. 114 

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Choose the Best Keyword Phrases The most critical step in search engine marketing is to strategically select the most important keyword phrases for your company. If you do not perform this step properly, your search engine marketing campaign is destined for failure. When choosing the best keywords, it is critical to choose phrases that are not only relevant to your business, but also ones that are searched most often by your target customers. The best keywords have the following qualities:

Strong relevance to your company and Website - terms for which you have content to support

Reasonably high search volume - terms people are actually looking for

Relatively low competition - terms with a relatively low number of search results

The following steps will help you identify the best keyword phrases for your business.

Brainstorm about Your Customers

Consider the needs and desires of your customers. Get inside their heads to uncover the phrases your customers use most often. What problems are your customers trying to solve?

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What terms or phrases do they use to describe their needs or problems?

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How would you describe your products to a beginner in your industry?

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What do your customers do with your products (e.g., applications, etc.)?

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What terms or phrases do industry magazines and industry analysts use to describe your products?

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Ask Your Employees and Salespeople

Involve every customer-facing employee in this process. Ask them the following questions to help you identify your most important keyword phrases. What ten (10) phrases do you associate most with our company?

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What ten (10) phrases do you associate most with our products and services?

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Ask Your Suppliers and Partners

Ask your suppliers and partners to help you identify your most important phrases. What ten (10) phrases do you associate most with our company?

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What ten (10) phrases do you associate most with our products and services?

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Ask Your Best Customers

Often your best customers can provide valuable insight regarding how to market your company. Ask your customers the following questions. What ten (10) phrases do you associate most with our company?

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Google Adwords Keyword Tool

What ten (10) phrases do you associate most with our products and services?

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Review Your Competitors Websites

What terms or phrases do your competitors use on their Website? Your competitors may have performed their own keyword research and you can benefit from their hard work. Use the free Google Adwords Keyword Tool to see what phrases your competitors are focusing on. Visit https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal and type your competitors Web address into the Website field. Click search and you will be presented with a list of phrases they are stressing on their Website.

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SpyFu

In addition, you can use other online services, such as SpyFu (http://spyfu.com) to peek in on your competitors’ pay-per-click advertising activities. Using SpyFu’s free search, you will be able to learn their approximate Adwords pay-per-click budget, their top 10 best paid keywords, top organic keywords and other useful information.

While these services are fee-based, they do allow you to perform a free search to gain access to preview the details.

Compare Your List to Actual Search Volume

After completing the exercises detailed above, you will have quite a seed list of keyword candidates. Now, let’s add some science to the art of brainstorming and determine how frequently people are searching on these terms. Keyword research tools are available that aggregate search volume to take the guesswork out of the research process. These tools will reveal the keyword

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Google Adwords Keyword Tool

phrases on your list that are frequently used by your customers, as well as the terms that are rarely used. These tools can also help you expand your list by showing variations, qualifiers and alternative spellings that are also searched in high volume. The following resources can be used for this process:

Wordtracker - http://www.wordtracker.com

Keyword Discovery - http://www.keyworddiscovery.com

Google Adwords - https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal Wordtracker and Keyword Discovery require a subscription fee, but they also offer a free 30-day trial. Google Adwords’ keyword research tool is free to access and will provide most of the information you will need about potential keywords and search volumes.

Prioritize Your Keyword List

At this stage you will know the most popular phrases by search volume. But remember, you should not be focusing on popularity alone. You must also focus your search engine marketing efforts on popular phrases that are most relevant for your Website’s content and product offering. Review your keyword list and assign a priority for each keyword phrase. Use the following grading scale to prioritize your keyword list:

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Grade A - Top Priority: This group of keyword phrases is very relevant to

your Website’s content and has a high search volume.

Grade B – Medium Priority: This group of keyword phrases is very relevant to your Website’s content and has a moderate search volume.

Grade C – Low Priority: This group of keyword phrases is very relevant to

your Website’s content and has a moderate search volume, but it is not a desirable term to use on your Website.

Grade A and Grade B keyword phrases are good candidates for your organic search engine optimization and pay-per-click advertising efforts. Your Grade C terms are not good candidates for organic search engine optimization, but can work well for pay-per-click advertising. When optimizing your Website for organic search traffic, begin with your most popular Grade A terms and work down the list. For organic search engine optimization, focus on 30 Grade A and B phrases at a time. I recommend limiting yourself to 30 phrases because there are so many things you need to do to optimize your Website. I don’t want you to spread your efforts too thin. Achieve a top ranking for your top 30 phrases, then move on to the next set of phrases. For pay-per-click advertising, you can focus on an unlimited number of phrases relatively easily.

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Optimize Your Website’s Content Now that you know your most important keywords, it’s time to put them to work. You need to make sure your Website content is optimized to take advantage of these important phrases. Begin with your Website copy -- the information people can read on your Website. Make sure you skillfully write your Website copy to effectively market your company, while using your important keyword phrases in a relevant fashion. Then, focus on your Website structure – the code under the hood of your Website that search engines see when they visit your site. The following steps will break down the process for you.

Create a Keyword Plan for Your Website

Begin by creating a keyword plan for your search engine optimization campaign. Your keyword plan will map each of your keyword phrases to the most appropriate pages on your Website.

Assign keywords to the most appropriate pages of your Website. Review all of the pages on your Website and determine the best page for each of your keyword phrases. If an ideal page does not exist, it needs to be created. Be sure to begin this process with your Grade A phrases then move down the list.

Focus on no more than 2 to 3 keyword phrases per Web page. There

are only so many phrases you can work into one Web page. It is recommended you focus on no more than 2 to 3 phrases per page. Ideally, you should focus on 1 phrase per page with each phrase assigned to a unique page on your Website.

Write Great, Keyword-rich Copy

Copy is critical to search engine optimization success. Unfortunately, a lot of Web copy is poorly written because the people placed in charge of Web copywriting do not understand how to write for search engine success. Follow these tips to make sure you create winning, search engine friendly copy for your Website.

Use keyword phrases throughout the entire page. Your keyword phrases need to be used throughout the entire page. Preferably, every page should have about 250 to 300 words of copy and your keyword phrase should be used approximately 5% of the time – or 5 times for every 100 words of copy.

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Write for people, not machines. Don’t write for Google at the expense of your prospects and customers. Create customer-focused copy that address the needs of your customers, provides a solution to their problems and is easy to read and understand.

Be descriptive. Since you need to use your keyword phrases often, be

as descriptive as possible when crafting your Website copy. Avoid using generic words that do not tell your customers and prospects anything. Rather, replace these generic terms with keyword-rich descriptive terms. For example, if you are optimizing for the phrase “bandsaw accessories,” don’t say “our products” when you can say “our bandsaw accessories.”

Avoid excessive repetition of keyword phrases. Be careful of using any

one phrase too many times on a Web page. Not only is this a red flag for Google, it will not read well to your target audience.

Leverage different forms of your important keywords. Search engines

treat different forms of words differently. So, remember to use plurals, past tense endings (e.g., -ed) and action endings (e.g., -ing) where it makes sense.

Use bold, italics and underlines. When you emphasize a word with

italics, underlining or bolding, search engines assume that it is a keyword. Use this to your advantage to tell Google what your keywords are. However, make sure that you only use these formatting tags on keywords or you will confuse the search engines and weaken the effect.

Link between pages. Whenever possible and practical, link to other

pages from within your content and use keyword phrases for the target page when possible. Avoid using generic “click here” links.

Code Your Website for SEO Success

In addition to copy people can read, your Website must be optimized ‘under the hood.’ Your Website must adhere to current SEO coding best practices. There is an art and science to this process and the science side can fill a book. The following tips will explain how it is done.

Make sure your Website is ‘crawlable’ to ensure all content gets indexed. To be found online, you must make certain that all pages on your Website are fully indexed by the top search engines: Google, Yahoo and Bing. Search engines send out programs called ‘spiders’ to visit your Website to record and categorize its content. You must make sure your Website is crawlable or you have no chance of being in

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the organic results. Use clean HTML that complies with W3C guidelines and avoid a Flash-only design or using frames. Offer accessible navigation that works for both humans and machines. Finally, include a sitemap to provide search engines with a roadmap through your Website.

Include relevant keywords in your page <title> tags. The title tag is one

of the most important components of an optimized Web page. Search engines consider page titles very important when evaluating page content. In addition, the page title is used for the blue clickable link people will see in the search results on search engines. Title tags must be written to include the most important phrases for the page, while appearing compelling to the searcher so they will want to click them. Also, make sure to keep them below 60 characters, including spaces. Each page of your Website should have a unique title tag.

Use relevant keywords in <alt> tags for images. Search engines cannot

read text included in images. However, every image can have an <alt> tag that includes a brief description that can be read and indexed by search engines. Only include relevant keywords that are important for the page and relevant for the image. Resist the urge to stuff your <alt> tags with too many keywords.

Leverage heading tags in your pages. Search engines consider heading

tags, <h1>, more important than normal text. You should make use of heading tags on every page to highlight the most important keywords and the heading for the page.

Create descriptive <meta> description tags. The ‘meta description’ tag

is very important, since Google uses this information below the clickable link in the search results. Craft your ‘meta’ descriptions for each page like a compelling call to action, include your most important keywords for the page, and keep them below 150 characters, including spaces. Each page of your Website should have a unique meta description tag.

Create useful <meta> keywords tags. The ‘keywords’ meta tag has

been exploited over the years, so it is largely ignored by Google and other search engines. Still, it may have some impact, so use it to list your most important keywords for each page.

Use targeted keywords in directory and file names. Search engines will

also look at directory names and file names when reviewing the content of a Web page. Where it makes sense, try to use your most important keyword phrases in these names.

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Create a Robots.txt file. A robots.txt file tells search engines what you

allow or disallow them to add to their index. You can find out how to create this file at http://www.robotstxt.org/orig.html. Add your sitemap location to the robots.txt to assist with the indexing of your Website. Upload your sitemap to the root directory of your server.

Create an XML Sitemap. To search engines, an XML sitemap is like a

roadmap for your entire Website. You can build a quick sitemap for your Website using products like XML Sitemaps Generator (http://www.xml-sitemaps.com). Upload your sitemap to the root directory of your server and then just tell Google, Yahoo, and Bing where it is located (e.g., http://example.com/sitemap.xml). A quick way to do this is with a robots.txt file. Also, make sure you update your ‘sitemap.xml’ file each time you add pages to your Website.

Setup a Google Webmaster Tools account. Google allows you to

setup a Webmaster Tools account which provides you with detailed reports about your Website’s visibility on its search engines. You will be able to see how Google crawls and indexes your site and learn about specific problems it may be having accessing it. In addition, you will be able to share your Sitemap.XML file, as well as tell Google how you would like the URLs it indexes to appear.

Avoid ‘black hat’ techniques. Black hat techniques are any scheme

designed to fool Google to get higher search rankings. Google and the other search engines know all of these tricks and if you’re caught you can kiss your ranking goodbye.

About the Author Bob DeStefano is an online marketing strategist and professional speaker with over 15 years experience helping companies leverage online marketing to produce bottom-line results.

Through his speaking, writing and consulting, Bob’s goal is to make online marketing understandable and empower business leaders with actionable tips and strategies they can put to work to generate leads and sales, strengthen relationships with customers and measure the return on their marketing investments.

Since the birth of the commercial Web in the early 1990’s, Bob has been helping business leaders create successful online marketing strategies. Bob’s online marketing career began as a strategic planner for Dean Witter, Discover & Co. specializing in Internet and online marketing strategies. At Dean Witter, Bob spearheaded the creation of the company’s first Website.

As president of SVM E-Business Solutions, a leading B-to-B online marketing agency, Bob has worked with a wide variety of companies, from Fortune 500 companies to small family-owned businesses and non-profit organizations, to help them leverage online marketing to achieve bottom-line results.

Connect with Bob: Email: bdestefano@svmsolutions.com Phone: 1-877-786-3249 x3 Website: svmsolutions.com Blog: bobdestefano.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/bobdestefano Twitter: twitter.com/bobdestefano Facebook: facebook.com/bobdestefano

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