Wasted SEO effort and niche traffic

When talking to clients, it always surprises me how much SEO effort in generating niche traffic is wasted.  We use every opportunity to drive targeted niche traffic to our sites but many only seem to see the short term gain.

Much of our business is both on and off page SEO and one particular conversation prompted me to write a series of posts of which this is the first.

The conversation was around mailing lists and their long term value as opposed to other methods of communication.

How we communication

If our blog or website holds the internet users interest, they may come back again, bookmark us for future reference or subscribe to an RSS feed.

Generally RSS feeds are fine for telling subscribers that there is something new or changed but they are not personal.

You can’t rely on regular repeat traffic from bookmarks or that someone may by chance visit the site again.

We have to accept that people interested in a niche market probably follow several similar sites and change their allegiance for whatever reason except for hardcore followers who tend to be the exception rather than the rule.

Having initially driven the targeted niche traffic to the site we should capitalize on it to build a mailing list we can use on a repeatable basis. A list we can market to when we want and as often as we want to.

Mailing lists and repeat quality niche traffic

Practitioners of Internet Marketing have always said that ‘The money is in the list’. It’s a well worn saying but there is significant truth in it and considerable financial reward.

So what does a list offer over and above the other methods?

Email and hence a mailing list, offers an opportunity to establish a rapport with your readers in a manner that none of the other methods offer. You can address individuals personally and create a relationship over a series of mails.

Our ultimate marketing objective has to be a sale and although people make buying decisions based on the products benefits, they fundamentally buy from people.

If they like you and more to the point trust you, they will buy on the basis of a personal recommendation.

A mailing list also allows you to introduce site based articles, posts, affiliate product introductions, JVs, courses and the list goes on.

Most of these can be home site based with the result that every time you mail your list, you generate a stream of qualified targeted niche traffic who are interested in what you have got to sell or say. And it doesn’t cost you anything other than a mailing and some bandwidth.

From an Internet Marketing perspective, as long as your list is active and niche focused, its size is relatively unimportant because of higher conversion ratios.  The larger the list is, the more revenue you will make and the bigger your business will become. 

It is important to capture as many names and email addresses as you can to grow your list. It is fundamental to Internet Marketing businesses and it’s not as difficult as you might think if you already have targeted niche traffic.

As I said earlier, this is the first in a series of posts that will look at the following:

• The business model and where mailing lists fit in.
• Convincing people to give you their names and email addresses,
• The mailing list process, tracking and management.
• Linking your list to sales.
• Relationship building using email.

Hope you find this and others in the series will be useful!

Regards Chris

Prime web site real estate.

The term ‘Above the fold’ originally comes from the newspaper industry and is used to describe the visible content when the newspaper is folded. Typically this means the top half of the front page.

In the Web Design world, the term is used in the same way but describes the visible space and content when a web page is first loaded and prior to any downward scrolling.

This represents prime content space in both cases.

Capitalizing on this space is a key aspect of visually designing blog and web sites because it’s at the point when the page is first loaded that the internet user’s initial impression is formulated.

If they don’t like what they see, they will head for the back button. You have lost a potential sale, and wasted SEO and Internet Marketing effort in driving niche traffic to your site!

The internet user’s first impression must be that they are comfortable and have come to the right place for the information, products and services they are looking for.

To ensure the back button is not used, we must create a page environment that is sticky and in tune with the niche market being addressed.

Using the space above the fold to your advantage

Although the web design aspects cover all of a web page’s presentational aspects, here are a few questions and thoughts when considering the ‘Above the fold’ portion of the page and creating the right first impression.

Some are obvious, please don’t take offence; others are more obscure but nonetheless important.

• When the page first opens does it look balanced left to right? This is an important part of putting the reader at ease subconsciously. For instance, a fence post that’s not quite upright is irritating. It doesn’t look or feel quite right!




• Is there a flow in the elements of the page?
  • Its good practice to arrange the header of a page so there is a natural flow from left to right. It minimises eye movement and is less strenuous to read.




• Is it cluttered or too busy? Too many separate graphics and widgets can be confusing and draw the reader away from the page’s purpose or headline message.
  • Only use what you need and is necessary to convey the page’s message and enable site functionality.




• Is there sufficient space between the page header’s elements? Space separates and can be used to create order.




• Are the graphics other than the logo needed or relevant to the niche market that’s being addressed? If not, do you really need them? Even optimized graphics add to the load time of a page which is another factor in creating a good user experience.
  • How many times have you navigated away from a site because it took too long to load?




• Consider using divisions to create separate spaces on the page and loading images in background.




• Is the navigation system clear and concise?
  • Do the menu options flow logically?
  • Is it keyword or phrase optimized?
  • The items on a menu give the reader a good guide to what the site is about and sets their expectations.




• Are the colors suitable for the niche? The fewer the colours, the better, particularly if you are using coloured text.
  • What colors are your competitors using?
  • Are there alternative color schema’s which could work and make your site stand out in the crowd. For instance, does a gardening site have to be predominantly green?
  • Bear in mind that some people are color blind.

  
  

• Consider the fonts, styles and sizes you are using in headlines and text.
  • They need to be legible to all.

  • Use few variations.

Conclusion

Good web design based on SEO principles should always be used in conjunction with fully optimized well researched relevant content. This combination will always provide a good user experience in a given niche.

Even if you have the above, the reader needs to be convinced in the first few seconds of viewing a page that it is relevant to them.

It is worth considering that every time a page is opened, the internet user has a choice of navigating away or reading the page. The space above the fold will always influence that decision.

We should use it to our best advantage and maximise on our niche traffic.

Hope this post has been useful. Regards Chris

Today, one of our local customers visited us to review some sales copy he’d written for his new web site. Like many of our customers he was newly into the Niche Marketing business and wanted re-assurance that what he’d written hit the mark.

After reading the sales copy, there was an obvious problem. He had missed the point that he had to market the benefits and not the features of the product he was selling.

Benefits vs. Features

He had forgotten that people make buying decisions based on benefits not features.

This sometimes subtle but vitally important distinction is often the different between making the sale and ‘I read the text and then looked elsewhere’ reaction.  It’s a mistake you often see on the Internet, particularly on the blogs and websites of smaller businesses.

It a fundamental part of marketing and holds whether you are advertising on the Internet, conducting an Niche Marketing campaign or using a more traditional land based / paper based approach.

People buy the benefits of a product or service. They are looking for

• How it will improve their lives;
• Solves their problem,
• What they will gain by owning or using it.
• What it will do for them.
• How good they will feel as a result of owning the product.

These are all the results of the benefit statements.

The last one is more complex but arguably one of the most important.

Watch some TV advertisments and see how they do it. Mainly by subtly depicting some sort of pleasure. A different medium but many of the marketing concepts can be translated into words or graphics that you can use.

Features on the other hand, describe the product or service in specific terms. It’s the type of detail you find in the details or specifications of the product or service.

For instance the Laptop I am using right now has a 70 Gigabyte hard drive. It has a duo core processor and 2 Gigabytes of RAM. They are the laptop’s features.

Statements like ‘Enough room to store all of your favourite movies and sound tracks’ or ‘More than enough power to run all of your programs and more’ are the laptop’s benefits. They are about what it gives me or what I’ll get out of owning it.

The benefits should be throughout your copy and in your page headline.  The benefit statements should be prominent so they catch the eye.

From a marketing perspective, benefits are king but you shouldn’t forget to mention features.

If a potential customer has already made their mind up to buy a particular product, it is likely that they understand the benefits but may want clarification on a feature before placing the order.

So it is important to include both. For instance, going back to the example of my laptop, maybe I just want to make sure that in the future I can run dual screens. A VGA port for an additional screen is a feature.

The potential customer must be able to find all the information they need before they will press the ‘Buy’ button.

Example of benefits and features from a site that sells laptops

Although the laptop isn’t perhaps what you would personally buy, the example clearly shows the difference!

Share photos of your travels without waiting till you get home. Shop the world wide web without attaching any lines or wires. Learn through the latest technology without a technical manual. Play, relax, and entertain on the go with shock-proof design. Connect with friends and family with just a few clicks.

Processor: Intel Mobile
Memory: 512MB
Hard Drive: 2GB
Display: 7? (800×480)
Card Reader: SD/MMC
Battery: 4 cell
Interfaces: Headphone/Mic-in, VGA Port, 3 USB
WLAN: 802.11 b/g 10/100 Ethernet
Operating system: Linux (Preloaded) XP Compatible

We buy products to satisfy needs. If the product fulfils our need, then we have bought into the benefit that the product brings. How the product or service works is relatively immaterial.

Usually there is a primary benefit we look for when we make a purchase.

For example, maybe you need to write reports from different locations because of you job. So you bought a laptop because you needed a computer that you can use when you are on the move.

Before reading the laptop advertisement above, did you consider the other benefits described or did you think about them because they were mentioned and they became additional needs over and above your original buying criteria?

If you are writing copy from an Internet Marketing perspective, you should always think of all of the possible benefits that your product or service can bring to the prospective buyer and include them in your copy.

By doing this, you are educating the potential consumer by heightening and potentially expanding their needs and dependency on your product by making them aware of what other benefits they could enjoy.

If you are going to create needs in this way, make sure that you are fully conversant with your product and remember that the objective is for the potential customer to click on the buy button now! 

You need to be careful to not overcomplicate the product by confusing the reader or making the product too hard to use because you’ve listed too many benefits or features!

You need to balance the equation carefully and always remember that this is about selling to them not about selling the product. A subtle difference!

People researching on the Internet always use words to describe what they are looking for. Well that’s an obvious thing to say and you’re right, but do we really use this fact to the extent that we could.

We know that niche markets have their own languages and we have to understand these various languages if we are going to market to individual niches in focused and successful ways.

We all use keywords and phrases in our blogs and web sites for the obvious SEO reasons.

You can give your sales page an edge in terms of being found and in meeting the potential customer’s expectation in those vital first few seconds before they hit the back button.

We have discussed how we can create needs from benefits. Another question is how many ways do potential buyers search for those benefits within the niche market?

Can you combine the key words and phrases into your benefit statements to increase the natural traffic to your sales page?

Can you phrase the benefits so that when a potential customer arrives at the sales page they immediately see a primary benefit?

If you can do both of these things, the likelihood of your page being found is greater from an SEO perspective and the page will be more ‘Sticky’ from the customer’s point of view.

Test your sales page.

Before you launch a sales page of any description, always test it. Discuss it with your mentor, ask another marketer, use a control group, use a bunch of friends and ask for their candid opinion.

If they were in the market for your product, would any of them buy the product based on what they can see?

Sales copy and particularly ‘squeeze pages’ have a different psychology behind them which means they have different considerations from the design point of view. Color, font, font size graphics and the overall layout make a huge difference to the pages sales performance.

Soft launch the page and route (Control group) traffic to it before carrying out any sort of major launch. Canvas their opinion.

In this phase, split test the page and tweak it until you find the combination that gives you the optimum performance in terms of conversion rate.

Time spent testing is never wasted!

We will be putting up a post that discusses the psychology of sales and squeeze pages shortly. In the mean time if you have any questions, please use the ‘Contact’ form and we will be happy to answer your queries.  Tells us what you think is missing and we’ll add it to this post!