Internet Marketing

Marketing via the internet is now the most important channel for many businesses.  Particularly for small businesses it can 'level the playing field', as it offers global reach while also servicing local needs. It is uniquely measurable in terms of being able to identify and segment the traffic it brings and calculate the return on investment, and so is experiencing exponential growth. 

So internet marketing provides both a significant opportunity and challenge.  The challenge is that the market is getting more and more competitive, and a firm needs to work hard just to stand still.  The advent of social media and Web 2.0 has changed the medium where you are no longer just presenting your wares to the world via an e-commerce shop or similar.  You now need to listen to your clients and engage with them regularly to first attract their attention, then their interest, and then gain their trust.  Only then are you likely to get their business.

To achieve this needs an overall strategy, starting from the initial marketing effort to entice visitors to the site, engaging them so that they may be enticed back, following them up and, once they are ready to do business, making it easy for them to do so. 

It starts with a website (or sites) that can form the hub of your marketing approach, containing fresh, useful, interactive and interesting content.  People will be led there by search engine marketing (see panel on the right), links from social media, email campaigns and offline marketing efforts.  

Search Engine Optimisation

SEO is a series of techniques that can increase the prominence of your business within the organic search engine listings. Generally this means having something that's of interest to people while also making it easy for them to find it online.

Having something of interest depends on what people are looking for. In web terms this means understanding the keywords they use in their searches. And since these searches involve computers, certain rules must be followed so that the machines know what to search for.

When building your website we ensure it is fully optimised for all search engines. This involves elements such as keyword density, correct page titles and other content elements.

Building links from other sites is also crucial for any successful SEO campaign. Without them no one will ever find your site and the search engines will be unable to work out how popular you are. We'll also provide a content management system to ensure your website is fully optimised for search engines so that you'll get more visitors who will find more of interest so that they return.

SEO can be a very effective marketing tool but there's no magic bullet. These things take time and it can be a few months before your site starts to register higher with the search engines.   SEO is a continuous process which must be under taken in a controlled fashion, with the changes documented and the effects monitored and measured using the analytical tools available.

Pay Per Click

As mentioned, SEO can take time for it to work so for faster and more targeted results you should consider using Pay Per Click campaigns (see sidebar).

Unlike many agencies we charge a fixed monthly fee for this service rather than a percentage. Some agencies try to increase sales by increasing your expenditure, but such campaigns often suffer from diminishing returns. We offer fair and transparent terms and will never encourage you to overspend on PPC unless it can yield a greater return on investment.

Socal Media

Because it's relatively new, social marketing is still fluid and constantly changing and growing. At its core is interactivity - between you and your customers and the group, or in one to one conversations and collaborations with other internet users.

Blogging and forums were two of the earliest incarnations of this medium, and blogs in particular are still hugely significant in enhancing online presence. Readers post comments and questions and interact both with the owners of the site and with other participants.  Videos are now a vital tool because of their popularity and the way they encourage internet users to vote for content.

However, perhaps the most interesting incarnation of the social media age are the social networking media such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. These enable groups of like minded (or otherwise) individuals to impart knowledge, opinions and recommendations to large audiences, encouraging businesses to enter into dialogues with a host of potential customers.

Each important in itself, these channels become even more potent when they are all put in the mix, Twitter and Facebook linking to blogs and all of them linking to the newest and most interesting videos.

We can offer help and advice on what form of Social Media marketing would work best for your circumstance.  We can then help implemet the strategy agreed, setting up blogs, organising videos and integrating this all on your website to maximise visitor traffic.