Posts Tagged ‘marketing budget’
November 4th, 2009 | 
Author: Create an eye-catching header/logo. This makes an impression on visitors, much like the façade, front door, or foyer of your store.Use Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to keep excessive code out of the way. This leaves a clean and concise interface for the search engines. If you ask for personal information via a sign up or contact form, then you need a privacy policy.
Physical address and phone number in text form on every page is a great way to associate your storefront orservice business with a geographic location. Make sure you don’t skip this step. Location of business should be prominent/obvious on the page town, region or even a regional colloquialism.
Image tags use the alt attribute to configure alternate text to display if the browser or user agent does not support images. If graphics and/or media is used to convey meaning, the alternate text equivalent of the content is provided Captions are provided for each audio or video file used Use attributes designed to improve accessibility such as title and summary when appropriate Use the id and headers attributes to improve the accessibility of table data.
There’s just no way around it, you must take it up a notch when selling online if you intend to make your business successful and profitable. But before you start to get the ball rolling and investing your marketing or advertising dollars in every corner of the internet, I suggest you first grab a sheet of paper and a pen to draft out your business plan. You don’t need a 50 page plan, complicated graphs or even a large marketing budget. All you really need are the basics; what you are selling, how are the products created (do you make them yourself, or outsource it to another business…figure out the numbers), how you will promote your products (Banner ads, Press Releases, Sponsorships, etc.), as well as the amount of money you have to invest in advertising and marketing. Be honest with your number crunching!
Let’s assume you have your products all ready to go and you plan is jotted down. Now use the information below to set yourself up for success and turn your dreams into reality. Selling Online: Building a website (clean and clutter free!) Building a presence online (promoting and marketing) Marketing to the right consumers (target those who want your products using SEO – Search Engine Optimization) Turning visitors into customers (Don’t give them a reason to not buy from you) Making a profit.
Recommended sites: Google.com for searching…. Godaddy.com for domain registering …(they also have other services such as website hosting,etc.) Wordpress, Blogger and Mybloglog for creating your own Blog Staples.com for office supplies PRDepotChicago.com for all your online PR and Marketing needs. Affordable solutions. (This is my company!) Twitter, Facebook and Ning are popular social networking sites Small Business Administration (SBA) – SBA.org Hotel.com and Expedia.com for business traveling Skype.com – Free calls over the internet to other people on Skype for as long as you like. Mozy.com – Industry-leading solution for online backup. QuickBooks.com – Accounting Solutions for professionals and businesses.
Paypal.com – Send and recieve funds securely and quickly through Paypal. Use Paypal for your ecommerce business. Google Checkout (visit google.com and click on business solutions) – Google’s way to send and receive money. LinkedIn.com – Strengthens and extends your existing network of trusted contacts.
Author is an expert in Online Marketing especially in SEO. Get all Detailed Information about Search Engine Optimization, Web Design, Marketing, Online Marketing, Web Designing Web marketing. He is also
teaching in online marketing, Web Designing Technical Services.
Article Source: Web Designing Technical Services
Your site may be getting good levels of traffic and it may be well-ranked with the search engine result pages, yet, if you are simply not getting the enquiries or sales you are expecting, then it’s ineffective. That means your site is not converting its visitors into sales. This may be due to a number of reasons ranging from site’s design to bad navigation structure to placement of forms.
The ultimate of any website is to engage visitors, enticing them to convert. Depending on your website, visitor conversions take many forms-it might be filling out a form for more information or requesting a whitepaper or something of that sort. What they have common is -getting additional information about your visitors while engaging them in your site for quite some time.
Your website conversion is directly related to your business profitability. Testing and tracking your site design, color, products, product placement, and form placement are some of the ideal ways for pumping up those sales and website conversion rates.
Encouraging your visitors to fill a form, whether they are buying a product/service or subscribing to a newsletter, generates valuable leads. Improve your form and form submissions resulting in more leads and more business without increasing your marketing budget.
Improving leads and sales conversion typically involves enhancing or modifying a website’s design and copy. Website conversions depend on a thorough assessment of your marketing strategy-price, promotion, product and placement.
Conversion rates vary from sites to sites. One thing to remember is that once the visitor is at your website, your goal is to convert him/her-to turn him into a buyer or a lead. By collecting their email and other relevant information, you can open up a communication channel that will be vital to your success. Form placement is a very important factor that increases your website conversion.
If your website is not hitting these conversion rates, you should focus on improving few things on your website such as:
1. Form placement-The form that collects the user information should be placed in an appropriate place on your website and should be accessible from every page of your website. On the home page, the form should be above the picture and all and a bold headline should be used to direct the user to fill the form out.
2. Give your user an enticing offer- A well-designed website that has a great offer that entices the user to enter their personal information and a well-designed form can convert most of your visitors into leads. Give your visitors a reason to fill out your form like give them something for free-either a free quote, free newsletter, free service if they fill it out.
3. Keep your form easy to use- There is always a substantial risk of losing your visitors before they submit their contact information. It is therefore, very important to make it as simple and short as possible. You have to limit the number of fields the user has to fill out to only those that are most pertinent. Think like a user and act accordingly.
4. Make the form button say something, which entices your users. All forms have a button below the form that the user is supposed to click once they finished filling contact information. Instead of ‘submit’, you can choose words like ‘get your free newsletter’ or ‘get a free quote’, which may help your users to press the button.
Your aim is ultimately conversion. Placing too many fields on the landing page form may reduce conversion. Let the user to fill only important contact details say name, email id and phone number.
Ajay Prasad is President and CEO of Global Marketing Resources an Orange County based company that specializes in website design, website maintenance and website marketing. For affordable packages on website maintenance click on the link. You can check our website maintenance cost here.
Article Source: Form Placements for Best Conversions
Marketing and advertisement budgets need to be planned and spent carefully so that there is maximum effectiveness of the marketing campaigns which may include promotional offers and press releases to conducting road shows and advertisements.
Out of these a marketer spends maximum on advertisement budgets because it offers numerous benefits. A marketer can advertise his product in a number of ways which may range from advertising in print media to electronic media and to advertising on billboards, radio, hoardings, internet etc. The online marketing has of course stolen the thunder of TV advertisements considering it’s numerous scope and prospects. If the print media carries off advertisements in various forms such as classified ads, half-page, full page ads, there are multiple options too in the online media.
The advertisements may exist in the form of banner ads, classified ads, button ads, pay-per-click ads etc. Since the online budget may reap you great rewards because of the large number of users who come on a particular website. So, out of all the marketing spends, advertisements obviously consume a larger part and must be wisely planned.
Apart from spending on advertisements, some amount has to be spent on other marketing activities and campaigns which play a major role in attracting the consumers and hitting the market.
Now, focusing on the main concern as to what factors should you consider when devising the marketing budget.
* Have clear-cut goals: One of the most essential criteria to be maintained prior to having a marketing budget is having concrete goals. i.e. how much you want to earn from the marketing budget. Your goal is to reap high profits or to impart brand value to your product, what is more important? Think before you take any decision related to marketing investment.
* Consider the Return-on-investment: Among the major investments that you make in all the marketing areas, consider the amount you are going to spend on sales promotion and how much would you spend on advertisements. If you think that there is more prospect of advertising in print media, then you should spend accordingly. Ask for the rates, bargain if possible and then go for it. The return that you will get after placing the ad will depend on the reputation of your organization, the product and the brand image.
* Test before you consider any form of marketing campaign: As you test market your product before launching any product, similarly you should take a small test by advertising in any medium. If you get positive results, follow the same medium and advetise in the same. In the same of the manner, you should think about sales methodology.
* Consider the cost price of the products and such other costs: If the costs incurred on the products is huge, spend little less on advertising and such other promotional offers. Think of transportation costs and infrastructure costs etc. Once you recover all these investments, then think of spending on advertsing.
The last word is: if you pen down your financial goals on a small piece of paper, it will help you to save more and earn more.
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Article Source: Devising marketing budgets
Many new business owners become completely focused on designing their website, promoting their company or attracting new customers. However, they may fail to recognise the importance of maintaining up-to-date website statistics. These statistics provide you with key performance indicators that let you know if you are doing well or if there are areas where you need to improve or make major changes. If you don’t have access to this vital information, you will continue to advance blindly with your new business venture. The end result – you may end up failing before you know it.
Available Statistical Tools & Resources
Fortunately, maintaining accurate website statistics is now easier than ever. Many innovative and helpful tools and software exist to help you with this task. You can purchase software that is usually relatively inexpensive and complete this task yourself. You may choose to assign this responsibility to your web designer or another trusted individual. The most important thing is to actually perform the task on a regular basis. It’s great that your business did very well 4 months ago, but is it doing just as well this month? If you don’t know, you should and detailed website statistics will let you know instantly.
Benefits of Website Statistical Analysis
Website statistics will also show you if any changes you have recently made are proving successful or not. This way you can decide whether to continue as usual or make further changes. There is no point repeating the same mistake over and over again. If you don’t continuously monitor the effect of the changes, you will never know how well you are doing.
This also ensures you’re obtaining optimal results for your advertising or marketing budget. You may think that spending a lot of money to advertise with a certain company is a brilliant idea. However, will you think the same way when you check your website statistics and realise that your advertising dollars have not produced one single visitor from the company’s marketing efforts. Absolutely not! On the other hand, you may be surprised to discover that one of your less expensive marketing strategies has produced very successful results.
Important Elements to Include in Your Analysis
You may think that the only number you need to be concerned about is the total number of people who visit your site every month. Well, this is not the case as you require additional information to perform a sufficient analysis.
Here are some elements you should ensure are included in the website statistics for your business:
Unique Visitors: This refers to the number of actual visitors to your site, not just friends or family members who check your site several times a day. The term hits is often used be paid advertisement or affiliate sites, but it can be very misleading and inaccurate. The number of hits on your site may be very impressive, but don’t get too excited; many of these may actually be files such as movies and images. You need to concentrate on the number of actual visitors to your website.
Referring Search Engines: This statistic indicates the number of pages that were visited when someone clicked on a search engine link. Google, Yahoo! and MSN are currently the three largest search engines, but many others may generate a large percentage of online traffic to your website. By reviewing which search engines refer the most visitors to your site, you can ensure your ranking or search engine result position (SERP) does not diminish with them.
Other Referring Sites: This will help you determine what percentage of referring sites is actually spam. You will notice some legitimate sites from actual sites and clients. If you don’t run any affiliate programs or pay-per-click ads, these statistics may not be as important. However, if you pay for advertising on any external sites, make sure to pay close attention to these numbers.
Entry & Exit Pages: These statistics reveal exactly where your visitors entered and where they left your website. This will give you a clearer idea whether they actually found what they were searching for or if they immediately exited your site after taking a quick look. In the latter case, you may want to ensure your website looks attractive and professional and is easy to navigate. Your contact page is generally one of the most desirable exit pages because it indicates that visitors want to obtain additional information about your company.
Keywords/Keyword Phrases: This type of statistics will show you exactly what visitors were searching for when they ended up on your website. If you discover some keywords that continue to rank highly, you may want to consider changing some of the content on your website. You can also include some of the more popular keywords or key phrases in the Meta tags you use for your titles, domain names and descriptions.
Error Pages: No one likes to arrive at a web page to be greeted with a dreaded 404 error message. This applies to your visitors as well so make sure you continuously check if any of your pages are creating errors. If so, fix them immediately before you begin to damage your reputation and lose valuable customers!
Monitoring website statistics is not as complicated as you may think, but it is extremely important. You can hire someone to help you or purchase software and do it yourself. By regularly monitoring various elements of your online traffic, you can determine how well your business is doing and whether any changes are warranted. Learning how to properly analyze the numbers on your statistical reports can add up to much higher numbers on your business’ monthly bank statements!
Online business is growing rapidly but there is still such a large number of businesses missing out on this opportunity. Kaplang is a unique design firm that provides quality services for web design, web development, search engine optimization and all other web solutions. Make sure your business stands out from the crowd when adding an online presence to your new or existing business. http://www.kaplang.com
Article Source: Website Statistics – They’re More Important Than You Realise For Your Business
Have you started using videos in your website to improve the conversion rates? If not, you must not delay any further. You will be left behind in the competition when your competitors are making use of all the latest tools and strategies available to them. Almost all of us today know about the effectiveness of videos in generating sales. We may have hired the best copywriter on the web to do the content for our website and we would have generated powerful textual content for our web pages that talk about the features and strong points of our products and services but people may not have all the time to patiently review the extensive text that you have put in your website. They can easily miss out the most important part of the text that you have included which forms your unique selling proposition. Finally, we fail to achieve what we wanted to achieve through our website, which is increased sales. We can achieve what our long web pages with loads of text cannot achieve through short videos in our website.
Using well-compiled short and crispy videos in our websites we can easily make people respond to call for action and thereby increasing the sales conversions. Until few years ago we did not have this advantage, using videos online was an expensive feat and it required lot of technical expertise. Online video was limited to popular brands and large companies with huge marketing budget. Now that is not the case anymore we can easily upload multiple videos in our websites like we upload our text files and images. When integrating videos to our websites has become such a simple task, we must be making use of this feature to our advantage. If you want to have an advantageous edge over your customer then you must make use of all latest tools and features that will keep you one step ahead of your competition all the time.
Most of us may be wondering how exactly to do this. Everyone seems to tell that it is important to add videos to our websites and it is easy to do it but no one tells how exactly to do this. Unfortunately, most of us are not internet savvies or tech savvies and if you can identify yourself among these groups, then you do not have to worry. Using a good quality video software converter, you can upload your videos to your website in as little as 10 minutes. Using video software conversion tools, you can add video player controls, choose the best skin for your player, adjust the video size and resolution, integrate it into a captivating page for your visitors to view it and much more in 10 minutes or lesser. You can add videos to your website through a easy to use video software conversion tool. With tools like video editing software, it will just be too easy.
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Article Source: Videos for Your Website – The Easiest Way