Tuesday 10^th January 2006 - Issue 3

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All of us here at mkLINK hope you had a merry Christmas and a happy new year.

In this issue we focus on a subject that relates to these 3 areas areas of you’re your online business.

1. Traffic Generation tips

· Search Engine marketing - Keyword Analysis

2. Convert more of your visitors to Sales/Leads

· Hover Advertisements

3. Website management

· Web Analytics Software

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Traffic Generation tips:

Search Engine Marketing - Keyword Analysis

"You're better off targeting phrases, not single words.
There's too much competition for single keywords".

Choose your keywords

When chasing a good search engine ranking, your first job is to decide which words you want to rank well for i.e. performing a "keyword analysis".

This involves some research and a good knowledge of your business and the benefits you offer your customers.

It is important to bear in mind even at this stage that choosing keywords that attract traffic is more important than page ranking.

Two examples of websites specifically designed to make keyword analysis easier are:

Overture's inventory tool
http://www.inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/.

This tool is very easy and free to use and understand. It is important to remember that it only tells you how many searches have been conducted in the previous month for the keyword, and for other similar keywords.

WordTracker
http://www.wordtracker.com. This is much more powerful. You will need to pay to use it - its not much. WordTracker telling you what people are really searching for and so helps you to find the most appropriate keyword for your site. You type in a word and it tells you how many times that word has been searched for in the previous month. It can also tell you how many other websites are targeting the same customers you are (using that as a keyword). Using this information, it rates the word. The keywords hat a lot of people are searching for but few websites are targeting are the 'best'. WordTracker also suggests other related words and rates them for you.

TIP: WordTracker is just talking about numbers and the 'best' rated keywords may not be the ones you need to use. You may be forced to use a keyword phrase which is not rated particularly highly. There are two situations in which this might happen:

"Customers are becoming more search-savvy - they're searching
for more and more specific strings"

Single Keyword v Keyword Phrases

You're better off targeting phrases, not single words. There's usually too much competition for single keywords.

For example, if you sell computers, choosing "computers" as your keyword will generate millions of results in Google with the top rankings being dominated by the multi-nationals. Also, research shows that customers are becoming more search-savvy - they're searching for more and more specific strings. Being more specific, means finding what they're looking for much faster.

It may be more sensible therefore to find a more specific keyword phrase. It may be the case that you sell secondhand computers - so you could choose "secondhand computers" as your keyphrase. This will give you a better chance in the rankings, and you'll display in much more targeted searches. A higher percentage of your site's visitors will actually be looking for what you are actually selling.

"Make sure the specific keyword phrase includes the
'hotly contested' single keyword"

Develop a keyword strategy

Start out by targeting a specific keyword phrase as described above. It should include the more generic - hotly contested - single keyword. For example, the keyword phrase , "cheap secondhand computers" includes the single keyword "computers". In this way, you're targeting both at once, and as your site's importance (or PageRank) and search engine presence increases, you'll begin to rank for the single word as well. In time, you'll rank well for both.

TIP: Google scores a website's importance as its PageRank (PR) - all sites have mark out of 10. By downloading the Google Toolbar (from http://toolbar.google.com), you can view the PR of any site you visit.

If you need help or information about keyword analysis, or if you are interested in mkLINK's keyword analysis service, please call us now on 01454 852414 or click here.

Convert more of your visitors to Sales/Leads:

Hover Advertisements / Hover Ads

Pop-ups have always been an incredibly effective online marketing tool BUT pop-ups are dying. Hover ads are the natural successor to pop-ups because of one very important difference - nobody can stop your message getting through.

"Double the sign-up rate for your opt-in e-mail list, INSTANTLY

increase sales and conversion".

A Hover Ad is a promotional message displayed on your web page that appears in the same browser window but it still looks like a "new" window. When a particular page on your website is visited, the fact that the advert appears or 'hovers' in the same browser window means that pop-up blocker software cannot stop it from appearing. Google toolbar, the Alexa toolbar, AOL, Earthlink and Netscape browsers can all stop pop-ups, but NOT Hover ads.

"Wouldn't you like to collect the e-mail addresses

of your website visitors?"

We at mkLINK have first hand experience of the effectiveness of Hover Ads - on just one of our websites the addition of a Hover Ad incresed the conversion rate by 178%!

Hover ads are a particularly valuable online marketing tool for building your own opt-in list of subscribers i.e. you can collect your own targeted list of e-mail addresses. You can also bag visitors who do not buy or call.

Just think of the possibilities. Hover Ads could be used to:

In each case, by responding the the Hover ad site visitors can opt-in, give you valuable e-mail addresses, and increase your conversion.

If you need help or information about Hover Ads, or if you are interested in mkLINK's Hover Ad service, please call us now on 01454 852414 or click here.

Website management

Web Analytics Software

Not being able to accurately measure something makes it very difficult to effectively manage it. Traditional web analysis methods can mean that website owners and web marketers still have to make assumptions about the way that some people use websites. Without fully understanding how your website is being used could mean that your strategies for managing the website are flawed.

"Is it time to consider using web analytics software?"

ClickTracks (http://www.clicktracks.com/) provide a number of web analytics programs from entry level to high volume, high security level which can show you the website owner and/or web marketer campaigns, site navigation patterns, PPC, SEO and ROI stats instantly.

For example, the ClickTracks Analyzer program helps you understand how visitors interact with your website through 'visitor labeling'. This means that you can colour-code visitors from a Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaign; visitors who found your site through a certain keyword; visitors who spent a very long or very short time on your site; and more. Other capabilities include:

By using web analytics programs like the ClickTracks range, you can gain a better insight into visitor behaviour, thus enabling you to pinpoint areas that have an impact on your important business and marketing decisions.

If you need help or information about web analytics software, or if you are interested in mkLINK's web analytics service, please call us now on 01454 613888 or click here.

We hope this information has been useful and we look forward to keeping you all up to date with our online experiences throughout this new year. Best wishes. The mkLINK team.