Planning a Marketing Strategy

The goals of any professional website are quite simple; increase knowledge of the products/services your company offers, increase your customer base (and with it revenues), keep existing customers happy so they will return again and again and protect your business (and customers) from internet fraud. How one goes about this is of course the difficult part of the equation.

The first step in this process is to make certain that you understand your core business philosophy and determine key short and long term goals. It is important to figure out where you see your company in the future. Once you have a clear picture of where you business is now and where you want it to go, choosing the right SEO Marketing firm is the next important step. One of the first things to consider when doing your research is that you will want a company that will take the time to understand your business and get to know a little about the owners and managers. It is vital that they are able to provide a comprehensive set of services that will encompass all the necessary steps as well as a host of options in order to achieve your particular online marketing goals. Some of the services that any professional SEO company must be prepared to offer include:

Safeguarding Your Reputation

Although Reputation Management has been discussed in previous blogs, it is a topic that deserves a great deal of attention. Your company’s reputation and specifically, its online reputation have a direct effect on your ability to maintain existing customers for the long term and the ability to attract new clients. Customers who trust a particular business are more likely to become “regulars” and will be quick to recommend a company that they trust.

This type of loyalty takes time to build and is the result of a number of factors. The two most important of which are:

1.      Knowing that they will receive a quality product or service every time they shop with you. Within this context, customers must also be confident that if a problem should occur, it will be rectified quickly and to their complete satisfaction.

2.      The second factor and probably the most important one is, knowing that any personal or payment information they submit will be completely secure.

Protecting Your Reputation Online

The short answer would be – always! Yet there are business owners who feel that since they do not actually sell products or services over the internet, the subject of online reputation is not an issue for them. Unfortunately, this could not be further from the truth. Regardless of how you sell your products/services, current or former clients, staff or anyone else in the public can write about you, your employees or owners in articles, blogs, social networks, etc. Whether these comments, posts or articles are positive or negative, they can take off like wildfire. In so many instances, business owners are not even aware of such harmful and unsolicited publicity until sales begin to decline. Even then, it can take some time before it is discovered that this decline is due to malicious internet posts.

Once the damage has been done, it can be very time consuming and financially draining to repair your business’s reputation.  In some cases, it may not even be a disgruntled employee or customer but another business or online predators that are phishing your web traffic for sensitive and personal information. Just as any staff who may come in contact with clients (or potential clients), act as ambassadors or spokespersons for your business, so does your website. This also includes anything being said about you on the internet (whether true or not).

Putting All Your Eggs In One Basket

Implementing a comprehensive SEO/SEM (Search Engine Optimization/Search Engine Marketing) program requires careful planning with enough research to make sure you have the right information to choose the best service provider for all your needs. There are a number of factors and options that one has to consider, each of which has their own benefits. In most cases different strategies will need to be implemented either simultaneously or at different times during a campaign. The most common problem that companies encounter is when more than one service provider is overseeing several different programs. For example you may have chosen a firm that offers expertise in Reputation or Online Brand Management while another has shown success in providing PPC (Pay Per Click), Conversion Optimization, Content Development, Keyword Density, etc.