Let’s be honest, if you are a small business owner, or employee, you will have a large range of tasks to complete every day. Unless you employ an expert in digital marketing, there is no way you can expect to have all of the skills and knowledge that your business needs in this area.
At InSynch we try to fill the gap in knowledge and skills and enable you to get on with doing what you do best, running your business and delivering your services or products.
So, here are 5 very common misconceptions that we encounter with our clients and people that we advise. If you read through these and take some of the points on board, I hope that you will feel slightly better informed at least.
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1. “Build it and they will come” does not apply to Websites
Build it and they will come is from the film Field of Dreams (1989) where Kevin Costner creates a baseball field in the hopes that ghosts of baseball legends will come and play on the pitch. I actually quite like the film but it is how this relates to Websites that interests me the most. For those who haven’s seen the film, here is a short clip.
Anyway, the basic principle I want to get across here is that you cannot expect to build a Website and then sit back and wait for your visitors to arrive. It just doesn’t work like that. Sadly, most Web Developers help you to do just that. They build a nice shiny new Website and then hand it over to you. Then they move onto the next one. They have very little experience in digital marketing and it isn’t their area of expertise.
How do I know this? Well we have so many people who come to us every week with new Websites built by other developers that simply don’t bring in any business and they ask us to put it right and work with them.
When you launch a new Website, you should look at spending the same amount that you spent on the development of the site, on marketing the site. Create a marketing plan or at least a simple strategy and consider things like:
- Search engine optimisation
- Paid online advertising
- Social Media
- Email Marketing
- Converting customers into buyers
- Offline Marketing
Most importantly, measure the results of your efforts using something like Google Analytics and then use this information to refine your online marketing.
2. Dave does not work at Google!
Ok, there probably is a Dave that works for Google but stick with me for a minute here. Most businesses will have had a phone call from a person who claims that they are from Google, in a rather ambiguous way, and that they will get you to the top of the search engines. Usually for a fee of around £100 per month. Someone called for example ‘Dave’ rings up, tells you he has been looking at your Website and offers you the chance to get to the top of Google for a small monthly fee. Trust me when I tell you that 99 times out of 100, Dave is not from Google! He is from a company selling paid online advertising through Google Adwords.
The reason I am taking the trouble to tell you this is because I come across many businesses who fall for this scam. There is nothing wrong with Google Adwords at all. You bid for a phrase that you want your advert to be shown for when people search on Google and then you only pay when someone clicks. If you want you can do this yourselves.
However, with many of these companies, they take your £100 per month and then only spend a fraction of it on actual advertising, the rest is their profit. Only last week I helped a business who had spent over £2500 with a rogue company on paid Google Adwords. I check their Google Analytics and found that not a single click had come to their Website from this in the last 12 months!
This only came about because of a Website critique we did for them but the client ended up saving a small fortune!
3. Social Media is not good at converting customers
This is something I go on and on about in my courses, and in several other blog posts recently. Social media can of course play a role in digital marketing but it is an option only and should be measured for success against all other activities.
I look at hundreds of Website traffic reports in Google Analytics each year and I can tell you that Social Media (Facebook, Twitter) is actually very poor at converting customers into buyers. Email marketing is many times more effective.
Ask yourself this question: Do you put as much time into email marketing as social media? If your answer is no then in my view your priorities are wrong and you are wasting precious time. My guess is that many of you won’t be doing much email marketing at all.
Ask yourself where you saw this blog post? It has been publicised in many ways but I can tell you that most of you who are reading this will be responding to an email. Remember the signs on the back of buses saying “If you are reading this, so are your customers”? Think about that in relation to online marketing….
4. Half of your Website Visitors spend less than 10 seconds on your Website
This is a depressing statistic but it is true that most people make a decision within the first few seconds of reaching your Website as to whether they will stay and have a look around.
It is vital that you realise this as it will help you change your Website to make sure you grab the attention of a visitor. You may have written lots of lovely ‘fluff’ about your business on your Website but you have to realise that most people simply won’t read what you have written. Your Website readers do not care about you at all. They care about their current problem or need for information, products, services and if they don’t feel that you can meet their needs, they will be hitting the back button very quickly. I wrote a blog post about converting customers a while back urging people to try to convert more visitors rather than keeping trying to find new ones.
You have seconds to encourage a customer to stay longer on your site so give the information across quickly, make your Website intuitive and please don’t make people have to read all of your lovely marketing spiel before they get to find the answers to their problems.
5. Search Engines should still be your main source of Website Visitors
One thing I hear a lot from social media enthusiasts and even speakers is that search engine optimisation is dead and social media is the most important thing. This is simply not true, and I will tell you why.
As I mentioned earlier, I look at a lot of Google Analytics reports and one thing that is consistent with Websites that perform well is that the majority (60-70%) come from search engines such as Google or Bing.
It is true that search engines have changed over the years and that what used to work 5 years ago, doesn’t necessarily work now. However, there are two things that you need to consider here.
1. Most people find what they want on the internet through search engines (do you?)
2. If you don’t mention the words that people are searching for, in your Website content, then how on earth is Google going to match your Website to someone looking for your product or service.
When we undertake search engine optimisation for a company we carry out comprehensive keyword research and put the words in the right places, the right amount of times but on a simple level you just need to think about what people might be searching for and make sure you include those words.
Just because you have a nice picture of your product or service at the top of a page, it doesn’t follow that Google will know what your page is about. Talk about what you do, many times, on every page.
I could go on and on but these are 5 of the things that I think anyone who wants to do business over the internet should know.
Comments welcome
