Who Controls Your Keywords?
What happens when you put your Web site’s maintenance in the hands of someone you trust to update the site properly?
I’m sure that most web designers do the right thing, but several weeks ago I saw something quite disturbing that all marketers must learn about and watch closely even if web maintenance isn’t your strength.
I visited a message board to read the latest postings in one of the niche industries I follow. Here a quick conversation from the board.
“When is the conference to be held?”
“It’s in August. Here’s the Web site.”
One click took me to a site I hadn’t seen in a while, especially when searching for similar sites. I wondered why the site never showed up through search engine citings. Clicking my right mouse button, I opened the site’s source code to view the keywords.
Every keyword was adult site language, the type you see in your Email to enlarge this and grow that.
I don’t understand why a web designer would add keywords about adult entertainment to a site that has nothing to do with that industry, and I won’t spend time trying to uncover the reasons.
What I do know is that it’s critical to have your Web site reviewed by a third party, as explained on this page, to uncover details you may not recognize as detrimental. How successful can a site become when keywords not only don’t match but are downright incorrect?
Outsourcing makes sense, but not when it’s counterproductive to marketing. Know which words and phrases are associated with your site and update them periodically. The best interest of your Web site is squarely in your own hands.
How to Include Green in Your Marketing
I often watch QVC while eating lunch. This home shopping channel’s broadcast provides smart lessons on sales and marketing 24 hours a day.
One recent segment included a demonstration on how a set of round lids protect foods in cans, jars, and bowls.
After the initial demo, the guest reached towards the floor, picked up a gigantic ball of plastic wrap, and explained how much of this non eco-friendly product is saved from landfills if viewers buy the lids rather than choose plastic wrap.
Showing that big ball of wrap was a smart marketing technique, especially because of the “going green” campaigns worldwide.
The guest could have talked solely about the products’ attributes, but she also focused on its benefits. That’s what all buyers want to know.
Don’t keep your product or service’s Earth-saving benefits to yourself. It’s a huge marketing theme that happens to support a worthy cause - our longevity on this planet.
How have clients explained to you how your products or services help them to increase the eco-friendliness of their businesses?
A Marketing Idea that’s Sweet and Effective
Does your bank market to you through kindness to your children or beloved pet? Mine does, and that’s why I haven’t changed my banking relationship.
A few years ago, in preparation for a speaking engagement in Los Angeles, I drove to the bank to complete some transactions at the drive-in window.
My Chow-Chow, Pepper, tagged along sitting in the passenger seat next to me.
The astute teller saw Pepper sitting beside me. When the canister came back through the drive-in slot, it included my money, receipt, and two biscuits for my four-legged friend.
That put a big smile on my face, and Pepper was also delighted as he ate the treats.
Are you as savvy in your marketing, noting the small details of a person’s life in such a way that your kindness to or mention about a loved one is automatic with each conversation or transaction? The rewards for this appreciation are priceless.
During another visit, this time inside of the bank’s facility, the teller gave me a box of Red Hots along with my receipt. It was a sweet wish for my business to be successful, or as we say in the U.S., “red hot.”
How do you practice a similar type of marketing with your customers, whether in word or deed? One marketing campaign on my calendar includes purchasing M&M’s personalized candies, especially because right now there’s no set-up charge to add my logo on the candies.
I’ll distribute the candies as a summer break gesture to customers who’ve purchased a certain dollar amount of services and also to long-time clients.
What I truly appreciate about my bank is that their services help me to not re-invent the wheel. There’s no need to devise your own marketing campaigns when the big boys throw hints coated with kindness.
