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You know how hard it is to find a decent domain name these days? Doesn’t it make you mad when someone is squatting on your favorite .com? It was six years in the making but now all chaos is soon to break out on the Internet. As soon as next year a flood of new domain extensions could be available. You’ll be able to customize the exertion on your domain name. So now instead of just .com, .org, .edu there are almost endless possibilities. Here at OrangeSoda we should buy .fizz and .orangesoda.
Internet regulator ICANN passed a recommendation to consider new extensions by a unanimous vote. If the recommendation passed, it would greatly expand the number of top level domain names. I promptly got a migraine headache. Now instead of buying OrangeSoda.com we’ll have to try to cover all the possibilities and point them all to our .com. Or, come up with new sites. And think of the user! Having to remember another detail. Was that .OrangeSoda or .PurpleSoda?
They understated the impact this could have online. “We are opening up a new world and I think this cannot be underestimated,”said Roberto Gaetano, a member of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). It reminds me of the headache of trying to buy a domain name in Libya so I could get the extension .ly - as in “political.ly” Oh, and think of the awful legal issues - trademarks and branded terms issues that could result. What about display URLs??
Not that they took the move lightly! ICANN has been working on this for nearly six years. There is something about needing a “business plan and technical capacity” in order to prove that you need the extension.
To help you get a head start, here are some web sites that help you find a domain name (thank you Search Engine Journal). Note that these sites will have to change when the new extensions become available.
OrangeSoda has a new partner. DoodleKit, is a free website builder that offers small businesses quality web sites that don’t require high tech skills like programming. The free sites are great for hobbies or people who just need a web site. If you want to be found in search engines, their business packages are optimized for online marketing.
Once a web site is built, the next question a business owner usually asks is how to market their web site so they’re found in search engines. I spoke with Heath Huffman, DoodleKit’s Co-founder, about search engine optimization. This is the number one request from their customers - where can they get help with SEO.
Here are some SEO features that DoodleKit offers their business customers to help optimize sites for search engines:
Image alt tags - which are words that describe an image and therefore can be indexed by a search engine. It’s also valuable for search engine optimization when you can use keyword phrases to describe a graphic.
Google Sitemap - DoodleKit has made it simpler to create a Google Sitemap according to Google’s specs.
Search Engine Friendly URLS - rather than long or generic URLs, DoodleKit has made the URLs reflect the title of each page. Another chance to use keyword phrases you want to rank for.
Built in analytics - so you can see what online marketing efforts are working and where your traffic is coming from.
Meta tags - right now you can create unique meta data for your site. By next month you’ll be able to change the meta information for each page.
DoodleKit is just a few months old and will continue to integrate good SEO practices into their product.
Most of DoodleKit’s clients ask for additional expertise. That’s where OrangeSoda comes in. We can find the keywords that people are searching for and help your businesses rank higher for those words in search engines.
OrangeSoda also manages paid search campaigns priced for the small business. Google ads help you get immediate traffic to your web site (we also run ads on Yahoo and MSN). Here’s a helpful article on the difference between SEO and PPC.
Facebook started out as a place for college students to connect with their classmates. Now it’s open to everyone. It’s become not only a social network, but an Internet marketing strategy. It’s easy to see how a person or small business can use Facebook but I’m interested in how a larger organization can participate.
Today I found the Mayo Clinic’s Facebook page (and an article on their online marketing strategy at 1to1 Media). And talk about a cool title - they have a “manager for syndications and social media.” Maybe I could trade in my “seo evangelist” title for something more like “social media marketing manager” here at OrangeSoda.
Here’s a quote from the 1to1 article on why the Mayo Clinic has a Facebook page: “Consumer self-expression brings authenticity and impact…If consumers are happy with their experience with the Mayo Clinic, and they tell others, it will undoubtedly help Mayo to grow its reputation and market presence.”
Notice how they used their name in the URL. Then they post stories from blogs (put a Google alert on your name and track your company or organization online). They also inserted RSS feeds to news and health information.
This is obviously for branding and for relationship-building.
Besides their reasons for building a Facebook Page, the Mayo Clinic is proactively building a strong reputation online.
When people search for them in search engines the results are full of quality information and web sites that reflect well on the company. That’s something every company should aspire to build.
“That is why search is powerful. You do not hunt for your customers, they hunt for you. You pick the keywords and the customer picks you. You not only “sell what your customers want,” but you also sell it “while they are actively looking for it.”
- Aaron Wall, SEOBook.com
I’m reading the Aaron Wall’s SEOBook and he’s talking about a marketer who is selling baseball cards the old-fashioned way. The guy spammed people. He interrupted them and tried to get them to buy from him.
Rather than annoy or talk people into buying from you, how about you just find out what your customers are looking for and position yourself so they’ll find you? Using a combination of paid search (advertising) and SEO (building trust in search engine so your web site can be found by potential customers) your business can grow. No matter what size it is.
Why do so many businesses think they cannot afford internet marketing services? Businesses of all sizes and with small or large budgets can benefit. After all, what’s a fair price for unlimited distribution?
I saw this story today about how one YouTube video flooded a small business with thousands of orders for a DVD. It illustrates perfectly how internet marketing can impact a business. The web site www.a-cappella.com, a business with just two full-time employees sold 5,300 copies of this DVD. In the past their record sales were selling 100 of one DVD in a year. That’s what I call great ROI.
I can see that they could do better with their SEO and web site marketing (I’d post that video and highlight the group on the front page of their Christmas section for starters). Also, I’d start a blog and highlight the other YouTube videos of groups they carry.
Here are some web site marketing strategies from Search Engine Watch. Lots of clients want to be on the first page of search results for the key terms relating to their business. They want it fast. This article talks about things to consider.
First the honesty. We can’t read the algorithm’s mind. No matter how good you are there is a lot of unknown or things beyond your control. The good news is the payoff is big and if you implement sound search engine optimization, you’ll see an impact over time. Normally over several months, depending on the competition.
Clients and readers often ask why a site that’s younger, smaller, or just plain “uglier” outranks them. There really isn’t a simple answer. More than a few times I’ve had to say, “I don’t know.”
What Matters for Web Site Marketing:
Publish quality, original information on your site that establishes you as an expert in your industry. Blogs are a great way to do this. Each blog entry is like adding another web page of information to your site.
A larger more established web site will generally rank higher than smaller separate sites. It pulls more weight.
Get quality, relevant links from a variety of sources.
Set realistic expectations - if you want to rank for the words “internet marketing” it’s going to take a while. Or, you may not have much of a chance. It’s a general term and a lot of other web sites want to rank high for it. Also, your competition may have been around much longer with many links, great content, and trust built in search engines.
I like to think of web site marketing as a relationship - it’s something you build over time. Since many clients like to see results faster, paid advertising in search engines can fill in the gap. Notice the difference - one is running an ad, the other is building a relationship. Sure you pay for every link, but it’s quick. That’s why doing both is key.
