Does your web designer understand internet marketing?

Does your web designer understand internet marketing?

In the early days of the Web the imperative was upon having a website and as a result an industry was born, and boomed, creating websites. Good, bad or ugly, it didn’t really seem to matter a long as you were part of the the new wave online.

These days however its a lot different. Everyone has a website and a substantial portion of the population uses the web to shop, search research, chat, meet, discuss, review…well you get the point, we’re online a lot. In fact a recent study revealed that 97% of clients purchasing decisions were influenced by websites.

Now, amid the clutter and competition online, mere web existence isn’t good enough. Now professional internet marketing is crucial. You don’t just build a website, you build a web presence.

Search engine optimisation, social media, conversion strategies, data analysis, geo-targeting, the mobile web, real time search. They’re all part of a sophisticated internet marketing plan that enable you to compete and thrive online.

Unfortunately, many web designers are still just building websites.

Check if your designer understands internet marketing by asking:

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Australia Leads World in Average Time Spent per Person on Social Media Sites

Still not taking social media seriously as a significant contender for consumer attention?

A recent Nielsen survey reports that Australia led the world in average time spent per person on social media sites in December 2009.

When narrowed by individual country, with 142.1 million unique visitors the United States had the largest number of social media and blog users in December, followed by Japan, which had 46.6 million unique visitors during the month. Australia led in average time per person spent, with the average Australian spending nearly 7 hours on social media sites in December. The United States and the United Kingdom came in a close second and third, with 6 hours and 9 minutes and 6 hours and 8 minutes, respectively.

Almost seven hours per person per month spent on social media. That’s a lot. Especially when you consider another Nielsen survey in 2009 revealed that long-established traditional media like newspapers and magazines are only gaining our attention for an average of 8 to 12 hours per month.

Australian’s now spend an average of 16.1 hours per week online and 3.7 hours per week on mobiles. The booming smartphone and about-to-explode iPad market will only see our online engagement continue to climb.

Once again, the question is….does your marketing reflect the new hierarchy of media consumption or are you still casting your bait where the fish no longer bite?

Think web presence not just website

Most organisations approach web marketing the wrong way. For years the conventional wisdom was to get a cool URL and build a hot site in the hope that potential customers will flock to them online. Unfortunately we still see this thinking every time we sit down to design a website for a client. Too much time is spent on the colour, the font, the logo or some very random but apparently “cool” idea.

As inbound marketers we believe that websites should be treated very differently. Yes, its important to get the layout, look and feel right…but its more important to get the content and conversion right. And above all, its important to get the INBOUND part of your web presence right. This is what will bring visitors to your site, not the hot graphics and Flash animations.

Start thinking about your total web presence and think of your website as the landing pages. If you want to attract qualified traffic to your site you need to start spending time where your prospects are: social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, industry blogs and networks like LinkedIn and Foursquare. Crucially, you need to be found on the first page of Google, Bing and Yahoo for relevant searches.

Finally, you need to start producing compelling content for your organisation. It could be distributed via YouTube, Vimeo, Flickr or numerous other outlets, even your website or blog. Great content has a multiplier effect because it attracts people and will be shared with others. A simple re-tweet by someone with a decent number of Twitter followers could generate a lot more traffic for your website than that hot graphic you’re trying to agree on.

Spend less time on the web design process and more time generating content, joining conversations and participating where your customers are.

If you’d like to find out how Inbound Marketing capable your website is, submit it for a free report at NLYZR

Marketers see most potential in social media, video & SEO

Forrester Research put out a great report on US Interactive Marketing Spend recently showing where marketers believe effectiveness will increase and decrease in the next three years.

The three biggest expected INCREASES were in Created social media, Online video and Search engine optimisation (SEO).

The areas predicted to have the biggest DECREASE in marketing effectiveness were Newspapers, Yellow Pages, Telemarketing and Radio.

(information sourced from SEOMOZ)

Marketers see greater potential in interactive channels

ConnectNow conference a must-see for aspiring Inbound Marketers

Aspiring inbound marketers should start booking seats for the ConnectNow conference to be held in Sydney 7-9 April, 2010. The line-up of speakers includes Gary Vaynerchuk, Brian Solis, Darren Rowse, Tara Hunt and Debs Shultz.

About the conference:
ConnectNow is a marketing and communications conference focusing on the convergence of social media, emerging technologies and enterprise. The three-day event brings together visionaries and specialists in the field of new media marketing, community management and social technologies covering the latest strategies, tools and best practices in marketing innovation.

Topics will include innovative trends such as online/offline integration, geo-tagging and location-based services, mobile’s growing dominance, augmented reality, ubiquitous computing, social search, SEO and the importance of trust and social capital in relationship marketing.

Some of the presentations of particular interest to inbound marketers will be:

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