Check List for Web Marketing
Since September is the traditional time for re-launches and new vigour in our working lives after the northern hemisphere summer break, I thought I’d run some quick checks by you.
1. Your company website. www.yourname.com or .co.uk
It exists - does it capture all the worldwide interest in your product and service? Does it really say what you do and how to see how good you are at it? Consider buying similar domains to cope with mis-spellings and international interest e.g. biz or .co.nz as well as your main domain.
2. Google.com; .co.uk; dot wherever you are located
Does it find YOU for the right search terms? If not - get that SEO done. You are about 5 years behind. If you aren’t on the first page… get there. Narrow your niche, find ways to cut above the competition or else you are wasting your online marketing spend.
3. Places where customers share information about you. Sites you do not control. Scary stuff for the traditional brand manager. Find them, know who the major poster / protagonists are, read them regularly. Do searches for podcasts, wikis as well as the more obvious forums, Facebook, Myspace and YouTube. Find where customers and prospects are talking together. If you have an active referrals programme, integrate this.
4. Find where online analysts gather and do product comparisons. Find the bloggers writing in your space. Again the opportunity for consumers and key influencers to comment is key. [I love being able to link to these for positive and negative feedback and putting it back onto the company news page. It is perceived as being more honest than stuff the corporates write]. Reinforces strong product news and helps influence other consumers.
5. Find out how you rank on the voting sites digg. del.icio.us and so on. Does your brand get a mention? Where do customers go to give you feedback? Both on your site and off it.
6. Start to plan how you are going to go mobile. Mobile Web is coming up - is your site optimised to work on the web. Can you do it with the same URL as your main site [drives me nuts that facebook’s mobile site is m.facebook.com….] And Second LIfe and Gaming sites that include brands…. and Facebook. There is a lot of good discussion on businesses using Facebook for stuff… flyers, business groups, common interests… see my profile and the groups I belong to for some ideas.
Thanks to Jeremiah