For Internet marketing, when you sell stuff online you are helping to solve someone's problem. They may arrive at your site via a search engine, or they may have been given a recommendation. But the reason they come to your site is they believe that you can help them. If what you offer meets the needs of your web site visitor do they really care about a "brand" you may have? Probably not. If you have branding, they will already know about you and so will be buying from you on the basis of your brand reputation. But if they have never heard of you before and they buy from you, they are doing so on the basis of accepting that you will be able to provide the answer to their problem. So branding is not important in that case. So, online, branding may not be as important as we think. What matters most is targeting the specific needs of the customers who visit your site. Do that and they will buy - even if you don't have a "brand".

Labels: internet marketing, shopping

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The other day I was speaking at an NRG meeting in London, UK. Afterwards one member of the audience came up to me and said that what I spoke about made sense for selling physical products but couldn't possibly apply to selling services online. However, I disagreed. All our purchasing decisions are related to trust. When you buy a new car you are deciding whether or not your trust the manufacturer to build a reliable and safe vehicle. You are deciding whether you trust the warranty terms. You are deciding whether you trust the dealer's company to service your vehicle properly. Similarly, when you bought your house you decided whether or not you trusted the structure not to fall down. And when you bought that new DVD player, you had to trust that the device would do what it said it would do. In the world of physical products, trust plays a huge part in our decisions as to whether or not to make a purchase. The same is true, of course, for services. When you buy the advice of an Internet marketing adviser you decide whether or not you trust the individual to help you. Equally, if you want the help of any kind of consultant you are entering into a relationship of trust. So, what the Internet does in these cases is help you build trust between yourself and your potential clients and customers. Online, there is no real difference between selling products or services.

Labels: internet marketing, shopping, speaking

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At February 28, 2007 2:05 AM  Zach Katkin said…

At February 28, 2007 7:04 AM  Graham Jones said…

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If you're in the UK this summer and you have a day to invest, why not go to the Online Marketing Show? It's taking place a the Business Design Centre in Islington, London and will include exhibits and speakers who specialise in Internet Marketing. For more information visit Online Marketing 07.

Labels: internet marketing, speaking

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Today I've received yet more misleading information about SEO. The problem is, many people will be convinced by the promises of getting high search engine rankings. Let's be clear about this. Google has some great advice to webmasters. That says, the best way to get the highest rankings is to have an up to date web site, with focused content in text format. Simple, straightforward and a surefire way. Google knows what gets to the top of its listings - fresh, busy web sites with lots of articles, text etc.

Yet, we are besieged with advice on search engine optimisation, as though getting to the top of Google were possible with some "trickery" or by having the correct code in your pages. This offer I received today was no different. All I had to do was spend my money and I'd get "secrets" that would guarantee me top positioning on the search engines. There was even a video that provided "evidence" of the system. However, what the video didn't explain was the fact that the search term for which it claimed high rankings was actually not a term being typed in by people. A simple check with Wordtracker was all that was needed to work that out. The video also showed the owner's site being at "Number 5" in Google. Yet, a simple ranking search on Google showed it doesn't appear in the Top 50. Many people won't make these checks; they will believe what they are told, pay their money, get the "secrets" and get ranked for search terms that no-one is looking for anyway.

So, for free, here's how you get ranked by the search engines. Provide something of value to people. Write about it and include loads of information about what you provide. Have background articles and update the information regularly (via a blog is best). Make sure the title of the page reflects what is actually on the page and uses the keywords people will be typing in. Write good material, update it regularly and you will get noticed by the search engines. It may not be a "system", it might not be exciting, but it does work. How do I know? Well, for the first time in over 10 years, this web site appeared in the top 100,000 rankings of Alexa this week. In fact, I made the top 60,000 - not bad considering the billions of web pages I'm up against. Just a few months ago, this site was below 4 million in Alexa. All I have done is add content each week by blogging. More search engine rankings, a surge in readership, an increase in Alexa ranking, a jump in Google Page Rank from 1 to 4. All done without any "SEO" but with writing material instead.

Labels: blogging, internet

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At February 25, 2007 9:48 PM  davidinnotts said…

At February 26, 2007 1:47 AM  zkatkin said…

At February 26, 2007 7:57 AM  Graham Jones said…

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Marketing via email can be very productive. Indeed, many Internet marketers make more money from their email list than they do from their web pages. But, with "open rates" and "click through rates" going down the whole time, how can you make money from your list? Well, as always there is a psychological component. New research suggests that the main reason for opening an email marketing message is because you trust the person who sent it. In other words, the main task of anyone engaged in email marketing is to build trust with their audience. You do that in several ways - looking and being professional, having physical addresses and contact details on all your pages and messages, as well as using recognised, secure systems for everything you do. But there is more to trust than this. Psychological research at the University of Columbia, New York showed several years ago that one of the main components of trust is showing your audience you care for them. In other words, everything you do must be from their perspective; the more you focus on your audience needs specifically, the more you will be trusted. And the most trust you gain, the more emails you'll get opened.

Labels: internet marketing, internet psychology

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Many businesses want to get to the top of Google. They spend hours, days, weeks attempting it. They are competing against millions of other pages and will try any of the latest "tricks" to get an advantage on the other web sites listed by Google. Then Google changes the rules, or another search engine gains importance and everyone refocuses their efforts. Meanwhile, as these businesses work hard on trying to get search engine attention, their customers are going in different directions. Many companies are losing business because they are wasting their time trying to get good search engine rankings. Here's something important: most of your customers will NOT have found you via Google or any other search engines. The vast majority of your business will have come from other routes. Very few companies generate all their income as a result of search engine marketing. True enough, a few do. But there are many more "poor" people trying to make a living online than there are truly successful Internet Entrepreneurs. What you need is a strategy to enable your firm's use of the Internet to work for you - rather than against you. Focusing on search engine marketing is working against many organisations. So I've written a free report on Strategic Internet Marketing which you can get from http://www.grahamjones.co.uk/pdf/internet_strategy.pdf

Labels: internet marketing

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Several years ago I sat at a lunchtime event in an upstairs room of a small cafe in Nebwury, Berkshire, UK. Not a very posh place, but it's where Vodafone announced to the local business community that it was working on something called "GSM" which would take mobile phones into the next era. It all sounded very grand and exciting; nowadays with broadband, even 3G is looking tired - GSM is history. However, the same company that brought us the excitement of GSM was also behind another three letter acronym - SMS, text messaging. Vodafone's engineers had invented text messaging as part of their internal system. However, no-one thought there was a use for it. Indeed, the entire mobile phone industry hid away SMS capabilities for several years. A psychologist would have pointed out that there was indeed a use for the system. People rarely leave voicemail. That's because we have an inbuilt preference for the two types of language we use. We use vocal language when we can see or hear other human beings. If we can't hear them or see them our inbuilt preference is for written language. SMS is perfect when you can't see or hear the other person. Hence it has real value to us. The industry squandered billions of pounds of income by not considering this; instead they thought the phone was just a voice device. A new report shows how much we view the phone as a text device. Research by Portio suggests that the income from SMS text messaging is set to grow to $67bn. It shows what a huge sector this really is and suggests that the industry lost out on significant slices of income by hiding away text messaging for so long. With a simple bit of psychological insight they could have increased their profits considerably.

Labels: future, internet

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I was at a seminar today run by NRG Networks where marketing expert Nigel Temple made the point that mackerel fishing involves using a line that has several hooks on it. If the mackerel doesn't fancy the bait on one hook, he may have a greater attraction to the bait on a hook further up or down the line. Nigel was making the point that your marketing needs to be multi-faceted - it's no good relying one one method of attracting clients; you need several ways of getting people interested in your work. It struck me that Internet Marketing is much the same. Far too many people rely solely on a web site. They spend hours ensuring it's well designed, that is has the latest technology and that it has all the right sections. Some people will be attracted by the brilliant web site. But other "mackerel" you are trying to catch will not bite. They might be attracted to a blog, if you have one. Or they could be interested in the web site you have that merely offers a free report. Others still may be lured by that Pay Per Click advert you have, whilst other potential customers are going to be interested in what you say on a social networking site. In other words, concentrating on getting a great web site is rather like someone fishing for mackerel with a single hook; they wouldn't get much. In my case I get people coming to this web site who read my blog; others visit alternative web sites I run because they want one of my free reports on information marketing perhaps. Others will be interested in what I have to say on Ecademy. What multiple methods do you use to attract your clients online?

Labels: blogging, internet marketing, social networking

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At February 19, 2007 8:17 AM  nigel said…

At March 07, 2007 9:22 PM  Idea Guy said…

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Something dramatic has happened to my web site's listing within Google - and it's not good. For the past umpteen years if you searched for "graham jones" this web site (www.grahamjones.co.uk) was always Number One on Google - both the .com and the .co.uk versions. Yesterday, www.grahamjones.co.uk completely disappeared from Google's listings. If you search for "graham jones" you do find several references to me, as well as some pages from deeper within this site - but as for my home page, nothing. At first sight this may not be that important - most people, of course, aren't searching for me by my name. For the "long tail" keywords I'm going for, I do very well. For instance "blogging public relations" I'm No. 2 on Google. But it's the disappearance of my home page that reveals more about Google and the way it ranks sites. Indeed, it shows up how simple the Google algorithm really is - indeed how basic it is. Perhaps they have been fooling us into believing it's rather complex? Here's what happened to remove my home page from the index.

Several months back I changed the design of this web site to allow my home page to incorporate my blog. That, I figured, would help my site's ranking within Google because it would be seen as regularly updated, fresh and so on. Indeed, that worked. For the past umpteen years this web site has had a lowly Page Rank index of 3 for Google. Within a couple of months it has gone up to 4. Equally, my Alexa ranking has shot up and is growing exponentially. The impact of including a blog on my home page has been substantial. However, in order to make a blog work for your target keywords, you need to get them "up front" in your titla tag. (The title tag is the name of the web page you are looking at that appears in whie text in the bar above the menu bar of your browser.) A blog uses your headline as its title tag. However, crucially, blogging software puts your headline in the title tag after the name of your blog. That means your important keywords have low prominence in the title and are therefore not given the ranking they deserve. The only way out of this is to have a short name for your blog. In my case it's just "GJ"; many people avoid giving their blog a name, just so their keywords get higher prominence in the title tag. But, by removing "graham jones" from my title tag, I've managed to get myself removed from Google's index for that keyword.

What this means is that Google clearly relies on the title tag more than any other part of your web page for its ranking. I know this is important - otherwise I wouldn't be using a blog to gain me high ranking for long tail keywords. But the complete removal of my home page from the index demonstrates clearly that the title tag is given the most important status as far as Google's algorithm is concerned. You'll find SEO experts telling you this anyway - but clearly it shouldn't be neglected.

However, consider for a moment my long tail keyword "blogging and pubic relations". I only wrote that blog entry a couple of weeks ago yet it's No 2 in Google out of around 260 pages. The title tag includes the keyword "blogging and public relations", but the text does not. If you check Google for the keyword you'll find that only three sites actually have that phrase in their title tag and they are the top three listed by Google. In other words, Google has shot my blog entry right to the top simply because of the title tag.

Of course to SEO old handers this is all obvious; and true, I was aware of the importance of the title tag. But my experience this week has shown me how significant it really is - and how blissfully simple the Google algorithm really is. Put your keyword right up front in your title tag and Google will rank you very highly for that keyword - almost (but not quite) regardless of your body text.

My problem is that around 12% of the people who search for this site use my name to find me. That's because they've heard me speak at an event, for instance, and just want to check me out. Now they won't find me. I've partially solved the problem by setting up an Adwords campaign on my name. My next project is to change the way my blog is integrated into the site so that I can restore the title tag "graham jones" to my home page.

Labels: blogging, internet, internet marketing

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At February 14, 2007 9:23 AM  andrew said…

At February 14, 2007 9:43 AM  Peter Abrahams said…

At February 14, 2007 2:16 PM  Graham Jones said…

At February 14, 2007 2:59 PM  business said…

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The Australian Olympic Committee has banned all the country's athletes from blogging whilst at next year's Olympics in Beijing. The BBC reports that the Australian Olympic Committee believes blogging would "erode the sanctity of the Olympic village". What tosh! I know several people who have competed in the Olympics and the words "Olympic village" and "sanctity" don't usually appear in the same sentence. The Olympic village is much more like a university hall of residence, they tell me, with much drinking and bonking going on. To say that blogging would in some way destroy a special place shows how much these sports authorities know about things. It also reveals how little they know about blogging and its psychological position. Almost all of the Olympic athletes from Australia will be young. They will have grown up using Internet communications as standard. They will perceive blogging in a way that is an everyday, normal activity: as normal as conversation to those of us who grew up without such technology. To ban an athlete from blogging would be like telling them they can't speak to anyone. It will certainly have a detrimental psychological effect on Australian athletes. And that will be exploited by atheletes from other countries who will be allowed to blog. Expect Australia to get less medals than they predict.

Labels: blogging, social networking

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At February 11, 2007 12:02 AM  Jeremy Jacobs said…

At February 13, 2007 8:18 PM  Doolols said…

At February 13, 2007 11:55 PM  Graham Jones said…

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Day Job Killer has gone "live". It's a 69 page ebook that explains how to make money online using Google Adwords, amongst other techniques. It is solid stuff and worth buying as it is packed with good tips and hints on making money online. However, type "day job killer" into Google and you'll find you get over 30,000 results; just a few days ago it was a handful. Within hours of the launch of this ebook, dozens of affiliates had created thousands of pages, articles and blog entries about Day Job Killer. As a piece of Internet marketing it's a good case history. But how did it become so successful, so quickly. That, it seems, has little to do with the Internet. Instead, it was some offline marketing with meetings with joint venturers that really led to the success of this product. As such, Day Job Killer shows us the true power for Internet marketers lies offline - in the relationships you have with people who can sell your products for you. So, never neglect building relationships and developing an offline network; that can really help you with your Internet marketing as Day Job Killer proves.

Labels: internet marketing

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At November 03, 2007 10:44 AM  Dave said…

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Yesterday I was presenting at the National Meeting of the Professional Speakers Association and noticed that several members of the audience were taking notes. All very well, you might think. But in American meetings I've been to, several people would have been making their notes public - they would have been blogging the event. Why is it, I wonder, that you see live blogging from meetings more in the USA than you do in the UK? Part of the reason, I suspect, is that we're about a year behind in adoption of new technologies in the UK. Another possible reason is that the availability of "ultra mobile" computers is much less in the UK. Try to get a laptop weighing less than 3kg at a reasonable price. So that puts people off taking their laptops, if they have them, because they are too heavy. What we need then, is a portable blogging device; a hand held machine that connects straight to our blog service. You can do that with a hand held PC; but there's a clear opportunity for an enterprising mobile phone manufacturer. Are you listening Mr Nokia?

Labels: blogging, future, speaking

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