Search Engine Optimization
and Internet Marketing
Leverage The Power of the Internet for Increased Profit

Marketing is about the image you project, the products and services you offer, and how you deliver those products and services.

Effective Marketing is about setting a price as a measure of value and finding a competitive advantage. Marketing is about checking customer satisfaction and making sure that you deal with any dissatisfaction. Marketing is about paying attention to changing conditions and responding in ways that positively impact your business. Most precisely, marketing is making sure that all company policies and activities are aimed at satisfying customer needs while obtaining the most profitable sales, rather than number of sales.

Covenant Designs is your web, marketing, and print business communications partner to promote your maximum profit, not just the maximum number of transactions. Consider:

• What if, instead of spending my time looking for new customers, they simply found me? Then Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Positioning are for you.
• Are the new business leads your business is most interested in the customers who are most interested in you? If so, then Search Engine Positioning can come to your aid.

These are the most common questions our clients and prospects ask us about marketing through the Internet. Contact us and we will be happy to discuss these and any other web marketing solutions in more detail:

• Is Internet marketing totally different from traditional marketing?
• Is Internet marketing only for B2C? Will it work for B2B?
• Is SEO (Search Engine Optimization) the only tool for Internet marketing?
• What about passive promotion?
• What type of promotion should be in my Internet marketing mix?
• How can I leverage Internet marketing to increase B2B sales?
• How do I make my sales leads qualify themselves?
• How do I measure the ROI of an Internet Marketing campaign?
• How do I leverage my Internet presence to shorten the sales cycle?

How is Internet Marketing different from traditional marketing?
It isn't very different. You still have to create awareness, interest, preference and choice in order to support a purchase decision. Your web site content design strategy is similar to planning a booth at a trade show. You will want to answer similar questions:

• How will we attract visitors?
• When they "walk" by, what in our booth will make them want to stop and talk to us?
• What is our Value Proposition?

The main differences are: speed, cost and metrics. What used to take weeks and months now can be accomplished in hours, days and possibly minutes. What used to cost tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars is now only hundreds or a few thousand dollars. What was previously measured in subjective terms, now can be specifically quantified and valued to the penny.

Is Internet Marketing only for B2C? Can I market a complex B2B product online?
Internet Marketing is a viable tool for any product sold to buyers who use the World Wide Web and e-mail. Today, buyers of complex products prefer, in fact demand, to do their research on the web. B2B companies can leverage their web site to support the sales cycle by allowing visitors to self-educate and self-qualify. A B2B can maximize the efficiency of their direct sales force by making the web site filter qualified prospects.

Is Search Engine Optimization (SEO) the only tool for Internet Marketing, especially of complex products?
SEO can be a key element of any Online marketing program, but it is by no means the only tool. Web-savvy companies know that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Positioning (SEP) are the most cost-effective marketing vehicles for driving qualified traffic to their web sites.

85% of those actively interested in your products and services can be effectively reached with a combination of SEO and SEP listings in relevant directories (e.g. Yahoo, CNET, ZDnet, etc.)

Search Engine Optimization deals with the following issues:

• Choosing the best keyword phrases
• Making every page a gateway to the rest of your Web site
• Using title tags to your advantage
• Effective Meta description tags
• Link popularity and page rank
• Gaining search engine rankings by making sense
• Using duplicate content and mirror sites for SEO
• Splash and Flash pages
• Site maps for search engine success
• Optimizing a framed site for high rankings
• Creating directory descriptions
• Eliminating 'Search Engine Spam'.
• Professional search engine optimization
• How many words do you need for high rankings?
• Using keywords in link text
• Optimizing dynamic content for high rankings

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) isn't a one-time effort. The variables that influence search visibility and rankings are constantly changing: Search engines update their rules. Competitors constantly optimize their pages to improve their rankings, and new players enter.

Without an SEO solution to keep you periodically "updated" on changes that could negatively affect your search engine rankings, you could lose highly targeted web traffic to your competitors.

Tried and true search engine optimization methods that work:
We use two basic methods of search engine optimization. Every site has its own unique needs, and we will determine the best method of optimization for your site once we've had a chance to carefully look at it.

1. Writing or rewriting your existing content for search engines and your prospects. Very often when we optimize a site, our professional writers will need to rewrite the text currently showing on your pages to incorporate your keyword phrases for high rankings. We understand your company has a particular branded tone and feel that needs to be reflected, and as such we will work closely with your marketing department, and/or train your writers in SEO writing, as necessary.
2. Editing your existing content for keyword phrases. For some Web sites there may already be enough well-written, visible text that allows us to weave in the targeted keyword phrases, where appropriate. This is often the case with high content sites.

Please note: Highly graphical and/or Flash pages, cannot be optimized using traditional copy writing methods. These overly-graphical sites fail with search engines because the engines cannot read or index them.

REACH 95% OF ALL INTERNET USERS WITH YOUR MESSAGE
THROUGH TOP PLACEMENT IN THE MAJOR SEARCH ENGINES

What about passive promotion i.e. e-zines, webcasts, portal sites?
Passive promotion is the online equivalent of traditional PR. This includes participating in online communities, appearing in or writing articles for e-zines and web portals, participating in webcasts, and participating in product reviews or awards programs. These activities will help you build your brand, and help reinforce your active promotions and even helps you build your ranking with the search engines by adding to your link popularity.

What active promotion techniques should be part of my Internet marketing?
Active promotion techniques that may be effective include newsletter sponsorships, opt-in email, and online event sponsorship i.e. webcasts.

How can I leverage Internet Marketing to increase B2B sales?
Maximize the efficiency of your B2B direct sales force by using your web site to allow your prospects to self-educate and self-qualify. Effective online marketing tactics that market to the right audience with a focused message that encourages conversion will reap the qualified leads your direct sales force demands from marketing.

Get the white paper: Focus the Message for Conversion

How can I make my sales leads qualify themselves?
Promoting the right “web draw” conversion collateral will attract visitors and motivate them to buy sooner. Make the virtual environment of the web into a personal experience. Produce web draw materials such as educational webcasts or white papers that speak to visitors. Design your web site to provide a forum for your customers/clients to interact -- to share their story. Making your web site a community will encourage visitors to return to your site as a known source of useful information in their buying decision process. The goal is to convert the browsers into qualified prospects for your sales force maximizing their efficiency.

How can I measure the ROI of every marketing campaign dollar spent?
Now here is a scary statistic: according to the consulting firm of Accenture, nearly 3/4 of marketing executives believe they are unable to measure ROI on a program investment. This doesn't have to be this way! The Internet environment provides an extensive set of tools to track behind the scenes from the early browsing stages to actual purchase. So how do you measure your ROI? Discipline, organization and proper planning that we call by the technique of 'Internet Performance Marketing.'

How can I leverage my web site to shorten the sales cycle?
The key is leveraging the broad reach of the Internet to draw your prospects to your web site. Once they arrive, your site should provide the education and information your prospects need to ultimately draw the conclusion to choose your products and services. Your site needs to lead the viewer along the persuasion path to take the action of completing a sale.

Your web site should support and be an integral part of your prospects vendor selection process. Following our own methodology, Covenant Designs strives to provide the information you need for the right Internet Marketing Service Provider that will help you achieve your business goals. You want to provide the information your prospects need to make an educated buying decision. Promoting the right “webdraw” conversion collateral that will encourage your visitors to convert to a call to action and motivate them to buy sooner.

> learn more: contact Covenant Designs