When you hear web 2.0 marketing being talked about, it refers to two way communication in website marketing strategies. The consumer is in charge, choosing what brands or businesses they support and also communicating about experiences they didn't like and what they like among their own groups and networks, Facebook being the prevalent place to trade information among friends. So, the essence of web 2.0 marketing is listening first, then responding to what's being said about your online business. Customized business blogs are the most organized way to deliver useful information to people in social networks that have an interest in what you offer, but need more information from a non-ecommerce site before moving to a buying decision. Net More Now uses Joomla and does complete Joomla blog customization that prepares the business blog for becoming an effective tool to support an online business. The first thing in planning an effective website strategy is intensive keyword research. The results are then implemented into the blog customization process, so that from the foundation on up, the business blog is fully optimized and totally relevant to the website it's to support. Many times the optimization process must also include updating the main website's pages to match up well for when content is pointed to its specific pages. Web 2.0 marketing includes social networks, most important ones to customize pages for are Twitter and Facebook. Naming the Twitter page and the Facebook fanpages is just as important a mission as the domain name for the main website. Other web 2.0 tools are video, business blogs, social media press releases and targeted advertising that helps spread word of mouth. A single website with no social media networking sites or effective blogging strategy, is in danger of falling to the wayside. It is increasingly difficult to depend on one or two strategies such as pay-per-click or banner advertising without having a network of web properties that support one another. Net More Now has a well defined marketing strategy program that starts off by looking at every aspect of sites that have been up and running for ten years and sites that are brand new. A web 2.0 marketing proposal is drawn only after all consideration of what needs to be accomplished, and marketing budget constraints are taken into account. It is far better to run website strategies at a consistent pace over time than take short cuts that come with the risk of failing to continue on pace.
The phrase 'web 2.0' may seem to be a catch-all for any online method that's interactive and different from static web sites that hardly change at all, and when they do, it's infrequent. Microsoft has clearly defined what web 2.0 marketing is (in their mid-size business center) and left it to solution providers on how to fulfill and implement the internet marketing strategy. Net More Now found that when all parts of the website strategy are coordinated to work together, the results are greater than the sum of the whole, meaning doing one part at a time will have less results.
Website Promotion-
Promotion marketing that can generate newsworthy press releases, capture social media interest is a promotional marketing incentive that is well targeted to it's audience. Offering a promo code that expires has a call to action built in. A drawing for a significant prize that is a hit with the target audience can collect email entries into the drawing and help build an email list for another way to communicate and stay in front of potential customers. Internet marketing promotion of an 'event' can increase participation whether the event is held online or is localized. On the smaller scale, doing bogos or couponing using email and Twitter can create sales. Promotion marketing generally gives away something of value in order to qualify potential buyers who decide to take advantage of the incentive in return for committing a little time to a presentation. The followup may be a phone consultation or a set of sales letters sent by autoresponder. The presentation can be a webinar, where a presentation gives value in of itself to the potential buyer, who now qualify themselves. A sales consultant then helps further to close the sale.
Social Networking Sites-
It is first on the list to be involved with because these are the places people spend most of their time. Facebook alone, recently passed Google to be number one in traffic. You can count on the fact that people are talking about your products or services in any number of networks, and it's a good idea to be part of the conversation. The first thing to do is join in and listen to what's being said. The next thing is to create content that interests or entertains members of your community. You participate, but you and your products are not the center of attention. By contributing to the community, you become the go to person or authority on what it is you do. Social media advertising allows you to communicate and build relationships with people of like interests plus current or prospective clients. Nothing beats 'word of mouth' from people you trust and comparison sites you trust. Because of the dramatic rise of communication technologies people's perspectives have changed. People choose what they want to view and when they want to view it. This has changed 'interruption-based marketing' to 'permission based marketing'. Social networks empower people to choose who they want to interact with and on what terms. Think of yourself as an invited guest in someone else's social network-and act accordingly! Net More Now integrates social media feeds such as twitter onto client's platforms, sets up and customizes social network pages and helps an online business build their following. Our social media trainer teaches to not spam your networks, such as sending identical "thank you" messages to every person who joins your network.
Blog Customization-
Blog customization starts with keyword research. Choosing a domain name that will contain the keyword(s) people would natually search under for what you offer gives your blog (applies to web sites too) a great advantage. Naming the home page your domain name and adding top keywords to the title helps optimize the site. Be sure each page has it's own title tag and description. It is still important to include your keywords in the keyword tags, just don't stuff the tag with more the ten or twelve keywords. Use the top keyword phrases in your description tag to deepen the process. Google may not always use your description tag, it sometimes finds the first text on your blog to make out a 'snippet' and uses this 'snippet' as your description in your listings. The next areas to optimize is including keyword phrases in your content and linking the phrases to pages deeper in your site. Use H1 headers with keyword phrases built in and follow down with lesser important headers (H2,H3,etc).
When using pics and video, be sure to use the tags to describe and include keywords as well. The last area to plan out is the navigation menu. Use keywords to describe each link in the Category/Navigation menu. Now that you've planned out the blog, you can choose a template that best fits your needs. Installing is pretty easy with Wordpress and Joomla. Net More Now primarily uses Joomla because it better handles ecommerce and has a very robust CMS (content management system) built in. Many hosting companies such as GoDaddy.com list Wordpress as a blog platform and Joomla as a CMS platform.
Now that the template is installed the real fun begins. Designing, choosing color themes, getting the graphics, pics and multimedia together. There are thousands of plugins available to give your blog the functionality you want. As you get to the finish line, install an xml site map that instructs the search engines to index the blog every time new content is published. Keep new content coming regularly and include the keyword phrases the main website wants to be known for in each post. Link the keyword phrases (anchor linking) to the most relevant page so when the search engines index, they'll follow the links and give link popularity to both the site and blog. In this way the blog in your entry tool into the social media networks and also your own link building tool for pushing up your web site's rankings. Think of your web site as where people come to buy and your blog as your marketing arm that educates and advises.
Intelligent Press Releases-
An iPR is meant to tell a story about you and your business and not be a piece of sales literature. Press releases help build credibility and visibility for your blog and web site. It can also contain news of a special event, contest or drawing. When the release is launched it gets picked up in search engine newsfeeds and gets distributed to thousands of news sources. The press release can create a massive amount of inbound links. The term 'intelligent' simply means the release has been optimized for keywords, hyper-links and multimedia. To protect your investment in an intelligent press release, it should be written professionally and launched by a known source to the media. A promotional marketing incentive is a great way to increase interest. An intelligent press release with a website promotion can drive traffic from the news story to the website.
Video and Audio-
Video and audio tells your story in a more entertaining and deeper way than text or pictures. Youtube gets used like a search engine and promotes your video virally by being shared and embedded all over the net. It certainly takes something imaginative to catch on big. One of the benefits of Youtube is starting your own 'channel' where you can keep adding videos that tell your story, give demontrations or how to lessons. It's a great way to get creative about showcasing your online business. Audio is popular too, with a large assortment of internet radio stations doing music and talk shows. A free source to consider is blog talk radio to do your own show.
Targeted Advertising-
Google Adwords comes to mind because it's the most successful pay-per-click program available. Successful for Google, open to question to anyone new to Adwords. Net More Now offers a free ebook called Adwords Made Easy. You can download it at Top Website Strategies It helps devise a winning strategy. Another place to not overlook is Facebook's PPC program. You can target a narrow demographic group and fine tune your ad. In our opinion, targeted advertising is the last thing to implement because it can adversely affect a marketing budget without extensive testing to find its 'sweet spots' in bidding on various keyword phrases. We use pay-per-click in support of getting listed organically, using the other web 2.0 strategies. A way to let facebook fans know of any news or promotion is to make a status message, which is targeted free adveritising to your facebook fans.
