Internet Marketing

That Confusing Internet “Stuff” Is Just Advertising

No matter how hard I try to use plain English, all this website-Internet-social media-Google “stuff” is just plain confusing to a lot of business owners and salespeople. Their eyes glaze over when I talk about ranking well in Google or converting site traffic to email subscribers.

Confused people don’t buy – which might explain why about half of all small business owners still don’t have websites – and why most of those who DO have sites aren’t happy with theirs.

So let me frame Internet marketing in another way – friends, it’s just another way to advertise your business.

Wikipedia defines advertising as “… is a form of communication used to persuade an audience (viewers, readers or listeners) to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services.”

When you print business cards or run an ad in Doormail or Columbia Marketplace magazine or buy space in the Yellow Pages or do TV commercials, you’re advertising. Your website is advertising too – and it’s an important way to advertise, since most people look online today to find products and services.

You don’t have to understand how the printing process works to use print media effectively. You don’t need to know how to determine the best radio stations and time slots for your commercials. There are experts to help you with that – you find someone you trust, who DOES understand how all that works, and they’ll help you make the right decisions to make the most of your ad dollars for that particular medium.

That’s how it works with websites and Internet “stuff” too – you find an expert you can trust, who DOES understand how it works, and let them advise you on how to use your advertising budget, online. It’s okay if you don’t understand websites and the Internet and the search engines and Facebook, as long as you work with someone who does. It’s just advertising, and you do it all the time.

How to Create a Website for $111

Want to build your own website? You can do it for about $111, here’s what you need. Numbers are approximate, and I’m assuming you want to go the “professional” route with your own domain name and hosting.

Domain Name Registration (Godaddy): $11/year
Web Site Hosting: $100/year
Site Builder (WordPress, Weebly, others): free
Blog (WordPress): free
Market Research (Google Adwords Keyword Tool): free
Traffic Stats (Google Analytics): free
Search Engine Optimization (WordPress All-in-One SEO plugin is one way): free
Email: free with hosting; Gmail is also free
Image Editing (Irfanview, Picnik, Microsoft Picture Manager): free
Newsletter Management (Mailchimp): free
How-To Instruction (Youtube, Google, forums): free

Total Cost: $111

What else will you need to spend?
A lot of time.
A lot of effort.

Suppose that’s acceptable to you. You don’t need your site done quickly and you have lots of time to figure out how to make it look and work correctly.

What else are we missing?

Oh yeah. Copywriting expertise. Online marketing expertise. SEO expertise.

Have you heard the story of the airplane mechanic?

A very expensive and rare old airplane developed a worrisome engine noise that had mechanics baffled. They spent days trying to figure out the source of the noise, to no avail.

Finally the aircraft owner tracked down a mechanic who specialized in restoring these old planes and offered him $5,000 to find the problem. The specialist agreed.

When this expert arrived, the aircraft owner and the previous mechanics watched eagerly while the specialist listened to the engine and walked around the plane. After about 5 minutes, he asked that the engines be turned off, requested a specific screwdriver, made an adjustment to the engine and told the pilot to turn the engine on again.

Wow! The noise was gone!

So the specialist wiped his hands on a rag and presented a bill for $5,000 to the owner.

The owner and his mechanics had a quick whispered conversation. Then the owner told the specialist, “You know, $5,000 seems like an awfully large payment for 5 minutes’ work tightening a screw, don’t you think? Would you reconsider that price?”

The specialist thought a moment, nodded, took the bill and wrote on it, and handed it back to the owner.

The newly revised bill said:

1) Tightening screw on engine – $5.00

2) Knowing which screw to tighten – $4,995.00

Where’s the beef… er, benefit?

It kills me when someone pays a bunch of bucks for a website and winds up with something that’s a dud when it comes to marketing. Reminds me of this vintage (1984!) Wendy’s commercial…

Just got off the phone with a gentleman who’s not real thrilled with his current website. I’m not going to embarrass this particular business man by referencing his site publicly. Let’s just say that, if what he told me on the phone is true, I’m personally very excited about what his product can do. And I truly believe millions of other people would be too.

But does his site convey any of that excitement? Does it say, it big bold letters, so I can’t miss it, what that product will do for me? Heck, can I even tell what the product IS? Nope. Instead of a headline, there’s a “Welcome to our website” banner that does absolutely nothing for me.

The site is beautifully laid out. I’ll bet the owner (and the designer) are so proud of it. And I have a pretty good idea of what the designer charged (more than $10K) for it, because I know what he charged for another site.

But where’s the benefit?

Why Set Up Domain Forwarding?

I often encourage people to buy one domain name and redirect (or forward) it to another one. It’s an inexpensive way to make it easier for people to find a particular web site, or even a specific web page. I’ll describe how they work and why you’d want to use one.

Domain forwarding (domain redirection) lets you automatically send your domain’s visitors to a different web site. Forwarding is a slick trick when you have a web site built elsewhere and you want to give people an easy-to-remember domain name to reach it.

Here’s an example, one I’ve done.

I write a column for the Columbia Daily Tribune, and it’s archived online on their web site at http://www.columbiatribune.com/staff/diana-ratliff/. But that’s rather long and hard to remember – I wanted an easier way to tell people where to read it.

So I bought the domain name WebWiseColumn.com and set up a redirect.

Now, when people type http://www.webwisecolumn.com/ in their browsers, they’ll see http://www.columbiatribune.com/staff/diana-ratliff/

http://www.webwisecolumn.com/ http://www.columbiatribune.com/staff/diana-ratliff/

It’s like giving your site a nickname, one that’s easier to remember or to spell than the REAL domain name.

(If you want, you can hide that you’re doing this by enabling “Masking” – which prevents visitors from seeing your domain forwarding by keeping your domain name in the Web browser’s address bar.)

So why would you set up domain forwarding?

Let’s say you have a listing at one of the local business directories like EverythingMidMo.com. Rather than telling people “Well, to find my site, type in everythingmidmo.com, then click on “Beauty and Fitness”, then click on “Beauty Salons”, then scroll over to page 5 and it’s there, click on it…” – wouldn’t it be easier to say “Find my business at MyBeautySalon.com”?
Suppose you sell products or services online as an affiliate – you get a commission if you refer someone to another website and they make a purchase. Usually, you get an AFFILIATE LINK when you join an affiliate program – and the link is usually quite long and full of odd characters. You might buy a domain name and redirect it to your affiliate link. I do this for business card printers – for example, if you type in FindBusinessCards.com, you actually wind up at PrintsMadeEasy.com – and I’ll get a commission if you buy business cards there. (Go ahead, they’re great cards!)
Maybe you just want a domain name and don’t want to actually develop it yet. Say you want to buy “yourname.com” in case you ever want to use it. Or maybe you want to buy some great domain name that’s associated with your industry, just so your competitors don’t get it. You can buy that domain name and redirect it to an existing site.

It’s important to remember that what counts with the search engines is the domain name the files are actually ON. I’ll discuss that in a future blog post!