Keyword research – find out, what your customers are really looking for

In order to be able to target your customers through the Internet, you need to know, which keywords they use to look for certain information.
When people want to buy something, they often look online first. Especially buyers of computers and consumer electronics rather rely on search engine results before buying, than on social media. This is shown in a stuy by comScore ('The Value of Retail Search and Position') that asked more than 1000 buyers. 30 percent of people asked in the study said, they would use search engines as a first or second step when looking for information.

In order to find out, which keywords are used by your potential clients, use the following tools online:

• Google AdWords Keyword Tool
  Enter a search term here and the tool will give you other search terms related to it. You can also see the popularity of keywords over time here.
• Google Trends
  Here you can see trends of keywords you entered.
• adCenter Labs Keyword Forecast
  Shows the popularity of keywords entered.

Use your newly acquired knowledge and revise your website so that you will be found in search engines with your chosen keywords.

How to avoid copyright infringement as a website owner

When running a small business or organization you have to be very careful when adding content to your website. You should know exactly, what you are allowed to publish and what not, to make sure you avoid plagiarism or copyright infringement.

All work published is copyrighted - this is true for most countries (certainely for the USA and Germany)! This means, you have to ask for permission to use it - whether there is a copyright notice or not. Never take credit for someone else's work and let viewers know, whose work it acutally is.

Also be careful with customer data. You should disclose in a privacy policy on your website how you gather, use, disclose and manage customer's data. In many countries, this is a legal requirement when running a website.

Test of company products as viral marketing campaign

Blendtec, a company from West Orem in Utah, that produces and distributes blenders, mixers and mills - both for commerical and private use - is very successful with its viral marketing campaign "Will it blend?".

The company has its own websites (www.blendtec.com, totalblender.com), uses twitter (twitter.com/blendtec) and facebook (www.facebook.com/BlendTec), has its own YouTube-channels (www.youtube.com/user/Blendtec, www.youtube.com/user/InsideBlendtec) and a video blog (www.blendtec.com/willitblend). The company also offers recipes and tips on healthy eating to customers and all those who are interested through its websites and facebook.

On the video blog with the name "Will it blend?" the company tests which products can be blended with one of their blenders. Tom Dickson, the founder of Blendtec, throws in different products in each video. Books, soft air guns, laser pointers, cameras, camcorders, paintings, car parts, light sticks, skis, but also fruits, vegetables and other food. The Blendtec devices blend everything - until dust is the only thing left. Dickson already blended iPhones - the YouTube-video of blending an iPhone has more than 8 million views, almost 4.5 million viewers wanted to see the blending of the iPhone3G. The latest video of the company, blending the Apple iPad is extremely successful already. After being put online only on April 5, almost 3 million viewers watched it so far.

All of the "Will it blend?" videos are set up according to the same scheme and also contain the company logo, which definitely increases the recognition value. The "Will it blend?" campaign has been running successfully since 2006. Since the beginning of the campaign the company was able to increase its turnover. Meanwhile, the campaign has its own page on wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_It_Blend).

Effective online marketing

Online or Internet marketing is becoming increasingly important - not just for online businesses, but also to any other companies.

To run effective online marketing, you should note the following:

• Spend a lot of time on the Internet and try to learn as much as you can about online marketing.
• Take part in debates in Internet forums and state your website. This will help you to get search engine traffic to your website.
• Try to find out how your customers find you - through acquaintances, Google search, by chance?
• Define your target audience and align your website, as well as your complete marketing.
• Your website should be different from their competitors' websites. Do not bore your clients with information, photos or products they have seen everywhere else.
• Your website should contain useful information for your customers - about your company, your products, your services. Offer tips or newsletters to your customers so that they will come back to your website from time to time.
• Your website should show clarity. The navigation should be clear - you should give up using different levels.
• If you sell products through your website you should have a secure order page.
• To ensure that your website is found by search engines, you should have so called "back links"- links from other websites to your website.
• Try to find out which new opportunities there are in online marketing and how to use them.
• Hold on. Do not give up too quickly. It takes time until you are able to see results of your online marketing.

Newsletters- a way of keeping your customers or members informed

If you want to keep your customers or club members upt to date, but you don't want to invest much, then we recommend a newsletter. It can be sent to interested people per email or it can be offered for download on your website. In your newsletter you can summarize what has happened in your organization or club over the last few weeks or months.

There are many organizations that already offer newsletters. Just subscribe and it will be sent to you.

The easiest way to write your newsletter is with a word processing program, such as OpenOffice or something similar. Because text documents look different on every computer - fonts might be missing or the software is not installed - it is advisable to convert the document into a pdf document. In order to create pdf documents you can use freeware (such as pdfcreator or freepdf).

If you want to send your newsletter to multiple recipients via your regular email software, make sure you put all recipients in bcc. This will make the different email addresses invisible for the different recipients. You can set your own email address as cc.

Of course, there are many other ways to create and send newsletters. If your website is built with a content management system (cms) you can send the newsletter directly through the system there.

Google Analytics on your website

Google Analytics is a free service - offered by Google – that shows you detailed statistics on the visitors of your website.
With the help of Google Analytics you can collect and analyze the behavior of the visitors. You can see how many visitors your website had at a specific time, which search engines visitors used, or which key words people used to find what they wanted.
With the help of all the collected information you can optimize your website and reach goals - such as number of visitors – much easier. The service can be set up and used easily.

Your website

Most businesses and also organizations – even the smaller ones – have a website with more or less the latest content. However, a website alone does not do the trick. Why have a website, if nobody knows about it?

Here are a few tips, that will help you get more people to your internet presence:
• Print the address of your website (URL) on everything – business cards, stationery, envelopes, bills, offers, leaflets, cards, brochures, product boxes, ads, signs.
• Add the URL to your email signature.
• Add the URL to the text on your phone mailbox.
• Print the URL on t-shirts.
• Put the URL on your company vehicles.
• Don’t just put the URL – also add the company name, address and phone and fax numbers.
• Exchange links with other companies – add the link of another company to your website and have them add the link to yours on their website.
• Participate in industry-specific forums: give expert advice and add your URL
• Send online newsletters, which contain a link to your website
• Only send the newsletter to people who want it and make it easy for people to unsubscribe from it again
• SEO (search engine optimization) – have your website analyzed and optimized regarding to search engines (relevant key words, optimize text regarding marketing)