Internet Marketing Expert
Many people brand themselves as an internet marketing expert, and by implication are a specialist in online marketing. But what exactly does this term mean and how do you spot a good internet marketing expert?As it happens, there are various different strands to internet marketing, and it is rare to find an expert in them all. Therefore before finding the right internet marketing expert for you, you first need to find out what expertise you are looking for. Here are the three main elements that are lumped under the umbrella term of internet marketing:
Marketing of your website
This is, perhaps, what most people mean by internet marketing. There are two main areas:The first is with regard to making changes to the actual content on the site - called on-site work for obvious reasons. This could involve, for instance, identifying key phrases that your target market search on and then using a range of techniques to hone your site to perform better on these searches - through better copy, perhaps, more focused use of keywords, niche pages, and tighter titles and meta data associated with pages.
The second common method here is link building. In general the more links the better, and many internet marketing experts work on link building for clients, using their experience to seek out the best links for their client; perhaps from relevant sites or authoritative directories in that industry, whilst avoiding links from places that can do more harm than good.
Strategic Marketing
Marketing of your website is focused almost exclusively on improving the search engine performance of your site. However strategic marketing focuses more on the human side of things - how your site can market itself better to the human who is on the site. In other words, what can the site do to help drive conversions, and convert more clicks to purchases. This actually requires a different set of skills to the website marketing above, and it is rare that someone has both skill sets, though it may not be immediately apparent that this is the case.Strategic marketing can involve the whole range of looking at usability, site taxonomy, content and layout to see how effective your site is at helping people achieve what they want to do on your site; help them find the product or service they are after, and guide them through the lead generation or purchase process without them getting confused and fed-up and leaving before they finish the process. Many people concentrate on the website marketing element, but actually the strategic marketing is just as important, and some argue more so - a person good at strategic marketing, whilst harder to find, is worth their weight in gold therefore. It is a fair point - what is the purpose of driving traffic to your site if as soon as they arrive they get frustrated, can't find what they want easily enough, and promptly leave never to return?
Online PR
This is the third form of work that an internet marketing expert might engage in, and is distinct from 'straight' PR in that this focuses firmly on website promotion, but without the focus on driving search engine traffic. Rather it is about positioning the brand, marketing it, creating awareness and driving a disparate set of web users who may not be the obvious target to your site, or simply ensure that they know and learn about your brand to a, albeit potentially limited, extent.A whole range of techniques may be used, and traditional PR releases is only a small part of it. Rather, experts in this area will ensure you use tools like Twitter and perhaps Facebook groups and other so-called Web 2.0 technologies to get your message out there - you never know who might be listening/reading your messages and drive traffic your way. They will also advise and help you get yourself set-up on business networking sites and forums (such as this) and help you maximise your presence and your brand. This could include simple things such as using the status feature on About My Business - where everyone who visits the homepage will find out about you and your brand when they hit that page, which accounts to advertising to hundreds of people a day for free, whilst your status message is showing.
Someone who is savvy when it comes to online PR can also be extremely useful - and some will also advise on how to write a great email newsletter, setting up and monitoring mailing lists and getting the best out of your existing customer base. So this can also be very much along the lines of 'traditional' marketing work that you think of outside the online space. Many people are very bad at marketing to existing customers, but this is as important with an internet business as any other.
So that's it - an internet marketing expert can actually be someone who focuses on a very different element of the online marketing mix to another internet marketing expert. So do your research, and find out what skills you are really after and who has those skills.
Don't rely just on recommendation from others unless they have actually used a person's service and benefitted first hand. Don't rely on reputation but make your own mind up. Someone who knows nothing about the industry can't tell you who is an expert or otherwise on hearsay, and weight of numbers doesn't add any validity - only someone with first hand experience is a credible source of endorsement.
Rather, make your own mind up by asking for tangible examples of what someone you are thinking of using has done with other sites. If they are in strategic marketing or online PR, ask for case studies. If they are involved with improving search engine presence, ask for examples of clients they've worked with and details of search terms - and for this type of person also look at their own site and see how they perform for searches on their own target market. Contact the owners of their clients' sites and ask if they were happy with the service. Doing your research can save you a lot of money, but more than that - make you a lot of money.
Finally, don't skimp - if you decide to use the services of an internet marketing expert, then you should expect the results to be great for you financially, so don't try and get it done on a shoestring budget. After all, if you ultimately do not have the confidence to invest financially in your brand and online presence, why should anyone else?
Do you need help with any element discussed above? If so, Get in Touch, and one of our experts will drop you a line to see how best to assist you in your online ambitions.
