The world of business is forever changing and so is the buying behaviour of prospects. The wonders of marketing and technology have given people more choice in selecting suitable suppliers. The Decision Makers of today are able to approach companies inwhatever manner of communication they choose, very few pick up the phone, in fact most feel more at ease visiting websites and emailing potential suppliers.

It is also very good testing for them and to see how quickly their enquiries and requests are dealt with, better to know whether or not a supplier will act to your sense of urgency prior to the signing of an order, rather than after. Most of today s business is initiated electronically, and it s more of a case of being available to people looking for the things you sell, rather than approaching them with the presumption that now is the time for them to buy.

Additionally because work loads have increased, decision makers are reluctant to involve themselves in conversation, lose valuable hours and still be without a supplier. Most companies now havestrict policies in ordering goods and services, these include the requirement for three competitive quotes and initial research to ensure the company can and will deliver to their requirements. Not surprisingly case studies are now a pre-requisite for any supplier.

This is why the majority of initial contact is now started by a web visit, and then an enquiry email, the initial information required can be requested without picking up the phone. So where do future prospects start searching? It s a fact that 85% of all new web visits start from one of the five major search engines, this is where you need to be listed and visible.

The most effective way to become listed to on the major Search Engines is to employ the services of a Managed Search Engine Marketing company like Vertical Leap.

However it s amazing to learn that companies of all sizes are still spending thousands of pounds every year on antiquated finger in the wind practices such as Direct Mail. Visit any decision maker, any day of the week and you will discover a bin under their desk fullwith unwanted, unsolicited mail.

Direct Mail works, but very few respond and it no longer fits it with the way that budget holders wish to select suppliers. Direct Mail is also very expensive, both with direct and indirect costs, for example Design, Copywriting, Database Hire, Print, Postage, the costs areendless, for very little return.

It s also important to understand that with Managed Search Engine Marketing the sales process is substantially reduced, due to the buying mentality of the prospect. If the prospect is coming to you this means they are looking to purchase now , as mentioned before they are looking for the things you sell rather than you having to create the right stimuli to convince that now is the time for them to buy.

We all know a sale is much easier if the prospect has come to us rather than being approached, this is why we call Managed Search Engine Marketing ‘Reverse Direct Marketing.

Also most marketing departments are accountable for any budget spent on practices such as DM, and they have to report accuratereturn on investment, which is notoriously difficult to measure due to the way prospects respond.

Again, this is where Managed Search Engine Marketing scores again, because every historic report is available via Vertical Leap sclient portal, more costs are saved because marketing departments have all the information at hand.

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About the Author
CIW web designer,Independent IT writer with many years experience in Internet Marketing, SEO optimization, as well as making money on Google Adsense. The owner of this website http://moneyseekers.bravehost.com

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Notice: This article above was written by a 3rd party author and included here “as is” for informational purposes only. The authors of this site make no claims and take no responsibility for the accuracy, use or misuse of the content of this article. If you like the article, please visit the authors site for more information.

We all know the importance of gaining top visibility to a specific target audience on the major search engines. After all, you really need qualified traffic or those who are actually searching for goods and services that you are offering. While most of the time, we teach folks about the importance of doing good keyword research and/or behavioral research to ensure they are attracting an “ideal” target audience, there is another more natural aspect that I’d like to just touch on here.
Writing for search engine robots is not enough:
Many search engine optimizers are empowered through training, with the ability to write for search engine robots and have crafted their skills to score exceptionally well for top relevancy. It surely is essential but there is another element that we need to reflect on besides just writing for search engine robots (as important as that is). I am referring to the importance of compelling your visitor to respond right now once they have landed on the Web page as a result of finding you in the top results. Just what is the exact reason that your target audience will make a buying decision? Why will they decide to buy or not to buy? What do they need to read within your copy that will get them to act right now?
There are only so many reasons why your visitors buy:
When I first started my business, I use to love to ask questions like….Can you explain why I should buy from you? Invariably the client can often point out a number of important reasons why you might buy from him instead of the guy down the street. What you want to do is try asking a series of questions to help profile the client’s target audience. After all, this is the most important group to try and understand….the “target audience”. At our live SEO Mastery Workshop, we teach people powerful ways that they can research their target audiences behavior. But let’s start by arming you with a few basic questions that should help you think about your writing style and communications.
Online or offline, most human beings have certain mindsets which can trigger buying. The challenge however, is we often behave a certain way without ever giving an ounce of thought to the REAL REASON why we buy. If we understand the real reason that that visitors respond, we can suddenly write much more effectively for the human brain as well as the search engine robots.
Let’s start by listing a 5 simple reasons that will trigger buying decisions:

• People will buy to save money
  
• People will also buy to make money
  
• People will buy something if it saves them time
  
• People will buy a product or service if it makes life easier
  
• People will buy something if it improves their safety

Okay, now in each of these 5 examples, ask yourself the following questions:

• If people will buy to save money -

  then ask yourself…

  if your product or service saves them any money? (This is a trigger)
  

• If people buy to make money

  then ask yourself…

  does your product or service offer your audience any opportunities to earn?
  

• If people buy to save time

  then ask yourself…

  ….how might this apply to what you offer?
  

• If people buyto make life easier

  then ask yourself…

  are you able to name some improved conveniences?
  

• If people buy to improve safety,

  then ask yourself…

  does your product improve security or make people feel safer?

You can see how having an understanding WHY people buy, can actually change the way you present your content. These types of questions will often help you with writing much more compelling copy because you are writing with a focus that includes a reason to respond now.
But wait!…
Are these the only reasons why people buy? Absolutely not! Start by creating a list of your own “triggers” or things that caused you to “make up your mind” to buy.
The more you explore your target audience’s mindset, the more fascinating this can become. Of course we have not even touched on a fraction of the many “triggers” that are at work in people’s minds when they are reading Web pages.
If you want some more buying triggers to consider, I’ll give you a few more

• People will buy to for specific brands (usually it has to do with prestige)
  
• People will buy to educate themselves
  
• People will buy to improve their health
  
• People will buy to settle their fears
  
• People will buy to have some fun
  
• People will buy to satisfy their curiosity
  
• People will buy to streamline their processes
  
• People will buy to prove they are right about some issue
  
• People will buy to improve their image or appearance
  
• People will buy to improve their quality of life
  
• People will buy to uniquely set themselves apart from the crowd

What other reasons can you think of that will compel your target audience to buy now?
Best regards,
John Alexander

John Alexander is the Co-Director of Training of Search Engine Workshops with Robin Nobles. Together, they teach 2-day beginner, 3-day advanced, and 5-day all-inclusive “hands on” search engine marketing workshops in locations across the globe. John also teaches online search engine marketing courses through http://www.onlinewebtraining.com, and he s a member of Wordtracker s official question support team.

john@searchengineworkshops.com

TechTags Plugin [ internet marketing | seo | search engine optimization | web site optimization | internetoutfitter ]

Notice: This article above was written by a 3rd party author and included here “as is” for informational purposes only. The authors of this site make no claims and take no responsibility for the accuracy, use or misuse of the content of this article. If you like the article, please visit the authors site for more information.

SEO = search engine optimization. Good search results are essential to your site. Many people do not go beyond the first page of the results pages so you need to ensure that your site is search engine optimised or you wont get any traffic never mind the right sort of traffic traffic that brings you business that is.

So what are the things you need to do to have a chance to rank well? As every search engine has a different algorithm (which just means a mathematical rule or procedure for solving a problem) and each algorithm has literally hundreds of inputs this may seem like an impossible question to answer. And to answer it with 100% accuracy is impossible but there are certain things that have a major effect that you must do just to stand a chance.

1. Make sure that your site is technically sound and well built with plain English page titles rather than: sessionid=4D6BE5993FFF956660C27184A2F39E81.TC30a?__frame=_top and with all non HTML code (HTML = Hypertext Markup Language and is the basic language used to write web pages) called in from separate directories.

2. Choose keywords and phrases very carefully. Keywords should be the words that customers actually use to find your site when using a search engine. Amazingly most people just ignore this basic fact and never get any research done on the subject!!! That s like turning up to the airport with no money, no ticket and no passport and expecting to get on a plane in other words: nuts!

3. Once you know what keywords to use write a page with a relevant page title for each keyword or phrase using simple language with variations of the keyword or phrase to reach a keyword density of about 5 8% and about 500 words per page minimum with paragraphs that use tags in their sub headings. Make sure that your keyword(s) or phrase(s) appear in each of your pages’ “meta tags . Make sure that ll you photos have descriptions.

4. Find a way to build up the relevant links to your site from other sites. Search engines view inbound links as a vote for your site. Therefore, in general, the more incoming links to relevant parts of your site from relevant anchor text (the visible text in a hyperlink you click to go to another page or website) on other sites the higher your page will rank, but the linking sites must be relevant and links from disreputable sites can harm your ranking.

5. Continually add new content. Sites that continually add new content and new pages get better rankings because search engines like new relevant content. Search engines spiders or web crawlers are a program that browses the World Wide Web in a methodical, automated manner. Web crawlers create a copy of all the visited pages for later processing by a search engine that then indexes those pages to provide fast searches. Spiders are always on the lookout for fresh content.

6. Put up a site map which shows every page on the site and has a link to it. This will help the search engine robots find every page. If you are updating regularly then an XML site map for Google that pings Google about every update should be added too.

7. Make sure you have basic management information about the site how many visitors, where they go, where they leave etc. Arguably this is just as important as the site itself as it allows you to improve it based on actual results.

8. Finally build a site for people that is interesting to people. No point in being at the top of the search engines if people just refuse to stay or buy!!! People generally stay on sites that are relevant to what they are looking for at the time, are easy to navigate, easy to read and easy to buy from. Whilst they like prettily designed sites form tend to be less important than relevance and ease of use.They also like interacting via chat rooms or watching relevant movies .

About the Author :

Richard Hill is a Director of E-CRM Solutions, that specialises in CRM, direct and internet marketing [http://www.e-crm.co.uk] for SMEs. He is non-executive Chairman of Innovantage [http://www.innovantage.co.uk] a business intelligence company and a non-executive director of Innovecom [http://www.innovecom.com] a computer networking company.

This article is distributed by: www.iSnare.com

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Notice: This article above was written by a 3rd party author and included here “as is” for informational purposes only. The authors of this site make no claims and take no responsibility for the accuracy, use or misuse of the content of this article. If you like the article, please visit the authors site for more information.