I'm sinking!

Hi, was just wondering if I could pick some brains re my Internet Marketing problem.

I've recenly been appointed by a medium sized manufacturing company to design and implement an online marketing stratagey - almost from scratch and start to bring in more quality sales leads from online sources.

My difficulty is that I'm struggling with the objective. The objective is not traffic levels etc (where my experience lies), but QUALITY enquires, not just crap ones, lol. The client was spending BIIIIG on AdWords, and my first jobs were to obviously create a a full and comprehensive internet marketing stratagy, complete redesign of website to make it more functional, interactive and apply some hard SEO so we could phase out the need for such extravagent use of Adwords with top positions. The industry is very competitive! This is coupled with Email marketing campaigns, link devlopment, creating online ordering systems and also a live help type system that also allows me to get in there and get some enquiries that might have otherwise left the website. Add newsletters, promotions and serious time spent optimizing the google ads (i'm getting excellent CTR) on thoroughly researched keywords.

We are still spending big on adwords, the enquiry levels are HORRENDOUSLY erratic - there is NO pattern to it whatsoever and it's not going to well all in all. Boss is putting pressure on me to see more enquires etc etc

It's worth bearing in mind that I am only two months into the job, and the site redesign (massive site) took the best part of a month, along with all the crap like learning the product etc etc.

Just wondering if anyone who has experience in this particular field of generating enquires rather than traffic were able to offer me some words of encouragement and some general advice.

Thanks for listening

 

If you are spending big bucks on certain keywords that are not returning any customers you may want to start monitoring those keywords and filter those keywords out. Do some research on less competitive keywords that are still being searched that will bring back less traffic but will bring back traffic from those willing to buy. For example if you sold web design templates, filtering out Free, Cheap, Affordable would filter out those people who are looking for free templates and have no intent to buy.

I would focus all my energy trying to find that perfect formula for you client. Express that quality traffic is much better than bulk traffic when they question the drop in traffic. If it is a VERY competitive field you are probably getting curious visitors to see what you are doing so they can stay ahead of the game. You might just have to bring in a partner to assist in this process if it's over your head. It's better to get results and make less money than it is to not have a client at all because of the poor results.

Good luck with this!

 

Sounds a lot like what I walked into when I was hired for this job. The difference being I had the experience going in and that's why they hired me. But the end result is still the same. How to get quality leads?

The first step is to post the url so we can take a look and provide some feedback. From there, we can have a better understanding of what you're working with.

 

Hmmm, not sure what this means? If you mean that I obviously have no experience because I'm seeking advice, then you are mistaken. The experienced ones know when to ask for advice! Fools suffer in silence.

 

Ok William, don't get testy. I meant that my backgound is in web design and seo. From your post, I understood you to mean that you had been tasked for this project without a great deal of internet / seo experience. My appologies if I read that incorrectly.

Now, let's get back to your url...

We still cannot offer any tangible advice without knowing what you're working with.

 

Sorry for the narky response - had been a long day and I was feeling a little fragile, no offence intended!

url = etiquette.co.uk

There is still an ENORMOUS amount of work for me to do on this site and it's only 1.5 weeks old in layout although the domain is established. Navigation is a problem and a new more user friendly system will be in place for the sections falling under the headings of "systems".

I've achieved a #8 on "Plain Labels", a highly sought after keyword phrase almost instantly - but am having problems with other targeted keywords - it's obvious to see what they are.

I'm also working on some "microsites" for the most important keywords and product lines which use descriptive domains. These are sites with independant ip's, content, design and will include subtle cross links and will be taking care not to spam. Because of the wide range of keywords we are after, I feel it is going to be easier to break it all down, have a website for x and y and z with this one as the main site.

Will welcome all comments - and I'm sure most of them are guaranteed to hurt my feelings

Thanks,

 

I don't know much about labels, but it seems that the home page is so busy, there is so much there that it's to the point of being overwhelming. I most cases, less is better. My first question is do you use separate landing pages for your ppc ads? If so, you would have much greater success than just dumping a ppc visitor off at your home page. Because they have come for a very specific purpose and are now presented with an overload of choices, it's much easier to hit the back button and look for something else. If you have a landing page for each ppc phrase, then when they get to your site, they will be looking at exactly what they are interested in and you should find the results will rise significantly.

Good luck.

 

90% for PPC ads land on the related page - still waiting for content on a few of them, but a label printer ad lands on a label printer page. Am in the process of streamlining the navigation in particular and spreading the enormous amount of products and services across a few carefully chosen microsites.

 

Not trying to be picky but what's the point of that news bar just below the search box? Personally, I find it irritating because it means a mini page reload every few seconds, causing the cursor to go into a timer for a second. From the perspective of a potential customer, I would get jittery and close the window. It makes me nervous and I know what it is. Apart from anything else, why pay for clicks and then encourage people to jump to a news site from the home page?

If you want traffic, why not come up with a viral marketing idea? It would get you some tasty inbound links as well as increase product awareness. PM me if you want an idea.

 

I agree on both points. New Ticker was a poor lame attempt at trying to get something semi "sticky" - shouldn't really need to worry about this with a labels site!

Page loading is also something I'll have a look at.

Thanks for the input.