PEST Analysis. (free marketing lessons)

What is PEST Analysis?
(free marketing lessons)

It is very important that an organization considers its environment before beginning the marketing process. In fact, environmental analysis should be continuous and feed all aspects of planning. The organization's marketing environment is made up of:

1. The internal environment e.g. staff (or internal customers), office technology, wages and finance, etc.

2. The micro-environment e.g. our external customers, agents and distributors, suppliers, our competitors, etc.

3. The macro-environment e.g. Political (and legal) forces, Economic forces, Sociocultural forces, and Technological forces. These are known as PEST factors.

Political Factors.

The political arena has a huge influence upon the regulation of businesses, and the spending power of consumers and other businesses. You must consider issues such as:

1.How stable is the political environment?

2.Will government policy influence laws that regulate or tax your business?

3.What is the government's position on marketing ethics?

4. What is the government's policy on the economy?

5. Does the government have a view on culture and religion?

6. Is the government involved in trading agreements such as EU, NAFTA, ASEAN, or others?

Economic Factors.

Marketers need to consider the state of a trading economy in the short and long-terms. This is especially true when planning for international marketing. You need to look at:

1. Interest rates.

2. The level of inflation Employment level per capita.

3. Long-term prospects for the economy Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita, and so on.

Sociocultural Factors.

The social and cultural influences on business vary from country to country. It is very important that such factors are considered. Factors include:

1.What is the dominant religion?

2.What are attitudes to foreign products and services?

3.Does language impact upon the diffusion of products onto markets?

4.How much time do consumers have for leisure?

5.What are the roles of men and women within society?

6.How long are the population living? Are the older generations wealthy?

7.Do the population have a strong/weak opinion on green issues?

Technological Factors.

Technology is vital for competitive advantage, and is a major driver of globalization. Consider the following points:

1. Does technology allow for products and services to be made more cheaply and to a better standard of quality?

2.Do the technologies offer consumers and businesses more innovative products and services such as Internet banking, new generation mobile telephones, etc?

3.How is distribution changed by new technologies e.g. books via the Internet, flight tickets, auctions, etc?

4.Does technology offer companies a new way to communicate with consumers e.g. banners, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), etc?

Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunites and Threats (SWOT).

Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunites and Threats (SWOT).
(free marketing lessons)

SWOT analysis is a tool for auditing an organization and its environment. It is the first stage of planning and helps marketers to focus on key issues. SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Strengths and weaknesses are internal factors. Opportunities and threats are external factors.
In SWOT, strengths and weaknesses are internalstrength could be: factors. For example:A

* Your specialist marketing expertise.
* A new, innovative product or service.
* Location of your business.
* Quality processes and procedures.
* Any other aspect of your business that adds value to your product or service.

A weakness could be:

* Lack of marketing expertise.
* Undifferentiated products or services (i.e. in relation to your competitors).
* Location of your business.
* Poor quality goods or services.
* Damaged reputation.

In SWOT, opportunities and threats are external opportunity could be: factors. For example: An

* A developing market such as the Internet.
* Mergers, joint ventures or strategic alliances.
* Moving into new market segments that offer improved profits.
* A new international market.
* A market vacated by an ineffective competitor.

A threat could be:

* A new competitor in your home market.
* Price wars with competitors.
* A competitor has a new, innovative product or service.
* Competitors have superior access to channels of distribution.
* Taxation is introduced on your product or service.

A word of caution, SWOT analysis can be very subjective. Do not rely on SWOT too much. Two people rarely come-up with the same final version of SWOT. TOWS analysis is extremely similar. It simply looks at the negative factors first in order to turn them into positive factors. So use SWOT as guide and not a prescription.
Simple rules for successful SWOT analysis.

* Be realistic about the strengths and weaknesses of your organization when conducting SWOT analysis.
* SWOT analysis should distinguish between where your organization is today, and where it could be in the future.
* SWOT should always be specific. Avoid grey areas.
* Always apply SWOT in relation to your competition i.e. better than or worse than your competition.
* Keep your SWOT short and simple. Avoid complexity and over analysis
* SWOT is subjective.

Business Planning

Business (Corporate) Planning is the process of deciding what tactical action and direction to take, in all areas of business activity, in order to secure a financial and market position commensurate with the strategic objectives of the organisation. To put it another way, it is the comprehensive planning for the whole of the business and involves defining the overall objectives for the organisation, and all the actions that must be adopted in order that those objectives are achieved.
Illustration:
If only we spent as much time doing our jobs, as we waste in these budget meetings, we would be a lot better off. This planning stuff is all very well, but has anyone ever worked out how much it costs? Anyway, all we can ever do is write down what we think will happen, then wait until it hasn’t happened, and finally argue about why it didn’t. Sometimes I wonder if it is all worthwhile.

Statements like these occur because:

* No one has taken the trouble to explain the purpose and benefits of planning;
* The planning methods are wrong;
* Plans are imposed from above, rather than worked out and agreed with the people who are going to have to carry them out;
* So-called planning is often no more than totalling up the various departments’ forecasts, and calling them the company plan.

In general it can be assumed that FIVE important features of Corporate Planning prevail, they are:

1. Objectives and objective setting;
2. Flexibility - the ability to be adaptable within the plan;
3. Growth - anticipating opportunities for new markets;
4. Synergy - the sum of joint efforts being greater than either one;
5. Time span - the critical length of the plan - long termism is increasingly risk managed in today’s business environment.

Corporate planning is, like most business activities, only as good as the people who do it. Its methods and approach do, however, stack the cards in its favour. In nearly every business, competition and technical change has increased, is increasing, and will continue to increase, and won’t stop. It cannot be ignored, so better to be part of a success story through effective corporate planning than flounder with those competitors who have failed to grasp the nettle.

by http://www.marketingpower.gr

Pareto Analysis (the 80:20 rule)

The Pareto effect.

In practically every industrial country a small proportion of all the factories employ a disproportionate number of factory operatives. In some countries 15 percent of the firms employ 70 percent of the people. This same state of affairs is repeated time after time. In retailing for example, one usually finds that up to 80 percent of the turnover is accounted for by 20 percent of the lines.

This effect, known as the 80 : 20 rule, can be observed in action so often that it seems to be almost a universal truth. As several economists have pointed out, at the turn of the century the bulk of the country’s wealth was in the hands of a small number of people.

This fact gave rise to the Pareto effect or Pareto’s law: a small proportion of causes produce a large proportion of results. Thus frequently a vital few causes may need special attention wile the trivial many may warrant very little. It is this phrase that is most commonly used in talking about the Pareto effect – ‘the vital few and the trivial many’. A vital few customers may account for a very large percentage of total sales. A vital few taxes produce the bulk of total revenue. A vital few improvements can produce the bulk of the results.

The Pareto effect is named after Vilfredo Pareto, an economist and sociologist who lived from 1848 to 1923. Originally trained as an engineer he was a one time managing director of a group of coalmines. Later he took the chair of economics at Lausanne University, ultimately becoming a recluse. Mussolini made him a senator in 1922 but by his death in 1923 he was already at odds with the regime. Pareto was an elitist believing that the concept of the vital few and the trivial many extended to human beings.

Much of his writing is now out of favour and some people would like to re-name the effect after Mosca, or even Lorenz. However it is too late now – the Pareto principle has earned its place in the manager’s kit of productivity improvement tools.

This method stems in the first place from Pareto’s suggestion of a curve of the distribution of wealth in a book of 1896. Whatever the source, the phrase of ‘the vital few and the trivial many’ deserves a place in every manager’s thinking. It is itself one of the most vital concepts in modern management. The results of thinking along Pareto lines are immense.

For example, we may have a large number of customer complaints, a lot of shop floor accidents, a high percentage of rejects, and a sudden increase in costs etc. The first stage is to carry out a Pareto analysis. This is nothing more than a list of causes in descending order of their frequency or occurrence. This list automatically reveals the vital few at the top of the list, gradually tailing off into the trivial many at the bottom of the list. Management’s task is now clear and unavoidable: effort must be expended on those vital few at the head of the list first. This is because nothing of importance can take place unless it affects the vital few. Thus management’s attention is unavoidably focussed where it will do most good.

Another example is stock control. You frequently find an elaborate procedure for stock control with considerable paperwork flow. This is usually because the systems and procedures are geared to the most costly or fast-moving items. As a result trivial parts may cost a firm more in paperwork than they cost to purchase or to produce. An answer is to split the stock into three types, usually called A, B and C. Grade A items are the top 10 percent or so in money terms while grade C are the bottom 50-75 percent. Grade B are the items in between. It is often well worthwhile treating these three types of stock in a different way leading to considerable savings in money tied up in stock.

Production control can use the same principle by identifying these vital few processes, which control the manufacture, and then building the planning around these key processes. In quality control concentrating in particular on the most troublesome causes follows the principle. In management control, the principle is used by top management looking continually at certain key figures.

Thus it is clear that the Pareto concept – ‘the vital few and the trivial many’ – is of utmost importance to management.

by http://www.marketingpower.gr

Pareto Analysis Step by Step

Pareto Analysis is a statistical technique in decision making that is used for the selection of a limited number of tasks that produce significant overall effect. It uses the Pareto Principle (also know as the 80/20 rule) the idea that by doing 20% of the work you can generate 80% of the benefit of doing the whole job. Or in terms of quality improvement, a large majority of problems (80%) are produced by a few key causes (20%). This is also known as the vital few and the trivial many.

In the late 1940s quality management guru Joseph M. Juran suggested the principle and named it after Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who observed that 80% of income in Italy went to 20% of the population. Pareto later carried out surveys on a number of other countries and found to his surprise that a similar distribution applied.

The 80/20 rule can be applied to almost anything:

• 80% of customer complaints arise from 20% of your products or services.
• 80% of delays in schedule arise from 20% of the possible causes of the delays.
• 20% of your products or services account for 80% of your profit.
• 20% of your sales-force produces 80% of your company revenues.
• 20% of a systems defects cause 80% of its problems.

The Pareto Principle has many applications in quality control. It is the basis for the Pareto diagram, one of the key tools used in total quality control and Six Sigma.

In PMBOK Pareto ordering is used to guide corrective action and to help the project team take action to fix the problems that are causing the greatest number of defects first.

Pareto Analysis

Seven steps to identifying the important causes using Pareto Analysis [1]:

1. Form a table listing the causes and their frequency as a percentage.
2. Arrange the rows in the decreasing order of importance of the causes, i.e. the most important cause first.
3. Add a cumulative percentage column to the table.
4. Plot with causes on x-axis and cumulative percentage on y-axis.
5. Join the above points to form a curve.
6. Plot (on the same graph) a bar graph with causes on x-axis and percent frequency on y-axis.
7. Draw a line at 80% on y-axis parallel to x-axis. Then drop the line at the point of intersection with the curve on x-axis. This point on the x-axis separates the important causes on the left and less important causes on the right.

This is a simple example of a Pareto diagram using sample data showing the relative frequency of causes for errors on websites. It enables you to see what 20% of cases are causing 80% of the problems and where efforts should be focussed to achieve the greatest improvement.

The value of the Pareto Principle for a project manager is that it reminds you to focus on the 20% of things that matter. Of the things you do during your project, only 20% are really important. Those 20% produce 80% of your results. Identify and focus on those things first, but don't totally ignore the remaining 80% of causes.

The Marketing Plan Section Of The Business Plan

When writing the business plan, the Marketing Plan section explains how you're going to get your customers to buy your products and/or services. The marketing plan, then, will include sections detailing your:

• Products and/or Services and your Unique Selling Proposition
• Pricing Strategy
• Sales/Distribution Plan
• Advertising and Promotions Plan

The easiest way to develop your marketing plan is to work through each of these sections, referring to the market research you completed when you were writing the previous sections of the business plan.

Products and/or Services

This part of the marketing plan focuses on the uniqueness of your product or service, and how the customer will benefit from using the products or services you're offering. Use these questions to write a paragraph summarizing these aspects for your marketing plan:

What are the features of your product or service?

Describe the physical attributes of your product or service, and any other relevant features, such as what it does, or how your product or service differs from competitive products or services.

How will your product or service benefit the customer?

Remember that benefits can be intangible as well as tangible; for instance, if you're selling a cleaning product, your customers will benefit by having a cleaner house, but they may also benefit by enjoying better health. Brainstorm as many benefits as possible to begin with, and then choose to emphasize the benefits that your targeted customers will most appreciate in your marketing plan.

What is it that sets your product or service apart from all the rest? In other words, what is your Unique Selling Proposition, the message you want your customers to receive about your product or service that is the heart of your marketing plan? The marketing plan is all about communicating this central message to your customers.

Pricing Strategy

The pricing strategy portion of the marketing plan involves determining how you will price your product or service; the price you charge has to be competitive but still allow you to make a reasonable profit.

The keyword here is "reasonable"; you can charge any price you want to, but for every product or service there's a limit to how much the consumer is willing to pay. Your pricing strategy needs to take this consumer threshold into account.

The most common question small business people have about the pricing strategy section of the marketing plan is, "How do you know what price to charge?"

Basically you set your pricing through a process of calculating your costs, estimating the benefits to consumers, and comparing your products, services, and prices to others that are similar.

Set your pricing by examining how much it cost you to produce the product or service and adding a fair price for the benefits that the customer will enjoy.

How does the pricing of your product or service compare to the market price of similar products or services?

Explain how the pricing of your product or service is competitive. For instance, if the price you plan to charge is lower, why are you able to do this? If it's higher, why would your customer be willing to pay more? This is where the "strategy" part of the pricing strategy comes into play; will your business be more competitive if you charge more, less, or the same as your competitors and why?

What kind of ROI (Return On Investment) are you expecting with this pricing strategy, and within what time frame?

Sales and Distribution Plan

Remember, the primary goal of the marketing plan is to get people to buy your products or services. The Sales and Distribution part of the marketing plan details how this is going to happen.

Traditionally there are three parts to the Sales and Distribution section of the marketing plan, although all three parts may not apply to your business.

1) Outline the distribution methods to be used.

How is your product or service going to get to the customer? For instance, will you distribute your product or service through a Web site, through the mail, through sales representatives, or through retail?

What distribution channel is going to be used?

In a direct distribution channel, the product or service goes directly from the manufacturer to the consumer.

In a one stage distribution channel it goes from manufacturer to retailer to consumer. The traditional distribution channel is from manufacturer to wholesaler to retailer to consumer. Outline all the different companies, people and/or technologies that will be involved in the process of getting your product or service to your customer.

What are the costs associated with distribution?

What are the delivery terms?

How will the distribution methods affect production time frames or delivery? (How long will it take to get your product or service to your customer?)

If your business involves selling a product, you should also include information about inventory levels and packaging in this part of your marketing plan. For instance:

How are your products to be packaged for shipping and for display?

Does the packaging meet all regulatory requirements (such as labelling)?

Is the packaging appropriately coded, priced, and complementary to the product?

What minimum inventory levels must be maintained to ensure that there is no loss of sales due to problems such as late shipments and back orders?

2) Outline the transaction process between your business and your customers.

What system will be used for processing orders, shipping, and billing?

What methods of payment will customers be able to use?

What credit terms will customers be offered? If you will offer discounts for early payment or impose penalties for late payment, they should be mentioned in this part of your marketing plan.

What is your return policy?

What warranties will the customer be offered? Describe these or any other service guarantees.

What after-sale support will you offer customers and what will you charge (if anything) for this support?

Is there a system for customer feedback so customer satisfaction (or the lack of it) can be tracked and addressed?

3) If it's applicable to your business, outline your sales strategy.

What types of salespeople will be involved (commissioned salespeople, product demonstrators, telephone solicitors, etc.)?

Describe your expectations of these salespeople and how sales effectiveness will be measured.

Will a sales training program be offered? If so, describe it in this section of the marketing plan.

Describe the incentives salespeople will be offered to encourage their achievements (such as getting new accounts, the most orders, etc.).

Advertising And Promotion Plan

Essentially the Advertising and Promotion section of the marketing plan describes how you're going to deliver your Unique Selling Proposition to your prospective customers. While there are literally thousands of different promotion avenues available to you, what distinguishes a successful Advertising and Promotion Plan from an unsuccessful one is focus - and that's what your Unique Selling Proposition provides.

So think first of the message that you want to send to your targeted audience. Then look at these promotion possibilities and decide which to emphasize in your marketing plan:

Advertising - The best approach to advertising is to think of it in terms of media and which media will be most effective in reaching your target market.

Then you can make decisions about how much of your annual advertising budget you're going to spend on each medium.

What percentage of your annual advertising budget will you invest in each of the following:

• the Internet
• television
• radio
• newspapers
• magazines
• telephone books/directories
• billboards
• bench/bus/subway ads
• direct mail
• cooperative advertising with wholesalers, retailers or other businesses?

Include not only the cost of the advertising but your projections about how much business the advertising will bring in.

Sales Promotion - If it's appropriate to your business, you may want to incorporate sales promotion activites into your advertising and promotion plan, such as:

• offering free samples
• coupons
• point of purchase displays
• product demonstrations

Marketing Materials - Every business will include some of these in their promotion plans. The most common marketing material is the business card, but brochures, pamphlets and service sheets are also common.

Publicity - Another avenue of promotion that every business should use. Describe how you plan to generate publicity. While press releases spring to mind, that's only one way to get people spreading the word about your business. Consider:

• product launches
• special events, including community involvement
• writing articles
• getting and using testimonials

Marketing vs. Sales

Let's think about thisquestion for a moment. Without marketing you would not have prospects orleads to follow up with, but yet without a good sales technique and strategy your closing rate may depress you.

Marketing is everything that you do to reach and persuade prospects. The sales process is everything that you do to close the sale and get a signed agreement or contract. Both are necessities to the success of a business. You cannot do without either process. By strategically combining both efforts you will experience a successful amount of business growth. However, by the same token if the efforts are unbalanced it candetour your growth.

Your marketing will consists of the measures you use to reach and persuade your prospects that you are the company for them.

It's the message that prepares the prospect for the sales. It consists of advertising, public relations, brand marketing, viral marketing, and direct mail.

The sales process consists of interpersonal interaction. It is often done by a one-on-one meeting, cold calls, and networking. It's anything that engages you with the prospect or customer on a personal level rather than at a distance.

Your marketing efforts begin the process of the eight contacts that studies show it takes to move a prospect or potential client to the close of the sale. If marketing is done effectively you can begin to move that prospect from a cold to a warm lead. When the prospect hitsthe"warm" level it's much easier for the sales professional to close the sale.

Do you see the cycle?

As you see in my explanation above it takes multiple contacts using both sales and marketing to move the prospect from one level to the next. That is why it is import that you develop a process that combines both sales and marketing. This will enable you to reach prospects at all three levels; cold, warm, and hot. It's all about balance.

Are you unsure of how to integrate your marketing and sales?

Try this. Take a few moments and divide your prospect lists and database into categories of cold, warm, and hot leads. Then sit down and identify a strategy on how to proceed with each individual group.

For example you could try the following methods of contact:

• Cold Lead Strategy - Send out a direct mailing or offer them a special promotion
• Warm Lead Strategy - Try a follow-up call, send out a sales letter, or schedule a special seminar or training session to get all of your warm leads together.

Once you've moved your prospect to the "warm" level it's time to proceed in closing the sale. This will be easier to do if you somehow engage the prospect. You can do this by conducting a one-on-one call, make a presentation, or present a proposal, estimate, or contract.

What if you are uncomfortable with the sales or marketing process?

An alternative that often proves successful is to partner with someone that possess the talents that you feel you lack in. You can do this by creating a partnership, subcontracting, or hiring in that talent.

Remember the key to success in marketing and in sales is balance!

Marketing vs. Advertising

You will often find that many people confuse marketing with advertising or vice versa. While both components are important they are very different. Knowing the difference and doing your market research can put your company on the path to substantial growth.

Let's start off by reviewing the formal definitions of each and then I'll go into the explanation of how marketing and advertising differ from one another:

Advertising: The paid, public, non-personal announcement of a persuasive message by an identified sponsor; the non-personal presentation or promotion by a firm of its products to its existing and potential customers.

Marketing: The systematic planning, implementation and control of a mix of business activities intended to bring together buyers and sellers for the mutually advantageous exchange or transfer of products.

After reading both of the definitions it is easy to understand how the difference can be confusing to the point that people think of them as one-in-the same, so lets break it down a bit.

Advertising is a single component of the marketing process.

It's the part that involves getting the word out concerning your business, product, or the services you are offering. It involves the process of developing strategies such as ad placement, frequency, etc. Advertising includes the placement of an ad in such mediums as newspapers, direct mail, billboards, television, radio, and of course the Internet. Advertising is the largest expense of most marketing plans, with public relations following in a close second and market research not falling far behind.

The best way to distinguish between advertising and marketing is to think of marketing as a pie, inside that pie you have slices of advertising, market research, media planning, public relations, product pricing, distribution, customer support, sales strategy, and community involvement. Advertising only equals one piece of the pie in the strategy. All of these elements must not only work independently but they also must work together towards the bigger goal. Marketing is a process that takes time and can involve hours of research for a marketing plan to be effective. Think of marketing as everything that an organization does to facilitate an exchange between company and consumer.

Google Adwords Overview

Google Adwords is the sponsored link system operated by Google. It is Google's chief source of income.

Advertisers choose keyword phrases that they want to advertise "on" and with proper design and funding, their ads will appear on the Google search engine results page (SERP) as well as partners, such as AOL.

With Google Adwords

• Your price is automatically lowered to one cent more than your closest competitor.
  
• No one can lock in the top position. User click through rates and CPC help determine where your ad is shown.
  
• Google offers a unique set of tools to forecast your budget and select target keywords.
  
• You can target your ads to users in a specific country or only to speakers of a specific language.
  
• By developing effective landing pages, you can receive improved listings at less cost than your less savvy customers.
  
• You can monitor your competition's activity.

The Impact of SEO Web Design on Search Engines

The Impact of SEO Web Design on Search Engines

SEO web design is a concept which emphasizes great architectural design principles based on how the search engines determine relevance and site information. The design should be able to give out the information that the user is seeking and at the same time be easily navigable. This is part of search engine optimization because the SEO web design should also be able to satisfy robotic crawlers and spiders in their quest for information regarding the website and other data.

SEO Web Design and Site Optimization

Search engine optimization is more than just a trend nowadays. It is used and applied by almost all sites on the internet that aim to make money and reach online popularity. Among the many strategies of optimizing a web site, SEO web design is one of the topmost priorities.

The impact of the design of the site on search engine robotic crawlers or spiders can help raise the ranking of the site. This is where SEO web design comes in. There are many ways to make the web site more attractive to robotic visitors and human visitors alike. Actually, spiders and crawlers from search engines do not mind the overall aesthetic value of the site. All these robotic crawlers need is the information it can get from the site. The tricky part is how to put relevant information in the site in order for the crawlers to properly index the site due to its relevance. SEO companies who specialize in optimizing web sites must also know how to put a site in front of others in order to bring it to the attention of the Internet users. The search optimizers who will handle your site must be able to know the right strategies to place the web site ahead of others in its field through accepted methods of optimization.

SEO web design is a competitive area where web designers, or what I prefer to call website architects, work hard to come up with ideas and designs that are aesthetically appealing and relevant at the same time. There has to be consideration for ease of getting around the website, being appealing to a wide range of visitors and finding the right place for the website. Making a basic, visually appealing site is easy with the many technological advances available today, but the problem with these advances is that they are sometimes quite tricky to use thus making your website difficult to navigate. SEO web design should be easy to use and friendly to both human and robotic browsers.

Easy navigational access can be done by making the pages of the site easy to navigate to and having easy to understand and use button or labels to click on. The pictures and images on your SEO web design should be just the right size and scale to enable users to see them promptly after clicking instead of taking a very long time to download. Waiting for images and other graphics to load can be off-putting for most visitors and will eventually lead them to another site which is more optimized and easy to view. Even spiders and crawlers will give up on a site which is not easy to navigate and get into.

The overall appeal of the SEO web design should not only be focused mainly on the niche that it is targeted to but also for Internet users who might have stumbled onto the site. SEO web design should have a universal appeal even for the most specialized type of sites on the Internet. Some webmasters or website owners could opt for specialized SEO web designs and these can also be done with the targeted audience in mind. It will also benefit the site if it is indexed as it should be. You might want to have a specific SEO web design which is built around the entire concept of your site and this can add to the ranking if you are quite specific with what you aim to sell or market. If you are marketing a specific product or information, SEO experts can focus on this product or information and build the SEO web design around it.

Another aspect of SEO web design that needs to be considered is what your competition is doing. The saying "know your enemy" is the key here. You do not want to have the same boring marketing strategies as the competition. Why? Because it is a good idea to keep abreast with what they are doing and how well they are doing in this field. There are many site optimization tools that can help analyze and determine what is needed for the site. Hence, in regard to the SEO web design process, content is one of the prime needs and tools of making the site rank high in searches. Finding out or identifying the right keywords to integrate into the site can be crucial in making the site among the top ranking ones. Keyword search tools and having keyword rich content and titles can help to optimize a site efficiently.

SEO web design experts should also bear in mind that there are web strategies that may be unacceptable for search engines. Using these underhand or black hat tricks to perpetuate a site in rank can cause the search engines to ban the site and also the SEO web design company that did the search engine optimization work for it no matter how well the SEO web design is.

Competitive Analysis SEO

Competitive Analysis SEO

One of the most telling things you can do in any business is study your competitors. Your competition can reveal weakness in your business and open your eyes to new opportunities in your industry. The same is true in the web world, and with search engine optimization in particular. Why does your competitor consistently rank higher than you for important terms? What programming, content, and link building strategies are they using to help attain those rankings? Answer those questions and you'll be one step closer to out-ranking them and bringing that traffic and those sales to your site.

Who should you study?
A lot of industries will have hundreds of direct competitors, and many more indirect competitors. You can very easily get caught up in "paralysis by analysis" if you try to analyze every possible competitor that you have. The purpose of studying your competition is to better your business, so I prefer to limit my analysis to ten sites or less.

You probably already know a handful of your adversaries. Either they were the incumbent leaders in your industry when you began, or your customers constantly remind you that they have lower prices, or every time you Google a phrase in your industry they come up first in the search results. Those sites are the first ones you should add to your list to research. Fill the rest of the list in by picking sites that consistently rank high for the most searched phrases related to your business.

Using the information to your advantage
Pretty quickly you'll start to realize that all of the sites you're analyzing have been around for a few years, are indexed frequently and thoroughly, and have a lot of quality backlinks. So how do you get there? Well there's nothing you can do about site age, but the rest are very much in your control: you can model title tags and page headings after the competition, you can structure your site and internally link the way that they do, you can add sections related to topics that they rank high for, and you can most definitely expand your link building plan by studying what has worked for them. Ultimately, analyzing and understanding your competition will reduce your learning curve and accelerate the growth of your site.

Having Trouble Improving Your Google Ranking?

Having Trouble Improving Your Google Ranking?

Google is by far the most important search engine on the net. To rise to the top of their search engine, you need to improve your link popularity and you need to understand how they measure your link popularity (over 50% of all search engine traffic comes from Google, and if you can rise to the top, you will likely rise to the top of all the other search engines as well).

Link popularity is defined as the number of sites that are linking to your site. Some websites have thousands or even millions of sites linking to them, while others might have only a few. The search engines use the number of inbound links your site has as a measure of how important your site is, which translates into your search engine ranking.

The actual number of links to your site is not the only variable used to calculate your link popularity. The search engines also examine the relevance of the links to the subject matter of your site. For example, if a website that sells vitamins has 4,000 inbound links, but the source of most of the links are websites that have nothing to do with vitamins, then the algorithm that search engines use to determine link popularity will take that into account, and the link popularity score will not be very good.

It is possible for a website with a relatively small number of quality inbound links to be ranked higher than a site with a bunch of irrelevant or insignificant links. If I have a website that offers quotes for auto insurance, and I have 800 quality inbound links, then I might receive a much higher search engine ranking than another mortgage site that has 3,000 links that stem from link farms or Free For All (FFA) pages.

If you try to acquire inbound by using link farms or FFA pages, not only will it hurt your search engine ranking, but you might get permanently removed from the search engine listings. Links farms are sites where you can instantly exchange links with all the sites listed in that directory. FFA pages are pointless link directories. The search engines usually discount any links that come from either of these sources.

Now that we understand what link popularity is and how it works, we need to look specifically at how Google measures it. They use a number of variables in their algorithm to calculate your overall link score. The higher your score, the higher you will be ranked in the search listings.

One factor that Google uses in their algorithm, obviously, is the total number of sites linking to you. The more links you have, the higher your score will be. However, their algorithm is a little more complicated than that, and it is possible for a website with fewer links to be ranked higher than a website that has more links.

The reason for this is because Google also measures the quality of your links. If your website is about vitamins, and the site linking to you is a video game site, then that is not considered a quality link. The link still helps your score, but the link would help your score much more if it were from a website whose subject matter is the same as yours.

Also, Google gives a higher score to a link if it comes from a page that has actual content that relates to your keywords. For example, if your site is about jewelry, and another jewelry website has posted a link to your site on their links page, that link is not as valuable as a link to your site coming from a blog or a message board where a lot of information about jewelry is being written or discussed.

Also, they give an even higher score to a link if it contains anchor text that matches one of the keywords that describes your site. For example, if I have a site that sells lawnmowers, and a blog about lawnmowers has posted a link to my site, it helps my score even more if the link text (also known as anchor text) is LAWNMOWERS. To learn more about anchor text, go to a search engine and look up ANCHOR TEXT and you will be able to learn about it.

Another factor used by Google to score your link popularity is the diversity of keywords contained on sites linking to you. For example, if you have a site that sells handbags, and all the links to your site are from other sites that contain nothing but the keyword HANDBAGS, Google considers that to be abnormal. To get a higher score, you need to have links coming from sites that contain a variety of keywords related to handbags, such as BUY HANDBAGS, LEATHER HANDBAGS, etc.

It is difficult to increase your link popularity, but now that you understand how your score is calculated, you can devise a plan to improve your score. You might want to consider posting to forums and blogs that contain information that is related to your site, and when you post, include a link to your site.

Why Keywords Are Vital To An Seo Campaign?

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is the optimization of a web page in order that it ranks higher in the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) for specific keywords or keyword phrases. The pages that rank higher typically gain the greater amount of search engine traffic compared to pages ranked lower for the same keyword.

The majority of web users click on one of the top 5 results on the first page when they complete a search. As such, the ultimate goal of any SEO (Search Engine Optimizer) is to gain one of these coveted top spots, with the number one ranking being the primary objective.

Targeting Keywords

However, a top position for any keyword won't suffice. In order to increase your ROI, it is vital to ensure that you target the most appropriate keywords for your pages, and for your business. While generic, or very general topic keywords, may have the highest number of searches conducted in a month they are also the most competitive and typically least productive.

Competitive Keywords

The more competitive a keyword the more pages that you need to compete with in order to benefit from an SEO campaign. Many of the pages that appear at the top of the list will also be well optimized and have a powerful link profile, making it difficult to rank highly.

Improved Conversions With Targeted Keywords

General topic based keywords have also proven to have lower conversion rates compared to more specific keywords. Targeted keywords generate targeted visitors, and targeted visitors are much more likely to be active while on the pages of your website.

How Keyword Research Helps

Keyword research helps you to identify keywords that are relevant, targeted, and preferably less competitive. By finding the right blend of these factors you can minimize the time it takes to rank well, actually increase the number of visitors, and improve your conversion rates. Targeted keyword research leads to better profit opportunities and improved ROI.

Tailoring Your Keyword Research To Your Needs

Every page of a website needs to be treated as an individual project, especially in terms of marketing. Each page will usually attract different visitors in different stages of the purchasing process. Deep product pages will often catch visitors while they are at their most profitable - when they're ready to buy. General pages and even product category pages can be used to attract more general terms, but they should still be properly researched and targeted very precisely to your target market.

Niche Keywords

Niche keywords are often talked about as being the ideal variety of keywords for a page. A niche keyword is a highly targeted, very specific keyword. It is geared towards a corner of the market in which you operate and typically has very few competing pages. Niche keywords don't usually create much in the way of traffic but the traffic that they do create is highly targeted and very active. It attracts excellent conversion rates ensuring that you get a good return on your marketing investment.

Ορολογία Μάρκετινγκ στα αγγλικά. (W)

W

Want The form taken by a human need as shaped by culture and individual personality.

Wheel of retailing concept A concept of retailing that states that new types of retailers usually begin as low-margin, low-price, low-status operations but later evolve into higher-priced, higher-service operations, eventually becoming like the conventional retailers they replaced.

Wholesaler A firm engaged primarily in wholesaling activity.

Wholesaling All activities involved in selling goods and services to those buying for resale or business use.

Word-of-mouth influence Personal communication about a product between target buyers and neighbors, friends, family members, and associates.

Workload approach An approach to setting sales force size in which the company groups accounts into different size classes and then determines how many salespeople are needed to call on them the desired number of times.

Ορολογία Μάρκετινγκ στα αγγλικά. (U)

U
Undifferentiated marketing A market-coverage strategy in which a firm decides to ignore market segment differences and go after the whole market with one offer.

Uniform-delivered pricing A geographical pricing strategy in which the company charges the same price plus freight to all customers, regardless of their location.

Unsought product Consumer product that the consumer either does not know about or knows about but does not normally think of buying.

Users Members of the organization who will use the product or service; users often initiate the buying proposal and help define product specifications.

Ορολογία Μάρκετινγκ στα αγγλικά. (T)

T

Target costing Pricing that starts with an ideal selling price, then targets costs that will ensure that the price is met.

Target market A set of buyers sharing common needs or characteristics that the company decides to serve.

Tariff A tax levied by a government against certain imported products. Tariffs are designed to raise revenue or to protect domestic firms.

Team selling Using teams of people from sales, marketing, engineering, finance, technical support, and even upper management to service large, complex accounts.

Technological environment Forces that create new technologies, creating new product and market opportunities.

Telemarketing Using the telephone to sell directly to customers.

Territorial sales force structure A sales force organization that assigns each salesperson to an exclusive geographic territory in which that salesperson sells the company’s full line.

Test marketing The stage of new-product development in which the product and marketing program are tested in more realistic market settings.

Third-party logistics provider An independent logistics provider that performs any or all of the functions required to get its clients’ product to market.

Total costs The sum of the fixed and variable costs for any given level of production.

Total customer cost The total of all the monetary, time, energy, and psychic costs associated with a marketing offer.

Total market demand The total volume of a product or service that would be bought by a defined consumer group in a defined geographic area in a defined time period in a defined marketing environment under a defined level and mix of industry marketing effort.

Total quality management (TQM) Programs designed to constantly improve the quality of products, services, and marketing processes.

Transaction A trade of values between two parties.

Ορολογία Μάρκετινγκ στα αγγλικά.

S

Sales force management The analysis, planning, implementation, and control of sales force activities. It includes setting and designing sales force strategy; and recruiting, selecting, training, compensating, supervising, and evaluating the firm’s salespeople.

Sales promotion Shortterm incentives to encourage the purchase or sale of a product or service.

Sales quotas Standards set for salespeople, stating the amount they should sell and how sales should be divided among the company’s products.

Salesperson An individual acting for a company by performing one or more of the following activities: prospecting, communicating, servicing, and information gathering.

Sample A segment of the population selected for marketing research to represent the population as a whole; an offer of a trial amount of a product.

Seasonal discount A price reduction to buyers who purchase merchandise or services out of season.

Secondary data Information that already exists somewhere, having been collected for another purpose.

Segment marketing Isolating broad segments that make up a market and adapting the marketing to match the needs of one or more segments.

Segmented pricing Selling a product or service at two or more prices, where the difference in prices is not based on differences in costs.

Selective demand The demand for a given brand of a product or service.

Selective distribution The use of more than one, but fewer than all, of the intermediaries who are willing to carry the company’s products.

Selling concept The idea that consumers will not buy enough of the organization’s products unless the organization undertakes a large-scale selling and promotion effort.

Selling process The steps that the salesperson follows when selling, which include prospecting and qualifying, preapproach, approach, presentation and demonstration, handling objections, closing, and follow-up.

Sense-of-mission marketing A principle of enlightened marketing that holds that a company should define its mission in broad social terms rather than narrow product terms.

Sequential product development A new-product development approach in which one company department works to complete its stage of the process before passing the new product along to the next department and stage.

Service Any activity or benefit that one party can offer to another that is essentially intangible and does not result in the ownership of anything.

Service inseparability A major characteristic of services—they are produced and consumed at the same time and cannot be separated from their providers, whether the providers are people or machines.

Service intangibility A major characteristic of services—they cannot be seen, tasted, felt, heard, or smelled before they are bought.

Service perishability A major characteristic of services—they cannot be stored for later sale or use.

Service-profit chain The chain that links service firm profits with employee and customer satisfaction.

Service variability A major characteristic of services—their quality may vary greatly, depending on who provides them and when, where, and how.

Shopping center A group of retail businesses planned, developed, owned, and managed as a unit.

Shopping product Consumer good that the customer, in the process of selection and purchase, characteristically compares on such bases as suitability, quality, price, and style.

Simultaneous (or team-based) product development An approach to developing new products in which various company departments work closely together, overlapping the steps in the prod¬uct development process to save time and increase effectiveness.

Single-source data systems Electronic monitoring systems that link consumers’ exposure to television advertising and promotion (measured using television meters) with what they buy in stores (measured using store checkout scanners).

Slotting fees Payments demanded by retailers before they will accept new products and find “slots” for them on the shelves.

Social classes Relatively permanent and ordered divisions in a society whose members share similar values, interests, and behaviors.

Social marketing The design, implementation, and control of programs seeking to increase the acceptability of a social idea, cause, or practice among a target group.

Societal marketing A principle of enlightened marketing that holds that a company should make marketing decisions by considering consumers’ wants, the company’s requirements, consumers’ long-run interests, and society’s long-run interests.

Societal marketing concept The idea that the organization should determine the needs, wants, and interests of target markets and deliver the desired satisfactions more effectively and efficiently than do competitors in a way that maintains or improves the consumer’s and society’s well-being.

Specialty product Consumer product with unique characteristics or brand identification for which a significant group of buyers is willing to make a special purchase effort.

Specialty store A retail store that carries a narrow product line with a deep assortment within that line.

Standardized marketing mix An international marketing strategy for using basically the same product, advertising, distribution channels, and other elements of the marketing mix in all the company’s international markets.

Straight product extension Marketing a product in a foreign market without any change.

Straight rebuy A business buying situation in which the buyer routinely reorders something without any modifications.

Strategic business unit (SBU) A unit of the company that has a separate mission and objectives and that can be planned independently from other company businesses. An SBU can be a company division, a product line within a division, or sometimes a single product or brand.

Strategic planning The process of developing and maintaining a strategic fit between the organization’s goals and capabilities and its changing marketing opportunities. It involves defining a clear company mission, setting supporting objectives, designing a sound business portfolio, and coordinating functional strategies.

Style A basic and distinctive mode of expression.

Subculture A group of people with shared value systems based on common life experiences and situations.

Survey research The gathering of primary data by asking people questions about their knowledge, attitudes, preferences, and buying behavior.

Systems buying Buying a packaged solution to a problem from a single seller, thus avoiding all the separate decisions involved in a complex buying situation.

Ορολογία Μάρκετινγκ στα αγγλικά. (R)

R

Reference prices Prices that buyers carry in their minds and refer to when they look at a given product.

Relationship marketing The process of creating, maintaining, and enhancing strong, value-laden relationships with customers and other stakeholders.

Retailer Business whose sales come primarily from retailing.

Retailing All activities involved in selling goods or services directly to final consumers for their personal, nonbusiness use.

Return on investment (ROI) A common measure of managerial effectiveness—the ratio of net profit to investment.