GHD – leaders in beauty innovation
I always find it fascinating when one brand dominates a retail market so heavily, that the product itself is synonymous with the brand name. In the beauty world, in particular the hair styler / straightener market, GHD seem to have the whole sector sewn up. For over a decade now, GHD hair straighteners have continuously topped bestseller lists, not just at Christmas and other holiday season, but throughout the entire year. I think there are two reasons why they have been so successful; firstly, if you search online at price comparison stores such as Cheap GHD Straighteners, you can find them for a great price. Secondly, GHD hair stylers are considered to be the finest, most innovative product on the market today.
Google eating up SEO and SEM companies?
News bouncing around the blogosphere lately has been that Google is set to acquire DoubleClick, one of the largest advertising agencies online, for a cool $3.1 billion.
All very interesting in itself, with Microsoft making noise that Google is starting to look anti-competitive in terms of online advertising. Many are also wondering what this means for the large amount of CPM advertising that DoubleClick run and the massive advertising clients they have (You know, the ones who are too big and ‘corporate’ to have really considered AdWords yet, but we all worry about because if they jump on the AdWords bandwagon that can only mean an increase in costs for smaller advertisers).
The development of SEM in the 21st century
ith the massive growth of business on the Internet over the last 5 years, marketing was always destined to have a central role with businesses Internet spend. Banner advertising was one of the first attempts by the business sector to boost brand awareness and while it did enjoy limited success in the beginning, the cost effectiveness of banner advertising was reduced over time as Internet users behaviour evolved.
Over 90% of people use search engines to find websites, which is no surprise. Given the amount of information on the Internet being able to index and sort this information is paramount to user experience. User experience is based around the need for information and the ease of obtaining this information. If youre searching for mobile phone deals, the last thing you want to see is an advert for pet insurance, which is where Google hit the jackpot in terms of relevance. One of the main reasons SEM has developed is because it can positively benefit the user experience, with the use of contextual, non-intrusive adverts you are using a type of pull advertising. Many businesses can see the benefit of putting their product or service right under the nose of a consumer at the exact moment they have an interest.
The power of long-tail keywords
Everyone knows that putting all your eggs in one basket is a risky business. One mistake or change and your whole business is gone. Its the same case with search. Clients always come to us with a definitive list of key words and terms that they want to be first for. Its usually one or two big terms that they assume are going to bring in the majority of their traffic. This, however is not always the case.
A company we have just started working with, lockwoodhume office furniture sell office desks, chairs and other furniture. Their main key term “office furniture” for example is quite a competitive term which may take time to rank for. To stop putting all their eggs in one basket what is the alternative? Long tail.
Do you need a “thank you” page on your site?
You spend time and money getting a visitor to your site. You present them with the very best product photography and product description that you can come up with, and then you hopefully convert your visitor into a customer. They go through your payment provider, and thankfully don’t drop out of the order process. You’ve gained another sale and (perhaps) another long term customer. What next?
You probably show them a page that simply says ‘Thanks for your order’ and that’s it.
MarketingSherpa blog this week that the special offers and incentives they place on their ‘thank you’ page receive a click through rate of nearly 40%. This makes sense – after all you’ve done the hard work of convincing your new customer that you’re a trustworthy business worthy of taking their order, so why not present them with an opportunity to spend more with your company and/or build up more of a relationship! At the very least, invite that customer to bookmark your site and remind them to return once they’ve used their new purchase to leave a review. You do allow customer reviews, don’t you? They convert better than sales-speak product descriptions ever can. Otherwise, bright ideas include offering coupons or vouchers, invite your customer to recommend a friend, or get them signed up to your mailing list.
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