McIntosh Marketing Blog

Now this is a question that I hear over and over from client’s and co-workers alike.  Everyone wants to know if Affiliate Marketing is not only worth it but if it is really beneficial?  Or what the risks are of marketing for a company and then finding out their unethical?  Just like everything else, it really depends on what products your sign up for and how you market them.

One of the most important things you must do before deciding to market for a company is to inspect the website.  Take your time to check and make sure they have accurate contact information by calling them or looking them up in an online phone directory.  You can also take this time to verify their address.  If you notice the address varies with other listings online then this may be a flag that the business is not legitimate.  This is not always the case as others may be marketing this product as an affiliate as well but the corporate information, address and phone number should all match up regardless.

PAY ATTENTION!!!   You should always make sure their site offers details, images and a full description of the product or service that they are offering.  You are responsible for what you are promoting so it is very important that you educate yourself on the product or service prior to any affiliate marketing promotions.

Always check the sites disclosure on what the charges will be to the users/client’s.  This will show you that there is nothing the company is trying to hide and that it is not a scam.  If there is no disclosure on the site it may be a real good sign to take your business somewhere else.

Next you should search for their company name on Google.  This will show you how well they are ranking currently which can give you some insight on how easy or difficult it may be to market the product.  Like I said, this is just for insight and it may not be accurate for a product that is brand new.  Also at this time you can see what kind of feedback people are giving on the product prior to committing to selling it.  You can see if there are lot’s of customer complaints or satisfaction which can help you make your decision before investing any time or money into it.  You have to be realistic when using this tip to make a decision because many companies will have complaints, regardless of their legitimacy, so you may need to feel them out to see if the complaints are valid.

Allot goes into finding an legitimate affiliate with a good offer besides just how much they pay out.  Always make sure you feel 100% informed about your product so you are totally comfortable prior to selling it.  Confidence and believing in your product truly is the key to increasing your online sales and making your affiliate marketing really worth it!

Quality dentistry is the backbone of building your practice and your brand. Quality care inspires word of mouth which is the most powerful and time-honored marketing there is for any dental practice . But how can the power of dental website marketing be utilized to take your monthly influx of new patients to a completely new level?

This is a simple, easy-to-implement list of dental marketing ideas that could literally attract dozens of high-end patients every month. Now let me be completely real. It takes some consistent work, but it is not that hard. The difficulty, really, is staying the course and being consistent. Get this – consistency with your dental website is where 95% of the dental practices fail and where the other 5% rake in the new patient income. In helping hundreds of Dentists and other professionals to market their practice, this has been the most crucial marketing discipline in local online marketing.

While there are many dental patient marketing consultants and books, there is not better way to attract new patients that to have these elements being consistently being performed by you or your staff within your own website. Most dental website designers tend to be strong on graphics but not how to how to get your pratice website actually found online. Being found is 85% of the work, in reality. Regardless of the aesthetics of a web site, it is effective to the degree that it is found by thousands of potential patients. This is where you need an effective website marketing strategy.

Blogging – Yes it works. In fact, it works well. But studies have shown that it takes about two to three dozen consistent and quality posts to have the search engines start to rank your website into a higher range. Search engines, particularly Google, have advanced software that determines your web site “brownie points” by the amount of blog postings and that you are doing them consistently. Once a week is considered the rock bottom minimum. These do not have to be sexy, just on point about what people are searching for and that are on-point.

Landing Pages – Your patients are searching for specific solutions and procedures. Done well, landing pages with a properly set up Google Ads strategy can be a major source of new leads, calls into the practice and eventually more new patients.

Online Press Releases – The search engine value of an online press release is quite high. A good web marketing agency can get these written and broadly distributed. The events or reasons do not have to be earth shattering. New employees hired on, price specials or just your participation in local community events are worthy enough to send out an online press release. Any competent internet marketing expert should be able to do this easily.

Local Search Marketing – This video illustrates some helpful tips and strategies when it comes in developing better results from your local marketing on the internet.

Over the last few years I have been asked for my marketing glossary several times.  Truth is, I don’t really have one.  I do have notes with definitions here and there but have never actually put them all in one place.  In fact, when I try to explain these marketing terms to someone, it seems to me that most of the time they think these terms don’t really exist!  It could be due to many of them sounding very similar to each other but trust me they have very different meanings.  I really felt the following keywords should be listed as they tend to be used most often and more commonly but for the full list with detailed definitions go to http://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/

deep linking – linking to a web page other than a site’s home page.

description tag – an HTML tag used by Web page authors to provide a description for search engine listings.

impression – a single instance of an online advertisement being displayed.*

interactive agency – an agency offering a mix of Web design/development, Internet advertising/marketing, or E-Business/E-Commerce consulting.

keyword research – the search for keywords related to your Web site, and the analysis of which ones yield the highest return on investment (ROI).

search engine optimization – the process of choosing targeted keyword phrases related to a site, and ensuring that the site places well when those keyword phrases are part of a Web search.

By taking the time to learn these terms you will not only become more knowledgeable of Internet marketing but just by reading them you will start to understand more and more of what actually goes into your marketing.  I feel this list is pretty thorough list and can help even the beginning marketer to understand the terms of the online marketing world better.  Not only will you be able to learn more about the terms but once you start to understand them you will learn more about how marketing is actually done!

Let’s say you have a local flower business.  You create a website, expecting to show up in Google when someone in your area is looking to buy flowers.  You get some advice that tells you to make sure your website is rich in content and uses lots of keywords. 

So you make lots of pages on your site talking about different types of flowers and you list special arrangements you have and provide lots of good pictures.  You make sure to use the word “florist” a lot as that is what people would likely search for when trying to find you. 

After you’ve spent a lot of time and money to build your site, you search for a florist in your area and your site is nowhere to be found.

What went wrong?

A search on Google for the term “florist” returns about 16,900,000 results. That means your site has to outperform almost 17 million other sites in order to show up for that specific term.  And on top of that, there are some major players in the online flower business and your hopes of outranking them are pretty slim.

So, how do you get around this?  The answer is simple: You need to be more specific!

I’m going to take the area around our office as an example: Lets search for the term “florist orange county” – 307,000 results.  Now we’re getting somewhere!

None of the major players are anywhere to be seen in the results, so you have an excellent chance of showing up when someone is searching for your business in your area.  The odds of showing up for “florist orange county” are much better than just “florist”. And if the term “florist orange county” exists on your site and is prominent, you’re way ahead of your competition!

Make small changes to your site and to be sure the term “florist orange county” or “orange county florist” is used instead of just florist.  You will see some major differences in your traffic and results!

There are two points I’d like to caution you against when using this technique:

1. Don’t spam your site and put “florist orange county” 10 times on every page.  Use it naturally in your content, and maybe have it included in your business name which appears on every page of your site.  Again, it should look natural.
2. Don’t spam the cities in your area and have a page or a footer that looks like “Florist Stanton, Florist Huntington Beach, Florist Anaheim, Florist Orange, etc.”.  Remember, you want to be specific and target just one area, so choose either the county you are in, or even better,  one specific city where your shop is located.

McIntosh Marketing, a leading Internet marketing consultancy, announced today its offer to provide free local online marketing evaluations and plans. These consultations will give customized steps and strategies for getting concrete results from web marketing.

Stanton, California, March 27, 2010 – McIntosh Marketing, an experienced online marketing company, announced today the launch of its newest offering, a free Internet marketing analysis and strategic plan.  The strategy creates a step-by-step plan to dramatically improve a company’s revenue, website traffic, and online prestige.  McIntosh Marketing will include instructions on how to do video marketing, social media image, and local search engine optimization.

This free consultation is produced to give companies the chance to turn any non-performing website or online marketing project into a profitable endeavor.  Daily changes in communications technology, like Google’s smartphone interface, have catapulted the importance of establishing a positive, highly visible, local online presence.  The local Internet marketing plan provides a detailed guide of how to maximize Internet exposure for increased business, including how to obtain positive reviews, optimize local search engine results, create loyalty, word-of-mouth online advertising, improve website design, and take advantage of new social networking sites.

Over the past 12 years, Bill McIntosh with McIntosh Marketing, has created 1,000 plus websites and generated $20 million in revenue for its clients.  The company’s Twitter followers number 40,000 and CEO Bill McIntosh’s YouTube videos have had more than 500,000 views.  McIntosh Marketing’s website, http://www.mcintoshmarketing.com/products-services, offers additional resources for Internet marketing.

About McIntosh Marketing:  McIntosh Marketing is a premier, genuine web marketing and consulting company with expertise advising businesses on how to improve their profits, website traffic, and online buzz.

Contact:

Edwin Dearborn

12235 Beach Blvd. Suite 206
Stanton, CA 91505

(877) 797-6825

http://www.McIntoshMarketing.com

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