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03... Introduction

04... The Plan

07... The Structure

10... The Design

12... The Technical Aspect

14... Mobile Version

16... The Content

19... SEO

24... Integration

26... Landing Pages

29... Attraction

32... Get to know us

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A website represents the opportunity to reach broad audience, build strong relationships

with clients, and promote products and services more efficiently and cost-effectively. In

fact, when developed correctly, a website attracts specific segments of the population

and influences their shopping behavior. In doing so, the website contributes to increasing

the organization's reach, sales, and brand development.

Nonetheless, a website published without strong marketing foundations rarely suffices. In

order to truly succeed, a website must be developed strategically, focused on helping the

organization achieve previously-established objectives and goals. A website also needs

to be visually appealing, professional, reliable, and unique, while it transmits a clear

message within seconds. It should also entice the visitor to take action, serving as a lead

generator.

In this sense, to achieve the ideal website, we must consider a solid plan and an

appropriate structure and design, as well as other important elements. We hope this

guide will be the fundament for a bold and successful online presence

-MHigh

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Designing, developing, and maintaining a proper online presence requires time, money, and

effort. Thus, smart organizations focus on obtaining the highest return on investment possible.

They also visualize how this objective will be accomplished. In terms of planning, there are 4

basic steps to create an effective website.

The first step takes place even before the actual planning process begins. At this point,

organizations define short- and long-terms objectives to which the future website will stick.

Without a proper mission guiding the activities of the organization, the website cannot follow a

clear path to success. This situation, in turn, risks virtually any marketing effort and inherent

investment. Once these objectives have been addressed, we proceed to the second step: To

identify a purpose for the website, do we want to connect with our audience, persuade them

into testing our products and services, or increase sales?

The structure and design of the website will depend on these two steps. The third step entails

designing and building a website that truly satisfies the mission and objectives of the

organization, as well as its purpose. The final step is to analyze results and perform necessary

adjustments. In order to meet these requirements, marketers must establish the elements of

the site that call for measurement: Hits, visitors, leads, sales, etc.

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A MARKETING TOOL

The depth necessary to fully understand e-commerce results a bit overwhelming; then again, it is necessary to

emphasize the importance of a website as the foundation for an online-based marketing program. As we have

mentioned, a website should be a marketing tool rather than an expense. It must be developed to meet short- and

long-term objectives. Unfortunately, a number of organizations only focus on web development, ignoring the

strategic marketing aspect. Before the actual building process begins, the organization must define strategic

goals, the characteristics of the audience, and the purpose of the website. This information is necessary to

establish a feasible action plan.

The next step, the planning process, is based on the purpose of the website. Depending on this objective, the site

might include informative, persuasive, or promotional elements. Equally important, the site should always promote

a positive image, facilitate growth, improve customer service, and boost exposure and profitability. Every

organization has different qualities, attributes, and objectives; therefore, every site has a different purpose. In this

sense, a website represents a wide range of possibilities: Promote a product or service, serve as a sales point,

generate demand, provide information, create and maintain awareness, etc. Knowing the marketing functions of a

website plays a critical role when designing a suitable digital marketing program.

THE BIBLE OF YOUR ORGANIZATION

When gathering information for the site, it is necessary to determine what holds particular relevance and

significance. Find out the type of information your audience considers interesting and engaging, as well as helpful

during the decision-making process. Moreover, the site should provide content so your audience gets familiar with

your organization and what it represents: What makes it unique, valuable, and trustworthy. Although it shouldn't

be the focus on your site, also include legal information and a disclaimer; doing so could protect your organization

in extreme situations.

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SALES AGENT AND PROMOTER

The benefits justify the whooping 72% of Americans who have considered opening an online business: low

operating costs and worldwide audience. The most prominent benefit of a marketing-oriented website is that it can

be applied as a form of expansion. Commercial websites often function as digital 24/7 sales points, facilitating

promotion, distribution, and even product development -depending on the business. A restaurant, for example,

can increase sales by providing a processing-order platform. Similarly, a law firm can enhance its promotional

activities by attracting potential clients and generating leads. For virtually any website, the goal should sustain and

support the organization's objectives. It should also boost the organization's exposure and demand for the

products and services. For nonprofits, it should create and maintain cause awareness. ■

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Through a solid planning process, organizations, along with marketers, transform

a website into a true marketing tool. When preparing the structure, we consider

the ultimate visitor and the ways we want them to interact within the website.

Essentially, the structure is based on the organizational objective, the

characteristics of the target audience, and the purpose of the site. Besides, the

structure contributes to providing a positive experience to the ultimate user.

Similarly, relying on the proper structure, the website must anticipate to the

needs of the visitor and guide him/her to move forward in the buying cycle. For

example, a person whose main concern is information search should be able to

do so easily. Also, a visitor ready to try or buy should find incentives that

encourage him/her to take action. In anticipation to the visitors' needs, a website

of a restaurant could invite guests to make reservation, showing the telephone

number or integrating a register form. Therefore, it is critical to understand what

the average user could be looking for within your site.

Frequently, web developers ignore the marketing aspect by uploading random

information, not following a proper strategy. This action causes that visitors find

the website and its content irrelevant and leave the site without taking action.

This phenomenon hinders the website from generating profit, wasting valuable

resources in the process.

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DESIGNING THE STRUCTURE

Once an action plan has been defined, it is time to determine how the pages and the content will interact with visitors. At

this point, the map of the site begins to form, as well as the purpose for each page, section, and channel. Similarly, the

information and content that holds particular relevance, as well as ways to exalt these attributes, are determined.

The next step consists of gathering the elements that must be integrated into each page; these might include information

about events, new merchandise, promos, etc. Finally, we determine the way we expect the visitor to take the desired

action: Do we want him to call, request a free sample or quote? It will depend on the purpose of the website and

organizational objectives.

Finally, it is necessary to notice that the structure is a critical element for a proper search engine optimization strategy. It

influences directly how high our website will rank in search engines; this topic is eventually explained in detail. Meanwhile,

we examine other important elements to consider when planning a solid website structure.

INFORMATION CENTER

A website might look fine on the outside, but structural and design issues could be lurking. In this sense, numerous

websites do not emphasize critical information or fail to clarify its purpose. For the average visitor, it shouldn't take him/her

more than 5 seconds to locate relevant information and a contact form. The relevance of a particular piece of content is

defined by the audience and influenced by the organizational objectives. The reason of the website (What it is about), and

in that sense of the organization, must be clear to the target visitor, almost instantly. Be sure you identify key information,

define the purpose of the site, and create a map of the site prior to the development process.

Providing detailed information facilitates the decision-making process to prospects. Incorporating a “Q&A” (Question and

Answer) section will clear doubts and trigger positive reactions. In order to assist prospects, most businesses include

maps and contact forms, acting as a point of reference. Commercial websites must emphasize the benefits –the reasons

to buy- of the product or service. This information should fully disclose differentiators to beat competitors or substitutes. A

restaurant might emphasize its surprisingly eclectic lunch specials, and a boutique could advertise its unique clothing

selection.

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ENTICING MEDIUM

Websites for small and mid-sized businesses must be inviting, enticing and encouraging. Perks, discounts, and samples

persuade people to try. If their expectations have been met, the possibilities of a sale increase considerably. Retailers, for

example, often rely on printable coupons and samples to entice customers into making the first move. Likewise, a website

draws attention through an efficient design and valuable content, always considering the interests of the intended

audience. Images’ persuasive nature must also be exploited. Service providers frequently use before-and-after pictures to

showcase their work; sellers of tangible goods also attract customers through sight, posting pictures of visually attractive

items or people enjoying the product or services. Similarly, service providers must offer “quality content” to make their

approach informative rather than simply commercial. This method creates a name for these professionals.

CREATE A CONTACT LIST

It works for product and service providers. Through newsletters and mailing lists, prospects voluntarily disclose their

contact information. They can be notified about new merchandise arrivals, news stories, specials, and other important

information. Using the persuasive methods we previously mentioned will get the most out of every message we deliver.

Finally, integrated social media pages could support the website’s mission by increasing the business’s audience.■

ARE TEMPLATES A GOOD IDEA

Templates represent a practical solution to establish an online presence with limited resources. Well-established organizations, on the other

hand, often find templates limiting and unpractical. First, templates tend to give web developers limited flexibility. An optimal website is one

whose structure and layout revolve around the message you try to get across. Templates frequently make you work the other way around, as the

layouts are pre-established. The resemblance that characterizes templates embodies another issue; it can easily make your site look similar to

thousand others. Finally, the apparent low cost to build a website with a template hides other necessary expenses, such as premium templates

fees, cost for integration of dynamic elements, search engine optimization, content development, and associated graphic design elements.

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The design mirrors your organizations' values, personality, and even ambitions. An efficient and successful organization is unlikely to have

an ordinary or mediocre online presence. In fact, in the mind of your audience, the design of your site also reflects the capabilities of your

organization. To be effective, a website's design doesn't necessarily need to be flashy, but clean and neat, suitable for the organization and

its audience, and free of grammatical and technical errors.

An effective design is also one engaging, simple, and easy to navigate. As with any other element, the design considers the characteristics

that define the target audience, which include personalities, preferences, needs, ideologies, and internet habits, among many others.

Equally important, the design, as any other element, supports previously-established organizational objectives. An exceptional design

makes the difference, displaying a visually-attractive, reliable, and unique presence; transmitting a clear message within seconds; and

enticing the visitor to take action.

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FUNCTIONALITY

One of the most damaging weaknesses in web design is poor functionality, which refers to deficient design and structure.

Poor functionality causes visitors to find a website hard to navigate and understand. In terms of functionality, every single

element on a website has an effect, including colors, font, size, images, layout, etc. What's more, inefficient navigation

also affects the functionality of a website; the essential information must be a click away.

FOCUS

An appropriate design focuses on the organizational objectives. In doing so, it emphasizes critical information and content

that support the purpose of the site. For example, an organization whose main interest is to increase the number of leads

might benefit from a design that exalts persuasive elements and facilitates the contact process.

COMPATIBILITY

Websites must be compatible, designed and optimized for mobile devices and for the different internet browsers available.

A website could look fine when viewed in Internet Explorer but suffer major changes when viewed in Safari or in a mobile

device. In order to ensure its compatibility, a website should be tested across different internet browsers and devices; if

the compatibility is certified, the website is accessible to all the different types of users possible. ■

FUNDAMENTS OF DESI N

1.- Consider your audience

2.- Be inspired by the personality of your organization

3.- Make your site highly visual and the information digestible

4.- A clean design is always better

5.- Navigation is always at sight

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This guide focuses on strategic marketing incorporated in web development; however, it

is important organizations understand certain aspects of the technical aspect to plan a

website that responds to their needs and purpose. How is a website created? First, to

build a website, a script is written, which consists of a series of instructions that the

browser will read and process to perform the request. In a web page, every element is

programmed: Paragraphs, text, images, links, etc.

HTML is the language used to create web pages. It is the medium used by the

programmer to communicate with Internet browsers to show the general structure of a

website. The latest version is HTML5; its core aims have been to improve the language

with support for the latest multimedia. There are other programming languages to create

dynamic content, such as contact forms, online communities, system management

content, databases, etc. One of the most powerful and flexible languages available is

PHP, which continues to evolve to help programmers build more interactive and dynamic

sites. Finally, other languages such as JavaScript and JQuery are technologies that are

integrated into web pages to make them more interactive, attractive, and functional.

The technical aspect is also critical during the process of optimization for search engines.

However, these concepts will be explored further on.

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An important question arises, how do these elements mix during the construction of a

website? The HTML codification is used to dictate the basic structure of the website. A CSS

document, which adds practicability to the process, crafts the website's design elements:

Font, size, colors, etc. Likewise, this document modifies the layout of the site: Images,

paragraphs, text, etc.

With the structure and design completed, JavaScript and JQuery take place to add dynamic

platforms and visual attractiveness to the site. Finally, more advanced languages provide

the site with the technology to present interactive platforms. Websites that take information

from the visitor or enable him/her to interact, such as online stores and platforms that allow

users to manage high amounts of information, depend on this type of languages.

One of the most important requests of organizations is to have the capacity to update the

site without having to write new codes every time. Managing the site updates with ease is

important; updates are ultimately one of the most important factors to attract visitors and

keep them coming back regularly. Creating new content and information takes time and

effort; therefore, being able to upload these elements is critical. Content management

systems are the components that make this process possible. A content management

system allows the user to maintain a website without having to learn codification. With this

tool, the website's administrator can simply login to an administrative area, where he can

add, edit, or delete information automatically. ■

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Mobile marketing takes advantage of the internet-based mobile technology in

devices such as smart phones and tablets. The practice continues to gain relevance

as there are over 271 million mobile users within the U.S. Through mobile

marketing, marketers provide the audience with customized content and information

delivered for promotional purposes.

According to a recent study conducted by Google, 9 out of 10 mobile searches lead

to an action, 70% of them within an hour, and over half of them lead to a purchase.

The results of the study also indicate that 74% of the smart phone users employ

their devices to assist them with purchasing decisions, and 79% make the purchase

based on these results. This trend will continue its course, so it is time to get mobile.

Evidently, businesses must possess a professional website, accessible to all the

different mobile devices available (iPads, iPhones, Androids). Nowadays, having a

website especially designed for mobile devices is equally important. In order to

employ this tactic, two versions of the site are created; the server detects the type of

device used to access the site and, when a mobile gadget is being used, sends the

user to the mobile version of the site. When there aren't enough resources to launch

a mobile site, the design of the site must still be accessible to mobile devices, by

conforming to the standard 960-pixel-width layout.

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However, a mobile-friendly website is now, more than ever, indispensable,

particularly for organizations that depend on organic traffic. As of April, 2015,

Google's algorithm change increased the importance of a mobile site. Websites that

do not meet this requirement will be overlooked in organic, mobile searches.

Considering that more than half of these searches take place in a mobile device,

according to the statistics portal Statista, this change can potentially reduce our

potential audience by 50-60%.

There are different ways to make a website mobile-friendly. The first method is

creating a "responsive" site. It means that the page and every element (URL,

images, text) remains the same, but the site adjusts itself automatically based on

browser width. A responsive site tends to be more appropriate for SEO and easier

to maintain.

The second method is to develop a separate mobile site. It is usually hosted on a

sub-domain (m.mysite.com). The main advantage of this type of mobile site is that

organizations can create totally different pages, with different structures and

features, based on users' needs. Although is not a common practice, there can be a

hybrid version of the site, using responsive content in some areas and customized

pages in others. ■

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Content is the oxygen that maintains the Internet alive; in its most practical,

traditional, and effective form, content marketing presents itself in the form of blog.

The main function of this powerful channel is to attract visitors, entice, and

transform them into quality leads. Because of the medium's proven effectiveness,

an increasing number of organizations invest resources in an attempt to create an

effective blog. Sadly, only a small percentage actually manages to take advantage

of this medium.

According to statistics provided by the market research institute Market Sherpa,

on average, a company that blogs generates 55% more website visitors. Besides,

a well-developed blog can boost lead-generation activities by 126%. Nonetheless,

to create and maintain an effective blog can be a real challenge, as "only 22% of

businesses are happy with their conversion rates."

Therefore, quite often disappointed executives ditch this tactic; after all, writing

and publishing articles consume valuable resources: Time, effort, and money.

Keeping a blog does not suffice. Mastering the art and science of creating a real

marketing blog requires knowledge, analysis, and creativity. Its effectiveness

depends greatly on the organization's broad marketing approach; however, a

marketing-oriented blog meets the following criteria.

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1. - KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE

Knowing and understanding the organization's target audience is a basic step, yet it is often overlooked. An

efficient blogger knows for whom he/she writes, considering the target audience's interests, problems,

motivations, ideologies, and so on. The knowledge of this group's characteristics often provides the blogger's

writing with a voice and tone. It also guides the blog's content, by revealing interesting and relevant topics. In

order to generate topics, the blogger often makes a list of the problems, questions, and interests common among

that audience. Finally, he focuses on the visitor to exhort a desired action, determining whether he/she looks for

information or options or he/she is ready to purchase.

2. - HAVE A PURPOSE

An effective blog responds to short- and long-term organizational and marketing objectives. The idea is to attract

and influence the right audience in order to obtain quality leads. In certain cases, a blog goes as far as creating

demand. Therefore, a blogging strategy begins with a scrutiny review of the audience and the ways the blog will

serve for marketing purposes. Through this approach, the target audience is defined and an action plan to utilize

the blog for marketing purposes is established. Finally, metrics and analytics tools are defined and a team of

committed experts gathers to bring the blog to life.

3. - CREATE QUALITY CONTENT

One of the greatest mistakes is to create shameless self-promotional content. Besides relevant, every article must

be educational, entertaining, and suitable. When content meets these criteria, it can boost virality. In order to

maintain reliability, informative articles must be supported by an authority in the subject or by a study, unless this

information is common knowledge. When a blog excels quality standards, the writer becomes an authority in the

subject and the organization a leader of opinion within the industry. Of course, in order to assure quality, the blog

must be consistent, with regular updates.

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4. - COMMUNICATE

A successful blogger doesn't write just for the sake of it. Even before starting to type, he has already defined a

purpose. In that sense, any piece of writing should stick to its main objective: Communicate. The blogger begins

by determining the message he tries to get across. The content itself should speak to the readers, provide

solutions and influence their thinking. In order to improve the message's digestibility, the writing must be concise,

and the amount of text must stay limited.

5. - MAKE YOUR CONTENT EASY TO FIND

The best way to promote a blog is by making it easy to find. In doing so, the blog considers the

audience's interests, which could be the latest news related to the industry, frequently asked questions,

previous visitors' commentaries, or common doubts or misconceptions. With this information, the topics

are determined and associated with keywords; this process results critical to properly optimize the blog for

search engines. To spread the word, bloggers and marketers often find external ways to promote the

content, creating alliances with other relevant sites or through social media and e-mail lists. Sometimes,

paying to promote key content can boost its reach.

6. - ANALYZE

A blog cannot function as a thriving promotional tool without solid analytics and metrics,

which disclose weaknesses, opportunities, and accomplishments. That being said, we

must first determine what requires analysis. Depending on the strategy's characteristics,

marketers measure the number of visitors the articles receive; the number of

subscriptions; most popular articles by author, category, or theme; where visitors come

from and where they head after reading the articles; and finally trends. ■

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A recent study performed in the U.S., reports that 89% of the consumers use

search engines when making a shopping decisions. Launching a website does not

guarantee traffic and exposure; to make a website truly visible, a proper search

engine optimization strategy (SEO) is necessary.

According to a recent study conducted by the leading inbound marketing

management software, HubSpot, most marketers consider search engine

optimization one of the most important sources of lead generation and one that

offers the highest customer conversion rates. After all, approximately 90% of all

internet traffic comes from sites such as Google, Bing and Yahoo! Therefore,

having a website designed to rank high in search engine results represents a

critical element of any internet-based marketing strategy. It's how people will find

your site!

Search engine optimization is a broad and complex subject, but these key points

explain critical concepts and principles to improve its visibility across search

engines. First off, SEO techniques focus on improving the visibility of a website

throughout different search engines, and the success of an SEO strategy can be

determined by the website's ranking.

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A successful SEO strategy will help potential clients find you. When somebody looks for the product or services in

search engines, such as Google, your website should be displayed within the first page of results. To achieve

better results, SEO is frequently conducted locally.

A DEEPER UNDERSTANDING OF SEO

Contrary to popular belief, SEO is a field separated from web development. A web developer by himself is unlikely

to possess the skills necessary to properly optimize a website. SEO also changes drastically and frequently.

Therefore, SEO strategies must be reviewed and updated on a regular basis; sometimes, an element considered

particularly relevant in the SEO world becomes useless; even worse, in some cases, incorporating outdated

techniques can cause penalties by search engines, like Google.

This particular search engine, which happens to be the most popular one, modifies and even radically changes

the algorithms used to classify websites within its search results; Panda, Penguin and Hummingbird are some of

these mechanisms. According to Google, the algorithms applied consider over 200 "unique signals" or "clues" to

determine or predict the content users might be looking for. Therefore, for its optimal execution, a search engine

optimization strategy requires constant supervision and scrutiny of these algorithms.

Similarly, before a website's development process begins, certain elements of the structure require attention;

these aspects might eventually have a powerful effect over the site's positioning. First, every page within the

website must be "indexed," so that it will have the opportunity to appear within search results. Second, the site's

usability also represents a determining factor; hard to navigate sites are unlikely to appear in search results.

Third, the sections that have special relevance must be a click away from the visitor. Finally, other elements that

benefit include the size and availability of the site. In this sense, Google recently announced that mobile-friendly

websites will rank higher.

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A basic SEO effort consists of additional internal and external techniques. The idea is to select terms that people

could use to find our content or site; these words should be applied to the web page as text and as part of the

HTML code; doing so will increase the possibilities search engines will show a link to the website in the search

results. Search engines depend to a large extent on the text that appears in web pages. Therefore, the content

itself should contain terms people associate with the topic.

TECHNIQUES INSIDE THE WEBSITE

Internal techniques are those used within each page to boost their “ranking” in search engines. A website should

include keywords that prospects use when online searching; to ensure that the right words have been selected,

we must verify the keywords associated with our business or field on Google. Although some of these techniques

are explained in detail further on [See Search Engine Optimization 101], it is important to emphasize that

techniques within the site might hold relevance in some search engines, such as Yahoo! and Bing, but no longer

in Google. However, incorporating these techniques will still be helpful, virtually across all search engines.

TECHNIQUES OUTSIDE THE WEBSITE

Search engines do not only detect the content inside a webpage; they also consider the number of pages that link

to that site. Search engines determine the “ranking” of a webpage based on the number of links that come from

other sites. Search engines are particularly interested in sites whose content is closely related to the site being

ranked. Therefore, a clothing brand linked to a restaurant chain is not considered especially relevant. Search

engines also consider links with text descriptions that incorporate the keywords much more relevant than the

plain-old-simple “click here” or the site’s URLs. In the HTML code, the description is found between <a> and </a>.

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PAY EXTRA ATTENTION

SEO is not limited to the ranking, as heavy traffic doesn't guarantee success; especially when the

website attracts the wrong audience, and visits become futile. In this context, finding random

keywords in high demand might be more detrimental than beneficial. The most successful

positioning strategies require work directly related to the website and others that have a broader

impact on the organization, such as research to define the target customer and his/her

characteristics as consumer and internet user.

It is important to understand the audience deeply, including ideas and purchasing behavior. By

simply focusing on “keywords” of high level in the content and pages, we will attract a vast

audience, while reaching many people that may not be part of the target market. Many

companies fall into this trap, because they merely depend on SEO free tools or those that are

part of their paid SEO campaigns. ■

Attempting to deceive search engines can be highly detrimental, as these

can detect fraud and implement sanctions. For example, the web

developer should not add text of the same color of the page’s background

to fool search engines and improve a page’s ranking.

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SEO 101

1 Title: The title of the page appears on the upper section of the browser and

is specified inside the <title> element which is, respectively, part of the

<head> element.

2 URL (Web Address): The file name is part of the URL. Therefore, we must

use the associated keywords as part of the HTML document’s name.

3 Header: When the keywords are used in the header section, search engines

will identify the site as related to that specific topic, which will improve the

page’s ranking.

4 Text: The keywords should be located as part of the text within the section

<body>. We have to repeat these words a few times throughout the page’s content; then again, our writing should not sound repetitive, or it will bore the

reader.

5 Text Link: The keywords must be incorporated in the text that is used to

create links within the pages, rather than using generic expressions such as

“click here.”

6. Element “Alt” in images: This attribute, which should contain the keywords, is assigned to the images we include in our site; this tactic will help search

engines identify the topic of the page.

7. Pages Description: The page description is located within the <head> tag

and is specified using the <meta> tag. This element should be a sentence

describing the page’s content and topic. This section is not visible in the browser but is displayed when our page appears as a search result.

Attempting to deceive search engines can be highly

detrimental, as these can detect fraud and implement sanctions. For example, the web developer should not

add text of the sa e olor of the page’s a kgrou d to fool sear h e gi es a d i prove a page’s ra ki g.

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INTEGRATION FOSTERS VISITS AND INTERACTION

The "integration" process takes advantage of the website's current visitors and potential audience to boost its exposure. In

order to maximize the number of potential visitors, a synergy with other on and off-line based channels is necessary. First,

a website should allow visitors to share the information though social media and e-mail. This simple tactic can boost the

traffic to the website considerably. Likewise, the website should enable the visitor to follow the organization via social

media, by showing direct links to each profile. This social integration can become more direct; the most popular social

media platforms allow you to copy and paste an embedded code to show updates directly on the Web pages.

Second, many organizations benefit from social interactions and online-based communities, because these open forums

often provide channels that can potentially generate virality. If applicable to the type of industry, launch a website that

fosters this interaction with visitors through comments or message boards. In certain situations, allowing the visitor to

contribute with content and images works well to attract a like-minded audience. Besides, this interactivity motivates the

audience to visit the site more often and spend more time in it. Both tactics maintain high levels of awareness and brand

loyalty.

Third, one of the main functions of a website is to retain information from the visitors. Therefore, it must provide the

appropriate platforms to help the visitor contact the team members, especially via email. The reason is that email-based

marketing programs tend to be more effective than those based on social media sites, with higher conversion rates.

Finally, in order to integrate the website into the organization's marketing channels, use direct marketing to promote the

site itself and its content. Include social media information on print promotional materials, such as business cards and

pamphlets, social events, advertisements, events, and conferences. ■

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Despite the importance of internet marketing, one of its finest instruments gets often overlooked

by executives. Landing pages help businesses and organizations maximize the return on

investment in lead-generation activities; these pages also gather essential information about the

audience, which can be used to successfully target quality prospects.

A landing page is a webpage on which a visitor lands after he/she clicks on a text link or an ad

placed in another page or web portal. Frequently, this page is an extension of a promotional

advertisement, providing detailed information about a product, service, or promotion.

An optimal landing page targets a specific audience and offers an incentive for the visitor to

entice him/her; depending on the product or service, this "hook" might be a free sample, free

assessments, coupons, free trials, etc. This element should be engaging enough to exhort the

visitor to take action (fill out the lead-capture form).

There are 2 main types of landing pages, those that attract people organically and those used for

pay-per-click campaigns. The latter category refers to pages created as part of a campaign, with

the purpose of enticing the visitor to take action, which can be filling out a form, testing a new

item, or buying. Landing pages that attract people organically are those on which a visitor lands

after he clicks on an organic search result –not paid. This way, this tool transforms a visitor into a

sales lead. Now, let us define the main benefits of landing pages as part of a digital marketing

strategy.

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IMPROVE CONVERSIONS

Landing pages convert site visitors into leads and, eventually, sales. By emphasizing enticing elements, prompting the

user to take action, and eliminating distractions, this tool achieves higher conversion rates than regular web pages. If the

landing pages are built correctly, reports are likely to show an increase in lead generation.

ENHANCE METRICS

There are different metrics that can be used to collect data from a website, and landing pages make this process easier.

In fact, the subsequent analysis is equally important to monitor campaigns and make any necessary adjustment. Web

developers can make changes in the design of the landing pages and test them as many times as they want; doing so will

help the marketer determine the elements that improve the conversion rates. Ordinary home pages make it much more

difficult to identify areas that require improvement, because of the amount of information displayed, much of which is

unrelated to a specific campaign.

CAN BE EASILY SHARED

Efficient landing pages possess a high "sharable" nature, as they adapt to multiple marketing channels; prospects can be

redirected to a landing page by clicking on ads placed in social media, blogs, websites, pay-per-click campaigns, and

marketing e-mails. Furthermore, this attribute works both ways, as landing pages often enable the visitor to share the

information through social media or via e-mail.

GATHER DEMOGRAPHIC AND BEHAVIORAL INFORMATION

Landing pages also provide marketers with the opportunity to track reconversions of existing leads, which helps identify

quality leads; these refer to the prospects that are more likely to buy. In summary, landing pages allow marketers to

observe the behavior of visitors within the site and identify high quality prospects, as well as their interests and

motivations. In doing so, these tools help organizations determine the type of promotions, incentives, benefits, and the

type of products and services that could potentially improve conversion rates. Marketers often use the information

gathered about the visitors’ behaviors and activities to build a more solid marketing strategy. ■

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Anatomy of a Landing Page

Smaller websites can incorporate this landing page format to increase conversion levels and

land more clients. In doing so, these websites focus on attracting a quality audience, provide

information, and request an action. The latter refers to guide and invite the visitor to contact

us, request a free quote, or a free trial, depending on the organization's characteristics.

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Inbound marketing refers to the digital marketing technique that helps organizations be

found, convert and delight an audience, and analyze results. With inbound marketing,

organizations grab the attention of an audience by creating and presenting engaging and

persuasive content; the visitors are, in turn, conducted to a website where they are

guided to take action. In doing so, they turn into prospects. In short, the goal is to create

quality leads that, through proper nurturing, will convert into clients. Although paid

advertising is encouraged, inbound marketing focuses primarily on organic positioning.

The structure of an inbound marketing strategy makes use of all the digital channels

available: Search engine optimization, content, e-mail, landing pages, and social media,

among others. Evidently, planning, designing, developing, and maintaining these media

can be a time-consuming and expensive task. Therefore, successful inbound marketing

programs emerge from a solid digital marketing strategy, which takes into consideration

the audience, as well as the organizational objectives and resources available.

Through an inbound marketing strategy, the previously mentioned tools follow a well-

defined marketing purpose. Social media, for instance, foster and maintain online

communities and lasting relations with the target audience. E-mail becomes critical to

ensure the delivery of informative and promotional messages, which tend to have high

conversion rates.

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Content, such as blogs, videos, and images, turns into a magnet that attracts a segmented audience to

the digital platforms. Finally, the website is the medium that receives the audience, provides

information, persuades, and ultimately produces quality leads.

MORE AFFORDABLE AND EFFECTIVE Although paid advertising is encouraged, this methodology focuses primarily on attracting an audience

through organic tactics. This quality represents a valuable asset, as "70% of the links search engine

users click on are organic, not paid," according to the research institute Marketing Sherpa. The same

study found that the cost of attracting quality leads through inbound marketing is approximately 60%

lower. These numbers simply mean people search online for the right company to do business, a solid

reason to integrate inbound marketing.

Furthermore, when a prospect visits a website, through organic searches, he/she is likely to be

conscious of his/her need to purchase a product or service; this visitor might be simply gathering more

information or looking for options. In some cases, he/she might be even ready to purchase. According

to Forbes magazine, “Many [potential customers] are 50-60% of the way into the buy cycle before they

will even make contact with a vendor.” Thus, attracting prospects organically saves us time, money

and other resources, while lowering cost per sale. Finally, solid inbound strategies become a recurring

source of leads. A piece of content produced in the past can potentially keep generating leads over

time.

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INNOVATOR AND AVANT-GARDE Increasing a company’s “findability” is far more effective than paying advertisements and commissioned salespeople, or

any other of the countless forms of outbound marketing. In his book, The New Rules of Marketing and PR, author David

Meerman Scott states that businesses must “earn their way in,” which contrasts to the old way, “buy, beg, or bug their

way in.” Small and midsized businesses, which tend to have limited financial resources for advertising, can incorporate

the inbound method to attract and engage appropriate prospects and generate leads. ■

Launching online-based paid advertising is a rather common practice; however, it tends to be

expensive. Moreover, this tactic won't let marketers take full advantage of the multiple

possibilities available online. Inbound marketing, used as a digital strategy, is an innovating

alternative. This methodology uses several online-based channels for positioning purposes; it

also reduces costs and increases efficiency in lead-generation activities.

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MHigh is a Marketing firm that provides small and midsized

businesses with consultation and integrated digital marketing

services. In MHigh, we specialize in digital marketing, professional

consultation, and website design and development.

The mission of MHigh is to provide small and midsized businesses

with strategic support in marketing activities and help them achieve

exposure, competitiveness and profitability.

The vision of MHigh is to become a leading and revolutionary

Marketing firm within its niche by achieving permanent partnerships

with motivated entrepreneurs and designing effective and creative

campaigns.

Our clients operate in Mexico and United States within a wide range

of industries, which include retail, professional-service providers, and

nonprofits, among others. Join them!

FOLLOW US

+ Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/mhighenlinea

+ LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/mhigh

+ Skype: Skype: mhigh.net1

Our achievements include an average of…

+ 155% more unique visitors after implementing inbound marketing

+ 80% more leads through optimized websites

+ 34% more sales for our clients’ companies

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ARTICLES AND INVESTIGATION

Ivan Badyr Salcedo

Marketing Specialist

Badyr specializes in Strategic Marketing and

Business Development, holding a degree in Business

Administration and Management and a degree in

English Literature. Badyr’s experience includes advising businesses in both product- and service-

oriented industries, involving companies in the United States, Mexico, and

The Netherlands.

Miriam Salcedo

Marketing Strategist

Miriam enjoys the business-and-client interaction

and, therefore, understands the importance of

organizations’ public image and communication methods. She specializes in persuasive strategies

and strategic marketing; Miriam holds a degree in

Business Administration with emphasis on Marketing

Promotions, having worked and collaborated in profit and non-profit

organizations in the United States and Mexico.

DISCLAIMER

Visit our website to know our disclaimer, which applies to the content provided in this

book. All content included on this book, including images and text, is the property of

MHigh, S.C. Mexico, MHigh.net and its content suppliers, except when rights from third

parties are indicated. The concept of the firm and the content presented in this book are

original and protected by Copyright laws of the United States of America, including the

DMCA. Any other use, including the reproduction, modification, distribution,

transmission, republication, display, or performance of the content on this site is strictly

prohibited. Neither this website nor any portion of it may be reproduced, duplicated,

copied, sold, resold, or otherwise exploited for any commercial purpose that is not

expressly permitted by MHigh.

STATISTICS

“All The Marketing Statistics You Need To Know”. HubSpot.

http://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics

Blue, S. (2007). "Blog." Marketing Sherpa.

http://sherpablog.marketingsherpa.com/

Dess, G., Lumpkin, G.T. & Eisner, A.B. (2010). "Strategic analysis."

Strategic Management: Creating competitive advantages. McGraw-Hill,

NY. 2-38

Ducket, J. (2011). HTML & CSS: Design and build websites. Wiley.

Indianapolis.

Ducket, J. (2014). JavaScript & JQuery: Interactive front-end web

development. Wiley. Indianapolis

Conner, C. (2013). “Fifty Mobile Marketing Facts.” Forbes.

http://www.forbes.com/fdc/welcome_mjx.shtml

Ortiz, A. (2012). “Google: Las empresas sin una Web optimizada pierden el 40% de sus clientes." ElConfidencial.com.

http://www.elconfidencial.com/tecnologia/2012/10/06/google-las-

empresas-sin-una-web-optimizada-pierden-el-40-de-sus-clientes-3324/

Lockwood, M. (2013). “The Ultimate Resource for 2013 Inbound Marketing Stats and Charts.” HubSpot.

http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/2013-inbound-marketing-stats-charts

Statista (2015). "Number of search and mobile phone search users..."

http://www.statista.com/statistics/368746/us-mobile-search-users/

Vaughan, P. (2012). “Why Landing Pages Are an Indispensable Part of

Marketing”. HubSpot.

http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/32566/Why-Landing-Pages-

Are-an-Indispensable-Part-of-Marketing.aspx

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W E B S I T E S & D I G I T A L M A R K E T I N G Boost Sales + Land New Clients + Improve Brand Exposure

Do you want to innovate, grow, and expand to new markets?

Launch a website that really helps you attract the right audience, convert it into a group of high-quality prospects, and

increase sales. We offer constant support, continuous analysis, and scrutiny of results to protect your investment, besides

designing a proposal and subsequent plan based on your goals, budget, and audience.

Strategy + Web Development + SEO + Mobile Marketing + Online Store + Content + Community Manager

LE T 'S E XP LO R E THE O P PO R T UN I T I ES T H A T A WEB S I TE O FF E RS TO Y O U R O R G AN I ZA T I O N

REQUEST A FREE ASSESSMENT WITH AN SPECIALIST

(01 55) 8421 3743 | http://www.mhigh.net/en

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