Introduction to online marketing for online nautical companies

When someone does a search on Google, the results page has the following sections:

SEM means Search Engine Marketing, which is marketing carried out on the search engine. To appear here you must set up a Google AdWords account and pay every time someone clicks on your advertisement and therefore for each visit you get. The price varies depending on the supply and demand of the keyword that you choose.

SEO means Search Engine Optimization, meaning optimizing the natural search results, also called organic results. When someone clicks here you don’t pay anything, but it is more difficult to position here.

Keywords

With both SEO and SEM, keywords are a very important concept.

When a user searches for ‘I want to rent sailboat in Barcelona’ on Google, the keywords will be ‘Rent Sailboat Barcelona’.
We have to define the list of key words for which we want to appear. These keywords must meet the two following conditions:

• People must search for it
• We must be able to provide an answer for the search

For example, a lot of people search for ‘Schools in Barcelona’ but we rent boats, so it wouldn’t make sense for us to try to position for that key word.

On the contrary, if we rent boats and we want to position for the term ‘feel the relaxation of the marine lifestyle’ it will not be worthwhile as it is unlikely that there are a lot of people who would search for such a term.

How to plan your list of keywords

Make an initial list:

• Make a list of all the keywords that are associated with your business
• Visit your competitors’ websites and review what keywords they are using
• Add synonyms
• Go to your Google Adwords account and use the tool "Keyword Planner", "Search for new keywords"

Evaluate the keywords with the most potential

• Go to your Google Adwords account and use the tool ‘Keyword Planner’, ‘Obtain data and trends on the volume of searches’ and enter your list of keywords
• Anayze the volume of searches and competition for each key word
• Decide on your final list of keywords

Important Principles

• Visibility of system status
• The system should speak the language of its users
• A careful design which prevents problems is better than some good error messages
• Follow the established conventions for certain icons
• We must give the user the opportunity to correct the error and not feel frustrated for not being able to do something
• The website should be navigable for all types of users, from the inexperienced to the experts
• The website should not include unnecessary information.

Herramienta de seguimiento - Google Analytics

Main Uses

• Measure the volume of traffic coming to our website
• Determine where it comes from (Direct, SEO, SEM, Social networks, Mailing…)
• Identify the approximate profile of the visitors
• Understand the use of the website (time spent on site, number of pages visited…..)
• Find out whether users view the website on the computers, mobiles or tablets.

Most sophisticated uses

• Determine the funnel of conversion
• Identify the users that complete a certain activity (request, booking….)
• Carry out experiments