In this post we focus on the content and how you can ensure that what you have on your website is representing your business in the right way and helping your search engine optimisation activity at the same time. If you aren’t interested in content and are in the Essex area then give us a call on 01279 647003 and we can handle any copywriting on your behalf.

So content, when you write for the web you are writing for two different people (not technically people but lets call them that for now). The first is your audience, your potential customers. When they visit a website they want to know instantly if you are able to provide what they were searching for and once they get there they want to know what to do next (these are called call to actions – to be discussed in another blog post). Once they have easily and quickly found the pages that interest them on your website they will scan through the text and so it is important that you put all of your important information in an easy to read format.

• Bullet points are great for drawing peoples attention to your most important information

Images are a great way too of instantly creating an identity, so for example if I am searching for yellow shoes and come across a page with an image of some yellow shoes then I can be confident that I am in the right place.

Don’t write too much on each page, it will never get read and people will most likely not people to pick out the bits they need, we are an impatient lot online and won’t put lots of time aside for this kind of activity.

Include links to other relvant content, this doesn’t necessarily need to be on your website but remember if you direct them somewhere else they may not come back again.

In the next post we will focus more on the SEO side of writing content but I felt it important to give you some guidelines about how to write for your prospective customers. But as I mentioned earlier if you are in Essex then we can help you with Copywriting.

SEO is all about your potential customers being able to find your business when they search for your products and services, it is not about being found for terms that you think are important. There is no point at all being on page one of Google (lets face it, thats where we all want to be) for a search phrase that no one is looking for. You need to have a good understanding of the things your market are interested in and deliver that to them, but you need to be found for it in the first place.

Search Engine Optimisation is a massive subject and one that I could spend weeks talking about endlessly and yes I know that’s sad. It’s an ever changing beast and a tough one at that, you can no longer stuff a load of keywords at the bottom of your page, or try and mention the words ‘Internet Marketing Essex’ as many times as you can in your content and expect that to be enough. In fact the key to good SEO is convincing the search engines that your website is important in it’s field and will offer the searcher exactly what they are looking for. That starts with content, i’ll talk about that more in my next post.

Oh, and links are important too, like this one SEO Essex (sorry couldn’t resist)

But what does this have to do with business I hear you ask. Well the website allows you to categorise your images so you can have separate boards for different things. You connect with people in the same way as many other social sites and so your followers will get to see every time you ‘pin’ something new onto one of your boards. These images can be shared, liked and commented on and it’s a great way for people to get opinions on specific things, so maybe a range of business card designs, pairs or shoes or a new car as a way of helping you decide what to go for.

Now here’s where the magic happens! When you click on an image it takes you to the website where the image was sourced and this is proving to be driving traffic to websites at a higher rate than many other social networking sites. Businesses are also setting up their own pages, kind of like an online brochure it’s a great way of keeping customers informed of any new products that you may have to offer. But as with all kinds of social media you can’t simply post loads of images and expect the traffic to come flooding in, you need to be engaging with people on these sites, writing comments giving feedback on other peoples boards otherwise you might as well forget it.

And any decent marketing consultant will tell you, it’s not about complete self promotion either, take the wedding dress example as a business you may want to give people advice on different venue’s or make up artists that you have worked with before. Social media is all about sharing content with people and as a business you need to be offering up free advice and showing interest in related content not just trying to sell your own products and services.

We will certainly be watching Pinterest closely over the coming months and will report on any new developments along the way.

Any marketing must start with a clear idea of what your company is all about, the values that it holds dear and the message that it’s potential customers are interested in. If you don’t understand this then any marketing you do will probably fail. So it’s important up front to do the research the not so fun part but oh so important part of marketing.

Once you have identified your brand image, who your target market are, the competition and their strengths and weaknesses you can come up with a strategy that straddles many different formats from the way your employees answer the phone to re-designing your website. You should be giving out a consistent message and this should be in keeping with your industry and expectations of your customer base. For example if you are a firm of solicitors then your customers will expect you to wear a suit and present a professional image, turning up in jeans is probably not going to give the right impression.

The different elements of your marketing campaign should complement each other an example would be the TV ad’s that have their Facebook page address on the screen or the invoice paper you use that should encourage your customers to engage via social media. There are lots of different marketing activities you can udertake but it should be instantly recognisable as your business and your message when someone comes across your company.

We can help you to ensure that your online marketing ‘fits in’ with your overall marketing strategy. Contact us to find out how we can help.

Boost Your Reach

Guest blogging can open up a whole new audience for you it can help you utilise the readers of other peopels blogs and generate more awareness of your business and more importantly of your expertise. People are far more likely to buy from someone they trust and you can help gain this trust by presenting a professional and helpful approach online. This is easy to do via a blog because you are providing useful information for free.

Reciprocate

Allow people to guest blog for you and you will help increase the scale of your website. This obviously only applies where your blog is integrated into your website in the first place. Google loves new and fresh content and blog posts are a great way to do this but to get the volume you need takes a lot of work so by letting someone else write posts for you can create those all important new pages but also add a little diversity for your readers.

Link Juice

Anyone involved in online marketing understands the importance of links, by guest blogging you are creating links back to your website and if you are able to blog on a high ranking and highly thought of blog then this link becomes valuable.

Spreading the Word

We talked about increasing your online presence from a readership point of view but by guest blogging you are also creating a network for the search engines to see. If you ensure you are including links into your blogs then over time you can create a network of links for your business by syndicating these guest posts across the web using social networking sites.

There are lots of places that accept guest blogs and so it is relatively easy to get started but why not ask some of your suppliers and customers if you can guest blog for them, it can be really valuable and help you grow your relationships as well as aid your online marketing activities. Click here if you want some more blogging tips

If you have a Facebook account and you do not actively opt into the new Timeline you will soon receive a message at the top of your Facebook home to let you know that your profile will be changed, you are then given a week to make any changes before the Timeline is published.

My advice will be not to ignore this, you will be given the chance to hide any posts or photos that you don’t necessarily want everyone to see, it’s easy to forget what you said in a moment of anger about someone years ago. So go check before it’s too late!

Whenever there has been a change to Facebook many users have complained but then soon quietened down once they got used to the new features or layout, is this the same? Many are saying that with the advent of Google+ they may well look to leaving Facebook for good and do their social networking with Google instead.

So what do you think? Have you seen the new Timeline and if so what do you make of it?

These are the most important pages to design in the right way, if you don’t then people won’t hang around and you will have missed out on the opportunity of converting that visitor into a lead for your business. So where to start, well you need to consider the following:

1. What content needs to be on your landing page?

You want your most critical information to be on your landing page, the things that will help someone make a decision about whether they are in the right place and what they need to do next. It needs to be instantly recognisable that you do what the visitor is looking for. You must have your phone/email on your page and also your call to actions, any sign up opportunity whether it’s to download an e-book or subscribe to your newsletter. Anything else can be left for other pages, things like Company information and history just shouldn’t take centre stage.

2. Who is gooing to land on your page?

You may have different types of visitor come to your website, for example clients or prospects, people looking to work for you, the media and many more. Think about the types of people that are likely to visit, who are your most critical visitors and design your landing page with those people in mind. If you have more than one group that fall into this category then think about setting up different landing pages for each group.

3. What do you want people to do

What action do you want visitors to take when they visit your website? Your design should help them to be able to take that action easily and quickly, make sure these call to actions stand out and that you keep your page clean and simple to avoid the eye being distracted away from this more important action.

If you have thought about these things thoroughly then you are ready to start on your website landing page design.

Those with their own website or online business can explore a whole new world of social media marketing with an efficient social profile Page using Google+. It’s fun and easy and can be profitable too.

• Google+ posts that are sent to “Public” rank quite well in Google search results By merging Google properties into Google+ and integrating it with the serach engines you can have a significant impact on where your company appears in the results pages.
• Something else you can do is manage circles by distributing clients into specific categories and then share different posts, news or offers with the various circles. This allows you to connect with fans and share information with clients easily.
• Use Hangouts to engage your customers and colleagues. This is high quality video chat that gives you the opportunity to interact with followers face to face, making it much easier to get to know them, answer questions and also get immediate feedback on products and services.
• Another use of Hangouts is for video conferencing and to push live events and seminars to customers.
• Make use of the Google+ badge to promote your site and your Google+ Page. It links your website and page and makes others aware you’re there. If a visitor likes your site and clicks the icon they are taken directly to your Google+ Page and can share and follow your posts.
• Google+ Direct enables people to just enter a “+” in front of your business name when searching on Google in order to get directly to your Google+ Page.
• The +1 button on Google+ is an excellent way for customers to spread the word about your business and let others know about your Google+ presence. You are also able to connect your website +1’s to your Google+ Page +1’s, which is great as people are more inclined to trust recommendations from people they already know.
• Another useful Google+ tool, Ripples, allows you to keep an eye on your posts and information as they move across social networks, so it’s easy to figure out who is sharing and who is paying attention to your content.
• Analytics provide information about your page’s followers and visitors as well as general traffic and social activity around your business.

What makes Google+ for business unique is that it has blurred the lines between personal social networks, e.g. Facebook, and business networks, e.g. LinkedIn. It really is a social media game changer.

Google Plus Pages have a small square icon next to the business name to differentiate them from Profiles. Users can add your Page to their circles (which helps increas your follower count), take a look at your business information and check out your business’s photos.

Here’s how to create a Page for your business and take advantage of Google+:

• In order to create a Page for your business, you need a Google+ Profile. Clicking on the “+You” link at the top left of your Gmail dashboard or iGoogle page will take you to the Profile creation page.
• Click Create a Google+ page on the right of your stream and choose a category to begin. For a smaller, less well known business, Local businesses is a good choice. For companies and larger known businesses, Product or brand would work. Company, institution or organization is mostly for those businesses that don’t directly sell something, e.g. not-for-profits.
• Personalise your page by adding a photo or logo and a tagline, and continue with an introduction, information and contact information, then finish with a photo strip of 5 photos.

You’re now ready to start engaging with the Google+ community. A business Page can create Circles (networks) and post information and news on its feed. Don’t forget to add your Google+ Page details to your website or blog and to share it across your other networks.

In my next post I’ll discuss some of the ways you can leverage the + power of social media.

As Google+ notices are posted inside your Gmail inbox, you get 100% real-time Gmail deliverability. If your Circle friends Google a subject that you’ve written about on Google+, your comments and links are displayed automatically on page one of Google, giving you free traffic without any back-linking or on-site optimization. These are just some of the things that make us think it is a social media platform that will probably stick around and grow in popularity.

What makes Google+ special?

• It is focused on targeted sharing within social subgroups you’ve set up (your Circles)
• There is also a section within Google+ that is specifically for viewing, editing and managing multimedia, and which includes an image editor as well as privacy options and sharing features.
• It has introduced a new group chat feature called Hangouts. You can click ‘Start a hangout’ to immediately enter a video chat-room and a message will go out to your social circles to let them know that you are ‘hanging out’ and invite them to join you.

Many businesses are already beginning to see the value of building a Google Plus presence, especially with the new Pages feature. A Google+ Page looks similar to a Google+ Profile except that it has a small square icon next to the brand name to indicate that it is a page. Other users can add your brand to their circles, check out your information and browse your photos. Each time someone adds your brand to their circles, it helps to increase your follower count.

Your business needs to get ready to integrate Google+ into its social media marketing strategy, so in my next blog post I’ll look at how to build your Google Plus presence and build a Page for your brand.