June 2009 Newsletter

5 Point Plan to Great Business Blogging

Social media is finally taking off in the UK, with over 13 million online social network users in 2008 – and growing. Quite likely, you have friends that use Facebook or your children socialise via Bebo or MySpace. There may even be a few Twitterers among you.

As consumers and professionals become more familiar with social media sites and comfortable with taking the 'conversation' online, your business must be in a position to participate as part of the web community. Publishing a business blog provides many opportunities for engaging with your customers online.

Getting Business Blogging Right the First Time
Many companies are concerned primarily about three issues regarding blogs: a) the time required to source a regular flow of content, b) the costs involved in getting professional copy written, and c) the need to attract readers to make it all worthwhile.

To address these concerns, you can use the following 5-point plan, which will enable you to take a phased approached to preparing for, setting up, and running a successful business blog.

1. Establish Clear Objectives
Knowing what you want to achieve with your blog will enable you to choose a clear direction from the start. Although it's important to use your blog to participate in a genuine manner as part of the online community, it is also completely reasonable to have your own business objective, which might include:

• Sharing your expertise in a friendly, entertaining way
• Driving traffic to your sales pages
• Engaging search engines in conjunction with a SEO plan
• Publishing product updates, reviews, and special offers
• Writing articles relating to your industry
• Conducting market research

As you set out your plans, you may find you have more than one objective – that's fine, as long as you can establish measures that enable you to identify what is working and where you may need to improve.

2. Know Your Target Audience
You don't have to be all things to all people; in fact, it is better that you don't even try this approach. Identifying who you are writing for can help focus your content and help you 'find your voice'. Choose a style that will appeal to your intended readers and go out of your way to stand out from the crowd.

Good content is important, but the same news shared in a completely unique style can win over readers as well. Your corporate blog doesn't need to be stuffy; instead, you should see it as an opportunity to share some personality and engage customers on another level.

3. Devise a Workable Content Strategy
This may sound a little like executive speak, but establishing a 'workable content strategy' from the start will enable you to keep your blog regularly updated – which is vital for attracting regular visitors (and indexing) from search engines as well as keeping your readers engaged.

Schedule time for researching content (using RSS feeds and news websites), writing posts (remember: it doesn't need to be an epilogue), and publishing it via your chosen blog platform.

4. Maintain Quality Control
Be creative, be informative, be provocative even, but don't be boring. If you have nothing to say, keep quiet for now. Focus on quality over quantity. Your readers will thank you for it.

It's also important to maintain an appropriate tone. Over-familiarity in a business setting doesn't always go over well with clients. In other words, keep the latest about your ingrown toenail to yourself.

5. Include a Marketing Plan
How are you going to spread the word? Online marketing is worthy of an article all its own, but for starters, the search engines and social media marketing are key for getting your blog noticed.

In addition, you may want to consider using one of the increasing number of web 2.0 applications that make it child's play to share your blog posts across numerous content platforms.

In conclusion, consider this: By refusing to engage with customers as part of the online community, you may actually be sending the message that you do not WANT to communicate. If you would like help implementing a blog for your business, call us on 0117 325 3250.

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New Google Search Update

In their pursuit to maintain their position as the most popular search engine, the innovators at Google have added new search tools to improve functionality. Although it is understandable for them to continually improve the user experience, such changes do have ramifications for websites that rank well in organic search results.

Google's most recent round of updates provides some additional tools for refining your search, providing useful benefits for the user – which is, after all, Google's number one concern. But what difference does it make to the way you market your website?

Adapting to Google's New Update
Google announced the launch of the latest new search features in May, calling them Search Options. These changes provide significant new functionality to the way users can refine their search. Hardcore search users will undoubtedly welcome such new features.

The New Features
The new features can be accessed once you have conducted a search. Once your search results are returned, you will see a 'Show options...' link situated to the left of the blue bar above the first website listed. Click on this link and a new left column will reveal a number of options for sorting the returned search results, such as:

Sort by content: The first option allows you to sort the suggested search results by content types, letting you view the results from videos, forums, and reviews.

Sort by time: View the suggested search results according to when they were created – most recent, last 24 hours, past week, and past year.

Change the view: This option allows you see more text and images from the suggested search result pages.

Additional tools enable users to see related searches and some suggested search options as well as a timeline view function.

You can also combine the sort options to see, for example, 'videos relating to your search term posted last week'. Used in such a way, these advanced search functions will significantly improve the way searches are conducted.

What do the changes mean to you?
With additional search-refining tools sure to follow, it's important to make sure your search engine optimisation (SEO) efforts can adapt to reflect how your website can be found. Here are some ideas:

• Publish your content in different formats and across various platforms. This will let you take advantage of the 'sort by content' feature, potentially improving your ranking position once the searcher refines the content (by videos, for example).
• Keep your website (or business blog) updated and the 'sort by time' search option could potentially catapult your newly posted content above your strongest competitor, allowing you to win new traffic that might otherwise not come your way.
• Focus on the quality of your content. The 'change view' option will immediately allow the searcher to see more of the content on your page before clicking through; using images where appropriate will immediately convey your strongest message right from within Google's search results.

In some ways, Google's new search tools completely level the playing field, enabling quality content providers to gain some advantage over competitors with huge SEO budgets. If you would like help with improving your SEO efforts, call us on 0117 325 3250.

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Online Lead Capture Techniques That Work

A well-prepared online marketing plan will enable you to drive targeted customers to your website, yet not every potential customer will be ready to make a purchase during their first visit. Although the ultimate goal for a business website is to sell, measures should be taken to engage all of your site visitors.

Such measures include adding one or more lead capture features to your website. The purpose of a lead capture exercise is simple: to provide a compelling reason for your site visitor to give you their business contact details, with the understanding that you will use them for additional correspondence.

How to Acquire New Business Leads from Your Website
Many businesses lose the opportunity to establish a 'connection' with potential customers by not adopting any lead capture activities. Perhaps many of your site visitors are not ready to buy, yet they are happy to allow you to initiate correspondence. The following examples outline some tried-and-tested lead capture techniques.

1. Email Newsletter Subscription
If you publish a company email newsletter, always provide a subscription form on your website. Include the form – along with some sales copy – in the same conspicuous position on every page. Make it simple for your site visitors to register for your newsletter wherever they end up on your site.

2. Free Downloads
Giving away a valuable report, case studies, or industry research in the form of a White Paper in exchange for a few contact details is a win-win situation. Your website visitors get something of genuine value for their business while you get targeted contacts with whom to continue correspondence.

3. Prize Draws
You can be creative with prize draws – the more appealing the prize, the more leads you are likely to acquire. Fun, original prize draws can easily have a viral effect, multiplying the number of new leads many times over.

4. RSS Feeds
If you publish a business blog, you must provide Really Simple Syndication (RSS), which allows your blog visitors to subscribe to your blog with only a few clicks. RSS subscribers are immediately alerted when you publish a new blog post. Feeds can also be set up to let the subscriber know when new comments have been added to your blog posts as well.

5. Don't Ignore Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is growing fast, partly because it is crossing into the business world. Web 2.0 sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube have added features to make their content sharing platforms more of a legitimate medium for business correspondence. New potential customers can follow all your updates very easily with the click of a button.

Whatever techniques you choose, consider creating a dedicated web page – sometimes called a squeeze page – which has one sole purpose: to capture contact details. Here are some quick tips for persuading your site visitors to begin a 'conversation' with you:

• Use a clear Call to Action
• Consider how the page layout can help channel your visitors' attention
• Be creative with images to break up copy and get your message across quicker
• Share your message immediately with well-written headlines and sub-headlines
• Keep your web forms tight – asking for too much data may mean that your visitor will not proceed

Implementing well-thought-out lead capture activities will provide you with ongoing opportunities to win new customers, even when they do not buy on their first visit. If you would like help acquiring more leads from your website, call us on 0117 325 3250.

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Outsourcing SEO: What to Ask

With millions of searches conducted daily to find products, conduct research, and make purchases, search engines play a key role in most web users' online experiences. Marketing your website effectively via search engines can help you win some of this valuable targeted web traffic.

Many online marketing techniques can be learnt and implemented yourself, but hiring the services of a search engine optimisation (SEO) expert can save you time (lots of it!) while keeping you abreast of the best techniques and delivering real results. So how can you identify a reputable SEO consultant?

Asking the Right Questions
Search engines have become extremely sophisticated in the way they crawl, index, and rank a website's content. An online marketing strategy set up primarily to trick search engines into artificially ranking web pages higher than competing pages is ill-advised and can get your site banned from search engines altogether.

On the other hand, an effective, long-term SEO plan will adopt best practice techniques, working within search engine guidelines to justify good rankings. The following questions should be asked when selecting a firm to outsource your SEO.

How much experience does your SEO team have?
This will help you determine not only their SEO experience, but also their business acumen, which plays a key role in identifying the best online marketing activities for your website.

What SEO methodologies do you adopt?
A genuine SEO firm will not be vague or try to hide its methodology. Instead, it will mention such things as keyword research, competitor analysis, internal linking, updated content, well-structured pages, inbound link building, and more.

Will my website need to be updated as part of the SEO campaign?
This is a key question. Your SEO plan will undoubtedly require your website to be modified – sometimes significantly. Updates might include making the content more targeted and readable or modifying the site's internal linking structure.

How long will it be before we see results?
A SEO plan should not be adopted as an instant web marketing fix. A confident, honest answer is better than promises of thousands of new web visitors a few weeks from starting.

What can I expect in the way of reporting?
Many SEO firms will utilise various methods of reporting the activity and progress being achieved on your behalf. Make sure you understand the reporting process and are being kept informed of the strategies being adopted.

Can I speak to a few of your current clients?
Many SEO firms keep their clients under wraps in order to maintain a competitive advantage—but there is no harm in asking.

Other questions you may want to ask include:

• Have you ever got a website banned from search engines?
• Do you have any experience in my industry?
• Who will manage my account?
• How will my SEO activities be aligned with my PPC and/or social media marketing?
• Do your SEO packages include consultation time?
• What is your approach for growing inbound links and will I need to be involved?

Establishing a good working relationship with your SEO consultant is vital. You should feel comfortable enough to ask questions and expect honest answers in a language that you can understand. If you would like to implement a SEO campaign, please call us on 0117 325 3250.

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