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Say ‘Yes’ to Writing an E-Newsletter for Your Business Website.

Monday, January 17th, 2011

An electronic newsletter, also called an e-zine, e-news and a myriad of other names is as its title suggests — an informative letter filled with news in an electronic format. More popular than ever before, it is a convenient way to both send and receive information and stacks up as a truly great business advertising platform.

Ultimately, the e-newsletter is a powerful sales and marketing tool at the tips of your fingers. With minimal fuss, you send it electronically and direct to the customer’s inbox. And as an alternative (or in addition), you can mail it out via hard copy. (This however lies outside the scope of the article).

E-Newsletters are a great, quick way to get core information to your contacts while maintaining the client-business relationship. As your business stays fresh in their minds, the aim is to keep those customers coming back and hopefully spreading the news as your ‘word of mouth’ sales army. It is a form of email marketing that is inexpensive and cost-effective.

Used to provide anything from information, inspiration, motivation and advertisements, the e-newsletter assists in creating a subtle yet powerful bond with customers that makes them feel part of an exclusive group. More specifically, it can be used to announce existing or new services and initiatives, advertise products, introduce new staff, share success stories or case studies, run competitions, highlight changes in business activities, provide images and video links or simply pass on new season greetings.

But let’s step back for just a moment.

Generally when a business collects new customer information, their email addresses are included, resulting in an important piece of data for your contact database. By collecting this data, you are asking for the provider’s permission to opt-in to receiving business communications.

Sourcing these details can also be achieved via other channels such as having a website e-newsletter registration system (the ‘Newsletter sign up’ box). Not only will these participants now be receiving your ‘business news’ but they will also be privy to information about your services and products, hopefully attracting them as new, paying customers.

In an effort to promote this marketing strategy, we should explore further benefits of writing a company e-newsletter:

Position yourself as an expert.

By consistently providing information about a specific topic, service or product, you become an authority on it. You demonstrate that you are the go-to person for this information. Your reputation as a business grows and lead generation increases.

FREE information for your clients.

Everyone likes to receive something for nothing. By providing this value to your clients (or prospects — remember those who sign up out of interest), they realise that you are genuinely on their side. It shows that you are not all about the hard sell but rather building and maintaining relationships. By demonstrating your intent to help your clients, they will be much more open to your products and services.

Make money easier.

It’s a given that remaining a profitable business by way of increased revenue received from existing customers is easier done than pursuing new ones. This can be achieved by targeting both your current and past clients through your contact database. These readers are going to be more receptive to receiving your mail and therefore a better chance at receiving a higher response rate.

Of course, growing your business also needs to be considered. Those prospective clients that you have met through referrals, networking events or social media are prime candidates for your e-newsletter. Now being familiar with you, hit them up with your next newsletter to further expand on your business. Note: you may need to gauge people’s receptivity as you don’t want to be known for spamming.

Track the results.

The great thing about sending out electronic messages is the fact that they can be tracked. Has it been received? Has it been opened? Has it been deleted without so much as a subject read? If it’s digital, you can monitor it. Hardcopy on the other hand — who knows? It could end up in the bin or as lining to the pet hamster’s cage. At least you can receive some indication when going electronic.

Client interaction.

Your business is online and not necessarily offline – meaning that you do not have a brick and mortar store. Customers like to think that your business is approachable. By offering an e-newsletter and reply mechanism, you are effectively saying ‘hey, c’mon in to my digital world and say hello’. It allows clients to interact with you. This is a good thing as people in general prefer to do business with people that they know.

Client satisfaction.

You can see that there is a pretty convincing argument for creating an e-newsletter full of informative, beneficial content that also doubles up as an advertisement medium for your products and services. Consumer sentiment is at an all time high when they feel positive about your business. And customers feel positive about your business when they believe you are there to help them.

Even from a strictly business perspective, with the amount of time invested and cost involved in producing an electronic newsletter, it really is a no-brainer. It is a way of maintaining relations with your current customer base, a vehicle for reaching new clients and more or less instantaneous.

So why not give it a go, you may surprise yourself. At the very least, you’ll surprise your customers.

Have you stumbled across this page while researching the benefits of an online business?
If you’re not already online, jump to our business hosting page to see our plans.

Say Yes to Writing an E Newsletter for Your Business Website.

Tags: E-Newsletter, e-zine, newsletter
Posted in Website Marketing | No Comments »

Warning: Donkey Kong Loses His Pants

Tuesday, December 21st, 2010

Ok, so maybe the title was slightly misleading. Nevertheless, it’s possibly the reason you decided to read more by either clicking through or scrolling down. Intrigue is a powerful feeling. It’s what makes us ‘push the red button’ when told not to. It also lends itself well to a concept called guerrilla marketing which is the subject of today’s article.

A term defined by Jay Conrad Levinson, guerrilla marketing (aka gorilla marketing) is a way of promoting products and services in surprising, original and unexpected ways. It leverages from creativity and alternative thinking and relies more on unconventional marketing strategies, time and energy as opposed to big budgets.

Favoured by small business, this type of marketing allows companies to create exciting and fresh campaigns that are designed to cause a buzz. For businesses that employ this type of marketing, a well crafted and executed idea is just another opportunity to go viral. By using imagination to connect with customers in new ways, brands can be remembered and associated with potentially ‘bizarre’ situations. This in turn can give rise to continued ‘word of mouth’ advertising. Great when it all comes together!

A Diverse Attack on the Unsuspecting

Incorporating a number of marketing methods including the use of digital mobile devices, social media and street campaigns, businesses can create highly interactive programs in order to maintain interest and continued communication with customers and prospects. With the focus being on individuals and small groups, businesses make the experience more personal which is always going to relate better to prospects.

Having said this, it’s not just for small business. Some of the big boys like Microsoft and Apple have employed these tactics. Companies are always on the lookout for new and unusual ways to attract and retain customers.

But Tell Me More!

A simple example of guerrilla marketing is this article’s headline. Was it highly relevant to the content? No. (Although it did play on words with the whole Donkey Kong — guerrilla — ape idea!) Did it grab your attention or raise your curiosity? Possibly. The point is that some viewers, like you, would have read on which is a good start.

But What Are Some Other Examples?

Another more exciting and larger scale advert featured in the US where the marketing team of the new Jackass 3D movie decided to make things interesting. Instead of your stock standard movie billboard, they expanded on it by incorporating a full 3D ski-style ramp. As it led up to the billboard, onlookers would divert their eyes across the 15 foot gap to find a jet skier half embedded (along with Jet Ski) in the wall ad. Needless to say, the concept made people stop in their tracks and no doubt got them talking. The marketing brains did something a little different while playing on the ’3D’ aspect of the film.

You may also have heard of ‘flash mobs’ which can be used as a technique of guerrilla marketing. Essentially, this is where a group or ‘mob’ of people suddenly flood an area, perform an act of some kind and then disappear. If you’ve ever seen this occur, you’ll understand. The commotion it can cause is quite comical. While some people curiously watch and laugh, there are those more cautious who prefer to vacate the immediate area in a speedier fashion than the mob. However, done well, it can have a strong and immediate impact on brand and business awareness.

Punch Line

So while butchers don’t necessarily have to go out dressed as a cow holding a piece of meat in order to create lasting impressions it will surely raise an eyebrow if they do.

Have a crack and start the process by jotting down random ideas with the ‘words’ relevant to your campaign. You’ll be surprised just how many come to you when you open your mind to the absurd!

Oh and apologies for all those Donkey Kong lovers. No offence was intended!

Warning: Donkey Kong Loses His Pants

Tags: flash mobs, gorilla marketing, guerrilla marketing, marketing
Posted in Marketing and PR, Website Marketing | No Comments »

How to Get the Most Out of Your Testimonials

Tuesday, December 14th, 2010

If you’re running a small business, you need all the help you can get to push customers through the door. You could promote quality. You could promote price. But these are all words customers hear all the time.

So what can you do to make your business stand out from the crowd? The answer is: testimonials.

Testimonials are simply positive word of mouth referrals — written down. They are one of the best ways to generate business and don’t cost a cent. So why not make the most of it? If you haven’t got them already, start collecting and put them on your website today!

How to Get the Most Out of Your Testimonials

Social proof: Why testimonials work

When trying to persuade a customer to choose one business over another, effective testimonials always work. The truth is that people are influenced by what other people are doing.

This theory is called ‘Social Proof’, investigated by famous psychologist Robert Cialdini in his book Influence and the Power of Persuasion — people will want to do something if they see someone else do it first. For example, if we hear “This book has sold 3 million copies!” we think it must be good.

Testimonials provide this kind of social proof to other prospective customers. They give you credibility and show that:

you are reputable
people have had good experiences using your product or service
people can trust you
people can be reassured you will provide them with exactly what they’re looking for.

Promoting good customer feedback is a no-brainer, really. It’s guaranteed to bring in more work amongst your clients and peers. We’ve all been influenced by it before, so you may as well start using testimonials to your advantage.

Collecting testimonials

The good news is if you genuinely have a great business, testimonials are not hard to get. To begin, start collecting positive feedback from former clients. You can do this a couple of different ways:

The more formal way is to contact them via letter or email. Ask them to write and send you a few sentences, describing what they liked about your business.
Alternatively, the easiest way of all is to simply ask your customers over the phone or in person. You can then write their comments down yourself.

Make you testimonials work for you

1) Edit and make your testimonial clear

Testimonials need to be sharp and to the point. Avoid diluting the power of your testimonial with waffle. It doesn’t have to be published word for word.

Pick out the best parts of your testimonial and cut it down (without changing the message) to just two or three lines.

To make it stand out even more, you can give your testimonial an appropriate heading.

2) Add a photo of the customer

For some reason, adding a portrait photo next to your testimonial just works. It makes a big difference — it makes your testimonial seem more credible.

When asking a former customer if you can feature them on your site, ask them if they would be happy to send you their professional picture to add as well.

You can also do something similar if your client has any video. Embed a clip next to their testimonial — this creates an interactive user experience where they can see what kind of other customers you’ve worked with before.

3) Format your testimonial so it stands out

Believe it or not, the type of font you use can have a big effect on your testimonials. Depending on your overall web design and style, you may like to use a traditional ‘typewriter’ font to increase credibility (although I know in modern times this makes no sense, but it works).

Alternatively, depending where you put your testimonials, you may want to use a different font to your body copy. This will make sure that the testimonials stand out.

Also, it is important that you put your testimonials in quotation marks. This makes it clear that the statement is a quote, not just promotional copy that you’ve written yourself.

4) Credentials

It’s not enough to write down a quote and just add someone’s first name. If you really want to get the most out of your testimonial, add more information.

If you can, add the customer’s full name. You should also add the company that they’re from. Better yet, add their role, especially if they’re a manager or director.

Depending on the type of business you have, you can also add other bits of information such as the suburb that they’re from. Or, for example, if you are promoting a personal training business, you could add the customer’s weight.

The best thing that you can add is their credentials. If someone is an expert, list their qualifications. Remember, the more important the person, the more credible the testimonial! A testimonial from a doctor is more convincing than a testimonial from a ‘nobody’. Unless it’s clearly a paid endorsement, customers understand that their professional reputation is on the line — so what they say must be true!

5) Placement

Once you’ve collected a few testimonials, it’s time to upload them to your website. The most common way to add testimonials is with a ‘testimonials page’ — curious customers can click on this page and see what others are saying about you.

One step better is a ‘clients page’. Ideally, this page should have testimonials and short descriptions. Almost like a folio, it details who you’ve worked for, what you did, and what they thought of your business.

However, the best way to place them is to add them to various pages throughout your site (e.g. your right hand navigational panel). Have a different testimonial on every page, or set them to rotate. This way the customer doesn’t need to search for good responses about your business — they just appear.

For even more effect, you can also add your testimonials to your email signature. This will help your business reinforce your professional positive image every time you contact someone.

Conclusion

No matter what type of business you are running, you will benefit from adding testimonials to your website. Try to follow these tips when adding them to your site for the most effect.

Once you’re done uploading them to your site, remember to keep collecting testimonials for future reference. When you know you’ve done an awesome job for someone, make sure you ask them for their feedback. You should continue to upload new testimonials to your website as often as you can.

View Digital Pacifics testimonials page.

How to Get the Most Out of Your Testimonials

Tags: Testimonials
Posted in Web Design, Webmaster, Website Marketing | No Comments »

Ways to Promote Your Website – Part 3 of 3.

Wednesday, November 24th, 2010

If you have been following this website promotion series of articles, you would now be aware that there are many ways to promote your website online.
Ways to Promote Your Website – Part 1 of 3
Ways to Promote Your Website – Part 2 of 3

In parts one and two (linked above), a number of promotional angles were covered that included writing fresh content, incorporating keywords, creating Meta tags, writing blogs, participating in forums and establishing a mailing list.

In our final of three instalments, we’ll close out our top nine strategies by covering the remaining three: creating search engine listings, getting linked and branding everything.

Create more SE listings / Buy ads

The more search engine listings, the better. I don’t wish to whip a dead horse but five, twenty, fifty needles in the haystack are better than one. Take any opportunity to increase your exposure by creating more points of entry to your main business site.

Ways to get your site linked can include having multiple web sites, submitting your web page URL to free online directories, signing up for local business listings and establishing a blog space, among others. If you have some money to play with, look into paid listings (they give you priority), online Yellow Page ads, Ad Words campaigns and other PPC (Pay Per Click) options etc.

Again, you really need to weigh up the pros and cons. Start by asking yourself, what are the perceived benefits? Can I carry out testing to see which marketing strategy works best? What is my budget?

Get linked / social media

A component of getting a strong page rank (getting your website appearing high in listings) is by having your site linked from others. The more links you have to your site, the more ‘popular’ the search engines deem you. It highlights to the search engines that you are interesting enough to be listed on a multitude of Internet sites.

Other ways to promote your business website is to link and make reference to it from social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. Similar to email, the ease and efficiency of reaching thousands of contacts makes it very appealing. Make use of these technologies with the followers you already have. Aim to build your ‘fan base’ and grow the awareness of your business.

Add your business identity everywhere

Branding is how businesses are identified. Logos, taglines, colours etc all contribute to a company being remembered. Think of the Nike tick and saying “Just Do It”, or McDonalds golden ‘M’ – instantly recognisable.

By branding all of your business communications, you are continually advertising to your customers and prospects. Add your logos, taglines and contact details to your email signatures, invoices, quotes, business cards, letterheads, brochures, newsletters, mail flyers, product documentation, service slips and anywhere else you can think of. The more places your brand appears, the more chance someone will take notice.

So there you have it – nine tried and tested ways to promote your website. Just to recap, in no way have these suggestions detailed an exhaustive list, but I do believe they are strong candidates, worthy of your consideration.

You will find that in addition to the above strategies, there may be other suitable (or more applicable) ways to promote your site including advertising through the media, using newsgroups and newsfeeds, writing articles, word of mouth, videos, other multimedia and various forms of press releases. Once you become familiar with them, you will be in a better position to make an informed decision on those that will best suit your requirements.

Reread the three ‘Ways to Promote Your Website’ articles, research your own strategies and set forth on the ever changing and challenging journey of online promotion. Best of luck. Michael Soininen

Ways to Promote Your Website Part 3 of 3.

Tags: Facebook, Search Engine Marketing, SEM, social media, Twitter, Website Marketing, website promotion
Posted in Website Marketing | No Comments »

Using Special Offers to Boost your Online Sales

Monday, November 22nd, 2010

Why does direct marketing work so well?

We’ve all seen those annoying direct marketing ads on TV. We can’t stand them. We make fun of them. Yet, we all know someone (if not ourselves) who has bought something because of them.

So why do they work so well at captivating people to buy? Unfortunately, there is no simple answer (otherwise we’d all be rich!). The success of these annoying direct marketing ads comes from a mix of many contributing factors.

However, there is one factor that stands out far above the rest when it comes to making the hard sale: “How about a free set of steak knives?” Sound familiar?

That’s right, the offer! It’s the incentive to buy. We watch and think, “Hmmm, this sounds pretty good,” but you don’t actually pick up the phone until the person on TV throws something else in there for you, for free.

There is absolutely no reason why we can’t apply this idea to the web. If you’re looking to generate more leads or increase your sales, why don’t you offer your visitors something special that they just can’t refuse?

Use an offer to get attention, and keep it!

Using Special Offers to Boost your Online Sales

With a staggering number of ecommerce websites being created everyday, businesses are finding it more and more difficult to draw traffic to their site. In addition to this, viewers are spending less and less time on each site as they search for something that captures their attention.

What many businesses don’t recognise is the power of this special offer that direct marketers use so well.

If your business can clearly promote a special offer online, you can lure more traffic to your site. You also increase the chances of converting your potential customer into a hot prospect or hard sale once they’re on there. (Of course, your special offer needs to be obviously marketed in the headline of your Google Adwords campaign or outrageously visible on your homepage for this to work.)

When there’s not that much difference between you and your competitors, remember that your offer can make or break the sale. It’s all about adding value that your customer can appreciate to encourage them to buy.

Many successful websites use this strategy. They rotate special offers, so there is always something new to interest the visitor, and always something worth coming back to the site for.

What can I offer that will work?

If you’re a business struggling to think of the best offer you can provide, remember this:

The best offer is one with the highest perceived value but the lowest actual cost.

Try to think of something that doesn’t cost your business a lot to produce, but still costs the consumer money to buy.

A useful and informative e-book that your business has written is a great example — it doesn’t cost your business anything to produce other than time. Give it away in exchange for the visitor’s email address. The consumer gets their hands on some interesting and helpful information for free, while you’re able to collect the details of likely buyers for future reference — it’s a win-win situation.

To see some businesses that have used this idea, check out:

Free hypnotherapy report at Life In Sync (www.lifeinsync.com.au)
Free marketing tools at MacInnis Marketing (www.macinnismarketing.com.au/marketingresources.html)
Free budget calculator at Choose Your Money (www.chooseyourmoney.com.au)

Other good examples of common offers include:

Free delivery with any Amazon Books order (www.amazon.com)
$100 free fitness gear when you sign up for memberships at Fitness First (www.fitnessfirst.com.au)
Free jewellery box or bag with any Pandora purchase over $100 (www.charmme.com.au/pandora-free-gift-with-purchase.html)
Buy one car wash, get one free (www.starcafewash.com.au)

Alternatively, your business could dive into the deep end and offer something completely free, in the hope that the customer will buy more items from your business while browsing your site. Vistaprint (www.vistaprint.com) is a fantastic example; they give away up to 250 free business cards but always up-sell other products that are more expensive on their site.

One last secret: limited time only!

The secret to making an offer really work is to put a time limit on it. Once you’ve made it loud and clear that you can give your visitors a fantastic deal, the best way to nail the sale is to tell them that the offer is available for a limited time only.

If people think that the offer won’t be available next week, they’re much more likely to purchase right then and there. It’s the law of the few — when something is scarce, it is perceived as being much more valuable! Some businesses thrive on this idea… Don’t you love it when you snap up a rare bargain at a closing down sale, only to see the business has opened a new warehouse just across the road?

Jetstar’s Friday Frenzy uses this foolproof marketing strategy. The appropriate name ‘Friday Frenzy’ tells you that the offer is only available for that Friday. If you don’t book by midnight, the magical airfare is lost. But this is just one example. Look around; you’ll notice how commonly this marketing tactic is used in sales. And it works. It’s amazing how quickly people will react to a good deal if they think it will soon disappear forever.

So if you’re looking to boost your sales, try to differentiate your business from your competitors with a special offer. Ask yourself what you can provide at little cost that will be of interest to your customers. Your special offer doesn’t have to be worth a million dollars, just something of high perceived value — and preferably available for a short time only.

We can help with ecommerce if your looking to get your business online, or in need of a website upgrade. Setting up special offers is simple with our shopping cart software.

Using Special Offers to Boost your Online Sales

Using Special Offers to Boost your Online Sales

Tags: marketing, online marketing, special offers
Posted in Marketing and PR, Website Marketing | No Comments »

Ways to Promote Your Website – Part 2 of 3.

Wednesday, November 17th, 2010

Welcome back to part two of three articles on ways to promote your website. If you missed out on the last post, go and check out:
Ways to Promote Your Website – Part 1 of 3 to familiarise yourself and gain further details. In part 1, we covered fresh content, keywords and Meta Tags as strategies for bringing attention to your website. In this post, we will identify further promotion tactics with blog writing, forum contributions and adding a mailing list.

Ways to Promote Your Website Part 2 of 3.

Blog writing

Writing blogs has become extremely popular over the years. They are created based on any topic and can contain as much or as little text as chosen. The ease with which this information can be created and uploaded to the web is an attractive feature. Not only does it act as ‘fresh content’ (see ‘Ways to Promote Your Website – Part 1 of 3′) but can also bring in the readers week after week. By creating interesting, well written content, your audience stays engaged.

Blogs are great for sharing new ideas, information and opinions while acting as a catalyst for discussion and debate.

By promoting external contributions via comments and sharing technologies including Facebook and Twitter, you help to spread your information and therefore your business, product and service. Not only this but through readers’ back and forth comments, you are continuing to increase the amount of fresh content that is introduced to your site – extra content that you don’t even need to write!

Forum contributions

Forums are a type of communication hub where people create and reply to posts on various topics. You will be amazed at the information you pick up in forums by contributing to discussions. Through regular posting, you not only appear as somewhat of a guru in your field but are in a great position to both advertise your business and advocate your services. You are able to address people’s questions, provide relative information and gather useful knowledge on what consumers want.

By acting in a professional manner and building a network of connections, you will find yourself selling without appearing to sell.

Mailing lists

A great way to reach a lot of people quickly, mailing lists, also known as newsletters, ezines and e-newsletters are a marketing mechanism that proves very efficient. You can create and send one email newsletter that reaches thousands of recipients. The information that you wish your clients or prospects to view can be conveniently sent straight to their inbox.

Through these messages, you can include information about your products, services, competitions, special offers and more. You can also include details and links to your website – a simple online point of entry to your business. Ultimately, this form of advertising/marketing keeps your business fresh in the customers’ minds for future business.

When using these strategies, consider what may and may not work for your site. Take into consideration the time you can allocate to establishing and maintaining them and the potential benefit they may bring.

The more strategies you implement, the better chance you have of being noticed. However, there is an investment cost that comes with each.

The final part to this series Ways to Promote Your Website – Part 3 of 3. covers the last three tips of our top nine.

Ways to Promote Your Website Part 2 of 3.

Ways to Promote Your Website Part 2 of 3.

Tags: blogs, Forums, Mailing Lists, newsletter, Website Marketing
Posted in Website Marketing | No Comments »

Ways to Promote Your Website – Part 1 of 3.

Monday, October 25th, 2010

Ways to Promote Your Website Part 1 of 3.

These days, it’s all about being noticed – your website that is. With a mass of sites already in existence and the onslaught of new daily signups, having your website found is reminiscent of the old needle in a haystack metaphor.

With search engines getting more sophisticated and website designers becoming more savvy, there are often a number of things (some quite significant) you should do to help stand out in the crowd.

In this three part series, we’re going to explore a number of website promotion strategies (in other words — being found online) that you can implement yourself.

There are many strategies or points of focus that exist when it comes to marketing your website. Some are obviously better than others so here’s an attempt to select nine (three for three articles is a nice number!) strong ways to promote your site — part 1.

Fresh content

Whether in the form of articles, blogs, multimedia etc, by continually adding new content to your site, you not only keep the readers happy, and coming back for more, but appease the search engines by demonstrating that you are worthy of their attention. Search engines love new content and place value on these regular contributions — the more, the better. When these search engines target specific websites (because they have been identified as sites that produce constant, fresh material) they send their spiders to regularly read this new content. This repeat attention from search engines contributes to your site getting ranked well.

Keywords

Keywords are the words or phrases relevant to your domain or subject topic. By peppering them throughout the web copy, you attract the search engines and help them to categorise your site. For instance, if you sell fresh fruit, you could research what consumers are typing into Google and Yahoo in order for them to find sites that sell fresh fruit. Examples of these appropriate phrases and words may include fruit, bananas, green grocers, produce etc. Once identified, you then incorporate the keywords into your web site text.

Meta tags

Meta tags are used to include information about your website. They can define the site’s title, keywords and description and are used to more accurately list your site in search engine indexes.

Meta tags can be an area of confusion for some as they refer to the more technical side of website creation. This is because they appear in the HTML code of your website pages which not everyone is familiar with. However, don’t worry. After you have done it once, you will be able to repeat the process for any web page and/or site you create.

Some Meta tag examples are shown below:

<META NAME=”Name of Meta tag” CONTENT=”Your descriptive sentence goes here.”>

<META NAME=”Description” CONTENT=”Digital Pacific has provided reliable Australian web hosting, dedicated web hosting and Australian domain names for over 10 years.”>

Content, keywords and Meta tags are a great place to start for getting your website some prominence online. They all contribute to having your site ranked in search engine listings and are easy to put in place.

Read Ways to Promote Your Website – Part 2 of 3. where we’ll uncover further ways to promote your website.

Ways to Promote Your Website Part 1 of 3.

Tags: meta tags, SEO, Website Marketing, website promotion
Posted in Website Marketing | No Comments »

Are Your Email Newsletters Doing More Harm Than Good?

Tuesday, September 28th, 2010

Many businesses believe that enticing people to sign up for newsletters is the perfect way to generate sales – businesses can construct databases of hopeful leads, and at the same time subscribers can pick up some hot deals. This exchange of information is usually a win-win situation for everyone.

However, what businesses often fail to recognise is that they are not the first to come up with this idea. Collecting data to compile subscriber lists has been around since advertising was first invented. What’s more, since the birth of the world wide web, everyday people have been signing up to more newsletters with free information and hot offers than they can even remember.

As a result, people are being inundated with emails they don’t have the time to read. So if a reader actually opens your e-newsletter, make sure that it offers something of value to them. Otherwise, you risk annoying them by wasting their time; they’ll never bother to open another one again.

Without providing the subscriber something worthwhile to read (that they have not read a million times before), your newsletter lacks interest. In addition, these days modern consumers have wised up to businesses using e-newsletters as a marketing tool. Consequently, your company suffers; “Mmm, another useless piece of junk mail from So-And-So. Delete!”

So how do we solve this electronic mail overload crisis and keep your marketing strategy as effective as possible? There is one easy but incredibly effective answer: keep your potential customers happy by segmenting your audience. Tailor your newsletters to what they want to read!

Keeping your newsletter relevant to them is key. Make the most of your ‘subscribe’ box and ask your potential customers to list some of their interests when they sign up. Perhaps also ask them some questions in which they can either tick ‘yes’ or ‘no’. It can be as simple as asking your subscribers whether they are male or female, and then providing them with two separate newsletters marketed to suit them accordingly.

By collecting as much information as possible, you can segment your audience into different groups. Your business is then able to customise useful information and special offers that are relevant to them. This makes each mail out unique, and even more importantly, it acknowledges exactly what that person was originally was looking for or interested in in the first place.

Of course, there is flipside to this. Collecting that much information requires a lengthy questionnaire, which may turn people off from signing up. To avoid this, keep your questions short, sharp and to the point, but detailed enough for you get the information you need.

This method of sending out successfully segmented newsletters will show your subscribers that you are going that extra mile for them. Don’t waste their time with things that don’t appeal to them. They will appreciate it, and instead calling their friends to complain about your marketing tactics, they may just call you and buy something instead.

Are Your Email Newsletters Doing More Harm Than Good?

Tags: Email, newsletter
Posted in Website Marketing | No Comments »

Google Instant & Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Thursday, September 16th, 2010

When Google sneezes, the rest of the internet catches a cold. Every year brings announcements of new updates and additions to the world’s favorite search engine that cause panic amongst anyone with a vested interest in search engine optimisation. This panic is usually an overreaction to relatively minor changes which usually only negatively affect web pages that have used underhand techniques to rise through the search rankings. Google Instant seems a different proposition altogether as it fundamentally alters the way in which users search the internet.

Users have searched the same way since the dawn of the internet age. They type their search term into the search engine and hit enter. The results appear moments later. What Google Instant does is completely do away with the need to hit enter, or even to type out the full search term.

Google Instant & Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Let’s say you’re searching for ‘Google Instant’. First you enter ‘G’. Search results appear instantly as you continue typing. Google Maps is at the top of the results page, closely followed by Google Earth and Google Mobile. This remains unaltered as you type out the rest of the company’s name. As users become more used to the way in which live search works, it seems likely that they’ll stop typing after ‘G’, as its clear that all the top results match the full search term anyway. As you begin typing the next word, entering the ‘I’ brings links to Google Images to the top of the search results. The ‘n’ then brings Google Instant to the top of the search results. At this point, the user will clearly stop typing and click the top link.

The above example explains the basic functionality of the new feature, but it actually gets a bit more complex than that. One thing sure to give SEO gurus headaches is the fact that Google bases the results that Google Instant displays on a user’s web history. This means that the search results will be unique to each user. It’s worth pointing out here that Google Instant only appears for those who are signed into a Google account. This means that any alterations webmasters may consider making to their SEO strategy to accommodate the new feature will be of no relevance to many of the trillion-odd searches made on Google each day.

Any website with a focused SEO centered on the search term ‘Chinese takeaway’ will still be displayed at the same point in the search process. The personalised search aspect of Google Instant, whereby these results are tweaked according to my location and web history, has actually been a part of Google since long before the implementation of Google Instant. Anyone working in SEO should have by now adapted to and accounted for this.

One possibility of Google Instant that has received some discussion in the blogosphere is the possibility of exploiting the new function by optimising for false keywords. In the example above, a webpage that focused heavily on optimising itself for the search term ‘Chinese t’, or even ‘Chinese tak’, could potentially bypass results for Chinese takeaway and appear earlier in the search process. Google are always one step ahead of the SEO game, however, and Google Instant has already accounted for this. If you press enter during the search, having only entered ‘Chinese t’, you’re met with an entirely different set of results than those targeted at the search term ‘Chinese takeaway’.

The reason for this is that Google Instant actually works by guessing what a user is searching for and suggesting a complete term, rather than simply displaying results directly related to what a user has entered. The effect that Google Instant will have on search engine optimisation strategies is therefore far less apocalyptic than many panic-struck SEO ‘experts’ may currently fear. Websites will still be targeting getting themselves high on the ranking for the same search terms as they always have. The only real difference is that users will stumble across their search engine optimised web page more quickly.

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Google Instant & Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Tags: Google, Google Instant, Google Instant SEO
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Benefits of Naming Files Correctly

Friday, July 30th, 2010

You might not think about the repercussions at the time, but poorly named images, html files and directories(folders) can cause total confusion when it comes to updating your website later down the track. It can be a key indicator to a visitor that your site lacks professionalism but most importantly, it can hinder your website marketing efforts before you have even begun.

Examples of poorly named images, html files and directories include:

Example of poor file names: page8.html, page9.html, mypage.html, default.html
Example of poor directory names: /my directory/ or /MYDIRECTORY/
Example of poor image names: DSC23233.jpg, image of boat.jpg, weunfdweialksdfwe.jpg

In the first example, these file – or web page – names are identified in a very general way. Instead of page8.html, why not try to name it according to the information that can be found on that page, such as example: web-hosting-plans.html. By doing this, it not only allows users to be more aware of where a link will take them, but it also helps website owners with the big SEO factor.

Benefits of Naming Files Correctly

For the directory example, the issue of extra spaces, as well as capitalisation comes up. When spaces arise in a web URL, it can make it an ugly mess to say the least. Spaces will get replaced with a “%20″, which can make a URL hard to decipher. If you feel you must use a space, try replacing it with a dash. Also, issues with calling URLs can come about when there are unnecessary capital letters in directories, so it is best to keep it standard with lowercase. As with html files, it is just as important to be descriptive when naming directories as these will form part of a URL, so therefore will have an impact on your SEO.

Benefits of Naming Files Correctly

The last example deals with images that are not optimally named. This can occur when someone keeps the original image number description given to it by the camera, when the image name is vague or has spaces, and also when they are not comprehensible at all. Just as in the above two examples, using a descriptive name helps with SEO, and SEO of images is an often under-utilised area of optimisation. This simple change can easily be done by right-clicking the file name and choosing to “rename” before uploading. Or, you can usually make a change through whatever FTP program you use to upload.
Benefits of Naming Files Correctly

As stated in the introduction, having concise and clean URLs makes a business or other online presence look more professional. Remember, it’s the small things that make a difference.

In addition, the SEO capabilities of tagging images correctly is often overlooked by many website owners and webmasters. However, with the popularity of using search engines to find images, naming the image with the correct keywords can help individuals find your site.

So, do yourself a favour and have an inspection of your website’s file names to make sure they are serving you the best that they can.