Tips to improve your website’s search engine rankings (SEO)

A recent survey revealed that SEO was ranked as the top channel for getting a return on your investment.  But how easy is it for people to find your website if they type your key search terms into Google?  Yes, your website should come up if you type in your company name, but how many people know your company name?  If you’re a marketing agency in Bracknell, and people type in “marketing agency Bracknell,” will your url come up near the top of page 1?  If not, you’re likely to have some basic omissions in the SEO of your website.  We’ve just written a brief SEO Top Tips sheet for some basic things you should do to make sure the search engines can find and rank your pages.

The SEO Top Tips answers questions such as find out answers to questions such as “How easy is it to find the pages that earn you revenue?”; “What’s important to Google?”; and “How can content help your rankings?” and gives you some advice on things you can do yourself to get better search engine rankings.  Read the SEO Top Tips here.

Are you planning on spending more on email marketing in 2012?

According to the DMA’s (Direct Marketing Association) January 2012 report, 67% of marketers plan to increase their email budget in 2012, with 20% planning to increase it more than 30%.  What do you think about that?  Does that match what you’re planning to do in your company?

If it is, you want to make sure that all that budget is being spent wisely, and that you’re doing as much as you can to convert those subscribers to actual customers and repeat customers.

We’ve written a short “Top Tips” sheet for you to download on Email Marketing, with just a few ideas on what you can do to improve your email marketing campaigns.  Download it from our website to find out answers to questions such as “How do you create relevant content?”; “What’s in it for the subscriber?”; and “How to implement lead nurturing.”  And let us know what you think!

Why Christmas is the perfect time to start building your own website

What will you be doing over Christmas?

If you’ve had a busy year and are anything like me, you’ll be lying in a darkened room with a cold flannel over your forehead, a box of chocolates in one hand and a large bottle of wine in the other!

However, if you have recently started your own business, you might be thinking about getting a website built. You might even be thinking about building it yourself, to save money maybe, or because you’d like to have full control over your site, or maybe just because you’re just plain interested in that kind of thing.

What better time to do it!  Many businesses close down for the entire Christmas period, which could be up to 2 weeks in some cases, so you’re confined to the house with assorted relatives and enough food to feed several armies.  What else have you got to do apart from endlessly channel-hopping through “The Great Escape”, “Toy Story”, and “Bridge over the River Kwai”, or listen to Aunt Mabel ask you for the 49th time what time dinner will be ready?

This is the ideal time to escape it all and get your website built! However, there’s the small problem of how you’re going to do it. Are you an HTML programmer?  If so, forgive me for even writing this, you know what you’re doing and don’t need any help or advice.  Are you a Dreamweaver whizz kid? Ditto.

However, if like the majority of us, you’re a normal person who knows a normal (ok, very little) amount about the web and how it works, you might want to look at a website builder package.  A website builder is a tool that allows the construction of websites without the need for manual code editing.

You might have seen some of these advertised on TV. Mostly these are online packages, which means that all you need is access to the internet from your pc, laptop, ipad, tablet or smartphone, and you can log-on and create and manage your own website from scratch. An example of a website builder is WebMaker CMS. The main advantage of an online website builder is that it is quick and easy to use, and does not require any experience. Often a website can be built and be up and running live on the internet quickly. Technical support is usually provided, as are how to video and help files. This makes online website builders ideal for the beginner.

Some of these packages are completely free (watch out for hidden costs), but most require a small monthly or annual fee. You can usually choose from a whole range of designs and colours, and can upload your own images and logos, and add your own text. Some packages have lots of extra features that let you send newsletters to your customers, ecommerce modules so you can sell online, polls or videos or other features.  The best ones also handle SEO so that your site can get found by the search engines once you’ve built it and link in with Google Analytics so you can see how your site is performing.

So now you can add your website builder package to your list for Santa, and get going on building your fantastic new site!  If you’re planning on building your own website over Christmas, do let me know.

Can you really build your own website with a DIY website design package?

An opinion on a recent Yell.com article

I read an article today by Yell.com, who were advising people on whether they could, or should, try to build their own website.

Their advice was pretty straightforward. Yes, they said, if you want to build a fairly basic website, you can use one of the new DIY web design packages. But then they said that if you use one of these packages, you won’t be able to adapt the software to suit your own specific requirements.

I don’t agree with this – in my experience, and certainly with our own WebMaker package, you can build quite complex websites, even ecommerce websites, using a DIY web design package or website builder. It all comes down to which package you choose.  Some will be quite restrictive in what you can do, others will be very open and will allow you to change and add all manner of extra functions.

So, as with all these things, if you’re thinking of doing it yourself, make sure you investigate just how flexible your proposed website builder package will be.  Ask to see examples of working sites that use it, for example, our WebMaker site was built with WebMakerCMS DIY website builder software, and it is an all-singing, all-dancing site that we use to sell our product via an online shop. It’s easy to use, you can choose from 100 different designs and you can see how each page on your site will look before you make it live.

I think Yell.com don’t have it quite right when they say that you need training in writing and using HTML if you want to build a more complex or ecommerce site – what do you think?

How easy is it to get your corporate website updated?

Does it frustrate you that you can’t get your latest news, products or events online quickly?  How about creating your own website or microsite to get what you need?

Most of our clients want their website to sell for them.  Not necessarily by having an online shopping cart or ecommerce, but they want to be able to promote their new products, new special offers or new events, as soon as they are available.

Sadly, it’s not that easy for a lot of people, especially if you work for a foreign-owned company who like to control all the content of the corporate website.  I’ve known some companies take months just to make a simple change to the corporate website, and in some cases, it just doesn’t happen at all! Clearly this is very frustrating if you just want to get on with the job of meeting your sales targets and actually SELL your products and services.

One solution to this kind of problem is to build your own small microsite just for your part of the company, or maybe just for this new product or event.  You can do this with the increasing number of website building packages coming on to the market.  These packages are designed to be used by a marketing or business person, who doesn’t need to be technical, and doesn’t need to know any HTML or web programming languages.  The only capabilities you need are the ability to use an internet browser, be able to use a Word-like text editor, and be able to upload images using the usual file browse and select method.  You can usually choose from lots of different designs, colours and layouts, so that you can make your microsite fit in with all your corporate brand guidelines.  And you can upload your own logos, images, pdf downloads, video and audio.

Many of our clients have used our WebMaker website builder to create a microsite in this way. One client wanted to build a site that focused on a big press launch, and wanted to invite journalists to register for an event.  Another wanted a site to offer sales-related information to their business partners, and another wanted a separate site to promote their environment friendly approach to business.

Please click to contact me if you’d like to know more about building a microsite yourself.

Would you build your own website?

The Sunday Times recently did a feature called “Creating a Website? It’s Child’s Play” (23rd October, InGear section).

The writer had looked at various website building packages and claimed that building a site from scratch no longer requires specialist knowledge. He’s absolutely right of course – it used to be the case that building a website was one of those dark arts that involved groups of sandal-wearing programmers, sitting around in dim lit rooms, smoking strange cigarettes and was best left alone by the average person in the street.

But like most things tecchie, packages came along that meant you could design and build web pages without knowing anything about the various programming languages involved, such as HTML. Products like Dreamweaver were used by designers – but even these packages needed quite a lot of tecchie knowledge.

In the last few years, packages were developed that allowed people to build or edit their own websites.  At first, these were rather cumbersome packages which were aimed at corporates who wanted to give their marketing department heads the ability to update web pages on the fly, to add in a news announcement or an event, for example. These packages are all called “CMS” or “Content Management System” packages and can cost anywhere from zero to thousands of pounds. Some are extremely difficult to use, others much easier, but are often designed with the larger website in mind.

More recently, tech firms have realised that smaller businesses want to design and build their own website – or maybe a large corporate may want to build a smaller, separate “micro-site”, for a special project or campaign.  Even non-business people want to build their own websites these days, maybe you run a club or have a special interest you want to share online with friends and family. After all, how difficult can it be?

Luckily, in many cases, it’s not difficult at all.  Packages are now available from software companies, which are specifically aimed at the non-technical user.  You pick from a selection of designs, upload your own colours and logo, and then you can add your own pages, images, content, forms and whatever else you need to make up your website.  Some of these packages can create quite sophisticated sites, suitable for small to medium sized businesses and can be a useful place to start, either for your very first website, or maybe one that you want to look a bit more professional after a basic first attempt, which you later realise, doesn’t quite cut the mustard. Not wanting to blow our own trumpet at all, but if you’re really interested in finding a website builder package, you could take a look at WebMaker, which is a package we sell at Insight.

If you’ve had any experience with these kinds of packages, please let me know, we’re always interested to hear about people’s experiences.

Does email marketing still work?

This question about the effectiveness of email marketing has two answers.  Answer #1:  No, if all you are doing is spamming a load of random people that you bought as a contact list of tens of thousands from a broker.  Answer #2: Yes, if you have built up your own list of quality contacts, including customers, prospects, partners, suppliers and others.

A recent survey by Econsultancy found that 72% of respondents described email’s return on investment as excellent or good. To illustrate a point, consider two clients we have worked with recently.  One client had bought a list of 54,000 contacts from a broker and started mailing them before working with us.  Their typical open rates were about 2% and the clickthrough rate was less than 1%.  The unsubscribe rate was also high.  Another client recently gave us all their executives’ and salesmen’s contacts they’d built up over the years in the industry, giving us a list of 2,500 to work with.  The majority of these contacts knew our client.  Some were customers, but most were potential customers.  The first newsletter the client sent out to these contacts got an open rate of nearly 20%, and a clickthrough rate of 32%.

But what if your company is new and you haven’t got a database yet?  Rifle your business card collection and the email and phone contacts of everyone in your company.  Everyone you’ve met in a business setting or done business with is the best place to start.  Not all of these people will be interested in what you’re selling now, and that’s fine – they’ll unsubscribe and you won’t be wasting money sending emails to people who aren’t interested.

I’ll deal with what to write in your emails and how to grow your email contact list in future posts.

What’s your experience with email marketing?  Do you agree with the points I’ve made?

How Do I Design My Own Website?

If you’re just starting out in business, you’ve probably already worked out that you need a website. It could be that you just need a website to act as an online brochure, showing your products and services to your target audience. Or you may want to have some sort of ecommerce capability, so that you can sell your products and services from the website.

There are an awful lot of free website design and build packages out there, like WordPress or Drupal for example. Often people are attracted to these because they’re free, but unless you want to create something very basic, you need to beware, because you will soon need to hire expert technical help to build anything out of the ordinary.  And you’ll still need to design how it looks, even if you do build it yourself in one of these packages.

Another type of package could help you if you’re not a natural designer.  There are “do-it-yourself” websites, also called CMS websites (Content Management System).  Some of these come already supplied with a choice of built in designs so that you can just change the colours to match what you want, and add in your own logo and images and then create your own pages using a Word-like interface.

As with everything else, there’s a wide choice of these on the market, some of course are better than others.  I’ve written elsewhere about 10 top tips for buying a CMS package like this, which you’re welcome to read too.

For a new business start-up, pick something that’s a reasonable price – you can buy these systems from around £80 per year upwards.  The price depends on how many pages you might want, whether you need a shopping cart ecommerce capability, how much storage you need to host the site, and a few other variables.

Make sure that you pick a product that has a wide choice of designs, and you’ll be sure to find something that fits in with how you want your business to look to the outside world. And make sure it’s flexible, so that if you choose to change the design later, you’ll be able to do so.

Of course, we can advise you on this further, but hopefully the above is enough for you to make a start looking for your new website.

Insight Group is on Facebook now, please stop by and Like our page or read more about our Insight Webmaker CMS package.

Top 10 tips for buying a CMS (content management system) website

A CMS website can be marvellous, enabling you to update your own website on demand, wherever and whenever it suits you, but there are an awful lot of them on the market and they’re not all easy to use or suitable for what you want for your business.  Here are 10 tips on what to consider before you buy:

1. Is it WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get)?
You need to be able to see how it will look on the web, so text entry boxes just don’t hack it anymore.

2. Do I have to pay for it?
‘Free’ systems are never free. Commercial organisations need to earn money so watch out for the hidden costs.

3. How easy is it to use?
Don’t just read the marketing literature, check it out and ask if you can see a demo – easy is a comparative term.

4. “If you build it they will come” Or SEO?
OK, so a CMS website can put you in control but make sure it understands search engines’ requirements so that people can find your site when they search for your keywords.

5. Can you analyse your CMS success?
Make sure you’re able to analyse your visitors’ interest so you can change the website to meet their demands.

6. Is it Flexible?
Make sure the CMS works for you and that you don’t have to change your ideas to fit. And get a list of add-ons that are available now and planned.

7. Was it designed for you?
Make sure it can do what you need it to do in your market for your customers.

8. What about Social Media & Platforms?
The use of social media and mobile browsers is growing. Test out sites created to make sure they can accept feeds from your social media channels.

9. Can it work with my team?
Don’t forget, you and your team will have established a work methodology; make sure the CMS supports your team operation and management.

10. “Ah, yes, but can it…?”
Finally, you won’t have thought of everything, so make sure the CMS can be tailored/modified to whatever quirky thing you think of!

OK, that’s the executive flying visit to the 10 questions.  But if you’re serious about CMS then take the time to read more detail in our article about what to look for when buying a CMS website and enjoy.  Remember a CMS is for life – or at least it should be, if it can be expanded as your business grows!

I’d like to know what you think – do you have any other advice to offer readers who might be about to buy a CMS?  Please leave a comment or reply below.

Is Facebook right for your business?

Quite a few of our customers have Facebook pages for their business. Some of these are consumer-facing businesses, but some of them are B2B products and services, mostly in the IT business.  Quite a lot of companies I talk to though, aren’t really sure about Facebook.  They dismiss it by saying “Facebook is just for teenagers talking to each other about how much they had to drink last Saturday night.”

But a new study by Nielsen shows that since 2009, the number of 50 to 64 year-olds visiting Facebook has grown by 84%. In fact, these older age groups account for more new adults visiting the site in the last two years than the under-50s.  This means that Facebook is now more representative of the overall UK population than it previously has been.  In other words, Facebook has become a legitimate vehicle for a company to communicate with its target audience, because all sectors are represented there.

There’s another reason why Facebook is suitable for your business:  the public face and reputation of a company is more and more becoming an influencing factor when your target customer is evaluating who to buy from.  A prospective customer might “Like” your Facebook business page (“Like” is the Facebook word for “Follow”), which means they will receive an update on their Facebook Wall every time you post something to your business page.  They may follow your updates for quite some time before eventually deciding to contact you and start a dialogue.  So Facebook can act like the start of your sales funnel, gathering together groups of prospective customers and interacting with them so that they start to feel comfortable with your company and are more predisposed to buying from you when the time is right for them.  And if they like what they see on your Facebook page, they can share it with their friends and so spread the word.

Look at other companies in your sector for ideas and tips.  Companies like Dell, EMC, Cisco, SAP, Salesforce.com and Forrester now have their own Facebook pages, where they share information about new products, technical tips, training videos, white papers, articles and a whole lot more.  And there’s a wealth of information on the web about how to manage your Facebook business page, what sort of information to post, how best to engage with your audience etc, so take a look around and see what other people are doing.  One word of advice though, don’t expect that you’ll get 50,000 followers in the first week – you will pick up followers, but not as quickly as say Coca-Cola or Ben & Jerry’s ice cream!  Be patient and keep posting interesting content and you will gain the rewards over time.

Do you think Facebook could help your B2B business?  Or do you think it’s a waste of time? Do you even have the time to spend keeping your business page updated?  Let me know what you think about Facebook for business.

Sources:
- Marketing Week
“Over 50s drive Facebook growth, study says“
- UKOM/Nielsen