How To Use Social Networking Sites To Generate Vital Website Traffic !

February 18th, 2010 by Diego 20 comments »

social-networking-sites

Hi guys,

This article is targeted at small to medium size business owners and will hopefully interpret the ’social networking’ buzz word you will have no doubt heard colleagues mention in passing. Many of our clients still don’t really understand how their website can benefit from using websites such as Facebook, Digg, Google buzz, StumbleUpon, Yahoo buzz, Twitter and Linked In to their advantage.

In a previous article titled ‘Insider Tips For Non Techy’s Regarding Self Search Engine Optimisation‘, I discussed a few techniques into how you can use the internet as an asset for self promotion.

Social networking sites
What is a social networking site ? They are websites that aim to increase communication between a variety of target audiences who share similar interests. Their main focus is typically targeted at putting friends/businesses in contact, old and new, however as popularity increases a business angle seems to creep into pretty much all of them. Initially for the owners of the site to make some cash using internal advertising which later leads into generating extra revenue by encouraging its members to market themselves to the same audience.

How can I benefit from this ?
Facebook : You may already have an account, click on advertising located in the footer and follow the on screen instructions to create your own advert. Why? because it’s highly cost effective in comparison to other marketing mediums and gives its advertisers a lot of control over who the ads are visible to. You can create an advert then decide on its target audience by a range of filters, from age range, demographics, job titles, interests to pretty much anything a user has entered on their personal profile page. As a user, there are also tons of ways to market your company for free, you can create a group, create a fan page, create a business listing and invite countless people to join and read the content not to mention the ability for them to invite countless more in their contact circles. Remember the 6 degrees of separation?

You can also integrate your account with other social networking sites to update your status on the fly informing facebook users of new news without you even logging in, for example your current status updates on twitter.

Linked In: Think of a more basic facebook targeted at the business sector. Add your business profile to its network and create new contacts. You can even use the site to search for jobs in your industry and hopefully increase your annual turnover.

What all the buzz about? What are Digg, Google Buzz and Yahoo Buzz
These sites allow their users to inform other members of websites they deem interesting / worthy of reading. Once you register for an account on Digg etc, you can choose a topic, i.e design or business and see a live feed of information of what the internet is currently buzzing about.

How can I use this? Buzz about yourself and its its half worth the read other people will agree and spread the love, this will increase traffic to the site considerably and it a fantastic method of self promotion particularly if you are launching a new product or have insider news on something/one. The link itself will also act as a backlink to your website in Google’s eyes which in Google’s own words ‘acts as a positive vote from site A to B’ making you site more resourceful in the search engines eyes.

Will people ever StumbleUpon my site?
StumbleUpon is one of the internets best tools for generating legitimate traffic to your website, its also a great passtime so be careful of staff getting carried away with it at work :)

The way it works is, open an account, tick boxes on the topics you are interested in and then click the start stumbling button. The site will then display countless websites that are associated with the topics you ticked as interesting and expect you to either thumbs up or down the site if you like/dislike the content.
How do I use it as a business? Go to your website and be the first person to stumble it, just click on the thumbs up button on the downloadable toolbar StumbleUpon offers and write the first review, when you categorise your site and click OK you effectively throw your site into the face of users who have setup their profile stating that they are interested in viewing websites in your industry. If they like it, the number of users your site is displayed to will increase and generate regular traffic.

Can you hear the brids singing? Twit Twoo!!
Twitter has grown massively over the past few years. In its most basic form, allows users to follow other members and keep informed of their activities, this could be celebrity stalking or buddies letting each other know where they are in town, although you could probably just call them. :)

And as a business? Well you can create a business profile upload your logo and a background graphic then generate a following by following other members and messaging them to increase the visibility of your profile. There are also a variety of buttons you can put on your website urging your existing website visitors to follow you on twitter and keep informed of new products, sales and anything else that they might be interested in.

Your followers can also retweet your posts and spread the news to other branches/circles or contacts.

This all sounds awesome but I don’t have the time/technical knowledge/skill set to do all this!
I would seriously try to find the time, it would be very rewarding if you get it right, as usual though, if marketing scripts, techy skills are not your forte just contact us and we can put together a blazing hot social networking plan for your business. It costs nothing to ask. Visit our main site here : www.corporatewebsolutions.net or phone (UK) 08444 145 932.

To all who have read this article and think its worth spreading the love amongst your contacts/internet networks please do so via the SHARE button below the post. Thanks in advance :)

In the next article I’m going to cover a few more marketing tricks and techniques plus a few techy tricks. To ensure you dont miss out, enter your email into the subscribe box in the top right corner of this page and I’ll make sure you receive an email when the next post goes live.

Thanks for reading, comments/suggestions are always welcome…..

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Posted in Social Networking, Useful Resources, business tips

Insider Tips For Non Techy’s Regarding Self Search Engine Optimisation

February 10th, 2010 by Diego 7 comments »

This article is targeted at non technically minded small business owners. I’m going to try and explain how a search engine interprets your website and how a few small changes (upgrades) can make a massive difference in your search engine traffic.

The aim is to empower you enough to understand why your site might not be generating the return on investment (ROI) you initially expected / were sold on and put you on the right track to appear under the right keywords/phrases you are seeking in search engines such as Google, Yahoo etc.

How relevant is my website and can its intended target audience find it ?

In a previous article (5-things-to-remember-when-considering-a-new-website) I explained how a search engine places emphasis on page relevancy. Take Google for example, Google will read web pages and match results that appear to be the most resourceful against what the internet user typed into its search box.

Great, and ?
Well the question you need to ask yourself is :

Does my selected web page contain enough information to outrank its competition on this topic / product?

Example :
I go to Google, type in web design company sheffield, hit enter and expect to see my website. In this case I do, but why? my competition talk about the same services, they are also in the same town etc. I’m obviously not going to give away our personal tricks and secrets, but I’ll explain the basics which my competition if any good should already have covered :)

Meta Tags :
A website’s code is broken up into two sections, something called the head and something called the body.  In the head section we have something called meta tags, these are basic chunks of information that a search engine scans to discover the topics covered on the rest of the page, try to see it like the index of a book with a summary of the current chapter.

In the meta tags you can put your page title, keywords and a page description. In all honesty Google doesn’t pay too much attention to these compared to the actual page content but they are still important and should not be overlooked.

A common mistake is that people call their page title ‘My company name homepage’ for example, forgive me for saying but who cares? Your website will already be relevant enough for Google to realise you are ‘ACME co’ as competitive websites will not be competing for top spot under your company name.  The right approach would be something like this ‘Web design company in Sheffield, SEO & Internet Marketing – Corporate Web Solutions ‘.

The previous meta page title is keyword dense and hopefully more informative to Google regarding what the user searched for. The page content should then include a load of information about web design, internet marketing and SEO in Sheffield.  Back to the book, think the title is the chapter and the page content is the story. Keep the content relevant and outweigh competitors.

How many keywords can I put in my meta keyword section?
Remember quality over quantity, as a general rule of thumb don’t overkill it with every keyword you want to appear under and list all the products/services you offer.  Try to enter no more than 25 words, avoid repetition and have unique keywords for each page, each relevant to that page’s content. Let the ‘marketing’ page have marketing in its keywords and the ‘graphic design’ page follow suit.

Step 2, the actual web page content.
There should be a page title in the body section, the body section is the actual visible section of the web page on your computer screen. under the URL (website address) to the bottom of the visible page.

If your website sells ‘mobile phones by Sony’ the page should have a page header called Sony Mobile Phones and then display all the products in your shop. This page title should be something called a <h1> header.  The designer should have coded the site to have a  H1/Header 1 HTML tag around the body’s page title, this is what Google will interpret as the most relevant title on the page and expect to find information on the page that matches to title, again, chapter, story.

If not, try not to pull your hair out, its a quick fix just give them or even me a bell and I can sort it for you.

The next step is to name your images with relevant names and add something called anchor title text to your links.  These are the titles that should appear when you roll over a link containing a little more information about the link’s target page. Once again, don’t panic if you are lost, you’re probably not a techy and the aim is to open your eyes to areas of improvement in your site and ensure a good job has been done by your web designer.

Recap :
Add meta tags relevant to each page, make sure the page has a visible relevant title that is wrapped in a <H1> tag, name images and ensure your sites links have titles that show extra text when you roll over them. Make sure the content/information on the page is relevant to the page’s ‘chapter summary’.

A common mistake is not having enough text on a page, don’t overkill it with graphics and exclude text that the search engine can read, otherwise how will it ever know how to rank you? The trick for the designer is to balance graphics and text to maintain a user friendly attractive design whilst feeding the search engine enough information.

Ok, I think I’m covered.
Once you have the basics covered and have made yourself more relevant you need to let Google know. Don’t just sit there and think that everything will miraculously kick in now.  Go to Google and add your website address (URL) to Google (click here to add your website to Google).  Add your website address in and approx 8 top keywords.

Following that, go to DMOZ.org, that is the open source directory project (directory of websites Google pays a lot of attention to) and drill down the categories until you find the list of websites that best represent your industry and in the top right hand corner click suggest URL, if you cant see it, then you need to drill down deeper into the categories.

Dont stop there….
Open a Google account if you dont have one and add your website to the local business directory. This will include you in the map section of Google and hopefully increase the awareness of your site. Go to Yahoo and do the same, In fact, search for business directories in Google and add your site to as many freebies as possible.

Top Tip
When adding your site into directories etc if possible name your site as ‘Keywords – Company name’ in the directories, ensuring the phrase is associated more and more across the internet.

Publicise your site as much as possible
Include a link to your website in your email signature, search for similar websites with blogs and comment with useful information and a backlink to your website. Links back to your website are another massive aid to search engine optimisation and it’s something I’m going to cover in a future post.

For now, I hope this article has helped you and opened your eyes a little to a few things you can do to take control of your website’s SEO.

Comments are always welcome, suggestions for future topic coverage also.

Don’t forget to spread the love using the social networking tools below, stumbler me, digg me, tweet me, facebook me :)

If you like this article subscribe (top right) and I’ll make sure you are emailed when future posts are added to the site.

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Posted in Google Tips, Seach Engine Optimisation, Useful Resources

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5 Things To Consider Regarding Your Logo Design & Corporate Identity

February 2nd, 2010 by Diego 18 comments »

1. Design legibility regarding the font(s) used.

Good logo designs are the ones that stand out from the crowd, whatever the reason may be, there is something about them which makes them memorable. Remember to consider font legibility, design clarity, font typography, colour contrast and the use of symbolism.

Try not to use fonts that are difficult to read. Time and time again I come across clients who request ‘fancy fonts‘ which are only suitable for certain company names, and I try to advise them about legibility. I personally like fancy fonts‘ however, a severely swirly F, S, J, or K always seem to cause the reader problems as they can be misleading.

Clarity is key, apart form the printing issues I’m going to cover in no.2 below, avoid the heavy use of gradients, shadowing and glow effects. A nice logo clearly bounces off the page / screen it’s on and is eye catching to the viewer. With regards to white space usage ‘less is more’, less text, more white space.

Contrasting colours are a wise move in my book as they stand out to the reader, try not to squash words together to fit them in a box for example, this is a common mistake and many readers scanning a page of adverts will glide over your design as they tend to blend into a grey blur in a newspaper or generate adblock in online directories.

Regarding icons and symbolism to represent words, I love the clever techniques some designers use, the hidden arrow in the Fedex logo embedded in the white space between the e and x letters, the underlining yellow arrow in the amazon logo representing everything from a – z or simply using icons in replace of letters i.e a wheel instead of the letter ‘O’.

I’ll pop a link to a good list of these at the end of this post for you to check out.

Hot Tip : Ensure the spacing is correct between the preceding and consecutive letters to ensure the logo is read correctly and not broken into two words by the reader.

2. Logo design & corporate identity medium transferability.

This issue is very important, have you ever tried to print something and the shadow doesn’t look right on paper? Imagine what would happen if you tried to put the logo on a van using vinyl and create an identical match to the digital version.

Aside from full print vinyl wrapping such as the marketing on a Sky Tv van for example, the most common manner to transfer a logo from its digital format to a real world environment is vinyl graphics which are applied to windows and vehicles.

Vinyl are rolls of self-adhesive plastic film which are cut independently based on their colours then applied to the surface of the advertising medium. Shadow effects are very hard to replicate in these environments and will increase your long term costs considerably.

The same concept applies to bevelling (simple 3d effects), and gradients (the blending from one colour into another) as the vinyl rolls only come in solid colours.

A work around is digital printing but result vary. Some companies also have an online version of the logo as well as a print version for marketing and other mediums such as embroidery on clothing.

3. The use of white space on brochures

With regards to effective brochure design and flyer marketing materials, less is definitely more. A common mistake for brochure design layout is the use of inconsistent blocks of text which follow no visible page pattern. The pages simply blend together and are difficult to read which result in them being ineffective. One of the most eye catching brochures I have come across had a white front cover with nothing but one line of small text in the centre saying open me or you’re missing out. I opened it!

Always consider the gaps and spaces between text and images, make sure the same spacing applies throughout the page or it will look unprofessional and unaligned.

Try to use some clean photography, too many highly detailed graphics on the same page will guarantee they all fail to stand out.

4. Match your industry

Of course you want to be unique and stand out from your competition but don’t go overboard. If you are a florist I would advise against using the same font and colour scheme as a heavy death metal band.

Of course I hear you say, however, others may see something you don’t – ask for opinions, specifically ask ‘does it look like anything else you have seen before?’. Even if the answer is yes it’s not the end of the world unless it’s highly irrelevant or offensive.

5. Do you like Marmite !

In the defence of the designers, please remember that a logo is one of the most difficult things to get right for the client as they tend to be very personal and the chances of the client liking the first design are extremely hit and miss.

Try to help the designer, write a list of 5 words that represent you as a company, draw five shapes or symbols which in your eyes represent the brand, let them know your favourite colours.

To be fair most designers will ask you something along these lines anyway but it never hurts to be helpful.

In some cases you may have something in your head and struggle to get it out, try it on paper or find something online that looks similar and you will get there in the end.

Feel free to comment below and let me know if you found this article helpful. Don’t forget to spread the love and use the social networking tools below to share our blog with more users.

As promised here’s the link to the blog with a few cool logo designs on it, just Click here.

Here are a couple of designs im working on for new clients, the F could be tricky but all the other boxes are ticked, transferability, vinly accessibility, stationary and symbolism have been taken into consideration. What do you guys think ?

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Posted in Useful Resources, corporate identity, logo design

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5 Things To Remember When Considering A New Website!

January 20th, 2010 by admin 26 comments »

1.  Consider the target audience and how they are going to find your website.

Content is key ! It’s a common assumption for people to think that when your shiny new website is all finished you will be flooded with enquiries from the largest target market to date, people from the internet.

Well, that depends. How will they find you? Google is the usual response and I’m not saying it won’t happen but you must consider a key point to give your website every chance of being a success.

There are a wide variety of techniques Google uses to anaylise a website, rank it against your competition and deliver the right users to your door. Assuming you aren’t a web designer yourself, I will cover the main asset you can bring to the table to aid your success, your content.

Try to remember a key issue for Google is your page relevancy, the page content needs to be relevant to the phrase the user typed into the search engine. If you are a ‘Website Design Company In Sheffield’, try to have refer to yourself as a website design company based in Sheffield then explain about the services you offer.

Try to be resourceful in Google’s eyes. Provide more relevant information to the user than your direct competition. Consider what you think they will type into the search engine and be relevant.

2.    Who will look after the site post launch?

When a company usually approaches us we normally hear one of two things, ‘We have a website but it’s very out of date and needs a facelift’, ‘We have a website, but it doesn’t do anything for us’. There may be many reasons for the second problem which I usually go through with the client however the first one could have been avoided in two ways.

Option 1 : The web design company updates the content for you on a pay as you go / monthly agreement system.

Option 2 : A Content Management System (CMS).  (This  is where you have a login which would take you to a control panel and provide you with the tools to edit / manage your own content.)

Hot Tip : Try to remember, websites which are frequently updated rank higher in search engines. Use dynamic content from other sources if your industry doesn’t alter frequently.

3.   Consider Your Photography.

Do you have good photos of your products? Do you need the web design company to source images or provide you with a professional photographer? Do any previous photos taken still reflect the image you / the company would like to portray?

Successful websites are usually aesthetically pleasing, user friendly, well built and marketing correctly. A good web design company will tackle these issues on a regular basis for a variety of clients. Try not to cut corners on the photography and factor professional images into your budget.  In the past I have sourced a full set of images and videos for clients for £0-20. We have also hired photographers and done custom video shoots for clients with larger budgets. Your photography should leap off the page and capture the audience as a sale sign does in a high street shop window.

Hot Tip:  The same psychology can be applied to high street shoppers browsing shops as internet users, grab their attention and remember, Internet Explorer / Firefox / Safari and Google Chrome are all referred to as internet browsers.

4.  How will you introduce your site to it’s target market ?

Hit List :

a ) How will you market the website online?

b ) Have you considered the social networking side to marketing online?

c ) Would you benefit from email marketing?

d ) Ask your web designer how you could use Google Adwords effectively.

e) If you have an offline brochure have you considered a downloadable version to email to prospective clients or even converting it to an interactive brochure?

f ) Ask a professional about a ‘link campaign’.

g ) Ask about Google Base, Google Trends, Rss and Xml Feeds. These are all useful online resources which used correctly can aid companies dramatically.

h ) Consider running an affiliate marketing scheme.

i ) Consider blogging about your products, new product/services/news and then publishing articles on other relevant websites to increase your traffic.

j ) Be honest with the design agency. If you don’t know who to market yourself they should have the answers.

Hot Tip : For more info on internet marketing click here

5.  Don’t Be Afraid To Ask! If You Don’t Know Just Be Honest.

Communication is key, a good web developer will try to explain how and why things work the way they do as it expresses the value in their work, educates the client and involves them in the development process, (that is of course if the client has any interest in knowing).

Never feel embarrassed to ask or act as if you know more than you do.  A good company should be approachable enough to ask for help / advice / support on any topic.  When a client gives the impression that they are more knowledgeable on a topic than they actually are, the end result could be that your are left with a website that you don’t understand, which in turn results in you not maximising on your investment and not feeling like you have value for money.

 

 

If you would like to get in touch with me you can do so via this link.

 

Comments and questions are welcome below, did you find this article useful and if so how?


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