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Doing the same thing for how long?

Published 3 November, 2011 | By TashWord

One definition of insanity is to keep doing what you’ve been doing and expect different results.

Robin Cangie makes a similar point with “it’s not the metrics. Your marketing just sucks“.

So if you’ve been using Facebook for your business for 6 months and got nothing in your business to show for it. Does it make sense to keep posting on Facebook every day – or is it time to look at other options?

Maybe your Facebook campaign isn’t working because

  • your target audience doesn’t use Facebook
  • your messages are too social and not enough about your business industry/expertise
  • your profile is all about you and not helping customers
  • it leads to a website that isn’t good at converting leads to sales
  • one of many other possibilities

Measuring marketing (whether social media or otherwise) is important, but not more important than running good marketing efforts in the right place at the right time (yes, the 4 Ps of marketing still apply).

Every time your marketing results are less than expected (or desired), you need to decide whether the poor results are due to a short time frame (looking at results too soon can be misleading), inaccurate measurements, a poor campaign or something else. From that, you can decide to continue the marketing, adjust it or stop it.

Going back to our Facebook example, something has to change. Maybe it is move to another social media channel (where your audience actually spend time) or maybe it just needs a new approach.

“There’s no point flogging a dead horse” applies to marketing, too. However, you must give each campaign a chance – no additional sales after a week on Facebook doesn’t mean Facebook is a poor strategy for your business. Sometimes it is a slow process to see results from our actions.

How do you judge when something has been tried long enough to move onto a new strategy? Or do you just keep trying the same thing even when there is little chance of success?

Posted in business info & tools, marketing | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Adding depth to your website content

Published 20 October, 2011 | By TashWord

Earlier this week,  we looked at how shallow websites are not as valuable for your visitors or your SEO efforts so let’s look at how to improve that situation.

Shallow content is giving the minimum so by default giving more is adding depth. Simple.

How can you provide more depth to your content?Tablet content form old books

  1. generally provide more information but be careful to not just pile on so much information people get overwhelmed – there is a balance between too little and too much that will vary between pages and sites
  2. link to relevant information (on your site and elsewhere) to enhance your content without cluttering up pages with too many words and facts
  3. consider adding fresh content regularly. This could be via a blog, a social media feed, a news feed, articles or uploading your newsletter.
  4. look at every page of your site and review the content to ensure it meets the purpose of the page and answers any likely questions people would have on that topic. For example, expand on your services so they are meaningful – ‘business bookkeeping and reporting’ is better than ‘bookkeeping’ – and give some background on your about us page.
  5. look for ways to add value to people. Some examples are a hair dressing salon adding hair care tips after each service listed, a legal firm linking to definitions of common terms for relevant areas of law, and a book store including guidelines to the age suitability of each book
  6. only create a new page when there is something to add – new pages created with the same information focussed on a different keyword is not adding value and is more likely to annoy humans and search engines
  7. where relevant, add reviews and testimonials to your pages as they provide relevant content from a different perspective
  8. if you can’t see how to add depth, but suspect you need to, get others’ opinions on various pages. Remember your target audience when choosing who to ask
  9. following the usual rules of easy reading (good spelling, grammar, flow and being concise) will make any value stand out better than a page of words that are hard to interpret – sometimes adding value is done by removing the junk!
  10. add tips and ‘how to’ notes where relevant – for instance washing instructions with every clothing description and alternative uses alongside certain products can provide true value to people and potentially increase your sales
What have you done to add depth to the content on your site? Do you think this is something to get help with or easy enough to manage by yourself?

Posted in marketing, web content | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Blogging about FOOD…

Published 18 October, 2011 | By TashWord

I like to make a difference, to contribute to my community and the world. So I like to DO things when I can, and joining Blog Action Day each year is a small action that I aim for. I am proud to be taking part in Blog Action Day OCT 16 2011 www.blogactionday.org

Blog action day is about many people discussing a topic at the same time to get greater awareness – for example, posting about ‘green’ business practices in 2009 was part of making people think about climate change.

This year’s theme is food which doesn’t seem quite as relevant to a business and communications blog – but I see that as challenge rather than a reason to not blog! Yes, I am doing this two days late but I adding my voice to food blogging day.

What about you – could you find some relevant content to blog about food?

Home-grown food

The flavour and pleasure of fresh fruit and vegetables is always superior to store-bought equivalents – the apples off the tree in my yard last summer were delicious and I even enjoyed then stewed (I normally avoid cooked apples).

But there are more benefits than just yummier food when you grow fruit and vegetables at home:

  1. I know the food is free of additional chemicals
  2. the food is high in nutrients because it is fresh and grown with natural fertilisers
  3. it is lovely to look out my window and see the crops
  4. fruit trees shade my office windows in summer but let the winter sun through – making my office a comfortable temperature naturally
  5. the occasional care for the garden gets me outside in the fresh air, moving and getting in touch with nature – all of which is good for my mental and physical health
  6. home-grown is cheaper, and with prices sky rocketing this year, that is a growing benefit
  7. it reduces my family’s food miles which is excellent for the planet

Paul Hassing recently posted how changing food habits can also be good for business (namely it reduces his stress so he can work more effectively) and I would agree with that.

I also see another business lesson from home-grown food.

Home-grown food tastes great, is more interesting and has a number of advantages. So is original business material.

Do you prefer to read an article or web page that is the same (or practically the same) as 100 others or an original piece that gives you new information or a new perception?

Are you more attracted to a tailored website or one that is based on a template you’ve seen 20 times already today?

Letters and emails addressed to you by name and include something personal are much more effective than a standard letter addressed to “Dear sirs”.

A landscape designer who uses the same layout regardless of block shape and aspect won’t be as successful as one who designs a unique garden every time.

The chef staying to the same old recipes and copying other’s presentation will never be a master chef.

And so on. The point is to use home-grown ideas and skills rather than going for the mass-produced, lack-of-variety style – the results are more interesting, flavoursome and fulfilling.

What do you think – are home-grown food and home-grown business behaviours more appealing and rewarding?

Posted in blogging, business info & tools, marketing | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Care for your brand

Published 14 October, 2011 | By TashWord

Your brand is the sum of every interaction your business has with someone – it’s not just having a nice logo and a pretty website.

With social media, I think  many people forget this connection between brand and every interaction.

I just saw a tweet offering tips on building a ‘complete business empire’ which I would only trust from a professional with business experience and knowledge. However, the picture associated with that Twitter account was not part of a professional brand – the rear view of an almost naked woman is perhaps more suited to a different profession…

So is the tweeter not business savvy at all, and perhaps even a con selling nonsense, or is someone mixing their personal and business profiles online?

In general, I think separate personal and business social media profiles is the best way to keep your brand on track. Or be very careful that anything you put online works with your brand – for example, I have only one Twitter account so it is always appropriate for my business persona and I never tweet anything I wouldn’t say to a stranger or prospective client. In comparison, I use a personal page on Facebook for friends and a business page for connecting with clients and people interested in clear communications.

So what does your twitter or Facebook picture say about your business?

Do you agree that the choice of social media images has an impact on how your business is perceived? I don’t think it’s just me who doesn’t find a woman’s legs a symbol for business knowledge…

Posted in business info & tools, marketing, social media | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Reply to blog comments

Published 23 September, 2011 | By TashWord

Well the title says it all really – it is important to reply to the comments left on your blog.

interacting speech makes a blogI just read a blog post today that had a dozen or so comments from various people, including a question for clarification on an aspect of the post topic, without one reply from the blogger. The post was a few weeks old so she’s had time to reply – and the post was actually about how to deal with negative blog comments!

So what happens when you don’t reply to comments people take the time to leave for you?

  1. you look arrogant and rude, especially if you’ve written any questions or invitations for responses
  2. you miss the opportunity to discuss the topic further and get others’ input
  3. you miss the opportunity to show further knowledge, expertise and generosity by answering questions that come up in the comments
  4. you appear lazy and/or disinterested in what your readers have to contribute
  5. you give other people the last word – and if their words are negative it could damage your brand
  6. you don’t give the impression that you want to build a community which is a large aspect of blogging in the first place
  7. you reduce the number of back links from your site (people won’t be inspired to comment and leave links if you aren’t answering them) which hinders your SEO potential of a blog
  8. answering comments and engaging in a healthy discussion often gathers momentum and additional attention (e.g. people share the link via social media and bookmark sites) so a lack of comments may limit your exposure further
  9. you may just miss out on building relationships with some great people – some of whom may become clients, suppliers or friends

So I go back to the title of this post – reply to the comments people leave on your blog. And reply as soon as practical, too.

What do you think when you see a blog without replies to comments?

Posted in blogging, marketing, social media | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Considering an interactive website?

Published 20 September, 2011 | By TashWord

Having an effective interactive website is up-to-date, interesting and easy to set up but can be very time consuming, so why consider making your website interactive?

  1. it gives you fresh content which is great for SEO and getting repeat visitors
  2. you can get input and feedback from customers and visitors which can help you improve your business
  3. you can develop relationships which is good for you as a human being, puts a personal feel to your business and develops a group of people who trust you and may just recommend you
  4. build trust and credibility in you and your business by sharing information and encouraging a community
  5. it makes your site interesting and therefore gives people a reason to come back
  6. you can centralise information rather than promote various online profiles – for instance, if I can read your Tweets on your site instead of logging into Twitter I stay on your site for longer
  7. it can be an easy way to announce business news (new products, extended hours, more articles on the site, etc)
  8. you never know why you may learn from the people who decide to interact on your site – use the internet opportunities to positive effect
  9. it will certainly appeal to some groups of people and is unlikely to offend or upset other people
  10. it puts you into the ‘up-to-date’ minority, showing you have an interest inner technology and advancing your business
  11. it shows you are interested in other people and can accept their ideas

 

Posted in marketing, web content | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Making your website interactive

Published 15 September, 2011 | By TashWord

While I don’t think making your website interactive is necessary for a successful website, it can be very effective for a number of reasons (and I guess that will be the next post in this series!)

If you are not familiar with the online world, making an interactive website may sound a bit overwhelming and very technical – but hopefully you’re brave enough to have kept reading anyway!

Making your website more interactive can be done in a number of ways and most of them are actually quite easy to add and run.

What is harder is maintaining the interactivity – people will only interact with you if you are seen to be willing to interact regularly and if you give something interesting enough to interact with.

So if you are adding interactive features to your site, I would suggest adding one feature at a time so you can establish it before learning the next one – spreading yourself too thin won’t help your business in the long run.

Making your site interactive can be done by:

  1. adding a blog and allowing comments – software is easy to use but it takes time to think of topics and prepare the content
  2. adding a Twitter feed – there are a few ways to do this but it effectively means people can read your tweets on your website. There is no work to run the feed but managing your Twitter account can take time
  3. adding a Facebook feed – again, your Facebook updates can be read live on your site for little effort other than keeping your Facebook page up-to-date
  4. other social media feeds can also be placed on your site
  5. adding a ticket system so people can not only tell you about issues but track progress simply. This is most commonly used for IT suppliers such as web hosts and software providers
  6. introducing a discussion forum can generate a lot of interest but also requires a lot of time and effort to get enough people involved to make it work, and then maintain it in an appropriate fashion
  7. add some live chat features so people can ask questions immediately
  8. feedback forms and rating systems allow people to give you input and are probably has one of the lowest time requirements in this list
  9. various places offer the means of adding surveys, poll and quizzes that can be purely for fun, to educate or to gain information for your planning. Remember to make the content and the wording appropriate, relevant and clear
  10. if you take appointments or run events, consider adding an online booking system – this will probably save you time as well as making it easier for people to book and change appointments. If the system updates a viewable calendar and can confirm times (rather than just accepting requests), it does make your site interactive.
  11. add a wiki or other shared documents to your site if you are doing research or gathering community input
Do you have any other suggestions for making a website interactive? What have you enjoyed on other sites?

Posted in marketing, web content | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Getting free website PR

Published 8 September, 2011 | By TashWord

There are many ways to get PR – run an event, host a competition, support a worthy cause, just to name a few. Of course, you then need to let the media know about your PR so they can spread the word to a larger audience – this is generally done through a media release (although now days blogs, twitter and other social media outlets are useful, too).

However, being mentioned in the media is more effective if your bsueinss name and URL are also mentioned. For example, “Tash Hughes believes SMS text is wrong on a website” is not bad but for PR purposes it would be much better as “Tash Hughes of Word Constructions believes SMS text is wrong on a website”. Even better is a link (for online media) and URL to make it easy for people to follow through.

Joan Stewart has created a great list of ways to get your URL included in any media coverage – most are free, too.

Have you had your URL mentioned in any media exposure? What impact did it have on your business?

Posted in marketing | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Understanding keywords in 9 steps

Published 7 September, 2011 | By TashWord

Once you set up your website and start reading about getting visitors (traffic) to your site, you are bound to hear about keywords (and key phrases but keywords is often used to mean both).

Here are a few points to help you understand keywords, their importance and how you can use them in your website content (and other online communications).

  1. keywords are simply words that summarise your message – don’t get caught up that they are magical or fancier than that. If you are a plumber, your keywords could be plumber, pipes, gas fitting and domestic, but would exclude business, builder and accounts.
  2. when you enter words into a search engine to find something, you are effectively using keywords. The web pages ranking highest for those keywords are what you will see in the search engine results
  3. behind each web page is some information known as meta data. This is part of how websites and search engines work, so is another aspect of using keywords as you can add a string of keywords in your meta data.
  4. make sure you use keywords that your potential customers will use
  5. don’t use too many keywords as it gets hard to read and search engines may assess it as an attempt to trick them. Always write for humans so it is interesting and relevant, rather than writing nonsense just to get keywords on a page
  6. each page on your site has a different purpose and will have different content so don’t expect each one to have exactly the same combination of keywords. In fact, search engines apparently give better ranks to sites with varied keywords across the site.
  7. specific words (e.g. dresses compared to clothes) are easier to rank well for but they are likely to have fewer searches so you need to balance which keywords are most useful to you. Of course, less effective words can still be used but just less often than your main keywords.
  8. use keywords in your online ads and directory listings, social media profiles, etc – not just in your own web pages. When you have the control, get keywords in the text of links to your site, too.
  9. within the boundaries of writing for humans, remember that keywords earlier in a piece of writing and highlighted in some way will have more impact than keywords late in the piece. (By highlighted I mean placed in a title or heading, in bold font or in italics)

Keywords help people find your messageIf you used a good web designer in creating your site, they have probably added some keywords into your meta data, headers, image descriptions and so on. Likewise, if your content was professionally written, edited or reviewed, there are likely to be some well placed keywords on your site already.

However, it is an ongoing task to keep your keywords working effectively so worth understanding even if someone else manages it for you.

This post is part of Word Constructions’ Setting up a website series
1. having a website helps more than you
2. what’s involved in setting up a website?
3. Learn about web hosting
4. Preparing your initial website content
5. Managing website design 101
6. Choosing a web designer
7. Basic web pages
8. Navigating your site
9. Making web content attractive

Posted in marketing, web content, writing | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Getting your website found…

Published 2 September, 2011 | By TashWord

yelling look at meThere are many ways to promote your website, some will be more effective than others for your business and some are cheaper than others.

You will probably get the best results by using a number of promotional means, especially as some will take time to have much impact (promotional articles for example are effective over time).

It is also worth remembering that it is not just in the early stages of your website that you need to promote it – it will be an ongoing process although the level and style of promotion is likely to be different at various times.

So here are 9 tips for getting your website found…

  1. put a listing into some online directories – but remember free isn’t always a good investment and that some directories are really only used by people adding listings. However, more incoming links helps with search engines, too (excluding links from link farms and other black listed sites)
  2. list your URL in your signature in emails you send and comments you add in any online forums
  3. if you have an enewsletter, get it included in a newsletter aggregator for more links to your site and potentially building your subscriber list
  4. include your URL prominently in your social media profiles and in some of your updates
  5. submit promotional articles to various sites and newsletters – they build credibility as well as incoming links
  6. put ads in newsletters sent to your target audience
  7. Having a blog in itself can build your website traffic, and you can enhance that further by adding your link to blog directories, and commenting on other blogs
  8. place ads on other sites (including through search engines themselves and social media platforms) – this often will cost money but sometimes you can barter or find free opportunities
  9. making use of offline promotions (think about ads in papers, radio ads, flyers, business cards, stationery and the like)

SEO needs to be understood as it encompasses all of the above to some extent and can send you a lot of traffic if harnessed well. It is also an ongoing process and will require many adjustments on your site over time to keep things fresh and allow for changes in search engine rules.

It is certainly possible to manage your own SEO or you can hire someone to help you with it. However, there are many people offering SEO services who are not ethical or qualified to help so be very careful who you trust with any SEO activities – and my personal opinion is to never use a SEO company who sends you an unsolicited email asking for your money.
This post is part of Word Constructions’ Setting up a website series
1. having a website helps more than you
2. what’s involved in setting up a website?
3. Learn about web hosting
4. Preparing your initial website content
5. Managing website design 101
6. Choosing a web designer
7. Basic web pages
8. Navigating your site
9. Making your website attractive

 

Posted in marketing, web content | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments
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