Posted on 14 January 2010 by jamescope
If your’e signed up to as many newsletters as I am you will no doubt have received numerous predictions of what will be hot or not this year. One good thing from getting a number of these is it appears there is a general consensus of opinion on what to look out for in 2010!
It’s good to see that some of these are old friends that businesses should have considered, if not been actively engaged in, a few on the other hand are going to have an effect and businesses may need to adapt their strategies to keep up.
In my view the following are going to be the most relevant for small businesses in the coming year.
Top 5 hot topics in Search Engine Optimisation
- Personalised Search Results
- Research
- Real Time Searches
- Local Results
- Inbound Links
Top 5 web topics for this year
- Video Video Video
- Undertstanding Your Visitors
- Increased Conversion
- Twitter et al.
- 80/20 Marketing
Not sure what I mean by some of those? Then read on I will cover them to some extent to give a rough outline of the issues, if you would like to discuss how these apply to your business as usual just give me a shout.
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Posted in Search Engine Optimisation | 1 Comment »
Posted on 23 December 2009 by jamescope
Our next Business Link seminar series has been finalised, this next event is really important from anyone who is getting reasonable traffic to their site but visits are not converting into enquries. The session looks at the importance of effective website copy to achieve your goals, and also how to protect it once you’ve created it.
If you have not yet optimised your site, or looked at the conversion topic then I would recommend watching our previous seminar podcasts so that you are up to speed.
Outline of the seminar is below, you can download the seminar pdf for more information and dates or visit the website to book.
I would highly recommend attending this session as think it will be of great value, by all means get in touch if you would like to discuss.
“When potential customers visit your website you must give them reasons to stay, purchase goods/services and become advocates of your business.
Search engines may help people to find your site but it is the quality and clarity of your site’s content that will build solid customer relationships and drive up business. Learn how to tailor your website’s content to the needs of your potential customers and present them with compelling sales messages.
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Posted in Seminars & Events | No Comments »
Posted on 24 November 2009 by jamescope
Our recent Business Link seminar series that covered the topics of Email Marketing and Website Conversions have been podcasted and uploaded. If you were unable to make the sessions, or could just do with a recap of the main points, they are now available to watch and download. Please note you will need to register on the site to get access to these resources.
Once registered you will also be able to see the previous topics such as SEO 2.0, Google Analytics, and Digital Branding.
These presentations give some really good hints and tips for all site owners and anyone wanting to improve their website, enhcance its marketing potential and increase enquiries.
Posted in Seminars & Events | 1 Comment »
Posted on 22 October 2009 by jamescope
I was recently asked to put together a quick presentation on blogging tips for businesses, and thought it might be useful to share my Top 10 Tips for sucessful blogging here.
Why Blog?
To start with perhaps I should cover why should you bother! Well in my opinion Blogs are a great way to engage with visitors who are interested in your subject area, to build your brand, and hopefully convert them to customers at some point.
I started this blog as a way to keep businesses I meet up to date with latest developments. I often will meet business owners only once or twice, but throughout the year there is information that they could benefit from, previously I would have been unable to communicate those.
My top reasons for blogging therefore:
- Quality Content – Inbound Links & Search Engine Love
- Build Reputation – Share Knowledge & Expertise
- Convert Visitors – Garners Trust
- Engage Customers – Product / Service Feedback
That said arguably blogging is not for everyone, if you identify with these reasons more than the above, don’t start, consider outsourcing it:
- You’re Bored – Will you add real value
- It’s all Sell Sell Sell – Will turn people off, damage brand
- Website News is Old – No time?
Hopefully the potential benefits outweigh the extra effort, but if you are in doubt if blogging might work as a route to market get in touch and we can talk the issues through. For those that are here are my top tips…
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Posted in Social Media | 1 Comment »
Posted on 15 October 2009 by jamescope
With the latest industrial action causing issues in some parts of the UK and more potential disruption to follow, ecommerce website owners should be getting ready for the postal strike. My advice would be:
Make new customers aware – place a notice on your site if this is likely to effect delivery
Keep existing customers informed – if current orders placed are effected let them know
Consider alternative couriers – remember to keep an eye on your calculated postage fees
There is more information on the Business Link site on how the strike could impact on your business
Posted in ecommerce | 1 Comment »
Posted on 13 October 2009 by jamescope
It has been accepted for some time now, that you get approximately 3-10 seconds to convince a visitor to your site that this is the site for them. Website owners often spend a lot of time thinking through where they think elements should go that will attract interest, agonising if a core product and call to action should be placed in the centre or right of the screen for example.
Business Link’s conversion seminars earlier this year looked at software that helped with that thinking process, by highlighting areas of the site that attracted the most heat or clicks. The following links might be useful if you are looking for examples.
Crazy Egg (heatmaps)
Click Density (more heatmaps)
Click Tale (visitor recording & hover maps)
Google Website Optimiser (split testing software)
Those of you that made it to the sessions will remember Adrian and his presentation, he has subsequently found a handy website that you can upload a jpg screen shot of your site to and it will generate an estimated heatmap for you for free. Perfect for those that want a quick check to see if the site elements are likely to draw visitors attention. Visit the Feng-GUI site to try it out. Would be interested to hear any of your feedback from using it.
We recorded those sessions and the upload is nearly ready, will blog as soon as ready for anyone who is interested in recapping. In the meantime if you need any of the links to the tools discussed please shout.
Posted in Web Design | No Comments »
Posted on 6 October 2009 by jamescope
In a slight departure from our normal website topic based seminars, in our November seminar series we will be taking a look at online and remote working technologies to benefit your business.
Technology has now enabled businesses to be available and “on-line” 24/7, enabling rich context communication via web cams, video phones, Skype, broadband and virtual interactive environments. The advantages of using such technologies; reduced travel, quicker response times, environmental benefits and fewer missed opportunities, are many and significant. However, to harness such potential benefits requires careful planning and management — unless of course you want them to manage you!
The seminars will be a good catch up for those thinking about using Skype for their business, and there should be a show case of gadgets available on the day also.
As usual various dates around the South East starting in November, visit our Innovation Events page for more details or to book.
Posted in Seminars & Events | No Comments »
Posted on 1 October 2009 by jamescope
Back in June I covered the importance of capturing location based traffic searches for businesses that operate geopgraphically. Local search is still important but with the appearance of Bing and predicted increase in search market share, I would suggest including this in your strategy.
The basics are the same, think about where your customers are and monitor your site statistics to determine which location areas you wish to optimise against and include those in the meta and site content. Just as you would include a Google local business entry, complete similar for Bing Local Listing Centre.
Bing has a supplemental website area to the listing, which can be used for link to subpages, a hotel for example might link to tripadvisor ratings, online booking page, or seasonal offers.
Posted in Search Engine Optimisation | 1 Comment »
Posted on 10 September 2009 by jamescope
One of my earlier posts covered website copywriting, how to craft your pages to achieve objectives. As more and more websites aim to become a knowledge base or expert in their field, protecting a sites copy is becoming more and more crucial. This post covers the issues behind copyright & intellecutal property (IP) for websites, how to protect your online copy and the intellectual property that goes into a website. Looking at elements such as:
- Domain name
- Content
- Images
- Use of © & ®
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Posted in Web Design | No Comments »
Posted on 4 September 2009 by jamescope
Social media has been on the radar for businesses for sometime now, now adoption and use of the media as a marketing tool is on the increase. Many businesses struggle with how this can benefit them and ultimately lead to increased traffic or sales. I was kindly invited to attend a really useful seminar yesterday which was primarily to add value for clients of a local developer Intergage, the session had some great tips which are the inspiration for this post on social media – get involved & increase traffic.
If you are struggling with questions such as those below this post will hopefully give you a starting point
- what is social media?
- should I be on Facebook?
- what on earth is twitter?
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Posted in Social Media | 3 Comments »
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