Archive for June, 2009

Website copywriting – how to get it right

Wednesday, June 24th, 2009

Hopefully anyone interested in improving their site has checked out the subject of my previous post, and now has a little more of an understanding of how to structure a site and the elements that are important from a search engine perspective.

I attended a presentation run by Intergage back in May, and have been meaning to mention it ever since. The session included a really good slot from Roan Fair their Digital PR Manager. He has years of experience of copywriting working at one point as the Business Editor of the local Echo, and speaks really well on the topic.

The subject is an area of focus of the Business Link website reviews, and is commonly an area that is weak in small business websites. His basic principles are really easy to follow, and echo a lot of the points that I make when meeting customers.

He takes a simple 5 step strategy:
1. What is your readers’ biggest headache? Feel their pain!
2. Why have others failed to solve this nagging problem?
3. Why is your solution different? Prove it works!
4. Tell them how much better their lives will be with your solution
5. Calls to action – tell ‘em what they need to do!

The presenation, attached for anyone who is interested, has some really good tips in there that can be implemented to improve the effectiveness of business websites. Perhaps it’s time to ditch the company history from the homepage and think customer focussed!

Intergage Presentation Copywriting May 2009

Would be interested to hear from anyone who has made or is making similar changes to the site and the impact that it has to improve conversion rates. If you found that useful and feel that a Business Link run seminar would be worthwhile to learn more leave a comment and we will see what we can do.

Roan has a useful twitter feed for anyone who wants to keep up to date with the topic http://twitter.com/roanfair

Social Bookmarks
[del.icio.us] [Digg] [Facebook] [LinkedIn] [Twitter]

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Web Design | 1 Comment »

Website Review Session – from Google's perspective

Thursday, June 18th, 2009

Getting a site right that will promote its core services and products to meet the objectives of the business and all in a search engine friendly approach is the holy grail for many website owners. Business Link has its ever popular website review service that attempts to help businesses get to grips with the issue, which is by far the most in demand service of the team.

Matt Cutts of Google has recently released a video of a session he ran which is a lot more search engine focussed of course, but gives a really good insight into the balance between good site techniques to please your visitors and how these can benefit your search engine rankings.

You can watch the video at Matt’s blog at http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/webmaster-site-reviews/

Social Bookmarks
[del.icio.us] [Digg] [Facebook] [LinkedIn] [Twitter]

Tags: , ,
Posted in Google, Search Engine Optimisation, Website & eBusiness | No Comments »

Links from Gosport SEO & eCommerce Seminar

Thursday, June 18th, 2009

Good to see you all at the seminar last night in Gosport, thanks to Charles of ICG who gave a cracking presentation. It is available online at http://www.internetconsultantsgroup.co.uk/

Below are the links that I mentioned that you may also find useful.

Search Engine Optimisation
There is a great tool that checks to see if you have the basic onsite elements at http://tools.summitmedia.co.uk/spider/

Business Link has a couple of guides as well http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/layer?topicId=1081852287

The Google Keyword Tool that can help you determine which phrases to optimise against is at https://adwords.google.co.uk/select/KeywordToolExternal

From the eCommerce session
The payment gateway comparison which can help you decide which is the most cost effective can be found at http://www.electronic-payments.co.uk/

The shopping basket software comparison which is a sister site to the above is at http://www.ecommerce-comparison.com/

Social Bookmarks
[del.icio.us] [Digg] [Facebook] [LinkedIn] [Twitter]

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Google, Search Engine Optimisation, Seminars & Events, ecommerce | No Comments »

Reading SEO 2.0 & Google Analytics event

Wednesday, June 10th, 2009

Great to see nearly 70 of you at the Business Link Search Engine event last night at Green Park. The evening had a really good buzz to it and there seemed to be some useful networking taking place. Good to see so many familiar faces in the audience.

Feedback from you all was greatly appreciated, it is always hard to pitch content to appeal to as many as possible, on the whole feedback scores are really good and a number of excellents so thank you for that. We will be making a couple of tweaks to the presentation to take into account a couple of comments given, as we have another five events around the South East to go.

The questions at the end of the sessions were really interesting to hear, and hope you all got a chance to raise your own. If you didn’t or have thought of any since please do use this as a platform to ask or to keep us updated on how your efforts are going, and tricks or tips that you find along the way. You can also email me at my Business Link address or find me on LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesccope

Technology permitting we will be podcasting the event so that you can recap on the presentation when you need too, my colleague Sarah will be putting the note round when this is up and running. I would expect this to be availble early July but don’t hold me to that. In the meantime you can download the presentation from http://www.internetconsultantsgroup.co.uk/internet_resources/seminars.html

One of our delegates, Nigel Woods, has also give me details of a Chartered Institute of Marketing event this Thursday on Web 2.0 and social marketing if anyone is interested. They will open up the event to any of you that wish to attend, details of which can be found on my events page.

We are currently developing the August/September seminar which will build on the basics of this seminar to look at website conversions and email marketing tp help develop your web presence a step further so what this space!

Social Bookmarks
[del.icio.us] [Digg] [Facebook] [LinkedIn] [Twitter]

Posted in Search Engine Optimisation, Seminars & Events | No Comments »

SEO 2.0 + Google Analytics – June Seminars

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009

Have been busy this week meeting the presenters to put final finishing touches to Business Link’s June seminar series. This time it’s an update on search engine optimisation with the presenters take on SEO 2.0, youve all heard about web 2.0 well this is the next step for search engine success.

Also falling under the spotlight is Google Analytics, by far one of the most widely used stats packages the presenters show some common KPI’s that website owners should be looking at and how to get clever with the package that will save you time and money, gain more customers and bring your website visitors behaviour to life.

If you are a small or medium sized business in the South East you can come along to the seminar free of charge, visit the site http://www.innovationevents.co.uk for more details and to book your place. See you there.

Social Bookmarks
[del.icio.us] [Digg] [Facebook] [LinkedIn] [Twitter]

Tags: , ,
Posted in Google, Search Engine Optimisation, Seminars & Events | No Comments »

Power of local search – tip of the week

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009

A number of the small businesses I talk to work within a specific geographic location, but often over look the power of local searches.

My tips here are usually to make sure you include mentions of the area you operate in within the usual meta data of the site, and within the body copy.

Keep it local by including testimonals from any well know local clients, people will have more confidence in your services if they are supported by a good comment from a peer in the community, a business they have heard of, or perhaps someone they know.

Add your business to Google local, its free and easy and as more and more searches seem to be including local search results its a really good technique. More information on that at http://www.google.com/local/add/splashPage?hl=en-gb&gl=GB

Local business directories and council directories are good sources of traffic, consider tripadvisor.com if you are a B&B or a hotel, checkatrade if you are a service company. Also get links from any local businesses websites that you can build working relationships with whose customers may find your own services useful.

Those are a few to start with, feel free to chip in on any that are working well for you.

Social Bookmarks
[del.icio.us] [Digg] [Facebook] [LinkedIn] [Twitter]

Tags: , ,
Posted in Google, Search Engine Optimisation, Small Business, Website & eBusiness | 1 Comment »