Archive for October, 2009

How to Blog – Tips for Businesses

Thursday, October 22nd, 2009

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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eCommerce Sites Ready for Postal Strike

Thursday, October 15th, 2009

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

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Creating a Successful Home Page Design

Tuesday, October 13th, 2009

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.

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The Future Office – November Events

Tuesday, October 6th, 2009

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.

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Local Search Update – Don’t forget Bing

Thursday, October 1st, 2009

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.

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