For those interested in growing their business in 2011 you may be interested in an upcoming conference this Autumn. Exact details are yet to be released but my advice would be pop the date in your diary and either contact Adido Solutions to join the mailing list or watch this space!

Adido are proud to be jointly organising the first Hampshire Strategic Growth Conference this Autumn. Working with ten other leading businesses in Hampshire, the one day workshop aims to create commercial success for the region and at the same time build a reputation for a happy and productive working environment for over 100 business owners. Attendees will get a greater understanding of the current economic climate and knowledge of how to use it to your advantage enabling you to create a tangible plan of action to help increase your business value with clarity and focus.

The date for the conference has been set for Tuesday the 28th of Octoberat Chilworth Manor in Southampton. More information will be announced by Adido shortly so make sure you’ve saved the date in your diary!

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I doubt that this is the most comprehensive of guides, I am only scratching the surface. Hopefully it will act as a quick guide for busy small business site owners to help them cover the main issues, and discover help resources and information points and tools to aid them along the way.

First two sections covering planning and keyword research have been written. The keyword research section will hopefully keep you busy enough until I have written the next section that will cover Design & Usability. Once written I hope to revisit the sections and bring in case studies so please do check back occasionally.

You can visit the guide to successful business websites here.

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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

1. Personalised Search Results
2. Research
3. Real Time Searches
4. Local Results
5. Inbound Links

Top 5 web topics for this year

1. Video Video Video
2. Undertstanding Your Visitors
3. Increased Conversion
4. Twitter et al.
5. 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.

SEO
Personalisation – this has been the subject of a number of posts from SEO guru’s and is attracting quite a buzz. Google is introducing a mechanism that may skew the search results to bias the sites you usually visit, thus making it harder for site owners to appear in the number 1 spot. It is not all doom and gloom though, this might actually help site owners focus their sites and achieve results in their target market. Web Pro News cover this in more detail.

Reseach – Nothing new here, but many sites are still getting it wrong. Do your homework and choose the battles you can win. Focussing on the terms your visitors use, and trying to get to niche terms that will send your site targeted customers, this will help reduce bounce rate and increase enquire rates.

Real Time Searches – It’s no secret that the main search engines have been talking to social sites such as Twitter to try and integrate the content of tweets into its search results. You will probably have all seen various examples of the power of viral tweets, and Google continuing on its quest for better user experience is right to look at integrating these. Another article from the Web Pro News covers the possible twitter ranking factors.

Local Results – I’ve blogged a couple of times on this subject and whenever I talk to site owners about their market segmentation some sort of geographical element comes to the fore. Including these considerations in your optimisation and getting a Google local business entry are at the core of this strategy as more and more map results appear above optimised entries. Revisit my article on local search for more information.

Inbound Links – now widely accepted that its not all about tweaking your own site elements but relevancy of other sites linking to your site. This technique is often overlooked by small businesses, but still plays an important role in achieving success according to Google.

Web Topics

Video Video Video – the smart money this year is on video as an aid to increase web site conversion rates and attract visitors. We are seeing more video results blended into our search results and Google did not acquire youtube just for fun! With the increase in broadband speeds and visitors demanding a richer and better browsing experince, why not put your best sales person online and let them do the talking. From viral campaigns that have become famous such as Blendtech with their own youtube channel, to accountants using video testimonials I would suggest that there is opportunity for every business here.

Understanding Your Visitors – so important this appears in both SEO and Web sections! With personalisation, and the ongoing trend of businesses trying to covert more of the visitors that arrive to their sites, understanding who, what, and why has never been more important. I still see lots of sites that do not provide statistics, and those that do are rarely looked at. Using a free package such as Google Analytics to understand who your visitors are, what they are looking for and why they are staying on or leaving a site should be the goal of all site owners. If you can determine those factors you can tweak and adapt your content and structure to capture and engage your target audience. Here is just one article on bounce rate to give you an idea of what can be looked at.  Here is a video on how to set up Analytics.

Increased Conversion – this was a big topic last year in my meetings with businesses and featured as one of our Business Link seminar topics, with budgets still tight for this year coverting sites to lean mean lead/sales generation machines is set to still be high on site owners wish list. With video techniques and the data available from Analytics making up the foundations, I think sofware such as heatmaps and visitor tracking will start to be employed by more sites. The podcast on the topic is available in our seminar archive for those interested.

Twitter et al – Twitter grew and grew last year, and some users have new years resolutions to reduce the amount they tweet or give it up altogether. Love it or hate it, the social site seems to be firmly settled into web culture. As discussed in the SEO section with twitter results being integrated into standard search results I would suggest businesses need to consider social networks. My post on social media last year covered the basics, but guys I would suggest looking at this a fresh for 2010.

80/20 Marketing – back to basics with this one, often overlooked by site owners busy trying to bring more and more new traffic to their sites and working hard converting them, they forget the potential goldmine that is their existing customer base. Dust down those spreadsheets of orders, profile your customers and start looking at email marketing for repeat business. Many site owners who do this well, relax their focus and reduce spend on new business, keeping regular customers informed and happy is definitely a strategy not to be overlooked.

If you have any comments on the above, or opinions on how you think 2010 will shape up feel free to share. If you have any concerns or would like to talk to be as usual please do get in touch.

My top tip to compliment all of the above – attend the Business Link seminar on Great Website Copy – don’t miss it!

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There is also more information on my previous blog article IP & Copyright for websites if you are wondering what the topic is about.

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.

As your website and its content becomes more useful, it also becomes more valuable and is an asset that you must protect. Our first presentation provides clear hints and tips on generating excellent website content, whilst our second presentation concentrates on protecting your online rights, ensuring that your web presence is fully protected and that you are not inadvertently infringing anyone else’s rights in the process.

Seminar topics include

• How to write good web copy
• Five-step strategy
• “Three C” rule
• The science of protecting your website,and the content
• Data protection and electronic marketing

Your presenters

Roan Fair (Intergage)

Roan is a search marketing consultant who specialises in web copywriting, SEO and digital PR. He is also a qualified Google AdWords professional. He is an award-winning former journalist with 22 years’ experience

Andrew Garbett (Coffin Mew Solicitors)

Andrew specialises in intellectual property, IT and data protection law. He has acted in matters involving all types of IP rights, from complex agreements on the exploitation of patents to disputes involving image rights. He has spoken at many events both for the business and the public sector.”

Book online at http://www.eventssoutheast.co.uk/

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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.

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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…

Top 10 Blogging Tips
Here are my top 10 tips for a successful blog, there no doubt probably more but hopefully these will give you inspiration to get you started.

1. Get Inspired
There is no sense reinventing the wheel, so use assets to your advantage where you can. I don’t mean steal content here but look out for other articles or news, write your own take on the article and include a link back to the original, or write a review on something. (Helps to start a discussion.)

• Interesting articles from Newsletters & Other Blogs
• Constructive response – agree or disagree!
• Write a review
• Link to original, add additional links

2. Attend An Event
Preferably one of my Business Link Events! but attending and blogging your thoughts on it, commenting on the topic, adding your expertise. The same can be said for any seminars, workshops or meetings that are topic related to your area of business and can allow you to build your profile.

• Go to seminars, meetings, events
• Share ideas from the presentation
• Your own thoughts

3. Cheat
Well not literally cheating, but if you find other experts in your field or areas related to your subject why not sub out the work.  This certainly helps with time issues, helping you to blog regularly, and can also add additional expertise to widen the information given. Alternatively you could invite guest writers to feature on the blog demonstrating a community of experts.

• Get someone else to write it
• Outsource to Blog writers
• Guest posters

4. Write How To’s Or Lists
‘How to’ and or ‘How do I / you’ and lists are a couple of the most popular web searches, so capitalise on this and create a guide for your area of interest. Great material for showing off your expertise, adding value, and usually encouraging inbound links from other blogs and sites from experts in your industry.  Icing on the cake would be to create an accompanying video that you can post on your Youtube channel and embed into your post.

• One of the most popular searches
• How to blog or 10 top tips for blogging
• Great for generating good will
• Add video too

5. Pick A Fight
Why not become the Jeremy Clarkson of your industry? Well within reason, but being controversial, having an opinion, being passionate about your subject area, and challenging existing models gives visitors something to get excited about. One strategy might be to look at popular blogs that you disagree with on an issue and having your say. With any luck an inter blog fight will break out and visitors from this blog will visit yours to read more.

I’m not recommending you do this without thinking it through, but if you genuinely have a difference of opinion, try and exploit it professionally and constructively.

• Being controversial – Jeremy Clarkson
• Criticise popular blog
• Blogger responds (hopefully) = traffic to you!

6. Keep Them Wanting More
It’s good to create as much copy as possible, but remember what the purpose of the blog is – to gain customers! So try and think of how each post will contribute to that objective. Will it provide a link to your main site, can you offer a white paper download and collect the email address, can the post stimulate a want or need for your product or service.

You might consider releasing stages of a how to guide, so readers are looking forward to the next post. For example when I wrote the presentation on the topic, out of my Top Ten Blog Tips only 6 were included, for tips 7 – 10 attendees would have to visit here.

• Keep visitors looking forward to next post
• Drive traffic to your main site
• Capture email addresses for give aways
• Don’t give it all away on the blog

7. Cross Promote
Most optimisation professionals will agree that inbound links are a great way to achieve search engine positioning (or am I just being controversial). So why not set up a blog that you can develop as a focal point that has a different look and feel than your main site, is more engaging, is not sales-y and can be a vehicle for a community. You might consider building a strategic alliance with other non competing businesses who cater to the same target customer creating a shared blog that drives quality traffic to the alliances individual websites.

To illustrate this point here’s an example that I’ve used before, my ex colleague David Lakins now of Key Multimedia, uses this to the benefit of his clients. See the Mankymonkey surf blog ,now apart from a mention in the Page Title tag and the odd advert icon, it’s not obvious that this blog is anything other than a surfing blog. The strategy behind it are links from articles in the reviews section to the companies wetsuit shop, and other sections to its surfing kit site .Although at the moment there is not much evidence of many comments on the articles, to some extent that’s irrelevant, it works well to draw in and capture traffic and then drive it to the e-commerce sites.

• cross promote – link information to sale
• team up with non competing businesses

8. Use Visual Elements
I’ve spoken above about using video elements to brighten up posts, Youtube is the second biggest search engine in the UK next to Google, so use this to your advantage. Blog articles don’t have to be all text, look at using images where relevant. If there is something visual that the business has done, post the photos with comments, and perhaps host those on image sites such as flickr

• use video to add interest to posts
• images will brighten up boring text
• hosted images & video will provide inbound links

9. Evolve Consumers To Prosumers
A side effect of some blogs  has been to turn some customers into the businesses development team. Now businesses actively seek the interactivity, by encouraging feedback on products or services. Running articles on new developments in production you can get customer feedback quickly and can help shape the product before it reaches the launch stage. Famous example of this being Dell’s now brightly coloured laptops and laptops running Linux, all developments thanks to interaction through the companies blogs.

• seek customer involvement
• expand your product development team

10. Ask A Question
Have I forgotten anything? Are there any blog tips or tricks that I’ve missed that you find work well?

This tip features last as it really only works if you’ve got an active readership, but once you have it is a great technique for debating, encouraging opinions and giving you chance to demonstrate your knowledge. So if you would like to comment on this post feel free!

• Ask a question
• Post a problem
• Conduct a poll

Hopefully these tips will have given some inspiration to develop your own blogs, using tools like Wordpress or Blogger

If you are a South East based business please get in touch if you would like to discuss in more detail.

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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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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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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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