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your business online
successfully marketing your business online
what we’ll cover
• Understanding the goal of your website– What are the business objectives– How are they served by the website
• Working with search engines– Improve your search engine placement– Ranking factors, and tips for success
what we’ll cover
• The role of social media in your business– Types of social media– Establishing a social media strategy
Understanding the goalof your website
before you can create an effective website you need to know what you are trying to achieve, how you are going to measure success and what you want from users – Paul Boag, June 2011
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Laying the groundwork …
• Why does your website exist
– the answer informs all future decisions– it justifies investment in the site– It can aid communication between team members
• So, you have to set business objectives
What are the business objectives of your site?
My website has one purpose, and one purpose only
consistently generate more business.
Business objectives for www.ticktockdesign.com
• To generate direct enquiries for our work
• To raise the profile of TickTock and our work
• To reflect positively on TickTock and increase it’s reputation
Summary: website business objectives
• List your objectives
• Establish measurable goals
• Review using these objectives
Working with Search Enginesor … when will my site be number one in google?
The function of a search engine
• Crawling and indexing
• Calculating relevancy and rankings
• Serving results
My practical approach, based on experience, is to create a website for real internet users and not for search engine spidersDavid Naylor
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From the Yahoo!, Bing, and google guides
• In the visible page text, include words that users might choose as search query terms to find the information on your site
• Make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links. Ensure that each page is accessible from at least one other
• Make pages primarily for users, not for search engines. Don’t deceive your users or present different content to search engines that you display to users.
• Create a useful, information-rich site and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content
The main ranking factors
What we can do as small businesses …
• On page optimisation
– Keyword density, Title Tags, Meta Tags
• Page Structure
– Build from the ground up and ensure your page is properly structured
• URL structures
– Is the URL for this page clean and relevant?
What we can do as small businesses …
• Is the page a reliable source of quality information
– Would you link to it?
• There aren’t any stupid tricks
– Cloaking, keyword stuffing, etc.
Google’s Webmaster Tools … and bing, and yahoo …• Get a google account today!
• Get help configuring your website
• Get help identifying the search terms used to find your site
• View links to your website (although Yahoo! will boost your ego more!)
• A range of diagnostic tools
But don’t get distracted by SEO … • It’s a continual investment without any guarantees
• You’re manipulating the system (albeit with approval)
• There’s potential to damage the user experience
• It’s a passive form of marketing
• And it carries no weight …
• … other than that, go for it!
Getting started with social media… not just for the kids any more …
Small business marketing obstacles
• Traditional disadvantages of being a small business
– Budgets dictated success
– Small businesses depend on word of mouth
– Powerful, but potentially slow and geographically limited growth opportunities
• Now, word of mouth is faster, spreads further, and is more readily found than ever before
Social Media is a conversation supported by a variety of online tools – a conversation people have in order to share opinions, experiences and perspectives with each other. Me, this morning
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Interruption marketing … all over?
• Traditional media all about interruptions
• The model was as a monologue – and it’s broken
• 18% of TV ads generate a positive ROI
• 90% of people who can skip TV ads, do
• On average, we’re exposed to 3000 ads per day
• Only 14% of people trust advertisments
• 78% trust recommendations of other consumers
(Nielsen “Trust in Advertising Report”, Oct. 2008)
Social media to the rescue! (hurrah!)
• The new model is a dialogue
– Transparent– Authentic– Inclusive– Consumer driven
• Yikes! I’ve lost control!• It was an illusion – you never really had control
Reasons to embrace social media
• You are already involved
– Employees are doing it– Brand discussions are already taking place– Participation can shape the outcome
• Comparative advantages– Word of mouth #1 influencer– No $$ budget required– Message can be carried a long way
• Revenue Growth
– Dell generated $6.5million in sales from Twitter alone in 2009
What networks to embrace
Oh god. Really? Twitter?
• And start a blog to create your own network
Well, to start with …
Formulating a strategy
• Step 1: Define goals and objectives
– Generate more brand awareness?– Increase sales leads?– Interact with customer base?
• Step 2: Where is your audience– Where can I find them?– Who and where are the evangelists?– What sites are the most popular in these groups?
Formulating a strategy
• Step 3: Audit your resources– Content? Staff? Technology? Tools?
• Step 4: Assign roles and responsibilities– Well … that’d be me then …
• Step 5: Define measures of success– Posts, tweets, re-tweets, fans, followers, content views, search
rankings …
Formulating a strategy
• Step 6: Establish a protocol– How frequently are you going to generate content?
– What content is appropriate to share?
– How will our messages be delivered – what’s my ‘home’ base?
– How do we respond to both negative and positive engagement?
• Step 7: Execute strategy
Formulating a strategy
• Step 8: Measure Results– How have our networks grown or changed
– What worked / didn’t work?
– What can we do differently – what can we eliminate or expand on?
– How much time are we spending on this?
– What’s the most valuable feedback?
– How many conversations are we having?
How we’ll benefit straight away
• Create connections and build relationships
• Improve search engine rankings
• Establish ourselves / our teams as thought leaders
• Manage your brand and reputation online
Social Media Pitfalls
1. Rush to action without a plan
2. Lack of objectives / measurement
3. Content guidelines
4. Failing to engage audiences
5. Limited reach
1. Rush to action without a plan
• Shiny new object syndrome … oooh Get Me One Of Those!
• One-off approach
• Focus on wrong objectives
• Failing to understand requirements or resources
2. Lack of objectives / measurement
• Success requires …
1. Defined and measurable objectives
2. Metrics that tie to these objectives
3. Ability to translate online activity to business results
4. Methodology to calculate ROI
3. Content Guidelines
• Content is critical – but often an afterthought
• Content Planning
– What format
– Who’s producing it
– Where does it come from
– Does it require approval
4. Failing to engage
• Social media is listening and interacting – not shouting
– Think telephone vs. megaphone
• Barriers to engagement
– Lack of interesting or relevant content
– Self-focused content
– Too much self-promotion
5. Limited Reach
• Social media works best with good sized audience
– Process of building network often overlooked
– Without reach, there’s no ROI
Tomorrow’s consumers are today’s ‘Digital Natives’ … ‘Gen Y’ spend more than 16 hours online per week, and 96% of them have joined a social network.
And they don’t care about your ad – they care about what their friends think. Marta Kagan, Social Media Marketing Professional
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Marketing your website beyond the search engine
Offline promotion
• Reach an audience in a specific geographical area
• Encourage repeat traffic from existing customers
• Move customer interactions online
Offline vehicles for your online presence
• Business staionery
• Traditional media
• Misc. marketing materials
• Word of mouth
Targeting your audience
• Social media – but also the more traditional online social sites
– Forums, mailing lists, chat rooms
• Editorial sites
Forum / Community rules of engagement …
• Build your reputation
• Use your profile
• Don’t self promote
• Follow the rules
• Contribute value
• Admit mistakes
• Don’t spam
… and finally
If you’re going to take anything away, take this:
• Make sure that whatever you do online has clear, measurable objectives
• That you or your team know what they are and regularly measure the success of your online activities against them
• Generating useful content consistently and displaying that in a well structured website will reduce the need to hire an ‘seo specialist’ considerably. Do the basics right.
• If you get involved in social media, be a good listener first, then a helpful contributor
• Don’t forget the more ‘obvious’, offline stuff, to market your online business
thank you
