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Is Your Website Letting Your Business Down?

November 2, 2011 By Sam Cannell

I have a confession to make… I am constantly judging businesses by the quality of their website. Now this probably has a lot to do with the fact that I am so involved in online marketing but I’m sure that I am like just like your average customer. I want to know more about the business I am dealing with, I want to know they are a genuine business and that they will take my custom seriously – so surely a decent website isn’t too much to ask for??

The statistics in Australia are actually frightening! A recent MYOB report into online marketing in Australia found that more than half of Australian businesses don’t promote or sell products and services online, with a quarter believing that a website wouldn’t benefit their business at all.

Interestingly, the report also revealed that businesses with a website are more successful – 32% reported a revenue increase in the past 12 months, compared to 22% of businesses without a website. We can only hope that the quarter of businesses believing a website wouldn’t benefit their business read that statistic and took notice! Businesses with websites are also more much likely to expect increased sales in the next few months, and they also display greater confidence that their revenues will increase in the coming 12 months.

If your business does have a website, how long has it been since you gave it a serious evaluation? Is it up to date? Are there enough quality images and does it do your business justice? A website re-design or make-over doesn’t have to be an expensive exercise and the benefits can be enormous. Traditional bricks and mortar businesses shouldn’t discount the opportunity to sell their products online to boost their sales and expand market opportunities.

There has been so much emphasis on social media over the past 2 years that many businesses have forgotten that it is their website which should be the backbone of their online marketing efforts. Your website is ultimately the one thing within your control – no Facebook or Twitter changes will bring your website down. A website should integrate with your social media marketing, if you are driving the traffic back to your site you need to make sure it is up to the job.

Here are some key considerations you should make when reviewing your website:

Loading times – is your hosting fast enough to cope with the content and the amount of traffic your site receives
Aesthetics – does your site look the part?
Navigation – a crucial element, website visitors have short attention spans – they want to find what they are looking for quickly.
SEO – have you covered the basics of on page optimisation? Once this is taken care of look at off-site optimisation.
Integration with Social Media – if you are utilising social media then let your website visitors know!
Blog – a website review is the ideal time to consider creating a blog as part of your site design
Mailing list sign-up – email addresses are like gold… don’t discount email marketing as a way of converting your website visitors into paying customers.

If you are looking for some website feedback why not get in touch with us for a complimentary website review… we’d love to help you get more out of your website.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: blog, email marketing, seo, social media, website design

Love the visual, need to organise ideas… enter Pinterest

September 12, 2011 By Sam Cannell

I have a new favourite place to hang out online and it’s called ‘Pinterest’. According to the Pinterest about page…

Pinterest is a virtual pinboard. Pinterest allows you to organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. You can browse pinboards created by other people to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests.

A ‘pin’ is an image added to Pinterest and it can be added from a website or your computer. Now this is where it gets clever… each pin added to Pinterest using the ‘Pin It’ button (a button installed on your web browser) links back to the site it came from. I spend so much time online and love the use of graphics but it’s one area that is so hard to keep organised with traditional browser bookmarks. The linking back to the original website means you can always credit the original site (which you should do if you use anyone else’s images!) if you use the image in your blog.

It’s simple to organise your interests with different boards you can set up and name, people share their ‘pins’ by liking or repinning. The potential of Pinterest for business use is slowly being discovered and like any new platform it will take a while for people to work out how they can utilise it. It may be just as an organisational tool or for those working in creative fields like design, photography or fashion it truly could become a fantastic way of generating traffic back to your website.

You can even link your Pinterest account with Twitter and Facebook and share your pins on those networks. At the moment I am using Pinterest for a combination of work and play, I love the idea of ‘pinning’ home decor ideas yet it will also come in very handy when I am sourcing images for web projects. Here is my Pinterest profile:

Are you using Pinterest? I’d love to hear if you are using it for your business and if you have noticed an increase in traffic back to your website or blog?

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: pinterest, social media, social sharing

Follow Versatile Marketing on Foursquare

September 5, 2011 By Sam Cannell

After writing a blog post on Foursquare pages for business a few weeks ago I decided to set one up for Versatile Marketing. The set-up is relatively straight forward, you will need a separate Twitter account for your brand which is one of the main downfalls if you prefer to maintain only one Twitter profile. Once you link your Twitter account Foursquare automatically uses your Twitter handle as the URL and also imports the Twitter profile picture.

The next step is to add at least 5 tips… I got a little carried away in the first few days and now have 51 tips added on Foursquare venues in South Australia. You should continue to add tips as you discover venues worth adding to.

Now that your tips are added you can add a customised banner to ‘brand’ your Foursquare page.

Foursquare users can follow you (similar to Twitter) and your tips will pop up if they check into locations where you have left a tip nearby. Other Foursquare users will be able to view your tips when the check into a venue you’ve left a tip for. To gain followers your Foursquare page will need some promotion, if you have a blog put a link in the sidebar and it’s worthwhile promoting your Foursquare page on Facebook and Twitter if you use those platforms. You can also check-in as your page but this is the main downfall I have found with Foursquare pages, at the moment the smartphone app cannot be used as a page and this is how I do all my check-ins. It is possible to access your Foursquare page via the mobile webpage, then switch profiles and check-in but I personally found this process tedious. Other than that downside I believe that there is huge potential for particular business categories (eg tour operators, wholesale products, interior designers and many more) and it is worthwhile establishing a Foursquare Page for your business if you have helpful tips you can contribute to the Foursquare community.

You can find Versatile Marketing on Foursquare at http://foursquare.com/versatile_m

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: foursquare, geolocation marketing, social media

Foursquare introduces self-serve Pages for Businesses

August 11, 2011 By Sam Cannell

Foursquare has opened the door to self-service ‘Pages’ for business/brands making the process much more streamlined and user friendly.

In order to create your Foursquare page you need to have an individual Foursquare account and also a Twitter profile for your organisation. Your Foursquare page name will be the same as the organisation’s Twitter profile. Now this is the main criticism of Foursquare’s page service – many small businesses only have one Twitter account which links through to their individual Foursquare account. If you are interested in setting up a Foursquare page then you need to have a second Twitter account you can link which should have a branded Twitter handle as Foursquare automatically picks up the Twitter handle and creates the Foursquare page URL from it.

To create a Foursquare page visit http://foursquare.com/create_page. Foursquare have set up a fantastic FAQ section to answer any questions which are bound to come up. Foursquare pages can also be linked with your Facebook page so the integration with other social media channels is good.

Why should your brand consider setting up a Foursquare page??

Foursquare recommends ‘Pages’ for brands which are not tied to a particular physical location. Your Foursquare page becomes the customised homepage for your brand – people can ‘follow’ your page like they do on Twitter, it can be branded with a banner, include links to your website, and it will have a custom URL foursquare.com/yourbrand.

Once your page is created you can then leave tips for venues. This is where the power of Foursquare can be leveraged by brands, your tips are the way of communicating with your followers. When one of your followers checks in nearby your tip is shown. Foursquare recommends that tips should be interesting and contain worthwhile pieces of information.

Image source: foursquare.com adding Tips for Pages.

The power of Foursquare pages for business marketing is now open to business owners and marketing managers to set-up themselves. Examples of some businesses that could leverage Foursquare pages successfully with helpful tips include:

- Tour guides… leaving tips for best places to visit in a particular area

- Local Tourism Authorities… tips at locations to visit, ideas for activities to do.

- Wine/beer label… tips at venues that stock your product.

- Fashion labels… tips at stockists of your products.

- Media publications/outlets… ‘around town’ tips and ideas of great things to do.

- Interior designers… best places to source products.

- Landscape gardeners… best venues to buy plants, public gardens to visit and related trade venues.

Now this may leave you wondering where is the return on investment in spending all this time leaving tips and spreading your local knowledge? Foursquare pages are embracing one of the fundamental changes in marketing – the focus on relationships. Building relationships takes time, don’t expect a quick fix but if you are offering great tips and keeping your brand in the front of your followers minds you will inevitably see results from your hard work.

We’d love to hear if you’ve set up a Foursquare page for your business since the self-service changes rolled out and how you are finding the experience.

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: foursquare, foursquare marketing, geolocation marketing, social media

Facebook Marketing for Business – No Personal Profiles

July 29, 2011 By Sam Cannell

The number 1 mistake I’ve been seeing a lot of recently is businesses using Facebook Profiles to promote their businesses instead of ‘Pages’. I’m sure the majority of these business owners have no idea that they are breaking Facebook’s rules and are actually at risk of having their account removed from Facebook.

A lot of small business owners decide they will promote their business on Facebook because it’s the ‘in’ thing to do or someone has said ‘you have to get your business on Facebook’ but they have very little understanding of the platform and how it works.

Facebook has three categories – Profiles, Pages and Groups. Profiles are designed for individuals to use for personal use, pages and designed for business/community use for genuine organisations and groups are best suited to smaller groups which may need to keep content private or restrict membership.

If you have already set up your business as a ‘profile’ and you have a friend base you are probably wondering how on earth you go about correcting this. As a business a ‘page’ offers you far more functionality so yes it’s definitely worth making the transition. It also means you aren’t breaking Facebook’s rules and won’t be deleted!

Firstly before you rush off to transfer your Profile to a Page you need to back up your content as the data transferred by Facebook is limited. When you convert your profile to a Facebook Page, Facebook will transfer profile pictures and your ‘friends’ will become ‘likers’ of your new page.

To avoid losing important content, Facebook recommends taking these steps before you convert your profile:

Download your profile information. You can download a file that contains all of your sent and received messages and all of the photos and videos you’ve uploaded to Facebook.
Appoint a new group admin or a new Facebook Page admin to any groups or pages that you manage. The account you’re converting will lose these admin rights during the conversion process.

The full process is detailed on the Facebook Help Centre. Once your profile has been converted to a ‘page’ you will have access to the many features available to businesses using Facebook marketing.