Posts Tagged ‘WSI Net Advantage’

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Get Help with SEO

Tuesday, August 23rd, 2011

As an upstart entrepreneur, you know that the bulk of the work for your business is going to be done by you. However, as your company starts to grow and thrive, you may find yourself needing some help. This is especially true in the area of SEO.

When you decide to outsource your SEO services, you want to make sure that the company you choose practices the best, most effective techniques available. Even if you don’t know all of the top strategies yourself, you should be careful to select a company that does.

Here are some questions you want to ask a new SEO firm – before you sign a contract:

•    Can you provide previous success stories?
•    How well does your site rank in Google?
•    What techniques will you use?
•    How will you measure your progress?
•    When can I expect to see results?

There are a lot of tactics for driving traffic to a website and increasing search results, and there’s no one-size-fits all strategy. Your SEO firms should customize a plan specifically for your business. Just make sure that they use only “white hat” techniques, meaning they don’t use deceptive or misleading campaigns.

Sure, “black hat” strategies like hidden texts and cloaking might produce results, but they’re also a great way for your site to get dropped to the bottom of search engine results, or even banned entirely. So, don’t do it.

The number one question to ask a potential SEO firm is, “Can you promise that my site will get a first page ranking?” You should know from the outset that no one is able to guarantee search engine rankings, not even Google themselves. So, if you find a SEO company that says they can, you’ll instantly know it’s time to move along.

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How to Identify Your Client Persona

Tuesday, August 16th, 2011

Can you identify the type of person who’s looking for your services online? Have you gotten a good grasp on exactly whom your target audience is? No? Well, then how do you know the best way to attract them?

When you create a client persona, you’re basically writing a description of your ideal target market as an individual. By thinking of customers and potential clients as an actual person rather than a faceless mass of Internet searchers, you’re better able to connect to your audience.

Usually businesses have a variety of client personas since, in most cases, not just one specific type of person will be attracted to their products and services. Still, narrowing down the field by identifying the 4 or 5 different people who would fall into the “ideal client” category will give you some remarkable insight into your audience, and into how to market to them directly.

To create your own client persona(s), start by identifying the following characteristics:

•    Age
•    Gender
•    Career
•    Education
•    Location

Once you get the basics down, you can then go into more details about whom your ideal client is: what kind of clothes they wear, whether they have kids, where they hang out on weekends, what their hobbies are and so forth.

The clearer your image of your client persona, the better your chances of connecting with your ideal market and providing the products and services that they want.

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Tried and True Marketing Strategies

Tuesday, August 9th, 2011

When it comes to marketing your Internet business, it can often be hard to know where to start. There are so many options for marketing strategies and techniques, so how do you know which ones would work best for you and your company?

Obviously, you want to select strategies that have proven success records and are shown to lead to excellent results. To get you started, here are a few tried and true marketing strategies you may want to consider:

Search Engine Optimization
SEO is a way of developing your website content to attract the attention of top search engines like Google and Yahoo. When your target market does an Internet search for something related to your products and services, you want to be sure that your site appears as high in the search results as possible. By implementing an effective SEO strategy, you have the best chances for that.

Pay Per Click Ads
Top search engines such as Google, Yahoo and others offer advertising programs known as Pay Per Click or PPC. The basic way it works is that you create ads using keywords that relate to your business. When people search for those particular terms, your ad will appear on the page along with the other search results. The reason it’s called Pay Per Click is that you only pay for the ad when someone clicks on it.

Social Media Marketing
Social media is a kind of broad term that encompasses the various social networking communities – Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn being the top three. The way you market through social media is by creating profiles within each community and then participating in the online conversations. It’s a slow but steady word-of-mouth system that has revolutionized the way people exchange information with each other online.

Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing helps you drive traffic to your website by creating a network of other sites that already have a high volume of visitors. Here you would find businesses that have products and services similar to your own and then ask them to promote your company to their list in exchange for promoting them to yours.

The most important part of creating your custom marketing strategy is to choose the ones that best fit the nature of your business and the personality of your clientele. To find out which ones those are, do a little research and find out where your target market goes for information and resources on things related to your business and services.

And of course, if you ever have any questions about best marketing practices or developing a customized strategy for your business, contact us directly. We’d love to help you get started!

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How to Get Fans for Your Facebook Page

Tuesday, August 2nd, 2011

You’ve created your Facebook Fan Page, you’re writing consistent, informational updates that are relevant to your audience, and you’ve even customized your page with all of the nifty tips, tricks and applications available to you. So, why isn’t anyone “liking” your page?

 

Maybe it’s because you haven’t told them why they should.

 

Internet marketers of all sorts are experiencing tremendous growth through using Facebook pages and we want you to be able to do the same thing. Social media networks – especially Faceook – have taken on huge importance in the world of Internet marketing and you don’t have to be a technological genius to take advantage of their power, which is awesome. However, you do need to be a little more strategic than just adding a “Like us on Facebook” message to your email signature.

 

Here are a few ideas for getting people to “Like” your Facebook Fan Page:

 

  1. Write a blog article with a list of the top 10 reasons your followers should “Like” you on Facebook.
  2. Offer an incentive like a special coupon or free download to folks for joining.
  3. Tell your Twitter or LinkedIn followers about the exclusive content and news on your Facebook Fan Page.
  4. Create “Members Only” contests for your Facebook fans and advertise them in your newsletter.
  5. Reward loyal fans by thanking them with a “Fan of the Month” update on your page.

 

Nowadays, everyone from veterinarians to grocery stores to reality show celebrities has a Facebook Fan Site and it’s virtually impossible to log on anywhere without being asked to “Like” someone’s page. As a result, Facebook users are becoming increasingly selective when deciding to put their okay on a page, so it’s a good idea to give them a little encouragement to join your community. Sure, getting folks to make the leap from being just a user to becoming a fan can be tricky, but with a little persistence and creativity, you can develop a strong Facebook community surrounding your brand.

 

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The Value of Content Marketing

Tuesday, July 26th, 2011

Content marketing is a technique where you develop and distribute the best possible content to directly engage your target market and ideal clients. It’s not so much about selling a product to your customers as it is about creating an ongoing relationship where you communicate relevant information to them as a value-added service. The theory being that the more you provide consistent, valuable content to your users without trying to push them to buy something, the more likely they are to give you their business.

One of the most critical aspects of content marketing is keyword research. The more effective your keywords, the greater your chances of increasing your visibility and driving traffic to your website. So, how do you find the best keywords for your ideal market?

In a previous post, we discussed several “Cool Tools for Keyword Research” that will help you come up with a comprehensive list, but you still need to make sure they’re relevant to your target clients. As Internet marketers, we sometimes forget that the jargon we use in our field doesn’t always reflect the terms our potential clients would use when searching for information. Try to think from your target market’s perspective. Brainstorm a list of possible keywords or phrases that your users would use then do a little research to find out how effective they might be.

One great way to see how folks are really looking for things in your market is to check out social media. Twitter’s search function, for example, is a good place to find out how your clients think and talk about topics relevant to your business. Simply input a specific subject or concept that you’re focusing on to get an idea of the conversations that are going on around your topic.

The more you know about what’s being said about the things that relate, directly or indirectly, to your business and your market, the more you’ll understand how your target consumers might be researching topics related to your services. And, when you’re able to meet your potential and current customers on their level, you’ll have a much better chance of gaining their trust and their loyalty.

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Google+ Shakes Up Social Media

Tuesday, July 19th, 2011

A couple of months ago, we posted an article on Google’s new +1 button that gave registered users a way to put their stamp of approval on webpages and share their “likes” with their social circle within Google, meaning other registered users to whom they were connected. Now Google has made that social circle official and created a custom social network known as, Google+.

 

Although it’s not yet available to everyone, Google+ is already shaking up the social media world. Google proclaims that, “online sharing is awkward. Even broken. And [they] aim to fix it.” From what we can tell so far, it looks like they just might be able to do it.

 

The problem with online sharing, according to Google, is that you don’t have a lot of control over what you share with whom. Social media networks like Twitter and Facebook neglect to provide ways to discreetly share your updates, photos, Tweets and the like with specific members of your online community, or control what those folks choose to re-share with others. In general, you either share with everybody or you don’t share at all.

 

Google+ provides an easy filing system within your social community and allows you to separate your contacts into groups known as +Circles. You can make one for your family, one for your close friends and a separate one specifically for business contacts. That way you don’t have to worry about censoring your status updates or having your clients stumble across those photos from your college trip to Amsterdam. You get to choose what to share with whom at all levels of your interaction, which will eliminate the need for multiple accounts within one social media community.

 

Google+’s field trial has just started, so unless you’ve received an invitation from one of your contacts, you may have to wait a bit to test it out. However, with the features and options that Google is promising – +Sparks customized information feed,  +Hangouts face-to-face interactions, +Huddle group messaging, and more – we’re pretty sure it’s going to be worth the wait.

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Website Challenges for Mobile Users

Tuesday, July 12th, 2011

As a reader of our blog, you’ve probably noticed that we’ve been covering the topic of creating mobile-specific websites for your business in our past few posts. Well, this week we thought we’d discuss the challenges that users face when accessing websites and applications on their mobile devices so that you have a better understanding of your customers’ wants and needs when it comes to a mobile-friendly site.

 

Although, by and large, mobile activities are relegated to communicative tasks such as texting, emailing and interacting on social network sites, there are a great deal of people who use their mobile devices to surf the web, find information and interact with their favorite websites. The problem is that for as advanced as they are, mobile technology and mobile web access are still far behind that of a traditional computer.

 

Because mobile devices need to be, well … mobile, they by necessity feature small screens. Small screens make data entry tough and decrease readability. Fewer options are visible at any given time and users have to rely on their ability to recall what they saw in areas of the page that become hidden as they scroll around the screen.

 

Then there’s the issue with the tiny keyboard. Whether it’s an onscreen version like the iPhone or actual buttons like a Blackberry, they’re way smaller than the average fingertip and that leads to difficulties with entering the text you want to, as well as problems with tons of typos.

 

Another problem is download delays. In many cases, response time from a mobile user’s Internet connection will be slower than a dial up connection, and we all know how frustrating those extra few seconds or even minutes (gasp!) can be.

 

Of course, developers and technicians across the globe are working to improve the mobile user experience on all mobile devices. Some things, like small screens and tiny buttons, will not really get a whole lot better, lest our mobile devices become full-sized laptops. On the other hand, connectivity issues are improving every day, but the fact is, it’s going to take a while before they catch up to the speed of even a regular cable modem.

 

Until things do improve, keep these issues in mind when you’re developing or updating your websites. If you find that a lot of your client base uses your site from their mobile devices, but you’re not quite ready to develop a separate mobile site, there are some things you can do to help your users out. Keep your fonts plain, your layout simple and your functionality limited to just a few necessary tasks. That way, even if you’re not creating a mobile-specific site, you can still make your full site more accessible to your mobile audience.

 

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So, You’ve Decided to Create a Mobile Site

Tuesday, July 5th, 2011

When considering what types of functions you should include on your mobile site, it’s important to distinguish between the two types of users who might be visiting your pages and figure out which ones will make up the majority of your visitors.

 

1. Searchers are on your site looking for one or two specific things and have a particular goal in mind. Perhaps they want to locate your phone number so that they can speak to you directly, or check a price on one of your products so that they can log the cost into their budget. Searchers want to get in, get out and move on with accomplishing their ultimate task.

2. Browsers tend to have more time to poke around your pages until they find something they’re interested in. They don’t have a specific focus when they visit your site, but are just there checking things out.

 

If your users are made up of mostly searchers, be sure to create a site that provides easy access to vital information about your business. Things like business hours, contact information and basic product or service features should be available within one or two clicks. Any more clicks than that is problematic because it not only increases the likelihood of slow download times or a dropped connection, it also becomes frustrating for a searcher who wants to be as efficient as possible.

 

On the other hand, if your audience is mostly browsers, you can enjoy a little more freedom in providing a wider range of options and information that they can navigate through at their leisure.

 

Once you understand your mobile site’s audience, you’ll have a better grasp on what types of features to provide for them. Still, for both groups, tasks that are overly complicated or super time-consuming should be reserved for your full website. Regardless of who your users are, be sure to provide a link to the full site on all of your mobile site’s pages. Remember: your mobile site isn’t a replacement for your full site, but more of a value-added service that increases the ways your customers can access your business.

 

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How Mobile is Your Website Audience

Tuesday, June 28th, 2011

Last week we discussed the topic of creating mobile-user friendly websites for your business and we know we may have gotten a lot of folks in a tizzy wondering how to optimize their sites for mobile use, or deciding whether they should invest in creating a separate site specifically for mobile devices. But, before you hire designers to revamp your website or make the leap to designing a new mobile-specific site, you should first know whether your audience even needs one.

 

Survey your clients to see where they gain access to your site. You may also be able to find this information in your analytics data. Ask whether the majority of your clients use smart phones and tablets or if most of them loyal to traditional desktop computers. This question alone will go a long way in determining what steps, if any, you need to make towards making your site mobile friendly.

 

Another question you should answer is, “What are my clients trying to access when they visit my site from their mobile device?” You might find that the tasks they’re trying to accomplish are pretty simple and limited to things like checking order statuses, looking up business hours or finding directions to your location if you have a storefront. If your site has a simple design that is easily readable, you may not need to make many changes at all.

 

However, if your end users have loftier aims like browsing through your product pages, placing orders and paying for services, you may need to make some significant adjustments. Mobile devices, although they’ve come a long way, are still pretty far behind regular computers when it comes to load times, screen sizes (obviously) and text entry.

 

Understanding your website’s audience, how they use your website and where they access it is the key to deciding what updates you need to make and how to make your site specifically user-friendly for your users, mobile or otherwise.

 

 

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Is Your Website Mobile-User Friendly

Tuesday, June 21st, 2011

Have you thought about what you need to do to make it effortless for your clients to access your site on their mobile devices? Is your web content clear and easy to ready on small screens? Are your employees able to effectively log in and use your website when they’re on the road?

As people are increasingly relying on mobile devices such as smart phones and tablets to access the Internet, websites are being challenged to make their content as mobile-friendly as possible, which isn’t an easy thing to do. Screens are small so it’s harder to create an interface that allows users to see more than one or two options at a time, and it’s awkward for users to input information into a site because most of the buttons on these devices are a fraction of the size of a fingertip.

When designing or updating your website, be sure to consider mobile users and their needs. Although you may not yet have the capability or funds to create a separate mobile-specific site like so many of the big companies are doing, thinking ahead to potential issues such as font readability and simplifying opt-in requirements can make a difference for your end user.

In the coming weeks, we’ll address more topics surrounding mobile-usability, marketing for mobile devices and optimizing your website for mobile users, so be sure to stay tuned!

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