Three of the best ways you can do this online are through search engine promotion, social networking and with the use of email marketing campaigns.

Search Engine Optimisation

The goal of a search engine optimisation campaign is to make your website as search engine friendly as possible so that search engines recognise your website as being the best match for your keywords when they are typed into the search bar. By optimising your keywords, search engine promotion aims to give you greater visibility on the web.

With over 85% of the search engine market, Google is the most important search engine in terms of rankings.  Search engine promotion is not just about rankings though (although 36% of online shoppers do associate search engine placement with company prominence) but also about making sure people can find your website under a variety of relevant keywords to increase your traffic and in turn increase your enquiries, sales and profit.

As search engines crawl and rank various different pages on each website they visit, it is important that search engine optimisation is completed throughout the website. By optimising each page of the website individually, you can ensure that your website ranks well within various search results – this is especially helpful if you provide a broad spectrum of products and services.

A large majority of users won’t enter a website through the homepage, so each page should be treated and optimised as though it is the homepage. Important things to include are:

• Navigation – Don’t leave your visitors stranded once they’ve found your website! The rule is that you should never be more than 3 clicks away from the homepage, although this is a good rule to follow the most important thing is to make sure your navigation is clear and easy to follow no matter how many clicks away you are. Having clear navigation also help with search engine promotion as it allows robots to gather additional links from your website and crawl them.
• Content – Make sure that each page is content rich. Yes, pages are ranked individually but where they are ranked will be based on the content of each individual page. Having good product or service descriptions containing relevant keywords partnered with search engine promotion strategies provided by your search engine optimisation specialists will help to push those pages further up the rankings.
• Tags – Individual page tags are important from a search engine point of view. Page tags should reflect the page contents rather than being generic i.e. Company name or Contact, Product, etc.
• Don’t leave your customers or search engines in any doubt about what your product is – make sure it is reflected in the title tag, page description, image tags and product descriptions. Don’t keyword stuff your page, but make sure important information such as product names, colours, sizes and common alternative names are included.

Search Engines are changing the way they rank websites with an increasing emphasis on providing good quality content. Off-site links are still valuable but are beginning to have much less overall impact on how a website ranks. Good quality links are as important as good quality content.

Social Networking

Social Networking is fast becoming an important part of most companies’ marketing plans. Social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook attract vast amounts of visitors on a daily basis, so they are the perfect place to make sure your business is seen.

Companies with social networking profiles can keep their customers and fans up to date with all the latest news and offers whilst also making their company or brand more accessible. Satisfied customers can ‘share’ your information and offers as well as their own experiences with their friends – an important part of the growing trend for social ecommerce.

If your target market is other businesses rather than consumers, there are social networking sites such as Linkedin and ecademy that allow you to link with other businesses whilst promoting your company and selected products or services.

The majority of social networking websites are free to join and create business pages on. Some social networks such as Facebook allow you to place a paid advert on the website.

Although social networking content is offsite, some search engines such as Google and Bing have started to include social networking content when ranking websites so this may have a positive effect on your search engine rankings.

Email Marketing

As I mentioned in Ecommerce & SEO: Your People, email marketing is a great way to keep your brand and products fresh in the mind of potential clients.

Offering a ‘subscribe to newsletter’ box on your website allows people who are already interested in your products or services to sign up for regular updates from your company.

Sending a regular newsletter allows you to keep subscribers up to date with the latest product launches and company news as well as allowing you to pass on useful tips and information. With email marketing campaigns you can also set up landing pages providing further information, and a good email marketing system should allow you to monitor the success of your campaigns.

Email marketing is also perfect for sending promotions and special offers to your subscribers keeping them up to date with all your best offers and encouraging brand loyalty and regular purchasing.

Newsletters can also be added to your website providing a new source of keyword rich information which integrates perfectly with a search engine promotion campaign.

Email marketing can be a steady source of enquiries and sales for your business.

Email marketing provides almost instant feedback, allowing you to monitor bounced email addresses and remove them from future mailings, view who opened your emails and what they did with them and see who has clicked on your links so you can see exactly what your customers are interested in and send better targeted emails in the future.

To read Parts 1 – 4 of the discussion visit the links below:

Ecommerce & SEO: The important part you play
Ecommerce & SEO: Knowing your market
Ecommerce & SEO: Your People
Ecommerce & SEO: Technical Requirements and Scalability

Dani
Impact Web Solutions Ltd
Search Engine Promotion Midlands

Successful online stores can generate large volumes of traffic and sales, and just the same as your bricks and mortar shop you will need someone to deal with the various stages of the transaction.

Some online stores choose to include a virtual assistant to answer any questions the customer may have before purchasing; if you use virtual assistants it is important that someone is available at the computer at all times in case a chat request comes through to ensure that you deliver a high standard of customer service.

Once the purchase has been made online, someone needs to process the order – to ship the product to the customer, resolve any issues upon receipt, deal with any returns – basically anything you would do for a regular customer entering your shop.

Considering the size of your business and existing client base can give you an idea of who is best to manage your online shop. If you have a small business with a couple of orders a month online, you will easily be able to manage the online shop as well as the running of your bricks and mortar business.

If you have a medium sized business generating regular daily orders, you may need to allocate the management of your ecommerce website to another member of staff.

Large businesses may require several people to concentrate on the management of their online store only.

Not only do you need to consider who will process your orders, many online stores are CMS based (content management system – this allows you to update the website yourself) so you will also need someone that can make regular updates to the site. Your ecommerce web designers should offer training on the system, meaning that changes such as adding new products, making changes to text and even changing images (although some images may be part of your websites template so you may not be able to edit them all) can all be completed in-house.

Regular website updates are critical, not only do they offer your customers something new and give them a reason to keep returning but also, search engines love to see that you are regularly updating your website so they know the information is current.

It is also important to consider who will work with your search engine optimisation company to ensure your campaign is targeting the areas that are most important to you. As your business progresses and the market changes, your keyword focus may also change. You may choose to expand into new locations or related product markets so your campaign will need to grow with your business to include these changes.

As you suggest new focuses to your SEO engineer they will be able to come back to you with suggestions and data for the best possible keywords and phrases to drive traffic to your website.

Your SEO engineer will also be able to provide regular reports showing where your target keywords are currently ranking, this along with regular telephone contact will allow you to monitor any changes and focus on any problem areas to resolve them quickly.

The social media aspect is also important to the promotion of your website. Google and Bing both recently confirmed that content posted on Twitter and Facebook can have an effect on the rankings of regular websites. Building up relationships through social networking sites also opens your business up to a wider audience and helps build better brand awareness.

Writing regular blogs on topics relating to your target market also provides a great opportunity to include your websites keywords. Sharing useful information through social networking websites via your blog can also attract your target market and new followers as many people use the search facility to find posts relating to specific interests.

Finally, online marketing such as email newsletters and promotions emails are a great way of keeping your subscribers up to date. Offering a ‘subscribe to newsletter’ link allows visitors to ‘opt in’ to receiving your updates so you already know that the people receiving the information are interested in your products or services.

Email newsletters can be quite time consuming to put together, often taking around a day to put together and check before sending. Although this can seem like a lot time and you may question the benefits, newsletters keep your subscribers up to date and keep your brand fresh in their minds until they are ready to make a purchase. Email newsletters can be a steady source of new enquiries.

Making sure you have the right people to handle all of the aspects of your online store allows you to decide exactly what you want your website to do and to consider the technical requirements and scalability of your systems and services.

To read Parts 1 & 2 of the discussion visit the links below:

Ecommerce & SEO: The important part you play
Ecommerce & SEO: Knowing your market

Dani
Impact Web Solutions Ltd
Ecommerce Web Design and Search Engine Promotion Leicester

Today alone, I have received over 100 emails about products and competitions and without reading them they have all been deleted!

So what can you do to make sure your email marketing campaigns don’t meet the same fate? Here are a few tips to help ensure your emails don’t end up being deleted without at least being read first.

Include an unsubscribe option Peoples tastes, needs and requirements change, so even though they may have signed up to receive your updates 6 months ago, they may no longer wish to receive them.

By law, you need to make sure that all marketing emails include an unsubscribe button, and that when a recipient requests to be removed from your list it is actioned within 10 days.

Spell check and proof read your email There is nothing more annoying than receiving poorly written, generic spam! It immediately creates an unprofessional image.

Proof read your email, spell check it and ask at least one other person to read through it as well.

Include a call to action So you have written an amazing email full of relevant information which has really caught the attention of the recipient, what do they need to do to find out more? Don’t forget to tell them, it may sound simple but just like attaching that file to an email it often gets overlooked causing the recipient work to actually get what they need!

If you have a landing page make sure you provide the link at various stages throughout the email, if you want them to call you make sure the telephone number is clearly visible, but most importantly make sure this information is included at the bottom of the email as this is where they will be when they have read the information and want to know more!

Test your email before you send it Before you send the email to anybody else, send a test to yourself, this will allow you to see how your email will appear to your recipients.

View the email in your chosen program, email programs may display the email differently to how it appears whilst you are creating it so this will give you the opportunity to go back and amend anything that doesn’t display correctly. You can also use this test email to check that any links in the email are working, and forwarding to the correct destination as well as asking somebody else to proof read it.

Have a snappy but relevant subject line People are more likely to open an email with a snappy yet simple subject line. Make sure your subject line is honest and hints about the content of the email, don’t attempt to mislead the recipient into opening the email as this will more than likely annoy them and cause them to unsubscribe!

Keep your emails relevant Make sure that any emails you send are relevant to the recipient, ‘if they AREN’T relevant – they ARE Spam!’

Avoid spam triggers Anti-Spam software looks for various words and phrases that are commonly used in Spam emails, if you want to avoid having your email marketing classed as Spam it is always wise to avoid trigger words.

A simple way to do this is to use an email marketing system that allows you to Spam check your email and identify problem words or phrases. Innocent words such as ‘specialise’ can cause your email to be classed as Spam as it contains the word ‘cialis’, this may not even occur to most people but a Spam checker will highlight these problem words.

Avoid attachments The easiest way for unscrupulous people to infect your computer with a virus is to send an email promising further information if you open an attachment. The majority of people are now wise to this and don’t open emails from unknown senders if they contain an attachment.

If you want to offer further information in your campaign, include a link to a landing page on your website.

Make sure your identity is clear to the recipient Masking your identity, or attempting to make recipients believe you are someone else is a no no! Make sure that your display name is either that of yourself or your company and that your email body includes your contact details.

People are less likely to open or respond to an email if they cannot identify the sender.

Dani
Studio 2 Online
Internet Marketing Specialists Midlands

Yesterday, the snow finally stopped here and turned into ice, making my run for the bus something reminiscent of Todd Cartey on Dancing on Ice! Although, saying that, I managed not to fall over which deserved at least an extra .5 on my score

Anyway, when I finally made it to work, I found a couple of very interesting emails in my inbox.

Firstly, a report about how to ‘sail through the recession’, which says SME’s are the best placed to survive. Although small-medium sized businesses are most likely to feel the pressure, they are also being championed and protected. There are 4.7 million small business in the UK and they are being recognised as the economic life blood, employing 13.5 million people and accounting for more than half of the nations turnover. A survey carried out by Vodafone found that the happiest staff work for companies employing between 10 – 50 people – probably the reason that Studio 2 Online employees find something to be happy about every single week!

According to another survey, 1 in 20 businesses are actually booming despite the recession, and 43% of these ‘Super SME’s' actually achieved this by increasing their marketing budget and I.T. spend.
Just the other day I heard a client mention that since their website launched they have had lots of new interest, showing that customers are out there, they are just being more careful with their money and are looking for the ‘right’ company to purchase from.

It is important to take ownership of your product and brand, and that way you will stand out from your competitors. Having a great website that is aimed at increasing your enquiries, and making use of search engine promotion and email marketing increase your visibility and, in turn, the opportunity for new enquiries and sales.

Another email I received reported ‘Human error hits Google’. This is something I’ve seen mentioned in quite a few places and most are reporting about the devastating effect this will have on businesses that have spent thousands to get to the top of Google.

For roughly an hour on Saturday morning, a ‘glitch’ meant that whatever site you clicked on, you received a message to say “this site may harm your computer” and the belief by most people is that this would have caused your visitors to go to your competitors site – I would just like to point out, if they did, they would have received exactly the same message! When you receive this warning, you are still able to go to the website, and I’m pretty certain most people would have soon realised there was a problem with Google!

Other sites have also mentioned the effects of relying on Google to drive business to your website, for instance if their website goes down. A report on Google states they have over 200,000 servers, in various locations to run their website, so the chances of the site not working are very slim. Should this happen however, the spiders have already collected the data from your site so it will still be there when it is back up and running.

Google is one of the top 5 most visited websites on the internet, so errors and bugs are spotted, and repaired very quickly. Having a presence on ‘backup’ search engines is an option but the main bulk of visitors will come from Google searches, so ensuring you are on the first two pages of Google is critical for ensuring your business can be found online.

Studio 2 Online are the first agency in the UK to achieve the SEMPO Platinum Agency seal and are so confident that our team can get you on the 1st page of Google that we even offer a money back guarantee! If you would like more information, or a free search engine audit for your website call us on 0116 2758456.

Dani
Studio 2 Online
Search Engine Promotion and Web Design Leicester

I thought I would look at the year of the Ox in a little more detail, and discovered that the year of the Ox represents dependable, hard working people, always looking for a solution to a problem.

I think the Ox is a perfect symbol for Studio 2 Online and represents perfectly what we believe in. Studio 2 Online believes in ‘Making you sales while you sleep’; how do we do this? Well, we do the hard work to create a visually appealing, functional website that attracts sales; so you prosper!

We believe in making your life easier; just a few ways we do this are:

• Our dedicated account manager will work with you to improve your website, offering suggestions to further boost your enquiries and sales and dealing with the technical stuff so you don’t have to
• Our inhouse copywriter writes the copy for your new website at no extra cost, which saves you time and money!
• Our team will work with you to create the perfect website. They will listen to what you have to say and then work to turn your vision into a reality
• Our support team can be contacted directly and you can report issues 24 hours a day, 7 days a week using our support portal
• Our Internet Marketing team will make sure your website is performing well in the search engines to ensure you receive lots of quality enquiries

We know that even though the economy is looking bleak right now, a prosperous 2009 is very achievable, and you don’t need to work like an Ox to achieve it! Why not give us a call  on 0116 2758456 and ask us to make your website prosper!

Still not convinced? Why not check out our portfolio at http://www.studio2online.co.uk/our-portfolio.php, and see what our clients have said about us (and how we have helped them to increase their sales).

Happy Year of the Ox!

Dani
Studio 2 Online
Web Design Leicester

It is a very time consuming process but it is essential to the growth of any business that the right people are being invited to enquire about the products on offer.

But there are some questions you have to consider about sending mailshots:

• Is it cost effective? I mean, by the time you have purchased paper, printer cartridges, envelopes, postage (£480 for 2000 letters sent 2nd class), postal collection (trust me, 2000 letters weigh too much to carry to the post office) and the salary of the person (or people) doing the mailshot, how many enquiries will you need to receive to make it cost effective?
• How long will it take to get there? Is it going to get lost in the Christmas post?! There is a reason it’s referred to as snail mail!
• How can I track if the mailshot was a successful one? I may only receive a few returns but does that mean everyone else has read them or does it mean they have all just been thrown away?
• How long will it take to send letters to everyone on the mailing list? If there are millions of people on the list – a very long time!

So what is the answer I hear you asking (with a sceptical eyebrow raised)? Well Email Marketing of course!

After years of mailshots I am a big fan of email marketing! Let me tell you why:

• With the click of a button you can send your literature to as many people as you want!
• The response time is pretty much immediate with people calling for information almost as soon as it has left the outbox
• There are no stationery or postage costs at all!
• You can track how many people have opened the email and if they have clicked your links
• You can provide them with immediate information in the form of landing pages specifically designed by you to give more information about the products you wish to highlight
• The ability for recipients to unsubscribe so you don’t need to remove people individually from mailing lists or recommend a friend feature for if they are really impressed with your product!
• It is environmentally friendly (the tree’s can breathe a sigh of relief!)
• No paper cuts!!!

Even better than that, we can create your own newsletter template to include your company branding.

Reading about various companies that have switched to email marketing, by sending 2 to 3 emails per month detailing latest products and email only promotions most have experienced approximately 20% increase on their annual sales.

Sound good? You can find more information about Studio 2 Online email marketing packages at http://www.studio2online.co.uk/email-marketing.php or call 0116 2758456.

Dani
Studio 2 Online
Email Marketing Leicester

While Giles was away in the sun, we found the link to our Christmas e-cards and started our own little tournament – the winner got to eat lots of sweets from the welcome lounge (no change there then!).

I thought I would share the link so you can all have a play. This is my personal favourite http://www.s2o.co.uk/xmas04/ it always makes me smile making our old Senior Web Designer Paul ski really fast down the slope! There’s nothing more festive than a bit of snow!

And the best thing about Studio 2 Online Christmas e-cards is that you can have your own team members as part of the game (you will see former members of Studio 2 Online in my link), you can brand the game with your company logo and strap line, include a leader board (so you can give prizes to the highest scorers if you wish) and you can even email the game to a friend which will encourage visitors to your website!

There are several different e-card games you can choose from and customise to suit your business needs including a ’snowball fight’ (http://www.s2o.co.uk/xmas03), ‘Jump the chimneys’ (http://www.s2o.co.uk/xmas05) and ‘catch the turkey’ (http://www.s2o.co.uk/xmas06) which even has a vegetarian option! Or if these don’t appeal to you, why not try a bespoke e-card?

If you would like more details about our e-cards, please contact us on 0116 2758456 or visit www.s2o.co.uk/christmascards

Dani
Studio 2 Online
Web Design Leicester

There are many important questions for you to consider and hopefully they should lead you to the decision that is right for your business.

Does your website achieve what you want it to?
Basically, is your website bringing in the sales you want or is it struggling to provide online enquiries while you hear about how the rest of the world wide web is flourishing? If you aren’t receiving orders from your website it may be because of what your website is saying about your business, and making amendments to your website can help to rectify this.

Is your website easy to navigate?
Generally, most people are a bit lazy and don’t want to spend lots of time searching for information, especially if they aren’t even sure that you have the product they are looking for! Making sure your website is easy to navigate and including menu’s on all pages will encourage people to click through the pages on your website and not just click back to the search engine! Also, adding internal search engines to your website can cut the time it takes for your visitors to find the product they are looking for – something most people will appreciate!

Is there sufficient product information?
One of the problems with buying online is that you are totally dependent on the information and photos of the product because you are unable to pick it up, feel the material, see the size of the item, etc, like you can in a shop. Making sure there are plenty of details will allow people to visualise the item better, making them more likely to purchase.

Is the website secure?
Identity theft is a very big concern to a lot of people and not having an ssl certificate on your website means that most people will not place an order. If you do not have an ssl certificate in place, it’s advisable to purchase one immediately. This is also likely to increase orders as your visitors will see their details are secure.

Is your website attracting the ‘right’ people?
All businesses have a target audience and making sure your website reflects the people you are targeting will play an important part in encouraging them to place an order. If you are targeting a younger market; make sure your website is fun and fresh, if you are trying to target businesses; a professional, clean looking website will be more appropriate. It is important to know who your customers are to make sure they stay on your site once they have found it.

Do you have a search engine campaign?
Having a great website is important but making sure people can find it is even more important! If someone links to your website it will eventually appear in the search engines by itself, but, by having a search engine promotion campaign in place you can make sure it appears quickly and with a successful campaign, you can target specific keywords and aim to get your website on the first page of results, creating a steady flow of visitors to your site.

Does your website meet the standards set by your competition?
When searching for a product, it is proven that people will shop around and compare you against your competitors. If your competitors have websites that are of a much higher standard, the chances are they will place an order with them instead. In order to be considered over your competitors, you will need a website that is at the least to the same standard.

Is your website cost effective?
Is it easy to update the information on your website or do you have to pay other people to do it? Having a CMS site or an ecommerce site that can be updated inhouse means you can make as many updates to the site as you wish, add new products; immediately increasing your marketing time and save money.

Making changes to the way your website looks can improve your conversion rates and help to avoid shopping cart abandonment, and updating things such as the copy of the site can improve the professional feel.

If the website cannot be significantly improved by updating the information and pictures, you should consider a completely new website design. A website redesign will cost more than an update but if the new website is done well you should be able to see the ROI (return on investment) in a reasonably short amount of time.
If your website is not on CMS, you could also consider a new CMS website, allowing you to update the information rather than paying for it to be done.

For more information about how Studio 2 Online can help you achieve the most from your website and search engine promotion, please call us on 0116 2758456.

Dani
Studio 2 Online
Web Design Leicester

On Wednesday, it was no surprise to see the winner, and new President elect was the man with the fresh ideas, a strong message and a plan for the future. The historical election of Barak Obama just goes to show that with the right marketing campaign anything is achievable.

This not only applies to the campaigns of political figures but also the campaigns you run for your company and now, with the global recession it is more important than ever to plan ahead with your marketing campaigns and find new ways to ensure your business not only survives but thrives.

Studio 2 Online have put together three FREE and extremely informative guides:

12 ways to grow your business with online marketing

10 Essential strategies to thrive during the recession

7 effective website strategies

If you would like us to email a copy of any or all of the guides, please call 0116 2758456 and ask to speak to Andy Kinnard.

Dani
Studio 2 Online
Web Design Leicester

The guys in the studio have been working really hard and I’m sure you will agree they have done a great job of both sites.

The first site launched this week is Thermo-Floor http://www.thermo-floor.co.uk/
Thermo-Floor are commercial and domestic suppliers of underfloor heating and cooling systems. Their new website combines modern colours with a traditional ‘warm’ feel creating a truly dynamic website.

The second site launched this week is Pugh Lewis http://www.pugh-lewis.co.uk/
Pugh Lewis is a specialist contractor at the forefront of sportsfield construction, drainage, fencing and landscaping. The website has an earthy feel which compliments the examples of their high quality work perfectly.

We have more websites launching very soon so watch this space!

Dani
Studio 2 Online
Web Design Leicester