Running your business is a big enough challenge enough without all the hassle of learning everything you need to know to effectively market your products or services. A properly executed marketing programme will pay for itself over and over. Marketing incorrectly can and will waste time and money and may even damage your reputation. So don’t make the mistake of trying to do everything yourself. Hire an internet marketing company that understands what it takes to succeed online and gets results. Let us show you how we can help you grow profitably and painlessly and turn your business dreams into reality.

Below are some of the things we can do to create an effective marketing programme that will bring you more customers and get your existing customers to come back more often, spend more money with you and tell all their friends and even complete strangers about your business!

Don’t think your business needs digital marketing? Click here to discover why it’s time to think again!

Digital Marketing Strategy

Get the most from your marketing budget. The digital marketing strategy that’s right for your business will depend on what you are trying to achieve and where you’re starting from. Spending time analysing your market and competition and working out the best way to achieve your goals is what we do! And since no two businesses are the same we’ll always propose a solution that is tailored to your needs. Click to find out more

Local SEO

Having a great website isn’t going to do you much good if you have no visitors. But do you know how to ensure that your business shows up on the first page of Google? Do you know how to choose the right keywords to focus on and how to optimise your website for these terms? And most important of all, do you know how to turn all that additional traffic into real prospects and customers ? Click to find out more

Social Media Marketing

Social media is all the rage and fast becoming an indispensible component in your marketing mix, but without a clear strategy and intelligent execution it’s unlikely you’ll see a return on the time you spend on Facebook and Twitter. We can show you how to harness Social Media and Web 2.0 to generate more traffic and convert more customers and make the whole process manageable. Click to find out more

Mobile Marketing

Just as the internet has transformed the way that businesses of all sizes market their products and services over the past 10 years, mobile marketing is now shaking things up again. No other marketing medium allows you to think up a campaign in the morning and see results the same day! And as a means of getting your existing customers to do more business with you, it can’t be beaten. We can help you get started with mobile marketing quickly and affordably and integrate it seamlessly into your marketing programmes. Click to find out more

Email Marketing and List Building

Your email list is one of your most important marketing assets. But do you know how to use email to automatically follow up with and convert prospects and visitors to your website? Do you know how to build a responsive e-mail list and use it to keep yourself at the forefront of your customers’ and prospects’ minds? How to use it to market your products or services and unlock hidden income streams you didn’t know you had? Research shows that most organizations don’t follow up on their leads and following up can double profits or more. Make sure you’re not wasting a valuable asset! Click to find out more

Tracking your results

You know the old saying: “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it”.  Well fortunately, just about everything you do online can be measured and tracked! By providing everything from analytics to tracking and recording your incoming calls to see which websites and promotions are most effective we can help you better understand what works and what doesn’t. We’ll show you how to test and tweak everything to ensure that your marketing is as effective as it possibly can be. The improved results will usually cover your investment and could well give you the edge you need to succeed in today’s challenging economic conditions. Click to find out more

As mobile web browsing becomes the norm, it’s increasingly important to design websites for mobile use as well as for desktop browsing. Making a website work well on a mobile browser is challenging for a number of reasons.

The first and obvious challenge is that mobile devices have smaller screens, which means that the amount of information you can display is also much smaller. More of your information will be below the fold, so users will have to scroll down to read it all, plus they will have to zoom in to read the text. Fortunately, most modern browsers make zooming in and out relatively easy but nevertheless, if you try to pack too much information into the page your user is going to have to work quite hard to read it. To overcome this, ensure that your mobile pages are clean and simple with  easy to read fonts and lots of white space and that important information is included near the top of the page.

Mobile devices have a lot less processing power and bandwidth than PCs so to ensure that pages load quickly and don’t require users to download a lot of data try to avoid using too much Java-script, large  image files and high definition embedded video and that users only load what they need.

Because many mobile devices use touch screens it’s also a good idea to ensure that there is easy navigation, any buttons and controls are a decent size and that you don’t require your users to type in too much text using the fiddly on-screen keyboard. Instead, use shortened URLs, keep forms short and pre-fill as much information as possible. Apply the one finger test to all navigation and user interaction and include click to call and one tap pages to make it easy for your users to contact you or take whatever action you want them to.

Perhaps the single biggest factor that affects web design for mobile devices is the way they are used. Most mobile phones are used in portrait orientation, so take this into account when designing the layout of your mobile website. As a general rule it is advisable to opt for a single column layout, avoid extra-wide images and ensure that the navigation is across the top or the bottom rather than down the side. Remember also that when users are looking for information on the move it’s because they need it quickly. Mobile users have a very short attention span and every second counts, so make sure that you grab their attention with an eye catching headline or image and give them what they need as soon as they hit your landing page.

When designing websites for mobile devices keep it simple, test and tweak everything until you’re confident you’ve provided the best possible experience for your mobile users and you will be well on the way to a mobile website that converts well and brings a stream of new customers to your door.

Do you have any additional tips to offer on designing websites for mobile devices? If so, leave a comment below. And don’t forget to check out our Mobile Marketing pages for more information about the different ways you can easily incorporate mobile  into your marketing mix.

Spread The Luv

This blog uses the CommentLuv plug-in to deter spammers and reward genuine contributors for their engagement. Register below to leave a titled link to your most recent blog post whenever you comment. Leave 3 approved comments to get a do-follow link and unlock other great SEO friendly benefits.

Finding ways of keeping your website content fresh can be a challenge.  So here are three suggestions for ways to do it that don’t require a huge investment of time or money and are extremely effective.

Install a blog

Installing a blog is the single most effective way of ensuring that you have a constant stream of good quality content on your website that your visitors and the search engines will lap up. We recommend WordPress as it is easily the most user and search engine friendly blogging platform around, plus it’s open source and comes with a host of great features. But in all honesty, you could just as easily use blogspot, Tumblr or any of the many free blog options out there. The important thing is that you blog on a regular basis (i.e. at least once a week and preferably two to three) and you include a RSS feed of your most recent posts on your website homepage. For added SEO juice link back to inner landing pages of your website where appropriate.

Check out this article if you’re not sure what to blog about.

Invite comments

Getting people to comment on your blog can be a challenge so it’s important to give them an incentive to do so. Setting your blog to do-follow tells the search engines to give anyone leaving their website URL in a comment a link from your website, which helps their search engine rank. In effect, you’re passing some of your SEO juice to them. The problem with this, however is that do-follow blogs are a magnet for spam comments, so if you’re going to do this be sure to have a clear comment policy and moderate all your comments. For example, you could set your blog to trash all comments that include more than two links or which include certain words, or you can black-list whole domains.

If you want to go one step further in terms of encouraging user engagement, you could install the Comment Luv plug-in which will reward people who comment on your blog by placing a link to their last blog post at the end of their comment, encouraging other readers to explore their posts. Now you’re starting to build a community!

Include a Frequently Asked Questions page, Did You Know? feature or Tip of The Day

Updating your Frequently Asked Questions page on a frequent basis is an easy way to keep your website content fresh that doesn’t involve a lot of work. Adding a few more questions or rotating out questions on a weekly basis allows you to vary your content but without making wholesale changes to the information you provide.

Another effective tactic is to include a simple Did You Know? feature in the sidebar of your website which you update a couple of times a week. This can also be a great way to highlight the benefits of your products or services for your visitors. Be sure to include your keywords for maximum SEO impact. If you’re comfortable with changing your content on a daily basis you could also include a Tip of the Day feature which will be useful to your visitors and very quick to write.

There are lots of different ways of keeping your website content fresh. In our next blog post we’ll be looking at the benefits of RSS feeds but in the meantime if you have any tips or suggestions to share please leave a comment.

Spread The Luv

This blog uses the CommentLuv plug-in to deter spammers and reward genuine contributors for their engagement. Register below to leave a titled link to your most recent blog post whenever you comment. Leave 3 approved comments to get a do-follow link and unlock other great SEO friendly benefits.

However, there is a sweet spot with SEO which Aaron calls “the thin wedge of profitability between apathy and spam” and this infographic will show you how to hit it.

In a nutshell, the keys to profitable SEO linkbuilding are:

Follow these simple rules and your SEO linkbuilding will pay handsome dividends, ensuring your website enjoys high authority and page rank and bringing you lots of targeted traffic.

If you need advice on SEO linkbuilding or any other aspect of SEO call us on 0208 252 0557 for a free, no obligation consultation with one of our SEO experts. We’re here to help!

Set some broad social media objectives

Having a clear social media strategy from the outset is vital if you want to get the most out of social media. Having a clear focal point is especially important. For example, is your main aim to generate leads or establish yourself as a thought leader in your niche? Are you going to use social media as a way of establishing connections with other thought leaders and key influencers or as an additional customer service channel? Or do you just want to keep your finger on the pulse and stay abreast of what’s going on in your industry? Thinking about what you’re trying to achieve before you get started will save you lots of time and frustration in the long run.

Do your homework

Find out where your ideal customers and high profile bloggers in your niche like to hang out online. This will almost certainly include Facebook, Twitter and forums so go check them out. Follow some people who look interesting and see how they’re using social media. Check out the communities on the social networking sites where you’ve decided you need a presence. LinkedIn and Facebook both have lots of specialist groups which are great places for connecting with people who are likely to be interested in what you offer so join some and listen in on the conversations that are taking place. Make a careful note of the sort of content and the topics that generate the most response as these will give you lots of ideas for engaging content you could create. Make a note also of behaviour and posts that attract a negative response. Every community has its own, often unwritten code of conduct and etiquette, so it pays to be aware of them.

Set up your social media profiles

It’s never a good idea to mix personal and business when it comes to social networking so if you already have a personal Twitter account or Facebook profile set up another one strictly for business. Try and keep your branding consistent by using the same social media username on all your accounts – you can check if your business name is already taken at namecheck.com.  Add a brief description of your business and your website URL to all your profiles and be sure to fill out all the information and upload some photos. Generally speaking it’s best to use a head and shoulders photo of you as people like to see a real person behind the company but this is not strictly necessary. Just make sure the photo is of good quality and appropriate in a business setting (no blurry holiday snaps of you in a swimsuit at Disney World!).

Dive in!

Once you’ve got the measure of the groups dive in and join the conversation. Don’t forget the 10 golden rules of social media engagement: keep it light, informal and friendly (in other words no hard selling), try to be helpful and above all, be consistent. You won’t see overnight results but stick with it and your business will benefit from having an active social media presence.

So there you have it:  how to get started with social media in 4 simple steps. Go on then, what are you waiting for?

If you need help deciding the right social media strategy for your small business or think you could benefit from one to one social media coaching on how to get started and build your confidence email or call us on 0208 252 0557.

Let’s face it. Traditional marketing which broadcasts your messages to all and sundry is inefficient, wasteful and expensive. That may be something you can live with if you’re selling a high priced product and can still turn a handsome profit with a conversion rate of 1% to 2%. But it’s not much use to the typical local business operating on much tighter margins.

Geo-location enabled local search

That’s where geolocation-based marketing comes into its own. Without it, over 90 percent of ad impressions are wasted on consumers who are outside your geographic area. Fortunately,  GPS technology is now allowing marketers to obtain location data from PCs and mobile phones and modern search engines, such as Google, use this data to help consumers find businesses and services in their vicinity. For example, if you searched for “pizza” Google would show you Google Places results for pizza parlours in your local area.  Google Places business listings are completely free and a great way of ensuring people looking for local service find your business but Google is also now offering a local version of its Adwords pay per click service.  Better targeting equals more footfall for you and better conversions.

Geo-location apps

A number of mobile phone geo-location apps have sprung up over the past year of which the best known are probably Gowalla and foursquare. These apps allow registered users to connect and remain updated with their friends based on their location.  Whenever they use their mobile phones to “check-in” their friends get updated about their recent location.   But this is only a part of it.  Foursquare, for example, has many more features:

Mayor: This status is awarded to customers who have checked in the most frequently to a particular venue over the last 60 days.

Badges: This reward is earned based on the ‘check-in’ habits of different venues. New badges are continuously earned from the different companies that foursquare partner with.

Special offers: Foursquare makes it super easy for you to bring your business to the attention of people in your area and promote your special offers directly to them. These offers could be one-off specials designed to tempt passing trade or on-going loyalty programmes that reward customers who “check-in” with your business on a regular basis. Examples include:

Mobile Phone Apps

Another form of geolocation marketing is to offer your own free mobile phone app to your local customers. Typically, these apps are used for loyalty programmes with customers being rewarded in the form of discount coupons and other benefits for checking-in to your business a certain number of times. Mobile phone apps are surprisingly inexpensive these days, functionally rich and allow you incorporate all sorts of interactive and viral sharing features. They are also a great way of branding your business and standing out from the competition.

How To Succeed With Geo-Location Marketing

Whichever form of geolocation marketing you decide to introduce to your marketing mix here are some tips on how to make it work for you:

1. Target your campaign as specifically as possible: First, make sure that your campaign is targeted specifically to the area you do business in. Search engines like Google,  allow you to target your marketing campaigns based on City, post codes, neighbourhoods, or even a specific street intersection. This way, when you advertise your business, you can be sure that the majority of consumers exposed to your campaign are within a range that would make sense for them to visit you.
2. Use your location to your advantage: You can use your location to your advantage in promotions by focusing on providing consumer incentives at a very local level. For example, you could provide a time-sensitive discount voucher to consumers within a mile radius of your business.
3. Provide directions: Provide maps and one-click directions to your location, so that customers who are interested in what your business offers do not need to bother looking up your address. That way they are more likely to pay you a visit.
4. Make it fun: Major retailers, such as Starbucks, are using programmes such as Foursquare and Facebook Locations to turn location into a game. Consumers can “check in” at your location, allowing you to provide incentives for consumers to visit a specific location more frequently by offering status (e.g. mayor status, badges), points, or incentives based on the number of visits (e.g. free starter or dessert on your fifth visit).

Local internet marketing is a key part of growing your business and brand, to attract local consumers. It’s no longer just about having a website, it includes being found in multiple places when local consumers are looking for your products or services and cementing long term customer relationships.   Incorporating geolocation into your marketing mix can help you do that more effectively, helping you grow your business profitably.