16
InTouch Why?guides Make your web work
| Date post: | 10-Mar-2016 |
| Category: |
Documents |
| Upload: | intouch-marketing |
| View: | 214 times |
| Download: | 0 times |
www.intouchmarketing.co.uk
InTouch Why?guides
Make your web work
InTouch Make your web workInTouch Make your web work
BLOGcontent
REACHsocial
B2B
B2C
links
SEOinbound
interaction
vision
infl uence
WANT
www.intouchmarketing.co.uk
It’s no longer enough to simply have an online presence; it needs to be seen as your most effective lead generation tool.
InTouch Make your web workInTouch Make your web work
What’s wrong with our website?
No one likes me!
www.intouchmarketing.co.uk
Then
Once there were spoken stories. Then there were books and magazines. Then recordings and radio. Then cinema and TV.
Now there’s all of the above plus the internet. But in communication terms the internet is the biggest thing that’s ever happened. Ever, ever, ever. Ever.
Instinctively, when it first came along, we all thought it would help us to raise our profile and sell our wares.
So we put up our logo and our brochure and showed our friends and waited for a response (partly because everyone else was doing the same thing). And waited.
And waited.
Now
With the explosion of online media and accessibility your website needs to be optimised to work for the new world of proactive customers. It needs to be so much more than just an online presence: it needs to perform as an inbound lead generation tool.
First it needs to be found. Once found it needs to interest and engage. Lastly it needs to help convert interest into a sale.
To get to this point, there are several key issues that you need to consider.
This is not intended as a comprehensive ‘how to’ guide, this is a why?guide that attempts to help you quickly understand what these key factors are and why they are important to the performance of your website.
InTouch Make your web work
Where are you?
Giving your website the best chance of being found is the numero uno big priority.
SEO
Search Engine Optimisation is critical to being found online.
Search engines rank your website by looking at a range of criteria such as content, the age of that content, meta tags (titles, descriptions and page structure), reputation, and crucially the number and relevancy of inbound links.
We can split SEO into on-page and off-page elements.
www.intouchmarketing.co.uk
On-page
All the elements to build into your website.
1. Content is king!Search engines love good quality content.
> Research your keywords and phrases– make sure the words you use are the words people are searching for
> Engage with your customers – don’t write for SEO, write for relevancy, be yourself
> Refresh content regularly – visitors are more likely to return if they see something different on each visit
2. HTML How the pages are designed and structured is also vital for good SEO. Consider…
> Titles of pages
> Meta tag descriptions
> Relevancy of page headers
3. Architecture There are tools you can use to ensure that your code is well suited to search engines. Ensure your site…
> is crawl friendly
> loads quickly
> has short and relevant URLs
Off-page
All the external things that can infl uence your website’s credibility.
1. Inbound links are vitalEvery good quality inbound link to your website improves your search engine ranking.
2. Social mediaEngage to increase credibility and popularity of your website. > Reputation – who is sharing
with you? The higher their ranking, the better for you. Are you sharing your own content with others?
3. Trust > Authority – are the inbound
links genuine and credible?
> History – has your site been around for a long time?
4. Personal touchesClaiming your ‘personal space’ will also improve your ranking. What country are you in, what town, even how many ‘likes’ you have had through social media links.
InTouch Make your web work
Likeability
Getting the design right will reduce your ‘bounce’ rate.
For the majority of potential new customers your website will be their first interaction with your brand. If they don’t get the key messages quickly then they probably won’t get them at all and will ‘bounce’ off, maybe never to return!
Design
The visual design therefore is pretty important. Like any piece of communication first impressions count. Does your website…
> Reflect the values of your brand?
> Look credible and professional?
> Welcome and engage with its intended audience?
> Encourage interaction and feedback ?
www.intouchmarketing.co.uk
Aesthetic design is of course very subjective, but there are common-sense rules and in some cases standards that help make a website more attractive and usable.
Of course we would recommend the services of a good creative agency! A good designer will have the skills and experience to balance all the elements of colour, image and typography and crucially, optimise the layout for ease of use.
Functionality
Another vital element if you want your potential new customers to stick around.
Without clear navigation your painstakingly crafted content will never be read.
Most people want to fi nd the information they need in seconds with as few clicks as possible, so a well-structured, shallow website is easier to wade in and out of.
Keep it simple.
Bells and whistles
Flash animation can be stunning. Some of our favourite websites are really beautiful works of art. Fine if you want to produce art, no good if you want to be found. The world has moved on.
Accessibility is the new kid in town and HTML5 is his buddy.
The explosion of devices for accessing the internet has given web designers new considerations and challenges. If you must have animation, Flash isn’t supported by many front line devices whereas HTML5 is.
You want your content to be read and understood and accessibility to it to be fast. Keep it simple. Always worth repeating.
A word on content management
Content management allows you to refresh your content regularly. This is perfect for SEO, but make sure it is not to the detriment of the design and attractiveness of your site.
Some basic training and advice can help avoid the limitations of content management.
A word on content management
Content management allows you to refresh your content regularly. This is perfect for SEO, but make sure it is not to the detriment of the design and attractiveness of your site.
Some basic training and advice can help avoid the limitations of content management.
InTouch Make your web work
One of the problems with trying to ‘market’ your products these days is that no one wants to be ‘marketed’ to.
The old model of pushing yourself forward, or interruptive marketing, is being replaced by a kind of ‘self-service’ approach. People, it seems, are happier to go out and seek help independently when the need arises.
And social media means that there’s plenty of help to be had. So, better your help and advice than someone else’s?
Interacting
The customer has more power today than at any time in the history of marketing.
Tell me more…
www.intouchmarketing.co.uk
Becoming a listening brand
Customers choose to engage through social media channels more readily than through other media, allowing businesses and brands to gain insight into what customers are thinking, saying and doing. By listening and then acting they can infl uence desire for products and services.
Gaining infl uence online
Because there is so much information to hand, buyers welcome education over more obvious selling techniques because they feel more in control. It was their decision.
Providing useful, helpful, real advice builds your credibility and puts your brand front of mind when a need arises. Integrating and linking all of your messages and media will improve your website’s visibility too.
Again, original, relevant content is king here. Blogs, white papers, discussion groups, can all be promoted, linked and shared. The key is collaboration. Nothing will work in isolation, you need to be proactive.
Join groups, blog on industry relevant websites; all will help drive traffi c back to your website.
You don’t have to be Shakespeare. You can instigate a discussion with one simple sentence around a product or service.
Social media
Some sort of social media strategy is no longer a nice to have it’s a must-have if you want to give your website the best chance of developing a good reputation.
Like all communication the best results will come from planning. Knowing what you want to achieve and how you’re going to get there gives you the best chance of succeeding.
A route map which sits alongside your other marketing strategies is essential allowing you to integrate your messages. We approach social media marketing the same way we would approach any communications brief. We start with the audience, develop the right message, then build the best creative solution around it.
Read the InTouch Why?guide to social media
Social media
Some sort of social media strategy is no longer a nice to have it’s a must-have if you want to give your website the best chance of developing a good reputation.
Like all communication the best results will come from planning. Knowing what you want to achieve and how you’re going to get there gives you the best chance of succeeding.
A route map which sits alongside your other marketing strategies is essential allowing you to integrate your messages.
We approach social media marketing the same way we would approach any communications brief. We start with the audience, develop the right message, then build the best creative solution around it.
Read the InTouch Why?guide to social media
InTouch Make your web work
Conversion
With all that good approach work, make sure you can keep the dialogue going.
CTA
This one is obvious but we’re going to say it anyway.
Make sure your website has a clear call to action.
Assuming that you have done all the previous things to get your website fi t and ready to take on the world, without a clear mechanism for customer feedback or data collection the opportunity for following up interest and keeping prospective customers ‘warm’ might be missed. Which would be a pity.
www.intouchmarketing.co.uk
Of course, your brand’s products or services won’t be relevant for everyone, and the call to action needs to be appropriate to whatever you are selling.
For some businesses the fi nal conversion of visitors will occur naturally within the website itself, whereas others will require further action. So, if you are retailing clothes, for example, the obvious desired outcome is to sell something there and then. The next level would be to gather some information on the customer if they weren’t buying immediately so that you can start to nurture a relationship.
At the very least, the visitor should be encouraged to stay in your world by providing links to social media channels.
For a purely service based business, where a sale is likely to follow a longer process, beginning a ‘courtship’ is even more important.
Offering a listening ear with help and advice is a good approach, with an email newsletter sign up or giveaways which require the user to register some basic information. Again, keep it simple.
InTouch Make your web work
We are InTouch Marketing.
We take your marketing communications challenges and turn them into effective customer-driven solutions.
We help you build the right integrated strategy, fi nd the right customers and deliver superb creative.
We make it easy for you.
As we’ve already said, the aim is to turn your website into an effective channel for delivering leads that can be turned into long-term, loyal customers and even brand advocates.
Making it attractive, credible, helpful and optimised for the search engine gods will go a long way to making your website a vital business generating tool.
www.intouchmarketing.co.uk© InTouch Marketing 2012.
AdvertisingBrandCreativeDatabaseDesignDirect marketingE-marketingPRResearchSales incentiveSales lead generationSocial mediaStrategyWeb
INTEGRATEDSERVICES
AdvertisingBrandCreativeDatabaseDesignDirect marketingE-marketingE-marketing INTEGRATED
Call +44 (0)1295 261161Mail [email protected] www.intouchmarketing.co.uk
