Online  Visibility  How  to  a'ract  business  with  your  website  and  social  media  

What We’ll Cover Today:

 How to increase the effectiveness of your website

 How to build brand engagement with Social Media

 How to set goals and measure results

How to increase the effectiveness of your website

Know your goals.

Sample goals:   Universal goal:

“I want a site that looks professional, loads fast, and tells our story.”

  Show up in search engines so more people visit my website and more prospects call me

  More interaction with customers (project tracking, etc.)   Sell more products online   Provide resources for employees   Shows off our portfolio and helps me close more sales

Spy on your competitors Look at other sites in your industry – What do they

include that could help you achieve your goals?

Think about your brand   What is your value statement?   Why should potential customers buy from

you?   What makes your company different?   S.W.O.T. Analysis: Strengths, Weaknesses,

Opportunities, Threats   Your site has to convey your brand in all

areas: look, content, tools, etc.

  Conveys your brand in colors and style (Modern? Friendly? High tech? Personal?)

  Clean and simple

  Keep navigation consistent

  Make contact information obvious, on every page

Use good design

Use Good Quality Photography

  istockphoto.com

  Hire a professional

  If you are taking the photos yourself:   Good lighting   Consistent backgrounds for products   Watch the shadows – be thoughtful

Plan your home page

  Logo, contact info, a brief intro to your company, navigation bar

  Identify a few top places in your site you want visitors to see

  What else needs to be on your home page? News? A log in screen? Twitter feed?

Make it easy to navigate

Choose your main level navigation carefully

Use consistent sub-navigation

Develop your site map by organizing other pages under these main areas

  Home   About Us

•  History •  Staff

  Services •  Web Design

•  Portfolio

This determines page count (and usually cost)

Make a list of any applications you want and add them to your site map

  Photo gallery   Calendar   Password protected log in   Facebook or twitter feed   Videos   Blog

Provide good content.

First name your site audiences Businesses? Consumers? Customers? Employees?

Investors? Potential Employees? What Industries?

What are they looking for? What content do you need to serve them? Write

down the top messages for each audience.

Next, if Search Engine Optimization is important –

choose your top ten:   Choose ten top key phrases   Be REALISTIC – not just “engineer” but rather

“huntsville engineer”

  List variations of these too such as engineer in huntsville, huntsville engineering company, engineering company huntsville

Write your content   Use your top ten SEO key phrase list and

make sure you use these statements on almost every page within your content, several times if possible, but don’t overdo it

  Keep it simple - short text sections broken up by sub headers - bullet lists are great

  Make sure all of your key messages are told

  Big part of this is navigation structure   Watch file sizes   No splash screens   Add applications that encourage

interaction   Direct visitors to top content or contact info

Make sure your site is functional and usable

Make sure it is well-programmed and reliably hosted

Use a CMS = Easy to maintain

Content Management Systems

  Opensource CMS systems (Joomla, Wordpress, Drupal) – you will need a programmer

  Hosted CMS systems – you can build your own

Build Your Own Website

Industry specific websites

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Put search words and phrases in your content

  Make a list of 10-20 search phrases

  Use these (and variations) throughout site, combine with location

  Put in page headers and image ALT tags (don’t go overboard)

Other things you can do:   Get as many reputable sites as

possible to link to your site   Association listings   Facebook, Twitter, etc.

  Use bullet lists <ul><li>   Use <H1> title tags

Ways to push traffic to your site

  Social media   Permission-based email newsletters   Press releases   Advertising   Business cards

Run an AdWords Campaign (pay-per-click)

Run an AdWords Campaign (pay-per-click)

  You can set your own budget   You can determine how long and how often

you run your campaign   Ability to target specific customers through

location and keywords   Often has a positive impact on organic

Google search results

Pay per Click (AdWords)   Trackable results, ability to modify the

campaign at any time – integrates with Google Analytics

  Needs to be actively monitored by tracking results and adjusting campaign

  Create landing pages to increase conversion rates and (sometimes) lower cost of campaign

Blogging is great for SEO   Short articles – very personal,

conversational – your thoughts on your business, your industry, your life

  Cross link with all other social media and feed into your website

  According to emarketer, 53.5% of internet users read blogs

Link/integrate  with    your  social  media  sites  

Integrate  Facebook  into  your  site  

Integrate  Facebook  into  your  site  

Integrate  your  site  into  Facebook  

Embed  Flickr  galleries  on  your  site  

Brand  your  Twi>er  Page  

Brand  your  YouTube  Channel  

Cross Link Everything!!

  Facebook feed and/or “like” button integrations on your website

  Facebook posts links about news on the website

  Youtube channel has a video that promotes the company – and website

  Flickr feeds photo galleries on site

Case Study: Red Sage Christmas Giveaway 2010

Facebook Advertising

Make sure your site works on various devices

Mobile Friendly Templates

Keep your site updated!!!!

With  social  media  and    so  many  opDons  now,    

do  you  sDll  need  a  website?  

How to build brand engagement with social media

Know your goals. (sound familiar?)

  Increase traffic to a store   Create brand awareness   Promote a cause or campaign   Provide customer service   Generate business leads   Encourage customer engagement

Sample goals:

  Age   Gender   Geography   Interests/Hobbies   Industry   Business people   General public

Know who you are trying to reach

Go where your targets are

  Largest social media networking site right now

  Primarily business to consumer   86% - 25 years and up   68% - 35 years and up   46% - 45 years and up

Facebook

Facebook for Business Best Practices

•  Post 4 – 7 times per week •  Know your goals

•  Advertise specials •  Share new products •  Build a friendly, personal brand feel •  Share news

•  Convey your brand

Good post examples:

More than words:

Twitter

  Growing social media networking site   Primarily business to consumer   81% - 25 years and up   58% - 35 years and up   33% - 45 years and up

Twitter for Business Best Practices

  Post several times per day   Know your goals

•  Connect with others with similar interests •  Follow topics and contribute thoughts •  Share education, quotable quotes •  Share news, blog postings, etc. •  Keep top of mind awareness •  Grow your network with others

  Great for referring links   Primarily business to consumer   Mostly females with interests in fashion,

cooking, and DIY   90% - 25 years and up   64% - 35 years and up   35% - 45 years and up

Pinterest

Pinterest for Business Best Practices

  Consider this if trying to reach women   Know your goals

•  Showcase products •  Showcase ideas •  Showcase projects

  Newer social media networking site   Primarily business to consumer   Much younger, male audience   A lot of techies   50% - 25 years and up   22% - 35 years and up   11% - 45 years and up

Google Plus

Google+ for Business Best Practices

•  Post 4 – 7 times per week, like Facebook •  Know your goals

•  Advertise specials •  Share new products •  Build a friendly, personal brand feel •  Share news

•  Convey your brand

  Great networking tool   Primarily business to business   64% users use it for business growth   96% - 25 years and up   81% - 35 years and up   49% - 45 years and up

LinkedIn

LinkedIn for Business Best Practices

  Use daily or several times per week   Know your goals

•  Recruit employees •  Target prospects and find common contacts •  Portray and active, professional personal

image •  Request testimonials

Create your own community through a blog

Growing your Audience

  Follow industry leaders on social media and on their blogs

  Promote those already championing for you

  Be an active follower by retweeting, sharing, and commenting

  Actively participate in LinkedIn Groups   Continuously find and add LinkedIn

connections

Follow to be followed:

  Use press release distribution services like PRWeb.com or PR.com

  Share your own web and blog content through your social media networks

  Encourage people to connect with you by adding icons to your website and online/print communications

Be your own distributer:

  Be sure you know (and follow Facebook rules)

  Host a contest using a 3rd party app (North Social, Wildfire are good options)

  Offer a social media follower only promotion

Conduct a promotion on Facebook to gain fans

  Google AdWords

  Bing/Yahoo! paid ads

  Facebook ads

  Facebook sponsored posts

  Other online advertising

Pay for exposure:

Give it time!

  It can take up to a year of diligent work to see the results of a good social media campaign

Monitoring your Brand Online

Know what is being said   Whether you use social media or not,

people may still be talking about you on it

  What is being said may change your business model

  Monitor all social media platforms for comments about you or your company and respond quickly if the site will allow you to do so

  Do not get into a “he said she said” argument if the post was negative – respond professionally and move it offline

Respond quickly to any negative posts

Don’t say that!:

A textbook best practice response:

  If at all possible, respond to negative posts rather than delete them

  Turn a negative into a positive by offering stellar customer service to right the wrong (where possible)

  Make changes in response to common complaints

Find the silver lining:

  Got a good comment – don’t forget to respond to these too!

Good to great:

  Offered by Constant Contact   Monitors:

•  Facebook •  Twitter •  LinkedIn •  Foursquare

  Reports are emailed to you

NutshellMail.com

  Search for variations

  Find people singing your praises and follow them

  Search for your competitors

  Search for industry terms

Twitter.com/Search

  Set up alerts for your company name, products, and other identifying keywords

  Set up alerts associated with your competitors

  Set up alerts for terms associated with your industry

www.Google.com/Alerts

  If you have Google Analytics or another visitor tracking service, watch for articles, forums, and blogs linking to your site

Google Analytics – Referral Sites

Tips, tricks, & timesavers:

How to make it easier to manage all of this work

Choosing How to Participate

  What do you have time to be consistent with? (Don’t start a blog if you aren’t committed to keeping it going)

  Where is your audience?

  Decide what topics you’ll cover

  Use an editorial calendar to keep things organized

  Be prepared to change, add, or completely deviate from the plan to respond to current events

Take your cue from the magazines:

  Encourage ideas from employees or members of your organization

  Give others a chance to create blogs, posts, videos, photos, and more

  Share the floor with other industry experts and guests

Share the load:

  Find your muse through sites like: •  LinkedIn Answers

•  Yahoo! Answers

•  Twitter Searches

•  Industry blogs and news sites

•  Competitor sites

Find the buzz:

  ReTweet   Share   Repin   Link

Borrow from others:

  Devote a realistic amount of time for social media each week – half hour a day? One hour a week?

  Make it a priority and be committed to it   Scale back and focus on one thing if time

is an issue   Don’t forget to take the time to plan in

advance

Carve out time:

  Great free (to cheap) tools for this: •  Facebook – allows scheduling now

•  CrowdBooster.com – Facebook Page & Twitter

•  HootSuite.com – Facebook and Twitter

•  TweetDeck – Facebook, Twitter

Schedule ahead:

  Track changes in web visitor statistics (Google Analytics is great for this)

  Track which posts, tweets, etc. get the most shares and comments

  Track which blog posts and authors get the most readers, shares, and comments

  Check your goals and modify your actions as needed

Review and adapt:

How to set goals and measure results

  Increase # of visitors each month at least by 5%

  Maintain 55% of traffic coming from search engines

  First page rank for “Huntsville Web Design”

  10% of site visitors convert into leads each month

Sample Website Goals:

  Increase the number of people who actively engage with a like or a share or a mention by 5 each month

  Get three-four responses on average for all posts within one month

  Gain 10 new followers/fans each month

Sample Social Media Goals:

Answers questions such as:   How much traffic is coming to the site?   How did visitors get to the site?   What keywords are working best?   What content is working best?   How did social users engage with the site?

Measuring Website Results with Google Analytics:

Google Analytics - Referrers:

Google Analytics - Keywords:

Google Analytics - Social:

Facebook Insights   Answers questions such as:

•  How did people respond to my posts?

•  How far is my reach?

•  How much has my following grown?

•  Which types of posts are the most shared and commented on?

Measure your personal online influence with Klout.com

•  Measures engagement with your personal social media accounts

•  Measures reach by the number of people who share your posts and how many followers they expose you to

•  Requires very consistent effort and very high quality posts to score high

•  Great way to look at who is most influential online and how they are using social media

Thank you! Ellen Didier

edidier@redsageonline.com 256-560-0098

twitter.com/ellendidier facebook.com/redsage linkedin.com/in/ellendidier