How to attract business with your website and social media

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

2. 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

3. How to increase the
effectiveness of your website

4. Know your goals.

5. 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

6. Spy on your competitors
Look at other sites in your industry – What do they
include that could help you achieve your goals?

7. 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.

8. Use good design
 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

9. 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

10. 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?

13. Make it easy to navigate

14. Choose your main level
navigation carefully

15. Use consistent sub-navigation

16. 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)

17. 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

18. Provide good content.

19. First name your site audiences
Businesses? Consumers? Customers? Employees?
Investors? Potential Employees? What Industries?

20. What are they looking for?
What content do you need to serve them? Write
down the top messages for each audience.

21. 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

22. 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

24. Make sure your site is
functional and usable
 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

25. Make sure it is well-programmed
and reliably hosted

26. Use a CMS = Easy to maintain

27. Content Management Systems
 Opensource CMS systems (Joomla,
Wordpress, Drupal) – you will need a
programmer
 Hosted CMS systems – you can build
your own

28. Build Your Own Website

29. Industry specific websites

30. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

32. 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)

33. 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

34. Ways to push traffic
to your site
 Social media
 Permission-based email newsletters
 Press releases
 Advertising
 Business cards

35. Run an AdWords Campaign
(pay-per-click)

36. 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

37. 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

38. 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

39. Link/integrate
with
your
social
media
sites

40. Integrate
Facebook
into
your
site

41. Integrate
Facebook
into
your
site

42. Integrate
your
site
into
Facebook

43. Embed
Flickr
galleries
on
your
site

44. Brand
your
Twi>er
Page

45. Brand
your
YouTube
Channel

46. 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

47. Case Study:
Red Sage Christmas Giveaway 2010

48. Facebook Advertising

49. Make sure your site works on
various devices

50. Mobile Friendly Templates

53. Keep your site updated!!!!

54. With
social
media
and
so
many
opDons
now,
do
you
sDll
need
a
website?

55. How to build brand
engagement with social media

56. Know your goals.
(sound familiar?)

57. Sample goals:
 Increase traffic to a store
 Create brand awareness
 Promote a cause or campaign
 Provide customer service
 Generate business leads
 Encourage customer engagement

58. Know who you are
trying to reach
 Age
 Gender
 Geography
 Interests/Hobbies
 Industry
 Business people
 General public

59. Go where your targets are

60. Facebook
 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

61. 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

67. Good post examples:

68. More than words:

69. 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

70. 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

73. Pinterest
 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

74. Pinterest for Business
Best Practices
 Consider this if trying to reach women
 Know your goals
• Showcase products
• Showcase ideas
• Showcase projects

78. Google Plus
 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

79. 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

82. LinkedIn
 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

83. 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

86. Create your own community
through a blog

87. Growing your Audience

88. Follow to be followed:
 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

91. Be your own distributer:
 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

92. Conduct a promotion on
Facebook to gain fans
 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

93. Pay for exposure:
 Google AdWords
 Bing/Yahoo! paid ads
 Facebook ads
 Facebook sponsored posts
 Other online advertising

94. Give it time!
 It can take up to a year of diligent work to
see the results of a good social media
campaign

95. Monitoring your Brand Online

96. 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

97. Respond quickly to any
negative posts
 Do not get into a “he said she said”
argument if the post was negative –
respond professionally and move it offline

98. Don’t say that!:

99. A textbook best practice
response:

100. Find the silver lining:
 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

101. Good to great:
 Got a good comment – don’t forget to
respond to these too!

102. NutshellMail.com
 Offered by Constant Contact
 Monitors:
• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Foursquare
 Reports are emailed to you

104. Twitter.com/Search
 Search for variations
 Find people singing your praises and
follow them
 Search for your competitors
 Search for industry terms

106. www.Google.com/Alerts
 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

108. Google Analytics –
Referral Sites
 If you have Google Analytics or another
visitor tracking service, watch for articles,
forums, and blogs linking to your site

110. Tips, tricks, & timesavers:
How to make it easier to
manage all of this work

111. 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?

112. Take your cue from the
magazines:
 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

113. Share the load:
 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

114. Find the buzz:
 Find your muse through sites like:
• LinkedIn Answers
• Yahoo! Answers
• Twitter Searches
• Industry blogs and news sites
• Competitor sites

115. Borrow from others:
 ReTweet
 Share
 Repin
 Link

116. Carve out time:
 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

117. Schedule ahead:
 Great free (to cheap) tools for this:
• Facebook – allows scheduling now
• CrowdBooster.com – Facebook Page & Twitter
• HootSuite.com – Facebook and Twitter
• TweetDeck – Facebook, Twitter

121. Review and adapt:
 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

122. How to set goals and
measure results

123. Sample Website Goals:
 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

124. Sample Social Media 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

125. Measuring Website Results
with Google Analytics:
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?

127. Google Analytics - Referrers:

128. Google Analytics - Keywords:

129. Google Analytics - Social:

130. 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?

132. 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

134. Thank you!
Ellen Didier
edidier@redsageonline.com
256-560-0098
facebook.com/redsage twitter.com/ellendidier linkedin.com/in/
ellendidier