2011 December | blog.wsiwebbasedmarketing.co.uk

Archive for December, 2011

Are you using Google AdWords? Google requires a privacy policy, here’s a reminder on what to do.

Posted by Alan Tomkins On December - 17 - 2011

A short public information reminder announcement about AdWords

Google AdWords Privacy Policy To inform and protect a user’s information, Google some months ago enforced a new policy to all websites advertising with them. All pages on a website collecting personal and financial information via a form require a privacy policy.

Google provides a guide here, you can even ask for a review of your privacy policy if you’re concerned The policy must include:

What personal information is being collected in the form
How the information will be used by the company
If and how personal information will be transferred to 3rd party companies
Instructions on how users can modify or delete their personal information
How users can opt out of future communications

For those websites without the policy present, Google may flag the campaign, and therefore, prevent the campaign from spending until the policy is added.

If WSI Web Based Marketing is running your AdWords Campaigns we will ensure you comply and if not we’ll review this immediately. If you are running your own campaigns we would recommend you take a few minutes to review this very soon. If you need advice please just ask Alan Tomkins on 0800 9885534 or drop me an email at alan.tomkins@wsiwbm.co.uk

AdWords, Google

My last 6 most useful iPad Business Apps

Posted by Alan Tomkins On December - 7 - 2011

See the first 6 here | See the second 6 here.

SoundNote (paid)

Soundnote is a meeting recorder where you can add notes. When you take notes they are synced to the recording so when you go to a note it takes you to the part of the recording at the time the note was written. Never miss anything ever again but do get peoples permission before doing the recording.

WhatTheFont (free)

WhatTheFont recognises fonts from a photo of the text taken by the camera, brilliant when you’re designing and your client has seen a font they love but has no idea what it is.

CardMunch (free)

CardMunch add contacts to your iPhone or iPad by taking a photo of the persons business card, very cool. I can’t understand why this is free, I’d pay for this as it’s incredibly useful (lets hope they aren’t watching). It can take a little while for your contact to be added but it works perfectly.

Skype (free)

No video yet but great for chat. Does calls on the iPhone so you can save a mint! But not the iPad, yet… I hope video comes soon, Facetime is great but only if you are talking to a fellow iPad/iPhone user so it’s very limited.

Keynote and Present Pad (both paid)

I use Keynote and Present Pad for doing presentations to clients straight from the iPad, required a £24 cable for VGA connection. Clients are always impressed and I also have the Keynote Remote App on my iPhone which works brilliantly. Present Pad allows various ways to run through the presentation so there are times when this works better.

Social Media Apps, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter (free)

A bit boring I know but I can update on the move when I have a moment and it’s great to catchup with friends on my personal account as well as promote my business.

Marketing, Social Media, Stuff

12 Simple Ways to Promote Your Wordress Blog

Posted by Alan Tomkins On December - 2 - 2011

1. Create Great Content

Obvious, yes. Hard, yes. Need inspiration? See my guide to getting inspiration for your blog posts. But really, good content is not enough. Create and publish great content so your blog becomes an authority for your chosen topic. Doing original research is a great place to start. It’s hard but the rewards can be great and your audience will appreciate it.

2. Format your content well

Use H1, H2, H3, quotes, bold, italics and colours for formatting, add graphics and make your post easy to read and attractive to the eye. To see all your formatting options make sure your “kitchen sink” option is selected, it’s the icon to the left of the TV icon. The shortcut is Alt+Shift+Z

3. Social Media

If you’ve not already got a Facebook profile, Twitter profile and a LinkedIn profile setup then do so ASAP. You can then add feeds into all these to automatically add your post (or with Twitter send a tweet to say there’s a new post with a link) to your profiles when you create a new post. This saves time and the requirement to remember to do this for every post. This is then put in front of all your connections.

Also include your social media icons on your WordPress blog.

4. Add The ShareThis Widget

ShareThis is a free, all-in-one widget which can be added to the end of every post, allowing users to share your content across a wide variety of social platforms. Get the ShareThis widet here.

5. Install All-In-One SEO

We install this plug-in on every blog we deliver and it helps the client define the components of the page that deliver strong SEO results such as Title, Description, Keywords and more.

6. Keyword optimisation

This is just as important for a blog as it is for your web site. Remember each post is a web page so make sure your keyword research is done before posting and that your post is optimised for those keywords. Not sure how? Just go to Google’s Keyword Tool and it’s easier than you think.

7. Guest Blogging

Create an original and completely unique blog post and do a search for “Write a blog post for us” and you’ll find a lot of free and paid opportunities to get your work published with backlinks. Make sure your post is as good as possible as thi swill reflect on your reputation.

8. Get your personal details on the site

We like to see who we are following so make sure a photo is included and it appears on your posts and make this clickable back to your WordPress bio if possible. Create your Bio at USERS > EDIT. Keep the bio brief. I have a link to my LinkedIn profile in case user want to connect worth me and see more about me.

9. Put your blog URL in your email signature.

This might seem obvious but it’s something far too few people do. Here’s my email signature IMAGE HERE. Are there really that many social media platforms! Is social media getting unmanageable? That’s for another post. Encourage people to follow your blog by telling them how. Many people just don’t know. I did an excellent blog post about how to follow a blog, read it here.

11. Submit your address to blog search sites and directories

People look for blog content on sites like Technorati every day, are you on their list? You should be. Technorati will email you a token like this one YFTGFJDAXPF7 that you need to add to a feed to get authorised.

12. Be an active commenter, get involved

BLOG COMMENTING – Try and add comments to blogs in your field, make the interesting and if possible incisive and include a link back to your blog or web site. When people read this they will be inclined to have a look if the think your comment is interesting. Being hte first to comment is best but make hte comment incisive and / or interesting, not just “great post”. Also use Gravatar (http://www.gravatar.com/ ) to create an image associated with your email address. An image offers more credibility and it’s good for people to see who they are talking to.

FORUMS – Find forums in your businesses area and become a member, they are almost always free. When you become a member setup a good signature explaining what you do and how to get in touch. Never spam, always add value.

Blogs, Marketing

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