All of us work in our businesses and we very rarely have the time or inclination to take a look at how our business is presented to our clients. Occasionally clients give us feedback but generally people don’t want to be critical and don’t report issues that are affecting your bottom line.

So how can you find out what people think?  It’s really easy, just ask friends, family, or well known clients to have a look at your site and rate it honestly. Providing this will just take a few minutes them most people will be happy to do this for you.

To make this easier I’ve attached a very simple 6 question list of thoughts and actions you might want to ask people to do. In item 5 I have suggested a question about finding something on your site or placing an order so you need to think of something to add for the user to do.  Item 6 is only relevant if you have premises where you host customers.

There are hundreds of questions you could ask but keep it simple!  This is a great exercise and don’t take anything personally, we all look at the world through our own eyes and it’s refreshing to get a new perspective occasionally.

Part of my initial engagement with a new client it looking at their current web site. I take a very detailed look at usability, technology, and convertibility, however this simple questionnaire will give you a view on your current situation.

I have created it in Word so you can modify it for your own business.  I hope you find it useful.

Alan

Can SEO Work for Your Niche Business?

Ironically SEO (I prefer Web Presence Optimisation or WPO) often works best for very niche business that think it can’t work for them.

WHY? Because the more accurately you can define your audience, the more easily you can target them.  Simple really.

Here’s a Perfect Example

I’m an engineer by trade and I love helping the manufacturing and engineering sectors, especially as they in in difficult times at the moment.

These businesses are niche areas that you wouldn’t necessarily go into your pigeon-hole labeled “exciting businesses”. But let’s consider what these companies do.

They build machinery and components that can be used for a variety of industries, from the military to the medical profession to science laboratories. If you can’t find something interesting to write content for in that industry, you really are going to struggle!

You just have to ask what “are the key objects of the business” and “who they are trying to reach”. Once we understand this two things there are huge opportunities for some great content. Using the right keywords in your content and making the content of interest to your target audience will get you great rankings in the search engines. Your goal should be to become THE authority in your profession.

It CAN Work For Any Niche

No matter how small a niche your business falls into, there will be an audience for it, we just have to find it! There’s no such thing as a boring niche, so as long as you can find an angle to tell an interesting story about your business or niche, then WPO (sorry to all you SEO fans) can work for it.

Great content sells. Think about how you use the internet for research and selecting a product. Just define your USP (Unique Selling Point), create great content, and put your best foot forward. Give people the information and comfort they need to make a decision and you’ll win their trust. There’s no trickery here just an honest consultative approach. If you can use images and video then even better. The people who visit your site want to be engaged by what you have to offer the moment they click through to you via the search engines. Don’t let them down.

WPO (sorry SEO) can work for any business.  Here’s a bit of background on the last very chaotic 18 months in Google’s world

Search Engine Optimisation has changed a lot over the past 18 months, with so much more emphasis being placed on the quality of content, how your website looks and the quality of the link portfolio that your site is obtaining. Two updates, bizarrely named after cute animals, Panda and Penguin, were released into the wild by Google in 2011/2012, and they soon became gremlins, demolishing poor quality sites in their wake.

Suddenly, SEO had a dirty reputation. But here’s the great thing about this, the updates only hurt the people who were using dodgy methods to try and trick Google. The good guys are winning so watch this space for Google’s next furry animal update.

Always remember Quality not Quantity!

Now my spelling is at best average but what’s even worse is my typing.  Most mistakes I make are due to keyboard errors, and if we’re publishing directly onto the internet through our content management system, blogging or social media, we often don’t take the time to spell check. Get a free spell check for your site now.

I have a lovely client down in Kent that pointed out a howler on one of my blogs last year.  I’d actually said in my text that “spelling mistakes are unforgivable” and yes you guessed it, there were 2 in the article.  I created that post on the move on my iPad and this really brought home the importance of double-checking this seemingly simple process.

When I saw an article about this on the BBC web site last year I was intrigued. There seems to be a correlation between spelling and conversion.  This should come as no surprise as bogus web site and phishing attacks are often only obvious by their poor grammar and spelling, so it’s natural we would be suspicious. I’m bringing it up now as I’ve just had a situation with a new client where there were 20 spelling mistakes on a 10 page web site which we’ve now rectified.

What can you do to ensure there are no spelling mistakes on your site?

Get in touch with me and I’ll run a free spell check on your web site for up to 250 pages.  This will save you hours of time and it’s a genuine offer as no site should have spelling errors.

HOW DO YOU DO THIS?

Just send me (alan.tomkins@wsiwbm.co.uk)  your email address and the URL of your web site.  I won’t bother you or try to sell to you anything, I’ll just run the report and fire the report back to you.  It might take a day or so but it will be done.

See the BBC article here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-14130854?goback=%2Egde_2419236_member_131404071

It’s fairly rare for me to see a video I think is worthy of sharing, but last week I saw exactly that.  It’s actually 18 months old but it’s beautifully done and very interesting.

Where Good Ideas Come From by Stephen Johnson, enjoy!

Those of you out there with an interest in keeping your site performing well on Google will probably have seen the announcement of the new update called Penguin on the 24th April.

Penguin is really a fine tune of the previous major update called Panda, seems more like Edinburgh Zoo every minute.

Panda was created to stop content farms and duplicate content getting good search engine rankings and to allow the original creators of the content to get the benefit of their work. That’s just the gist but basically Google is trying to reward those of us creating good quality content by giving us good rankings.

As those of you that have spoken to me will know content and keywords and my “banging my drum” subjects.  Google’s role in life is to deliver us as users the results that are most relevant to our search, and it can only do that if we are creating good quality content based on keyword phrases that are being search for.

If your site has seen a drop in its ranking over the last 3 weeks you might want to review the pages that have dropped based on the information below.

SUMMARY

It’s hard to know exactly what Google have changed but here’s what our research has shown are the issues Google are penalising:

• Internal links. If you are using internal links on your site (we all are and should be) based on keywords then you should consider adding more variety to the keywords you are using as the anchor text.
• Internal links. Keep keyword linking down to around 60% of your overall links.  Use words like “Click here” or the URL for the other 40%.
• Social relevance now has a higher importance to Google. If you are in a business that benefits from social media now is the time to take this more seriously.
• Web sites that are over optimised will be penalised.  This means if you have done any of the following:
  • Stuffing keywords in your titles
  • Overusing keywords in your headings
  • Overusing keywords in your content
  • Content that is designed for Google and not people
  • Hiding keywords in text that can’t be seen
  • Using ALT tags that are keyword stuffed
  • Inbound links from poor quality sources like link farms will have a detrimental effect on your ranking. Google has removed many of these link farms used by cheap generic link building services from its index.

ACTIONS FOR YOU

1)      Review your web site for the points above and rectify them immediately.

2)      Start to create new content for our site.  This can be new pages or blog posts.

3)      Consider Article Marketing to develop good quality inbound links.

Need help?  Just give me a call on 07860 659076 or email me at alan.tomkins@wsiwbm.co.uk

Your content, whether it’s text, video or audio, is the foundation of any web property. After years of creating websites and building traffic to them, I’ve seen the difference great quality content makes over superficial, keyword-stuffed fluff. It’s the difference between one-time visitors who may click a few ads and a loyal fan club of readers who buy or engage again and again. Following a few simple guidelines can help make sure the content you put on your website, blog or other web property is top notch.

Here are my 4 top tips to create compelling content.

Provide a Benefit

Your readers come to your site because they get some valuable benefit every time they visit. If they don’t, they’ll stop coming. I’ve found publishing practical information in the form of how-tos and tutorials is one of the easiest ways to benefit readers, but there are other ways. You could provide up-to-date news and information that helps your readers keep up on the latest developments in your niche. Content that entertains or inspires also gives your readers a reason to keep coming back.

Do Your Research

Filling your web properties with solidly researched, reliable information establishes you as an authority and builds trust in your visitors. If you expect your visitors to hand over their hard-earned cash for your services or products, this is vital. If you buy content, it’s well worth investing in content from a company you can trust to do in-depth research for every piece of content you order.

When you create your own content, instead of rummaging around Google for ideas, try conducting your own research so you’ll have something fresh and unique to offer your visitors. This could be anything ranging from a long-term case study to a quick experiment to test out a theory you have. Truly unique content like this wins repeat visitors and attracts links naturally, giving you an improved Google ranking.

Create User-Friendly Content

Writing that engages your readers is the first key to user-friendly content. It needs to be well written, but you’ll also want to use a tone that matches the image you want to present. Few people are willing to slog through pages of complex sentences and obscure technical terms. Writing in a conversation tone not only makes your writing more enjoyable to read, but it also lets your true voice and personality shine through. When your readers feel like they can almost hear you talking to them, they’ll be a lot more likely to trust you and want to interact with you. In fact, I’ve noticed my more casual blog posts get more comments than my longer, more techincal posts.

Conversational doesn’t mean sloppy, though. You’ll still need to make sure your main ideas are clearly presented, easy to understand and flow logically. If your readers have to struggle to get your point, chances are they won’t bother. Flow is especially important with any content you expect to convert into sign-ups or sales. This is where truly high quality content wins hands down over keyword articles. It’s nearly impossible to tell a compelling, sales-pulling story when you’re worried about fitting in a certain number of keywords.

Good formatting is another essential part of creating user-friendly content. Readers aren’t going to stick around a site that gives them a headache. To make your content easier on the eye, use paragraphs of no more than three or four lines and keep your main column widths between 40 to 75 characters wide. Go for traditional, easy-to-read fonts like Verdana, Ariel, and Georgia in a medium text size.

Make it Worth Sharing

These days a strong social media presence is vital for gaining new readers. Social sites Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Pinterest people have gotten accustomed to sharing whatever interesting finds they come across with dozens if not hundreds of people at a time.

It’s pretty obvious no one’s going to share a keyword-stuffed pile of word salad, but mediocre content won’t fare much better. To really benefit from social media, you must provide content that’s unique, highly useful or in some other way remarkable. Your content has to stand out from the dozens of other webpages your readers scan during their day. Before you publish, think about whether or not what you’re offering is something you yourself would take the time share.

Keywords and other on-page SEO factors will always be important. After all, text is the only way the search engines know what a webpage is about. Ultimately, though, keywords take a back seat to great quality content that attracts links, gets shared, builds trust and wins sales. Stock your web properties with unique, quality content and you won’t have to struggle for an improved Google ranking or repeat visitors.

What Next?

Great content takes time and effort to create. If you don’t have time to create your own then we can help.  We have a team of copywriters waiting to research and deliver your content. We will ensure you’re  happy with any copy before it’s published and we will always adhere to the principles above. Please get in touch if we can help.

Firstly a very Happy New Year to you. I feel 2012 will be far better than 2011 no matter what the negative attitude of our press and politicians may be.

In the good times the best people in their industries are always busy. They generally get new business only by recommendation and unless you can connect with them through this route it’s very hard to become one of their clients. The benefit of dealing with a great business partner is huge, but you don’t realise this until you find the real deal.

In difficult times even the best companies often have some spare capacity so it’s an ideal time to approach people you would really like on your side.

The problem many of us have is that once we’ve committed to a supplier we often never have the means to make a comparative performance evaluation to check we’ve made the best decision for our business.

Most of us stay with the same business partners or suppliers because we feel we’re getting a good service, the price is fair, and our relationship is strong. Some stay because it’s just too hard to look for another partner and the one they have is OK.

What if we could run a detailed competitive analysis on the results of our partners work against our top 5 competitors? We could then evaluate their performance and ensure we are getting the best advice and work possible.

In most industries this is very hard to do but NOT in Internet Marketing. Online we can measure success and a competitive analysis of you against your top 5 most irritating competitors can include:

• Web site performance: Accessibility, Marketing, Content, Technology.
• Search: PPC campaign data, The keywords your competitors are using, Pages indexed on their site, Inbound links, Scores for PPC, Top 20 performing pages, Content quality and Links.
• Social score: Blog posts, Twitter followers, Facebook likes, LinkedIn connections, YouTube subscribers and views.
• Ranking scores: for Search, Social impact, and Content

This is a lot of data but when presented in graphs and charts as an executive overview it offers incredible insights and the ability to see you and your competitor’s strengths and weaknesses.

You can drill down into the data to understand fully the underlying reasons for the observations and start to use this to attack your competitors where their weaknesses have been exposed.

What if all this was available now for far less money than you are probably thinking. Take a deeper look and a comprehensive competitor analysis.  At worst it shows your internet marketing partners you’re keeping an eye on them, but it may expose the fact you’re not dealing with the best business partner possible.

One of the biggest hurdles that my customers or anyone creating new site content face, is getting the job done.  It’s a daunting task with areas like readability, SEO friendliness, attractive layout, interesting and informative content, all being very important.

Here’s my simple step by step advice for anyone struggling in this area.

Keep it short

You know you never read all a web page if any of it. You want what you want as quickly as possible so…

• Get to the point, fast.
• Don’t use a sentence when a few words will do.
• Keep you words simple and easy to read unless you’re in a niche area that requires greater depth.
• Avoid long sentences and paragraphs.
• Use numbers not words e.g. 5000 not five thousand, it’s easier to skim.
• Consider using a readability tool to check your page.  Try the readability Test Tool here.
• Make sure there are NO spelling mistakes, it’s unforgivable.

Split up your page logically

• Use headings (h1, h2, h3, h4) to split up your paragraphs, it helps SEO and skim reading, a win win.
• Try and think in blocks on the page as you are writing and use heading to define blocks.
• Keep headings simple.

Help your readers scan the page, they are going to anyway

• When people scan a page they read the headings, bold text, numbers, and a few words at the beginning of a line.  Make all these count.
• Put the important stuff at the top.
• Use text formatting to highlight points that are important.
• Remember not everyone has great eyesight so don’t fix the size of your text, use a % value so it can be zoomed more easily.
• Use white space, specifically around images and text blocks like “quotes”. It makes the page feel more open and easier to read.
• You are an expert in the subject matter, remember most of the users aren’t, so keep it high level.
• If you want to get into more detail create a separate page for more educated users. Also great for SEO!

Linking your content

You might have other pages that drill down on a subject in more detail so you’ll want to link to these from your page text.

• Don’t use “click here” as your link text.  Use the text itself and make sure your site design makes it clear this is a link, by using colour or underlining. Some designers hate this but from a usability point of view an underline means a link.
• Use the “title” field for the link reference so when it’s hovered over a “tooltip” appears with your chosen information. Also good for SEO.
• Where possible avoid opening a link in a new window.  They can always use the back button and your site navigation should be good enough to allow them to find their way back.

Using images

• Unless the image is relevant to the content don’t use it. It’s been proven that we just ignore stock images and they are taking up valuable space.
• An image does tell a thousand words to make it relevant.
• Use actual images of your company and products if you can. If your staff are happy to be featured (always ask first) then it’s a great way to personalise the site and make a better connection with the user. We all like to see who we are talking to.
• Use diagrams to depict your point if possible. You’ve probably got a few in PowerPoint presentations kicking around already.  If your stuck try using Microsoft Smart Shapes in Office, they make even the most boring data look much more interesting.
• Always put an ALT tag on the image so if images are turned off in the users browser they can see what it is. For example a chart of sales growth in a niche market should be labelled as exactly that. If they are then interested they can download images.

Keywords and phrases

This isn’t really a content point but needs to be mentioned.

• research your keywords and phrases BEFORE creating your content.
• Try to keep the number of keywords to 5.
• Make sure they are in your page content and especially your page title and headings. Give them a mention in the first and last 25 words.
• If you can get them in your URL as well as the page content then all the better.
• Don’t force them in, human readability is more important than search engines.

There’s a lot of common sense involved in writing content and if you think about how you read web pages you could do a lot worse than designing it for yourself to read. Don’t forget to design from the outside in, looking at your pages as a user would, not how you would with all your insider knowledge.

It’s not hard once you’ve got stuck in, like many things the idea is harder than actually doing it so what are you waiting for, go and create some compelling content!