Categories
Social Media Marketing

Using Twitter to gain followers

If using Twitter for your business, you will want to gain followers in order to interact with them. This can seem like a bit of a catch 22 as you initially will have no one to tweet to etc, but you can use hashtags and retweets to start to get your posts noticed. When using Twitter for business, there is no set rules as to what and when you should Tweet, but often the most successful businesses Tweet a few times a day. When creating your message it is important to get a mix between in formal tweets and business aimed tweets. If all your tweets are very business orientated then you may not keep peoples interests, where as if there is a good mix people will want to come back and see what you are reading. You should also make sure that you start to follow people that may be of interest to you as often they will then follow you back. Twitter isn’t usually a fast solution to getting direct work but it can help to build up brand awareness and also a way for you to build up a following or people that may require your services later down the line.

 

 

Categories
Social Media Marketing

Managing your social media accounts

If used correctly, social media ca have an extremely positive impact on your business and brand. It allows you access to millions of people, some of which you may not have been able to engage with. There are a number of different social media sites that you can use as part of your marketing strategy, but which ones or how may you should use depends a lot on your time and the type of business you are in.

If one of your employees is going to be managing the social media accounts then you need to ensure that they understand fully what you want to use the sites for such as showcasing previous work or allowing your customers another method of contact etc. They should also know how often they need to post information and how much to post on there. Some companies give a snippet of information on their social media sites but then link to full articles on their website in order to increase traffic.

It may be that you outsource the management of the social media marketing, this may allow you the expertise of someone that knows how these sites work and how best to share information but it will also mean you having to trust someone else with the task of connecting with your customers.

 

 

Categories
Web Design

Be careful when making changes to your website

If you are wanting to make changes to your website but are not a confident programmer then you need to take extra care. So many people believe that they know how to successfully change elements of their site and end up losing a lot of the structure or the content. They may also do something that causes the site to get penalised by the search engines.
When making changes to a website firstly you need to make sure that you take a full back up of not only the files that make up your website but also the database that stores all your information. Also make a note of any settings that you may need to re input should you have to reinstall a backup of your website.
Ideally always get a professional to make big changes to your website and even for smaller changes, check with your programmer if you are unsure as to what you need to do.
If you do make a mistake, then do not try and fix it yourself as you may end up making it worse, instead call your programmer as they may be able to sort it out quickly.

Categories
Web Marketing

A drop in rankings

If you or your web marketing company track your website rankings then you may become aware of a sudden drop at times in some of your main key phrases. This can happen for a number of reasons and often requires some in depth investigating to find out what has caused the change.

It may be that the search engine such as Google has introduced a new part or update to their ranking algorithm with has caused your site to drop. If not, then it is possible that your competitors have up’ed their game recently leaving your trailing behind.

All rankings do go up and down daily and also can vary dependant on what device you are using, if you are logged in to a Google account, your browsing history and also your geographical location, so when comparing rankings week by week you need to ensure that the results are accurate.

 

Categories
Web Marketing

Competitor analysis

Sometimes it can be frustrating to see that one of your competitors are constantly ranking above you for some of your major search phrases. It may be that they are a relatively new business or that they have no other employees and are smaller than your company, but somehow they are still able to appear above you.

Carrying out competitor analysis is very important in marketing as not only will you be able to see what they are offering their customers on the front end of the website, but if you know where to look and have the right tools, you can also see how they are competing in terms of search engine optimisation etc. It may be that they are building up a huge number of quality, relevant links that is helping them or that they have micro sites for their main products or services. With this information, you can then compare the sites and marketing to see how you may be able to improve yours.

 

Categories
Web Design

Give your website a facelift

Construction site crane building a blue 3D text. Part of a series.

As with most things, over time they become dated and need to be updated. A website is no different and often with technology moving so fast, a website will need updating on quite a regular basis.

If your website is over 12 months old and you have not really changed much apart from adding a bit of new content to the site then you should seriously consider carry out an update. It may be that you just update the design, changing the way the content is delivered or adding in scrolling images etc. You may decide to add videos to the home page or change the way the navigation displays. You may also want to update the functionality of the site by introducing calculators or little widgets that tell the customer information that is useful to their visit. For a holiday website this may be the current exchange rate or weather predictions for this time of year.