Increasing Business Visibility

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Category Archives: increasing business visibility

Are you becoming cookie compliant?

Written on Wednesday 2 May 2012 by Alice

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I’ve been aware of the EU Cookie Laws for some time, notwithstanding because I have been doing a diploma in digital marketing and this subject has been brought up occasionally.

Unfortunately it was not discussed in detail, so I felt it was my duty to find out more and pass this knowledge onto my readers.

From the 26 May 2012, all website users will have to provide their visitors the option to approve the use of cookies on the website. This will mean a separate page or pop-up is required to provide the opt-in or opt-out mechanisms for each visitor’s access to the website.

The problem is the cookies, or to be more accurate, the applications on my website that use my visitors’ information. The EU Cookies Law is all about preserving customers’ right to impart their details, e.g. maintaining their privacy rights.

This is Enchilada Digital‘s definition of a cookie:

A Cookie is a text file that browser places on your computer’s hard drive on behalf of the website being served. The Cookie usually contains information, such as a user or session ID, that allows the website to remember who you are across multiple page views or browsing sessions. Most websites have 10 or more cookies. See this website for more information on cookies.

Now I use cookies (unwittingly until I found out recently) to track my visitors’ activities to Google Analytics. This is not a horrible use of technology, and it certainly doesn’t provide me with intimate details of those who read my posts. Apparently I also use cookies to request sharing of my posts on social media, as this is also a form of tracking user behaviour – again hardly intrusive into my follower’s lives.

Of course many websites use cookies as part of the running or function of the website, such as e-commerce or payment systems for products and goods. This use of cookies is considered OK, as the website would not be able to exist without them. But if you wanted to participate in CRM (customer relationship marketing) with your readers, then you’d have to ask their permission to use cookies first.

The biggest problem business will have is that a huge proportion of website visitors will not know or understand about cookies. Even if they realise it refers to the innards of a website, because it is technical the alarm bells will immediately start to ring. This mass misunderstanding will reduce the amount of visits, and even if my readers are compliant with access procedures, the statistics that are allowed into the analytic programmes will be severely disrupted.

Now I could take away my Google Analytics application and not track my visitors, but then I wouldn’t have vital information on what my readers liked or didn’t like, and how to improve my website to make it better for them in the future. I also could remove the share buttons, but then I wouldn’t know how many kind people liked what I have written and have showed their appreciation by sharing my information with their friends and followers, severely limiting the amount of new audiences I could reach, which allows me to spread my messages further afield.

I will be activating a plugin for the EU Cookie Laws regulation just before 26 May. Hopefully it will adequately explain why the visitor needs to approve the use of cookies, so you will click ‘yes’ and continue to enjoy this website. And hopefully this action will become second nature to all website visitors, unless the powers that be see sense and review the law accordingly.

blogs and blogging, increasing business visibility, marketing methods - Tags: cookie approval, cookie permission, EU Cookie Laws, Google Analytics, option to approve cookies on websites, preserving customer's privacy rights, regulation, sharing, social networking, tracking, visitor information, website cookies, website function, website visitors - 0 Comments - Why not leave a comment?

Blogging is sometimes easier than conversation

Written on Thursday 19 April 2012 by Alice

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For those who find it difficult to speak in public, a blog is a good fallback to being able to express yourself. It is not a barrier to hide behind, but a valuable tool to enable exposure of thoughts, ideas, concepts and observations that would otherwise go unnoticed, unrepresented and neglected through lack of publicity.

I’m sure there are lots of people who prefer to write than speak. Embarrassment and shyness are just some of the symptoms that prevent speaking in public, and a blog allows intelligent conversations to happen that would otherwise be permanently silent.

Listening to the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 this morning, an interesting item came up. A lady with Tourette’s Syndrome was interviewed. This was interesting not because of the variety of tics she uttered during the conversation, but because of the fluidity and intelligence of her normal speech. She could easily have become a vocal advocate for Tourette’s if she was not so bothered by the extraneous noises she involuntarily uttered.

Because of her condition, which was actually quite severe, she had created a blogsite about the humorous value of her tics, accompanied by entertaining cartoons (created by her friends) to provide a pictorial element. This was her method of drawing attention and awareness of Tourette’s Syndrome in a way that did not undermine her situation.

But what intrigued me was that in her blog she is able to express herself as fluidly as her normal speech, but obviously without the tics. I only know this because I had had the opportunity to listen to her on the radio. So many people who don’t understand Tourette’s would ridicule her outlandish tics, including the swear words, and if they bothered to spare the time to look beyond these anomalies, they would see, and hear, and now because of her blogsite, read about the intelligent person behind them.

How the position of a share request can go viral

Written on Wednesday 18 April 2012 by Alice

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Of course you want to encourage your readers to share your posts on social media. This is the way your blog’s content is exposed to a larger audience, spreading your expertise and message further afield than was possible before.

That is the beauty of social networking. It is also an indication that shows which format works best for promoting your blog, especially if you place counters against your share buttons.

Prolific bloggers like to share impressive statistics about the number of visitors they get to their blogs, and generally they have to work very hard to achieve these results. I confess that if I do get a higher than average record of click throughs to a social network, I’m hopping around the room with joy. This is because I don’t put in place carefully constructed marketing processes to get a higher sharing rate, which I really ought to do if this blog is to succeed.

However, this blog is not short of call to actions asking my readers to share. Usually I’m quite happy with a small number of responses (as long as I’m not stuck with a big fat zero), and it does depend upon which kind of reader has the opportunity to read what I have written.

But, when some kind, influential person does retweet my post, the effects can be amazing! Suddenly I’m looking at numbers this blog does not normally see; jaw-dropping statistics that totally surprise me. And it is also interesting which position these call to actions need to trigger the best response: ie the floating bar on the left that stays in the same place when the reader pans down.

Recently I had to change this plugin, as suddenly the original floated too much to the right, placing itself over the text. In fact I noticed this more with another blogger, and drawing his attention to it, persuaded him to find an alternative. Ever since the new version was installed, the counters have recorded phenomenal figures – in spite of it not being visible on the main blog page.

I can only deduce that my other plugin that retweets old posts managed to catch the attention of beneficial blog readers who were suitably appreciative enough to share my posts, providing a higher readership than had been encountered before. I am thoroughly pleased that the effort I took in activating these plugins: ‘sharebar’ and ‘tweet old post‘, has finally paid off, and suggest that those who have WordPress.org blogs should install them as well.

blogs and blogging, increasing business visibility, online marketing, other social media, social networking - Tags: call to actions, higher readership, larger audience, other social media, plugins, promoting your blog, readers, retweet old posts, share bar, share posts, social networking, visitor statistics - 0 Comments - Why not leave a comment?

Does your website exude trust?

Written on Wednesday 21 March 2012 by Alice

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Online marketing works on trust. Gone are the days when an expert could spout forth all sort of impressive gobbledegook and people would listen spellbound and then jump to! Now it is through social media and word of mouth (or mouse) that trust is formed to promote your product or service.

Usually this is accomplished over a period of time, as the online marketer will gently woo their customers round by interaction and engagement, talking about stuff they want to hear and working their empathy into the conversation, a great way of gaining trust.

But just sometimes it can happen almost immediately. I popped in to see an elderly neighbour to check if she was OK, and noticed that she had had some major work done in her garden. I asked if she had hired these gardeners through word of mouth, but no, she got them from the internet.

So I asked her what made her choose these particular contractors? She’s an avid silver surfer, so I know she would have done adequate research. The response was that she felt she could trust them by looking at their website, so made contact with them.

Wow! This is quite a step for an octogenarian, even one who is as e-savvy as her. What was it that made her trust these guys? Apparently it was something from her website that she felt she could trust. They were based some 50 miles away, so they were hardly around the corner.

She first emailed them her request, and after a reply spoke to them on the phone. That’s another stage accomplished, getting the customer to make contact. Whatever happened within the conversation resulted in a home visit, another bold move from my elderly friend who is often wary about who is invited in. Anyway, to cut a long story short, they won their contract, and her overgrown garden is starting to take shape.

Obviously these gardeners were extremely nice people, something my neighbour sensed just from looking at their website. So my questions are: do you have content on your website that exudes trust? Does it have that particular something that would prompt a similar positive response? Can you persuade your web-visitors to make contact – the first hurdle accomplished towards conversion into a sale? Or does this process take a long time for you?

increasing business visibility, marketing methods, online marketing - Tags: conversion into a sale, empathy, engagement, interaction, make contact, online marketing, positive response, trust, websites, winning a contract, word of mouth - 0 Comments - Why not leave a comment?

Sidebar imagery sets blogs apart

Written on Thursday 8 September 2011 by Alice

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There is a design agency I keep an eye on. I like them because they are distinctly visual (I suppose design agencies are supposed to be), but it is the myriad of colours and the way they use images that attracts my attention.

This is not confined to just their graphics on paper, but online too. Their style is distinctive, and may not suit everybody, but simplicity combined with complexity is tastefully intertwined, and they have found a way to put this concept onto their websites and blogs they also design for.

If you are into NLP, you will know that people understand and process things in different ways. Some respond visually, others to words and the rest to sounds. A blog can use all these to put its messages across. By using all of these media, there is a better chance of capturing the attention of more potential followers and customers.

A WordPress.org blogsite allows you to do virtually anything you like on your sidebars. You could go down the usual route and add in conventional widgets which are mainly text-based, or you could go out on a limb and create linked images. This is particularly apt if your main subject lends itself to a visual presence, and each image is specifically designed to look ‘clickable’ (three-dimensional, enticing and understandable), so your visitors could end up have far more fun exploring your site than an ordinary blog. After all, isn’t that what you want them to do?

Having images on your sidebars linking to various areas of your website should be in addition to the navigation bar, because there will always be people who prefer using that method to enter a site (reference NLP) and won’t understand the concept of clickable pictures. Don’t discriminate people who are wired differently from you, they all have to be accommodated if you are going to make your website succeed.

blogs and blogging, design makes a difference, increasing business visibility, Self-hosted Wordpress blogs - Tags: attention, blogs and blogging, design agency, graphics, images, navigation, NLP, sidebars, text based, visitors, visual, websites, widgets - 0 Comments - Why not leave a comment?

The use of blogging within social media campaigns

Written on Monday 5 September 2011 by Alice

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I’ve said it many times before that your blog should be the hub of your social media marketing strategy. It is the alpha and omega of marketing online, from it your social networking exploits can issue forth to their audiences and be there to collect the finished results.

Of course blogging should take centre stage. Many companies overlook or brush aside blogs, as they think they are used purely for self-expression. They fail to understand the importance for communication to get the overall marketing message across. An archive of easy accessible material aimed at education, entertainment and information-based articles specifically written for the audience in mind.

Using social media within integrated marketing campaigns can only work if there is a realistic objective. If this is understood, there are various methods which can put in place to guide the campaign towards the ultimate goal. Blindly participating on social media without a proper aim may be enjoyable in the short term, but it can be also be viewed as a waste of time because nothing is seemed to be achieved. Only by aiming towards a proper outcome will social media become useful and powerful within the overall marketing campaign.

Blogging and social media used in combination will enable companies to learn all they need to know about their customers. Social networking isn’t about selling, the focus should be on communication, conversations, observation, following and understanding trends, catching breaking-news early and taking action before the competition. Used properly, companies can almost ‘merge’ with their target market: comprehending, empathising, educating, gently changing the general shift towards their products or services without actually using direct selling tactics.

The power of integration should be two-way, through the encouragement of responses from the readership and inviting followers to subscribe so they are constantly kept up to date with the latest posts. And, of course, blogs can be easily and effectively integrated within all social networking profiles through RSS, thus extending the audience and exposing the marketing campaign over a wider area within the web. And by participating in sharing and referral tactics within social bookmarking sites will also prompt further expansion of the messages involved, as well as a larger awareness of the blog and its authors.

blogs and blogging, increasing business visibility, online marketing, social networking - Tags: audiences, blog, communication, conversation, education, information, integration, marketing strategy, objective, observation, other social media, RSS, social networking, taking action - 1 Comment - Why not leave a comment?

Focus on one thing at a time

Written on Friday 2 September 2011 by Alice

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Not all of us are multi-taskers. As a woman I’m supposed to be able to multi-task, but in reality it’s not second nature to me. I am very good at concentrating on one thing really well, sometimes to the detriment of all that goes on around me! I can put all my effort into making that performance as perfect as I can, and hate it when I get distracted by external stimuli that break the spell and force me to think of something else.

In business this can be a good trait – especially for small enterprises. The world is huge, and competition can be fierce, so being a ‘jack of all trades’ is not necessarily a good thing. It is unwise to ‘spread yourself too thinly’, to dabble in many things and become master of none. OK, it’s certainly good to read widely and extensively, to expand your knowledge within your chosen field, but sometimes it’s preferable to focus your expertise towards a particular area.

My tip for a small business is to find a niche. Something that is required by your target market (customers), you fully understand all the problems associated with it and you have the best solution possible. Alternatively, your niche is very lucrative, so concentrating on that particular venture will being in a good return and raise you above the competition.

By focusing on a small area, you will be able to become a true expert within that subject. Don’t get sidetracked by attractive prospectives that may persuade you to stray from your chosen path, they will only dilute what you have to offer, and make your niche less understandable.

I know a particular florist that started by providing beautiful, sumptuous and exotic bouquets. If you wanted to send a floral gift that was different, and not just an ordinary bunch of flowers, they were the place to go. Unfortunately, they panicked with the extended recession, and started to sell other items. Now their shop offers all kinds of unrelated additions, from garden implements, trinkets, figurines, cards and even clothes. There is no resemblance to the little florist that began its life only a few years ago.

I have no idea if this tactic has paid off, but it has certainly made me think whether they still provided those extraordinary floral displays for which I first knew them. The confusion has probably put off some custom because nobody is quite sure what they really sell. The pavement outside used to be decorated with wonderful blooms and exciting plants, now their windows show strange and weird gifts, mannikins sporting floral dresses and not a flower in sight.

Work out exactly what your real niche is, and stick to it. Don’t think that you need to know or offer everything. In fact, by becoming a true expert in your field, with the help of your blog, of course, you will attract more people because they understand what you do. They will know exactly what to expect, they won’t become confused or disillusioned, and they will feel safe either approaching you or recommending you to someone else. And eventually you will become the ‘point of call’ for that particular niche, even over your competitors!

blogs and blogging, increasing business visibility, marketing methods - Tags: competition, concentrating, expertise, focusing, multi-taskers, niche, solutions, subject, target market - 1 Comment - Why not leave a comment?

You need to share to get more traffic

Written on Wednesday 31 August 2011 by Alice

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I’ve had a lot of questions recently about how to get lots of traffic to a blog and whether it is worth participating in social media to do this.

Unfortunately, if you want to promote your blog successfully, you need to think in the long-term. As with all marketing methods, nothing can be done properly overnight, and that does include using social networking sites.

You need to use social media to build up your reputation and your readers’ understanding about you. We all can’t be blessed with instant recognition and a truly magnetic personality that instantly attracts thousands of followers – those that appear to have these qualities have worked really hard behind the scenes before unleashing themselves on their public. Even those that seem to ‘pop out of the woodwork’ really have been slaving away at their promotional tactics and business presentation.

So to go back to the original concept, yes, you do need to use social media to increase your blog’s traffic. The cold, hard reality is that you need to work at gaining followers. This can be accomplished by becoming the best in your field, your niche, or whatever area your blog’s subject is about.

The 80/20 rule also applies here. Give away 80% of what you know and retain the truly best bits within the 20% you charge for. Win followers on your side by sharing your knowledge; help people, let them get to know you and trust in you, gain from the added value you have given them to improve their lives, and make them believe there is much more to have if they maintain their connection with you.

And while you are succeeding in collecting a huge number of followers, friends and subscribers, you’ll be feeding your new posts regularly into your social networking profiles and Twitter stream. It is there you will have a potential audience to read your wonderful new content, which will allow your blog traffic stats to go up and up.

To make these stats even better, participate in some sharing activities of your own. Nobody tolerates a one-sided relationship, so start reading other people’s blogs, comment on their posts, retweet them on Twitter, share them on Facebook, recommend them on social bookmarking sites, refer readers to them, offer to write guest posts and interview them for your own blog.

And after a while you’ll start to enjoy this social networking lark that so frightened you in the beginning – and as well as making lots of friends, associates, contacts and business prospects, your blog’s traffic will be improving all the time!

Magic Moment: Variable comment logins

Written on Friday 26 August 2011 by Alice

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Back in the old days when you commented on a blog post you wrote what you wanted to say and then filled in the details below about yourself before publishing it. Why did you bother to do this? Well, this information accompanied the comment and allowed any interested parties to click on your name (which was usually a link back to your website, if you had filled that part in) to find out more about you.

There is another good reason for this – it’s not just humans who clicked on those links. Spiders like comments as they see them as new material that can be indexed, so a busy blog that has lots of comments is usually placed much higher in the search engines than unpopular blogs. And of course these spiders are then happily crawling over the commentor’s website too…

Anyway, this Magic Moment is about the four ways you can register yourself before you publish your comment in a WordPress.com blog. Clever apps have been incorporated that allows you to choose whatever identity you would like to comment under.

The first one is as a guest. This is where you are allowed to put in your personal data how you want it to be:

You don’t need to enter in your website or blog details, but if you have one I recommend that you do, for the reasons stated at the beginning of this post.

The second option is for those who have a WordPress account. This one is the usual preference that I comment under. This account is recognised throughout the WordPress blogging world, and your gravatar automatically comes up to accompany your comment as an extra visual presence.

Once you’ve entered your WordPress username and password, your comment will be acknowledged as a WordPress user:

The third option is via your Twitter account. A lot of people might prefer this as they are usually always logged into Twitter so registering is easy.

Once you’ve filled in your details, you’ll be logged in as a Twitterer, and your name will be linked back to your Twitter profile:

The final option is via Facebook, and the same thing applies:

And once your Facebook details have been entered in and accepted, you’ll be commenting under your Facebook profile:

For each profile you comment under, the picture icon you use for that account will show as your gravatar. As I use the same one for all my accounts so there are no differences for me to demonstrate, but be aware that if you have a silly Facebook icon, do you really want that showing up next to your comment?

Make it easy for your readers to take action

Written on Thursday 25 August 2011 by Alice

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The whole point of a blog is that it enables your readers to interact with you. That is the beauty of Web2.0, and sets it apart from static websites that just sit there looking pretty (if you’re lucky) and boring (if you’re complacent).

So to make the experience of visiting your blog exciting for your readers, there are loads of apps and widgets at your disposal to upload and activate, which will keep your visitors really busy!

I don’t expect you to put everything available into your blog, or it will look like a dog’s breakfast and nobody will be able to choose what to do next, and will probably result in them running away! But there are some elements that should be present if you are to maintain the interaction a blog deserves.

One is to encourage some sort of subscription service. There are so many ways of doing this, varying from sophisticated sign up boxes to buttons you press after making a comment. For me it is important to make it very obvious to the reader that you want them to subscribe, and to stage it so they literally fall over the methods for doing so. I have often landed on a really good blog that has interested me, and wanted to keep in touch with the latest posts, only to hunt drastically around the site to look for a method of subscription, even to sign up to a RSS feed.

Of course RSS feeds always don’t fulfill my needs. I hate it when it merely leads to bookmarking the blog from my browser bar – I can’t be bothered to check that every day for new posts. What I am looking for is something that sends the newly-published posts to my in-box or to a reader in my search engine provider. This can be accomplished by creating a RSS URL through Feedburner (or equivalent), or using the various plugins or widgets available from WordPress. Read about one of them here: Don’t leave your WP greet box plugin undone.

Sharing is almost a requisite for blogs, as it has become commonplace to retweet a good post on Twitter or to share it on one of the many social bookmarking sites. This should definitely be encouraged, especially if you want to increase the traffic to your blog or expose it to a larger audience. There are lots of apps available to enable sharing, from individual transactions to collective mechanisms that allow the reader a choice in wherever he wants to promote your post. Even WordPress.com have a simple version: read Sharing is easy on WordPress.com to learn more.

These are just two interactive activities you could place on your blog, and there are many more to choose from which can enhance your blog’s performance and increase its interest factor. Just examine the widgets available for WordPress.com, and check out the myriad of plugins available for WordPress.org, and do a bit of experimenting. If you don’t know what to expect, take a look at other blogs you admire to find out what they have to offer, and then see if you can find a way of emulating the same functions that take your fancy or stimulate you to take action!