What I would do online if I were you
August 6th, 2009That is, if you haven’t done it already. I probably don’t have to convince anyone that as a business today you have to be online; the question is more likely what you should do, and how much of it. There are hundreds, and hundreds of people online giving you all different advice, which in some way makes it harder, rather than easier to determine what you should do.
So why are you reading this instead? Possibly because you’ve read some other posts I’ve written and decided to come back, or you know me personally and decided to follow this blog. In either case, the fact that I have your attention is a demonstration of what you can achieve online without spending a dollar.
Just a reminder why you should do this….
Most of all, your competitors do it badly - I can almost guarantee that your competitors don’t do half of the things they could be doing online. The vast majority of businesses still see marketing (and therefore their website) as a “set and forget” kind of thing. There’s an immediate opportunity. Look at your competitors and see what they do badly.
Top things to do
Invest time in content - the more you’ve thought about your niche, and how you position yourself away from others, the better. This means that you can use SPECIFIC key words in your content and page titles that will help people understand your differentiation, and search engines find you. Make sure people can find the information they may be looking for FAST. Don’t be gimmicky; people are in a hurry.
Invest money in design - create an online presence that makes you look bigger than you are, and is a window to you and your brand. If you do have some money to spend, spend it on someone who can help you with design. Why would you go through all the effort to get someone to your site, to present them with an image of you that is crap? YOUR NOT A DESIGNER, AND THEY’RE NOT THAT EXPENSIVE.
Make a blog a key page of your site, so you have your own media outlet. It is STILL the way to give your prospects and customers value that they won’t get from your competitors. If you’re looking for ideas for online PR in particular, Read David Meerman Scott’s “The New Rules of Marketing and PR”.
Get active in social media - If you are in B2B make sure you are on LinkedIn. If networking is the lifeblood of most B2B marketing, than you have to invest time in continuously building your network online. A LinkedIn account with two contacts is useless. A LinkedIn account with 50 or 100 is starting to get pretty powerful.
Start a Twitter account and use it wisely; contrary to popular believe, your customers won’t give a toss if you’re stuck in an airport, you’ve just divorced or if you’re playing with your kids. (Yes, all of these have come through in my Twitter stream of professional contacts) What you DO want to do is use it to follow your customers, (if you can), post links back to your blog, or to other sites your customers might be interested in. Or to promote a special, only to your web followers. Your Facebook page can be automatically updated with your Twitter update too.
Experiment with Google pay per click advertising, BUT spend the time researching the best possible keywords, the same keywords you have used right throughout your website content. If you have extra cash, use an agency. In Melbourne, I’d use Salsa
Be as local and specific as you can, and use the phrases that describe your specific niche and your local market as much as you can.
It’s going to take time -Whatever you do, online or off, it is going to take time and as the saying goes, the best time to start is yesterday, but today is the second best option.So, what are you waiting for?
Did I miss anything?
August 6th, 2009 at 7:07 pm
Hi David - like this article thanks! Have been trying to learn about search engine optimisation to help build a better website. I did mine and Noel’s through netregistry and I’m sure I can improve both. One trick I learnt is to imagine myself as the customer and then think what I’d google. Then I’d learn from the first few sites that came up what they had done well with keywords and replicate it on our sites. I used this stragey to get Noel’s accounting site to come up in the top 5 when I google accountants in our locality (I’m yet to fix mine). It worked once the google sweep picked it up. I also learnt to keep updating the site or google doesn’t pick it up on it’s regular seraches and that it will be more likely optimise anything that is updated often. Cheers, Jen.
August 19th, 2009 at 7:41 pm
Thanks for stopping by Jen; a bit late in my response, but I think your strategy to put yourself in Noel’s customers shoes is a very good one.
The next frontier online is local, and Google is very focused on this too. Really, if you want an accountant, you want him/her around the corner, and not at the other end of the world, however good they are. If he can be bothered writing some tips for customers on a blog, associated with the website, you’ve got an even more powerful way of : 1. giving free value to your “shoppers” and 2. drive your google juice. Good luck with it.
David