Following most meetings I like to ‘process’ all business cards, by adding them into our system, and more recently connecting to the contacts via social media. Some people make this easy, but for others it is almost impossible to find their profiles; in the modern day and age this is similar to missing a phone number or email address. If I want to follow their company, and can’t find their Twitter profile, I can’t.

If there is a Twitter logo on a business card, it should be accompanied by a Twitter address (ours is @WebbedFeetUK). If there is a logo in an email signature or website, then this should link to the Twitter profile. There are so many people out there who obviously care about their Twitter profile as they have the logo, but it links to the Twitter home page, and in many instances the profile name is not obvious.

Furthermore, some people use social networking, but do not mention this on their business card, website or email signature. If you use these, and want to gain followers then you’ll need to let everyone know.

You wouldn’t tell someone to “call me” without providing a phone number.

If you don’t tweet or update your profile then this article may not apply. However if you do, and you’re wondering why people aren’t following you, then I would suggest having a good look at your printed and online advertising and check that there is a clear route to each of your social networks.

Once you have your followers, you need to decide what to write, how to customise your profile, and how to start converting followers into customers, and that’s where we come in...

In a shop people often like to browse and take their time, but on the Internet they need instant results, and if you do not deliver they’ll move on. Users are often impatient and fickle. They will look at your website and decide in literally a few seconds whether it is what they are after, so be sure that it is immediately obvious what you do. For example on our strap line we wouldn’t say “Online solutions for local businesses”, we’d spell it out with something like “Web development and website design in Wiltshire”. Then there is no confusion.

2. Call to action

On each page have clear prompts to engage the user. If you are selling products you need a “buy now” or “add to cart” button, if you have a service you need “find out more”. It is even better if you can use an incentive such as “sign up for a free sample”.

3. Clear contact details

So you’ve convinced someone to buy your product or use your service; you now need to ensure that they can get in touch. Do not hide your contact details on your contact page, make them clear and concise, preferably putting the phone and email at the top of each page.

4. Capture user information

If you are giving something away, try and get something in return. If you have a competition, ensure that you capture a user’s email address or phone number, that way you can use them for future marketing campaigns.

5. Be proud of social media

So many people put Twitter icons on their business cards, yet have no reference of how to find them. We are @WebbedFeetUK, but we could easily be @SalisburyWebDesign or @WebDevelopmentWiltshire. So if you don’t put these details on you card, ensure that the icons are prominent on your home page, and make sure that they link through to your profile. How can people follow you if they don’t know where to look?

6. Use bullet points not block text

Back to my earlier point, people need instant results when browsing websites, so they are unlikely to read paragraphs of text. Use bullet points or small blocks of text to get your points across. If you must have blocks of text, make key words and phrases bold so that they grab the user’s attention.

7. Check your content carefully

On your home page especially, ensure that you are saying the right thing. People fall into the trap of putting their company history on the home page. It can often be useful information, but in the first instant a user is unlikely to care about when your company was founded and the history of its owners.  Keep it short and snappy, and ensure that only the key information is seen first.

8. Divide your content

If you have different kinds of users, it is likely that each one would only be interested in a particular area of your business. So make it clear on the home page what these areas are, and divide them so that a user only sees what they are after. A good example here is a school; here you could divide the website into “Prospective pupils”, “Current pupils”, “News & events” and “The school”. That way prospective pupils could see information relevant only to them, and current pupils and parents wanting to check on the date of the next AGM could easily find it. A series of buttons or boxes on the home page would allow users to move to the appropriate section quickly and easily.

9. Promote feeds and blogs

If you have a blog or news page, or if you regularly use Facebook or Twitter, include one or more of these on your home page. It will demonstrate to visitors that your site is kept up to date, plus of course it’s a great way of showing the personal side behind your business.

10. Put important information first

People view websites on different devices; some on desktop PCs with large monitors, other on smart phones or PDAs with small displays. For this reason users may not see all of your home page in one go, they will only see the top. Therefore put the important information first as this may be the only information that a user sees before clicking away to the next site.

11. User testing

I said there will be 10 tips but have included this final one as it brings the others together. After your home page is complete, print it out (landscape if possible) in colour, and if it overspills onto several pages only keep the first. Then go to some friends and family (or even strangers), without explaining what you do and ask them to look at it. After 5 seconds take it away, whether they have finished reading it or not. Then ask them a pre determined set of questions, asking perhaps for the name of the company, what they do, where they are located, and how you could get in touch. Their answer should be something like “The company was Webbed Feet UK, they are web developers in Salisbury, and I would get in touch by the phone number or Twitter icon on the left”. If they reply with anything less, then rethink your strategy!

But why would a business want a blog? Well there are several reasons:

It’s a way of showing people that you’re an expert in your field. An article that may seem common sense to you may be full of invaluable information to others.

It builds trust and good working relationships; after all you are giving people useful information for free, and at the top of every article is your company name and logo.

It helps your website with search engine optimisation. If your blog is set up correctly your articles will be sent out across the Internet to various directories, and all of these will provide a link back to your website making it appear more important.

It’s a great way to add content and keywords to your website. If you have a particular set of keywords that you want on your website that don’t fit in to the main site, then a blog is a great way of adding them. This is especially relevant if your website is minimal but you want to include text somehow, or if you want to draw attention to a smaller area of your business or a gap in the market.

It shows that your company is modern and dynamic. There is little worse than arriving at a website that was last updated several months ago. By having an up-to-date blog your website is continually updated and demonstrates that your company is fresh and dynamic.

It’s a great gateway to social media; it’s a way of providing content that you can (and should) promote via social networks.

It generates traffic. Providing you have useful and relevant content, and providing you promote it using social networks, search engines and other media, your blog should get its own traffic, which will in turn give your website more hits and therefore leads.

To promote your company. Your blog can contain mostly useful articles, but there is no reason why it can’t showcase your new products and services from time to time.

You can educate your customers, letting them know the benefits of your products and services without actually selling to them. That way they’ll have an understanding of them before you get in touch.

You can let your audience know that there is a face behind the business. Websites can be very clinical, whilst blogs give authors the chance to express themselves. People buy from people, so this allows customers to see a more personal side.

There are many reasons to have a blog, and few reasons not to. It only takes a few minutes of your time and can be an invaluable resource in establishing your business’ website online. If you’re reading this, then blogs DO work, so get creative and start thinking about what you can write.

Aaron Whiffin, blog writing in Salisbury Wiltshire

This worked well, but these days the web is not static. Many websites are content managed, have blogs that are frequently updates and in the last couple of years social media has meant that the web is now about what is happening now, not last week. What happened a while ago is old news, and Google have now updated Analytics to include Analytics Real Time to enable us to monitor changes as they happen.

So what does Google Real-Time show us? Well, first of all a running counter of how many people are viewing the website at any time, and even more useful are the statistics of how many people are viewing each page.

You can review the statistics from the past in 5 minute intervals, meaning that you can immediately see whether your blogs or social networks are working. This allows you to easily analyse which of your Tweets or status updates are working most effectively, and at what time of day people are most responsive to you sending them. You can also see when your Tweets stop working, and therefore when you should Tweet again.

So how do you get started? They are in the new version of Google Analytics, just click the “New Version” link on the top right.

Google have also released Analytics Premium, another enhance to their service with a whole host of advanced features. The only set back is this costs $150,000 and so is obviously aimed at larger companies. For now stick with Google Analytics and Google Analytics Real-Time. They are both free to use and are exceptionally comprehensive.

We offer Google Analytics training if you want to analyse your traffic in more depth.

Aaron Whiffin, Webbed Feet UK, Website statistics in Salisbury

However yesterday they released new functionality so that businesses can now create pages. These have a similar look and feel to a personal profile, and don’t seem to offer any new functionality.

They are useful because now you can represent your company. For example we have created a page for +WebbedFeetUK (note that the + is new terminology, similar to the ‘@’ in Twitter). Google say that searching for “+WebbedFeetUK” would return our business page. When you are logged in as your business, all of your posts will originate from the business and not your personal account. This is similar to the way that Facebook currently do their business pages.

At the moment there is no obvious way of moving people from your personal circles into your business circles, other than adding them one by one.

To create a Google+ page go to your Google+ homepage, and there is a link on the bottom left called “Create a Google+ page”, alternatively visit an existing Google+ page such as ours +WebbedFeetUK and click the button on the bottom left. This will take you here.

One annoyance is that after you have created your business page, you will be logged in as your business, in my case +WebbedFeetUK. You can edit and adjust your profile fairly easily. However, when you’re finished and you log out, and back in as your personal profile, there is no obvious way of editing your business page again! I’m sure this is either a glitch, or it’s possible and hidden away someplace, but it is certainly a problem.

EDIT - To the right of your profile pic (top left) there is your name. Below this in light grey it says \"1 page v\". Click this to edit your page. Hidden away!

So great news that Google+ has allowed business pages, but a bit annoying that there are bugs and it doesn’t seem finished.

So, should you create a business page? Well I’d say that if you have a Google+ account then you may as well, it only takes 20 minutes to setup and personalise, just make sure you get it correct before you log out! Ensure that you take full advantage and link to your Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn profiles. If you do not have Google+ yet, at the current time, I wouldn’t bother.

Webbed Feet UK are a team web developers in Salisbury. We have a variety of services one of which is online marketing including social media.

Get started by looking our Google+ profile +WebbedFeetUK ...

Traditional websites are formatted for a larger computer screen meaning that when viewed from a smaller mobile screen the text is either unreadable (if you’re zoomed out) or you need to scroll horizontally (if you’re zoomed in); coupled with the fact that larger images may take longer to download, this does not give a good user experience.

Mobile websites are dedicated websites that are optimised for smaller screens. They are simplified, have a lower width and smaller images. This means that mobile users can read and navigate the mobile version far easier and quicker.

You often find that mobile versions have a different address and are prefixed with “m.” or “mobile.” rather than “www.”. Mobile versions should automatically detect the device that the user is using, and send you to the appropriate website version.

Case study: Consider the website www.vanlocator.co.uk, and also look at the mobile version m.vanlocator.co.uk (on a mobile device). The desktop site is a very large and complex example which doesn’t work well on mobile devices. The text is either small or requires a lot of horizontal scrolling. The mobile version on the other hand is far more streamline. The screenshots below are taken from an iPhone 3GS.

Webbed Feet UK make mobile websites in Salisbury and other areas in addition to smart phone apps.

They don’t cost as much as most people think, in fact they are usually far less than their desktop versions.

If you want to know more please do not hesitate in contacting Webbed Feet UK, mobile web developers in Salisbury.

Aaron Whiffin, Alex Hopson, Andy Payne, Chris Bratherton and Tom Green will all be taking part and sporting their facial hair all month.

Our initial target is £500, so please help us support this worthwhile cause via our JustGiving page.

It\'s on Thursday 20th October at Antrobus House, Amesbury from 3-7pm. Entry is free.

Last year was a real success, with 34 exhibitors showcasing their products and services.

We welcome any of our clients or followers to pop in for a chat and meet a couple of Webbed Feet UK\'s Salisbury based web developers.

We look forward to seeing you there

Doors open at 10am and last entry is 5pm. We would suggest that all local business owners come and have a look, last year it was really busy and we made a lot of useful contacts.

Pop past the Webbed Feet UK stand (look out for the big duck logo) and chat to some of our team. For anything web-related we’ll be able to help. For our existing customers, don’t worry we’ll have some of the team in the office too!

There are seminars all day, and with promotion by TWA it is bound to be a good day.

More details on: http://www.southwiltsexpo.biz/

Hopefully we’ll see you there for a chat.

Regards, the Webbed Feet UK team, your friendly web designers in Salisbury

Search Engine Marketing (SEM):

So what is search engine marketing? Well SEM is the process of increasing your position in Search Engine Results Pages, often called SERPs. Not only can this increase traffic, it can also help to improve sales, as the people clicking on your adverts are interested in what your site offers.

There are several different methods of SEM; I will cover two of the main ones in a bit more detail.

PPC (Pay Per Click):

Pay Per Click (PPC) is where your website listing appears on relevant search engine results pages, and then you pay every time someone clicks one of your adverts - the amount you pay the search engine is known as CPC, or Cost Per Click. Your adverts often appear next to relevant content, so as web designers in Salisbury, we may want our web design page to appear in searches for “web site design Salisbury”, as this would be relevant to our business, and again we may want our mobile applications page to appear alongside search results for “mobile applications Salisbury”. PPC adverts are handled differently by different search engines, Google, for example includes them above and down the right hand side of search results. This keeps the search engine results pages clear and concise but still allows adverts to function. 

Traditional Adverts: 

Traditional adverts are one of the most popular forms of advertising on the Internet. This form of advertising often involves embedding adverts into a website, the adverts themselves come in many different forms, from images to Flash to plain text.  These adverts are designed to appeal to users and encourage them to click on the banner - taking them to the relevant website. Affiliates earn money, either on a CPC (cost per click) basis, or on the number of impressions delivered. 

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO): 

Search engine optimisation is the process of tweaking your website’s visibility within search engines using natural or unpaid methods. There are two main methods of improving your websites SEO; Onsite SEO and Offsite SEO. 

Onsite SEO: 

On site search engine optimisation is the process of improving your websites content to improve its search engine ranking, increase traffic and ultimately increase sales. There are a couple of main aspects of onsite SEO: 

Code Tweaks: You should make sure that your website is well coded, and to a good standard. While this will not directly help your search engine ranking, it can prevent issues when search engines crawl your website and help improve your site speed, which is a known ranking factor. Using a HTML validator can make this process easier. 

You should also ensure that each page has a title and META description, with unique, relevant keywords. 

Content Tweaks: You should read over your content and ensure that each page has a good variety of relevant keywords within the text; these should match up with the keyword strategy used in the titles and descriptions. Main keywords should be included in the heading tags on the page, with the more important keywords being in the more prominent positions. 

You should also ensure that all of your images have keyword rich and relevant alt tags, and that anchor tag text is relevant. 

Navigation: You should make sure that your site is easy to navigate, by both search engines and users. You can use sitemaps and XML sitemaps to improve how easy it is to navigate your website. You should also ensure that you include internal links in your content, using good keyword rich text.

Offsite SEO: 

Offsite search engine optimisation involves increasing how much ‘respect’ search engines think your website has. The main way to improve this is to increase the number of other high quality websites linking to your website. 

Link Building: Link building is one of the best ways to increase your search engine optimisation, and drive more traffic to your website. It involves getting other websites to include links to your website, this leads Google, and other search engines to see that you are a well-respected website. 

You can submit your website to a whole host of other websites, but try to make sure that they are well ranked highly, and if possible are relevant to your field of business. So as web designers in Salisbury, we might submit our website to web design galleries. 

Another thing you can do is to post on relevant forums, again using as an example, since we are web developers would post in web development forums, both local and national. We can include links in our signature (using good keywords for the text) and post helpful and relevant answers to people’s questions. Not only does this build incoming links, and increase traffic but I can also help to increase your reputation as a helpful resource. 

You should also submit your website to local business directories - this can lead to an increase in business, but not just through your website, as they tend to include other relevant details like your phone number and address. 

Social Media: Another very important thing to consider now is social networks; there are very few businesses which can’t reap the benefits of a good social media plan. The two things to do here are to include relevant sharing buttons on your website, to make it easier for people to share your website. The other thing to do is make sure you have a presence on social networks, for example we have a Facebook profile & group and Twitter account. Each member of staff also has a LinkedIn profile and Google+ account. 

Conclusion: 

Search engine marketing is one form of Internet marketing which involves increasing your visibility through the use of contextual advertising. Search engine optimisation is the process of improving how easy your site is for search engines to index by optimising your websites content, and improving how search engines see your site. SEM most often involves paying search engines, or other websites either per impression or per click, whereas SEO is most often “free”. 

Some people consider SEM to be a term used to many different activities, including SEO. However we disagree and think that search engine marketing and search engine optimisation are slightly different. However they both have the same goal, increasing business.

We’d love to hear your opinions on this article. Let us know what you think on Facebook, Tweet us or send us an email.