External Links Should Open in New Tabs

It might be me, I might be old fashioned in my views on life, but I really think that web designers/developers are missing a trick with how they treat external links within their websites.

I guess going back a few years the majority of web users complained that when they clicked an external link from a particular website it opened a new window, and depending on how it opened it was at times confusing (I personally never used to mind it!); but the wonderful introduction of browser tabs this has all changed.

Instead of opening up new windows, you can now magically open links to external sites in new tabs. The big and important difference here is that browser tabs are easier for users to manage than browser windows.

I know that there is also an argument that if a visitor to your site clicks on an external link that this new link should be seen as part of a seamless customer journey and they should see this new site in their current browsing session …. Bunkum!

And surely when you open an external links in the same tab for a user and they want to continue their journey on the original site, you create back-button fatigue for them; this doesn't sound like a very good user experience! Does it?

I know this is a personal rant, but I feel that it’s an important one, I’m getting fed up of following links to external sites that interest me, for me to only need to fight my way back to the original site to follow my original journey.

And I know that I can Ctrl and click to force a new tabbed session, but that’s not the point, I bet only a small percentage of web users actually know that anyway.

Quite simply, links that take users to a different (external) website should open in new tabs. Links that take users to a different page on the same website should open in the same tab. This is the right and sensible approach to take.

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LinkedIn - successful lead generation

If you have ever spoken to a B2B businesses about their online lead generation you'll find some discrepancy about how much business they get from LinkedIn, some seem to get absolutely loads of leads and traffic from this professional networking site where other get very little or none at all! If you want to be in the camp that get lots of leads, then follow these simple tips.

Create a company profile page

OK, it seems fairly logical, but still not that many smaller businesses actually have a company profile page on LinkedIn. Ensure that you complete your profile as much as possible and also ensure that all of your employees a) have a personal profile on LinkedIn and that their profile links to your company page.

Tip: Including keyword rich descriptions on your LinkedIn company page, product and services tabs . All of these elements are an essential part of the SEO approach and will help you get found from within LinkedIn's own search functionality and potentially from an external search engine too.

Promote the page 

You are still going to get businesses and individuals that find your business website first, if they do ensure that they easily find a link to your LinkedIn company profile page so that they can follow you. Only by building company followers will you add social proof and generate credibility to your company profile.

Status Updates

Having followers on LinkedIn is no use unless you engage with them; so ensure that you post regular status updates. Your followers will then see your updates and have the option to engage with you and amplify your messaging around their network.

Tip: Aim for at least two updates each week, this maximises your chance to get your status out across more of your network.

Create a Group

I also recommend that you engage with others in your target market by joining Groups that are of interest to them and contribute. BUT a more important strategy is create your own open Group. Lots of businesses still don’t understand the presence and the power of LinkedIn groups. Groups that contain lots of your potential customers/clients do not exist on Twitter, Facebook or anywhere else for that matter; Groups on LinkedIn are basically Communities of prospects for you.

My advice would be to start by making a niche Group; a software developer in Yorkshire for example might start a “Software developers in Yorkshire” group, start my inviting relevant individuals from your network to get and get the discussions started; you'll quickly find that you'll start to get lots more interested individuals to join in,

Once you have a successful Group then organise some events to get some face to face time with prospects.


There are many more ways you can get more business from social networks; if you need more customers or need help understanding how social media fits into your strategy then get in touch with me today.

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Crawl, Walk, Run - a basic online marketing strategy.

Testing the water with digital marketing is incredibly important; at some time all digital marketers face a project where something is not working as it should be (i.e. traffic not converting on a website), but what is actually going wrong can sometime take a whilst to get to the bottom of and fix.

Crawl, Walk, Run is a phased methodology for controlling elements of the online marketing mix in careful bite-sized chunks so that problems are carefully and correctly fixed.

Crawl – look at options that you directly own; this phase overs the core website design and user interaction, and media that you own/control (i.e. Content, SEO, Social Media etc). Fixing these elements first is usually the most cost effective approach to take (even if you need to outsource some of it).

Walk – now it's time to turn your attention to media that you might have less control over or need to pay for or digital marketing tactics that need to have the basics right first, for this reason you should only enter this phase after you have a solid Crawl foundation.

Here you are looking at Pay Per Click (PPC), third party advertising, email marketing, blogging, banner advertising etc.

For the Walk phase you are looking for a minimum of a 5 times return on your investment, so for every £1000 you spend you need to see £5000 returned. 

Run – You'll know when you hit this phase as business will be really good for you, conversion rate will be over 10 percent, online you'll have a low <30 percent bounce rate.

Much of the activity around this Run phase is earned; by now as your business is doing well you so you might be already getting approached by third parties for comment or editorials, and valuable links to your website will be starting to come into you.

Certainly there is more marketing activity you could be undertaking for this Crawl, Walk, Run model, but hopefully this has given you an insight how what digital activities you should be undertaking and when you should be doing them!

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Are you the Betamax of SEO!

Some things become old hat over time, one moment they have their day and they are good for you, the next, they are definitely bad for you and like the old Betamax videocassette, you really shouldn't be seen dead with them!

Some SEO tactics are now so old fashioned that they will soon start to cause your site problems if you continue use them.

Article Submissions – so very yesterday; there once was a time when submitting an article to a directory could bring you some decent traffic and also be great in the eyes of Google; but those days are now long gone, Google will penalising you for submitting content somewhere in the simple hope of providing a dodgy link back to your site.

Reciprocal Linking and Link Exchanges – a fantastic tactic to use at the turn of the millennium, many sites got lots of links from them and plenty of Google kudos with this tactic, not any more; search engines now detect these links easily and know that your site is simply after cheap, useless links and they won't thank you for it.  If you provide great content, other sites will naturally start linking to it!

Thin Content – providing scant copy on a page just to try to get a few more keywords on your site, is not only a very poor SEO habit (and always was), but also provides absolutely no value to your visitors whatsoever; if you employ this tactic then it is definitely time to move on (after all, we are in the 21st Century now). We already know that great content can drive great links.

Ignoring Design – once upon a time, design didn't matter, you had a site and by hook or by crook, visitors managed to find what they wanted and were somewhat happy! Those times have long gone my friend.

Picture a tatty shop on a typical High Street, dirty windows, paint peeling from the sign, inside the store isn't any better with products placed all over the place, poor internal signage means you can't find what you want and there is no shopkeeper to help you find what you want – chances are you wouldn't enter this shop in the first place, but if you did, I bet you wouldn't want to buy anything from it. 

This High Street shop is like a badly designed website; it's unlikely that anyone would enter a site like this in the first place, but if they did, I'm sure that they wouldn't stay around for long!

Don't settle for or ignore your website design. Your visitors won't!

Summary

Be the Betamax of SEO if you dare; if you do, I can guarantee that Google won't like your site, and if they don't like your site then they won't send anyone your way!

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