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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Convert website visitors to customers in 5 easy steps

We all want to attract visitors to our website, but more important that getting those visitors is the simple fact that once on your pages, you need to be able to convert them into customers, here are some very simple steps you can take to help in that goal.

Design to Delight - OK, I know, this one is obvious right!  Right, but you would be surprised how many website owners forget this one simple rule.  

Sites needs to be well laid out, wish simple, clear navigation (key navigation buttons should be either across the top or down the left hand side).  Use colours that are easy on the eyes and keep fonts simple, the words on the page should be easy to read.  Use images ONLY when they add to what you want to convey.  One or two column content layouts are fine, but always try to put the main content in a slightly wider column to help attract the eye.

Split Test – Google's Website Optimizer is now Google Content Experiments and brings with it the power of split testing to anyone with a website.  Essentially, this and similar tools allow you to test two possible website elements (this could be image, test or buttons etc), and will help you to see which version your visitors engage with the best.

So for example if you have two headlines and you didn't know which one to use then this simple A/B split testing would help you decide which your visitors thought was best.

Usability Testing - This covers a range of options from getting friends, family or colleagues to look at your website to recruiting a specialist agency to do it for you.

You can let them navigate your site freely noting problems and issues that they have with it or provide a list of actions that you want them to perform; tests done yourself are usually best when you can watch your subjects browsing as you can see all the small problems that they have that they might not later comment on.

Titillate your Titles - Did you see what I did there!  Titles on webpages, articles, news and blog posts provide you with a great opportunity to really grab your visitors attention.  If it's suitable for your brand then use a little humour in main titles; break down your content into chunks and start each section with a sub heading, this helps draw in visitors and also makes the piece easier for reading.

Lead them into that all important call to action.

Chat - Consider introducing a live chat feature on your site so if visitors get stuck or need to ask you a question then you are only one click away from an answer; the key is to keep them on your site at all times.

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10 Fabulous Traffic Ideas for your Blog

Blogs are an incredibly popular ways to create an online presence for businesses today; they can be free to set up and you can start creating content almost immediately.

But, is there any point to having great content if no one is ever going to read it, so here are ten ideas to bring traffic in to your blog.

Remember that thousands of blogs have failed over the years; they are like running any type of business in that unless you are willing to put the time in and treat it seriously, you won’t be blogging long.

Most new bloggers really aren’t prepared for the work that goes into creating a successful one. Just building the blog doesn’t mean that people will necessary come to you. You pursue the audience and give them a reason to see what you have to say.

1.         Fresh Content – Apart from the fact that the major search engines love sites to have fresh content, no one wants to visit a blog day after day and see the same posts. You really need to update your blog content at least twice a week. This will be easier if you write several posts ahead of time and upload them at the appropriate times – which is what I do.

2.         Article Marketing – whilst traditional article marketing used to help rank your site better in Google isn’t worthwhile anymore, it is still useful to write some of your articles so that they can be posted on article directory site to help bring in more visitors.

3.         Social Networking – these sites are everywhere. Allowing visitors to share your post via social media (look at addthis.com) and promoting your posts via Tweets etc is a great viral way to help promote your posts.

4.         Viral Marketing – this is where you spread the word about your blog. Talk to friends, family and even strangers. Give out business cards that have your blog address on them.  Add it to your email signature, promote it within forums, talk about it and share it at every opportunity.

5.         Use RSS Feeds – RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication.” Readers can subscribe to your feed and get email updates when your new content is posted. It is an incredibly easy way for them to keep up with your blog.

6.         Submit Blog to Search Engines – a lot of people forget to do this, but submitting your blog to search engine directories will allow it to be ranked in search results. Search engines don’t necessary need you to do this anymore, but it is worth doing.  Please note that submitting your blog to search engines doesn’t automatically mean you’ll get a high ranking.

7.         Joining Forums – as a blogger you are a budding entrepreneur. Your main job is to market yourself and your blog. Become a member of related business forums, work at home forums and others to meet new people and share ideas. Remember that you should add a link to your blog in the signature line so others can easily find you.

8.         Visit other blogs – visit other blogs and leave positive comments; add a link back to your blog in your comments or there is also usually a “website” field that will link your name to your blog automatically.

9.         SEO Marketing – whatever you write, use relevant keywords. Ensure that you mention these keywords enough times throughout your blog posts but not too much; aim for about a five percent keyword density to help search engine rankings  Base your keywords on a research you do to find the most popular words used in search engines for your niche.  If you are unsure about keywords and how to get them into your content correctly then talk to a copywriter.

10.       Social Bookmarking – submitting your posts to social bookmarking sites allows others who are members of those sites that don’t know about your blog to visit you.

Using any of these ideas will start the traffic moving in your direction. It takes time but you will build the readership you want.

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Killer Social Media Strategies

Social media allows businesses both large and small to have a lot of impact and power, here are just a small number of things that you can do.

1. Q&A's

Social media has been developed to engage with your potential customers and customers alike, but may businesses have no idea how to do this easily.  The best way is to hold scheduled Q&A sessions – let your Followers and Fans alike ask you anything they want about your business, products and services.  You may even quickly discover problem areas or new product ideas; this approach will also do wonders for your brand too.

2. Solve Problems

By doing regular searches for your brand name, product/services or market sector you will quickly discover people who are asking questions on Social Media platforms about things that you should be an expert in. 

Respond to them, answer their questions; don’t answer with your sales hat on unless the question specifically warrant you suggesting your companies services but try to answer with your customer services hat on.

In fact this approach goes beyond traditional customer services and you’ll be seen as active within the wider community; this is huge for your brand.

3. Promotions/Offers and Competitions

You will have lots of loyal Followers/Fans, and it’s nice if you can reward then from time to time for being there for you.  Give special offers, promote events, provide competitions – anything to further your engagement with your market/community.

Give value and you’ll have a Fan for life!

4. Value added links

If you are a business that just provides links to your homepage or your products and services pages then you are missing a huge trick; provide links to useful resources/news items (whether on your site or not); this will continue to add value to your brand and your wider community.

Work SMARTER, not harder!

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Sneaky way to improve your Klout score

This is a little sneaky but it does the job!

Ok so you love Klout, you need to improve your score, to do this you know you need to get people to interact with you but you have no idea how to do it … here’s a great tip.

Simply ask questions 

Pick an account with a large following (Consumer brands are the best ones to pick because they know the importance of responding to Twitter users).

Ask a simple question (maybe where they are based, where can you buy their product, what is the link to their website, what is their customer services email or telephone number etc), it doesn’t really matter what it is, it just needs to be a simple question that will make the brand look like they are helping out a consumer of theirs.

Once you get a reply, as them another simple question immediately afterwards – you should get another quick reply, but Klout recognises this as a communication, and ENGAGEMENT and you’ll improve your score.

Note: There is no replacement for real engagement, use this tactic sparingly.

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Getting more Twitter followers easily

Some simple tips for you to follow to help get more Twitter followers easily.

• Post great content that people love and are interested in. 
• Posting content on trending topics may get you a number of followers that are interested in those trending topics. 
• Use a real photo of yourself might get you more Followers 
• Your Profile is really important, so write it to attract the right followers 
• Follow only the people who you want to follow you 
• INTERACT with people that you want to Follow you. 
• #FF #FollowFriday can help you get Followers from the people that you mention 
• Can you start a Twitter Competition? This will always get you lots of new followers 
• Try a Twitter Q&A session 
• Use popular or trending #Hashtags

Good luck

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