Hmmmm …
This is a question that has been on my mind lately – how to eliminate, or at least scare off, those pesky green caterpillars that like to munch on my brassicas! (more…)
10/03/2010
16/11/2009
10 more great reasons to update your website content
Seems that plenty of readers are looking for a rationale for why they need to update their company websites.
I would also like to make the point that if one of the reasons your site is not being regularly updated is because you have to get your web company to do it for you, or your staff find it difficult to use the CMS behind your site – then it is time for a change.
Get training for your staff
or
Have your site shifted to a user friendly CMS (Joomla is one good option to check out).
Don’t let the construction of your site stop you from keeping it fresh. (more…)
10/11/2009
Fawlty Towers-style marketing
How brave are you when it comes to your web content?
Yes, once again I am talking about doing what it takes to make your site stand out and connect with your target audiences. And even better, create the kind of content that is different enough and edgy enough to make readers send their friends and colleagues to read it for themselves – or email/share your site links.
All too often we get scared when it comes to doing something cool with our site content. The pressure to be polite, politically correct, grammatically correct, and really, kinda boring … is very strong. (more…)
31/10/2009
10 must-do’s for website content
Ok, so I am going to succumb to another list about great website content for SEO … since that seems to be what floats people’s boats out there in the interwebs.
- Put your audience first – what will they be looking for on your site? What will turn them on, and keep them there to read all the good stuff and maybe even purchase your products or services … and what will scream out at them to just click right off the site.
- Use the tools at your disposal. There are many free tools to analyse how people are interacting with your website and most of them are free. Make sure you install Google analytics at the very least, and learn how to use it. This is powerful information that too many people ignore.
- Keep your sentences short and sweet. People will be scanning the page, so they need to get the sense of what you are saying quickly. Avoid long, complex sentences – attention will be quickly lost. (more…)
27/10/2009
Vanilla or lime? Does your site have flavour??
When you are creating a website you want people to come back to over and over again … and a site you want people to recommend to others, it is important that it has depth and flavour.
The interwebs are full of vanilla sites that are little more than online brochures, they have no depth, no personality – no real reason for people to want to come back again. (more…)
07/10/2009
when the going gets tough … how to combat the current recession
The tough turn to the internet.
(or Batman and Superman)
Right?
Well that seems to be the trend, as things get tougher out there for the traditional marketing media of print, television and radio, internet spending is increasing, and the expectations of what the net can deliver are getting higher. (more…)
23/09/2009
time to go fishing? – exploring link bait
bait
Yeah, so it’s the season to head into the wilds for a spot of fishing … the whitebait are running and I am guessing their bigger cousins, the salmon are probably out there feeling frisky too.
So what do you need for a good day out on the water?
First thing is to get your bait sorted.
And that’s a very round about way to getting to my topic for this post – developing “link bait” - otherwise known as “content so awesome that other sites will fall over themselves to link to it and recommend to their friends”.
Developing material that makes people want to link to you is really what the success of the internet and virtually all forms of social media is built on – the very human desire to share cool stuff with our friends. Because what’s the point of coming across something amazing, or ROFL hilarious, or inspiring, or just downright useful – if you can’t then share it with someone else. Half the pleasure lies in being able to talk about those discoveries with your friends – argue about them sometimes, send them on to others to share as well so you can all talk about it and have a laugh or whatever response is most appropriate (or inappropriate in some cases).
We have all seen those YouTube videos that go viral (if you haven’t then you need to be better connected) … and we have all been the recipients (and sometimes the senders on) of those emails that demand to be sent on, in order that you either receive great blessings, or avoid great calamity.
In their own ways, these are the same things as link bait, except somewhere out there in the world of SEO, someone coined a phrase that is less than flattering – but still pretty apt.
So … keep in mind when you are developing content that you really hope will draw people into your site – not only does it have to be really “share worthy” in its own right, not appear to be spam if people choose to pass it on, and ideally be original – you also may need to invest a little time in sharing the love yourself, to make sure it gets the attention you think it deserves.
Don’t be afraid to put it out there – first and foremost, test it in the communities you hang out in and see what they think … if the response is positive, then start spreading the love.
Use your social media networks – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, delicious, YouTube and anywhere else you hang out, invite people to have a look and cross your fingers that they like it enough to pass it on or link to it from their blogs and websites. The more compelling it is, the most likely this is to happen.
So spend most of your time thinking and making it great, before you invest in spreading the word.
Then of course, if you get a good result, the hardest thing is coming up with a sequel that matches its success, or even better, outstrips it! Of course, if your first effort is already out there working for you, your second can piggyback on that groundwork to some extent … if you have a hit YouTube video, chances are that any other videos you post to your channel will also get some attention.
But don’t rest on your laurels – make sure you keep the standards high, and reward the people who were interested enough to come and have a look.
Before you know it, you and your creations could be an “overnight success” – we’ve all seen it happen, so we know it’s possible.
Good luck and happy fishing!
Karen
25/08/2009
how do you interact with pictures?
You’ve all seen them – those great looking sites … probably made in Flash, with cool whizzy animations, dramatic graphics, all the funky stuff.
And we all know that sometimes images can be a lot more powerful than words.
Except, you can’t interact with them (unless of course your images are moving, and it’s an embedded YouTube vid or a Ustream live feed).
And right now, interactivity is where it’s at. Thanks largely to what most people are calling social media or Social Media. I like to call it interactive media – and it’s something I’ve been participating in online for maybe 10 years now, primarily through message boards and forums.
Not a huge number of different ones, a small, select group … I have started a few, currently moderate one, have been a very active participant in three or four.
One of them is an online Success Team (once again, a la Barbara Sher) that originated from her message boards … we started out with 7 or 8 members, had a few fluctuations over the years, now down to just four of us and these days we probably all blog more and post more on Facebook than we do on the message board itself.
The thing that has held that little group of women together – since none of us have met in person, are the words we share, the words about our lives, our families, our jobs and businesses, our sorrows and our joys. And in more recent years, technology has allowed us to share some images too … which is great since two of our members are artists and it is always a treat to see their work.
My membership of the SARK (Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy) message boards, firstly Camp Sark, and then the Marvellous Message Board (MMB for short) took me to the US to stay with women I had only ever met online – a hugely brave thing for me to do at the time, and a wonderful adventure I will always remember.
Then there’s the Tavern – where I am one of the “buxom wench hostesses”. This inspiring group of women is spread between New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, the UK, Europe, the US and Canada. Over the years I have laughed, cried, lived and loved with them. They are some of the most supportive, intelligent, creative and downright hilarious women I have ever come across and my life is richer for having them all in it. Some of these women I have met in person, some I have had in my house, some I have travelled to meet in Melbourne for our “wenchfest”.
Once again, we mostly share in words, but we also upload pictures of our lives, the places we live, people we love, food we make … all that jazz.
Then of course there are the raw boards, the most important one to me being a spin off from the Tavern (yeah kinda like a sitcom). Started by my friend Lucie Walker in Canada, this board has also been a powerful source of information and inspiration for my raw food journey, and her blog is a font of tremendous wisdom.
I guess this truly is a stream of consciousness ramble tonight, but my point is that our words are very powerful for building bonds between you and the very real people who are out there reading what you have to say.
Never forget that.
Don’t be afraid to open up and share, and be open to the fact that the internet has become an incredibly powerful way of building relationships from one side of the world to the other, and of helping bring about change on an international level.
Oh and, back to those flashy websites that are all about the look. So often they have no soul – they just look pretty, but we get bored with them really fast, because they are not a place where people feel comfortable about hanging out. Bit like a fancy show home where you are afraid to sit on the white leather couches. It looks really cool, but you wouldn’t want to live there.
To me, the trick of creating websites that really work is making your site feel like a place people feel comfortable – and want to come back to. Because you have interesting stuff to say – and because you are happy to listen and have made it possible for your customers/readers/members to get onboard and share.
If you have a moment please share in the comments some of the online places you feel relaxed hanging out in.
Thanks again for reading.
Karen
21/08/2009
Fresh is best – 5 reasons to update your site content right now!
fresh green
Sometimes we need to state what to many might seem like the screamingly obvious – your website is NOT a brochure. Please don’t just “set and forget” and expect it to provide any kind of return on the investment you have placed in getting it up and running.
Fresh is definitely best – best for your readers – old and new, and best for those lovely search engines who are constantly seeking out new material.
So the five reasons to update your site right now?
1) To show the world you are alive! First and foremost, people want to know what is going on with you and your website is your shopfront, your window to the world. If nothing is happening on your site, and nothing ever changes, then viewers might just infer that you are not updating anything because nothing is happening in your business (or if it’s a blog, your life) – you have nothing new to say. In reality, you might be way too busy to update your site – if that’s the case, please make the effort to just freshen it in the obvious places on a regular basis.
2) They won’t come back. If people make the effort to come back a few times to see what is up with you, and nothing is different, then chances are they won’t bother coming back again – so you’ve lost them.
3) You’ll lose business to your competition. If they see nothing happening on your site, visitors might also conclude that perhaps you are no longer in business, and if they are potential customers wanting to buy a product, or comission your services, then they are very likely to move on to your competition.
4) Not updating content that is obviously out of date makes your company look incompetent. Is that the perception you want the market to have of you?
5) The search engines will start downgrading your site if there is nothing new being uploaded, particularly if your competitors with the same keywords are keeping their sites fresh and relevant.
Please remember to treat your site as a constantly evolving, incredibly powerful tool – you really need to view it as something very different from every other piece of marketing collateral you have ever developed. It can be as dynamic, flexible, exciting, innovative and interactive as you want it to be – all you have to do is ask, the technology is at our fingertips like never before.
Looking forward to some juicy freshness from you now…
Karen
P.S. do you like my garden??
18/08/2009
your site feel like a ghost town?
Can you almost hear wind whistling through the unpopulated streets?
When you set it up, perhaps the pressure was on to simply get something on line, and you didn’t really have any client stories or depth of content to load anyway?
Ok. I mentioned in the tangerine skies post about how you can build content like press releases to make your company look established – even when your business is new or newish.
One of the things that visitors to your site, particularly those who might be potential clients, are looking for, are stories and examples from your existing clients.
They will be looking for testimonials of some kind, and case studies that clearly demonstrate the benefits of your products and services, and show how you work with your clients.
So what do you do when you are just starting up and you don’t have any clients to talk about yet?
I have two suggestions:
- Give your product or service away to a few clients/customers (or provide it at a reduced cost) in exchange for their agreement to provide you with client testimonials for your site. Please be clear that I am not suggesting you buy their support, but rather, that you provide something in exchange for them helping you out. If they don’t enjoy your product or service, don’t try to persuade them to say otherwise. These testimonials need to be genuine to really work for you.
- Create scenarios of how your product or service works. Create a “case A”, “case B”, “case C” that show pricing structure, how your product or service resolves a particular problem, how it is delivered etc. Once you have some real case studies you can replace these, but they at least provide a base for your customers to see what the experience of working with you would be like.
I suggest you stay away from creating fake (sometimes badly written) testimonials from non-existent customers and illustrating them with stock photography. The chances of it being very apparent to visitors to your site that these are not genuine, is very high – and immediately your credibility is undermined.
So, be creative, do what you need to do to get your product/service in front of customers – even if they are not paying full price, and focus your attention on getting their feedback as soon as possible.
Another source of testimonials that are becoming widely used, particularly in the tourism and hospitality sectors, are sites like Trip Advisor, which provides a free widget that can be added to your website, and a chance for your guests to make comments about your business and rate it. These can be incredibly powerful – for good or for evil … but of course, if you are getting bad reviews, then you need to do something about your product/service – don’t blame the reviewers!
That’s all I have for tonight.
Have fun driving the ghosts out!
Karen
