It’s the new year. Did you make any New Year’s Resolutions? Was one of them to go to the gym to get fitter and lose that Christmas podge?
Well, your website is not dissimilar. Over the years that you’ve had it, it’s hopefully been updated, edited, had new content added and irrelevant content removed. But is it still contiguous?
When was the last time you went through it,
Page by page
Link by Link to make sure everything is still working
Word by Word to ensure all your words still send the right message
Image by image to make sure your pictures are fresh, relevant and up to date.
To check that the navigation doesn’t take a visitor to the wrong page – or even worse, a 404 Error Page
To ensure that all pages load in under 3 seconds
Checking that your Shopping Cart (if you have one) still works
That your shopping cart is easy and logical to use. Ask someone unfamiliar with your site to make a trial purchase and ask for their feedback.
Ensure that the whole transaction process still functions as designed
And that your site is super easy to use on a small (mobile phone) screen
Oh, and the SEO is still top-notch, you’re using the right keywords, your Header Tags are using relevant Key Words, your Meta Title and Meta Descriptions are the right length and not duplicated, that your images have SEO relevant file names, all images have Alt-Tags and all images are of an appropriate size. That your content has keywords featured in the top one or two paragraphs but that keywords are not overly repeated. That nothing’s been missed, no stone left unturned, and your links to your Social Media profiles still work.
It’s so easy to take these things for granted, to trust that your developer has done their job but such complacency could lead to a decline in your business because you’ll never find out until it’s too late. Nobody will tell you if they encounter a problem, they’ll just go to their search engine of choice, probably Google, and look for somebody else to service their need.
Unlike a lot of website SEO evaluations, mine will be carried out by me, not by a machine, so I’ll come back with a far better evaluation and detailed list of recommendations that you can carry out, that you can pass to your developer or you can ask me to implement. And if you book your *Website Workoutby the end of January 2023 you’ll get 100% of the cost back if you choose to let me take on your SEO.
Option Two
Carry out the in-depth Website Workout yourself (but you might slip up if you are overly familiar with your site so getting a third party to do it for you is always the best option
Option Three
Get in touch to talk about other options. I can help with your website, your SEO, your Social Media, Email Marketing and much more and I even offer a free consultancy session, or you can just drop me an email or just give me a call on 01793 238020 or 07966 547146.
You’ve had a website for years, you’ve just updated your website or you’ve just launched your website and are worried that your website is invisible and your customers won’t be able to find it. What can you do, what should you do and what must you do?
Don’t panic, this simple guide will take you through the steps you must take to ensure that Google can find your website in the online jungle, how to make your site visible in Google search and even point the way to creating a website that actually works, rather than just look good. And if all else fails, or you want to shortcut the process – just get in touch and I’ll step in and help out.
How does Google find your site?
Not a Search Engine Robot
Let’s start with Google Search – used by over 90% of people who use a search engine, and that’s around 80% of web users so that’s a lot of people. Google uses software called Robots to scour websites. They send these Robots out on the World Wide Web to find as many websites as possible. They do this by following the links between websites, the Robots look at all of the pages they can find and take all of the information back to the massive Google database of websites, Google calls this database their “Index”.
If you don’t have any links (Backlinks) to your website there is a very real danger that Google will miss your site so you need to install the free Google Analytics website performance tool and sign up to the free Google Search Console. This brings your site to the attention of Google and guarantees a visit from the Robots. However, this does not guarantee that your site will feature in the search results – it needs quality, non-spammy content for that and even this does not guarantee a place ion the top pages. You need SEO for that
How does Google rate your site?
The Google Logo
Google wants to understand the purpose of every singe page of your website. To do this, it needs to be able to visit every page. This requires good navigation links on your site AND, if you have a large site, the use of an XML Sitemap so that Google, and all the other search engines, can find all of your pages.
Then, once your pages are in the Index it’s ready to be found. When somebody searches for the services you provide or the products you sell, Google checks its Index for all the words that have been entered in the search box. It very quickly finds all of the pages in the Google Index and applies an algorithm to those results. The algorithm is a set of mathematical tools, instructions and filters that measures every page of each website by looking at more than 200 different signs and signals and the results that most closely match the search terms appear at the top of the Search Results Pages (Page 1) and the poorer the match, the farther down the results the sites appear. And remember only about 50% of search users EVER make it to Page 2 whilst just 10% make it to P3 and beyond. Making P3 a great place to bury bad news.
How do you make your website more visible
First off, make sure your website is fast (if it’s slow people won’t stay so it doesn’t matter how great, or naff, your site is you’ve already hampered your business). Then ensure that it’s full of great relevant content with positive calls to action. Your website MUST be for your site visitors and clients and “created to help users” – that’s directly from Google. This means that each page must be user centred and designed to –
share information about a topic
share personal or social information
share pictures, videos or other forms of media
express an opinion or point of view
entertain
sell products or services
allow users to post questions for other users to answer
allow users to share files or download software
provide something of similar quality
Google Analytics Logo
Next up is to install the free Google Analytics tracking software that will help you understand how well your website is performing with your customers. Then authenticate with the Google Search Console, another free tool from Google that will give an insight into what Google thinks of your website.
By doing this, you bring your website to the attention of Google which means they know where to send their Robots to Spider your website and take everything back in to the Google Index.
Now it’s time to build your Google My Business(GMB) profile to help Google understand your NAP, that’s your Name, Address & Phone Number. Once you’ve completed your GMB profile you should register with a number of key web based directory websites.
In the meantime you should be adding fresh, new, relevant and search engine optimised content. That’s because people love new stuff, and so does Google – it informs Google that your website is active and your business is still trading. It also demonstrates your EAT to Google, that’s your Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. If you are in the financial sector you need to be concerned with Google’s YMYL – Your Money or Your Life.
YMYL content is content that impacts on a reader’s happiness, health, safety or financial stability which, if presented incorrectly, might have a direct, negative, impact on people’s lives
Writing something new about once a month should do it – keep your eyes open for my forthcoming post that’ll be all about writing great, search optimised, content for your website and if you need any help with your content, your SEO or anything else to do with your digital marketing, you know to do.
Social Likes
And not forgetting your Social Media. Every time you create new content don’t forget to share it on your Socials. That helps spread the word and the right posts, of the right content, will attract visits to your website. Google Analytics will show you which platforms are delivering the best traffic. As well as your Socials, don’t forget email and video marketing as well as podcasts.
And if you don’t have the time or need professional help, I am just a call or an email away.
Back in the early 80s, when I was undertaking quite a bit of management training I became familiar with 7Ps. Proper Preparation & Planning Prevents Pretty Poor Performance*.
When I moved from IT Support Engineer and Consultant in to Internet Marketing I learned about a different 7Ps, the 7Ps of Marketing:
Product/Service
Price
Place
People
Process
Physical Evidence
Promotion
Sometimes, when I introduce myself as a marketing professional, some conclude that I work with “advertising”. As you’ll see as you read on, you’ll see that advertising is just one part of marketing communications, which is one of the 7 Ps of marketing.
I’ve touched really briefly on the various elements of the marketing mix – but please get in touch if I can help you work through anything in particular, email andy@enterprise-oms.co.uk or give me a call on 01793 238020.
This is just a snapshot of the breakdown of marketing. But it is good to sit back from your business and challenge yourself with some of these questions.
Product/Service:
Is there a market for what you do? How do you know?
Why should people buy what you offer at all and why should they buy from you?
What makes you different from your competition?
Who is your competition – when did you last do a competitive SWOT?
What are the overall growth trends in your sector?
What is your sales pattern? What area of your sales is strongest and why and can you harness this strength elsewhere?
And what area is weakest? What are you doing about it?
How well do you treat your customers?
Which profitable customers can you win from whom? Who? How? Why? Where? When?
Price
Have you built value into your pricing?
Are you competitive?
Is your cost enough for you to work with profit?
How do you set your price?
Will you discount?
How will you avoid being always known for discounting?
What do your competitors do?
Keep It simple
Place
How easy/convenient is it for your customers to buy from you?
Where and how are you currently selling your products and services?
What are the opportunities to extend these?
If you are selling a service on the web, are you supporting with testimonials and case studies?
People
Are your people one of your main strengths of your business?
Or are you the bottle neck in your company? Are you better than everyone else and does everything have to come through you first?
What type of leader are you?
What is the path for your team to voice their concerns other than coming through you?
Are your people your best ambassadors or are they whinging about you/the business as soon as they are out of the door?
Are they as well trained as they can possibly be?
Did you involve your team when you last undertook a company SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) –really powerful.
Process
One of the vital Ps but often overlooked and often designed for the company’s benefit rather than the customer’s. Ask yourself:
Can your team deliver a consistent level of service to all customers and at all times?
Customer retention is critical.. how failsafe is your process to ensure you don’t lose any?
How effective is your sales process?
What processes have you in place for telephone answering/billing/communication with your clients/recommendations/operations/
Physical Evidence (Brand)
Your brand is defined as
Signs by which you are known and remembered
A bundle of explicit/implicit promises
A reflection of personality
A statement of position.
Have you thought about/discussed what does your company stand for? What’s its personality and philosophy? What’s your one key brand promise to your customers?
Your brand is so much more than your logo. Think about a new visitor’s journey to your web site – does this reflect the look and feel of any communication they have had from you hitherto? Will they recognise this as being part of the same business? Have you had your website made mobile friendly? Really important.
A few hours spent on this are far from fluffy nonsense.
Promotion (Communication)
Just a few from the hundreds of options
Off line
Face to face
Word of Mouth referral
Networking
Telesales as part of a process
PR
Exhibitions and events
Direct marketing and sales letters with appropriate follow up driving to the web
Postcards
Events and seminars
Advertising but think carefully before you embark here. One off random ads are a waste of time and money! Is it the right target market? Don’t be dazzled by offers…
On line
Website and how are you pushing your web? Does your copy talk about ‘you’, ie the reader? Are you making regular blog posts and updates? Have you considered more SEO, more PPC, back links, etc
Online videos on YouTube – how to/ about/testimonials – so many options.
Social media – which platforms should you invest time in?
So then, back to the management version: Just think how powerful your marketing strategy will be when you combine the planning from my original 7Ps with the focus provided by the 7Ps of marketing.
Combining your marketing knowledge to create a good strategy/plan using the 7Ps of Marketing coupled with the the 7Ps of Management managing implementation will surely lead to improved business performance.
But there are few quick wins when it comes to marketing, the more you work at it, the better it becomes. So, remember to take time away from working IN your business, (doing the business stuff) to work ON your business, doing the stuff that makes your business better. Set aside time on a weekly basis – little and often on a regular basis.
Remember though, I’m an Internet Marketing specialist although I’ll be more than happy to talk over other elements of your marketing activities and help where I can, Digital Marketing is where my skill set lies. If you have any questions, call me on 01793 238020, email andy@enterprise-oms.co.uk or just search Chief SEO Officer
*Oh, and of course we didn’t learn “pretty poor performance” we used a far more pithy term than “pretty”
In December last year Tamara Ecclestone’s London home was burgled and jewellery worth £50m was stolen.
Leaving aside the fact that this is a phenomenal sum of money to have invested in jewellery only to leave it “lying around” there are many rumours as to the particular timing of the heist.
Just a few hours before the robbery took place, Tamara and her husband shared a picture on Instagram of them boarding a private jet.
As a billionairess it’s no doubt that people of a dubious background will have been watching her social media updates hoping for just such an opportunity. They will have lists of targets, important addresses and social media accounts and probably even have plans in place, ready for execution as soon as an opportunity presents itself.
So, think about the pictures you post to Social Media. What do they give away? All those photos of you sunning yourself on a beach somewhere warm and exotic tells near do wells that you are not at home. Photos of road trips tell people that you are not at home, or in your business.
You even need to make sure that there’s nothing in the background of the picture that can be zoomed in to that might give away something you’d rather kept private. An innocent looking photo taken outside of your house could, if zoomed in, give away your house number whilst previous, or subsequent pictures could give away your street name – for example.
If you are going away, and you are an important cog in your business, it could encourage scammers to target employees with fake emails requesting money transfers, payment of fake bills and invoices etc.
So why not make 2020 the year you strengthen your security fortifications. Make a start with passwords and email.
Conduct a password audit of everything AND everybody involved in your business.
Enforce the use of strong passwords and encourage the use of password managers
Make sure that you have a strong email policy in place.
Educate yourself and your employees on the tricks used by scammers-
how to check whether a link in an email takes the clicker to a safe site or not Hint – hover your cursor over the link to see the full web address
Ensure that the email comes from a trusted address. Is it from mycompany.co.uk or mycompany.co or myc0mpany.co.uk for example? hint – hover your cursor over the address or just hit “reply”
Are there any obvious spelling or grammatical errors?
Would you be expecting an email from this particular source?
Does the email express an urgent response?
Don’t forget that people new to your organisation should also receive the same level of training. Always remember that “if it feels to good to be true” then it probably is
And if you are still unsure, look up the phone number for the company that you think the email is from and give them a call – don’t rely on the phone number that’s displayed within the potential scam email.
Watch out for more emails looking at security issues and if you have any concerns, please don’t hesitate to get in touch for an informal chat by email (andy@enterprise-oms.co.uk) by phone (01793 238020) or ask me on Social Media – Linkedin or Twitter and I’ll be only too happy to talk.
Thanks for reading and I hope you have a great, and secure 2020.
If you are on my email newsletter list so you already like email marketing but are you using email for your business? If so, well done, how is it working out for you?
If not, then perhaps you should read the following before you continue to miss out on one of the greatest marketing opportunities.
Did you know that 66% of consumers (businesses and consumers) have made an online purchase as a direct result of an email marketing message.(1)
There are more than 6.32 billion email accounts and this is predicted to reach 7.71 billion by 2021. Facebook has 1.3 billion users. A big number, for sure, but that’s around 1/5th the number of email accounts.(2)
Despite the explosion of Social Media 72% of consumers say that they prefer to receive their news via email than any other means. This is because ti comes TO them, they don’t have to search it out.(3)
61% say they like to receive weekly promotional emails and 28% want them even more frequently! (4)
And here are some more reasons to use email marketing
Personalise. One of the other great advantages of email marketing over social media is that you can talk personally to your recipients.
Delivery. 90% of emails reach their destination, the in-boxes of your clients
It’s easier It’s 5 times easier to win more business from existing customers than it it is to bring a single, new, customer on board
Great ROI. The DMA quote the return on investment of email marketing as 40:1 so for every $1 spent you get a return of $40
Calls-To-Action. You can easily add effective Calls-to-Action to your emails
Performance monitoring You can measure the effectiveness of your email campaigns
Popular Email is the most popular activity on SmartPhones
How do you write to?
I’m not talking about buying lists of data but sending emails to your existing customers, which is permitted under GDPR, and encouraging people to subscribe to newsletters.
You can do this using pop-overs on your website, collecting data at networking events and business shows, in fact in any place where you cross paths with potential customers.
Next Steps
If you are interested in releasing the power of email marketing and need some help getting started, with creating your messages and/or with making sure your messages don’t get caught by the spam filters then get in touch.
It’s easy to do. Just give me a call on 01793 238020 or email andy@enterprise-oms.co.uk for a free chat about email marketing for your business or organisation.
I’ve been meaning to write about this for a while now and was reminded again about the message your email address sends when I was following a trades-person’s van recently. The van was sign written [good], carried a large phone number [good], web address in significantly smaller [not so good] print http://www.jobbingtrader.co.uk and an email address, not just any email but a Gmail address [awful], jobbing-trader13@gmail.com [names have been changed to protect my health].
This is wrong on so many levels.
First off – a Gmail address, really! In fact any free email address, such as one from Hotmail, Outlook, Yahoo, Virgin, BTInternet or AOL to name but a few really does send the wrong message!
Secondly, it also shouts I don’t understand. It’s far easier to remember an email address when the bit that goes after the @ is the same that goes after the www. You are getting twice the chance of people remembering your contact details
Thirdly, you are missing out on so many opportunities to better manage your email. You can have multiple addresses, info@, sales@, accounts@, enquiries@, myname@ to name just a few. You can set up folders in your email program for each address and easily create rules which automatically route incoming emails and move them to the relevant folder.
With each part of your business having a unique email address everything is a little easier to prioritise and manage. As an example, you could look at sales@ first because these might be new contracts, accounts@ next because these relate to money and myname@ last because these are more likely to be personal in nature.
All of the above can be easily achieved if you have your own web address because each web address can usually have more than one email address and most email programs enable you to set up folders and create rules.
Managing your emails in this way will help you to present a more professional look to the outside world and enable you to be more effective when it comes to managing your emails and the way that you act, save, delete and back them up. You do back up your emails don’t you?
If you have any questions about your email services then get in touch blog@enterprise-oms.co.uk [did you see what I did there?] or give me a call on 01793 238020
Willie Sutton is a well known American bank robber (bio on Wiki). Although always taking a pistol or Thompson sub-machine gun he never killed anyone, in fact he never even fired his weapon. When captured, his gun was always found to be empty and when asked about this he simply replied “I never carry a loaded gun because somebody may get hurt”. In fact if a woman screamed or a baby cried he stopped the robbery and left.
Why are we talking about Willie? Simple, he made a statement that has ramifications on your marketing even today, when asked why he robbed banks Willie replied “Because that’s where the money is”
So, how does that reflect on marketing? Simple – when you are marketing your business, you should always look where the money (your customers) is.
Where is the money? According to marketing expert Drayton Bird, Millennials may not be the ideal target, they are buried in debt, apparently 40% of 18-34 year olds live with their parents and struggle to find well paying jobs.
Baby boomers, on the other hand are less stressed about money having enjoyed decades of cheap housing, safe jobs (some guaranteed for life), solid pensions and huge stock market gains. So, perhaps that’s who your marketing should be focussing on.
A recent survey has also turned up some very interesting statistics about Baby Boomers. Apparently they respond better to offline advertising
Less than 10% prefer hearing from a new company through email
73% prefer getting new product/service offers by mail
Only 31% say they discard unopened commercial mail
So, what’s the message? Don’t ignore “snail mail” – take a look at what arrives in your letterbox. Mine’s almost empty for most of the week so a well targeted piece of direct mail is likely to be opened, and that’s half the battle. After that, it’s down to the quality of your letter, the words, the pictures AND ensuring that there’s a positive call to action (CTA) and whilst on the topic of CTAs, every page of your website should have one and every email you send.
What’s next? If you need help with any aspect of your marketing, get in touch. Give me a call on 01793 238020, drop me an email to andy@enterprise-oms.co.uk or link up on LinkedIn or Twitter.
Brexit was always going to have problems and issues for businesses but none expected it to have an impact on business domain names.
Well, until Easter 2018 anyway, which was when a major problem for businesses was announced in well known and respected technology news site, The Register.
You probably chose your .EU domain for a really good reason, you want the world to know that either you are an EU-based business or your market is the EU, for example.
However, as a result of Brexit, the EU has announced that all .EU domains registered by UK businesses (and individuals) will be revoked on B-Day (Brexit Day) 31st March 2018
What this means is that if you are one of the 300,000 UK organisations or individuals who has registered a .EU domain you might well see your website disappear overnight.
Obviously, continental domain registrars may well take advantage of this, offering to take on your domain and “fix” the problem for a (presumably large) fee, but that also has issues. The European Commission has hinted it is unhappy with that arrangement too; they will no longer allow you to own an .eu domain (that’s their whole point), so you are putting yourself at some commercial risk (similar to not owning IP in any products you make), and the EU is legally bound to prefer “the good of the EU” in any contractual dispute. Thankfully though, there are alternatives:
What’s in a (domain) name?
It’s not just your web site that could be affected, your email system, security certificates for encryption and e-commerce, and possibly even remote access to company assets for sales staff might be impacted too.
It will vary, obviously, depending on how you are set up, but checking this now is very sensible.
Perhaps the best approach is to do two things
Immediately register a suitable .UK domain, and
Point your .EU web traffic to it as soon as possible.
You have a choice of .uk domain name, and you can still represent your EU connection in it, if that’s crucial. For example,
bloggs-transport.eu
might change to,
bloggs-transport-eu.uk
We realise this isn’t ideal, but the second name is safe as it can’t be affected by any disruption the EU Commission might cause. You would have normal rights to the name, under English law, and, if it’s done right, there’s almost a whole year for your clients to get used to your new URL. Thus the risk is minimised, and it becomes one aspect of Brexit that can’t hurt you further commercially.
If this change goes ahead—and this is much more likely than unlikely in our opinion—you have less than a year for clients to become used to the change. This isn’t something to hesitate over: the implication is that no redirection will be possible after 31st March 2019, so at that point your site will simply vanish off the internet. People may even think you’ve gone bust!
Right now, you have enough time for this NOT to become an expensive issue. The longer you leave this one, the more electronic business disruption is likely to cost you come Brexit day.
If you have a .eu domain and you are worried, please get in touch: 01793 238020 andy@enterprise-oms.co.uk, the fixes are mostly straightforward and inexpensive to implement (without disruption, if you act quickly enough).
I recently read a post on www.SmallBusinessNewz.com that says many small businesses do nothing to enhance their on-line presence and 90% have not even considered paid web marketing such as Pay per Click [aka Google Ads, PPC] or sponsored updates on Social Media sites.
Personally, I think that this is good news even though I may disagree with the one of the main reasons they give – they believe that it may be too expensive and not deliver results.
I know that a properly constructed and managed campaign WILL most certainly deliver results and does not have to be expensive. However, campaigns that are rushed in to place and ineffectively managed will simply feed the money hungry machines that are Google, Facebook etc.
What’s even worse is that even a well set up and managed campaign may not deliver the wished for results because the website at the end of the click may not be up to the task.
It would be like advertising the opening of a new supermarket, building demand and expectation and then throwing open the doors only to have the shelves half stocked and no one around to help or take your money. A wasted opportunity! Not only a wasted opportunity but a wasted future because people who have had their expectations dashed will never return and (and this is just as bad) spread the word.
So, a business with a website that is unsatisfactory from a visitors perspective should NOT embark on any new marketing activity until
the destination website is up to scratch.
they are sure they have the resources to deal with an uplift in enquiries and / or sales
What do I mean by having a website that is “up to scratch”? Watch this space for my next post.
I’ve been meaning to write about this for a while now and was reminded again about the message your email address sends when I was following a van recently. The van was sign written [good], carried a large phone number [good], web address in significantly smaller [not so good] http://www.jobbingtrader.co.uk and an email address, not just any email but a free address [awful], jobbing-trader13@outlook.com [names have been changed to protect my health].
This is wrong on so many levels.
First off – an Outlook.com address, really! In fact any free email address, such as one from Yahoo.com or Virgin.net or BTInternet or AOL to name but a few really does send the wrong message!
Secondly, it also shouts “I don’t understand”. It’s far easier to remember an email address when the bit that goes after the @ is the same that goes after the www. you are getting twice the chance of people remembering your contact details
Thirdly, you are missing out on so many opportunities to better manage your email, you can have multiple addresses, info@, sales@, accounts@, enquiries@, myname@ to name just a few. You can then set up folders in your email program for each address and easily create rules which automatically filter incoming emails and move them to the relevant folder.
With each part of your business having a unique email address means that everything is a little easier to prioritise and manage. As an example, you could look at sales@ first because these might be new contracts, accounts@ next because these relate to money and myname@ last because these are more likely to be personal in nature.
All of the above can be easily achieved if you have your own web address because each web address can usually have more than one email address and most email programs enable you to set up folders and create rules.
Managing your emails in this way will help you to present a more professional look to the outside world and enable you to be more effective when it comes to managing your emails and the way that you act, save, delete and back them up. You do back up your emails don’t you?
If you have any questions about your email services, don’t hesitate to get in touch blog@enterprise-oms.co.uk [did you see what I did there?] or give me a call on 01793 238020
