While some web pages act as catalogues or deposits for information, others have one sole mission – to get you to “buy in” to a product or service (free or paid) before you leave that page. These type of pages are called “landing pages” and they work by providing you with all the information you need to make the buying decision, and inviting you to buy. While there is no formula to guarantee your landing page makes the sale every time, we can offer you some tips on how to build an effective landing page that will increase your chances of success.

Use an attention-grabbing headline
When someone lands on your web page you have a split second to grab their attention and persuade them to read on. If your heading is difficult to spot, a bit vague or not very interesting you’ll lose the sale straight away. Make sure your heading is big and bold and offers something of value to your visitors.

Use sub-headings throughout your landing page
A long page of text can look daunting so break it up by using relevant sub-headings. As well as improving the look of the page, the sub-headings will highlight specific features or benefits that may be of interest to your visitors and draw them in to read more.

Make sure your copy is well written
There’s no excuse for presenting a page of copy that’s full of typos and spelling mistakes – and it will do your credibility no good either. At the very least run your copy through a spell-checker. Better still, let someone else read it through before you publish it.

Include a strong call to action
The key to an effective landing page is to leave your readers in no doubt what it is you want them to do. Choose a strong Call To Action (CTA) and use it consistently throughout your landing page, both within the text and on buying/download buttons. Make sure at least one CTA button is visible above the fold of the page (on the area visitors can see without scrolling down) so people don’t have to search for it. If your landing page isn’t working as well as you would like, test out some different calls to action because it can make a huge difference.

Use multimedia materials
Not everyone responds well to text, so while some people will enjoy reading your beautifully written copy, others may get bored and leave your site. Balance the text with other types of content such as videos, charts, images and audio to appeal to as many people as possible.
By understanding how to build an effective landing page you’ll give yourself the best possible chance of keeping visitors on your site and pushing them towards a buying decision.

For more help with landing pages or websites generally, call us today on 01793 608777 for a chat about how we could help you use internet marketing successfully.

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

One of the best ways to promote your business online is by promoting yourself as an expert in your field. Your knowledge and skills, combined with your unique background and personality, makes you an expert like no other. You just need to know how to leverage your expert status to benefit your business, because once people get to know you and trust you, the loyalty they feel for you as a person (or personality) is easily transferred to your business, and sales will follow.

There are various ways you can begin to establish yourself as an expert, starting with your website. Brochure sites are great for showing off your product, but consider adding plenty of content on your specialist topic, perhaps through a blog area. Give away information and advice for free to demonstrate that you know what you’re talking about. This way people will feel valued and will return again and again, building up a relationship with you with the result that they will come to you when they are ready to pay for your service. Make it easy for people to keep up to date with your blog by giving them subscription options such as RSS readers and emails. Also make it easy to share your content on social media sites – if you’re that good your visitors won’t want to keep you to themselves!

Article marketing has long been another way for business owners to establish themselves as experts. However, the many changes that Google has made to its search algorithm now means that article sites no longer hold the SEO power they once had, and actually having duplicate copy can be damaging. Instead, join forces with other businesses that complement your own and offer to write a guest post for their blog. They benefit from your expertise, as do their readers, and you will get valuable exposure to a new audience.

Have a look round for relevant forums – either general business ones such as 4Networking or the UK Business Forums, or more specific ones tailored to your industry. Posting on there – especially in response to people’s requests for advice – is another great way to demonstrate your knowledge and begin building relationships with potential customers. You will also quickly start to build your contact list and forums are a great source of help and support for the areas in which you are not so strong.

Finally, email newsletters are another great way to build your reputation as an expert – so long as you use them properly and are not seen to be spamming people. You can reuse blog posts and articles in your newsletter, but try giving it a different spin or sending unique content that only your mailing list receive. Experiment a bit and see what gets the best response in terms of email opens, clicks through and replies – and then do more of the same.

If you would like to find out more about how you can use your website, blog or email marketing to help establish yourself as an expert in your field, give the team at HodgesNet a call today on 01793 608777.

Image courtesy of Grant Cochrane / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

One of the best ways to raise your profile and increase your customer base – and sales – is to position yourself as a person of influence, an expert in your field. When people know that you really know your stuff and are knowledgeable in your particular industry they are more likely to trust your opinion and advice and come to you when they need your product or service. But how do you go about positioning yourself as an expert? Writing a blog is one way – you can easily demonstrate your knowledge and experience – but you might also want to investigate the “social influence” tool Klout.

Once you sign up for a free Klout account it monitors your activity on the main social media networks, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and foursquare, and rates you according to how much you interact on the sites. For example, it takes into account the number of followers, mentions, updates and retweets you make, and it also registers topics that you post about. It places the emphasis on generating content rather than pure activity, so if all you do is retweet other people’s stories you’ll have less Klout than if you put out your own original material. Klout looks at around 400 factors before awarding you with a Klout score, between 1 and 100, with 100 being the highest amount of influence you can have.

So how could Klout position you as an expert? Because it monitors the topics you post about it knows if you say a lot about, for example, tax returns or blogging or flower arrangements, and defines you as having Klout in those areas. You can search the website for any topic you want and it’ll show you those people with Klout for that topic, who you can then follow. Wouldn’t it be great if it returned you as someone with Klout in your specialist area? You can also see the people who influence you – those who you are likely to reply to or retweet  -  and the people you influence, which is a great base for building a loyal relationship.

There’s lots more to Klout – for example, there are freebies and special offers you can apply for when you have a Klout score over, say, 50 (sadly very few are available in the UK but hopefully that will change). It’s well worth getting a free account and having a play around – increase your social media activity and see how it affects your Klout score – and hopefully you’ll soon be seen as an expert in your field.

Have you spotted a QR code somewhere? You know, one of those black and white random patterns that are cropping up on business cards, posters and adverts? QR codes are a clever way of “coding” information into a small symbol that can be scanned and “decoded” by a code reader or smartphone app. They are still in their infancy but more businesses are starting to use them, often in unusual or novel ways. Here are ten ways you could consider using QR codes for your business, and some tips on how to get the best out of QR codes.

Business cards: Add a QR code to your business cards (and flyers etc) that lets people download your contact information, takes them to a special landing page on your website, or even plays them a “welcome” video”.

Coupons: Build a secret special offer page on your website and link it with a QR code. It’s an easy way for people to share the offer via social media, and you can change the offer whenever you want.

For sale signs: Selling your house or car? Add a QR code to the “for sale” poster that takes people to a page with more information and your contact details.

Print ads: Save people the hassle of having to type in a web address they see in an advert by including a QR code that goes straight there – or to a special landing page.

Posters/banners: Run a business with regularly changing opening hours/menus/prices etc? Include a QR code on your posters and banners so people can get the very latest information.

Mystery postcards: Send prospective customers a postcard featuring nothing but a QR code. Some will be thrown away but enough people will be curious enough to scan the code …. Make sure the content they get is enticing.

Free wifi: Do you run a physical business that offers free wifi? Publicise it using QR codes that go straight to the login page.

On the door: If you run a shop or office, put a QR code on your front door so people who visit can get your opening hours, contact details and website or catalogue even when you’re shut.

Instruction manuals: Often it’s easier to show how to put something together or make it work rather than reading about it. Add QR codes to instruction manuals that link to relevant videos.

So you’ve had a great idea for using a QR code for your business – there are some things to bear in mind though:

• Make sure the QR code is big enough to scan properly – if you make it too small no one will be able to access the content.
• Only use QR codes where it’s safe to scan them – having one on a billboard poster on the M1 isn’t a good idea!
• Finally, whatever content your QR code leads to, make sure it is mobile- friendly. Most people will scan the code with their phone. If it takes them to a page with tiny writing, Flash content or complex menus you might as well not bother!

Stamp Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Online forums are an often overlooked part of the internet marketing hub, yet using them can bring a host of benefits to you and your business. There are thousands of forums around and it can be difficult knowing where to start. A good place would be to look at some of the general business forums such as 4Networking and the UK Business Forums, where people from all sorts of businesses post information, including requests for help. There are also forums for specific industries (use a search engine to look for them) and general and specific groups – which are similar to forums – on LinkedIn. But why should you use forums to promote your business? What are the benefits to you? Here are three very good reasons:

1. An expert profile
Using forums is a fantastic way to show you are an expert in your field. Of course you’re probably already doing that on your blog, but by using forums to demonstrate your knowledge you raise your profile amongst a large group of people who all run businesses and are possibly looking for whatever products or services you offer. Focus on helping people by giving away advice for free – not only will you show that you know your industry, you’ll be seen as a helpful person and will be the first port of call when people need you. A word of warning though – it can be easy to be too helpful. While giving away advice is fine, if someone asks for your services free of charge you shouldn’t accept as that will actually cheapen what you do.

2. Essential backlinks
Forums often have quite high page ranks because of the frequency they are updated, and they can be a source of vital backlinks to your website – which will help your own website secure a better ranking. Make sure you use every opportunity the forums offer to include your web address – for example, in your signature, in your profile, in any favourite links sections and so on. You can also include links to your website in your forum posts – just be careful that they are relevant and not seen as spam.

3. SEO and web traffic
The third reason why you should use forums to promote your business is that you can take advantage of their high page ranking to improve the chances that you will be found. Often people’s profiles on business forums rank higher in Google than their own websites, simply because the forum overall has a good overall ranking. Use any advertising/classified sections of the forums to write posts with relevant keywords in the title to promote your business. Even though these are often the least read sections of forums, they still rank well and your post is likely to be picked up by the search engines. Anyone looking for those keywords will be able to read the post and then follow through to your website – where they will hopefully become a customer.

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Social media one of the best ways of marketing for many businesses. However, it does take time – time that you might not have available. It’s becoming more common for business owners to outsource their social media management – in fact, internet marketing company Hubspot reckons outsourcing of social media has risen by 128% in the last two years.

However, to successfully outsource your social media you still need to be involved. Here are some of the elements you can outsource – and our views on the bits you should keep inhouse.

BLOGGING
Blogging is one of the most effective ways to use social media to market your business. It demonstrates your expertise, raises your profile and drives traffic to your website. Outsourcing your blog writing means you get relevant, unique content for your website without any hassle. You can be as little or as much involved as you like, too – you can give your outsourced blogger bullet points to work from, or suggest topics and keywords – or let them plan a schedule of relevant articles that they’ll research and write from scratch.

DESIGN
Now that everyone is using social media it’s important you stand out – which means making your social media profiles look great. A professional designer can create custom wallpaper for your Twitter profile and source or design the perfect “cover photo” for your Facebook page, to make sure you stand out from the competition.

ANALYTICS
It’s important to keep an eye on how well social media is working for you. Google Analytics is fantastic for monitoring how many people visit your site, where they come from and what they look at – but it can be confusing to use if you’re not familiar with it. Think about outsourcing your analytics to someone who understands the layout – the time you win back will more than cover the cost.

RESEARCH AND MONITORING
Research and monitoring is vital to get the best out of social media. You need to monitor the competition so you know that they’re doing – and monitor mentions of your own name, so you can deal quickly with any feedback. And finding relevant people to follow, in the hope that they’ll follow you back, takes research, as does finding the right keywords and topics to blog about. Again these are areas that can be easily outsourced.

UPDATES
OK this is the area where we don’t feel you should completely outsource the work. Social media is all about engaging with people, building relationship and getting to know your followers. It’s not about blasting out sales messages but looking out for ways to help other people. And it’s something you need to keep doing – tweeting once in a blue moon is a waste of time. So how do you do that, when you’re busy running a business? Well our solution is to outsource some of your updates. Let someone set up regular updates that give tips and hints, lead people to useful information on your website or reference relevant news stories. Then you get involved by joining in the social conversations as and when you have the time – perhaps spending some time in the morning and another 30 minutes in the evening. That way you have regular content going out, which keeps you in people’s minds, but you also engage with people on a conversational level – a win win situation all round.

If you’re interested in outsourcing some of your social media give us a call on 01793 608777 for a chat. 

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

In our last blog post we talked about the internet marketing hub and how you can start to build your hub using blogging, social media, SEO, email marketing and linkbuilding. At HodgesNet we are always happy to help our clients by managing their internet marketing. However, we also like to show people not only why they should be utilising the power of internet marketing, but how they can do that themselves.

Next month we will be holding a Social Media Insight Day, which is a great starting point for anyone running a business who wants to know more about why social media works and how they can use it to benefit their business. The Insight Day will cover such topics as why social media is so important for business today, where to start and how to apply an effective social media strategy. There will be an overview of the main social media platforms, including Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, and two practical workshops on using blogging and online video for business. The full day event takes place at Lydiard House in Swindon on 28^th June; it is just £295 including a two course buffet lunch, refreshments, a study workbook and a free training DVD worth £97. There are only a couple of spaces left so click here to find out more and book your place today.

And in July we will be holding a separate workshop on Profitable Email Marketing. This half day course will explore how to build an email list and use it to increase your profits. Among the topics covered will be Acquisition vs Retention Email Marketing, how to avoid the SPAM trap and the importance of personalisation. This course will also be held at Lydiard House, Swindon on 17^th July and places are just £45, including a workbook and refreshments throughout the morning. Only ten spaces are available – find out more and book your place here.

We cover all sorts of topics on the HodgesNet blog. You may sometimes think we cover too wide a range of subjects, or perhaps you don’t see the link between them. However, the reality is that everything we write about here – SEO, blogging, social media, email marketing and so on – are interlinked and form part of your internet marketing hub. However, when there are so many different aspects to consider internet marketing can sound confusing. Here’s a clear cut guide to how to build your internet marketing hub.

At the centre of your hub is your website. This is where people can find out about you, the services/products you offer and how they solve problems or help people make more money. Your website is full of useful information but without some help, it’s unlikely anyone will find it in amongst the billions of other websites out there. This is where the other elements of the hub come into play.

If you want to make the most of internet marketing having a blog is vital, and blogging has many benefits. It drives traffic to your website through featuring useful articles, often on niche topics. It helps your website rank better in the search engines – through on-page SEO, fresh new content and by increasing the size of your website quickly. It also gives you the chance to demonstrate your knowledge and builds your profile as an expert in your industry.

Having a blog also means you have something to talk about on social media sites. Every time you add a new blog post you can send the link and some details to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and a multitude of other social networking platforms. You can also bookmark your blog posts on sites like Digg and StumbleUpon. If your posts are interesting, entertaining or informative other people will retweet your tweets or share your posts. And what’s the point of all this? To bring more traffic to the centre of your hub – your website.

Another part of the hub is email marketing. Having a blog requires people to come to you, either by checking your site every few days, or via links on social media sites. With email marketing, you contact people directly and can control who you contact and what you say to them. You can reuse blog posts in your email newsletters, or you can write original material. Again, the result you want is that people will visit your website and, ultimately, buy your services.

There are other elements in the internet marketing hub like affiliate marketing and article submission, but the final links are SEO and linkbuilding. While Google places less importance on SEO expertise these days, it’s still important that you make sure your website is properly signposted through using relevant keywords. And linkbuilding – where other websites link to you – lets the search engines know that your site is worth visiting.

When you get all those elements right – your website, the blog, SEO, linkbuilding, and social media – you get ranked higher in the search engines, you demonstrate your expertise and you build up a following – and all this results in more visitors to your website, more sales and more profit.

If you need any help with any of the elements of your internet marketing hub give the team at HodgesNet a call on 01793 608777. And look out for our next blog post, where we’ll be introducing some workshops where you can learn more about the internet marketing hub and how you can build and develop yours.

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Whether you’re just building your first website or you’re thinking about creating a new site for a specific niche, one of the most important tasks is choosing the domain name. Choosing the right domain name is important – it’s as important as picking the right title for a book. Either your domain name needs to grab people’s attention and intrigue them enough to visit your site, or it must convey enough information about the content that people know exactly what’s on offer. You can’t be too creative though – you need to bear in mind keywords to make sure your domain name is attractive to the search engine bots, too. So the challenge is to find a domain name that is both catchy and search engine optimised.  Here are some tips on how you can achieve both objectives.

The first step is to do some keyword research and find a relevant keyword (word or phrase) that can be incorporated into your domain name.  A good place to start is the Google Keyword tool, where you can enter a keyword that best sums up what your website is about. The tool will return lots of search results (driven from the Google Adwords database) that are based on and around your keyword, along with information on how many people searched for the term and how competitive the keyword is for those bidding on your term for pay per click advertising.

NB: Do not use the level of competition as an indication on how many people are competing for these terms in the natural SEO listings. This is ONLY for Google Adwords. This is often a common mistake that people make. Looking at the competition for your chosen can only really be done by looking at who comes up when you perform the search, in the search engines themselves. Click here for a more information on keyword research.

Use this list as a good start for your search – look for keywords that get lots of searches per month, but also be mindful that there may also be lots of people competing in the search engines for these terms. You may well find a search term that scores well in terms of lots of monthly searches, then jump over to Google and do the search only to find a few 100,000 competing pages or less – This would be the ideal term for your new domain name.

Many people choose domain names that are based on their company name but actually that can have a negative effect. Say you’re an accountancy firm called Smiths – choosing the domain name Smiths.co.uk says nothing about your business at all and won’t help you get ranked for your keywords, which are going to be related to accountancy, bookkeeping etc. SmithsAccountants.co.uk would be a much better bet – or you can localise your business by choosing, for example, something like WiltshireAccountants.co.uk.

Once you’ve found a keyword that would work well as a domain name you need to check if it’s available. A great site is 123-reg.co.uk - a really useful place to start. You can type in your keyword and it will check all the available options and show you what’s still available. It will also come up with some suggestions for alternative domains. Have a look for the keywords you wanted and consider the suggestions the domain name company gives.  If the main keyword is included in these suggestions and it ends with .com or .co.uk, consider it.  If it’s not available, though, you will need to be more creative.

For example, you can use ‘filler’ words like ‘a,’ ‘an’ or ‘the’, numbers or phrases within your domain name to still include your selected keyword – in our example above WiltshireAccountants.co.uk has been taken but you could have TheWiltshireAccountants.co.uk.  Search engines tend to not look at filler words, so you still have a good chance of being indexed for your keyword while having a domain name that is memorable and catchy.  You can also consider fillers at the end of a phrase, such as ’101′, or ‘online’.

What if you do these things and you still can’t get a .com or .co.uk domain name you like?  If your keyword is very popular you might have to consider using one of the lesser-known extensions such as .biz, .org or .org.uk. One thing to bear in mind is that local domains (such as .uk based domains for UK websites) can achieve higher search engine rankings quicker.

Choosing a domain name that will work for both visitors and search engines isn’t as difficult as you might think. Using keyword tools will help hugely, and a little bit of imagination can point you towards a killer name. And if you need any help with keyword research then give us a call and we’ll be happy to help! Call us on 01793 608777 or visit our Keyword research page for more information.

The internet has given us a whole range of new ways to make money, regardless of whether we have an online business (e.g. ecommerce) or an offline, more traditional one. However, there’s still no instant route to generating sales and cash, even on the internet – it still involves hard work. And the old rules of marketing still stand – you still need to work out who your target customer is and find where they are so you can direct your marketing at them.

The beauty of the internet is that there are lots of free tools to help you market your products and services. Tools such as blogging, article marketing and social media are free to use – they just require time and effort on your part. But what if you don’t have the time for social media, or you don’t feel comfortable writing articles? What options are available to you then?

Depending on your type of business, one of the most useful marketing tools to consider is Facebook Ads. The service isn’t free but it’s not too costly – and it can be very effective.

Basically, Facebook Ads is a pay per click advertising tool offered by Facebook where ads are displayed to Facebook members on the site. Similar to Google Adwords, you create a Facebook Ad and set a daily budget; your advert is shown and clicked on until the budget is met, so you can closely monitor how much you spend. The big advantage Facebook Ads has over Adwords, though, is that Facebook knows so much about its members and you can use this information to target your potential clients according to their interests, age, gender, location and so on.

It’s a great way to try out online advertising without investing a lot of cash, and it’s especially useful if you want to target, for example, women aged between 30 and 50 within 20 miles of your base – because Facebook can show your advert just to those people.

However, though Facebook Ads can be hugely effective, don’t expect to get results right away. It’s all a matter of trial and error while you work out what your target market wants, or what will get their attention.

Perhaps the biggest benefit of Facebook Ads is that there is a constant flow of traffic to the website. Facebook has millions of users around the world – 30 million in the UK alone – and because people tend to log in every day you know that your target clients are likely to be on the site regularly.

So whether you’re an established business looking to expand your internet marketing, or you’re just starting out and want an effective avenue to promote your products and services online, you might want to give Facebook Ads a go – you’ll find it can make marketing more fun, it’s cheaper than you think and it’s also very effective.

As ever, the team at HodgesNet are on hand to help you with your internet marketing so if you need any advice on setting up a Facebook Ad campaign just give us a call on 01793 608777.

Image: Master isolated images / FreeDigitalPhotos.net