Through December 2011 Arttia has posted a Tweet a Day based on what we found in our studio advent calendar.
These daily goodies were focused around small hints and tips to get the most from your digital marketing and your website.
If you missed our 24 Tweets, here is a full list, with slightly more detail than the 140 characters would allow.
1. Meta keywords, don’t have too many.
Quality counts here. Make sure your keywords are precise and targeted, about different 8 per page. But the best practice is to write rich, engaging content.
2. Title – different for every page.
The title area helps Google to find the correct page on your site for search request. Keep titles short and concise and different for each page.
3. Remember – Attention-Interest-Action-Desire.
These are key to getting your user to stay on your website. A well planned and designed and implemented website will aim to meet these criteria and reduce bounce rates.
4. Promote or perish. Use every relevant online medium to drive inbound traffic.
Having a great website is not always enough to be visible online. There are loads ‘off-site’ promotion techniques to drive inbound traffic. Social Media, Guest Blog Posting, writing Articles or PPC advertising. You will need to find the right digital marketing mix for your business.
5. Quality inbound links affect your page rank – quality not quantity counts – get the best.
Google sets your page rank based on the quality of the websites that link back to yours. Don’t just get any website to link, it has to be a relevant, quality link. Don’t use link farms, these are bad for business and Google can identify when these are used.
6. Publish an email newsletter and create a custom landing page for each new newsletter, target and focus.
Email marketing is a great direct communications tool, but make sure it is targeted to the reader. Your email data may consist people at different stages of interaction with your business. For example, they could have just purchased their first item, or they may have been signed up for many months, these two types of customer would need to receive very different messages. Design your eshots for each audience and create a landing page specific to the content.
7. Copywriting on your website should be well written and informative and don’t forget the ‘microcopy’ details.
Clear and interesting copy on your website is key, well written, great grammar. Each page may need different emphasis and details. The copy on your site should reflect your business personality and should speak directly to your target visitor in a language they are familiar. If you need a copywriter..look no further… www.copywriternewcastle.co.uk
8. Check your top landing pages via Google Analytics – insure great content on all pages.
Your home page is not always the most visited, your analtyics software will show your most visited pages. When identified make sure they are well designed and that site wide navigation is clear. You should be able to link to any part of your website from any page, ideally in as fewer clicks as possible.
9. Update your website with seasonal or date specific content to make it relevant to your audience.
Keep your website up to date and relevant. Date specific content is a great way to highlight key seasons based on your business or user profile. For example, for a gardening website, content should be based around seasonal planting or garden needs.
10. Constantly learn about your audience, they change, so your website should change.
No business or consumer stands still in their needs or aspirations, learn from your users as they interact with your website or app, ask for feedback and comments. Then update and add to your online offering to meet these needs.
11. Create link worthy website content to help increase your page rank.
Have interesting content that visitors want to share and pass on and make it easy for them to do so. This could be via a share button, RSS feed or via off site marketing. By making it easy for a visitor to promote a link to your page, and could help your page rank.
12. Planning for success. Credibility, usability, visibility.
Create a marketing plan, even a simple list will do to cover the 3 bases. Ensure you promote your business credentials and show you are a leader in your field. What ever you produce, make it easy and usable. Then make it visible to everyone, via off-site marketing and advertising.
13. Domain names – make sure ownership is in your name and you have the details.
Business assets come in all shapes and sizes. One which is often overlooked is your domain name. This is a valuable asset, it appears on all of your literature and becomes well know as your business grows. Once registered make sure it is in your name and is renewed when necessary. Buy a batch of domain suffixes for your domain to ensure ownership, these can all be directed to your main website.
14. Connect with people who matter.
The internet makes connecting with people easy. For your business, you may need to connect to business specific groups, such as trade bodies or accreditations, these will help your online credentials and can give valuable up to date industry data.
15. Colour theory for websites. Colour plays an integral part and can have a significant impact on whether visitors return or not.
Colour affects all of our daily lives and inspires different emotions, the colours on your website should accurately reflect your business. Colour harmony is something that is pleasing to the eye. It engages the viewer and it creates a sense of order and balance. Your aim is to engage the visitor as quickly as possible. At the extreme, a visual experience that is so bland could mean that the viewer is not engaged. It is said that the human brain will reject under-stimulating information and which it cannot organise or understand. Color harmony delivers visual interest and a sense of order. For colour inspiration visit www.colourlovers.com
16. Measuring marketing. Monitor all of your online activity to make sure ROI.
The internet is great for gathering statistical data. There are loads of it and it can sometimes be difficult to interpret. Try to give a value to your marketing activity – such as a value in pounds to a user downloading a document or a sales enquiry via your website. This will give you a monetary measure on which to gauge a return on your investment.
17. Web content is important, but give it a structure, or it will never be found.
Depending on the size of your website, the site structure is important in creating a hierarchy of content that is easy for the user to find. Well structured navigation and internal links will aid in making sure all of your content is accessible from any point in your website.
18. Give your web content a life cycle.
Google loves change, when you change your website Google will notice.
19. Branding – your website design should be consistent will all of your other literature and marketing.
Your brand is your silent salesman, it speaks for you when you are not around and tells the story of your business. Ensure your brand is carried throughout all of your online activity. Match colours, type, style and character, style of photography and marketing messages.
20. Check the speed of your website.Optimise images and graphics so they load correctly.
This is a common problem, where image file sizes are megabytes in stead of kilobytes. Slow loading will make a visitor leave your website. There are many tools available to optimise your images or graphics, theses will help maintain image quality whilst keeping the file size down and help your page load faster.
21. Home page, communicate what you do in less than 30 seconds, words+images=elevator pitch.
Grab their attention, you only have a few seconds to make an impression. Say what you do simply and clearly in as few words as possible. Give users a reason to stay on your site and to delve deeper into your content.
22. Blogs can be key to traffic and interest, cleverly weave in your SEO keywords to give the best effect.
Your blog is a key asset to your website. Make your blog posts interesting and relevant and always ask for comments or feedback.
23. Mobile, if over 20% of visits are via mobile, think of a custom mobile experience.
Smart phones and tablets are the biggest technology growth area and 2012 will probably see this increase. Your website may or may not look great on these device screen sizes, plus the user experience may need to be tweaked to make the best of the device it is viewed on. But don’t just convert your current content to appear at a different size, think deeply about the mobile experience. Responsive websites are going to be big in 2012.
24. Understand your competitors, what are they doing right that you can do better and are you shouting about it.
Competitor analyisis is important to any marketing activity. Take a look at what your competitors are doing online and the services or products they offer. Do you do anything better and are you telling everyone about it?
We hope these few short tips have been of interest, try to carry out a few in 2012.
We would love to hear if you have any short digital marketing tips to offer to businesses for 2012…
What have you found the most useful in promoting your business online?
