For most businesses a website is the focal point of their Internet presence.  It's where visitors come to learn about your company and (hopefully) to be "converted" into customers.

But building a website is really only the starting point of a journey, and much like the picture on the homepage of our website, a website is one part of an overall Internet Strategy that needs nurturing and growing.

Here we look at some of the tried and tested ways of attracting more visitors to your website:

1. Create Content

Content is king.  The copy on your site should be well written and easy for your visitors to read and digest.  But content is also a rich magnet for others to link to.  If your content is valuable and compelling, it will get bookmarked by visitors and act as bait for other websites to link to.

2. Build Links

Google judges the popularity and relevance of your website by the number of inbound links (from other websites).  Building up links from relevant, authoritative websites is a powerful signal that your site is important and a good resource for the internet.

3. Use your Email Signature

A simple one, but often overlooked.  Create a professional email signature with your company logo and a hypertext link to your website.  This gives people an easy way of visiting your website.

4. Press Releases

Online Press Releases are a powerful method of promoting your latest business news and achievements.  But they are also useful for spreading content that links back to your site, giving people a ready-made pathway for finding you.

5. Article Writing

Likewise, articles that are useful to their readers and authoritative in nature help to spread your online reach, and act as a rich source of content that people will want to link to, creating pathways back to your site.

6. Business Directories

Another simple one.  Spend time to research and find as many relevant business directories as possible.  Think of all the places people might go to find a company like yours, and reserve your spot there asap.

7. Social Media

Social channels such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn are highly effective ways of communicating a message.  Once people start to bookmark your material, and share it with their contacts, you can rapidly build up a network of links and create traffic back to your website.

Every business is online, but how many are truly getting Return on Investment?

It's too obvious to say that every business needs a website, and less obvious to ask why is that website needed.  But perhaps even less obvious to ask how the Return on Investment for that website should (or can) be measured.

Firstly it's important to understand which particular role a website is intended to fulfil.  The 3 main choices are:

1 - Brand building
2 - Lead Generation
3 - Sales

Depending on the intended function of the website, its method of ROI measurement is different.  Let's look at the possible measurement methods for each type:

1 - Brand Building

For this type of website, Return on Investment can't be measured (directly, at least) by revenue or any type of financial transaction.  Typically, metrics used here are the number of visitors passing through the site, number of repeat visitors, number of sign-ups (newsletters, whitepapers, etc), or number of fans to a Facebook or Twitter page.

2 - Lead Generation

Measurement for this type of website get slightly easier and slightly less nebulous.  If leads are defined as the number of enquiries passing into the business, then typical metrics would be number of emails, numbers of Contact Us forms, number of phone calls, and possibly number of newsletter sign-ups or whitepaper downloads.

3 - Sales

This type of website lends itself extremely easily to the measurement of ROI.  All we're interested is money passing through the till.  Some of the typical metrics would be the number of orders placed, number of transactions confirmed, or number of repeat orders.

But measurement of these metrics alone does not constitute a viable business.  The metrics must be benchmarked, tracked and reviewed on a regular basis, and the numbers on their own do not tell you whether you're getting a positive Return on Investment.  However, build in a monthly report with a coherent dialogue, and the picture will quickly emerge.

For more information, WSI Business Marketing are experts in creating online strategies, built on the principles of achieving maximum ROI.

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Make your Internet presence an integral part of your overall business marketing strategy

As Internet technologies continue to become more established in Business Strategy, it is still interesting to come across relatively large orgnisations who are still coming to terms with the possibilities of online marketing.

Most discussions about the internet usually centre around the subject of websites, and of course a website is the focal point of search traffic and most customer transactions, however developing an online strategy can also become a catalyst for for reviewing other core elements of business strategy, for example:

Customer Demographics

Most established businesses have a clear idea of who buys their products and services.  They understand the typical demographic of a new customer, a repeat customer, a big spender or a thrifty one.  By profiling the various customer types, it is possible to develop plans to grow market share, to anticipate the effect of price increases, or to expand into new markets.

A well-rounded Internet Marketing strategy will add a lot of value to this knowledge base.  The central pillars of Keyword Research, Customer Profiling and Traffic Analysis create a window to the online world.  Having this data can either reinforce an existing understanding of customer demographics, or sometimes can set the cat among the pigeons and challenge those existing assumptions.

For many business, Internet Marketing is a primary source of lead generation and sales.  It is most effective when fully integrated into the overall business strategy.

How far should your business' online presence go?

There are so many ways for business to be found these days, the choice is truly staggering.  Having a website is the obvious one - you really can't operate at your best if your business doesn't have a website, which is why it's the first thing all new business ventures do.

But then what?  How about a blog?  Or a vlog (video blog)?  Or Social Networking sites?  How about loading your website with an avatar video of yourself (or your marketing director) welcoming your visitors to the site and telling them about your great products or services?

And then once you've created all of this and uploaded your company profiles, logos and information to each site, what next?

You need to start populating each site/channel with relevant, fresh information.  You need to keep your website updated.  You need to Tweet.  You need to write your blog post.  You need to record more video footage to upload to YouTube.

It's a big commitment.  Will you stick with it?  Or will you get bored when your creative juices run dry, and let things wither on the vine?  (And by the way, there's a very good chance you will - the internet is littered with the bones of once-loved blogs and poorly-populated Facebook and Twitter accounts.)

And there's nothing like a 3-year-out-of-date "latest information" page to send out the signal that "we tried but gave up".  Probably not the best way of enticing your visitors to come and do business with you!

Because many businesses dabble with internet technologies, it tends to look like their marketing is done in an ad-hoc way.  You wouldn't allows this with your office reception area or your printed marketing collateral, and yet we do it on the internet.

The best way for sure is to start out with an agreed marketing plan.  Sit down and give some serious thought to which internet channels are right for your business.  Think carefully about blogging and Social Media, but make sure it's an integral part of your 1 year, 3 year and 5 year strategy, and then make sure it's fully resourced and has the support of senior management.

Follow it through and you'll reap the rewards, and once you're embracing some of the current internet technologies, you're far better placed to see in the next wave, whatever that may be and whenever it may come!

Have a chat with WSI Internet Marketing Preston for your online business strategy.

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Internet Marketing, Offline Marketing and Social Bookmarking can all be combined to provide an effective strategy for any business looking to develop its brand and grow its customer base.

Today I attended an event hosted by the Lancashire Chamber of Commerce at the famous home of Preston North End Football Club (one of the founding members of the English football league...!)

The event was attended by a number of business owners from the local area, and was intended to educate, inspire and guide people through the maze of online marketing.  There were 2 co-presenters: James Wilson (DualMedia, Blackpool) and Colin Sneath (Stage 9 Marketing, Preston), together providing a perfect blend of online and offline marketing wisdom.

There's no doubt that the future (in fact, the present) of business marketing is happening online, and companies who struggle to embrace this will also struggle to develop their businesses.  Twitter was initially assumed to be a short-lived fad, but in fact has proved its detractors wrong by going from strength to strength.

For many people the jury is still out on how effective Twitter can be for generating leads in their particular business, but the message has to be one of patience and understanding.

The presenters gave us all a timely reminder that Twitter (indeed any form of online marketing) is not a magic bullet.  It doesn't miraculously bring paying customers in overnight.  Businesses need to:

• maintain a social presence, without "selling"
• contribute to their online communities and be seen as the givers of information

Following these rules will attract a solid base of engaged customers, who have established a level of trust and understanding without that fear of being sold to.

Great job to James and Colin, and I certainly look forward to future Chamber events.

Tracy Spence is a WSI Internet Consultant and has just given a highly entertaining presentation at the annual WSI Internet Marketing conference in Birmingham.





The focus of Tracy's presentation was how, as Internet Consultants, we often overlook the many offline marketing options that can be so effective for our businesses, and even miss some of the simple online opportunities for PR.  Tracy has mastered the art of:

     - networking
     - public speaking
     - media (TV / radio)
     - press and press releases
     - business link and mentoring new business people

Tracy's advice was useful for business owners or marketing directors in any industry, but I'm also quite sure there are many of us in the Internet Marketing industry who are guilty of overlooking these powerful opportunities.

In essence, although the balance of marketing power is unequivocally shifting from offline to online, it is still a blended approach that provides the greatest coverage and presents the most joined up marketing strategy.

For more on Targeted Lead Marketing for your business, speak to WSI Internet Marketing Preston.

Another posting from the WSI Internet Marketing conference in Birmingham, 5th March 2010.

Local Search Marketing is a powerful way of reaching your ideal customer base.  Rob Thomas has just given a highly entertaining presentation on the subject of WSI Adworks.  Rob's background is in the financial industry and he showed the assembled audience his deep understanding of industry verticals to provide expert Internet Search Consultancy to SMEs in the UK.

WSI Adworks is a powerful system that allows any business owner to measure customer acquisition.  The platform allows extensive monitoring of all activity to the business's website, including (uniquely) a detailed log of time, duration and recording of customer telephone calls.  This is a powerful asset for any business that depends on telephone calls as part of its customer contact & acquisiton process.

The 7 essentials of any search campaign are also play a major part in the WSI adworks platform:

      1.   Campaign research & set-up
      2.   Budget allocation
      3.   Text ad
      4.   Landing page
      5.   Reporting / analytics
      6.   Optimisation
      7.   Keywords

Find out more about the WSI Adworks program by visiting WSI Internet Marketing.

So, 2009 is now a distant memory and 2010 is in full swing...

For all internet marketing professionals (and actually for anybody involved in marketing their businesses online) there’s little doubt that the turning of the year will mark the latest wave of online marketing strategies and tactics.

The “noughties” saw the explosive growth of the internet as the primary marketing medium for virtually every industry sector on the planet.  You are hard pushed to think of a product or service that is not served better by online advertising than offline, and so we look with intrigue at where it will go from here.

The closing years of the last decade saw businesses large and small beginning to understand the value of the online dialogue that could be opened up with their customers.  The opportunity to speak to them, direct and 1-to-1 is an incredible way of gauging the success (or otherwise) of your latest product launch or service offering, and provides that real-time, real-world feedback that is rarely achieved through traditional surveys or customer satisfaction phone-calls.  The current generation of internet-savvy consumers are happy to log-on to Facebook, Twitter and the myriad other channels, and pour forth about the new gadget they’ve just bought or the great restaurant at which they’ve just eaten.

And so for 2010, perhaps that’s what it’s all about; the rise of Social Media as a legitimate marketing tool for businesses.  The challenge then is how to embrace this brave new world and how to construct a viable business model.  There is no doubt of its value to the end-user, but the question to be answered is profitability for the business owner.  Fortunately, Internet marketers are now beginning to understand how Social Media as a profit centre can work.

As for other aspects of internet marketing, some of the truisms of 2009 will hold truer than ever for 2010:

-          Search Engine Optimisation (for long-term performance) is largely achieved through relevance, i.e. great content, frequently updated.  Ignore this at your peril.

-          A well-established domain name is given greater importance and helps it to rise above the millions of new websites that spring up every day.

-          Businesses are best advised to employ a number of different channels in the pursuit of their overall online marketing strategy.  Not a scatter-gun approach, but rather a joined-up strategy based on specific, measurable business objectives.

A posting from the annual WSI Internet Marketing conference...

I'm writing this from Birmingham, where I'm attending a 4 day conference, joined by over 100 of my WSI colleagues from around the UK and Europe.  We have a varied agenda and hope to cover a lot of major focus areas in Internet Marketing.  We look forward to keynote speaches by internet consultants from the US, UK, Panama and Canada.  Of particular interest is our guest speaker from Google, giving us their usual excellent insight to the latest thoughts & inner workings of the magic search engine!

The Day 1 agenda will cover:

   - The Google Content Network        (Sophie Toms, Google UK)
   - Web Analytics                                   (Peter Rees, internet consultant UK)
   - Local Search Marketing                  (Rob Thomas, internet consultant UK)
   - Social Content & Blogging             (Francois Muscat, internet consultant South Africa)
   - Email Marketing                               (Chris Schofield, internet consultant UK)
   - Google Adwords / PPC                   (Francisco Hernandez, internet consultant Panama)

Visit us to see how WSI Internet Marketing can help your business, or call us now on 01772 286460.

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