Would you start a conversation with a customer only to walk away halfway through? If you’re a retailer and on Facebook, this may be one of the things you are doing – without realising it. Facebook in business is a valuable tool for anyone involved in selling directly to the public. But it must be treated more like an engaging, informative shop floor conversation than a warehouse clearance sale. Social Media in business is a long term investment but too often is seen as a short term fix.

1. Like any other aspect of business, strategy is what will keep you focussed and defining your Facebook strategy is crucial. First of all, the target audience must be defined. In some cases the target audience online is identical to that which walks though your shop door. Establish if you are trying to engage with the same people online as you already do offline. Or are you using Facebook in business to target a new market? And what do you want them to do when they are interested? All this must be planned defined and calculated as much as possible. Random posts about the odd special offer is a waste of your time and may have little impact on an audience that is only approached when there is a sale on.
2. Social media in business is a conversation and the retailer must behave like they having a conversation with their customers. Listen to what your customers tell you on comments, by email and more. Deal with negative comments head on. Customers need to be heard – online and offline. Customers are more than fat wallets and social media is an idea platform on which to engage and chat.
3. Retailers must make sure that their customers make the connection between their online Facebook and their Main street shop. This can be achieved by clear branding, using your logo, shop name and location just like it appears on the street. Making the connection between the geographical location and the Facebook identity should improve local traffic in particular.
4. When consumers take the time to become a Facebook fan, they are making a seriously positive statement about your brand for all to see. It is advisable not to let that go unnoticed. Discounts and other freebies are obvious answers but creative, well thought out offers and gifts will likely increase your fan numbers.
5. Facebook in business is the face of your brand on the Internet. It’s that simple. Retailers should not be afraid to be themselves in the online world. If you are larger than life behind the counter, Facebook fans may be disappointed to see a quiet, conservative Facebook profile. Have fun with your Facebook business profile.
6. Facebook is all about activity and if a retailer is not active, the initial efforts in gaining brand profile and presence may be in vain. Once the effort is kept up, it will be worthwhile in the long run.
7. And finally…. post what you think your Facebook fans and friends and potential customers want to see. Be it video, podcasts or photos, it’s important to keep your customers’ requirements in mind at all times.

Happy Connecting

Happy New Year.  Its time to make those all important plans for the next 12 months(if they are not already done), before you do check out the below list of 25 questions you should ask yourself before deciding on your SEO strategy.

It’s time to be honest about your SEO. You may not want to hire an SEO professional but it is time you took stock of your own search engine optimisation and what direction you are heading in. Like any audit, you need to decide your websites strengths and weaknesses, what you already have and what you need to do. Answer the following 25 questions carefully and accurately. The information that comes out of this process will give you a comprehensive and independent assessment of your current SEO status.

25 may seem like a lot. Why not start today and aim to have them completed for the end of the week.  SEO is something that must be gotten to grips with. Take the first step and do your SEO audit. Start today.

A quirky way to introduce you to SEO tips & advice, from a slightly whacky Irish SEO to you.  Merry Christmas.

On the first day of Christmas my SEO guru gave to me a talk on website usability

On the second day of Christmas my SEO guru gave to me 2 key word research tools (Google Keyword Tool & Wordtracker) and a talk on website usability

On the third day of Christmas my SEO guru gave to me 3 key areas on my website to add my key phrases (SEO Tips), 2 key word research tools and a talk on website usability

On the fourth day of Christmas my SEO guru gave to me 4 ways to optimise my meta data, 3 key areas on my website to add my key phrases, 2 key word research tools and a talk on website usability

On the fifth day of Christmas my SEO guru gave to me the 5 steps for acquiring customers online , 4 ways to optimise my meta data, 3 key areas on my website to add my key phrases, 2 key word research tools and a talk on website usability

On the sixth day of Christmas my SEO guru gave to me 6 ways to increase my link popularity, 5 steps for acquiring customers online , 4 ways to optimise my meta data, 3 key areas on my website to add my key phrases, 2 key word research tools and a talk on website usability

On the seventh day of Christmas my SEO guru gave to me 7 tips for writing good meta data,  6 ways to increase my link popularity, 5 steps for acquiring customers online , 4 ways to optimise my meta data, 3 key areas on my website to add my key phrases, 2 key word research tools and a talk on website usability

On the eight day of Christmas my SEO guru gave to me 8 great reports in analytics to analyse,  7 tips for writing good meta data,  6 ways to increase my link popularity, 5 steps for acquiring customers online , 4 ways to optimise my meta data, 3 key areas on my website to add my key phrases, 2 key word research tools and a talk on website usability

On the ninth day of Christmas my SEO guru gave to me  9 great tips on creating a strong brand, 8 great reports in analytics to analyse,  7 tips for writing good meta data,  6 ways to increase my link popularity, 5 steps for acquiring customers online , 4 ways to optimise my meta data, 3 key areas on my website to add my key phrases, 2 key word research tools and a talk on website usability

On the tenth day of Christmas my SEO guru gave to me 10 tips for writing for the web,  9 great tips on creating a strong brand, 8 great reports in analytics to analyse,  7 tips for writing good meta data,  6 ways to increase my link popularity, 5 steps for acquiring customers online , 4 ways to optimise my meta data, 3 key areas on my website to add my key phrases, 2 key word research tools and a talk on website usability

On the eleventh day of Christmas my SEO guru gave to me 11 great free online resources, 10 tips for writing for the web,  9 great tips on creating a strong brand, 8 great reports in analytics to analyse,  7 tips for writing good meta data,  6 ways to increase my link popularity, 5 steps for acquiring customers online , 4 ways to optimise my meta data, 3 key areas on my website to add my key phrases, 2 key word research tools and a talk on website usability

On the twelfth day of Christmas my SEO guru gave to me 12 tips to do my own SEO audit, 11 free online resources, 10 tips for writing for the web,  9 great tips on creating a strong brand, 8 great reports in analytics to analyse,  7 tips for writing good meta data,  6 ways to increase my link popularity, 5 steps for acquiring customers online , 4 ways to optimise my meta data, 3 key areas on my website to add my key phrases, 2 key word research tools and a talk on website usability

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

If you are listed on page one in the search engines for your target search terms, well done.  You now need to ensure that your listing gets clicked.   While statistics show that most searchers will click on the top listings there are still many listings on page 1 and you need yours to stand out. Here are some tips:

Title & Description – your page meta title and meta content description powers your search engine listing (most of the time).  This allows you to control what the search engines say about you.  It is important that your target search terms appear in both the title and description but do not stuff them in purely to get a better position.  Write titles and descriptions that are engaging and include a USP/benefit and call to action.  Keep the Title to about 72 characters and the description to about 160 to ensure all is seen in your listing.

Breadcrumb Navigation – If your website has sub pages behind core top level pages or includes a product database include breadcrumb navigation.  More and more you will see breadcrumb navigation popping up on the SERP’s .  They are there for 2 reasons – the user can easily see where they are in your site (or where they are going to if it shows in the SERP)  e.g. Home > Printers > Inkjet Printers  and the search engines can index the breadcrumb navigation and use it instead of using the url of the page e.g. http://www.domain.ie/233/11/9/canon.html  (not a real url – just a sample)

Site Links- although you don’t have control over these, you can make it easy for Google to add site links for your site. The only way to ensure your listing includes Site Links is to be seen as the most relevant page for that search and have a good structure on your website which will allow the search engines to add the links to the most relevant information. Read what Google has to say about Site Links http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=47334 

 Rich Listings - Google SERP includes rich snippets, this includes reviews from third party websites as well as their own Places listings.   Help Google enhance your listing, drive people to review sites and/or include a reviews section in your own website using somethings like www.LouderVoice.com or www.TrustPilot.co.uk.    Richer listings are bigger and give users a much better indication of how others endorse and rate your services.  Rich listings also have a higher click through rate. 

Promote Shares & Endorsements – The web is all about user generated content and endorsements.  The most important endorsement for your site is the New Google +1 button.  You can now not only endorse a page while on it but you can also endorse it from the search engine results page. If you can get visitors to +1 your page and listing then that listing will stand out from the crowd – showing users that you have quality content that others like and value.   www.google.com/+1/button/

I hope this helps, if you have any questions regarding your search engine optimisation why not call us on  062 67054 and ask your SEO questions. (and don’t worry, no heavy sales talk, just simple, easy to understand answers to your important questions)

Happy optimising

Facebook is making some great changes recently – one of the most recent and possibly the one that will have the biggest impact is where you can allow people to subscribe to posts that you share publicly through your personal profile account.  You may have noticed that when you are posting to Facebook you can now decide to share it publicly, with friends or customise who sees it. 

Allowing people to subscribe means that posts from your personal account can reach a larger audience.  So how do you activate the “Subscribe” button.  It’s easy, log into your personal profile, on the left just under your profile picture you will see a new link called Subscriptions. Click on that and you will see a button at the top to Allow Subscribers.  Below that you will see who you have subscribed to.

 This is ideal for those who don’t want to have both a business page and personal page and would like to reach a larger audience through their personal page. If your goal is to represent your business or brand on Facebook I recommend that you set up a separate business fan page.

You can have unlimited subscribers but you can only subscribe to 5,000 peoples updates.  

 A good move by Facebook, have you activated your Subscribe button yet?  Got many subscribers?

Here is a list of some useful tools that may come in handy with your online marketing, all are either free or very low cost.  There is an additional list available on a previous blog post – Some great free online tools for you to try

Sweet Captcha - ever wondered what the security code that you have to fill in when sending in a request via an online enquiry for is called? Well it’s a captcha. This means that only real humans can fill out the form and will stop spammers sending in dozens of enquiries. Sweet Captcha is a fun alternative to the usual numbers and letters.  Try it yourself on www.sweetcaptcha.com

This captcha is asking the user to drag the flower to the bouquet

RSS Include – Want to add an RSS feed to your website and don’t know how to do it, well this tool is really easy.  Simply add the feed url, customise the look and feel and bingo, it generates the code. You can use it to create a box for everything from a blog, Facebook box to a simple ticker box.  There is a Premium account which costs only $36.50 a year so very affordable.  Have a go https://www.rssinclude.com/my_rssboxes/create_new_box 

SEOmoz – Have access to all the tools you need to optimise your website, their research tools include Inbound link reporting and analysis (great to see where your competitors are getting their inbound links), a SEO toolbar,  SEO reports – generate regular reports that will detail where you appear for your target search terms and identify any issues like duplicate titles, errors seen etc I highly recommend upgrading to the pro account – starts at $99 a month.  www.seomoz.org

Yola – need a website and dont have a massive budget. Yola online CMS is a great option for you to be able to set up your own starter website and its very easy to use. Choose from loads of different templates. Includes everything you need from editable meta data, blog, widgets, editable CSS (for the more advanced user) and much more.  There are free options but I recommend upgrading to the Silver account from only $90 a year, this will allow you to point in an existing domain and gives you access to more advanced templates.  Give it a go now on www.yola.com  

Blueface – ever wondered how you can track phone calls that come from website visitors without having to ask each and every person  where they heard about you?  Well look no further, with Blueface you can rent you a new phone number for a very low cost.  Use this number on your website or on a specific campaign and every time a call is made you can see the details in the handy online reports. Costs start at a low €9.99 per month. The good news is that you can rent a number with the area code for where you are located so if you are in Cork city you can have a 021 number or in Bantry you can get an 027 number.   More information on www.blueface.ie

I hope you find these useful, if you want to achieve something online and don’t know of a tool to help, contact me now and I am sure I have the ideal tool for the task.

Recently I have heard a lot of people say that email marketing is dead, I disagree.  It is changing but that is a good thing.  During the “Celtic tiger” years businesses got a little complacent about their email marketing, sending generic news out to all contacts. This was wrong then and is still wrong now.  I will not open an email with the subject  “News from Joe Bloggs company” and most others won’t?  I have lost count of the amount of emails I have received down through the years with bad and boring subject lines and even worse content.  Here are my tips to email marketing success:

1. Firstly and most importantly ensure you are complying with data protection.  There have been changes to the data protection legislation recently so please ensure you understand them fully before using email marketing. Full details available on http://www.dataprotection.ie/viewtxt.asp?DocID=1152&StartDate=1+January+2011#14  
2. DO NOT use your email programme e.g. outlook or web mail to send bulk email.  You will potentially get blacklisted and your emails will get caught in spam filters.
3. Use a third party programme like www.constantcontact.com, www.newsweaver.com or www.mailchimp.com. You can choose one of their easy to use templates or get a template designed just for you. They also will not get stuck in spam filters. 
4. Break your recipient list into core categories and send news that is relevant to them, if that means creating  different a few newsletters each month then do that. The more targets the news the higher impact it will have which will result in higher conversions.
5. Keep each newsletter short, people get bored after the first couple of articles. 
6. Include strong call to actions, if you want people to do something e.g. click on a clickable image to book or buy something then ask them to click on the link.  Don’t assume that they will know.
7. Include strong images that attracts the recipient to read more or action something.
8. Be relevant and timely
9. Time limit your offers so there is a sense of urgency there, if they know there are only 12 hours left on a specific offer they will action it immediately.  If you leave the offer open then they will pop the email aside to come back to later. Guess what, they won’t come back to it.
10. Send regularly but dont send so often your recipients are dropping out in their droves. Try once a month.
11. Test what day gets the most actions and/or conversions.  Tests show that Tuesday or Wednesday mornings are good but it will depend on the content.  
12. Review your reports – How many opened the newsletter?  How many clicked on a link? How many converted to a sale or lead? Analyse and tweak the newsletter until you know it will have the optimum impact
13. Don’t forget to add your social media links, website links and contact information so people can connect with you in other ways.
14. Include an opt-out (data protection) and your contact details so people can let you know if they don’t want to receive your e-newsletters.

Happy emailing

Every week I make note of the questions I am asked – here is a list of the top 3 questions from last week:

Q: What are the most important thing to focus on when optimising a website?
A: There are many factors taken into account by search engines when giving you a ranking. They include

• On page optimisation - that includes keyword density in page content, internal link anchor text, alt text, url’s, page names, structure, navigation etc
• Inbound links – extremely important.  The more links you have from relevant high ranking sites the better. Aim to include target key phrases in link anchor text.
• Well written, well optimised meta data
• New Google’s +1 Button

Click here for more information on Organic Search Engine Optimisation

Q: What are white hat and black hat techniques in SEO?
A: SEO experts normally categories SEO techniques into 2 categories – those that are legit and enhance the users experience and does not involve deception (white hat) and those that are what I refer to as cheats (black hat) and do not enhance the users experience and will normally get you banned in time.    There are many things that can be done that are black hat techniques, two examples are: hiding key words / phrases in the page or delivering the user and search engine different pages (cloaking).   If you cheat you will get caught and the result will not be good.

Q:How do I choose what key phrases to target?
A: There are many ways to decide on this.  Create a spreadsheet columns:

1. Web page
2. Keyphrase(s)
3. Competition

Now fill in column 1 with the list of pages in your site. For column 2 research your key phrases:  

• Talk to clients, ask them what they search(ed) for. 
• Analyse your website statistics to see what key phrases are currently generating traffic to your website. 
• Use Google itself, type in your phrase and Google instant will give you recommendations
• Use Google Keyword Tool
• Be logical, how would you search.

Identify search terms for each page, have up to 10 if needed.  

Now whittle them down to 3 per page buy checking what competition there is for these search terms online. Easiest way to do this is to go to Google and type in your search terms using ” ” and under the search box you will see how many listings there are.  Aim for ones that are attainable.  Try go for ones that you know have high search volume and low(ish) competition.

Got any more question, click here to ask Sandra and get a personal response

I work a lot with the tourism sector and find that smaller properties like B&B’s are finding it increasingly difficult to increase their Facebook connections (likes).  Here are some tips that may help (some of the tips are generic and could be used by any business):

1. Promote your Facebook page in the rooms. Consider placing a tent card in the room with your Facebook page details and ask guests to connect with you. Give them an incentive to connect e.g. discounts, up to date news, competitions etc
2. Do you have a public computer for guests to use? If so, set your Facebook page as the home page, every time a guest uses the computer they are immediately brought to your Facebook page
3. Put the Facebook logo on ALL promotional material, including business cards, brochures, leaflets etc. Don’t miss any opportunity to make people aware that you are on Facebook.
4. Put the Facebook logo on menus – some of you may not like this one, especially if you serve dinner or evening meals.  Nobody wants to be sitting beside someone that is on their phone in the middle of dinner but it may be ok at breakfast time.
5. Use QR Codes on printed material to allow people to access your Facebook page with ease. It is a great talking point and may give you an additional opportunity to persuade them to connect with you.
6. Ensure the Facebook logo is on your website in a prominent position – don’t feel that it should be in the footer of the site as this may never be seen by your website visistors.
7. On departure, send an email to all guests asking for feedback.  Give them the option to leave it on Facebook or Trip Advisor, most people will have an account in one or the other
8. Competitions – Facebook competitions are a great way to increase your “likes” but you must use a third party app like www.wildfireapp.com or www.northsocial.com . Competitions entries can be completed by liking the page or get more inventive and interactive and ask people to submit photos or videos.  Don’t waste the opportunity, use competition signup  to gather data for e-newsletters or bulk text marketing.
9. Embed the Facebook Like Box on your website  and ask them to like your page.
10. Add your facebook page link to your email signature
11. Create a welcome page – as you are providing a very personal service why not include a welcome video
12. Add e-commerce (f-commerce) elements to your Facebook page. A lot of the booking engines can now be integrated into Facebook .  The ideal one will allow people to book on the page and not take you to a separate pop up page.
13. Get active – no point in asking people to become a fan if you are not going to converse with them.  By timely and remember the 80 /20 rule. 80% personality and sharing information. 20% selling.  Important that you dont appear to salesy, you will loose fans that way.
14. Ensure your Facebook link is on your LinkedIn Profile
15. Use the @tag when writing on other business or friends walls.  This could be used in the body of the post or sign off using it. To do this simply type in @ and your page name and it will automatically create a link to your page.  This is especially important when writing posts on other business page walls that would be relevant to your business and your guest interests.
16. Add link button and share button to your website and blog. This allows readers to endorse and share your content which will gain you more connections. People trust peer recommendations.

I hope this helps you on your way to Facebook domination. Happy connecting

Any questions call me on 087 8348279 0r 062 67054.

Sometimes it is difficult to recognise that you need professional search engine optimisation services.    You may think that you have enough visitors to your website but if everyone is finding you through your name and nothing else there is definitely work needed. Some questions to ask yourself:

- Am I being found in search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo for key search terms that will drive traffic to my website (other than your business name)?   Review your analytics to answer this one, if you don’t have website analytics rush out and get them installed now. Google analytics is the most popular and the data is very easy to analyse.

- Do you know how your actions can impact your search engine position?  If not you should at least get some SEO training so you understand how you can help your position in search engines

- Are you getting quality traffic to your wbesite?  SEO should focus on targeting the right traffic to your website

- Are your competitors getting the position you would like?  The only way to boost your position is to work on your search engine optimisation whether you manage this inhouse or contract this out

- are you thinking of redesigning your website or doing major work? Website design and SEO go hand in hand so please speak to an expert at the very early stages to ensure your site is search engine friendly

Now, whats the answer?  Need SEO services?  More information available on http://www.dynamicwebmarketing.ie/search-engine-optimisation-page.html