May 30, 2015 by EziSell

‘Pin’ a Tweet to the Top of Your Twitter Profile to Attract More Traffic

Do you have a Tweet pinned to the top of your profile on Twitter? Wait, wrong social media network, right?

Not really. Twitter will actually let you “pin” a Tweet to the top of our Twitter stream so that people visiting your page will always see that particular Tweet first, as opposed to the default setup in which your most recent posting appears on top.

What are the benefits of this? Well, first you have more control over what visitors see when they land on our Twitter feed (uh, duh!). But that means that you can create whatever kind of image you want to project, something that can be extremely helpful if you use your Twitter feed primarily to support your other Internet marketing platforms or offers.

There’s also a social benefit. For example, if you want to attract members of the opposite sex or people with similar interests to yours, you can “pin” the most appropriate Tweet so that it’s always present at the top of your page – such as the photo where you appear most buff, or something related to your hobby or interests.

If you use Twitter a lot, not everything you post is going to be something you want to represent who you are to other Twitter users. For example, you may Share something you found funny but that other people might find offensive. Or you could Tweet something off the cuff that could be taken out of context later.

This is something that happens to sports starts and celebrities all the time. Who’s to say you are immune to it, especially if you are prone to “Tweeting under the influence”.

Setting It Up

Setting up the Tweet you want to pin to the top of your Twitter feed is super easy. All you go to the Tweet you want pinned, then click on the “…” icon at the bottom right hand corner. (You probably never noticed this before, did you?) Then all you have to do is simply click on the “Pin to your profile page” option and there you go.

Make sure you pick a Tweet that truly represents the image you want to project. In other words, don’t just arbitrarily pick some Tweet you think is pretty funny or an okay picture of you. Remember, you only get one chance to make a good impression. Twitter is worldwide and your profile could potentially be visited by thousands of different people, so you want to make sure you get it right the first time.

And if you don’t, well, you can always change it later anytime you want!

The Downside

The biggest drawback to this is the pinned Tweets on your profile can’t be seen by people who access the social media site from their smart phones. And, let’s face it, Twitter and mobile phones were made for each other. When was the last time you accessed Twitter from your PC or laptop? It was probably at least a couple of years ago.

So will posting your best Tweet to the top of your Twitter profile actually make a difference? Let’s put it this way: It couldn’t hurt. You can’t control how people what kind of devices people use to access your Twitter profile. If someone does happen to stumble upon (oops! Wrong site again) your Twitter feed from their laptop or PC and they do happen to like your great Tweet enough to re-Tweet it, well, then that’s bonus!

The bottom line is that if you want to increase your popularity on Twitter and do a better job of managing your reputation, why not pin the best Tweet possible to the top of your profile?

May 27, 2015 by EziSell

Is Apple Considering Dropping Google as their Default Search Engine?

It’s no secret that the folks over at Apple have always been a little jealous of Google’s dominance as the Internet’s top search engine. But the iCompany has been bogged down with too many product launches and keeping the company strong in the wake of Steve Jobs’ death to do anything about it.

Until now…

Word on the street is that Apple’s search deal with Google is going to expire soon and when it does, the search engine default on the Safari browser that comes with every Apple computer, iPhone, iPad (and now iWatch) is going to be up for grabs. And you just know that Bing or Yahoo (or every other search engine for that matter) would love to have that particular piece of business.

There’s even speculation that Apple may have its own search engine in development. After all, the company has a long history of vertical integration.

Dumping Google Could Have Big Consequences

RKG’s Mark Ballard has stated that “roughly half of total paid search traffic (is) at stake in 2015 if the Safari search default is really up for grabs across devices.” That could have huge consequences that would be felt throughout many industries.

It also could lead to a big drop in Google’s value. Imagine what would happen to Google if Apple were to drop its search engine from its devices. For one thing, Google would experience an immediate (and permanent?) drop in the amount of mobile traffic, market share and paid clicks it currently has. According to StatCounter, Safari’s presence on Apple-based desktops and mobile devices accounts for slightly less than 26% of all US Internet traffic. That’s more than IE. Only Chrome has a larger share.

Another Player Waiting in the Wings?

Meanwhile, Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer has publicly stated that she would like her company to be the default search engine for Apple.

And Bing already does the searches for Siri on mobile devices and for Apple PC’s Spotlight searches. That could mean that if Apple is planning on dropping Google, because it already has a working relationship with Bing, it may put their search engine at the top of their list of candidates.

iSearch?

There’s also a lot of speculation about a recent job posting from Apple for an “engineer projection manager” for its “Apple Search” department. That’s a pretty strong indicator that Apple is at least considering getting into the search engine business.

Here’s what the job posting says:

“Apple seeks a technical, driven and creative program manager to manage backend operations projects for a search platform supporting hundreds of millions of users. Play a part in revolutionizing how people use their computers and mobile devices. Manage operations projects that support groundbreaking technology and the most scalable big-data systems in existence.”

Now, that may sound as if Apple is announcing the launch of its own search engine, but it also could just be a bluff to improve its negotiating position with Google, Bing, Yahoo or another player.

Does Apple Still Have the Guts to Pull Off Such a Huge Move?

There’s no question that Apple under Tim Cook is a much different company than Apple under Steve Jobs (both times). The days of launching industry-changing products is in the past for Apple. So the best bet right now would be that Apple will keep its relationship with Google.

But there’s always the chance that Google may want to pull out of its deal with Apple. After all, the search monsters pays Apple a reported billion dollars per year in revenue sharing for its deal with the mobile Safari.

Stay tuned to for the next episode in this high stakes corporate Internet soap opera.

May 25, 2015 by EziSell

Ways to Create Fresh Content to Keep Visitors Coming Back for More

Creating new content is critical to the success of your web pages, but let’s face it: It’s also a pain in the butt.

It often seems like you’ve already said everything you want to say about your blog or website’s subject matter. Yet if you don’t provide a constant stream of fresh, engaging content, you risk alienating your regular visitors and you could stop attracting new fans.

‘Refresh’ Your Pages with Engaging Content

Here’s some easy ways to keep your blog or website engaging and interesting to new fans and loyal return visitors:

– Engaging Content Is Critical – This is something you hear a lot, but what does it really mean? Engaging content can mean any number of things, such as a lively debate about a controversial subject relating to your niche to reviews of the latest news. It could mean stories from your own real life or somebody else’s that are relevant to your subject matter.

Developing engaging content is something that should come organically to you. If you are the author of a popular blog or website, you probably already are constantly on the lookout for articles, images and other content you think your readers might find interesting. But you don’t always have to give your readers long blocks of text. In fact, it’s probably better if you don’t.

Infographics are one of the hottest types of engaging content being used online right now. These are images that present information both textually and with engaging graphics. The purpose of infographics is to make your content easier to be absorbed by your visitors.

Videos are another great type of engaging content, especially if you don’t usually post videos of yourself. If your readers have following your blog for a long time and then suddenly, BOOM!, there’s a video of you in your own home or office, it can be like: Mind. Blown.

– Put Your Visitors First – The most successful sites make their readers the blog or website owners’ top priority. This pays off because when visitors feel valued, they are much more likely to come back another time.

Did you ever read a blog or website and think, “Boy, this person is such a know-it-all?” How did that make you feel? Now compare that to a blog or website where the author is actively responding to visitors’ questions, sharing stories about interactions with fans, and inviting visitors to share their stories or tips as they are relevant to the blog’s subject matter. Big difference. Much more inviting.

– Mix It Up A Little –If you’ve been using the same theme since the first day of your blog or website, or always use the default layout, it may be comfortable for you but it can be a real turnoff for your visitors. People like it when you shake things up every once in a while.

Think about the way Google will change their home search page for special holidays or just for fun. You can do the same thing with your blog or website to make it more engaging for your visitors. At the very least, change your theme to reflect the season, such as having a snowy background in winter, a sunny one in summer, and so on.

Okay, these techniques of enhancing the users’ experience when they arrive on your pages may take a little time or effort on your part. But they will pay off royally when you build your subscriber list and start attracting hundreds of new visitors every day. See for yourself!

May 23, 2015 by EziSell

Why are People Leaving Websites?

Have you ever wondered what the most popular reasons are that people leave websites? Recently, Kissmetrics put out some very interesting data and numbers that should help every marketer out there understand their viewer behavior just a little bit better.

Poor Navigation and Layout

If your website is poorly designed and difficult to navigate, people will leave it. Quickly. Don’t make this mistake and be sure to use logical and intuitive design when planning your layout. The main navigation links should be across the top or down the left of your screen. All pictures should be clear and related directly to the site, telling a story or providing information. Your text shouldn’t contain confusing links which are vaguely labeled and buried in the main body. Additionally, always add a sitemap.

Overkill Advertising

Have you ever gotten to a site and had pop-up ad after pop-up ad? Or Flash ads or content that fills the entire screen which leaves you searching for dozens of little “X” buttons on the boxes every few seconds? Horrible. This is why people leave sites: too many ads. Never let an ad be the first thing to welcome your visitor to your site. They shouldn’t be obtrusive or cover up a portion of the content as if to say, “You’re only allowed to read that after you pay attention to this ad!” Keep it tasteful, relevant and as always, make sure your ads are much, much smaller than your content, otherwise you look like a spam site.

Horrid Structure of Content

If your site is a jumbled mess of content where nobody can find what they are looking for, watch your bounce rate climb through the roof! There should be a logical flow to your content as it draws visitors deeper into your sales funnel at each step. Keep content that should be together all on one page, not scattered over three or four. Group similar content together to make it easy to navigate deeper into the subject matter. Highlight keywords and don’t forget subheadings in bold.

Automatic Audio and Video

People can find a video on your page if they want to. They don’t need you to auto-play content and possibly blow their eardrums out if they have headphones in, wake up the baby if they forgot to turn the speakers off or slow-down their loading process with ski—pp—ing—spee—ch—pa-tt-er—ns. Give them the option to start the audio or video themselves, or at the very least, start the volume very low and give the user a quick option to exit the audio or video without exiting the website.

Registration Requirements

You’ve been Googling for half an hour, you’re about to lose your mind—finally, you find the product you’re looking for, get on the site and BAM! A registration requirement pops up acting as a physical barrier between you and the pot of gold. You consider signing up but you will not give into this type of bullying! You hop in your car and drive off to the store to buy the product, happy that you defeated the evil internet for at least today. Yeah, don’t be that website. At least offer a little preview or demo first so they can see what you’re offering before you twist their arm.

As you can see, an intelligently designed and well-written and thought-out website can eliminate a lot of high bounce rates that are out there. If your product or service is great, give it a chance to
speak for itself. Don’t lose the war before the battle even begins!

May 2, 2015 by EziSell

Express Links vs Implied Links 101

It’s been recently discovered that Google has submitted a patent that should change the way linkbuilding is done in a drastic manner. We’ve all been aware of the linkbuilding penalties that Google has been handing out for the abuse and misuse of links, so it’s no surprise to see them taking action. In fact, this has been coming for a while, it’s just unclear how many people truly expected this kind of superb fix: implied links.

Under our current understanding of linkbuilding, ‘express links’ are the only types of links that are beneficial to a site’s ranking. An express link is your standard link that leads back to the webpage by embedding (or just plain pasting) the URL on a page. For example, http://www.Google.com is an express link. These are the links that are being used in negative SEO and link building schemes, as well as by honest internet marketers like you and me.

Enter the Implied Link

But now, Google is poised to swing the emphasis from express links to what are being called ‘implied links.’ Implied links do not actually have to include the URL to the website, they are simply implied by the mere mention of the website (or brand, product, service, etc.). This means that mentions and citations are going to be the next wave of linkbuilding, mostly because they are much harder to manipulate in order to score higher rankings in the SERPs.

This isn’t to say anything of nofollow links, we expect these to stay pretty heavy in the algorithm, but just to say that implied links are going to weigh a lot more than express links. Granted, this is mostly educated speculation right now, but the patent filed by Google certainly makes it clear that implied links are a real thing and will matter.

Reference Queries and Brand Mentions

But the changes aren’t stopping there. Not only does the Panda patent talk about express and implied links, but authority calculation will now also be affected reference queries. This is essentially a road map that starts with a very specific query that ends up in a very specific location. In other words, if 80% of all queries into “soda pop” end up on Coca Cola’s page and not Pepsi’s, Coca Cola will benefit from the reference query weight of “soda pop.”

This helps ensure that Google is directing searchers to the right pages by sending them to the places that others have found success. This determines popularity of the page by query entry, thus adding to the authority of the site. Basically, this is just another way to improve the visitor experience so keep focusing on making sure you are giving your audience exactly what they want. The better you answer their questions and meet their needs, the better your reference query scores will be.

As for brand mentions, this is just another term for implied links. They are also called mentions and if you want your brand to carry authority, you simply need other sites to talk about your brand and/or website. This is going to change the outlook on blogging since now you don’t really need anyone to place an express link in their blog, only talk about you as an authority or in some similar form.

April 30, 2015 by EziSell

Choose the Right Social Media Platform with This Simple Question

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: when it comes to social media, you shouldn’t have a problem putting all of your eggs in one basket if you don’t have the time or budget for an extensive social media campaign. There’s nothing worse (in terms of social promotions and brand imaging) than putting social widgets on your website only to lead to malnourished, underwhelming social media sites.

The Importance of Updating Social Media

When a viewer gets to a neglected social media page, a few things happen. First, your lead might think you are out of business. They also might think they are in the wrong place. Third, they might just assume that you don’t care about your customers (or don’t care in general) and just write you off as an option for buying.

The bottom line? If you’re not going to update every one of your social media pages constantly, it’s better to cut your losses and just delete the accounts. Of course, social media is super-important, so a better option would be to delete all but one, but which one?

The One Question that Tells You Which Social Media is Right for You

The best way to figure out which social media platform should be your main focus is to ask yourself the following question: If I only had to use one social media platform for the rest of my life, which would it be? This might seem simplistic, but let’s look deeper into the question.

What is in a social media platform for you? Do you need pictures of your products to get visitors over to your affiliate sites? Is your marketing based on real-time actions? Are you a B2B or B2C marketer? In short: what drives customers to your site?

When you know what your audience is doing, you know what you need to do. For example, if you are an affiliate marketer for Amazon and your only social media presence is to share reviews, having a Facebook account set up where you can share links complete with pictures might be your best bet. On the other hand, if you only deal with flash sales online, Twitter will allow you to stay plugged into the pulse of your audience so you can reach them as it happens. Looking to land higher-ups in the company and sell them software? LinkedIn has the largest amount of professionals so that’s where you will want to be.

The key here is to recognize what each of the social media platforms means for your specific means of promotion. If you only want to pin up items that you are reviewing and then forget about them, Pinterest might be the way to go since you won’ t have to deal with answering questions from posters and commenters.

When You Have It, Run With It

Of course, if you can’t decide on which social media platform you’d choose if you could only choose one for the rest of your life, there’s a very simple option: look at your Google Analytics and see which social media sites are driving the most traffic to your websites. Then, take a serious look at how much time you’ve put into each of those sites.

Are you getting 20% of all your traffic from LinkedIn but only spending 5% of your time there? Then increasing your effort on LinkedIn might be a good strategy over focusing on another platform that brings in 30% of your traffic but takes up 85% of your time.

April 29, 2015 by EziSell

Responsive Website vs. Native App – How Far Do You Need to Go Mobile?

With the coming of the mobile revolution being heralded for years, it seems we’re finally here (even though it came in with a whimper, more than a bang). With that said, it’s now critical that every marketer that wants to stay competitive be not only findable, but viewable on mobile devices. Mobile devices make up a greater portion of all searches each and every year, and we’re finally starting to see some viable means in terms of mobile purchasing to warrant the push to either responsive websites, native apps or both.

But what’s the difference?

What is a Responsive Website?

A responsive website (or more accurately, responsive web design) simply means that the site is coded and designed in such a way that the content will adjust to fit on whatever size screen it is being viewed on. So if you’re looking at a site on your 27-inch desktop monitor, it will look great, but if you visit the site on your 3-inch mobile device, it will also display correctly.

Responsive websites eliminate the need to have a dedicated site built for mobile (in addition to your standard website). The coding in the site responds to the device it is being viewed from and tells the browser exactly how the content should be displayed so there are no errors and functionality is preserved. If your audience connects to your site via a number of devices (e.g. computer desktop, laptop, tablet, smartphone, mobile phone, etc.), a responsive website is a critical investment.

Benefits of responsive web design include:

– Your site is indexed as mobile-friendly by search engines, while still maintaining all of its normal indexing

– All of your updates to your website can be done in one place and show up on any viewing device

– Your site becomes flexible, able to reach all viewers no matter the device they are using

– All of your updates are seen by anyone who views the page and are not limited or restricted by device

What is a Mobile App – or Native Mobile App?

Mobile app and native mobile app are two terms used interchangeably for the same thing. A mobile app is an application designed specifically for use on mobile devices. It is an entirely separate program from your website and instead of being stored on servers, it is downloaded by the user and stored on their smartphone.

What this does is it allows users to connect even when they don’t have internet access. This is due to the fact that the app is stored locally (though some mobile apps will require internet). That means native mobile apps grant faster access for users than mobile (or responsive) websites do.

In addition, mobile apps have permissions that can help your sales such as access to the phone’s camera or speaker. This makes it easier for customers to interact with you. The downside here is that native mobile apps require different operating systems for Android and iOS phones, so it does cost some money to develop them…twice.

There are also a few more downsides and upsides to mobile apps:

– While faster than websites on mobile devices, mobile apps have fixed layouts meaning you must design one for each operating system

– Your audience for mobile apps is limited to people who have smartphones

– Search engines don’t index mobile apps because they aren’t stored on the internet, but rather on the user’s phone

– Updates can be tricky because the user must download them for updates to appear. Not everyone does this, so your newer content might not gain as much traction

– It is both expensive and time-consuming to develop native mobile apps and then get them approved by the app stores (Google Play and the Apple App Store)

Ideally, you would have both, but for now, a responsive website seems like the safer plan for internet marketers until your business demands a mobile app.

February 10, 2015 by EziSell - 0 comments

Growing Your Customer Base

Winning a new customer is far more expensive than selling more to your existing clients. Knowing who your best customers are can help you improve customer satisfaction and also help you sell more to those existing customers.

Gaining new clientele is one of the most difficult aspects of running a business, so it is important to retain and look after the ones you already have, and sell more to them, but at the same time still looking for new customers.

This guide explains how to get to know your customers and understand your market so you can increase sales and develop your business. It gives you details on how to use sales data, customer care systems and your databases to develop a strategy for keeping customers.

It also shows how to identify your most valuable customers, and how to maximize this value.

How to build your customer base

Every business needs a solid customer base in order to be successful. It’s important because customers provide you with revenue. Not only that, but they give you the essential feedback which helps you continually improve your offers and services, and they spread the word to other people about your business and what you do.

None of this happens by accident. Building a dependable customer base takes time and effort. If you want to build your business up on a solid foundation, you need to pay close attention to who your customers are and try to understand what motivates them to buy from you.

Who and where are your customers?

The very first step in building a customer base is to know: Who your customers are, and where you can find them. Once you have this information you can manage your customer relationships by engaging with them more effectively. This will have the effect of increasing sales to these existing customers as well as attracting new ones.

Customer profiling: What you should know about your customers

Knowing your customer’s key characteristics will help you decide where, when and how to communicate with them.

If you have been in business for a number of years, or you sell to a specific niche audience, no doubt you will already have a good idea about your customer’s general age, location and gender, but there is a lot more information that could be helpful to you.

For example:
• Do you know the websites your customers visit and what kind of publications they read?
• What other products and services do they buy?
• Why do they buy from you and when?
• What type of customer spends most with you?

If you have just a few customers you could add specific personal information to your customer profiles, such as a buyer’s particular interests.

If your customer base is large and diverse you need to segment them into groups that share similar characteristics and think about the best way to target each group.

Profiling customers this way enables you to better communicate with existing customers and target new customers more accurately. Getting this kind of information could be a simple matter of picking up a telephone and speaking to them. Or it might require a more formal approach such as running a survey in your newsletter or online survey program (we can help you with both of these if you don’t publish an online newsletter or don’t know how to create an online survey.

Why you should concentrate on looking after your most profitable customers

There is good reason to concentrate on looking after your most profitable customers: In general 80% of sales come from just 20% of your customers. Figures also prove it costs around 5 times more to get new customers as it does to sell to existing ones.

So it makes absolute perfect business sense to identify your most profitable customers. By making sure you provide them with excellent customer service, you are ensuring they will remain loyal and to maximize your profits.

Not only that, but they will be far more likely to recommend you to others. Your most profitable customers are the ones who will provide the foundation for the growth of your company. You can increase your profits further. Knowing the characteristics of these clients makes it easier for you to identify and target prospective customers who share similar characteristics.

Derek Williams, chief executive of The WOW! Awards for Customer Service, highlighted how important it was for businesses to identify profitable customers. He said: “The secret to growth is to have more customers of the type you want to have, to increase your average sale value and to get them to buy more often.”

Building good relationships with existing customers

Communication and good customer service is central to strengthening and building your customer base, but where do you start?

The golden rule of marketing is: Go where your customers are. You could have the greatest idea in the world, but you have to get people to see you. After all, you need to have customers before you start worrying about profits.

For the majority of small businesses, being visible today means having a presence on the internet.

It is well worth doing your homework to find out what channels you should be using to target your customers. A simple way is to ask your customers where they go online. It is also worth looking to see what your competitors are doing.

Continue to engage with your customers – even after the sale

A common trap many businesses fall into is they only communicating with customers to make a sale offer. Take time to engage and build a relationship with them first. That way, when your customers are ready to buy, they will think of you first.

There are so many ways that you can do this. For example, social media and email newsletters are excellent for maintaining regular contact. Many small business owners comment successfully to local media via a press release to build their profile. You can even use face-to-face networking as a very effective way of getting to know your customers.

Make it a rule to always offer something of value whenever you have contact with your customers. This could simply be answering questions about your products or services.

If you are a niche business, you probably already share your client’s passion for your product or service. Make sure that passion shines through.

Use Social Media

70% of Internet users use social media

36% of small businesses use Facebook to engage with customers

More than 1 in 3 social media users talk about brands online

1 in 3 small businesses sell online and made over 130bn sales in 2012

Acquiring new customers

When it comes to increasing the size of your customer base, the first people you should look to are your most loyal customers. They are your best salespeople because they are more likely to recommend your business to others.

However, if you take the time to learn about them through profiling and communication this will help to tell you who you should be targeting next. Ideally, you should aim to get more customers that are just like the best customers that you already have.

Customer loyalty: How to generate repeat business

It’s always a great feeling to get a sale and though one-off sales are fine, the chances are you will want every customer to buy from you again and again. The most obvious way to achieve this is to provide a good product or service at a good price, along with excellent customer service. It has never been more important to treat your customers well, since almost half of all consumers now put more importance on customer service since the start of the recession.

Customers love being valued and treated like VIPs. Many shoppers today will not stand for a poor retail experience.

An ‘Insites Study’ revealed 36% would not give a business a second chance if they didn’t feel it was up to scratch.
But generating customer loyalty goes well beyond service at the point of sale.

“If you really want to stand out from your competition, build a community around your customer that adds value in a unique way,” says Derek Williams.

Take time to find out what customers really value about your business – and give it to them. Involve them in your business. You can even do this by letting them get involved in helping you develop new products and services.

There is always a market for anything that saves people time or money, makes their lives easier, or simpler or cheaper. When providing something like this, make sure your costs are very competitive and you are giving customers exactly what they want, rather than trying to tell them what you think they want. You have to be absolutely focused on delivering something of real value to them.

Targeting prospects

You will find that when you are marketing well to your existing customers, you will very quickly start to pick up new ones. To get to this stage, you will have had to learn not only who your customers are but where they are. You will also have discovered what they like about your product or services, when they buy and what communications channels they use.

You then use this exact same information to deliberately target fresh customers through offers and promotions and through generating referrals from existing customers.

How – and when – to run special offers and promotions

Potential customers are much more likely to take the plunge and buy from you if you offer good incentives for them to do so. The classic ‘Buy-one-get-one-free’ is great if you have unsold stock to shift.

However there are many other incentives you can use, and understanding customer preferences is crucial when making offers and promotions.

For example:
• Offering a product or service at a discounted rate when a customer buys a popular related product or service will increase your average sale value.
• Selecting popular products as prizes for competitions and challenges will increase engagement and referrals, particularly online.

Getting the timing right is equally important. When do your customers most likely want to hear what you are offering? Seasonal sales and external events such as national holidays can offer good hooks for promotions. So, too, can the release of a new and improved product or service.

Don’t just do it randomly: Have a reason to make the offer and stress the value and benefits your customer will gain by taking this offer up.

Use your customers themselves to increase your customer base

Nobody knows the other players in the marketplace better than your existing customers so find ways to get your customers to promote what you do, such as a financial incentive in order to find you new business. Companies like Amazon do this very well by creating an affiliate program; individuals promote your products and get paid a commission on every sale.

Referrals are always a really effective way of getting new customers. 76% of consumers cite word of mouth as their main influence when deciding on which product to buy.

The internet makes it particularly easy for businesses to find get referrals because more than a third of social media users have talked about brands online, and four out of five online retailers reported increased sales after adding comment features on their websites and product pages.

If you are selling or marketing online it makes sense to enable ‘social sharing’ on your website landing pages. You can even ask customers to leave a testimonial if you advertize in online directories.

Your aim is to be certain that wherever new customers are likely to encounter you – online or offline – they are able to read something positive about your business that’s been said by another customer.

To encourage feedback offer customers incentive schemes to refer you. For example you could offer a discount when someone introduces a new customer or an invitation to a product launch. Some businesses now use group buying as a way of encouraging people to share discounts with friends and family on social media sites.

There is always something you can offer your customers as a reward for helping you grow your customer base.

Ten Steps to Growing Your Customer Base

1. Focus on the right customers. Just because you might have a small business don’t just think you can only sell to other small businesses.
2. Stay connected with your customers. Engage with them. Build a solid relationship with them. The internet and social media marketing makes this extremely easy to do.
3. Offer extra value. Always try to over-deliver so your customers will stay loyal to you and keep coming back for more.
4. Don’t be afraid to ask for referrals and testimonials.
5. Understand and address your customer’s key frustrations.
6. Keep communicating with your customers. Don’t let them forget about you. You can do this via online newsletters, social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook etc. Provide offers and information which may be of value to them.
7. Make it your aim to get to know your customers. Find out as much as you can about them. Get to know their interests, their partners names, how many children they have, what pets they have, what car they drive etc.
8. Improve your customer service skills. This includes how you communicate with them, how you answer the phone to them and how you present yourself and your business. Whatever contact your customers have with you, it should always be a positive experience.
9. Ask customers how you can do things better. No company is perfect but if you allow your customers to give you feedback you will keep them on side and loyal to your business.
10. Create forums or Facebook groups where customers can share information and ideas. Create a community for them to be a part of. It all helps with the engagement and keeping them loyal to you.

We have many more marketing ideas that will help to take your business to another level. To find out more about how we can help your company and give you a solid online marketing strategy please don’t hesitate to contact us.

February 1, 2015 by EziSell - 0 comments

The Importance of Unique Relevant Content

No matter what type of website you have, for Internet Marketing there are 3 words that mean more than anything else

Content is King

These three words should be remembered at all times and used as a reminder that on site SEO (search engine optimisation) is just as important as off site SEO for two particular reasons:

Search engines do assess the quality of content and it can elevate your rankings

It is ultimately what will impress potential customers and encourage them to buy.

Although we are talking about improving your search engine rankings in this email, the second point is an important one to remember because your website should still be designed with your customers in mind. Online marketing should take care of the search engines.

The content you need is…

a) High quality,
b) Unique to your site
c) Relevant to the products and services you are attempting to sell. If it does not check all three points then you are getting it wrong.

High quality content will not be crammed with keywords but will instead contain keywords scattered in the text to remind search engines of its purpose. It will be well written, make sense and be completely unique.
Unique content is exactly what the label suggests so it should be written specifically for your site rather than copied from someone else’s site. There are tools you can use to make sure that your content is unique so investing in one of them may not be a bad idea.

Finally, the content on your site should always be relevant to the topic in question. For example; if you sell hardware goods then putting up content about women’s fashion is not a good idea. So what difference does it make?

Most people that are new to maintaining a website will dismiss content as one of the last things they need to worry about but this is simply not the case. Having relevant and unique content on your site can make a world of difference to your rankings. It fulfils many of the criteria set by search engine algorithm for high ranking and can also help to draw traffic to your site.

After all, visitors need to be able to find what they are looking for.

With all of this in mind, you really must take the time to look at the content on your site. You need to make sure that it is of a high quality as well as being unique and relevant. However, there is another aspect of content that you absolutely MUST consider.

The concept of fresh content Fresh content is not a difficult concept to grasp. In fact, it is pretty simple to understand so you should have no difficulty with it. It is literally adding more articles, information and other such content to your site on a regular basis.

There are plenty of ways that you can add fresh content on a regular basis but there are some that are more popular than others. For example, most major sites have a blog or an article section that content is added to whereas others choose to have an RSS feed added. Whichever you decide to do, you should update it at least once a month if not once a week to achieve the results you want.

Why add fresh content?

Now you know what fresh content is and how to add it, you need to consider why you need to put the time and effort in. Well, it is primarily to attract two things to your website:

Spiders -No, not the eight legged kind but rather the search engine kind. Spiders crawl your site to update your ranking periodically based on the content there. If you do not update your site then a search engine may well visit less frequently in future. If you update it regularly then you will find that spiders drop by and your rankings change on a more regular basis.

Humans – If you want to build trust and invite visitors to come back again and again then fresh content is the way to do it. It gives the impression that your customers mean a lot to you and can keep your visitor number and conversion rates high.

There is one other point that should be made about adding fresh content on a regular basis and that is the overall effect it has on your site. It helps to build authority. The more relevant and fresh content you add, the greater the authority your website seems to have on the topic. This not only improves your ranking but also increases the number of other people and companies that are willing to link to you.

EziSell

Category Archives: seo