Focus on the goal of your website

When you're building or writing your website the first thing you should consider is:

What exactly do I want this site to do?

Now the fist thing to come in to your head will be - Sell, be read, make me famous etc (depending on who you are)

But once you've got that you need to delve deeper, who do you want to sell to? What type of people are you looking to read your site? What do you want to be famous for?

You need to delve down and focus on your core market, you can't possibly reach an entire population, country, world, universe so don't even try all you'll be is bland and no one buys bland.

Focus your site on what you want to deliver, what really burns in your soul (or your warehouse)

Great Straight Forward Advice for all Marketers

I've just read the best post all year. It's on Psychotactics.com basically it gives straight forward advice which most marketers will run a mile from but for those who take it will be worth its weight in gold.

Here's the secret marketing 'trick' that'll guarantee to make you a fortune.

Speak to your customers

Let them tell you what works on your site, ask them abut new products and promotions. Do they think you're offering the best customer service. If they see problems do you react quickly to fix them or do you just brush it off as another annoying customer.

Reacting quickly and asking takes time and god forbid you have to speak to customers but in the end they are the ones spending cash, ignore them at your peril. Quite a few already have and they aren't around anymore (Woolworths anyone?)

Anyway Psychotactics put it in actual things to do, check out thier post.

Do I need a website anymore?

Once upon a time if you had a business you had to have your own website.

It took ages to write copy, mainly because you'd never done it before and when you read it back it sounded really dumb. You had to find a designer, who always looked about 12 and baffled you with tech jargon and produced an expensive flash website no one could find, but hey it looked amazing!

Well I was just thinking,why on earth do you need a website any more? The Internet is full to bursting of free tools for websites and blogs, social networking, photography hosting sites, e-commerce sites. Loads and loads and loads of stuff just laying around for free.

All this stuck together must be able to make your presence on the Internet, easy and fulfilling plus making it blindingly easy to find. I'm not techie, but I've heard of using the 'Cloud' i.e. having everything floating on the web and I honestly can't see why it shouldn't be able to work it's just a bunch of links at the end of the day.

I'm sure I'm re-inventing the wheel because this is so blindingly obvious that someone far cleverer than me must be already doing this. Regardless I'm going to try and see if I can get this off the ground if only for my own amusement.

Anyone willing to help, drop me an email. Even if it just to laugh at me for not already knowing all about it.

Gmail ads

The ads on my Gmail account can be very very funny.

Just got this one no idea how it connected to my email content but never mind.

Professional Mole Catcher - www.EssexMoles.co.uk - Mole Control, Domestic & Commercial No Mole - No Fee.

To the point and utterly brilliant if I lived in Essex and I had a mole problem I'd be straight on to this guy!

Computer Tan

A colleague has just shown me Computer Tan. This is a great viral website with a very serious message.

The site is amazingly believable and the production is exquisite. It's been produced by Mcann Erikson and has already duped over 30,000 people into believing they can get a tan from their computer screen.

Giving a great presentation via the web

In today's world thinking about the environment and your carbon footprint is very important. That's why it's a great idea to use web presentations when you really don't have to make the journey to see your customers. If you get it right, giving presentations via the Internet can be far more fulfilling than you may think.

Here are my tips to ensure you give good presentation

Presenting via the web has it's own issues. Most notably that you're not there in person. Here are a few tips to help you out if you do that same as we do.

Your PowerPoint presentation

• Keep it simple and to the point
• Avoid bullet pointed lists that you're going to read out to them. Save yourself and them the time and just send them the document so they can read it themselves.
• Be passionate

Your desktop

• Make sure your desktop is as clear as possible. If for any reason you have to click on it you don’t want customers to see other customer’s files or clutter on the screen.
• Ensure you have your company wallpaper on your screen. It's easy to do and look so much more professional than a picture of your favourite car or your wedding day, or your cat (however cute)

Your Customer

• Your customer may have a different screen resolution to you. Make sure they can see what you can before you start your presentation. You don’t want a customer to miss something at the edge of your screen. You can do this by moving your mouse from corner to corner of your screen and asking if they can see it moving.

I'm sure there are loads more tips, but getting these few basics right can make a huge difference.

Over on Presentation Zen you'll find loads and loads of information about putting together presentations which work.

Great Twitter Tool

As A new user of Twitter, I was a bit lost on how to see how effective it was. Just found this great tool, after following a Twitter post.

http://twitter-friends.com/

Twitter Friends allows you to see all your twitter stats at a glance and even compare it to other twits (not sure that's the right term)

Spreading your blog content around the web

If you are like me, and I'm sure you are or you wouldn't be reading this, you'll be on various Social Media websites my main ones are Twitter, FaceBook and Linkedin.

Did you know that you can easily syndicate your blog content to FaceBook and Linkedin? I didn't until recently.

To add it on FaceBook just nip to the notes application and point it at your blog. On Lined in add the Blog application and it'll automatically add your blog and all your connections blogs as well.

Then hey presto! All your blog entries will be automatically added to your profile as you post them increasing the scope of your readership instantly.

By the way the one caveat is that no matter where your blog is syndicated the content still had to be worth reading.

Four Twitter Tips

I joined Twitter just before Christmas. It's very odd at first but soon becomes pretty addictive.

Since I began to use it my Blog visits have gone up a huge amount which pleases me no end. It's tough to get hold of an idea what the etiquette is yet. But here are my thoughts:

1. Referencing your own blog entries is fine as long as you don't over do it. The whole point is to spread the love not blow just blow your own trumpet.
2. Saying nothing in particular some of the time is fine. There's only 140 characters so saying nothing on Twitter is fine too. Is this why the name is so close to witter? Sorry I realise that I'm wittering on myself now.
3. Following celebrities is fine, then encourage it. Just be warned that they can be just as boring as the rest of us when they only have a few words.
4. Butting in on someone else's Tweets is a bit rude, but can be very tempting. If you are going to do this make sure you give a good answer.

Best Practices for Content Optimisation

Apart for the American spelling I love SEOMoz. Rand has just posted a great article on Best Practices for Content Optimization. His spelling not mine.

It is very detailed and quite techie but the overriding theme is that there is no short cut to getting good ranking. Unique content and a usable site are the only way to get there.

Twitter changing the world

At last the old firms are engaging in face to face marketing using Twitter. Giving direct answers is a big deal for the big companies who love to hide behind carefully crafted press releases, well now they are actively engaging and reaping the rewards

The Financial Times reports how they're doing it

I'm using twitter now myself and 140 words is tough but its getting easier plus its very quick on responses.

Current.com TV

I've been watching current.com TV on proper TV for a while now. I've just registered for the website too. This is just the kind of thing the Internet and now digital TV was made for. The content is generated by the viewers and voted for by the viewers. You can sit a criticise the shows and you can make them yourself. This is total democracy because your stories and videos will be voted for by your peers. If only TV was more like this.

Still it take a dedicated amount of people to control this and take enough of an interest which is why the vast majority of the population will just stick to Eastenders. There's no thinking involved to handle that.

Reaching your audience

A great way to acquire new customers is to take your existing database and ask a data company to supply you with "look-a-likes". These customers will have similar characteristics to the ones you already have. If you're starting from scratch you can tell the data company who you'd like and they can supply that for you.

Problem is that these people are cold. They've never heard of you or your service, or they'd already be customers. A great idea is to begin to spread your product/service by piggy backing your product with something that similar customers will buy.

Great idea if you have something you can distribute free. If it's close enough you're getting your self into the hands of the right customers without giving them any risk. If you're close enough they become your marketing strategy all on their own. Seth Godin sums up the idea here.

If you're small enough and the product fits why not try it?

Google playing with PageRank again

Google appear to be messing about with PageRank again. They've just downgraded themselves to an 8/10, which seems strange. Google is the most used site in the world so how come it's not a 10?

Everything you read tells you to ignore the PageRank as it's out of date and no real indication of the quality of a site. I tend to agree but if that's case why do they still use it?

The real issue is don't sweat the PageRank, if you rank well for your terms in the serps and the cash/conversions are still rolling in then everything's fine.

If you know something talk about it

I've just given a free consultation to two guys who are friends of my boss. The original idea was that they needed help with Pay Per Click campaigns. What they really needed was help with marketing thier product full stop.

They've got a business which sells high performance car days, you know 6 laps in a Ferarri. They are getting over run with booking but want to make more out of it.

I probably spent about 1 hour with them and mentioned Pay Per Click for about 2 minutes. They were looking at the problem from the wrong end.

They needed overall advice on how to get thier product to market at the lowest cost with the biggest return on investment.

The best bit of advice I gave them?

Make it easy for your customers to book, get the crap out of the way and make it simple. They'll be adding a large click here to book button to the top of every page.

The return on investment will go through the roof. I'll guarantee that.

If you've got a problem with your site, I'll happily take a look. Failing that ask someone you know who isn't a marketer, doesn't know your product really and doesn't use the web much. If they can't make your site do what you want your customers to do then you need to think again.

My best critic like this, my wife.

Testing Google AdWord Campaigns

I've just discovered how to test where Google Adwords is showing your ads. This is useful because if you are using personal search on Google it's skew the positioning based on your previous searches and click through. Meaning that it'll show the position it thinks suits you best not what the vast majority of users will see. Which is a great idea on a personal level but terrible when you're paying for the ads yourself.

Anyway to check the positions using Google UK do your normal keyword search and then add

=&adtest=on to the end of the URL.

You'll then get a page with a warning saying this is a test site as well as a background telling you the searches are just previews.

For the US add &gl=us.

To some people this must be old news. It's new to me at least.

TV's future

This week I missed the beginning of Louis Theroux: Behind Bars this week. I love Louis' shows so I was a bit gutted. I assumed it would be shown again soon on the digital channels. Then at the end of the programme they announced that you could see the whole show again for 1 week on the BBC iPlayer.

I've just watched it again online. This is surely the way the web should work. The time when everything is free will soon be on us. The way the status quo will be maintained will be via rarity.

We're already seeing free Albums from Radiohead and the Charlatans. That's because they know that by increasing their exposure they can sell more tickets to their gigs and sell more t-shirts which is where they make their real cash.

TV will go the same way. You'll still pay for live events or first showings but after that they'll be free.

Information overload

I love the Internet, it's made businesses, social networks and connected the world in millions of unimaginable ways. One issue I'm having though is keeping track of the information I receive. Only 10 years ago the only real communication was phone, letter and fax. How did we survive then? How did anything get done?

Today I have information overload. Here's a list of what I use daily.

• Company Email
• Gmail
• Text
• Microsoft Instant Messenger
• Skype
• Blogger
• Facebook
• Linkedin
• Squidoo
• Ebay
• YouTube
• MySpace
• iTunes
• Phone
• Mobile Phone
• TV
• Books
• Newspapers
• Magazines
• Letters
• Second Life (not very ofter though)

It's amazing that we survive. Your brain can only take in two pieces of information at any one time so it's really no wonder so many people live online. All their attention is spent there.

List of online marketing books

On Linkedin the other day a question was asked about what were the ultimate books about online marketing. The guy who asked doesn't have a blog so I posted it on mine. This is a pretty impressive list which also includes some of the all time marketing classics. I've not read all of them but it's a great starter list for anyone.

• The Long Tail - by Chris Anderson
• Citizen Marketers - Ben McConnell and Jakie Huba
• Waiting for Your Cat to Bark - Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg
• Word of Mouth Marketing- Andy Sernovitz
• Strategies and Tools for Corporate Blogging by John Cass
• "Secrets of Word of Mouth Marketing" by George Silverman
• Scientific Advertising - Claude Hopkins
• Tested Advertising - John Caples
• How To Write A Good Advertisement - Victor Schwab
• Ogilvy on Advertising - David Ogilvy
• Triggers - Joseph Sugarman
• Breakthrough Advertising - Eugene Schwartz
• The Ultimate Guide to Google Adwords – Perry Marshall
• The New rules of marketing and PR: how to use news releases, blogs, podcasting, viral marketing, & online media to reach buyers directly by David Meerman Scott
• The new influencers : a marketer's guide to the new social media by Paul Gillin
• Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking by Andy Sernovitz
• Smart Start-Ups: How Entrepreneurs and Corporations Can Profit by Starting Online Communities by David Silver.
• The Big Red Fez by Seth Godin

BBC add social networking to thier site

Social networking is now mainstream. It's so much so that the BBC website which is the most visited in Europe and one of the biggest authority sites in the world has added social bookmarks to it's site. Expect a huge wave of big name copycats.