Top 10 beginner’s tips...
for online marketing success
By Emily Reeves - Online Marketing Assistant
It’s not uncommon for us to be asked our advice on setting up a web site for a start-up company or hobby. Budget is nonexistent, but people still want to tick all the boxes and produce an effective site. Below is a summary of simple online marketing tips for the DIY web builder:
1. Engaging, functional design
Always design your web site with visitors in mind. Choose you colour scheme carefully to reflect your brand/image and make sure there is good contrast between text and background colours. Consistency is the key and a few well chosen graphics can make a big difference. You should not only think about the imagery but also the way in which the text sits on the page. Our article “Aesthetics of web page text” explains this theory in more detail.
2. Clear and simple navigation
Your web site navigation plays a big role in determining visitor experience. Navigation should be a prominent feature of your design - if visitors can’t find their way around your site they are unlikely to stay. Keep your navigation clear and consistent throughout the site and ensure each section is clearly labelled for ease of access. You may want to incorporate a breadcrumb trail so the user can visualise the steps they have taken.
3. Optimised web site content
An important aspect of online marketing success is to make sure your content is engaging and easily read by both visitors and search engines. The first thing you should do is to identify a selection of attainable keywords to focus your content around. Make sure you don’t focus on anything too generic or you will be overwhelmed by competition. One of the keys to successful optimisation is to make sure your existing content is kept up to date, and to update your site with new and relevant content on a regular basis.
4. Invest in a PPC campaign
An effective PPC campaign can be a quick way of generating valuable search visitors through bidding for specific keywords that are related to the products and services you provide. Once you have a live campaign running you must maintain and tweak it regularly to guarantee it performs well.
5. Create a blog
Blogs are a fast becoming a common way of company communication as well as a good PR tool. A blog can keep your clients and potential clients fully informed, allowing them to interact with your team, online. Researching the best keywords to use in your entries can also help you improve your search marketing.
6. Send an email marketing campaign
Email marketing is a great way to stir up enthusiasm with existing clients, whether it's to promote new products and services or just renew the relationship. Email marketing allows you to communicate a specifically tailored message to your customer quickly and directly, often proving more cost efficient than other offline marketing techniques. Experience has demonstrated that the best day to send a campaign is on a Sunday, find out why in our “Email marketing trends” article.
like Google Analytics provide reliable statistics that give valuable insight into visitors figures.
7. Carry out visitor analytics
Visitor analytics is the real key to unlocking the full commercial potential of your web site. In order to develop and improve your online marketing strategies you should carry out regular analysis and evaluation. Useful online resources like Google Analytics can provide reliable statistics that can give valuable insight into how many visitors your website receives, where they come from and how they behave when they are on your site. For more information on visitor analytics, see our article “Web site analytics”.
8. Consider web site accessibility
One key to ensuring your visitors enjoy a positive browsing experience is web site accessibility. It is essential that as many people are able to use your web site as possible, so consider the way in which your site is developed to ensure that devices such as screen readers are able to navigate the web pages. It is estimated there are over 9 million people registered as having a disability in the UK, which means you could potentially be missing out on 9 million visitors to your site if it’s not fully accessible. For more information about web site accessibility see our article “Accessibility in web based design”.
9. Testing cross browser compatibility
With a growing number of internet browsers available to consumers today, it is important that your web site renders correctly in each one of them. The problem with this is that each browser supports CSS coding to a varying level of strictness, so what may appear fine in one browser may look completely different in another. Find out more about current browser statistics in our article “Accessibility in web site development”.
10 Consider your internal and external links
Considering the links within your web site not only ensures visitors can easily navigate around your site, it can also reinforce your web site content which, in turn can have a positive impact on your search marketing. Combine this with a selection of carefully considered link exchanges from other web sites and you could see some great improvements in your search engine presence. For advice on selecting links see our article “Online marketing... more than just a link”.
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