The word ‘blog’ is a strange one. It’s been in use since around 1999, when it was shortened from the term ‘weblog’, or online journal.

Any business that wants to increase traffic to its website, and can arrange to write regular articles or updates, needs a blog.

On the internet information is king. The more you have the better, as long as it’s original and relevant to your business.

A blog is a tool that allows for the organisation and categorisation of articles on a website, which over time will build up a body of information that will generate its own website traffic.

It also provides a mechanism for creating targeted content on your website. For example, if you manage an accommodation business and the annual tourist event is coming up, you could write an article about the event, and even several more articles with updates as the event gets closer.

When people are searching for accommodation in your area and they search for the event, your website will be likely to appear in the search results. And even better, next year the content will already be on the website as an archive, so it will continue working for you.

There are many types of blogging software available, most of it is free. However to set it up properly takes some knowledge of the web. Get advice from your trusted website professional before committing your business to the blogosphere.

Having a Twitter and Facebook page that’s regularly updated will bring more traffic to your website.

But just a minute, I hear you say, I don’t have time to go around updating all those websites – I don’t even really know what they’re all about!

Well, you don’t have to! What you do need is regular content, and if you’re in business that shouldn’t be a problem.

New products, specials, industry trends, client profiles, testimonials, general news, press releases – this is the kind of information you should be generating as a business, and at a frequency greater than once per month.

The best place to publish these things is in a blog attached to your website. From there everything can be automated – publish once and distribute to many places instantly.

To find out more, contact Arrowsmith Websites for a free consultation.

Having a form on your website is a great way to get feedback from your visitors. It makes it easy for someone to send you a message, and they can do it from any computer, they don’t need to open their email program.

One problem with online forms is they attract spammers. Automated spam bots (bots are really just software programs) search the web looking for forms, then they submit them with their unwanted message.

One method of stopping spam bots is the CAPTCHA, a challenge that is easy for a human but hard for a spam bot. Here are a couple of examples:

The trouble is, often humans have trouble reading them as well as spam bots, and humans also generally find them an annoyance, which can deter them from submitting the form at all, which is not good for your business.

A simpler style of CAPTCHA is to ask a simple question, such as “What colour is an orange?”. This is much easier for most humans than trying to decipher distorted letters. The form will only submit if the answer is correct, in this case “orange”.

Leads. You know, potential new customers. Leads allow you to deliver your sales message and hope that it works (that’s another story). But you need to generate the leads first.
Here’s three of the best lead generation techniques.

Referrals

Nothing beats this one. One of your happy customers has recommended your services to a friend or associate, who then contacts you. This is great, as there is already a level of trust in place, and you can generally go ahead and do business. Don’t forget to thank the person who gave you the referral! To get more of these, keep giving the best service to your customers.

Online Advertising

Google dominates many things in the internet space, and online advertising is one of them. Google Adwords is a guaranteed way of getting people to your website. And not just any people, but ‘qualified leads’, that is, people who are already searching for what you offer.

Once they get to your website, you want to make sure it has been set up effectively to capture the details of the lead, so you can follow up.

These cost money, but the idea is to ensure a return on your investment. You can do this by consulting an expert and creating an online advertising plan.

Capture form

This ties in with online advertising, but it’s also very relevant to just about any business website.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could get the name and email address of most of the people who visited your website? You could build up a database of those contacts and then market back to them.

A capture form is a small online form, placed in a prominent position on your website, and usually offering a free download as an incentive to complete it.

It is a totally automated process, including a personalised response to the lead.

Summary

I can’t help you with referrals, they are entirely up to you. But the combination of online advertising and a capture form is something that requires expertise to set up correctly, and Arrowsmith Websites can put you on the right track. We aim to generate more than $1 for your business for every $1 spent, and increase that profit over time.

Contact us today for a free consultation.

The term ‘long tail’ comes from the shape of a line chart that reflects the habits of groups of people when searching or buying.

Here’s an example – books people buy. The most popular books sell the most, and less popular books don’t sell as much, but there are many more less-popular books than popular books.

Popular books (less books selling more) v less popular books (more books selling less)

The quantity of books sold in the long tail adds up to more than the best sellers peak at the left.

The long tail concept is used often when analysing website visitor statistics, especially what words people used to search for something before they land on your website.

In search, the long tail tends to contain more specifics, targeting niche subjects, which generally means more targeted or qualified leads landing on your website. The generic searches can be a hard sell.

Imagine you’re selling websites on the internet (I have some experience at this). A lot of people will do general searched like ‘websites’ or ‘website design’, but there will be a lot of more specific searches, such as ‘how do I get a website that works’ or ‘the biggest website designer on the sunshine coast’.

At the end of the day, all of the specific searched added together will amount to more than the more generic searches. In addition, because the people are using more specific keywords, they are more likely to know what they are looking for, and therefore be more likely to convert into a sale.

Have a look at your business and consider how you can more effectively market to the long tail.

If you’re wondering whether you should be using Twitter, here are 5 reasons why you should:

1. Follow trends – Keep track of what’s being discussed based on keywords
2. Make announcements – Use Twitter as part of your media strategy
3. Stay informed – Twitter has become the place where breaking news breaks first
4. Network – ‘Meet’ new people with similar interests and have (short) conversations
5. Generate website traffic – Always link back to your website when making an announcement