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When Should you Update your Website Design or Layout?

Need Help Marketing — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 15:14:44 +0000

When Should you Update your Website Design or Layout? is a post from: Need Help Marketing?

Most marketers get asked when they are going to update their website. Why? Because those that work in your business see the website all the time and get tired of it. Or they believe there is nothing new to keep customers and prospects interested. However internal users are not usually the target audience for your public website. So should you listen to their suggestions?

The problem with listening to these suggestions is that they do not take into account what your prospect or customer needs. And this is who is really using your website and getting you business. Which could include finding your product information, locations, or even how to contact you.

Yes you should update content, but complete rewrites or navigation changes can confuse and frustrate more than they improve the quality of your website. Just think when you yourself have had to learn new software and you have to learn where everything is located. When you slow down visitors from finding what they are looking for your new change could be perceived as a change for the worse. Not what you were hoping for with a website rewrite.

At the same time you want to make sure people revisit your website and you keep them engaged. So the best compromise to appease everyone would be to space out the full redesign so they do not happen too often or are tied to re-branding or business changes. Some good ideas for keeping your content up to date and fresh include adding a news section or blog articles to your website to keep people coming back. Without hindering regular users of your website.

Another possibility before making wholesale changes to your website layout and content is to test using A/B testing. This way you can try different variations and see if they make a difference either positive or negative to your conversion rates or time spent on your website. Depending on your website traffic you may want to run these tests over several months to see if changing your button colors or navigation menu improves the user experience. A good point to keep in mind when redesigning your site navigation and workflow is that your Time On Site or Bounce rate type metrics may decrease if you effectively make finding information easier to find.

For more information on A/B Split testing we had an early article on this topic called:
A/B Test Splits and How to use them

Image Credit: john_a_ward (via Flickr)

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Using Online Video for Marketing

Need Help Marketing — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 18:17:07 +0000

Using Online Video for Marketing is a post from: Need Help Marketing?

One way to get more attention is through the power of online videos. Online videos are a great way to get your company more exposure and to get noticed. With the onset of sites such as YouTube, and Twitter, a video can be viewed by hundreds if not thousands of people in a very short period of time. Sometimes referred to as a “viral” video because people like it so much they share it with their friends.

Both consumers and small business owners go to online videos for three main reasons:

1) To find tutorials for learning new things
2) Product demos and reviews
3) To find answers to their questions

Source: Enterprise Council on Small Business

They may be looking for how to videos to help them along with a complex problem or they may be looking to view a product demo prior to spending the money on a new product for their company. It is always important to research any purchases prior to making them. Someone, somewhere will have done your research ahead of time, saving you the hassle of countless hours figuring out which product is best for you.

As YouTube has become a phenomenon around the globe, millions of people make, upload and view videos on a daily basis. YouTube has now surpassed corporate sites as the number 1 source of finding videos. And something you may not realize is that YouTube has become a sort of search engine overnight. If you need to find information on a topic there is likely a YouTube video that you can watch to learn more.

Uploading video to your company site is still important, but uploading your videos to YouTube is even more important. Make sure if you have are posting a video online that you use popular keywords that will ensure you get noticed within search results. Here is a list of some key pointers when using the power of video as part of your marketing.

A) Always keep your videos as short as possible !

People for the most part have short attention spans, if the video they are watching is not short and to the point they will lose interest quickly. Time is important and if your viewer feels as though watching your video is wasting their time, they are less likely to come back and view more videos by your company in the future.

B) Focus

Keeping your videos focused on your topic and reaching your point quickly will enable your viewer to feel that your video was informative and likely keep your company in mind for a future purchase. Just like in presentations the less information you convey in a short time the more people will remember. This is not the time to tell us everything about your product or service. Keep the viewer wanting more.

C) Using social media to your advantage

With the help of YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon, etc videos have a chance of going viral or at the very least attracting other’s attention. If your content is entertaining or light-hearted in the form of a short funny skit, informative demo or even a multi week webinar will keep your fans interested and coming back for more.

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Content Marketing is key for Small Business in 2010

Need Help Marketing — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 23:59:46 +0000

Content Marketing is key for Small Business in 2010 is a post from: Need Help Marketing?

According to a new survey conducted by Junta42, businesses are increasingly understanding the value of creating remarkable content. One of the key marketing themes predicted for 2010 will be centered around content marketing.

Most people think it is expensive to create content for their marketing program. But in fact it can actually be inexpensive to create if you can create it in-house instead. When you think about it the content could be as easy as putting together a presentation that you regularly take on sales calls and putting that content online. your content specific to your best value propositions. Then think about adding audio or video to your website. Even uploading your content to Slideshare.net is also a great help in getting more people to link to your website when they find the content useful.

Key Finding of the survey:

59% of the 259 marketers surveyed plan to increase their spending on content efforts, which compares to 56% in 2009 and 42% in 2008. This is an 11% increase in spending from 2008 to 2010.

So what does this mean for Small Business? Well if you look at the comparison of the use of content marketing spending between small businesses and larger sized businesses. According to the report, smaller companies are allocating 40% of their marketing budgets to content marketing, which is more than twice the amount of larger companies, who are allocating 18%.

Do you have content marketing in your plans for 2010? Discuss on Facebook

Image Source: Flickr – Danard Vincente

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Need Help Marketing? Now available on Facebook

Need Help Marketing — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 17:07:59 +0000

Need Help Marketing? Now available on Facebook is a post from: Need Help Marketing?

As part of the new year we are going to be extending the Need Help Marketing blog and adding a Facebook Fan Page. The reason for deciding to set up a Facebook page was to allow more people to interact with us where ever they might be. Since Facebook has a lot of people using it including businesses it makes sense to set up a space to make our resources available from within Facebook.

What this really means is if anyone searches for “marketing” or “help marketing” they are likely to find about the Need Help Marketing? blog. And some of us prefer to get updates from our friends while logged into Facebook.

Starting today you will now notice a prominent new button on the blog’s sidebar linking to our new Fan page. So if you are a fan of Need Help Marketing you can also add it to your own account.

Facebook Fan Page Link

If you are already a regular reader of our blog you can now interact with us through either posting comments or questions on our Wall or within the Discussions forum. Hopefully we can add compelling topics and discuss your most important marketing dilemmas. And having a discussion forum on Facebook allows us to interact with an even bigger community of your peers and other Need Help Marketing readers.

Need Help Marketing Page on Facebook

Our Need Help Marketing Fan Page allows you to keep up with the conversation and marketing blog on the “Notes” tab which will contain the same information available from the main website’s blog. So you can choose to read our content either on the website or within Facebook itself. Which will allow even more people to learn about the information and insight we provide. As well as engaging them to participate in an open discussion with other fans using their existing Facebook account.

We hope to see you on Facebook! Remember to become a fan and follow the group today.

Earlier posts about Facebook Fan Pages:

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Getting your Marketing ready for the New Year

Need Help Marketing — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 04:18:29 +0000

Getting your Marketing ready for the New Year is a post from: Need Help Marketing?

Well the new year is here. And now that you are planning out your marketing plans for 2010. You are right?

This year you will see more and more companies take another look at their small business website. Even if you have not updated the content or resources in several years. With several tools on the market to make it easier to manage including adding a blog should be on the top of your list. Adding a blog will ensure you have interesting and relevant content for your customers and prospects to consume.

So the question will undoubtedly be asked “what is needed that is not already on your website?”.

The simplest answer is ask your current customers, they will probably be the users of your website to find important information like where you are located, and what your hours of operation are. However you probably have different audiences too such as new customers/prospects that have not purchased from you and are just taking a look to find out more. Obviously these two groups are going to be looking for different kinds of information to establish rapport with you as a company. One of the most recent trends in eco-friendly marketing to show customers that you are doing something to help the environment or to decrease your carbon footprint. If you are doing something like that do you advertise it on your website?

These are the types of questions you can ask internally. Such as what does our voice mail greeting promote, or when a customer is on hold which promotions are we communicating. Perhaps this is something that should be on the homepage of your website too. Mostly for consistency but also to get the word out to those that have not called and heard your greeting.

Sometimes your business will have an open house or sponsor or a community event in your area. Is this promoted on your website for everyone in your community to see? I think you would be surprised how many people find your website using a search site by searching for the event and not for the vendors attending. But it is definitely worth getting noticed and even more importantly associated with contributing to your local community.

Prediction: 2010 will be the year for getting local

Your competitors will definitely be opening up to local content on their websites, as well as starting a blog if they have not already. Because it establishes you as a credible authority in your industry as we have said in the past. So if you want to generate new leads for 2010 make sure you are creating interesting content and give it away to anyone who is interested. Meaning skip the barrier of requiring a registration to access content or newsletters. You main goal is to get your content to as many people as possible. So email it, tweet about it on Twitter, print it out for in-store availability if you get asked, etc.

Of course Need Help Marketing is here to help! Now in our second year we want to bring even more interesting content and resources to help your business succeed in 2010.

As always if you have marketing questions or ideas but are not sure how to execute them contact us at info@needhelpmarketing.com

Image Source: EmaStudios

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Most Popular Help Marketing Posts for 2009

Need Help Marketing — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 15:00:07 +0000

As the first year of this blog comes to a close, we wanted to share the best blog posts for 2009. Watch for more exciting content in the new year. And most importantly we would like to thank you for your active interest in our blog. Happy New Year!

Please remember to follow us on Twitter too, at @helpmarketing

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Small Businesses still prefer Vendor supplied Business Advice

Need Help Marketing — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 22:37:44 +0000

Small Businesses still prefer Vendor supplied Business Advice is a post from: Need Help Marketing?

Despite social media hype, SMBs still prefer resource centers and email newsletters as sources of business management advice

A recent study conducted by Bredin Business Information (BBI) concluded that small businesses are still responsive to their vendors’ business advice. So that got me thinking. How many email newsletters do I receive that contain good business advice? Versus a lot of marketing and promotional material. And what is a good balance of advice that should be in your company’s newsletter.

We are talking about How-To-Articles here that convey market knowledge to your newsletter audience and customers. It really made me think about how many How To Articles are sent in our company emails. And I came up a bit blank because newsletters usually include company announcements and case studies but nothing that are actionable in terms of a “How To” type article. Definitely something to consider for 2010 newsletter content submissions. I better get started writing now.

The other key takeaway was the mention of industry news and how Small Businesses prefer to receive this information from their vendors. After all that is the industry and business we are in. So something to think about for future newsworthy topics. In fact 86% of the responses indicated industry related content was of utmost important when hearing from your suppliers. After all your customers expect you to have the pulse on your industry and the new trends.

Read more about the key results in the press release.

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HubSpot Study: Small Businesses That Blog Get 55% More Website Visitors

Need Help Marketing — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 17:34:05 +0000

HubSpot Study: Small Businesses That Blog Get 55% More Website Visitors is a post from: Need Help Marketing?

HubSpot just released a new study confirming that if Small Businesses have their own blog. Then their marketing efforts achieve better results.

We have often discussed the benefits of online blogging to keep fresh content on your website and an engaged customer base. And this most recent study confirms yet again how important blogging can be to your bottom line.

Key findings of the study concluded the average company that blogs has:

55% more website visitors
97% more inbound links (links to your website)
434% more indexed pages (Indexed pages appear in search engines)

Read the full study results

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Brainstorming using the Google Wonder Wheel

Need Help Marketing — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 21:28:08 +0000

Brainstorming using the Google Wonder Wheel is a post from: Need Help Marketing?

Ok, the first time I heard about the Google Wonder Wheel, my initial reaction was the “Wonder what?”. But then I had one of those “Aha!” moments and realized how powerful it could be to use for brainstorming. I will walk you through how to use the Google wonder wheel. So lets start with an example close to home, I recently needed ideas for what to add to this blog that were relevant to our readers. So my first step was to log in to our web analytics system and find out what keywords our visitors were using to find our website content.

The keyword phrase that stuck out the most was “i need help marketing” which is perfect for our website content because our web address (domain name) is NeedHelpMarketing.com. So naturally it is a perfect keyword phrase to focus on, but the real question I wanted to find out is what you, our readers, want help marketing about. Please do leave comments for marketing questions and future topic ideas.

Now that we know what keywords people use to find our website on the Google search engine. We can then find out more about what related topics they are interested in. I encourage you to try this out for yourself as we go along.

First Step: Go to Google and enter your search phrase

Second Step: Click the “Show Options” option on the top left side of the results

Third Step: Next click on the “Wonder Wheel” option on the left hand column

You should now see the search results represented in a diagram similar to this:

Google Wonder Wheel Example

In looking at the above example you can see more refined and more specific topics centered around our initial search phrase “i need help marketing” and by clicking any of these links you can see further results and drill into these topics for more information.

Key topics for future topics should concentrate on:

Internet Marketing Help
SEO Marketing
Affiliate Marketing
Marketing Graphic Design
Marketing Help Coaches

Google Wonder Wheel – Related Topic Results

By taking this a step further and clicking on one of the results you can see more specific related topics of interest (shown above). The power of the wonder wheel is that it is such a natural way to brainstorm and very much mimics using pen and paper or a white board. Think about when you are brainstorming in a team and are making groups of ideas and drawing lines linking similar topics. In a very visual fashion Google is helping you to brainstorm using their vast knowledge of years of analyzing what people search for and how topics are connected together. From a brainstorming and market research perspective that knowledge is priceless.

Very specific related topics and ideas for future website content:

Marketing with Postcards
Marketing with Meaning
Marketing with Color
Marketing with Facebook
Marketing with Twitter
Marketing with Care
Marketing with Flair

For another technique that is just as powerful take a look at Idea Generation using Word Clouds

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Why your website needs a Custom 404 Error Page

Need Help Marketing — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 05:23:09 +0000

Why your website needs a Custom 404 Error Page is a post from: Need Help Marketing?

Example of Customized Error Page

Every website needs to have a branded error page. Everyone is human and can make mistakes, maybe some one deleted content on your website accidentally or it was out of date. However the content and website link may still be referenced in search engine results. Maybe your website has some old content that some people are still looking for though and happened to come across a 404 Error Page which is Internet speak for Not Found.

When this happens it can be jarring for your website visitor. They were looking to find something and clicked on a link to get more information but the last link they tried resulted in a not found error page. If you do not have a custom error page the web browser can and will substitute it’s own. However this is not the experience you want for your prospective buyer. By having a custom error (404) page you can provide a better user experience and direct your buyer, reader as the case might be to another page.

Something you might not know is if a search engine is crawling your website and building an index of the contained links. And it encounters a 404 page it could stop following and cataloging the links on your website. However if you have a custom error page with additional site links or a common navigation menu the process can resume.

What should you include on your custom 404 Error Page?

You should definitely include your company logo
Your contact information
Support details if applicable
Website search box to find what they were looking for
Suggested items that are similar. Especially important if you have an e-commerce site because you don’t want to lose a possible sale.
Links to a sitemap or other categories to help navigate them back through your website

Also just as important is making sure that your website administrator is notified of all 404 errors by either recording them or sending an email to asking to correct the problem. Which solution works best will depend on how large your website is and how many times a 404 error page is likely to occur. You may even want to call out on your 404 error page that you have been notified of the error and it will be rectified shortly. This will give the impression that you take issues seriously.

Take a look at some fun examples of 404 pages.

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