People Have To Click Your ‘Like’ Button

Over 25 million people become a ‘fan’ of something (or in today’s terminology – they ‘like’ something) every single day. The problem however, is that lots of people might be visiting your fan page, without taking that crucial first step and clicking the ‘like’ button.

Custom Facebook Fan Page Design Increases The ‘Likes’

There are two main reasons why people fail to click the like button when visiting your fan page:

1. They don’t like what they see
2. They get distracted by what they see, and either forget to or just decide to move on.

With a custom designed fan page, you can increase the number of people that click the like button by focussing their attention on it before they see your ‘wall’.

A ‘Like’ Will Only Get You So Far

When someone ‘likes’ your fan page, it simply means that any messages you post on your fan page wall will appear in that person’s activity feed. Sure – this will mean that they will see what you have to say, and it might also increase the traffic to your website if they click on your links, but it won’t necessarily generate new leads.

You Need To Get An Email Address

The best way to begin a two-way conversation with your potential customers is via email. It’s personal, direct, and if your message is of value, then it’s not easily overlooked. A custom facebook fan page allows you to collect people’s email address – on their very first visit.

Learn About Custom Fan Page Design In This Video

Get In Touch

Want to know more about how to use Facebook Fan Pages to generate more business? Contact us now on 01603 762232, or directly by email to contact@additivesolutions.co.uk. Alternatively, use the Quick Contact form at the bottom of this page.

Keep reading for a summary of how these new ASA online marketing regulations will affect you…

ASA Online Marketing Regulations for Websites

In essence, can’t make claims that can’t be substantiated. You’re also not allowed to exaggerate claims. Here’s an excerpt from the code itself:

“Marketing communications must not mislead consumers by exaggerating the capability or performance of a product.”

Are you stretching the truth online? One way of testing whether or not your website makes exaggerated claims, is to imagine you’re standing in a room full of your competitors. Would you stand up and feel confident making the same claims to people who probably know the truth?
Here’s another except from the regulations:

“Marketers must hold documentary evidence to prove claims that consumers are likely to regard as objective and that are capable of objective substantiation. The ASA may regard claims as misleading in the absence of adequate substantiation.”

ASA Online Marketing Regulations for Social Media

This is new. Now you have to apply the vast array of advertising standards that exist for other forms of advertising to your social media messages as well.

This is surely going to become a real sticking point for any business wanting to comply to the full extent of the regulations. For example, when making an offer you’re supposed to provide an enormous amount of information including the cost, delivery charges, delivery dates, offer limitations, contact details…

How will these new ASA Regulations be enforced?

Many of our clients at Additive have asked us how the ASA plans to enforce these new regulations, and what they can do in practical terms. To answer that questions, see this snippet from the the ASA.org website:

We’re here to help you comply

We’ve read and digested the regulations on your behalf  If you would like us to take a look at your website to make sure you don’t run into trouble with the authorities, then please send a quick message now to contact@additivesolutions.co.uk.

Similarly, if you would like to talk about how the new ASA Regulations will affect your Twitter campaign or Facebook page, please call now on 01603 762232 for a chat.

WRONG!

Well, only about 50% wrong I suppose…

The 2 ingredients for a successful website are:

• Number of Visitors
• Number of Visitors who take action action

Obviously, without visitors, there’s no chance at all that you will end up with new customers. However, the part that most people don’t immediately appreciate is that unless these visitors take action and contact you or buy directly from your site, then does it really matter if they visited at all.

Your website must CONVERT visitors into customers

To be successful, your visitors need to take some form of action which results in them becoming customers. Examples of ‘action’ are submitting a contact form, finding your contact details, downloading information, registering their details etc.

Each of these actions progresses your visitors through your ‘conversion funnel’ – the pathway they must walk down in order to become a customer. If more people take action, then your overall cost of acquiring a new customer decreases.

Understanding how to turn visitors into customers is important

Converting visitors into customers falls under the Internet Marketing banner of ‘Conversion Rate Optimisation’. Not surprisingly, everyone wishes that more visitors became customers. For that reason, Conversion Rate Optimisation or ‘CRO’ is the fastest growing area of our business – so much so that we’ve launched a separate site for it.

Visit AdditiveCRO for more about Conversion Rate Optimisation and how you could benefit from it.

In this super-short post, we would like to share two awesome resources which will help you – the DIY SEO copywriter to produce effective website content…

SEO Secrets vs Practical SEO

The two resources you need are both ebooks by Glenn Murray. We’ve been recommending Glenn’s Practical SEO ebook for a while now and have received a number of compliments from our clients for bringing the book to their attention. Everyone we’ve spoken to has commented on how easy it is to understand and implement – exactly why we recommend it!

Problem is, that Glenn has recently released a new ebook called ‘SEO Secrets – the DIY guide to topping Google’.  Having purchased the book and studied it closely, we thought it might be useful to point out a few of the differences between this and the Practical SEO book.

You can read the ‘comparison review’ on a great little blog called ‘Good Signal’ (there’s even a screencast for you so you don’t have to actually read anything!).

Watch the video on Good Signal here

If you have any questions about SEO and how it can boost your business, then leave us a comment below and we’ll get straight back to you.

Here are the essential facts:

• 60% of the UK online audience read blogs
• 29.4 million people in the UK visit a social networking site every single month
• 78% of internet users are online to look for products or services
• 70% of people trust online recommendations (testimonials and reviews) from total strangers
• 90% trust recommendations from people we know

But here’s the kicker…

Here’s what you should do right now

Getting started in social media is no where near as complicated and time consuming as you might think. Sure – there’s a little bit of a learning curve, but that’s no different to anything else in life.

All you have to ask yourself, is how would you like to massively increase your site traffic, search rankings, and number of customers generated through your website?

To find out more about social media marketing, and how to tie it all together with your website, send an email to contact@additivesolutions.co.uk to arrange an appointment. If you would rather act immediately, then call us on 01603 762232.

Corporate and promotional website videos help you to:

• Grab your visitor’s attention
• Get your whole message across
• Use the ‘people buy from people’ rule
• Give your site the professional edge that your visitors expect these days

1. Video will grab your visitor’s attention

Having video on your website will grab your visitors attention. People like to watch video, because it is easier, and more entertaining than reading through text – all they have to do is click the play button, then sit back and listen.

2. Promotional website videos transmit the message you want your visitors to hear

If left to their own devices, people will wander all over your website and might leave without understanding exactly what you offer. With a promotional video on your website, you are able to give your visitors exactly the right message, with exactly the right emphasis.

3. Even online, people still buy from people

When someone is talking, we tend to pay attention and listen. We’re listening to the message, but we’re also deciding whether we like them, trust them, and whether or not we will buy from them. A website promotional video will enable this process to happen with all of your website visitors, and increasing the number of visitors who decide to contact you.

4. People assume the quality of a website represents the quality of the company

When was the last time you saw a rubbish looking website? Did you buy from them, or did you return to Google and continue looking for another option? The fact is, that we all judge a book by its cover online. Video is fast becoming a ‘must-have’ on websites. Pretty soon, websites without video will begin to be overlooked by people looking for service providers.

Don’t let another technological revolution pass you by

A bit dramatic, but you get the point! Video is by far the best way to get your message across. It’s growing at a phenomenal rate. Video is on the list for all of our current clients, and is one of the first things that new prospects ask us about.

Getting your new video up and running is easy

We deliver a complete – end to end service; you don’t need to know or do anything. We will help you to decide the best way of communicating with your online audience. Once we’ve made your video and you’ve had a chance to ‘tweak it’, we will go ahead and build it right into your website for you.

Every day that goes by is a fresh set of website visitors who fail to call or contact you.

You need a new way of grabbing their attention. Your new video could be up an running in less than 48 hours.

So what are you waiting for? Call 01603 762 232, or send an email right now to blair.keen@additivesolutions.co.uk.

• Facebook has over 400 million members
• This number is on track to exceed 500 million members this year
• At any one time, over 200 million Facebook members are actively online

Facebook fan pages are a great way to create your own community

A facebook fan page allows you to separate your personal social profile, from your business or brand. It’s a great way to gather together a community of customers, suppliers, or people interested in what you have to offer.

A fan page creates trust and encourages communication

Fan pages are a way to communicate in a more relaxed fashion with your target audience. They can be used as a tool to build trust over time, without being too ’salesy’. You can create discussions on niche topics, invite comments and participation from your fans, and generally fuel the buzz around your industry or service.

Does most of your business come through Word Of Mouth?

Most of our clients report that word of mouth is the best form of marketing for their business. The great thing about a Facebook fan page is, that it helps people who know about you, to recommend and promote you to others.

Every time somebody ‘likes’ your fan page, all of their friends will notice

This it what is known as ‘viral spread’. Each time a new fan joins your fan page by clicking on the ‘like’ button, a message appears on their wall stating ‘[their name] likes [your business fan page]‘. This creates a link to your fan page which all of their friends can click on.

We all want to know what other people like

Social proof is a powerful mechanism which works in your favour with a Facebook fan page. Whenever you see that one of your friends has become a fan of something, we all take notice. Over 50% of people will actually click the link to see for themselves. Now you have a chance of persuading them to join as well.

Fan Pages allow you to market over time

Sometimes, the reason why people don’t buy from you is because the time isn’t quite right for them. This might be true for a number of your fans. However, when the time is right, they’ve already been receiving your messages for a long time, so you’ll probably be their provider of choice straight away.

For example, you can:

• Remove unwanted tabs that don’t apply to your business
• Include new tabs like ‘Services’, ‘Products’, or maybe even a ‘Menu’
• Include embedded video. Having video play from youTube, right inside your fan page is far better than exporting people off your fan page into youTube itself.
• Appoint officers to your fan page
• Start, moderate, and fuel relevant discussions amongst your members

Best of all, you can listen to your audience

Asking people questions, to better understand their values and what they want from you, is a great way of creating ‘targeted marketing’. You can start discussions on your Facebook fan page that encourage people to discuss certain products, or issues in your industry. This way, you can gauge what people really think, and what they really value.

Here’s what to do now

If you would like to know more about Facebook fan pages and how they can help you to generate more business, then send an email to blair.keen@additivesolutions.co.uk or call now on 01603 762232..

Want to discover who to increase your fanpage ‘likes’? Read this post about Custom Facebook Fan Page Design.

How Good Signal can help you

Good Signal is all about helping business owners to get more business from their websites. It’s about making sure your website communicate in a way that compels your audience to take action.

Why you need more than just a website

So often people treat their websites like a business startup ‘checklist item’. It’s just another thing they need to ‘get done’. Unfortunately, to enjoy the benefits of a website that actually converts traffic into business requires so much more.  Consider the following:

• What do your visitors really want?
• Why will they visit your website?
• What key tasks will they need/want to perform on your website?
• How clearly does your site communicate the benefit of your offering?
• How easy is it for your visitors to take action on your website?

Do you believe that the customer is always right?

If you agree with that statement, then it follows that understanding what your customers wants is key to the success of your website. Once you know what their problems, needs and goals are, you can set about building an online presence that works.

You have the power to be successful

All it takes is a little bit of motivation and the right advice. The motivation is easy – ignore the importance of communicating effectively with your audience, and your business will fail. As for the advice, check out my blog at www.GoodSignal.com.

What you will find on Good Signal

I’ve tried to include a mixture of information including:

• Video blog tutorials
• Screen cast reviews of other people’s landing pages
• Tutorial posts about how to understand your audience
• In-depth posts about Web Copywriting (how to produce good web content)

So head across now and take a look for yourself at www.GoodSignal.com

Blogs are important and effective

Amongst a lot of other information, the report said that over 85% of the 230 businesses surveyed, reported that their company blog was ‘a useful part of their marketing strategy’. More interesting was the fact that over 60% described their blog as ‘important’, while 25% described it as being ‘critical’!

Search Engine Optimised Blogging will attract new customers

Overall, this means that the use of blogs to communicate with customers, continues to bring success to businesses who do it properly. But how does it work? There are two competing factors when writing blog posts:

• SEO blogging to rank highly in the search engines for relevant keywords and phrases, and
• Writing for your readers in a way that is easily understood

SEO and blogging are both easy once you know how

The whole point of writing a blog post is to attract people to your website who have a need for niche information. By keeping your posts rich with useful information that is restricted to a narrow topic, your blog will be recognised by Google as having specialist content. This will be rewarded with a high search ranking.

DIY guide for SEO Blogging

The best guide we’ve found for helping new bloggers to write Search Engine Optimised blog posts is Glenn Murray’s ‘SEO Copywriting – A Practical Guide’. This ebook clearly lays out all of the factors that you need to be aware of when blogging for business. It describes the battle between SEO for Google, and persuasive copywriting for your readers.

Each SEO focussed blog post is another ‘hook in the Google stream’

With a blog based website framework such as Wordpress, you have the potential to drop an unlimited number of SEO hooks into the Google stream. Every blog post is an opportunity to attract new visitors looking for solutions to their problems. The solution you give them will be a blog post that leads them to your products or services.

Two examples of how blogging will increase your site traffic

As an experiment, we decided to write two blog posts designed to attract two separate customer groups to this website. We applied some basic SEO techniques, and a few advanced ones as described in Glenn’s SEO ebook, and produced the following results:

1. Targeting the phrase ‘SEO Agencies Norwich’ (Page 1)

2. Targeting the phrase ‘Fixed Price Website Packages’ (Page 1)

Not only did both of these posts achieve page 1 on Google, but they also (and more importantly!) resulted in an increase of visitors to our website. You can see that our targeted keywords were responsible for the majority of traffic the following week:

You can do it!

Writing effective SEO blog posts is achievable providing you follow a set of basic rules and principles. The best place to start is with ‘SEO Copywriting – A Practical Guide’ by Glenn Murray. He’s probably the best in the world at writing web content that gets noticed by Google, while still compelling visitors to become customers. This is a specialist skill, and you could learn a lot from him.

For more information, check out our blog post title ‘SEO Copywriting’. Lastly, let us help you to become a better business blogger.

Leave a comment below with your biggest concern or frustration about blogging, and we’ll help you out!

That said, you still need your posts to arrive on page 1 of Google. Statistics still show that less than 8% of people ever go past page 1, so if your post isn’t there, you might as well have never even written it. Here are a few tips that we believe will help you to produce SEO friendly web content.

Write first for your readers, then for Google

I’m sure you’ve heard this before – Google loves content. The more niche, specific, and dedicated your post is to a certain topic, the more favourably it will be viewed by Google, and the higher it is likely to rank for relevant keywords and phrases. The good news is, this is exactly what your readers want as well!

Unlike your readers however, Google takes particular note of how frequently you use the same words and phrases. Google uses this frequency to help determine what your post is all about, and how to rank this page in relation to a user’s search term.

You can see then just how tempting it is to litter your blog posts with keywords and phrases. The problem with doing this however, is that it will make your posts less readable and dilute the effect of your message. After all, once you’ve got the reader to your site, it’s your message that will make the sale.

Think about your title, headings and use of emphasis

This is the most important part of creating SEO copywriting that performs well on Google. Your page title is the most important feature of your entire post. It tells both your readers as well as Google exactly what to expect from that point forward. The words you use in your post title are vital to the search keywords and phrases you are trying to target.

With these words in mind, try to position them at the start of the post title. For example, with this blog post we’re specifically interested in people searching for advice on SEO copywriting. You can see that we’ve used these words at the start of the title.

A less ‘SEO friendly’ way of writing this title would have been ‘A practical guide to SEO Copywriting’. The problem with this version is that Google tends to rank the title words in order of importance from left to right. You can see then, that by writing it the way we have, the keywords we are targeting will be noticed more prominently by Google.

But most importantly, have a plan

Whilst the idea of sharing our ideas and expertise with the world is initially appealing, the reality can become something else altogether! Take it from someone who knows – maintaining a high quality blog is hard work and can become very time consuming. The only reason any of us do it, is because the results can be astounding.

Like any task, the only way to ensure your efforts are not going to waste is to have a plan and a set of objectives. In business terms, the only reason you are producing SEO focussed web content in the first place is to attract more people to your site. Once they’re there, you want to keep them interested with high quality content.

Plan your target keywords and phrases before you start typing

You should be keeping an eye on your visitor statistics (and even Google Traffic estimator if you know how) to keep up to date with the sort of keywords and phrases your visitors are using to find you already, and which ones are being searched for but not finding your website.

Better still, get in touch with your current customers if you can, and ask them a few questions about the sort of keywords and phrases they might use to find your services. Also, try to find out what sort of information interests them most in relation to your products or services, and what would they like to see on your website.

Learn more about SEO copywriting to rank on page 1 of Google

Writing SEO web content is something which everyone is capable of producing. With only a little amount of effort you will find that you are able to publish posts which arrive on page 1 of Google. All it takes, is a little bit of reading.

The best resource we can recommend to learn about SEO copywriting in a quick and easy format, is Glenn Murray’s ebook titled ‘Practical SEO Copywriting – the DIY guide to writing copy for visitors’. This is by far the best resource for business owners who need to know the basic steps that will create results, without all the fluff.

Glenn is regarded as one of the worlds best web content SEO copywriters. His site ‘Divine Write’ ranks on page 1 of Google for dozens of keywords and phrases related to copywriting and Search Engine Optimisation.