by Marelise da Silva | Jul 23, 2015 | Articles
The design, layout and content of your website can directly affect the success of your online marketing campaign. A website that is poorly designed can result in communication issues, a poor business image and the loss of potential sales. Below are five top tips for ensuring your website features a design which is simple and effective:
- Give your website purpose – make sure your design caters to the browser’s needs. Each page of your website must have a dedicated purpose such as to provide information, complete transactions, communicate or entertain and so on.
- Clear communication – the nature of online consumers is to spend as little time as possible doing as much as possible. As such, the information they require must be quick and easy to obtain and extremely easy to see and digest. Some suggestions to help communication include:
- Set information out with clear headings and sub headings.
- Cut out long winded sentences and paragraphs and use lists or bulleted points.
- Forget about the frills of “advertising talk”. Make the information needed readily available and as concise as possible. If you want to provide lengthy information or advice, keep this for your blog or articles section.
- Keep your font simple – yes, decorative fonts are impressive, but they can also be distracting and difficult to read. The ideal font size is typically 16px online. Try to keep your typography standard throughout your website to create a neat and organised appeal.
- Make it mobile friendly – majority of online users these days use their mobile devices to access the internet. If your website is not designed to display correctly on a mobile device, the experience can become cumbersome and frustrating for the user and you will lose browsers. Ensure your website design team makes your website mobile-friendly.
- Navigation is vitally important as it determines how easy it will be for a browser to gather information and find their way around your site. Some recommendations for simple and effective website navigation design include:
- Include a logical page hierarchy.
- Incorporate clickable buttons.
- Label buttons and categories clearly.
Achieve a noticeable online presence with effective web design services from WSI
At WSI we specialise in professional and effective website design. Web design forms part of our online and digital marketing services and with our help, you can have an online presence that is hard not to notice. We also offer professional SEO, content marketing, social media marketing and related services to boost awareness of your business and its new website.
To learn more about our website design and online marketing services, contact us at WSI via email or telephone today.
by Francois Muscat | Apr 6, 2015 | Articles
The next Gauteng PSASA Chapter Meeting is taking place at Hacklebrooke Conference Centre, Cnr Jan Smuts and Conrad Drive, Hyde Park 9 April 2015.
I’m honoured to be one of their featured speakers. My topic is “Twitter for Speakers”: Tips, Tricks & Tactics.
In my presentation I will focus on:
- building your personal brand
- how to draw in your audience members
- getting more speaking gigs
- answering questions from the audience
- monitoring people’s response to your presentations
- increasing your followers
As a speaker you can market yourself using Twitter, especially if you use it well. That means listening to what other people say and joining in the conversation where you can add value by pointing them to useful resources.
I will provide tips on how to be seen as an authority and resource in your area of expertise so potential clients and customers will know to contact you when they need to.
One of the fascinating things for me as a speaker is to know what my audience is thinking or saying about me. This is known as the back channel and the main communication medium is Twitter. This is when your audience are talking about you, without you knowing, especially if you don’t follow on Twitter.
There have been a number of articles written about whether Twitter is hurtful or useful when it comes to conference participation. For me, I don’t mind as it provides me with insight on to how well I’m doing and being more of a content speaker, I can change gears on the fly.
Join us for my presentation and Etsko Schuitema’s presentation on the 9 April at our chapter meeting.
I’m offering my Johannesburg readers an opportunity to attend our chapter meeting as my treat, so its contest time.
The winner gets a free pass and dinner on me. Value R250.
Here is how you can enter:
- Blog entry: leave a comment on this blog telling me how you would use Twitter as a speaker
- Twitter entry: Retweet this blog post using the hashtag #psasatw
I will choose a lucky winner on Wednesday 8 April 2015. Good luck and I look forward to connecting with you both at the event and twitter.
by Francois Muscat | May 30, 2014 | Articles, Digital Media Marketing
By Marketers Association of Zimbabwe
A Superbrand is a brand that has established the finest reputation in its field. It offers customers significant emotional and/or tangible advantages over its competition, which consciously or subconsciously customers want to recognise. The Superbrand status strengthens a brand’s position, adds prestige, spotlights the brand in a competitive market and positions the brand as a success model.
Superbrand Phases
Brand Database Compilation
Brands are drawn and compiled from a wide range of sources which include sector reports, blogs, public nominations, etc.
Brand Screening
An Adjudication Committee screens the brands to remain with a list of the Top 200 brands in Zimbabwe.
Data Gathering and Analysis
The Top 200 brands are then taken out for research to the general consumers for further ranking and rating.
Adjudication of Results
The results will be presented to the Adjudication Committee for final ranking and adoption.
The Superbrand Awards Ceremony
The final Awards Ceremony will be announced at the Superbrand Awards Ceremony in December. The use of the Superbrand status will only be used by the Top 20 brands.
The Superbrand Report Publication
After the awards, a report will be published profiling the Top 200 brands in Zimbabwe. Participants can also take up advertising space in the Superbrand report.
by Francois Muscat | May 27, 2014 | Articles, Digital Media Marketing
The Business: New Media Marketing
By Ballz Visual Radio
19 May 2014
This Summit addresses the shift from traditional marketing to inbound marketing, and strategies that marketing and communication managers, digital marketers and advertising team members’ ought to apply to ensure a Return on Investment, Brand Growth and Loyalty.
We spoke to Francois Muscat Chief Executive Officer of WSI South Africa – We SImplify the Internet – a worldwide franchise
by Francois Muscat | Apr 9, 2014 | Articles, LinkedIn, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Optimization
by Rob Thomas
Recognised as an expert in ‘social selling’ reputation management, digital and mobile marketing, Rob is a professional speaker both in the U.S. and across Europe.Rob is also co-author on one of Amazon’s top sellers Digital Minds: 12 Things Every Business Needs to Know about Digital Marketing – wsiuk.so/DigitalMinds
In this blog, featured on his LinkedIn, UK-based WSI Internet Consultant, Rob Thomas writes about imminent demise of the LinkedIn Company Service/Product Pages.
Monday next week (April 14th) sees the removal of products and services from LinkedIn Company Pages.
Frustrating though it may be for those of us who’ve worked hard to refine our products and services pages and get good client recommendations on them, they are going and we have to be prepared. We have to make sure we have everything in place so we do not see a major adverse impact on our company pages.
The view of LinkedIn is that by now having dedicated Showcase pages you can build stronger relationships with members who want to follow specific areas of your business, while still keeping those who have a general interest in your overall business up to date with what’s going on.
There are 3 key things you need to do
- Set up your Showcase Pages
- Copy/recover your products / services recommendations
- Think about ways to use past company recommendations and what you’ll do with future ones (personal ones can still go on LinkedIn)
The reason I put them in this order is that even though the product page recommendations will disappear on the 14th along with the pages, there is still a chance for you to recover them from LinkedIn up until 30th May. Once the product pages go, they’re gone forever!
1. Set up your Showcase pages
Each product or service you want a dedicated presence for will need its own Showcase Page. This will allow you to share product/service specific information with your target audience. Your audience will now be able to follow the areas of your business they value most, in addition to the general company content you share. You can now focus your content even more and build relationships with specific audiences.
Your company page can have up to 10 showcase pages attached to it. It’s worth taking the time to think about the essential pages you need and what you’ll call them before you start setting them up.
Click on the down arrow next to Edit at the top of your company page (don’t click on the word edit, this takes you to your main company page information). Select ‘Create a Showcase Page’ and follow the instructions.
When putting in your banner images make sure there is a consistent brand message. You may want to vary them slightly depending on your product or service but remember, these pages can now be searched for and found independently of your main company page.
We’ve decided to set up 5 Showcase Pages for now – 4 covering our main client offerings across Digital Marketing, namely; Site, Search, Social & Mobile and the last one, a repository for past recommendations and client feedback , and a place that in future we’ll share case studies and other useful information for prospective clients doing their “due diligence” – take a look:
2. Recover/retain your recommendations
If like us you’ve worked hard to get satisfied clients who use your services to publicly recommend you, then you won’t want to lose the detail of those recommendations. In some instances you may well have the recommendation elsewhere too, but if not, you only have a limited time to copy the details or get them back from LinkedIn themselves.
The quickest way is to copy and paste all the recommendations in to a document of your own. If you haven’t got time to do this before they disappear then you can request the details of recommendations that were showing on your pages up to March 4th from LinkedIn. You’ve got until May 30th to do this.
We’ve created a PDF document which people can view or download. It’s stored in a location that allows it to be easily downloaded from a link (e.g. in your email signature) AND in the personal LinkedIn profile as a document somewhere relevant (e.g. Summary or Experience).
3. Think about ways to use past company recommendations and what you’ll do with future ones
Rightly or wrongly the ability of contacts to publicly recommend your company and the services you provide via LinkedIn is gone, and recommendations will now completely relate to individuals. If you haven’t already got a Google+ page for business now may be the time to think about making sure you get one. A Google+ page connects you with customers, whether they’re looking for you on Search, Maps, Google+ or mobile devices and a business page will show your reviews.
If you are going to copy your existing recommendations and plan to use them elsewhere, make sure you get the permission of the individual who gave you the recommendation before you do.
Whilst we will still seek personal feedback through LinkedIn (as for us it’s still THE B2B Social Technology), we will now be asking for feedback on the company via Google+. I guess it’s also a good reminder never to have all your eggs in one basket!!
Here’s an example of what we’ve done. The primary advantage of using Google+ of course is that, as they are “independent reviews” (the reviewer must be logged-in to a validated Google+ account themselves) not only can the viewer see they are real and not “made up” but they’re indexed straight into Google’s SERPS results too!
You can follow Rob on Twitter or Google+
by Francois Muscat | Dec 26, 2013 | Articles
Pinterest is one of the latest social media successes to become a must-have tool for marketing your company online. Marketing your company online is critical now more than ever, and your strategy needs to incorporate marketing on mobile, optimising your website, content marketing, and social media like Pinterest to be effective. Want to measure the success of your campaign with web analytics? Here’s how to use Pinalytics for Pinterest.
Firstly, would your business benefit from Pinterest?
There are so many avenues one can take when creating a digital marketing strategy. Social media is powerful, but with so many types of sites out there, you’re probably wondering which ones would suit your company the best. Pinterest is one of those sites that has heaps of benefits without you having to do much leg work. Some ideas for using Pinterest include:
- Promoting specific products, by pinning your product images;
- Show your company’s expertise by creating ‘pinnable’ content such as infographics;
- Use web analytics to find out what kind of topics interest your target audience and pin accordingly (this could be ‘interior design trends’ if you own a fabric shop, for instance);
How to monitor success with Pinalytics
So you have incorporated Pinterest into your marketing strategy. Now what? Using Pinalytics, a web analytics tool specific to Pinterest, you can measure the success of your Pinterest campaign. Pinalytics can help you see if your keywords are successful on Pinterest and how they are used on the social media site. You can even decide whether Pinterest is worthwhile for your company based on these results. Using this information, you can also connect with the most popular pinners, helping to reach out and interact with your audience.
Digital marketing strategies are monitored for success using web analytics. With WSI, we can help you build a marketing campaign using social media, mobile, optimisation, stunning web design and more to really make the most of the web. Contact us today.
