by Marelise da Silva | Mar 10, 2016 | Online Marketing, Website Content, Website Optimization
As website technology evolves (daily, it seems), so does the need to update your website. Most websites need updating every few years, sometimes more often, depending on your content. As one of your most valuable marketing tools, the need for a website that is up to date and user-friendly couldn’t be more important.
Here are six compelling reasons to update your website, sooner rather than later:
- Make your site more responsive and adaptive
If your website started as an online brochure, it’s unlikely to have the embedded tools needed to capture information from site visits. Online forms, Calls to Action and special offers can help to get your website visitors’ information that can convert into a sale.
With mobile internet traffic on the rise (up to 40% of all traffic), it’s critically important to have Responsive Website Design, to ensure your site works on any size screen, or you will lose out to those competitors that do have it.
- Speed up your site
Web surfers are notoriously impatient, so the time it takes for your site to load can be the difference between good steady traffic and a high bounce rate. Google will rank a faster loading website higher than a slow one. Get rid of old or unused content, reduce the file size of images or install some speed booster plugins.
- Increase security
Moving from an HTTP site to a HTTPS is not just a Google ranking signal, it’s a way of ensuring that your website data is encrypted. E-commerce sites need to check their security every month, since hackers make it their mission in life to get into your site and muck it up. A hacked site could become infected with viruses, which you’ll then spread to your customers, or be blocked by search engines and browsers. It’s a hard place to come back from.
- Get rid of old or irrelevant content
Check that your site does not contain broken links or outdated content. Blogs written several years back may not only be relics from the past, but downright embarrassing. A spring clean is an excellent opportunity to update client lists and testimonials, rewrite title and meta descriptions and make your site more SEO friendly.
- Rebrand and reposition
Keeping up with your competition is vital, so a fresh look can go a long way. If you designed your website yourself the first time round, it may be time to get professional help with copywriting or design and photography. Your business strategy may also have evolved since you created your website and it’s important that your site is a good reflection of your company culture.
- Get more social
Social media activity needs to be properly integrated with your website. Good use of social media can keep your website fresh, improve your SEO and get your existing and potential clients talking.
In short, updating your website is essential if you want to stay relevant, competitive and ahead of the pack. For advice on updating your website, contact us. We can also assist with content, design and social selling.
by Marelise da Silva | Feb 25, 2016 | Digital Media Marketing, Website Optimization
A single page website (SPW), also known as a parallax scrolling website, is one where all the content exists on a long, single page for visitors to scroll though. No tabs, no multiple pages. While there are some advantages to this type of website, the biggest disadvantage is that it’s bad for SEO. Here’s why:
Scrolling through a SPW can take your readers on a journey and is great for an image-heavy website. It’s perfect for mobile users, who are an increasingly large segment of internet users. They have flare, since they’re pretty uncommon and give designers more room for creativity.
However, they’re not great for blog-centred websites. They also take longer to load, because of all the content and images being on one page. It also makes it hard for people to share your content. Another disadvantage is that it’s difficult for you to identify which parts of your website people are attracted to – one URL means your analytics report won’t be able to tell you much.
And the biggest of all, it’s not great for SEO. Each page of a website can be optimized for different keywords. With there being a limit to how many keywords (some believe that it’s only one keyword phrase) you can target on a single page, a SPW makes SEO a waste of time.
It also means you have only one set of Meta Data. With only one vital title tag and one meta description, you don’t have much to lure customers to your page. In addition, squashing a lot of images, text and videos into a single page will mean that you’ll have a page that takes a while to load. Google hates heavy pages.
Obviously, with no internal pages you’ll have no opportunity for links, which can be a rich source of SEO keywords or phrases. It’s unlikely you’d want to put many, if any, external links into your single page as you don’t want to detract from your business. Once again, Google hates a silo site.
So, unless most of your business comes from word-of-mouth referrals and your website is essentially just a business card, it’s best to steer away from the single page website.
For more on website design, SEO and digital marketing, contact us – we have lots of experience and can point you in the right direction.
by Marelise da Silva | Feb 18, 2016 | Content Marketing, Website Optimization
It can be very disheartening to find out that your sales emails are ending up as spam, especially when you’ve taken the time to craft catchy subject lines and opening sentences. Email spammers keep getting smarter and as a result, the spam filters keep being improved. The good news is that if you follow the rules and build a good quality email programme, you’re likely to avoid being flagged as spam. This means you have to spend time and effort to ensure your emails are inbox ready.
The first rule is to abide by the laws. The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 became law at the start of 2004, and states that your promotional, or sales, emails must:
- Include your physical mailing address
- Provide an unsubscribe link
- Must not use deceptive subject lines, names or reply-to addresses
The next is to learn all you can about the different email providers. Specific spam parameters vary between email providers, with the filters being regularly tweaked and updated. In general, email service provider spam filters will look at:
Email service providers keep a blacklist of domains and companies that are automatically filtered out of the inbox. If you are on a blacklist, you need to start your email marketing from scratch. Usually, only serious spam offenders end up on blacklists.
Opposite to the black type, whitelists are automatically approved domain names or senders, that are not subjected to spam filter reviews. If you can get on a whitelist, your email deliverability will improve enormously.
This is a number or score assigned to your sending IP or source. If you are using a third party email marketing platform, ensure they have a high sender reputation.
Email service providers have started tracking domain reputation as well. There is software now that identifies the domain associated with the email and assigns a spam score based on that domain’s email history. Consistently switching servers and IP addresses when sending mails to avoid the spam folder no longer works.
Emails that have been previously flagged by your subscribers can lead to you being removed from a whitelist.
This can be a significant factor, so image use, content and subject lines all have to be carefully written and designed.
Other rules include not sending your emails in bulk – rather send them out in stages. Ask to be added as a contact – these requests are often most effective if requested in preliminary or set-up emails. Avoid using spammy language, like ‘free’, or multiple exclamation points and writing in all caps. Provide value – the best way to stay out of spam filters is to provide value in every email – share tips, expertise and information.
Like any aspect of digital marketing, avoiding being labelled as spam requires hard work. Contact us if you’d like to chat to us about your email marketing.
by Marelise da Silva | Feb 4, 2016 | Content Marketing, Digital Media Marketing, Website Optimization
Do it! Repurposing your content is a clever way to re-share your old content, getting as much use out of it as possible, potentially reaching a new audience. There are more ways, though, of sharing content than just using social media platforms. Using different formats, like white papers, videos, podcasts and SlideShare will help to get your content to new places, helping you tap into new resources.
It’s important to share your content on the right platforms – YouTube for videos, iTunes for podcasts, SlideShare for slideshows. Once you have posted on these platforms, get those content links out there by using Twitter. The more your content is shared on social media, the more traffic and re-tweets you’ll get.
Ensure the content you want to repurpose is not outdated – if your content is evergreen (it is still completely relevant a year later) it will get excellent traction. Updating and tweaking a blog post to make it more up-to-date is a wise move; it may take you more time than you’d like, but it’s still less time than it takes to create something new.
One massive fail is to pretend your repurposed content is new. Your readers aren’t stupid and you’ll be the one looking like a fool and losing credibility. Make sure people know the content is repurposed by saying things like: “This is as relevant now as when we first posted it”. Don’t forget to keep writing new content – repurposing is a clever way to use what you have again, but you still need fresh content to keep your site updated.
Google Analytics will be able to show you your most popular posts over the past year, which is a good place to start your repurposing plan. Here are some ways to repurpose content:
- Turn a webinar into a YouTube video.
- Turn a series of blog posts about a specific topic or product into a guide, which you can then use in your email marketing.
- Edit the slides from a PowerPoint presentation for a consumer audience, upload to SlideShare and embed the presentation on one of your web pages.
- Edit image heavy blog posts into a post suitable for Pinterest.
- Use Quora Q&A to find a question that’s promising, write a blog post about it, then answer the question on Quora, linking it back to your more in-depth blog post answer.
- Turn a slideshow or PowerPoint into an infographic – informative and easy to read, infographics are more readily shared than other types of media.
- If you have a blog with statistics or fascinating facts, use these points as tweets. Your content is more shareable in this format, helping you reach a wider audience.
- Promote your blogs in a weekly newsletter – if you post regularly, some of your followers might miss some of your blogs, so a weekly round-up will get people reading your older content.
- Turn a blog post into a podcast – more and more people are listening to podcasts when commuting.
If you need any assistance with your content creation or repurposing, contact us so we can find a solution for your business.
by Marelise da Silva | Jan 21, 2016 | Instagram, Social Media Marketing, Website Optimization
Instagram has become a necessity in social media marketing and for a good reason. Top brands which use Instagram as part of their digital marketing strategy have seen an interaction rate of 2.3% per follower. This is 0.2% higher than Facebook and 0.02% higher than Twitter. This, combined with the high active monthly users (more than 400 million), have made Instagram a top priority for businesses looking for ways to take their social media marketing strategies to the next level.
Growing your followers
There is no magic bullet. There is no way to instantly gather thousands of followers on Instagram. However, you can improve your strategy and build up your audience with these tips.
- Have a clear strategy
Going into a marketing campaign without a clear strategy can result in wasting resources. Define your goals so that you develop a more targeted approach to attract followers.
Begin by researching your competition. This will give you a better idea of what to expect in terms of following, within your industry or niche. It also gives you an idea of the type of content that is popular and the behaviour of your target audience.
Decide on your approach. What story do you intend to tell? Having a compelling story will give your content purpose and inspire your community while attracting even more followers.
- Put your account out there
Make it easier for your target audience to find you by making your account more visible.
- You can use other social networking platforms e.g. Pinterest, Facebook or Twitter, to announce your account.
- Consider linking your account to your website and including a link in your email signature as well as in your newsletters. This will make it easier for people to find you.
- Follow other people popular with your target audience. Comment on their photos.
- Embed your photos on Instagram into your posts and content.
- Ensure you’re using relevant hash tags. This will ensure your content will appear in search results pages.
- Contests and Campaigns
Use contests to attract more followers. This will also drive more people to your website.
Contact us today for more information.
by Marelise da Silva | Dec 31, 2015 | Mobile Marketing, Website Optimization
Social media may seem to be the darling of online marketing, but mobile marketing is here to stay. With most people accessing the Internet with a mobile device, your brand can ignore it at its own peril. Look around: everyone is on their smartphones. The trick is to get your brand onto that small screen in front of them. Here is why (and how) you need to focus on mobile marketing.
- More people have mobile devices than PCs
According to Smart Insights, mobile devices surpassed desktop devices in 2014 and continues on a significant upward trajectory. The amount of time looking at a mobile (vertical) screen now exceeds a PC (horizontal) screen, when not counting time spent in front of a TV. This means that when you are designing a digital marketing campaign, you absolutely have to be optimised for mobile use, otherwise you are missing out on that audience.
- Tweak your email marketing for mobile
According to Recruiting Times, in 2014, 65% of emails sent were opened on a mobile device. Out of those 69%, emails which weren’t optimised for mobile were instantly deleted. That is a massive percentage of your audience which you are potentially throwing away if your campaign hasn’t been tweaked for mobile devices.
- Apps are still on-trend
When people are constantly on their mobile devices, chances are they are using apps. You need to get in on this by creating an app experience for your customer and target audience. For instance, if your brand is an event venue, you could have an app which offers visitors a map of the grounds, a way to buy event tickets, find parking, etc. All the while your audience is getting a positive experience out of it and associating this positivity with your brand.
Mobile marketing is not something to be ignored. If your brand hasn’t yet, it’s time to embrace it by getting in touch with WSI OMS. We specialise in everything to do with digital marketing, including email marketing, social media and content marketing. Contact us today.
