Marketing your Website on Facebook

Here’s 11 things about Facebook that you need to know:

1. 350 Million Global Users, and Counting
Facebook announced recently that they had passed 350 million members, making Facebook the third-largest country in the world, if it was a country. (perhaps that’s their end-game, joining the UN and raising an army?)

2. 100 Million U.S. Users
Sure, Facebook is strong around-the-world (Canada has the highest penetration rate), but nearly 1/3 of all Facebookers are here in the U.S. You may have heard of a TV show called American Idol. On a good night, it averages 20 million viewers. Facebook has 100 million American members. Hmmm.
3. Average Facebook User Spends 55 Minutes Per Day
Nearly one hour per day, per user. That’s a lot of Facebook time. How can your company grab a bit of consumer attention? This data is based on Facebook’s own published stats, covered by Inside Facebook.
4. Nearly 80,000 sites using Facebook Connect
Connect is the Facebook initiative that has the greatest long-range impact. By integrating Facebook closely, sites are making our personal social graphs truly portable. Instead of having to go to Facebook and other sites to visit our friends, they travel with us online (and in our pockets via mobile devices), always there to provide advice or commentary. Even Yahoo! and MySpace are rolling out deep Facebook integrations.
This of course makes Facebook the central hub of not just social media, but the Web (which is why Google is scrambling to catch up after their competing Google Connect fell flat).
5. Facebook Fan Box Becoming Pervasive
Perhaps the least powerful, but most prevalent flavor of Facebook Connect is Facebook Fan Box, a simple tool for enabling your Web site visitors, YouTube video watchers, or email newsletter recipients to become a fan of your brand – without even having to go to Facebook.
6. Average Facebook User Has 130 Friends
Will Facebook users continue to add more friends at a rapid pace? It depends upon how they view their Facebook connections. 130 friends almost bumps up against Dunbar’s Number of 150 – the theoretical maximum number of actual friend relationships you can sustain, according to British scientist Robin Dunbar.
If Facebook continues to revolve around relationships that you actually possess in three-dimensions – people you “actually” know, then the addition of bunches of new friends may slow considerably. But, if Facebook makes the leap to tie people together more casually (like Twitter), average friend counts could rise dramatically.
7. Average Facebook User Fans 2 Pages per Month
If you think tons of your customers should become fans of your company’s Facebook page, you might want to recalibrate your expectations. The average Facebook user “fans” only 2 new pages per month. That’s not a lot , considering how many brands, causes, and organizations we come into contact with on a regular basis.
If you’re going to make growth of your Facebook fan base a key part of your social media strategy, you must create a clear rationale for why consumers should participate with you.
You also might consider a robust, organized approach for promoting your Facebook fan page.
8. Only 4% of Pages Have 10,000 or More Fans

If your Facebook fan page is a bit of a ghost town, you’re not alone. A fantastic study by Sysomos of 600,000 Facebook fan pages shows that only 4% of pages have 10,000 or more fans – and only .76% have 100,000 or more.
That’s why it is so critical to focus your Facebook strategy on activating the fans you have, not just collecting fans like baseball cards.
9. Wall Posts Don’t Impact Popularity
The Sysomos study also found very little correlation between how frequently the Facebook page admin posted to the wall, and total number of fans. However – and this is important – there is a strong correlation between amount of other content (notes, links, photos, videos) and number of fans.
Thus, if you want to grow your Facebook fan base, it is imperative that you move beyond simple Wall posts and add photos, videos, links and other content.
10. Customized News Feed
Facebook’s recent move to an algorithm-driven news feed means that just because someone is your fan, does not mean they will see your wall posts or status updates (true for both individuals, and brands). Instead, the default news feed is now comprised of content that Facebook thinks you’ll like, based on your interactions with content from that author in the past, and interactions by your friends with that content.
This puts a tremendous premium on posting engaging content that will get comments and likes and shares. If you’re not paying attention to your content engagement scores within your Facebook analytics, start doing so now, and testing content types to see what works best for your brand.
11. Real-time Search Changes the Game
Facebook is now making most content available publicly, unless you tell them not to via your privacy settings. Twitter opened their data stream to anyone (not just big developers). Google and Bing are incorporating this data into search results, in real-time.
This has tremendous implications for search engine optimization and reputation management, since a negative status update about your brand might now show up on the first page of Google search results for your company name (at least temporarily). The shakeout is still happening, but someone in your company needs to be on top of real-time search. Today.
Facebook may not be the ideal environment for every social media initiative, but its huge size forces you to at least consider participating – regardless of what type of business you run. Conversely, some brands are putting an awful lot of eggs in the Facebook basket, which is perhaps justifiable based on the facts above.

Whats in a Name?

Using Keywords in your Domain

Is Men.com a good domain name? How about Furniture.com? Or what about Cars.com? The internet market place certainly thinks they are valuable. Men.com sold for 1.3 million. But is it? Are any of these really brands?

How in the world would you market these names and how would you distinguish yourself from the thousands of variants, copycats and hucksters that will inevitably pop up. You can’t trademark a generic word, so forget about taking your competitors to court.
Multi-Word Generic Domains

A good example of this is if you are looking for a website design company. Do you know the difference between websitedesign.com, websitesdesign.org, website4design.com, website-design.com, websitedesign-ingo.net, websites.co.za, Do you care? Probably not. And you’re definitely not interested in spending the next fours hours trying to find out. However you do know that H2L and Scream Media build websites. Sounds like a safer bet.

So what is best a generic domain or a brand name URL?

To give you a comparison lets looks at an example. The king of search Google. Google is a unique and proper name. It stands for something and there is only one Google. They basically own the public mind space for the word “search” just as surely Kleenex own “tissues” and Xerox owns “copies”. So much so that all three of these companies names have also become a common shorthand for anything in their category. So for Google, any derivative reference used by competitors, critics and jokesters just reinforces the Google brand.

This is not the same for Furniture.com. Variants of the word furniture just dilute the Furniture.com brand, not enhance it. That’s because furniture is a generic word. It doesn’t reference anything but the literal meaning of the word. And a boring word at that. Say it ten times and you’ll probably start to doze off.

No matter how many times someone uses the word furniture it will do nothing to enhance Furniture.com. It is not a brand and never will be.
Highest priced domain names

Here’s a list of the highest priced domains of all time. But you need to ask yourself, how many of these own their category or are even a market leader? Almost none. When’s the last time someone sent you a link to one of these sites telling you gotta check it out? You probably can’t remember. Read each name and tell me the first thing that pops in your head.

Insure.com – Sold for $16,000,000 (16 million dollars) in October 2009 to QuinStreet

Sex.com – Sold for: $14 million on January 19th, 2006

Fund.com – $9,999,950 – Sold in 2008

Porn.com – Sold for $9,000,000 sometime in 2007

Business.com – Sold for $7,500,000 in 1999 (This was pretty much a “business” sale with a developed name)

Diamonds.com – Sold for $7,500,000

Beer.com – Sold for $7,000,000

Casino.com – $5,500,000 – Sold to a private company in 2003

Toys.com $5.1M sold to Toys R Us

AsSeenOnTV.com – Sold for $5,100,000 in January of 2000

Korea.com – $5,000,000 – Sold in January of 2000

SEO.com – $5,000,000 – Sold in 2007

FreePorn.com – $4,000,000 – Sold in February 2008

YP.com – $3,850,000 – Sold to YellowPages.com

Shop.com – Sold for $3,500,000 in 2001

WorldWideWeb.com – $3,500,000 in 1996

AltaVista.com – $3,250,000

Software.com – $3,200,000

Candy.com – $3,000,000 Sold in March 2009 by Rich Schwartz. Deal was $3M + % sales.

CreditCheck.com – $3,000,000 -Sold in June 2007

Loans.com – $3,000,000

eShow.com – $3,000,000

Vodka.com – $3,000,000 Sold December 2006

HolidayInn.com – $3,000,000 Sold in 1995

Wine.com – Sold for $2,900,000 in September of 1999

Wines.com – $2,900,000

CreditCards.com – Sold for $2,750,000 in July 2004

Pizza.com – $2,605,000 April 3, 2008

Tom.com – $2,500,000

Dotnology.com – $2.5 million (2000)

Autos.com – $2,200,000

Computer.com – $2,200,000

Coupons.com – $2,200,000

England.com – $2,000,000

Celebrities.com – $2.0 million (1999)

Telephone.com – $2,000,000

Express.com – $2,000,000

Savings.com – $1,900,000

Mortgage.com – $1,800,000

Seniors.com – $1.8 million (2007)

DataRecovery.com – $1,659,000  Sold in 2008

Branson.com – $1,600,000

SolarEnergy.com – $1,600,000

Cameras.com – $1,500,000

TandBerg.com – $1,500,000

MarketingToday.com – $1,500,000

Deposit.com – $1,500,000

Russia.com – $1,500,000 November 26, 2009

Fly.com – $1,500,000 – RESOLD FOR $1,800,000 (January 2009)

VIP.com – Sold for $1,400,000 in September of 2005

Ad.com – Sold for $1,400,000 April 29, 2009 in TRAFFIC auction

Men.com – $1,320,000

Vista.com – $1,250,000

Ticket.com – Sold for $1,525,000 on Afternic

Feedback.com – $1,230,000

Phone.com – $1,200,000

Find.com – $1,200,000

Scores.com – $1.2 million (2007)

Kredit.de – $1,169,175

Call.com – $1,100,000 – Sold on August 31, 2009

Bingo.com – $1,100,000

Mercury.com – $1,100,000

Cruises.co.uk – $1,099,798 Sold in 2008

Chinese.com – $1,090,504 – Sold July 2007

WallStreet.com – $1,030,000

Rock.com – $1.03 million

Invest.com – $1,015,000  Sold in 2008

WebCam.com – $1,020,000 Sold April 2009 in Rick Latona auction

Vibrators.com – $1,000,000 Sold in 2008

Britain.com – $1,000,000

Fish.com – $1,000,000

Topix.com – $1,000,000

Sky.com – $1,000,000

If.com – $1,000,000

iPhone.com – $1.0 million (2007)

CyberWorks.com – $1.0 million

WhiteHouseCrisis.com – $1.0 million

eFlowers.com – $1.0 million

Beauty.cc – $1.0 million

Most of these names are so dull, so forgettable, so uninspired, that it’s hard to believe they fetch the money they do. So WHY do they sell for these prices? It all has to do with SEO, SEO and how Google ranks sites. There generic nature of the domain name ensures that Google will serve them up for generic searches, try it yourself, search for BINGO on an all web search... Surprise ! Ah no not really. Am I saying go out and buy a generic boring domain name for your site? That depends on what you want, dont forget as much as Google will love the name, but bear in mind it can be very difficult to build a generic name into a brand.
Making a Unique Name by Combining Two Generics

This can be highly effective and some of the best named and well branded web companies have used this naming device. And that is to combine two generic words in a way that is startling, evocative and original. Photobucket.com is a good example. By themselves the word photo and the word bucket are about as dull and generic as can be. Ah, but put them together and we not only have an original name now, but one that creates a deeper meaning. It immediately engages the mind as you envision first a literal bucket filled with photos and secondly the abstraction of a bucket of photos. On a symbolic level Photobucket is an easy way to gather all your photos. YouTube is a classic example. By themselves the words you and tube are nearly meaningless. Put them together and it not only has a great rhyming quality but it creates an instantly understandable, relatable word pairing loaded with meaning. It’s you (as in the everyday person, joe average) on the tube (television). Television that is about you. Brilliant. Other good examples are LinkedIn, StubHub, FeedBurner and FaceBook. All pairings of generic words that take on a new meaning when combined.

Is your product the first in the market? Or Niche?

If you invented something that didn’t exist before, something that people would probably like but don’t know it’s available, a generic may be a good strategy. For example we own a brand which is new to South Africa, it is an online financial comparison site. We named it www.comparethemarket.co.za We combined the two generic keywords compare and market, and are ranking very well under all our chosen keywords, even though the site is still in its “static” stage and the live feeds from the providers have not yet been added.



So at the end of the day, the choice is yours. If in doubt call in the experts. Contact Scream Media to day for a no obligation quote on building your brand successfully online.

Link Building - Why you need it

You probably don't need to read the latest advice from the marketing online consultants to figure out the basic idea behind link building. Without links, your site won't develop authority. Without authority, it won't move up on the search engines. But even the most savvy online consultant would have to admit that doing that is just not as easy as it sounds.

More Is Not Better In Link Building

Just going out and getting a bunch of links won't necessarily help your site. You need quality links to get higher search rankings. But sometimes figuring out what makes one link better than another is tough. This is where you do need to keep up with what the marketing consultants are recommending or you may just be wasting your time. 

Targeted Anchor Text Is A Must

When you start pursuing links on sites, you need targeted anchor text. However, you don't want to use the same text everywhere. Google will notice that in a bad way. You want to use two or three different phrases and the proper name of your website. If you can't get anything but an image link, make sure the site owner puts your anchor text or the name of your site in the ALT tag of the image.

Pay Attention To Links In And Out

Google looks at the site where your link appears and decides how much benefit your site gets back. A site with a lot of inbound links passes more authority to your site. At the same time, being linked on a site full of low-quality, outbound links probably won't help you much.

PageRank Isn't Everything

Don't be one of those site owners who sees nothing but PageRank. A site with high PageRank can still have low link value. This is especially true of sites that sell links. Steer clear of sites that use phrases like "sponsored by" or "paid for by." Google may not let that site pass PageRank at all. Move on. They're not worth your time.

Concentrate On Site Relevance

Let's say your site is about red widgets. You get a link on a site about purple doohickeys. That link isn't worth as much as one on a site about red widget management. Make sure you're pursuing links in relevant places and look at how those places are optimized. If a site owner gives you a choice of having a link on a page titled "About Us" or one with the title "About Red Widgets," which one do you choose? The link on the optimized page, "About Red Widgets," has more value.

A Marketing Consultant Checks What's Not Obvious

Take your cue from the pros and check sites in ways that aren't obvious. For instance, in any search engine, you can type in "cache:" followed by a site url and find out if the site has been indexed and when it was last crawled. But what do those dates mean? 

Chances are good that if the site hasn't been crawled in 30-45 days, it's not a good place for a link. But some domains have more value than others. For example, links from .edu domaíns are better than from a .com, but .ínfo is worth less. All these factors should be weighed in judging a site's worth in your link building efforts.

Does Social Networking Matter?

We've all seen the little link bars under blog posts and in forums asking people to Digg or Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, or StumbleUpon. Do you need to try to get links in places where social networking can happen? Yes. Alone those links may not have a lot of value, but Google is increasingly looking at the "active Web" in determining site authority. 

Need help with your link backs contact H2L today
 

Marketing your Website

Web 2.0 and Social Media

Only a few years ago, social media was something most people thought of as a tool for teenagers and college students. That has changed. Facebook now has more than 80 million active users and the fastest growing demographic of Facebook users is the over-25 age group.

If that didn't make you sit up and take note, it should have. Your customers and potential customers probably have a computer and probably have high speed Internet access. And if they are not already using social media of some kind, just give it a few months. They will be.

Think you are immune? How did you access this article? There is a good chance you came to it online. The communication mogul of the 21st century is the World Wide Web and the tools that make it work have advanced so much in such a short time that the buzz is now about Web 2.0.

What is Web 2.0? No, you don't need to throw out your year-old computer or buy new software. Web 2.0 really relates to the growing trend to make the web more interactive, collaborative, innovative, and social.

If you favor relationship marketing over the hard sell, then this is good news for you. The growth of interactive social vehicles on the Web supports anyone who prefers their marketing to be personal. Blogs, wikis, business-oriented media sites, and social networking sites allow relationship oriented business people to potentially touch exponentially more people than any community networking event could. Why? Because they not only have the power of the World Wide Web and its spider web of connections behind them, but they are structured to make viral contact more than a concept.

Blogging
If you have a product, service, or interest about which you are passionate, there may be no easier way to connect with potential customers, colleagues, and others who need what you have or know than through blogging.

If the idea of creating a blog makes your palms sweat, fear not. Not only are blogs easier than ever to set up (even a complete amateur can create one in a few minutes these days), but you may not need to create one - at least not immediately.


Comment on Existing Blogs

Do an Internet search of key words relating to your interest. Let's say you are an Audiologist. Do a search using words like "blogs about hearing loss" and go exploring. Read what is being posted. Submit comments. If this feels a bit foreign to you, think of it exactly as you would if you were at a face-to-face networking event chatting with folks. It is really an online way of doing just that. The difference is that you will potentially be touching many more people, including potential customers. Be a frequent visitor to sites that are related to your professional expertise and you may find yourself becoming the go-to person for those in need of that expertise.

Create A Blog

Consider starting a blog, too. It hasn't ever been easier to create a blog. Both Wordpress (www.wordpress.com) and Blogger (www.blogger.com) provide free blogging that is so easy to set up, you can do it in less time than you can eat lunch. By creating a blog, you have the option to introduce the subjects you want to address the concerns of your clients and potential clients. If you are an Audiologist, that might include information on advances in the area of implanted auditory prostheses, tools for addressing hearing loss amongst baby boomers, hearing screening protocols for newborns and school-aged children ... or virtually any other area of the field.

Consider treating your blog as an interactive newsletter. That is, write a blog post and email your list (clients, colleagues, friends, and others) that a new item has been posted. Tell them the subject of the post, give them a hyperlink to it, encourage them to leave a comment, and suggest that they let others know about your blog. Keep the discussion going when you get comments by responding to them.

What else can you do with your blog? Use it as a way to collect customer feedback. Do an informal survey. Add a link to an RSS feed service. Include an event calendar. The possibilities are endless. Keep your focus on fostering and nurturing relationships that will further your business in an organic way and always, always make sure your blog and website are linked.

Facebook and Its Relatives

Facebook is just one of the many social networking sites on the Internet. Other well known ones include Ning, MySpace, and LinkedIn. Some sites, like Facebook and MySpace, have a broad focus. Others, like the business-focused LinkedIn, are specific in focus. What they all provide is the chance to touch more people than you could ever touch by yourself, no matter how many networking groups you belong to.

Some sites, like Facebook, provide the option to add a customized page you can use to promote a business. Facebook, Ning, LinkedIn, and other sites also allow the creation of groups (such as groups focused on the field of audiology). By joining these groups, you connect with a virtual network of colleagues. You also become more visible to potential clients who need your services.

And You Don't Have to Drive to an Event

Not only does Web 2.0 impact the possibilities for relationship marketing in the 21st century, but it allows you do it from your office or home instead of attending meetings and events. Time is precious, fuel is expensive, and the options for networking are many. By spending just a bit of that precious time and only enough juice to power your Internet connection, you can market your business, deepen your relationships with clients and colleagues, and reach potential customers who might not find you otherwise.

Of course, like all relationship marketing, it takes good will, time, and a great product or service to win customers. But your customers are out there - and they are probably online right now.

Does Your Business Stand Out Online?

Lacking any information to the contrary, many businesses still think that all they need to do to get new clients is to put their name and face in the Yellow Pages or online social directories, get some professional looking business cards, a website and Voila! It's the old adage "build it and they will come".

Trouble is, that's what their competitors are doing also and in this day and age, it's just not enough.

Does Your Business Stand Out Online?

Most advertising on the Web follows a time-honored format, although some might call it a time-worn format as it does little to differentiate itself. You can bet that a high percentage of this advertising will be ignored and the money spent on it will be wasted.

So how does a company stand out from the crowd online?

Thanks to an oversupply of similar text, claims, and presentation - coupled with a short 21st century attention span - your website has less than ten seconds to move a visitor to action. If it doesn't, that visitor will click away to another site, and then another. Therefore, it's critical that you find a way to break through the noise your competitors are making. But even that's not enough.

Statistics show that even the best-looking websites generate conversion rates of under one percent, so for every 100 visitors you do manage to get, less than one will call or email you. Sound bleak? Thinking of redirecting more of your advertising budget back to the Yellow Pages? Don't. You're on the right track - you just haven't leveraged all the power available to you online.

One-to-Many Communication. On-on-One Feel.

Most websites are little more than electronic versions of Yellow Page advertising. For the most part, they don't encourage interaction beyond the obligatory "Contact me for more information" plea. These sites don't encourage trust any more than their print counterparts. They don't give visitors the warm-and-fuzzy feeling that a face-to-face meeting would. But they can.

Searching for a local service provider online can be a daunting prospect, but even more daunting than the search is deciding which provider to use once you get to the page, especially since most websites promise the standard good service, competitive pricing and high quality.

So how does a business differentiate itself from the sea of competition? Web video makes this possible on a grand scale. Thanks to rapidly improving technology, it's easier than ever to add that warm-and-fuzzy, face-to-face element to your site, replicate an in-person interview, and provide your visitors a chance to check you out before picking up the phone. With Web video, you can present an interview that addresses all the questions and concerns of potential clients. You can keep them on your site longer and give them insight into the "business behind the business." In a way that wasn't possible even a few years ago, business owners can now speak directly to their audiences and showcase their personalities and areas of expertise. This is especially helpful if you are a professional service provider.

Any business that relies on conveying trust-ability will benefit from this type of web marketing. Really, it's one-to-many communication with a one-on-one feel. It's the perfect ice breaker and an efficient means of generating the interest and trust needed to compel potential clients to make an appointment and do business.

A high-quality Web interview placed strategically on your site is a huge timesaver for you and prospective clients because you reach a wide audience in minimal time. Potential clients get the information they need to pre-qualify - and pre-sell - themselves before they call.

Online video delivers some of the best ROI of any advertising medium today and if set up properly, actually ranks higher than text now by the major search engines like Google. Short of spending valuable face time with a potential client (often times a poorly qualified potential client) there is simply no better way to forge a personal connection with them. With that in mind, here are 10 tips to help you get the most of your online video marketing efforts.

10 Tips for Making the Most of Online Video

1. Make Sure Your Video is Professionally Done.
This is an absolute must. The whole point here is to establish credibility and trust, but you'll do the opposite with a poorly executed and produced video. Yes, many of the videos you find on sharing sites are mediocre at best, but that is changing rapidly as companies begin to see the value of promoting themselves in this manner. In fact, a recent Permission TV survey found that 67% of 400 hundred top executives intended to focus their online marketing efforts on video in 2009. The rush is coming - find a personable, engaging interviewer and a top notch production crew to really stand out.

2. Submit Your Video to as Many Outlets as Possible.
While YouTube is the clear leader here, there are many other video sharing sites worthy of consideration. Here are some others you won't want to pass up:

    • Google Video     • Yahoo! Video     • Daily Motion     • MySpaceTV
    • MetaCafe     • Revver     • Veoh     • Blinkx     • Break

3. Embed Your Video on the Front Page of Your Site.
Don't hide what's going to become one of your most effective selling tools on a dusty inside page. Get it out front. Customers and search engines will love you for it.

4. Find Out What Search Terms Your Potential Clients are Using and Put Them in Your Video's Title.
If you don't know what words clients in need of your services are typing into Google and other search engines, get professional help or use some of the resources featured on this page. Once you've identified these terms, use the most popular in your video's title.

5. Make Your Tags and Descriptions SEO-friendly, too.
Most video sharing sites let you tag videos with keywords and post a short description, so get the most out of these by sprinkling in the search terms you've identified.

6. Don't Forget Your Thumbnail.
A thumbnail is a still shot from your video that appears along with search results. Don't waste this chance to present yourself in the best light possible - choose a key moment from your video, preferably one where you're smiling as you speak with your interviewer.

7. Link Back to Your Site.
Put your URL near the top of your video's description. You'll get a higher search ranking and potential clients will quickly learn where to go for more information.

8. Interact With Your Viewers.
Most video sharing sites allow viewer comments. Use this option to answer questions, respond to comments, and further promote your business.

9. Consider a Pay-Per-Click Campaign.
Natural search engine optimization, while effective, takes time to bear fruit. In the meantime, you might want to jump start the process with a pay-per-click campaign that gives you a sponsored search listing. You can learn more about PPC advertising at:

    • www.google.com/intl/en/ads
    • sem.smallbusiness.yahoo.com/searchenginemarketing
    • advertising.microsoft.com/search-advertising

10. Add New Content Often.
Search engines look for it and so do potential clients. Keep your content fresh and up-to-date and keep visitors coming back for more.

With an ever-increasing stream of competition, it's more important than ever to stand out from the crowd. These days standing out means maximizing your online presence and leveraging the technology to present the unique advantages of you and your firm. There's no better way for a growth-oriented business to build a solid and secure future than by using effective and affordable online video.

Contact the H2L team today for a quote on a professional video for your site, its cheaper then you think!

The makings of a Great Website

In real estate, it's location, location, location. In website design, it's content, content, content... followed very closely by eye appeal, which is where a graphic designer can play a substantial role.

The SEO (Search Engine Optimization) portion of a website's foundation must be considered first to develop essential keywords. These keywords are then used throughout the site copy, the attending blog, and the marketing articles which will proliferate incoming links, something the ever-hungry search engines love.

If a gorgeous movie star becomes severely ill, her beauty becomes unimportant. This same concept holds true for website development. By building the functionality first for a website, and then adding beauty - an appealing graphical look - secondarily, the purpose for having the website is well served.

Many people who read web pages and view their images are motivated by what they "like" versus what they "need," so the key role of graphics assumes an importance right after functionality, SEO, and content. The content plus the graphics appeal are what leads to conversion on a site.

Your website is a marketing tool. It is the key way you gain presence and creditability on the internet. It's the way you turn eye appeal into buy appeal. The appearance of your website is the representation of all of the ideas you want to put forth under the umbrella of your business and they deserve thoughtful consideration prior to the creation of a graphical appearance.

1. Have you defined your target market and do you know what will appeal to them visually?

2. What is the actual purpose behind your site? To sell, to entertain, to enlighten?

3. What is the product you are offering? How should it be positioned in the market and how should it look?

4. Is your graphics theme consistent? Is your branding carried throughout the site as well as in your product line?

5. Have you gathered fill in photos or created consistent graphics such as bullets that match in color and typeface?

The design of pages in a website must first be functional, and then have eye appeal graphically. A great web designer will use the appropriate software to permit all jpeg and gif files to either load quickly or to hyperlink the images to load in a new page. A great web designer will use alt tags to describe the images in the coding behind these images so that the search engine spiders and read them and rank the page accordingly.
,
Some key graphical elements that can be used in website design are:

1.Branding. Think of branding as predefining what a company is all about in the minds of its clients. It encompasses all the factors that makeup both the recognition and interaction parts of doing business with that company. Branding helps to establish a sense of perceived value for your company, your product and your delivery of a service. Simply by seeing your graphics pieces, people will begin to identify with what values you are striving to achieve.

2. Logo. Your logo should represent what your company stands for and what function it performs. The best logos are sophisticated and simple, and they are challenging to design. Your logo should have a strong, balanced image with no extras to clutter its look. Bold logos are easier to see than those with thin delicate lines.


3.Tag Lines You would be well served to research the tag lines of other companies before you design your own. These few words can become part of the branding that tells people graphically who you are, what you do, and how you do it. My tag line is "Websites that work for you."

Try to keep the size of your web pages in the vicinity of 50K. When you hire a website designer, this size web page will still give a relatively fast download time on a standard modem, although dial up access to the internet has waned with the insurgence of broadband and FIOS. If your site or any of its pages loads slowly, you will have to ask your designer to size down the graphic images, replace them with a smaller images, or replace them with the HTML default bullets, horizontal rules, or colored heading text.

Are YOU ready to create a powerful brand and website that delivers? The outstanding  H2L Team are waiting to take your call.
Tel: 021 559 0800 or complete  our contact form

The 2010 New Year Checklist for Your Business

Every year here at H2L Online Marketing we make it a point to come up with a list of 10 things you need to be thinking about in the new year. They may be related to marketing, or running your business overall, and they’re usually something we relate to things we have to do in our own business.
1. Use “Cause Marketing” – This is the year that you should identify your business with a worthy cause and either donate a percentage of profits to it or contribute to it in some way. And if profits or hard cash don’t fit, consider donating employee time. Then in your marketing campaigns, your marketing materials and sales pitches you should talk about what you’re doing and why it’s important to you. Your prospects and customers increasingly want to do business with a business that cares and has moral obligations, and they’re looking for you to let them know how you fit the bill.
2. Use Social Media with Email Marketing - Finally get your act together with social media this year. Start with Twitter and Facebook, dont forget as part of our SEO service we do this for you. Then set your goals on how many Twitter followers your business will get or how many Facebook fans you’ll attract. Make sure you tell your email marketing recipients to follow you when you send out a campaign. And don’t forget to post your links to your email campaigns in your Twitter account and Facebook pages and ask people to join your email list. All of these marketing vehicles work really well together and feed off of each other. 3. Think SEO – Make a point of checking your SEO ranking with EVERY piece of content you add to your site, Think position, think search when writing articles or content for your site. H2L offers content writing for SEO at a very affordable rate.
4. Make This the Year of Customer Service - People talk about companies that listen to them and that treat them well so you’ll want to go above and beyond with customer service this year. This is especially true since companies like Facebook and Twitter are taking off and becoming a platform for people to tell the world how they feel…about you. This might be the year you get your customer data all in one place so it’s easy to find a customer when they call. 
5. Cut Costs - Keep cutting costs because we’re still in the economic weeds. Look at your top spending categories and see if there’s money to be saved. Is your rent too high? If you’ve got a number of years left on it you might call your landlord and ask if you can renegotiate “stepped” payments. Ask for a discount this year and tell them in the future years you’re willing to pay at bit more per square foot. If you’re spending too much on shipping, start calling other providers to see if they’re competitive. Doing things like this in January will add up for the rest of the year and help you to profitability.
6. Listen to Your Customers - Listen and watch what your customers are saying about you. Sign up for Google Alerts with your company name as a keyword, but also with your competitor’s names so you can see what is being published about them as well. Sign up for a free TweetDeck account and do the same. You’ll see what people on Twitter are saying about your company, your competition and even your industry, up-to-the minute for an unlimited number of keywords. Then chime in to the conversation and address the issue or try to get a new customer. Word to the wise: make sure you’re transparent with who you are, you don’t want to “hide” as someone else, tell them you’re with your company and you want to help out or answer any questions.
7. Find New Customers, Inexpensively - Google is where people go these days to find businesses they’re looking for. So set up or build on your Google Adwords pay-per-click efforts. If you don’t know where to start with Google try our PPC service, we manage your account through our Google Professional account.
8. Build Your Email List - Offer your clients a free sign up on your site to your monthly newsletter.
9. Hire People Who Care – If you’re lucky enough to be hiring for your business, this should be the year where you have an ample choice of people who need to work to choose from, so it’s your pick. Make sure you select people who have the same passion as you do, and people that fit into your business culture like a glove. Make sure you ask the questions that count; you want someone who can handle situations, someone who can communicate and someone who you trust. Don’t settle for second best, your customers will notice.
10. Embrace Word of Mouth – At H2L Online Marketing over 50% of the people who sign up for our service hear about  us through “Word of Mouth” . In 2010 you’ll really need to take a good look at what you’re doing to spur word of mouth. As noted here, customer service is important, the quality of your product or service is important and the entire customer experience is important in order for word of mouth to start. 
2010 is poised to be a great year for growing your small business. Good luck with your venture, and remember we are here to help.