How to be successful online by Robert Faulkner rob@datadial.net www.datadial.net 020 8600 0500

5 steps to a successful website Keyword research Site structure Page optimisation Design – usability & emotional response Online Marketing Objective To provide you the basic principles of constructing a search engine friendly website To help you understand how to make a website successful. the power of social media marketing, email marketing on site usability To enable you to look at a client’s website and make a basic assessment as to its chances of being successful online. To enable you to map out a strategy for a potential client.

I dont need to reel off a load ot stats to tell you that search is important. We all know it is 3 slides to give helicopter view of successful websites.

How does Google know what a page is about? It reads and understands the information in key areas of the page i.e Keywords / Key phrases

Choosing the right keywords generating a list Brainstorming what would your customers search for? Surveying customers and sales staff Competitor analysis what words do your competitors target? Existing data – Log files and analytics packages Tools Data from keyword research tools

Keyword Research - Selection Search volume Competition Conversion rate Long-tail = targeted = higher conversion Search volume Competition Conversion rate Informational navigational transactional Long-tail = targeted = higher conversion

How should you organise your pages? Google does not rank websites, it ranks pages. Website structure and layout is key Each category AND product should have its own page. Beds – wooden beds Tools? Garden tools?

On Page Optimisation URLs Page Titles Page Headings H1 and H2 Image Filenames Body Text Image Alt Attributes Bold and Italic Text Lo Mismo A man about to cut the head off a sodier with an axe

Design This site is easy to use…. This company is easy to work with…. ..Oh, and there’s an offer… I will buy from this company

You may think you have a great website but it may not have caught on yet. So you need to give it a push. Online Marketing covers all these areas. Key areas to look at Site build – which we have looked at Links Usability == Google may still think you’re a bit small. The only way it knows if you are important is if other people think you are important – it does t his by measuring how many sites are linking to your site. Each link is counted as a vote.

How do search engines rank a page? Links The number and quality of links pointing to a page tells a search engine how important that page is.

Why would I link to your site? Because you’ve got something that I want to recommend to others i.e. Great content

So Great content Traffic Rankings Links

You may think you have a great website but it may not have caught on yet. So you need to give it a push. Online Marketing covers all these areas. Key areas to look at Site build – which we have looked at Links Usability == Google may still think you’re a bit small. The only way it knows if you are important is if other people think you are important – it does t his by measuring how many sites are linking to your site. Each link is counted as a vote.

What are you doing to be #1? Consult and publish in partnership with industry experts Create one-stop resources Provide high quality unique information Provide important information in a non-commercial format Provide free tools to keep people coming back Humour Top 10/20/30 lists Reviews Interviews Surveys and research Look what your competitors are doing and improve upon it Offer information and resources for free Hold that thought First lets look at how to build a proper website.

Where to put it all - blog Audience engagement Community creation Information gathering Demonstrate knowledge Communications channel Content creation Social media

How do you get links? Submission to relevant directories Leverage relationships with customers, suppliers, distributors Industry sites and resources Press release syndication Company blog filled with great information Link ‘bait’ Ask for links Social media sites Article writing and guest posting These are mostly manual ways: there are natural ways to do it – by creating good content We’ll look at social media later on

You may think you have a great website but it may not have caught on yet. So you need to give it a push. Online Marketing covers all these areas. Key areas to look at Site build – which we have looked at Links Usability == Google may still think you’re a bit small. The only way it knows if you are important is if other people think you are important – it does t his by measuring how many sites are linking to your site. Each link is counted as a vote.

What is Social Media? An opportunity to meet the people Conversation Networking Community Participation Monitoring Lets start at the beginning

How to participate Hi, Hello, Howdy, Wotcha, G'day mate – There are plenty of ways of starting a conversation, and it's the same Online. Find out who’s talking and where Listen to conversations Get involved - dialogue NOT monologue Share value Relinquish control – Branded content does not work Be HONEST!

Use your blog

Social Media in the boardroom Yeah, Social Media, we’ll have a bit of that So far all to do with driving traffic to the site Other side of social media is to promote and have conversations offsite

Resistance at boardroom level Period or experimentation Directors want to see results

New Culture

New jobs

How is it used

Resources Google keyword tool Google analytics Dell social media guide Reputation management Datadial blog SEO Browser Did you know?