Entries from September 2011 ↓

Most businesses today have embraced social media.

It makes sense because that’s where their customers hang out, so if they want to engage with them, they’ve got to join the club.

One aspect of social media, Facebook, has become phenomenon.

• It has over 750 million active users worldwide
• There are 900 million pages, groups, events and community pages that people can interact with
• Over 30 billion pieces of content are shared every month

(Statistics from Facebook.)

So it’s little wonder that so many businesses now have a page on Facebook. But the question remains, how do you direct your fans back to your website?

Your Facebook page is great for SEO and to interact with your customers/fans, but you will also want these people to use your main brand website too.

How to drive Facebook fans to your website

Many businesses are too concerned with building their number of Facebook fans and don’t give any thought as to how they are going to get those fans to interact with them through their website.

After all, it’s through your main website that you will sell to them, so you have to devise some tactics to encourage them to visit your site.

Ben Pickering wrote a great post recently on socialmediaexaminer.com that looks at this issue. In 5 Tips for Driving Facebook Fans Back to Your Website, Ben looks at the following methods:

1. Use of tabs
2. Sharing blog posts and articles
3. Using teaser content
4. Running contests on your brand website
5. Special offers on your brand website

As you read about these in more detail, you will see that each not only adds to the value of your Facebook page, they also actively encourage your fans to visit your main website through various calls to action.

This ‘two way street’ of information adds to the users’ experience and so continues to add value to your relationship with them.

Integrating this approach into your social media activities will also strengthen your SEO strategy so everyone wins.

Over to you

Are you already using some of Ben’s techniques? Do you have your own method of driving fans back to your main site?

Leave a comment below and share the techniques you use to link your Facebook fans to your website.

Sally Ormond – freelance copywriter, Tweeter, blogger and Facebook fan

Writing a monthly newsletter is a great way to keep in touch with your customers and add value to your relationship.

You can use them to share information, give tips and offers.

But generating great content on a regular basis can seem like a daunting task. But it doesn’t have to be. All you need is:

• A great looking template
• A simple process to write content-rich material that can be repeated again and again

The template you use should reflect your business image. Something in line with your website’s design would be ideal. Just make sure it’s a clean, unfussy design that won’t detract from the information it contains.

But what about the simple process I mentioned? Well, below is an example to show how easy it can be to write your newsletter when you have a system in place.

Newsletter writing process

This 5 step writing process is a great way to kick start the creative process every month. The number of topics you pick will determine the length of your newsletter.

1. Choose 3 topics for the main body of your newsletter
2. Choose 3 topics for your side bar
3. Interview industry experts or research a specific topic
4. Write and edit your articles
5. Proofread your newsletter

1. Main topics

These articles will make up the body of your newsletter. You can choose as many topics as you like, but the more you have, the longer your newsletter will be.

They don’t have to be long articles (approximately 300 – 500 words) and can cover things that have happened in the news (or your industry) recently, what’s happening now and what’s coming up.

2. Side bar

The side bar is for quick bits of news so they’re not as in depth as the main topics you’ll write about.

It also gives you the opportunity to add regular pieces such as a book of the month, announcement of forthcoming events, tips, and offers.

3. Interviews and research

Conducting an interview or writing a research-based article can add real meat to your newsletter.

The interview would act like a magazine Q&A session. In it, you could get an expert’s insight into a particular hot topic that your readers are interested in.

The same can work for the research article. Find out what’s important to your readers and write about it. But make sure you include links to the external articles you used for your research so they can read around the subject if they want to.

4. The writing process

This is the part many people dread. But writing well rounded, interesting articles is easy.

Make sure you write in the second person (i.e. ‘you’) to instantly build rapport with your readers. As mentioned above, use hypertext links to direct your reader to more information. This will add value to them and show you really do understand your subject.

Another important feature within your newsletter is your call to action. It could be a link back to your website, an instruction to email for more information or a competition. If you want to make your newsletter marketing a two-way street, you must ask your reader to do something.

Of course, they can only get in touch if you include your contact details. Never hide away from your customers. As with your website copy, make sure your postal, email and phone details are easily available otherwise it looks as though you have something to hide.

The final part of the writing process involves leaving your newsletter alone. Put it to one side for a few days before reviewing the content to make sure it provides the messages you wanted.

5. Proofread

This is the final and most important part of the process.

The last thing you want to do is hit send only to find a glaring typo.

Putting the newsletter aside for a few days before reviewing it will help with the proofreading process. Ideally, you should get someone else to proof it for you. But, if that isn’t possible, giving yourself a few days grace before checking it through should help you spot any mistakes before you send it out.

Over to you

Done well, a regular newsletter can help build and cement relationships with your customers. By adding value and maintaining regular contact, your newsletter can encourage sales.

Do you send out a monthly newsletter?

Have you found it beneficial?

Do you have a process you follow each month like this one? Please leave a comment below and share your newsletter experiences with us.

Does your website work?

Do you get regular traffic?

Are you getting regular leads from your website?

When, at a networking event, I asked those three questions to a businessman and website owner, this was his response:

“I don’t have an ecommerce website, so that doesn’t apply to me. I have a website because everyone expects me to have one. It’s not as if businesses like mine sell through their website – that’s impossible.”

Unfortunately, thinking like that, he’s never likely to sell through his website. And if he isn’t getting any leads from it that would suggest his website is poorly built and poorly written.

An easy-to-use structure and well-written site will boost your conversion rate (assuming your SEO strategy is targeting the correct keywords). But there is another factor that is often ignored – the speed at which your website loads.

A slow loading website could lose you 7% of your potential conversions

According to a recent post on Bryan Eisenberg’s blog, a 1 second delay in your download speed could result in:

• 7% fewer conversions
• 11% fewer page views
• 16% decrease in customer satisfaction

There are several factors that can affect your load speed, for example image size, social media buttons or the size of your website.

The optimum download time is under two seconds (this will help improve your rankings significantly). So how do you get your site to load faster?

1. Check your speed

If you don’t monitor your speed, you won’t know how well you are performing. Use tools such as Google Analytics to help you with this. Bryan also suggests a couple of his favourite tools: The Web Page Speed Report, Yahoo’s YSlow plugin, Google’s Page Speed plug-in, Loads In and WebPagetest.

There are others available but this will get you started.

Remember for every button and image you add to your website, you’ll be increasing the time it takes for your website to load.

2. Coding

This one is for your web designer to look at for you. The coding of your site (HTML, CSS and JavaScript) can also have an effect on download speeds, so it’s best to chat to your designer about what can be done to tweak it.

3. Images

Images and graphics look great on websites. They can be used to illustrate your products or they can make your text more impactful. But the more you use, the higher your load time.

Condensing your images, using the right format for the right task and reducing the overall number will help.

Why you need to know this

If you have a website, you would have invested heavily in it. Therefore, why would you not expect to see a return on that investment?

A website isn’t an online brochure. It is a powerful sales tool. Available 24/7, it offers potential customers a means to get to understand your company and what you can do for them.

Every businesses website should sell. It should bring in leads – in essence, it should be your 24 hour sales team.

If you’re not getting leads from your site ask yourself why not? Review the structure, content, load time, keywords and analytics.

A business with a website that isn’t performing is like a High Street store that keeps its door locked all the time.

Review your website today and make sure it’s working for you.