imbibe live 2011 your website needs you!

Your website needs you! Tips to ensure that your website adds value to your business

Tuesday, 5 July 2011

Introductions

Who is Obergine?

Full service digital marketing agency.

We create online and mobile solutions that add value to our clients and their customers.

Clients include:

Concha y Toro

Cono Sur Vineyards & Winery

Oxford University Press

University of Reading

http://www.conosurgreencooks.com/

http://www.thefinewinecollection.com/

About the presenter

Jeremy Anderson

Digital director

Jeremy is a founding partner of Obergine and is responsible for client services and digital strategy.

With over 15 years as a digital marketing professional, Jeremy has expertise in:

Web design

Content management & e-commerce

Mobile sites & apps

Digital & social media marketing

Web & data analytics

Planning a successful website

Target audience insight

Who is your target audience?

What are their goals?

What motivates them?

Are they skilled internet users?

What do they want to achieve by visiting the site?

What information do they need from the site?

Create personas in order to profile them…

Personas describes the goals, skills, attitudes, motivations and environment of a specific user group.

Examples include “fine wine lovers”, “weekend party animals” and “discount vultures”

Solid strategy

Convert Reach

Retain

Reach

Make it easy for your target audience to find your business and engage with you online

Convert

When people visit your website – recognise that they are looking for an answer to a need and the website must facilitate this quickly and easily

Retain

Empathise with your customers and respond to their needs to ensure that long term satisfying relationships are formed

What are the tactical areas do you need to consider?

Comprehensive tactics

Reach Convert Retain

Search engine optimisation (SEO)

Branding Branding

Content Content Content

Usability Usability

Social media optimisation (SMO)



Goals Goals

Goals



Branding Branding


Usability Usability




Goals Goals

Goal tactics

Your website needs to achieve business goals such as bookings, sales and data

collection

Goal fundamentals Goal tactics

People want information quickly

No visible contact details

No visible opening hours

No visible location information

No call-to-actions for goals

Only link gets lost at the bottom

No web analytics

Performance against core strategies


N/A O O

Goal tactics

http://www.rebatos.com/

Build an email marketing database



N/A

Incentivised email sign-up form

Capture gender and DOB

Too many mandatory fields

No privacy policy

Contact info & opening times

Third party reviews

Goal tactics

http://www.tnyrbt.com/knowmore.php

Content tactics



Branding Branding


Usability Usability




Goals Goals

Content tactics

The best content is relevant, clear and

useful and available in different media formats

Content fundamentals Content tactics

Keep content current

Menu available as PDF

Menu not available as HTML

Content is out-of-date

Event content not promoted

Photography is good &relevant

Informative & friendly content



Content tactics

http://www.theclogandbillycock.com/main-menu.htm

http://www.theclogandbillycock.com/christmas-at-the-clog.htm

Show off your venue and products

Stunning photography

Photos lack content relevancy

Menus can not be printed

Excellent use of video

Content is fresh and useful

Reviews prominent



P P

Content tactics

http://www.pearl-restaurant.com/food/dinner-1

http://www.pearl-restaurant.com/pages/special-events

Usability tactics



Branding Branding


Usability Usability




Goals Goals

Usability tactics

Make it easy for visitors navigate the

website, locate the information they need

and perform the tasks required

Usability fundamentals Usability tactics

Manage user expectations

Clear navigation interaction

Breadcrumbs trail

Verbose link hover text

Clear call-to-actions

Clear error prevention

Embedded Google map



N/A P

Usability tactics

http://www.cyt-uk.com/community-and-environment/environment

http://www.cyt-uk.com/contact

Make it easy for your users

Navigation interaction not clear

No breadcrumbs trail

Call-to-actions ambiguous

Error prevention not clear

No link hover text



N/A O O

Usability tactics

http://www.tnq.co.uk/food_lunch.html

http://www.tnq.co.uk/contact.cfm

Branding tactics



Branding Branding


Usability Usability




Goals Goals

Branding tactics

Your website needs a recognisable design

with the content to invoke an emotional

response that reinforces the brand identity

Branding fundamentals Branding

tactics

Customers as brand fans

Consistent and deep branding

Happy people photography

Friendly and fun tone of voice

Social media branding aligned

Communication consistency

Tab/bookmark favicon present



N/A P

Branding tactics

http://www.geronimo-inns.co.uk/

http://twitter.com/

Branding needs consistency

Limited branding on site

Venue photography is tiny

Food photography is absent

Brand / message mismatch

Twitter branding inconsistent



N/A O O

Branding tactics

http://twitter.com/

SEO tactics



Branding Branding


Usability Usability




Goals Goals

SEO tactics

Build your site for easy indexing

Keep your content fresh and relevant

Maximise diversity and volume of quality backlinks

SEO fundamentals SEO tactics

Why is SEO important?

Over 85% of prospective customers use the internet to find what they are looking for

Seven out of ten users click a search result within the first page of results

Only 8% of users venture beyond the third page of search results

SEO tactics

A good ranking on a major search engine can make the difference between commercial success and failure

1. Search engine results are ads

SEO top tips SEO tactics

2. Be consistent and relevant

3. Localise your content

4. Link text must work out-of-context

5. Keep your content fresh

6. Quality backlink diversity

7. Outbound links matter

8. Be social

9. Get listed locally

10. Make sure your site is fast

Social media optimisation tactics



Branding Branding


Usability Usability




Goals Goals

SMO tactics

Be active in social media, push and pull content to/from social media channels and

encourage user generated content

Social media fundamentals SMO tactics

Be active, friendly and genuine

Social media promoted on site

Branded Facebook & Twitter

To enter on FB – need to “like”

Twitter & Facebook integrated

Fun, relaxed & regular dialogue

Can not share content from site



SMO tactics

http://www.facebook.com/GiantRobotLondon

Takeaways

Goal tactics

Review your website goals and ask yourself if there are missed opportunities for the website to help your business

Display contact information prominently on all website pages

Ensure that opening times and address details with Google map links are present on all pages

Measure website performance and user interactions – Google Analytics is highly effective and a great free tool

Capture email addresses for email marketing at every data capture touchpoint

Include a privacy policy on website that explains clearly what data is captured by the website, who it is used and how the user can be removed from any marketing database

Make call-to-actions for purchases, bookings and contact requests clearly visible across the website

Content tactics

Use photography and video to promote your venues and products

Align page content with photography used

Ensure that content can be printed, downloaded as a PDF and also available online

Include third party reviews and customer testimonials

Promote new and updated content and remove old content as soon as it lacks relevancy

Spell check and proof read your content before publication

Create content for your target audiences eg., “conferences”, “Christmas parties” and “families”

Cross-sell content across the site

Usability tactics

Navigation controls should use different colours and styles indicate when selected or activated

For sites that include sub-pages, always have a breadcrumbs trail

All call-to-actions (secondary, primary and tertiary) should use clear language and styling

Utilise link descriptions to provide tool tips that aid the user journey and set user expectations

On data capture forms, ensure that mandatory fields are clearly indicated and that any field that fails error validation is highlighted

When linking to external sites and/or PDF files ensure that they launch in a new browser window

Use imagery (eg., embedded maps on contact pages) to help provide context and clarity to content

On large sites provide a site wide free text search

Branding tactics

Implement your brand so that it reflects the credibility and reputation of your business

Your website design should consider fonts, styles and colour palletes holistically and should not be limited to the logo

Your social media channel branding needs to reflect your website design and branding

Brand both your 404 “missing page” and browser tab/bookmark favicons

Use the same tone of voice for your website copy as you do for social media channel communications

Use photography that shows off your venue, food and drinks in situ ie., with real customers

Be grateful and reward your customers for their custom with offers and initiatives that encourage repeat visits

Search engine optimisation tactics

Google listings are ads - all your pages need unique page titles and descriptions with the page description expanding upon and substantiating the page title

Relevancy - our page title and primary page header need to be tightly aligned and use the same keywords

Link text - ensure that all your internal links are verbose and make sense out of-context

Quality backlink diversity - get your restaurant, bar and hotel reviewed on a range of blogs and review sites with backlinks to your site

Outbound links - be generous with your links and link out to other sites within your content

Content freshness - create content on a regular basis that people will find useful, discuss and link to

Social signals - engage with people on social media channels and publish links to your content there

Get local – register with Google Places, Bing for Business and Yahoo Local and include local keywords in your content

Speed matters – make sure your site loads quickly

Social media optimisation tactics (1 of 2)

Start with Twitter then Facebook – you don’t have to do everything at once

Brand your social media channels

Use social media to engage with those influential in your industry eg., hospitality industry bloggers

Be active! Engage with people every day

Integrate Twitter feeds on to your website

Provide content sharing facilities on your website to allow people to share content via email and social media

If you have a blog – allow this to be syndicated via RSS and encourage people to comment upon your posts

Social media optimisation tactics (2 of 2)

Be generous - give back to those who interact and share your content

Create Facebook pages and not groups

You're human - communicate like one and do not hide behind a brand name

Include shortened links (ie., http://bit.ly) whenever you can in your posts on Facebook and Twitter

Link your Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn social media channels - one tweet can then get published in 3 places if you have integrated a Twitter feed on your website!

Claim your vanity URL (ie., web address) such as www.facebook.com/obergine by getting 25 followers ASAP – ask your friends, families, colleagues and staff!

http://bit.ly/

http://www.ofacebook.com/obergine

Any questions?

Thank you

If you wish to discuss your digital or print marketing activities with Obergine, please contact us using the details below.

Jeremy Anderson Obergine

Mob: +44 (0)7718 781189 The Jam Factory

Tel: +44 (0)1865 245777 27 Park End Street

Email: [email protected] Oxford OX1 1HU

Web: http://www.obergine.com United Kingdom

Twitter: http://twitter.com/obergine

Facebook: http://facebook.com/obergine.agency

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.obergine.com/

http://www.twitter.com/obergine

http://facebook.com/obergine.agency

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