Domain type

The domain type (e.g. .com, .com.au and .co.uk) is one factor to consider. For the average company doing business in one country, choose the domain type for your country. In Australia, choose .com.au; in England, .co.uk; in the United States, .com. If you think you might go international one day, the .com domain type is definitely a good choice as it’s considered the international domain type.

What if the domain name you want isn’t available in the domain type you want? There are numerous other choices such as .net, .biz and .org but I would advise to consider carefully before choosing these alternatives. Many people assume website addresses will end in .com (or .com.au or .co.uk, etc.)  so they may have trouble finding your web address or, worse still, if your competitor has the .com address and you choose the .net address you could be giving your competitor a helping hand.

Keep it simple

In my opinion, simple is definitely best when it comes to domain names. That is, shorter domain names are better than longer, easy to spell names are better than harder to spell ones and easier to remember domain names are better than names that test the memory.

Use your business name

Perhaps an obvious statement but it’s worth highlighting: Use your business name as your domain name. Of course you might want to reconsider this if your business name contains 40 characters but in general if you use your business name people will easily be able to remember your domain name.

Use a keyword

At the risk of getting a bit technical, if you can slip a keyword into your domain name this can be an excellent tactic for getting higher rankings in search engines. For example, if you sell red widgets and you know people will use the keyword phrase ‘red widgets’ to search for a business such as yours in Google or another search engine, having a domain name such as red-widgets.com makes good sense.

Undecided? Register more

The cost to register domain names is relatively inexpensive, so if you are unsure about your domain name register more than one. You may, for instance, want to get your domain name in a variety of different domain types (e.g. mycompany.com.au, mycompany.com and mycompany.co.nz). This is particularly good advice if you think your business may trade in other countries in the future.

Do it now!

Once you’ve come up with a few potential domain names, you need to find out if they are available and many domain name registrars have a facility that can tell you instantly (Google ‘domain name registrar’). Once you know your chosen domain name is available, register it straight away or otherwise you could risk someone else coming along and beating you to it.

Preference

Part of the reason why printed material isn’t irrelevant, or even close to it, is that people still generally like printed material and, in some cases, they prefer it over online material. This was certainly the case in the early part of the 21^st century, with studies showing people still preferred to read most information in printed format. However, with the advent of new technology, such as larger computer screens and devices such as the iPad, plus a greater acceptance of online reading, this is slowly changing.

Reading patterns

Another important aspect to look at when studying print vs pixel is the way people read. Website usability expert Jakob Nielsen is one who has studied this aspect. In fact, he’s found that 79% of web readers scan pages rather than read them; with printed material people are more thorough. People’s eyes even take in information on a website in a different pattern compared with printed material.

Demographics

Demographics is another factor worth looking at. Not surprisingly, young people are more likely to turn to the Internet compared with older people. In fact, studies have shown that the older you are the more likely you are to print emails to read them – so much for the paper-less office!

Medium

Another important element when weighing up whether to print or publish online, or a combination of both, is what medium you are producing. In general people prefer to read newspapers, books, magazines and newsletters (i.e. longer documents) in paper format, while personal messages and direct mail (i.e. shorter documents) are preferred online.

Similarly, people prefer to read higher detailed information in printed format, while communication that requires low involvement such as announcements and lighter news is preferred digitally.

So what does all this tell us?

Like any aspect of marketing, when you are considering whether to print or publish online, knowing your target customer is vital. If your target is a young audience and the material requires low involvement, online is your best choice. Older audience and higher involvement, lean towards print.

Of course the best choice may a combination of online and print. Again, technology can help if you’d prefer not to revert to printing material commercially. Including links to pdf files or printable documents on your website and in emails to customers is a clever solution. In this way, individuals can make up their own mind which method to use.

We’ve all heard of the 7 deadly sins so now it’s time to learn about the 7 friendly emotions. These are the 7 copywriting friends you can and should use to help you whenever you are developing written communications aimed at potential customers.

Fear

Fear is actually one of our most powerful motivators. While it’s generally better to focus on positives rather than negatives in business copywriting, if you think you can instil fear in your potential customers this can be a winning strategy. Insurance sellers have been using fear to sell their products for years!

Greed

Greed is another powerful motivator. Most of us want more: money, time, holidays, luxury items, technology devices, food… By appealing to people’s sense of greed you can increase your chances of making a sale.

Despair

If you’ve ever had an issue that’s driven you crazy you’ll probably know how despair can be a great motivator. Chances are you’ll notice every piece of communication that promises to solve your solution and if your despair is great enough you’ll pay to buy the solution. Diet programs and quit smoking products are good examples of industries that use despair to sell services and products.

Guilt

Pet owners and parents may be aware that they’re the targets of guilt-laden copywriting to make a sale. Key messages such as ‘Doesn’t your pet deserve the best?’ and ‘Are you giving your baby the best start in life?’ are classic examples of guilt in action.

Self-esteem

It may be a bit unfair to say that industries such as health and cosmetics prey on people with self-esteem issues, but they certainly do use this emotion to drive sales. Many weight-loss programs, beauty creams, therapies and other health products and services use self-esteem as a key ingredient of their campaigns.

Annoyance

If you’ve been slugged by bank fees and get annoyed by service calls which leave you on hold for ages, messages such as ‘Tired of banks charging you exorbitant fees?’ and ‘You’ll speak to a real person’ may very well hit the target. Annoyance is another power motivator of people and if you use it correctly in your business copywriting you can increase your sales.

Happiness

I could also lump emotions such as relief into this category. Some of the more successful marketing campaigns have focussed on the happiness, relief and liberation people will feel when customers use a product or service.

Why do these 7 emotional triggers work? It’s no real secret. By using them correctly you are being empathetic with your potential customers, focusing on benefits rather than features and engaging their emotions. If you do this people are more likely to listen to or read your communications and then possibly go on to become a customer.

The key is to know which emotional triggers are more likely to work with your customers. If you’re unsure, experiment by writing a few different versions of your copy and ask colleagues, friends or family which version is more likely to work for them. For inexpensive mediums such as email marketing, you can experiment by focussing on different emotions over a number of campaigns. Monitor your success with each campaign and compare the results to see if there is a noticeable difference. With a bit of luck and perseverance you may hit on a winning formula that makes a big improvement for your business.

If you’re like most people, you probably think that when you type in your chosen keywords that Google searches the Internet and provides its search results in less than a second. The fact is that while Google is good, even it can’t produce results this quickly. The search results that are provided to you are actually sourced from Google’s index of the Internet.

This video from Google explains the process very well and can help you improve your own website’s search engine optimisation.

If you’d like to learn more about how to improve your website’s search engine optimisation, see this article on 8 steps to improve your search engine rankings.

First of all, let’s clear up a common misconception. Blogging is much more than an on-line diary. As a business tool, blogging can be used to provide news, information-style articles and solutions to issues that are relevant to a given business. Notice that I haven’t mentioned that blogging is a tool to pitch sales? Generally, blogging needs to be used sparingly as a tool to promote your products and services as this can be an easy way of turning readers away.

So what are the benefits of blogging? Think of blogging as a way of developing the image that you and your businesses are experts in your chosen field. It’s a way of developing communication between you and your customers and building the trust that is so important today in business. Also, blogging is a great way of generating traffic to your website, keeping your business at the forefront of potential customers’ minds and improving your website’s search engine optimisation.

So how do you go about it?

For me, integration is the key. If you simply incorporate your blog into your current business website you’re unlikely to realise the full value of blogging. If you have a blog and integrate it with social media, content publishing websites and other mediums, that’s when you can start to see results.

To illustrate, let me explain the process I use. First of all, I’ll write an article, let’s say on the benefits of having a blog for your business, and place it on my website. I’ll then write short posts for my business’ Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts promoting the article and pointing to the full article on my website. And, in addition, I’ll place the full article on content publishing websites such as GoArticles and EzineArticles.

By doing this, I’m not only increasing the chances of my blog being read, I’m driving traffic to my website and picking up some valuable external links along the way, which can help my search engine optimisation efforts.

If you have the time, there are numerous other ways to build on your efforts. For example, press release distribution websites and forums are others mediums you may look at to increase the chances of your blogs being read and drive traffic to your website.

Of course, to make it work it does take effort. You need to be diligent enough to set aside time regularly, preferably every week or so, to write articles and then publish these articles on content websites and in social media. However, it can pay off. The benefits won’t be seen overnight, but if you stick with it you’re likely to see results over time.

Intriguing Title – Most people get a lot of emails every day, with the majority of them being spam which usually just goes unread or deleted without a second thought. This is the main reason you have to make sure your email title or subject is as catchy as can be, enough to draw the person to open the email and read it but not so quirky it will be flagged as spam and therefore never have the chance of being read!

Catching Introduction – The first paragraph should explain to the reader exactly what the email is about and therefore why they should continue reading it. You can try to make this introduction quite thought provoking or you can get straight to the point and tell the reader why they need to read on and what benefit doing so will give to them. You really have to make the reader want to know more.

Clear Message – Confusing emails do not work. They will just annoy the reader and you will totally lose the chance of selling your product or service within a few minutes of the email being opened. Make sure your email doesn’t try to do much or sell too many things and make sure that when the reader has opened the email they get the immediate understanding of what you are trying to say quickly and efficiently.

Concise Content – Keep it brief, keep it short and above all keep it nice and simple. Don’t try and pack your email full of loads of text that just goes on forever. The best email campaigns are the ones that contain little information but still manage to deliver the original point of the email quickly to the reader and the audience.

Few Images – Do try to keep the amount of images to a minimum, as the more images your email has, the longer it takes to load for the person reading the email and it also stands more chance of being flagged as potentially unsafe as some emails user pictures to serve viruses etc

Compressed Graphics – If you are going to have images on your email campaign, make sure they are compressed and not too large, as the person reading your email will be pretty unhappy if it takes ages to load and wastes their time. Serve the images from a server rather than embedding them in the email and make sure they are as optimised and compressed as they can be whilst still looking sharp and quality.

Call To Action – Many email campaigns make one fatal mistake and this mistake is not giving the user the ability to take things further without having to hunt for the correct contact details. Make sure you include all of your contact information and make sure you display it in quite an obvious way and place, because if you are wanting the reader to pick up the phone and place an order and you cant find the phone number on the email, you have lost the sale as people will simply just not wait or hunt around for information.

About the Author

Ian Spencer works for Clear Web Services, a SEO Web Optimisation and Web Design company serving the Forest Of Dean, Gloucestershire and South Wales. He has worked in the SEO and Internet Marketing world for many years, and working in partnership with another company has launched the new SEO business.http://clearwebservices.com/

Search engine optimization can be a daunting prospect for many people, however, like many processes it can be less intimidating if you break down the steps into smaller parts. Enter my 8 main steps to improve search engine rankings.

These steps won’t necessary get you number one results on Google. Getting number one and top ten rankings, particularly on Google, can be an extremely difficult task and some factors – such as the age or longevity of your website – aren’t necessarily in your control while others – such as how many external links you have – can take time to implement. However, the 8 steps listed here will almost certainly enhance your rankings in all search engines and you may find you will be able to achieve top ten rankings in search engines such as Yahoo and Bing.

SEO STEP 1: Keywords

One of the things to remember with SEO is the reason why search engines exist in the first place – that is, to provide suitable results for people who are searching for particular subjects. The search engine’s job is to provide the best results possible from the keywords that people type in.

That’s why you will hear about the importance of keywords – or more correctly keyword phrases – over and over. Keywords are the building blocks of a good SEO plan. Get the keywords wrong and it doesn’t matter how good your search engine optimisation is, your efforts will fail. Get them right and you could be on the road to success.

The key is to determine keywords and keyword phrases that:

• Aren’t so competitive that you won’t get high rankings unless you are willing to put in lots of time and effort (and possibly costs)
• Aren’t so specific that people rarely search for the terms
• Are directly related to your business. That is, if people type in the keywords, see your website in the search results and click through to your website, they will generally want to stay because they’re interested in your site and its contents. There’s no point in getting traffic for a particular keyword phrase that is not directly related to your business because people will leave your site in a matter of seconds.

SEO STEP 2: Title tag

The title tag is the text people will see in the browser tab (for example, ‘Marketing communications for small business – Melbourne’ on En Pointe’s home page). This title is perhaps the most important on-site seo factor and it must be used correctly if you want to improve your seo. In particular, it must include your most important keyword phrases.

SEO STEP 3: Description meta tag

The description meta tag is another important seo factor, although its importance depends on the search engine. In some search engines, this tag is used to describe the pages that are listed in search results. Again, the description meta tag must include your most important keywords.

SEO STEP 4: Alt tags

Images do nothing to improve your seo but if you use an alt tag with each image it can help your search engine rankings.

SEO STEP 5: Permalinks

Permalinks are the addresses you see at the top of your browser (e.g. http://www.enpointeconsulting.com.au/seo-website-analysis). Ideally, these should include keywords.

SEO STEP 6: Sitemap

The inclusion of an XML sitemap will help search engines find all your pages, not just your home page and your top level pages. Many website owners will need help to add a sitemap to their website, but it is worth the effort.

SEO STEP 7: Content

Content is absolutely vital to improve your seo. In particular, your headings, paragraph text, bullet points and links should all include keywords where possible.

SEO STEP 8: External links

Getting links from other websites is perhaps the most important aspect of any SEO campaign. In fact, if you have no links pointing to your website from other websites, your site may never be found in search engine results.

Reliability and uptime

Choosing a web host that will satisfy your needs is vital for your business, because these days your business website is probably your most important marketing communications tool. If your web host is unreliable your website may be down regularly, which could lose you customers. Reliability is also important for email, because your web host is also is your conduit for email. So check the claimed reliability of web hosts – anything less than 99.9% is not good enough.

Price

Cost is an obvious factor but for businesses it shouldn’t be the major issue in your decision making. For example, while it is possible to acquire extremely cheap and also free web hosting, it’s important to remember that you do often get what you pay (or don’t pay!) for. It’s not reasonable to expect a service that costs next to nothing to be reliable and provide a first-rate support service. On the other-hand, most small businesses don’t need to spend anywhere near $100 a month to get a web host that will meet their needs.

Support

Service, or lack of it, is something most of us love to complain about and if you’re in business, good service is even more important. After all, who has time to wait for an email from a web host to fix an urgent issue or stay on hold on the phone for an hour?

When looking for a new web host, look for companies that provide the support you need. If you’re reasonably savvy when it comes to web hosting, you might not need phone support but you will be looking for management facilities that allow you to control your hosting service; if you’re not technically savvy, a service that offers a phone help desk is definitely worthwhile.

It’s also important to check the knowledge and helpfulness of support staff. Again, your needs will dictate what you are looking for. If you know little about web hosting, support staff that recognise this and will guide you through the necessary details without throwing endless jargon at you is vital; if you know a reasonable amount about web hosting you want support staff who know even more than you do – after all, that is their job.

A good piece of advice is to test the support systems before committing to a web host. Send a support email and phone the support desk. Do it twice or three times. If your needs aren’t met quickly enough then look elsewhere.

Speed

How quickly your website pages load is more vital now than ever because people are too impatient to wait for a web page to appear. While your website’s design can play a major role in page load times so too can your web host. Before deciding on a web host, ask to view some of their currently hosted websites and check to make sure page load times are reasonable.

Meeting your needs

There are other factors to look at when choosing a web host, including security and virus protection, plus there may be other factors specific to your needs. For example, if you’re anticipating your business and website will grow, make sure your chosen web host has the plans to grow with you. Factors such as online payment systems and other applications may be important for you – check that whatever applications you need are available before you commit to a web host.

It’s also worth noting that many small businesses organise their web hosting through their web designer, who generally is simply on-selling via a commercial web hosting service. This is fine, but make sure you do your research to ensure the web host he or she is choosing on your behalf will meet your needs. Plus, ask how much the mark-up is and what you get for this extra payment. Paying $100 a year extra can be money well spent if you can simply phone your web designer to sort out any web hosting issue, but paying $100 a month extra (and I have seen this more than once) rarely is good value. It’s also a good idea to make sure you have full control over your web hosting by knowing your account details, just in case your have a falling out with your web designer.

Just type in ‘free photos’ in Google. Make sure you download images of the quality you require (photos for websites can be low quality but photos for print need to be higher) and always look at the terms to ensure you don’t infringe on copyright. Some stock photos are only for specific purposes or require you to credit the photographer or website.

If you’re in a hurry and don’t have the time to search for a good photo website, try PhotoXpress. You can sign up for a free account on PhotoXpress and download photos straight away, plus the terms and conditions aren’t onerous.

Check out some of the free photo sites and improve your marketing communications today!

So how do you enhance your copywriting to improve the way you sell your business? How can you make the content for your next email, article or post more interesting and engaging?

Below are my 5 most important steps to better copywriting. It’s certainly not a complete list, but it will set you on the road to writing better content and hopefully winning more business.

1. Headings and subject lines must be catchy and encourage the reader to take the time to read the rest of the content. Above all, headings and subjects must never be dull. Imagine you receive an email from your accountant and the subject is ‘April Newsletter’. Chances are you’re going to delete it straight away. Compare this to a subject such as ‘Reduce your taxation in 3 easy steps’ or ‘Finance tips – plan to retire in comfort’.
2. Once you’ve attracted people to your email, article or other copywriting piece, don’t lose them. Make sure your introductory paragraph is appealing. Like the heading and subject line, the introductory paragraph is a key to engaging people. To further increase engagement, highlight benefits more than features. Rather than focussing on how your staff has completed a customer service course, tell customers how friendly and helpful your staff are; highlight the comfort and durability of a new sofa more than whether the leather has come from grain-fed cattle who listen to Beethoven! This doesn’t mean features aren’t important as some customers will want to know about them, but always remember to focus more on benefits.
3. Never forget to include your call to action. What exactly your call to action is will depend largely on your business and the content of your copywriting. It may simply be asking people to contact you for more information or completing a form to receive your newsletter.
4. Use conversational language. How do you know if what you’ve written is conversational? Simple – read it out. In fact, reading out what you have written is a great way of checking your copywriting before hitting the send button or posting your new article to the website, as you’ll often pick up errors you’ll miss by reading alone.
5. Have someone else read your copywriting. A friend, a colleague or someone you trust for their brutal honesty is the best bet. It helps if they can spell! In addition, particularly for your important copywriting pieces, such as content for web pages and brochures, consider hiring a copywriter. Copywriting is a professional skill and at the very least it can pay to have a specialist revise your content after you’ve written it.

As I mentioned earlier, this is not a complete list. But by following these five steps your content will almost certainly improve. Who knows, one day you might decide to give away your current profession to become a copywriter!