Traffic
How can you tell if your site is doing well if you can’t see how many people are visiting it? When people ask us to look at their site for improvements the first question we ask is how much traffic is it getting? I am always surprised when people reply with ‘I don’t know’.  Not knowing how many visitors you get is like organising a BBQ when you don’t know how many guests are coming. How do you prepare for it to make sure guests are satisfied and how much time do you put towards it without knowing if your efforts will be re-rewarded? In the world of print advertising if you could find out how many people exactly will see your advert and then on top of that how many people took action on your print ad wouldn’t you snap that up straight away? Well this is what Google analytics does. Google analytics tells you exactly how many times your website has been viewed and how many of those viewings were unique. Google analytics produces a monthly line graph so you can see your traffic slowly increase and track the popularity of your site or blog.

Traffic Sources
Knowing how much traffic you are getting is great but it’s also very beneficial to know where that traffic is coming from.  Google can break down into a easy to view pie chart where which percentage of your traffic is coming from, for example 75% are coming from Google while 10% are coming from Facebook. Knowing where your visitors are coming from means that you can then focus on improving on different areas. Maybe Twitter is providing more website views than Facebook or Google more than Yahoo.

Keywords
In the search engines it is extremely important to know what keywords you are being found for. Google analytics tells you exactly what keywords a visitor typed in to Google to then find your site and how many have done this for each keyword. This is vital for improving the SEO of your site. By realising what keywords you are being found for means you can then look to improve your websites position for these phrases by working on their SEO. For more information regarding SEO please click here.

Goals / Conversion
Google analytics helps you set up ‘Goals’. These ‘Goals’ can be anything from lead generation, gathering email addresses or even downloading application forms. By setting these up, Google is able to tell you exactly how many people have done what you want them to do. This is a great aspect of the analytical tool as it shows you what tangible results your website or blog is providing you with.  This will be able to help you decide whether to dedicate more time and recourses into a site or not.

Popular pages
If you have a large site or even a site with lots of different subject areas, than this can be a great tool to be able to use. Not only does Google analytics tell you how many overall visitors your site gets, it shows you exactly which pages they visited within the site. This can help you see how many people read about a particular product or even how many people viewed your ‘contact us’ page to get in contact with you. This can be great in seeing which areas are the most popular and how you can get other areas up to the same standard.

This has been a beginners whistle stop tour to Google analytics. There are still so many more areas that I haven’t even touched on in the article. If you have any questions regarding how to use Google analytics or even how to set an account up then please feel free to get in contact with us.

If you are in the field of digital marketing, you will at
some stage have considered, or at least thought about using Facebook as a
potential marketing channel. Everybody is jumping on the so-called ‘social
media bandwagon’ these days; yet despite the negative connotations this phrase
carries, there are a multitude of benefits in jumping upon said bandwagon.

There are countless case studies online where enterprising
agencies and businesses have leveraged the social and memetic power inherent in
social media to either generate vast sales figures or turn their business
around. So I shall not mention them all here. What I will do however, is introduce
to you the notion of using Facebook applications to generate leads for your
business. Why do I have the right to tell you it’s a brilliant medium? Because
we have used it and have done exceedingly well in doing so.

The example I put to you is that of our client Inspire
Abroad, a growing volunteering opportunity provider with a fantastic
proposition. They find good causes and projects across the globe that need
people like you and me to get involved and make a difference. Such a
volunteering opportunity would usually be undertaken by students either between
college and university; graduates looking for adventure before beginning a
career or those who fancy a career break and wish to discover more of the world
and travel.

The first challenge here is finding the target market. Some
time ago you may have thought that Facebook was just for younger types,
stereotypically students. Now, although this was true, the balance has shifted
and now the average age of the typical Facebook user is actually much higher. Popular
statistics from Pingdom state that at least 45% of US Facebook users are
between 35 and 54. If for the sake of argument, we were to extrapolate that
across global Facebook usage, it shows that some of our older target audience
is indeed familiar with and actively uses Facebook. Having been a student
myself I can safely say that the majority of students of all years at
universities up and down the country use Facebook. This makes Facebook a great
place for Inspire Abroad to present themselves to their target audience.

Now it’s all very well setting up a business page on
Facebook and posting on the walls of your doting following, but sometimes you
have to go a step further and really drive the interaction.

Those of you who are familiar with Facebook will be aware of
the myriad of applications available to users and you may even know of the
Facebook developer’s platform. We used this platform to produce a custom
application for Inspire abroad to add to their company profile page. The aim
here was to get users to interact with the application to submit their details
and express their interest in the Inspire Abroad volunteering opportunity. In
exchange for these details, these users are then rewarded with a volunteering
guide in the form of a PDF to better inform their volunteering opportunity
search. You can see the value here already. With each exchange of details via
the application, Inspire Abroad are gaining business leads; Facebook users who
are either actively researching volunteering opportunities or interested
parties who want to stay ‘in the know’ as they intend to travel at a later
date. These details can then be stored for mail-outs and e-mail campaigns, only
in this case… They will already have a very, very warm list to interact with.

Now I wouldn’t be much of a marketer if I just left it at
that. If you create something brilliant and have a wonderful market
proposition, you need to make it known.

So, to support the Facebook profile page and information
gathering application we implemented a Facebook Ad campaign. By researching our
key markets and their interests we were able to create an ad campaign that only
appeared to our desired audience. Once clicked these ads would then direct the
user to the application to begin the process. In utilising these ads within
Facebook, we refrain from interrupting the user experience, making the
transition as smooth as possible. Ads like these have a reach in the hundreds
of thousands and once these users engage with the brand at the application
level, they are then more inclined to explore the Inspire Abroad website and
the Twitter presence as well, as they have warmed to the brand. We know this
because we were able to track their exploration via Google Analytics.

The outcome? A great deal of qualified leads that can be
nurtured and communicated with at will. Can you say that you have achieved the
same? Few can, which is why we pride ourselves on taking innovative steps like
these to leverage technologies that would usually intimidate others.

If you would like to know more about developing a Facebook
application or would like to know how social media can benefit you, either
explore the rest of our blog or contact us.

The Foundation’s charity volunteer work targets education, child welfare, livelihoods and other selected areas as a means to address a range of development issues. Charity fundraising is a central component of the Foundation’s work and allows it to invest in marginalised individuals and communities as it works towards:

• Improving education
• Relieving poverty
• Helping create sustainable and secure livelihoods
• Improving the transfer of vocational and entrepreneurial skills
• Addressing issues related to health and HIV/AIDS
• Promoting child welfare
• Empowering people living with disabilities
• Enabling voluntary participation and cultural exchange

Generate UK are proud to be associated with this project and look forward to promoting the website using different online marketing activities. If you would like to learn more about this project or to find out how you can help, please do not hesitate to contact us.

The Business Growth Show, as you may have guessed is a show for businesses to exhibit those products or services that would help an SME to grow. There were numerous exhibitors present offering everything from customised chocolate bars (to replace standard business cards) through to business style consultants which made for an interesting and varied day.

Both Joe and I arrived at 7:30am to set up and had to tactically negotiate the Forbury Gardens forecourt whilst manhandling an incredibly heavy presentation table and Matt’s 26” computer screen which I can assure you was no easy task.

Once we had successfully navigated our way around the revolving doors, we went through to the main room to set up. Our kit list comprised our attention grabbing Generate UK pop-up banner, the ever so heavy presentation table, Joe’s laptop, Matt’s unreasonably large computer screen and a couple of boxes of chocolate to attract business people of all kinds.

Having arrived early, we were able to set up with little interruption and took the time before 9am to meet and greet other exhibitors close by. Directly in front of us was visualize, a video production company specialising in web videos for business i.e. product demonstrations, introductions etc. To our right was a selection of stands, particularly one giving away books on free PR techniques (which I signed up for in a well-suited flash) and to our immediate left was a large table playing home to the free refreshments, which was ideal as it meant that everyone who took advantage of the free refreshments throughout the day was instantly exposed to our colourful presence.

Having pinched many sweets and taken a few business cards from others nearby, we began to engage with the first trickle of people to arrive as the doors opened at 9am. Some were there just so they could get away from work, others were there to make a sale without paying the exhibitors fees and there were a fair few who were genuinely interested in researching methods of SME growth. This mix was to be expected, but as the day wore on more and more people arrived and it got to a stage where no one could bare to wear their suit jackets any longer as the air conditioning failed to make its presence felt.  So if you are thinking of hosting an event, ensure you can keep your crowd cool, even if the number of attendees exceeds your expectations! It’s good for business.

As the room became busier, I disappeared for 30 minutes to attend my first ever speed networking event. It was an interesting experience; looking back I’m quite sure I have never had so many one-on-one conversations with so many people in such little time! The room contained some 20 chairs facing one another with one set off to the side at one end. The idea was for everyone to sit down and once the stop watch was set, for the people on the left of the room to begin talking about their business for precisely one minute. Once this was done, their conversational partner was then supposed to reciprocate all the same information on their own business for a further minute, during which time some business cards would likely have changed hands. I unfortunately made the mistake of sitting in the chair set off to the side at the very beginning. This is the chair you sit in to give your vocal chords a rest for two minutes which everyone eventually ends up in. So I used up my ‘get out of jail free card’ right at the very beginning. On the plus side however, it did give me the chance to observe everyone else in the act so I knew what to do when my turn came. I spoke to a multitude of people by the end and even engaged with one chap on the subject of improving his website so all in all, it was a beneficial experience. Although I would argue that just one minute gives out just about enough time to say your name, company, 5 words about what you do and maybe allowing you to mention a client or two. You need much more time to converse on a meaningful level.

After the event I went back to the stand to supervise the free chocolates and talk ‘shop’ with anyone that looked at our banner or Matt’s huge screen. I met many interested parties and really enjoyed speaking to them. I discovered that digital marketing is becoming much more popular which is why so many people were drawn to our stand. Many copyrighters quizzed me about the benefits of social media and article submissions and I had at least three web developers and graphic designers approach me to discuss the possibility of a partnership where our technical expertise would plug the gaps in their services.

All in all the event demonstrated just how important networking is. Even if you don’t immediately make sales off the back of the day, you can still build profitable partnerships with other people in the industry. Joe and I still managed to arrange future contact with some of the attending business people so the event in essence will pay for itself. Besides the sales element however, there is a great opportunity to learn and discover new and prevailing trends in the industry whether it be an up-and-coming technology or a new take on an almost forgotten product.

Overall it was a great day and it gave me the chance to exercise my knowledge and deep bass vocal tones with people from all industries and levels of business. In one case I actually accessed the company website of one interested individual and pointed out a number of problems with their page that we could fix in no time at all to generate additional traffic. To top it off, I was also told by a style consultant that I was ‘incredibly well dressed’ for a man of my complexion, which made me feel rather smug for most of the afternoon whilst Joe was told that his complexion made up only 2% of the UK populous and that the colour that suits him best is ‘coral’, much to his surprise. Although I doubt he’ll be rushing out to buy a ‘coral’ shirt or tie anytime soon.

So if you have something new and of value to the SME sector and you have a bit of budget to spend, I would recommend this particular show. Just be sure to dress in something breathable next time just in case they don’t improve the air-conditioning.

As many marketers know, word of mouth is a powerful form of marketing. Personal recommendation has been shown to be the most influential medium because we trust our closest friends and acquaintances. This trust means that we are powerfully influenced by their recommendations or advice. Word of mouth also encourages the spread of you brand, product or service like a virus, one person tells his friends who then passes on the recommendation to their social circle and so on. So if so many marketers except the power that Word of Mouth has, why are they still reluctant to embrace Social Media?

Social Media has been seen to be a more powerful version of word of mouth. Platforms such as Twitter and Facebook allow users to share their experiences of brands and services quickly and easily. The fact that Social Media has recently gone mobile has made this sharing more instant; people can share information as they are having either a positive or negative experience. The other benefit of sharing experiences via Social Media is the size of the Social networks consumers have online. The average size of a users network on Facebook is around 200. The size of this network is far greater then someone spreading experiences via traditional word of mouth.

Many people think that platforms like Twitter and Social Media are full of hot air and pointless information with people talking about the weather and what not. However consider the fact that every one in five tweets mentions a brand, product or service. People are using social media as way of discussing, promoting and recommending their favourite brands and products.

So if you pride yourself on the fact that Word of Mouth is your number one form of marketing, maybe this article will help you re-think about using Social Media. Social Media is an online form of communication which incorporates all the aspects of Word of Mouth and amplifies it. Even if you don’t have any Social Media accounts it doesn’t mean that people aren’t already talking about you online.

If you need any help or advice on starting a Social Media campaign or enhancing your existing Social Media please feel free to get in contact. Generate UK help create and manage a range of different clients Social campaigns as well as also offering training to help your employees effectively use Social Media.

Your design decisions will depend on the type of site you’re publishing. Personal sites, entertainment sites, and corporate e-commerce sites all have different priorities and abide by different guidelines, both in terms of content and how that content is presented. And, as you might have already guessed, it depends a lot on your audience, their reason for visiting your site, etc. Good and bad design decisions are always relative. There are no “nevers”— there’s always a site out there for which a web design “don’t” makes perfect sense and is really the best solution.

The following dos and don’ts apply to the formatting and structure of the whole page

DO…

Keep all file sizes as small as possible for quick downloads. - Quick downloads are crucial for a successful user experience. If your pages take forever to download, your visitors may grow impatient and go surf elsewhere. At the very least, they’ll get cranky. Google have also recently announced that websites with a faster download time are more likely to get ranked higher than those which are slow, click here for more information.

DO…

Design for a screen size of 800 X 600 pixels unless you are certain that your audience will be viewing your pages with a different configuration. - When you design larger page sizes, you risk parts not being visible for users with older, smaller monitors.

DO…

Put your most important messages (who you are, what you do, etc in the first screenful (the top 350 pixels of the page). - Most users make judgements about a site based on that first impression, without taking the time to scroll down for more information.

DO…

Limit the length of your pages to two or three “screenfuls.” - Longer pages that require a lot of scrolling are unmanageable for online reading and make it more difficult for readers to find their place. For some reason, users do not like to scroll; they’d rather keep moving forward. It is better to break long flows of text into a few separate pages and link them together.

DON’T…

Design specifically for one browser or platform, unless you are 100% certain your audience will be viewing your pages under that configuration. - You never want to alienate your visitors. Nothing is more off-putting than arriving at a site only to find a sign that says, “You must have X browser running on X platform with X, Y, Z plug-ins to use this site.” The only thing worse is to find that nothing works.

DON’T…

Use too many animations, especially on pages with content you want people to read. - While animations are effective in drawing attention, users find them annoying and distracting when they are trying to read the text on the page. Even one looping animation can be an annoyance to some people. A whole page of spinning and flashing is a disaster.

If you would like more information on website design or would like us to take a look at your current design then why not get in touch. We love to talk with businesses and discuss what they currently have digitally as well as looking at what options are available for them to move forward.

Complete Childcare then decided that they needed to engage parents further and determined that the best way to do so was to launch a new website to update parents on what happens within the nursery as well as providing details on forthcoming events.

The challenge was to produce a new website to unite all 10 of the Complete Childcare nurseries. It had to be not only informative, but also easy to use by the public as well as being easy to maintain by non-technical nursery staff at each nursery. Further to this, a degree of interactivity with parents was required and a new design had to be created to incorporate the Complete Childcare branding and to convey the correct message.

To meet these requirements, a suitable technology platform needed to be established and the Generate CMS was the perfect solution to meet these needs. The Generate CMS provides powerful, user-friendly tools that allow users to take complete control of their website without the need for advanced technical skills. This means that should there be any news or new events, everyone is capable of adding these to the site to keep parents informed. Not only this, but the Generate CMS platform also allows users to create intuitive page and site structures that can be easily managed; this results in a much better user experience as site visitors are able to find the information they require quickly and easily, further improving parental engagement. In having this flexibility built-in from the beginning, Complete Childcare are now able to quickly adapt to market changes and can deliver news and feedback to parents in real-time.

In-keeping with the Complete Childcare branding, a new website design was then built into the Generate CMS to create an easy to use and professional looking web presence. The design was used to emphasise Complete Childcare’s focus on providing first-class childcare as well as raising awareness of the extra services that they provide from learning French, through to their ‘Great little movers’  specialist activity days.

In order to develop a greater level of interactivity, a twitter presence was also created so that news updates and daily events could be ‘followed’ by parents and other users as well as giving these ‘followers’ the opportunity to voice their own opinions and leave comments or feedback. The website was then adapted so that when any news is posted on Twitter, it is automatically updated via the Generate CMS onto the Complete Childcare website so that parents who do not use Twitter can still remain up-to-date on all the latest developments.

What Complete Childcare had to say; Alec Hodson, Managing Director stated “I’d like your team to know that I believe you’ve been flexible, diligent and customer focused. Well done, I believe we now have one of the most visually and functionally effective sites in our sector. I would certainly recommend Generate UK to any person or business looking to design, enhance or build a new website.”

Please click here to visit the Complete Childcare website
If you would like to discuss how a content managed website could help your business, please do not hesitate to contact us on 01635 550431. If you’re already selling products via the Internet, why not let Generate UK provide a free of charge Website Health Check.

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June 30th saw us present yet another of our locally renowned seminars at the beautiful Donnington Grove Country Club, this time in the Kennet suite. Around fifty delegates from companies spanning a whole variety of industries attended, including people from CSC, Hyperbole, Verbatim and many, many more. We kicked off the seminar with some light refreshments and networking and with the excellent weather, the mood was fantastic. Once much of the coffee had disappeared, our attendees were ushered into our very own Mr Joe Baily’s introduction and presentation. Joe discussed the way in which we here at Generate UK operate and work with clients, as well as discussing the underlying foundations and technologies that should support a business’ online marketing activity. Will your CMS grow with your company, or will it stop working as soon as your growth explodes? Does your marketing roadmap include the latest social media platforms? Are you missing out on any key marketing activities, like e-mail marketing for example? This helped open some eyes and hopefully encouraged our attendees to look at the road ahead, why update your strategy now… When the wheels of the underlying vehicle will fall off in the near future? You might as well get both right now to save a lot of heart ache and expense in the long term!

Michael Robinson then took the reigns and went on to explain some of the jargon and terms commonly used in the Internet marketing industry. Many questions were asked and many were thusly enlightened on the subjects of ‘Black hat’ vs ‘White hat’ SEO techniques and ‘Google Bombing’ among many others. This demonstrated that in having knowledge of all the different SEO and Internet marketing approaches, we can better advise and improve upon our client s online activity. This put to rest many of the doubts our delegates had regarding things like Google AdSense, Pay Per Click, Keywords and link-building where they had bad experiences in the past when working with less experienced or ‘black hat’ agencies.

The seminar was then adjourned for another round of tea and coffee so that we could make our way around and speak to many of those who attended as possible. We found that our delegates had differing reasons for attending, but many were surprised by the planned scope of the event and were very much looking forward to seeing the rest of what we had to offer.

Having set high expectations with the first half of the event, it was then down to our guest speaker Mr Ian Summerfield from Optim IP to continue the trend. Ian presented on the subject of Cloud Computing, a technology that has been around for quite sometime, but is only just entering the mainstream. Ian certainly delivered; his presentation roused many questions as some of our attendees could not believe that they could compute with incredible power, on inexpensive devices through a service provided from half way across the globe. Ian illustrated that the use of Cloud Computing is not a question of if, but when. Microsoft is giving the cloud their full backing, and more and more charities rely on cloud computing as a cheaper, more flexible alternative to maintaining their own infrastructure. Not only this, but many other platforms will migrate to the cloud from film rental, to console gaming which will dramatically change the way businesses utilise their marketing channels and the way in which they manage their customer engagement. This gave our audience much to think about as they were about to be instructed on the use of design in marketing.

Matt Lewin and I presented on a number of related subjects that determine whether or not your website design is current. I began by introducing on-page SEO, navigation and web standards as well as their affects on accessibility and design. Many people do not give these points the consideration that they deserve and to illustrate their significance I showed how many larger organisations have been sued for ignoring these points. After all, in not adhering to these guidelines, you could be damaging your user experience for up to 48% of your audience.

I then handed the talk over to Matt so he could talk our audience through the importance of designing a website with their key marketing activity and priorities in mind as well as demonstrating how a company web page could be better built for user interaction through portals and social platforms.  The reason being that marketing is moving to a more integrated and interactive paradigm and some smaller companies are falling behind the trend and could potentially be losing business as a result. Matt also talked our delegates through the process of determining their site sizing and layout so that it engages the user in all the right ways, ultimately delivering better returns and conversions which should be a part of every businesses marketing strategy.

To top off an already brilliant event, our very own social media guru Mr Ian Fergusson began to convert our audience into becoming more social media savvy. Ian shocked our audience with impressive facts and creative figures on the sheer volume of social media users and then went on to tell us that if Facebook was a country, it would be the 4th biggest country in the world behind the US based on registered users alone! If that was not shocking enough, Facebook itself has seen a dramatic shift in demographic from 16-18 year olds to mainly 45-54 year olds! So it is certainly no longer a ‘kid’s thing’ which makes it a marketing tool to be considered much more seriously as part of an integrated marketing arsenal. This talk was well received all round with many delegates asking for training and tips on how to leverage these platforms properly themselves.

After the presentation, we took questions from the floor and explained some of our fields in more depth. We were then locked into deep marketing conversations with many of our delegates 1-on-1 to advise them on some of the marketing issues they had stumbled across quite recently. We talked these through with them and suggested ways they could perhaps revisit these activities and tweak their approach to better their results.

We love to help people and businesses with their online marketing and the feedback we received on the number of free tools we gave away and the advice we included in our seminar was astounding. So much so that we are currently planning another event to invite you all back to! If you would like to request access to the presentations from our great speakers, then please click here.
I look forward to seeing you all again in the future!

Kind regards,
John King.

B2B and B2C marketing is used to differentiate the internet commerce business. There are companies that sell primarily to businesses while others sell primarily to end customer. Marketing programs are the same for each type of business but they differ in executions and the outcomes of the marketing activities.

B2C (Business to Consumer) marketing campaigns are concerned with the transaction. They are usually shorter because they need to capture the customer’s attention immediately. These campaigns usually offer special deals such as discounts and vouchers that can be used both online and in the store. Their goal is to get their customers to buy immediately. B2B (Business-to-Business) marketing process is longer and is more involved. Although its goal is to turn prospects into customers, a B2B company needs to focus on building long-term relationships with their clients. They use marketing to educate their customers about their products. In an email campaign, you usually see contact information for offline transactions and contain more information on the features of the product, benefits and the prices. This marketing strategy is usually the first step, and it usually includes direct mail, telemarketing, and newsletters and follows up by a sales representative who will discuss the business’ requirement in more detail and walk the prospect through the sales cycle.

The main difference between the B2B and B2C marketing comes down to the buyer’s emotional perspective about the purchase. Consumers buying decisions are based on status, security, comfort and quality. On the other hand, business buyers base their decisions on increasing profitability, reducing costs and enhancing productivity.

In online marketing, if you are offering products and services to businesses, it is wise to invest on a marketing budget that focuses on marketing programs and materials that offer your target market what they need in order for them to make a rational business decision. Help them determine the value of your products and services through quality materials, testimonials and other activities that builds your credibility. If you are offering your products and services to end consumers, understand the motivation of your buyer and the emotional aspect of the decision. It is best to create compelling materials that build awareness of your brand and project the quality service and best price. Always remember what is important to your target audience and create an online marketing program that will reach out to them and convince them to buy your products and services.

At Generate UK we can help advise you to optimise your Online Marketing Strategy to reach your desired target audience. Our consultants are specialists in online marketing and can help focus you campaign on either B2B Marketing of B2C marketing. If you would like to discuss your Online Marketing further please do not hesitate to get in contact with us, we’d love to talk with you.