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Archive for December, 2009

10 tips when using Twitter for your Business

Thursday, December 17th, 2009

Twitter represents a huge opportunity for any business to have a one-many conversation with their current and potential customers. Despite this only a minority of businesses have made the leap onto Twitter. Those that have are often unsure what to do when they start.

With that in mind, we’ve written a basic guide on how to use Twitter for your business.

Choosing a Full Name and Username.

Your details will be displayed in the page title (and therefore in the SERPs) as:

Fullname1 + Fullname2 (username) on Twitter

Therefore the full name and username will influence the keywords for which your Twitter profile will appear in the SERPs.

Either Choose:

Full Name1: Keyword1
Full Name2: Keyword2
Username: Company Name

Or

Full Name1: CompanyName
Full Name2: Blank
Username: Keyword

Following people

1.    To start off, just follow those people you are genuinely interested in. This might be your industry leader, your industry magazine, a national paper, or a commentator in your market.
2.     Follow your customers. Show that you’re taking an interest in your customers  by following them. Doing so encourages them to follow you back, and opens up  Twitter as a channel of communicate with them.
3.    Don’t follow people just because they follow you, unless they are your customer. If someone follows you and you don’t know who they are, and aren’t interested in what they’ve got to say, don’t follow them. A classic way to build your followerbase is by following people who follow you. But at the end of the day you end up receiving lots of irrelevant Tweets in your timeline, which makes it hard to discern those you are genuinely interested in.
4.    Try to avoid following people who have a high number of followers and follows. These will probably be using auto-follow tools to build their follower base. Lots are US based.

Tweet your News

1.    When you you add a new post onto your blog, Tweet it with a headline and a link.
2.    When you change your prices, have an offer, or have other news that you wouldn’t otherwise have on the blog, Tweet it
3.    If you have a problem, some downtime or delivery issues, make your followers aware by Tweeting that. Your natural tendency might be to hide bad news, but Twitterers will appreciate your openness. And far better that they find out about downtime from you, rather than finding out through some other means. You need to control that sort of news. And it might save your support team a few calls too.

Tweeting other people’s news and blog posts

1.    If you follow news from several websites and blogs, set up an feed reader that includes all your data sources.
2.    When you read something that you find interesting, Tweet a link to it and a summary, or your take. If its interesting your users will appreciate being notified of it, and may ‘respect’ your opinion a bit more.

Commenting on other people’s Tweets

1.    Try to read the Tweets of the people you follow. If you’re interested in what they’re saying, reply @them
2.    When people send you an @message, make sure you respond to it in a timely manner. Nothing stamps a conversation out as quickly as a gap of a few hours between Tweets.

ReTweeting (RT)

1.    When someone gives you, your website or your company a compliment then ReTweet it. To do this,  copy their Tweet into your own post and preface it with RT @them: This will create a positive glow to your profile, and demonstrates how good you are to your other followers.
2.    When you see somthing of interest that you want to attribute to the original person then RT their Tweet in the same way.
3.    Bond with your customers by occasionally retweeting their messages to your audience

Direct Messages

1.    If you want to keep it private, then direct message people (DM)
2.    Wehn someone Retweets your messages thank them privately with a DM
3.    If you’re asking someone to share potentially sensitive information then publicly ask them to DM you with the details.

Editorial Guidance for Tweets

1.    Include a mix of Tweets. Send links to your site, some to others, and occasionally have no links at all – just a statement. Use all types of Tweets, @Tweets and ReTweets.
2.    Tweet any comments you get on your blog comments and include a link to those comments. This shows your followers that there is a conversation going on, encourages people to get back to your website. Try to get a debate going
3.    Asking questions generate interest, interaction, conversation and answers
4.    Remember: a lot more people read your tweets than respond to them. If you’re using Twitter for customer service then its an opportunity to showcase your finest work!

Tools to save time

1.    Ping.fm: Useful for distributing your posts to multiple microblogging platforms
2.    Shorten URL Mozilla Add on. Lets you drag a URL shortner shortcut into your  browser toolbar, makes for quick URL shortening
3.    TweetDeck. A great desktop application that lets you monitor for mentions, searches and direct messages across multiple Twitter accounts.
4.    Tweetpic. Allows you to link images to your posts.

Tracking

Twitter traffic is hard to track with analytcs platforms it usually comes from redirects. These can help

1.    Bit.ly: This URL shortner can give you click data about the traffic that your shortened URLs are generate
2.    Gooogle Analytics / DC-Storm. More long winded. Manually add a tracking URL onto your website address before you shorten it.

This isn’t an A-Z of Twitter but is a good and easy guide to help your business start using this social media platform. Get it right and Twitter can become a powerful way to interact with your current and future customers.

If you need any help with your Social Media Marketing then please get in touch.

Tags: twitter
Posted in Social Media | 5 Comments »

9 Tips to boost your Website Conversion Rate

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009

Digital Advertising Agencies are good at sending their clients website traffic. But what happens if that traffic doesn’t turn into sales? You tend to get this:

“Don’t blame me, your website doesn’t work”

At Euston Digital, we drive bucket loads of high quality traffic to our client’s websites. For us the story doesn’t end there. Once that traffic is on their website, we work with the client to get as much of that traffic to the confirmation page.

Here’s 9 tips to help turn website visitors into website customers.

1. Product Images

*Selling an expensive product? Then provide detailed photos and images. The higher the price, the more info and images you’ll need
*Put your image gold above the fold. Don’t make people scroll..
*Use interactive (such as javascript image zoom) and video technology to showcase the product

2. Buy Now Buttons

These are one of the most important elements to boost website conversion. Here’s the rules:
*Make them eye catching by using a contrasting colour to the rest of your page.
*Make the button big and easy to read
*Make your ‘buy’ button rectangular and horizontal.
*Icons on the button can add further emphasis
*Place your buy button just to the right of the product image.
*Make sure there is at least 1 ‘buy now’ button above the fold.

3. Checkout form

*Don’t make people register on your website.
*Only ask for essential info
*Keep the form easy with big but few fields
*Reduce the number of steps in the checkout. Each time you ask visitors to progress to the next stage is an opportunity for them to exit.
*Use clear language not industry jargon
*Use an ‘expand’ jquery to reveal addition BUT OPTIONAL information that a user can leave.
*Errors: Highlight errors inline rather than with pop ups.
*Don’t reset the form if it is submitted incorrectly. Preserve all the correct bits, and highlight where the errors are.

4. Use a Progress indicator

Use a numbered line across the top of each page in the checkout to show users what stage they’re at in the registration process. It reassures them of where they are, and how far they’ve got to go before its all finished.

5. Reassure the customer with the right information

Within the checkout process the customer should have access to the answers of the following questions:

1.    Can I return the product?
2.    Can I review my order before confirming?
3.    How do I contact customer support?
4.    Are you going to charge me now?
5.    Can I revise my order later?
6.    What’s the total price including delivery?
7.    How long before it is delivered
8.    Is your website a safe place to leave my credit card details?
9.    How else can I pay?
10.     What are you going to do with my contact details? Are you going to sell them?

Remember to keep the form simple – answers to these questions should be shown on a +show or -hide basis using technology like javascript ‘accordian’

6. Gather email data so you can reach them again

It’s important that you don’t block any purchases by asking for unnecesary information. But grabbing your website visitors’ permission agreed email address allows you to build a valuable database of future propsects. These emails will form the basis of your customer community.

My three bits of advice are:

1.    Don’t force your customers to opt in their email address unless you its unavoidable.
2.    If you haven’t got opt-in permission by the time they hit the confirmation page, ask for it then.
3.    Ask for their opt in permission when you send them a confirmation email
4.    Give them the option to sign up to a newsletter without buying anything. Its the chance to get some value from visitors who don’t buy from you.

7. Where did you hear about us?

Don’t bother asking where they heard about you. Many people can’t tell the difference between a search engine and a browser. Others will have multiple sources. Most won’t remember. Many just click the top option. The information you get will be skewed enough to be almost worthless.

8. Use official stamps to build trust

Wherever possible, use the logos of independent trade bodies to add authority and reassurance to your website. Make sure to add them above the fold to minimise bounce rates.

These might be:

*Qualifications
*Industry bodies
*Affiliations
*Secure payment gateway badges
*Places you’ve been seen (like TV)
*Brand names you sell

9. Test and Test. And then test it again

Of all the advice on this blog, this is the most important. Whatever change you make, test whether it improves your website conversion rate.

At Euston Digital we use Google Website Optimiser to test website changes until we get robust, statistical proof that the changes we have made actually work.

Website Optimiser diverts a percentage of your traffic to the ‘new’ layout to find out whether website visitors have a better response to it than the original.

That’s it.

Getting visitors to your website is only half the story. Converting them to customers is what distinguishes average websites from great ones.

Follow these simple rules to improve the conversion rate of your website.

If you’d like to know more about how Euston Digital can improve your website conversion rate, then get in touch.

Tags: conversion rate, web design
Posted in Conversion Optimisation | 9 Comments »