Quick Marketing Tips

[stugster]

Website Content

Write articles on a regular basis in relation to your business industry. If you're a builder, post up some information about bricks and hammers.

Micro-Sites

If you offer a lot of different services, think about splitting them up into specific niches. A smaller more focussed site on conservatory installations will probably result in a higher search engine ranking. Once the visitor is on that micro-site you can then link them to your main one!

Viral Marketing

This can work wonders, and it needn't be expensive either! Get a desktop wallpaper made up and make it available for download on your website. Talk to a Flash Game designer and see how much it would be to have a simple game made up branded with your business details.

Blogs

We're doing it! So should you! Having a blog will mean search engines visit more frequently and will absolutely love the fresh content on the site. Users might also decide to subscribe via an RSS feed - so make this available to them too!

Email Stationery

Every single time you send an e-mail to someone, make sure it has your company name, website link, and a short bullet pointed list of your services.

Email Newsletters

Keep your clients informed with things happening in the business. If you've just won an award, or you've just started offering a brand new service, make sure you let your clients know about it!

PPC Advertising

"PPC" stands for Pay-Per-Click, and the biggest contender in the marketplace just now is Google Adwords. More information and a fantastic consultant can be found here.

Online Forums

Get signed up and involved in online forums. If you can, create a link in your signature (some forums require you to pay for this; but if it's a big forum, this is well worth it!). Don't spam on these forums - there's nothing more that forum users hate than a spammer. Dive into your own industry-related topics and make useful contributions to the forum. Your time spent here will get your business known and inbound links via your signature, too!

Promotional Items

When was the last time you were given a branded mouse-mat, or a fridge magnet? Everyone nowadays seems to be using pens as their promotional items. This is boring. Have a browse on the Internet for fun and exciting promotional items you can put your name to and give them out to potential clients.

Offline Networking

Do you attent networking events? If you don't, you're missing out! Get your business cards printed out, and get along to a local networking event where you'll meet lots of friendly like-minded individuals. There are absolutely hundreds of events around the country you could be attending. Some of which are: Power Lunch Club, BNI, Ecademy.

 

[brandmantra]

also include online network

 

[Tim Barlow]

If you offer a lot of different services, think about splitting them up into specific niches. A smaller more focussed site on conservatory installations will probably result in a higher search engine ranking. Once the visitor is on that micro-site you can then link them to your main one!

I have been having a few debates about this one and would be interested to hear views on when to create a different site versus having it on the same one.

Take for example an accommodation agent with a good quality site who wants to gain visitors coming for a specifc event such as the Homecoming. Should they create a Homecoming accommodation microsite (on a different domain) or have the same in depth content on their main site. Answers below please

 

[stugster]

My opinion (and, I should say, I'm not an SEO expert!) would be to make sure there isn't lots of in-depth content on the micro-site.

Really, what you want to have here is some sort of advert (but not coming across as an advert) for the product or service. One page, no more than 500 words would suffice. Then have this micro-site linking in to the page in question on the main site.

Perhaps this method, rather than "a smaller more focussed site" could be a better option.

 

[Tim Barlow]

If we disregard SEO for the time being, what are the other benefits in having single page minisites?

 

[stugster]

As far as I can see... absolutely none. It makes it more difficult for the user to find the site they really want, it puts more sites on the internet - draining resources as a result, and creates much more work for the site owner.

 

[Tim Barlow]

Interesting. I suspect there must be some benefit beyond SEO as ad agency types tend to (or at least did) get very excited about microsites (and that was certainly in the days before anybody at an ad agency understood (or thought they understood) SEO).

As to whether there is any SEO benefit, my view would be if you are doing it purely for SEO, don't. But then again I tend to get over-preachy on such matters.

 

[peteark]

A few others

Search Engines

A Website

Press Releases (on and offline)

Media (Radio & Television)

Video

Competitions

Relevant Associations (membership)

Online Advertising

Wiki

Posters, leaflets

Charity Sponsorships

Telephone Answer Message

Yellow Pages

Car Stickers

Branded Staff Clothing

Trade Fairs/Conferences

Special Offers

Free Gifts

 

[peteark]

Microsites are ideal for franchising or affiliates

 

[Tim Barlow]

Microsites are ideal for franchising or affiliates

Hi Pete, it would be great if you could expand on that. From what I know of you from these forums I suspect that you see benefit that has little to do with SEO.

 

[peteark]

Morning Tim

It's a difficult one to answer and it's early...lol

The microsites I have used in the past were set up by a telecom provider to allow affiliates to have their own external identity, some kind of bonk MLM scheme. The URL's used by the system were poor, saying that if the microsite owner put in good quality content and backed this up with some link building it would have some seo benefit, its all dependant on the keywords targeted. Of course on the flip side, most just copied the content from the main site and added their own logo, resulting in no benefit.

As we know a microsite is simply an extension of an actual site, depending on the business plan and how the system is to be structured it can work from an seo standpoint, it can also benefit the main site. Its not something you can apply a simply answer to or offer a potential solution without knowing more details.

In summary, if set up correctly microsites can work from an seo standpoint. They seldom do because, most people struggle with the SEO on their main site, so how will they ever be able to have multiple seo friendly microsites, it just doesnt happen.

As long as SEO continues to be an after thought people will always struggle