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As we come to the end of February, and our theme of ‘loving your site’, I think it’s time to take a look at social media.  While your website is a huge part of your online presence, it is very rarely successful in isolation.  There are many components involved in creating a successful online presence (many of which have already been discussed in this blog), and one of these components is of course social media.

With the Pope even coming online with a campaign to popularise Lent via Twitter, it’s easy to see the importance of a smart social strategy to raise brand awareness and increase targeted traffic to your website.  But with so many social options, it can be hard to know what to use and how to use it.  With Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Instagram, Google+ and so on, the choices really are endless.  This doesn’t mean that you need to waste hours being on every single social media platform that emerges – for those with limited resources, it can be better to choose a couple of popular options and make sure they are done well.

When looking to choose which social media platforms are best to use, you need to know what your business objectives are and what you want to communicate, and gain, by having a social media presence.  But this blog isn’t about helping you choose the right social media platform. There has been plenty written about this already and the majority of businesses would do well by having a presence in 2 or 3 of the major social players – Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. But just to help you out, here is a great picture that breaks down some of the options.

This blog is about giving your social presence the love and attention it deserves.  Too many businesses jump on the social bandwagon, set up their profiles and then promptly abandon them.  This may be due to a number of reasons – they didn’t get the results they were hoping for, they didn’t know what to do or they just didn’t find the time.  You may see your social profiles as a ‘nice to have’ as opposed to a business necessity, but in reality that can offer an excellent opportunity to connect with your customers on a more personal level and drive traffic to your website.  It can also be damaging to your brand to have your website linking to abandoned social pages.  It’s very hard to get a positive impression of a company when you are taken to their Facebook page which has 5 ‘likes’ and the last post was 6 months ago.

So if you have been letting your business’ social presence slip, here are a few tips to help you out:

1. Create a strategy – what are you trying to achieve with social media and your online presence overall.  When you know this, it will be easy to know what to communicate and how.
2. Allocate resources – there doesn’t have to just be one person in charge of social.  If you have good communication guidelines, it is possible to share the load to ensure it gets done.
3. Just do it – many businesses don’t know what to post on the social profiles, so they post nothing at all.  But with practice, knowing what to post becomes easier.
4. Mix it up – You don’t always need to post about promotions, new products and so on.  People are on these sites to be social, so make it personal sometimes.  If you’re going away on holiday, or having a team celebration, use that for content.  It will help people connect. Try and have a good balance between business / sales messages and more personal type ones that can be interesting.  One of our clients have done very well on twitter by sharing bits of fun trivia – they get a number of retweets each time and have seen a great increase in traffic coming to their site from twitter.

So hopefully this helps encourage a few businesses to stop neglecting their social media profiles and jump in there.  Obviously you don’t want to make any big social gaffes (hello Qantas, Bonds, McDonalds etc) but as long you’re smart, something is generally better than nothing when it comes to updating your social presence.

The blog entries for this month are all around ‘Loving your site’.  And I do think this is really important for your online success.  Showing your site the love and respect it deserves can come in a variety of different forms.  From design, content and mobile presence to SEO and social, it is important that you give all aspects of your site the care they deserve if you want to succeed.

The online world is fiercely competitive and you’ve got to really put in the hard yards if you want to succeed.  Companies can make or break depending on the strength of their online presence.  There are now reverse models of companies becoming so successful online that they are opening up bricks and mortar stores to help meet the demand for their products.  If you want that level of success, then read on.

Creating online success isn’t rocket science, but it does take thought, insight, preparation and hard work.  With so many competing websites available at the click of a mouse, what are you doing to attract visitors to your site and keep them there? While you may have many great ideas, they are not going to work if they are not implemented in the right way at the right time.  I have seen so many sites that have continually been ‘developed’ by the business owner with no structure or strategy in place.  This just leads to messy sites that are impossible to navigate, which then leads to high bounce rates and low visitor interaction.  It doesn’t matter if you have the greatest idea on earth to get customers to interact with your brand on your website – if they can’t find it, they can’t use it.

Many companies underestimate the importance of solid information architecture.  In ‘Information Architecture for the World Wide Web’ by Rosenfeld and Morville, they define information architecture as being “the categorization of information into a coherent structure, preferably one that the intended audience can understand quickly, if not inherently, and then easily retrieve the information for which they are searching”

There are many ways to structure your website in a way that is easily navigated and digested by your customers.  To choose the best method for your website, you need to think about your target market, their online habits, the amount of information you have on your site and how you want this information to be consumed.  If you have key pages that you need to be seen or if particular parts are only going to make sense if the visitor has viewed another page first, then this needs to be taken into account.  If your target market is not big website users, then you need to look for a simpler structure as opposed to something more interactive that will keep more web savvy users interested.

By taking a step back and looking at your site’s current structure and then comparing this with what your target market is going to be looking for, then you should be able to get some idea of changes that need to be made.  But if you are really not sure where to begin, then it can be an idea to call in the professionals.  While it may seem like a huge cost for some businesses, both in time and money, you have to look at the benefits a successful website can bring. By looking at the information architecture of your site now, and creating a structure and implementation strategy, then you are going to be in a better position in the future to grow both your website and your business.

Google has said that one of their greatest challenges for 2012 is the large number of advertisers who do not have a strong mobile presence.  With Australia having such a high smartphone penetration (above the UK, US and Japan), having a solid mobile strategy is vital to success.  Last year, over 20% of the internet searches in Australia were from mobile devices*.  That is a huge number and shows just how necessary a well-constructed mobile presence is.

Despite the growing popularity of smart phones in Australia, nearly 80% of businesses advertising on Google do not have mobile optimised websites*.  That means that those users who make up the 20% of internet searches coming from mobiles are constantly being taken to poorly performing sites that are not meeting their requirements. Is that the first interaction you want someone to have with your business?  As the saying goes, the first impression is the last impression. So would you want someone’s first impression of your business being shaped by a website that cannot function on their chosen browsing device?

This lack of mobile optimisation is very frustrating for users, but presents an excellent opportunity to businesses.  What to stand out from the crowd?  Get ahead of your competitors?  Increase your sales?  Then get a strong mobile presence and wow your potential customers with an easy to use, informative mobile site.

*Data from Ipsos Research study done in conjunction with Google.

The theme of this month’s blog is ‘new year, new site’. But if you already have a website, how do you know if it needs to be improved, or if you need to get a new site altogether?  By doing your own site audit, you should be able to identify any areas that need to be upgraded in order to make your website a success.  To do an audit of your own website, here are some steps to follow:

1. Make sure you know what business goals you want your website to achieve before you start.  Do you want to be making sales, generating leads or creating a brand identity?  How are you measuring the success?  Do you have realistic targets in place?
2. Once you understand what you want the website to achieve from your perspective, you need to look at it from your customer’s point of view.  Why are they visiting the website?
3. Start from the beginning of your customer’s journey.  How do they find your site?  Do you show up in search results for relevant search terms?  Do you know what your audience is searching for when they come to your site? Do you have links from your social media pages to your website?
4. Once you reach your website, remember to think like a customer.  Navigate through the site.  Look for specific products or services.  Fill out an enquiry form.  Try and find your contact details.  Make a purchase if you have an ecommerce store.  What is your experience?  Can you find all the information you think you need?  Is it easy to get specific details that would make your customers feel at ease – sizing information, shipping costs, delivery times, phone numbers, and office / store locations?  This list of what people are looking for can go on and on, but you should know what you customers want.  And if they can’t find it on your site, they will look elsewhere. Remember, it only takes a few seconds for a potential customer to move to your competitor’s website.
5. List everything that you weren’t happy with, or found difficult, on your site.  Ask family, friends and colleagues to go through the same process and see what they come back with.

Once you have identified any areas that need to be fixed, changed, deleted or added, you need to weigh up whether your current site structure will be able to provide the necessary functionality.  I often meet clients who want to build on their current site as they have already invested in it, which is understandable.

However, sometimes the resources required to build on existing sites can be much greater than the resources required to start again.  This can be for a range of reasons, such as the site using an old or ill equipped platform, old coding practices or poor site structures.  While having out dated development techniques on a website is not always visible from the user end, it can seriously delay new developments and can hinder any SEO activity.

So if you are looking to move your online presence forward in 2012, start by doing your own website audit.  You will then be in a better position when talking to a website developer or digital agency.

By now, I think it is safe to assume that most of our blog readers have their own website, or work for a company with a website.  So with 2011 coming to an end, it is the perfect time to start thinking about what you can do to improve your current online offering – it can be the perfect way to start the New Year.

1. Test your site

It constantly amazes me how many sites have broken functionality.  It only takes a few minutes to go through a site to test forms, check links and ensure all navigation features are working.  Yet it seems so many people don’t bother.  Websites aren’t something that you can ‘set and forget’.  They take ongoing maintenance if you want to be successful.  Obviously in the perfect world, nothing would ever break.  But even if everything is functioning as it should, there are still improvements that can be made.  Which takes me to my second point…

2. Remember your customers

It’s important that you love your site and find it easy to use, but it is even more important that your target market does as well.  When developing a site, your target market should always be kept in mind to ensure they have a positive user experience.  You should also be undertaking regular website audits to ensure that this user experience remains positive.  You often see sites that were great to begin with, but with content additions, changes in product offers or new marketing campaigns, they have become messy and confusing for customers.  Spend some time going through your site from the perspective of your customer and see if any changes need to be made.

3. Update content

While new content additions can ruin user experience if the site architecture is not taken into consideration, adding new content and updating current content is a great way to freshen things up.  People will be less inclined to continually visit a site that never changes, so updates give them something to come back for.  Add a ‘specials’ or ‘news’ section, create content around any new products or services you have or just improve the content you already have.  Not only will this help with repeat visitors to your site, but can assist with SEO as well.  Remember, content really is king.

4. Get social and do it well

Ok, so this point might not improve your actual site, but it can improve your overall online presence. Social media can be a great way to connect with your customers, get your brand messaging across and increase traffic to your site.  However, it can also damage your brand if done incorrectly, and in some cases turn into a total PR nightmare (hello Qantas…).

So before you engage in this step, just take a moment to look at how your target market behaves online and develop a strategy to relate to that.  There is nothing worse than clicking through to a company’s Facebook page to see they only have 4 ‘fans’ and haven’t done any updates for six months.  Facebook and Twitter are always the safe options when it comes to social, and can provide a great way to communicate with your customers on a more informal level.

5. Have transparency

This last point may seem a little dull, but I think it is so so so important, especially if you have an online store.  For a standard website, customers still need to be able to see where you are based, how to get in contact, and information regarding your company.  Don’t hide this information away, as it can make people lose faith in your brand.  I never trust a company that doesn’t have a phone number and address that can be easily found!

For ecommerce stores, the need for transparency is even greater.  What are your shipping costs and delivery times?  What payment gateway do you use?  Is it secure?  What’s your refund policy?  Do you have a sizing chart?  Answers to all of these questions should be obvious to customers, and should be obvious before they need to start looking for them.  Have a shipping calculator?  Well, don’t wait until the payment page to show it to customers.  Put a link to it on the product page.

Being transparent in all of your policies and processes may seem like overkill, but it helps to develop your customer’s trust which in turn means repeat visitors, more enquiries and higher sales.  And that is what we are all after, right?

The phrase “content is king” has been used again and again, but does it still hold true for online?  We all know that users simply skim text online (which is probably what you are doing right now) and appreciate white space.  So why are so many websites still cramming as many words as possible onto the page?

Your website is often the first interaction many people have with your business, so it is normal to want to promote your offering as much as possible.  But that doesn’t mean that you have to explain every single service you offer, or tell them every employee’s favourite ice cream flavour.  Successful sites remember what they wanted to achieve when they came online, and only include content relevant to this.  Websites really should be about motivating people to make an action as much as providing information, whether you want them to buy your dress, download your eBook or fill out your enquiry form. And I can’t think of anything less motivating that a page full of dull, tiny text.

There are so many aspects to a website that need to work together in order for it to be successful. Without a good SEO and marketing strategy, your site won’t get found.  Without good design, your site won’t get used.  And without smart content, your information won’t get absorbed.  Without all of these working together, your site won’t succeed.  So I don’t believe content is really the king.  A smart strategy is.

If you have visited us before, you will (hopefully) have noticed that this is the first blog post on our brand new website. Developing a website is always an exciting process. But with so many ideas and options, it can also become a bit of a juggling act. One of the main reasons why I love digital so much is the opportunities and flexibility it gives you. However, this can also become a hindrance if you don’t know what you want to achieve to begin with.

When developing a website, I think you should always start by looking at your general business goals and your specific digital goals. At itsimple, we wanted our website to let people know who we are and how we can help their business, without making them read through pages of content.

It was decided early on in the process that we should strip back the site to offer a clean, easy to navigate platform that still communicated our brand identity. While it can be fun to include all the bells and whistles on your site, a lot of the time it is not going to help achieve what you want.

We tried to question all of our decisions during the development process to make sure we were making the right decisions for the right reasons. We always referred back to our goals, and while there were some minor disagreements along the way, I’m pleased to say we are all now very happy with the results. And hopefully you are as well!

If you have any comments on our website, or have any questions about developing your site, just give us a call. Or you can visit us on Facebook or Twitter.