Is Your Website Customer Friendly?

In a rush to make websites visually appealing and search engine friendly, most of the businesses forget a very important aspect of website designing – customer friendliness. The result is a narcissist website that dwells greatly on the business’s products, team, offerings, locations etc. but has no place to deal with customer issues.

Most customers do not have enough time to read every word on a website. They simply scan it for ‘relevant info’ and this is simply what narcissist websites miss!

In contrast, an intelligent website has the right information, at the right place and does not leave the customer stranded. Here’s what an intelligent website must do:

• Provide to-the point statements
• Proactively address common concerns and questions
• Offer active online self service support
• Encourage a dialogue with customers

While designing your website the focus should be the anticipated needs or concerns of your customers rather than self praise. Too much of “me me” stuff may simply irritate them away. Tell customers about yourself but do it in a way that is helpful for them as well.

SEO for Smarter Social Media

Social media and SEO may not look like brothers in arms, but they cannot succeed without each other either. While social media stimulates off-site conversation and interaction with your customers, SEO aims to pull traffic to your website. However, these two marketing disciplines have more in common than you may think. A recent article in presented a nice summary of the intersections. Here’s a summary:

• Social media is all about generating interesting content to share with social audiences. As this content is shared, distributed, and discussed on forums, it creates linking opportunities. The quality and quantity of these links can have a big impact on your SEO
• Social media can help you draw traffic to your website for less competitive keywords.
• Social media users tend to search for terms that are lower in the sales funnel. You can use this knowledge to optimize your PPC spend.
• Social media can offer deep insights into search terms that are popular and useful to your audience right now. This kind of real-time optimization can be rich dividends on SEO.
  

At the end of the day, we have to stop thinking of search and social media as two separate marketing silos. Just as online advertising may affect the in-store customer experience, social media impacts brand awareness and SEO in online marketing. It is essential for marketers to integrate SEO and social media in the right way to leverage greater benefits.

Deals are not Enough, Social Followers want More

Primary motives of any social media campaign are buzz creation and engagement. But social followers want something beyond the regular.

A recent Marketing Sherpa survey showed that discovering a great deal (sale, special offers or discounts etc.) remains the top motivation of those who befriended or followed a brand online. Looking for savings is followed closely by learning about new products, features or services.

The survey results support the findings of another study by Razorfish, that listed searching for exclusive deals and offers as the primary motivation of US Internet users for following brands on Twitter.

The tip for marketers here is that only by sharing interesting content that users care about, along with exciting deals and discounts, they can engage and motivate customers to spread marketing messages further.

If Content is King, Social Media Strategy is the King Maker

Social media, content marketing and their integration with novel, open technologies opens channels for direct communications with customers, says Christine Beardsell of Clickz.com. 
Read more

Introducing Google Sidewiki: A Boon for Marketers

What is Google Sidewiki?

Google Sidewiki is the latest Google offering that can be developed into a potential touch point between marketers and customers. This Google toolbar application enables you to put in helpful information next to any webpage. Google Sidewiki appears as a browser sidebar, where you can read and write entries along the side of the page. Anyone who uses the FREE Google toolbar with Sidewiki enabled can use this application. You can also download this application from the following URL:

http://www.google.com/sidewiki/intl/en/install.html

How Can Marketers Leverage it?

By writing Sidewiki entries that are informative and relevant, marketers can leverage the space for interacting with their customers and prospects. Moreover, since Sidewiki allows visitors to submit their comments, it becomes an excellent platform for promoting a service or products and gaining feedback at the same time! In addition, the Sidewiki space can also be used for guiding visitors about your website, upcoming events/offers, industry trends and much more.  Another advantage is that the comments or information that you share vie Sidewiki can be directly promoted through Twitter and Facebook.  The way you use Sidewiki would vary with the type of website or blog you have, however, the application certainly presents a unique opportunity for interacting with your audiences directly from your websites.

How Add Google Sidewiki to a Website?

Here are a few simple steps that would guide you through the process of    adding Google Sidewiki to your website:

Install the latest Google Toolbar with Google Sidewiki. The tool bar would look something like this: Visit your website or the web page where you want to run Google Sidewiki.

Ensure that Google Sidewiki is turned on in the Google Toolbar. You then need to log in to your Google account to be able to see the Google Wiki sidebar on the left side of your web browser.After signing in, you will see the name of your site, as well as the field to “Edit your name”. You can modify your display settings or add relevant keywords etc. here if you wish to.

Next, you make an entry about what ever information you wish to share  with your audiences and click the Publish button.

The entry can now be seen on your website.

From instigating discussions, to prompting offers, marketers can utilize the Google Sidewiki space in multiple forms to spur interaction with their audiences directly from the website. The application promises not only increased web traffic, but also ensures multi pronged benefits for marketers.

Top 10 Social Bookmarking Sites

Social bookmarking is an integral part of all social media campaigns. Social bookmarking allows you to save and organize web pages by using popular tabs or meta data.  Raging popularity, ease of use and low cost has made social bookmarking a sought after marketing metier. Here’s a collection of top 20 popular social bookmarking sites that you can consider for promoting your business across social media.

Twitter

Digg

StumbleUpon

RedditYahoo! buzz

Del.icio.us

Mixx

Technorati

Propeller

Twine