Tips for getting more Twitter followers that stick to you!

If you want to get some additional loyal Followers on Twitter then there are a couple of things that you need to do.

Tweet Often – If you want to maximise the benefit of your Twitter activity then you need to be an active contributor to your Followers streams; I’m not just talking about 1-2 tweets a week, but a constant drip of information, news and views throughout the day. To really make a difference you need to aim for at least 10 tweets a day, some of the most popular and influential people can get 30 tweets out easily.

Be of Value – Tweeting what you had for lunch really isn’t going to help get and keep loyal Followers, you need to be tweeting items of interest, and tweets that are based on your real experiences of those of your customers/clients are the most valuable.

Interact – All too often I see people and businesses tweeting a stream of self promotional garbage and they never interact with anyone.  You are on Twitter to build relationships and hopefully turn your Followers into customers or advocates for you, and you can only do this through interaction.  So get engaging, comment on peoples tweets and Retweet often; you will be rewarded for it.

Share – News is great because often it’s something that we all like to comment on, so as soon as you hear something interesting Tweet about it, it’s possible to get a tweet out about a news item before the major news channels manage to get their act together.

Don’t have much time to check your social media?

Many of us don’t all have lots of hours free to sit in front of a device and check our social media as and when things happen, find new people to engage with and track down those influential people that can make or break your business, so if you can only spare 20 minutes a day what should you do?

There are lots of things you can be getting on with:

Check that Inbox - Ensure that if anyone had contacted you directly through any social media channel ensure that you get back to them within 24 hours at the very least.

Follow relevant people – the sums are easy, the more people you follow the more likely you are to get followers yourself; the more followers you have the bigger the audience is for your message.  Take a look at Klout and Kred as both of these will show you who is influential in your chosen topics and these are the people you should be following.

Do a few directory searches based on your niche and hit the follow button..

Tweet – and tweet often!  Use HootSuite and set your tweets to schedule automatically; HootSuite will then send your tweets out at the best time.  As and when you think of a tweet to send simple compose it and AutoSchedule it, HootSuite will send it out at the right time for you.  You’ll find that you won’t need too many Tweets to fill each day!

Reply – someone has copied you into a tweet or message for a reason, over time you will learn to quickly understand the value in the connections that you have built up and then quickly be able to understand whether entering into a discussion with them is both productive and useful; but like Inbox messages, don’t ignore them!

Following these small tips should take you no longer than 20 minutes a day BUT will provide you with huge benefits.

Fuzzyalarmzip: How to Rank Number One for a Keyword Nobody Searches For

Many years ago, when I had a small SEO agency (OK, it was just me!), a client told me they had been approached by an big SEO consultant who guaranteed to get them into one of the first three positions on Google.

It sounded impressive, until I looked at the search phrases they were proposing.

They were incredibly obscure. After a little research, I couldn’t find any evidence that people were actually searching for them. The consultant might well have delivered the rankings they promised, but those rankings would have brought the client little or no useful traffic.

To demonstrate how meaningless this could be, I invented a word:

fuzzyalarmzip

There was no competition for it because the word didn’t exist. Once I published it on this page, I became the number-one result on Google for fuzzyalarmzip.

Many years later, I still am.

Technically, that makes this page an astonishing SEO success. I’m number one on Google, with no serious competition anywhere in sight.

There is, of course, one fairly important problem. Nobody searches for fuzzyalarmzip unless they have already read this page.

That was the trick behind some of those guaranteed-ranking offers. An agency could choose a long, obscure phrase with no competition and little or no search traffic, get your website ranking for it, and then present the result as proof that they had done their job.

The promise had been fulfilled, but the business hadn’t gained anything.

A useful search ranking isn’t just about appearing first. It needs to be for something your potential customers genuinely search for. It also needs to bring the right people to a page that answers their question, solves their problem or helps them buy something.

So when someone promises you a top-three Google ranking, the obvious question isn’t simply, “Can you do it?”

Ask them what they plan to rank you for, whether anyone searches for it, what kind of visitor it will attract and what value that traffic could bring to your business.

Ranking first for a phrase nobody uses is easy.

Just ask fuzzyalarmzip.

5 Top Tips for improved search engine ranking

Having a website that gets found in Google, Yahoo! or MSN, etc. isn't hard to do, but it can be difficult to know where to begin. Here are our latest tips to help get you started.

Optimise for your Visitors!

It sounds like common sense, but very few businesses actually do it. Many businesses optimise their site for search engines, putting in keywords and phrases that are commonly used in search engines rather than actually researching what customers actually search on.

Search engines are looking for pages that best fit the keyword phrase someone types into their search box. If this person searching the internet is typing in search words that relate to what your site actually offers, then they are most likely members of your target audience.

You need to optimise your site to meet their needs. If you don't know who your target audience is, then you need to find out one way or another. Look for studies online that might provide the relative information, and visit other sites, communities, or forums where your target audience might hang out and listen to what they discuss. This information will be crucial to your resulting website design, keyword research, and copywriting.

Research keywords

Research your keyword phrases extensively, and never give up, the smallest of tweaks in the right direction can make a huge difference to your ranking.

The phrases you think your target market might be searching for may very well be incorrect.
To find the very best phrases to optimise your site for, use research tools such as Keyword Discovery, Wordtracker or any Google or Yahoo Search Marketing data you can lay your hands on.

Compile lists of the most relevant phrases for your site, and choose a few different ones for every page.
Never shoot for general keywords such as "parties" or "cars" as they are rarely indicative of what your site is really about.

You are aiming for a list of just ten good keywords or phrases, then start your optimisation.

Labels

It’s great coding too, but remember to label your internal text links and clickable image alt attributes (alt tags) as clearly and descriptively as possible.

Your site visitors and the search engines look at the clickable portion of your links (i.e. the anchor text) to help them understand what they're going to find once they click-through.

Don't make them guess what's at the other end with links that say "click here" or other nondescriptive words. Be as descriptive as possible with every text and graphical link on your site.

The cool thing about writing your anchor text and alt attributes is that you can be as descriptive (and relevant) as you want to be, and try to include some of those keywords too.

Copywriting

Great web site copy is one of the most powerful tools you have at your disposal to get you ranked well on the major search engines.

Write compelling copy for the key pages of your site based on your chosen keyword phrases and your target market's needs, and make sure it's copy that the search engines can "see".

This is a crucial component to having a successful web site. The search engines (i.e. Google and Yahoo!) need to read keyword rich copy on your pages so they can understand how to classify your site.

This copy shouldn't be buried in graphics or hidden in Flash or as coding comments. Write your copy based on your most relevant keyword phrases while also making an emotional connection with your site visitor.

There are no magic number of words per page or number of times to use your phrases in your copy, just do not use too many or too few! Try aiming for between 5 percent and 15 percent keyword density and you should be OK.

The important thing is to use your keyword phrases only when and where it makes sense to do so for the real people reading your pages. Simply sticking keyword phrases at the top of the page for no apparent reason isn't going to cut it, and it just looks silly.

 

Need help writing SEO Content? 

Linking

Make sure your site is "link-worthy."

Other sites linking to yours is a critical component of a successful search engine optimisation campaign, as all of the major search engines place a good deal of emphasis on your site's overall link popularity.

You can go out and request hundreds or thousands of links, but if your site is poor, why would anyone want to link to it?

On the other hand, if your site is full of wonderful, useful information, other sites will naturally link to it without you even asking.

The jury is out on where it is fine or not to simply trade links, the approach of black and white marketing is to get as many one way links for our clients as possible because we know that this is the very best linking approach to take; but it does take time.

When you link to lousy sites, keep in mind what this says to your site visitors as well as to the search engines.

Conclusion

There are some things that you can do to your web site to help you get a better search engine ranking, but it takes time (a long time), it's hard work, and lots of people think its boring, I actually enjoy doing it!

Improving website conversion

Most websites fail to convert visitors into buyers most of the time; this is particularly true of B2B sites where the sale might be more complex and include a higher price tag!

Getting plenty of visitors to the site of the first step to success; but more important than that is getting your traffic to make that all important buying decision whilst they are on your site.

Remember that lots more traffic doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll massively increase the rate of conversion; to do that you need to remove a number of barriers to purchase, they are:

1. Make Your Website Easy to Use
It stands to reason that when someone visits your site it needs to present itself correctly and be easy to use.

a) Evaluate the accessibility of your website (does it work with different browsers at different resolutions for example)
b) Is navigation clear and concise
c) Ensure the call-to-action button on your website is clearly visible

Each of these tweaks on their own seems simple enough but you need to ensure that you are making the right changes for your target market.

2. Focus on Getting Quality Traffic
Some sites that I have seen and had the pleasure to work on do not attract the right type of traffic; the sort of visitors that are really keen to buy whatever it is you sell.

The fact is a simple one …. in order to increase the number of online sales, you need to promote your products or services to the right people.

Find out who your target audience is and locate the sources where you can connect with them. In fact this is probably the most important strategy!

3. Enhance the Quality of Landing Pages
Landing page should be clean and simple in order to convert the most amount of visitors; do not think that this means very little content on the page, you need to put enough words on the page so that your proposition and benefits of your product/service is crystal clear.

Remember you can always test a couple of version of your landing pages to see which has the best impact.

3. Talk About Visitor Benefits
NEVER highlight the features of your offerings, already focus on the benefits and how you can help your visitors. What pain do they have and how can you solve it?

Visitors tend not to be too interested in your company, they have been attracted to your site, all you need to do is to convince them to buy, and talking about benefits will do just that.

I remember when I first qualified as a marketer, we were taught ‘Features and Benefits’ (FaB), this is no longer true!

4. Create an Urgent Demand
Anyone trained in copywriting will have been taught to ensure that that to compel your readers to take action and take action quickly you should try to create urgency.

Mentioning a time limit or a stock limit can quickly infuse urgency into visitors, but also getting across the point that the benefit of your offering is that they can ease their pain quicker!

5. Demonstrate Credibility
No matter what you sell you must earn trust, this is the same when selling stuff on line and it is in person; if you are not trustworthy then you will not sell anything!

This is a huge challenge for many businesses as they fail to show credibility. Some of the most useful ways of establishing credibility includes sharing customer success stories, media mentions and security verification, add contact details (including telephone number, email address and postal address) for added credibility.

6. Build Your Brand
Conversion rates will improve as your brand grows. (yet another useful fact).

The more people know about your brand, the more sales you will make. So, make sure your day-to-day activities include an element of brand building, it’s also true that better known brands find it easy to sell things and so become more profitable!

If you’re not using social media then try it today to help your brand; Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are all great for getting yourself known.

7. Keep Your Word
All wrapped up with your brand and building a great brand image is ensuring that you deliver what you promise; in fact I believe that delivering on a promise is exactly what a brand is.

Always ensure your customers get what they were promised in the first place. 

Contact these guys if you ever need any help with website conversion and website content.

Twitter - Remember CRASH!

I know sometimes we all struggle with how to interact with Twitter ….. what should I say? It is worthy of a tweet? Etc etc

Try this simple reminder of what you can do when you sit down to catch up with your Twitter feed.

CRASH!

Comment – look through your stream of activity (read what the people you are following are saying) and make a comment. It doesn’t need to be profound, sometime a simple “Sounds Great”, “We agree.” or “Tell us more.” type comments can start an interaction and potential help build relationships.

Reply – is anyone asking us something or commenting about us, this is your opportunity to reply to their comments.

Ask – don’t be afraid to ask questions of your followers; ask them what they think about relevant topic events or ask them if they have a particular business problem (problems that you can solve with your expertise, products and services).

Share – readers of your tweets are more likely to interact with you if you share content; simple post links to interesting webpages, articles or guides. Posting links to your own website could improve your search engine rankings.

Help – sometimes people in your feeds might be asking for help or assistance, don’t be afraid to comment and provide the help that they are looking for, it will help to give you Kudos. In Hootsuite you can create additional streams that show you who is posting about particular search terms. Use search terms based around your expertise or the products or service that you provide.

If you remember CRASH then you should never be stuck for something to say!

Klout

Love it or hate it Klout is here to stay; whether it still exists years from now as Klout or whether some genius manages to work out how to calculate the power of your social media exploits; a way of monitoring how the hard work that you’re putting into your social media activity is definitely needed.

Klout isn’t perfect, and I’ve set up some very easy tests that show that a Klout account can be manipulated to show fairly impressive growth in the topics that you want to be known as an expert for.

Klout (and services like it) also go to help people like myself who are highly competitive and need to feel that they are constantly improving their online marketing.

I guess the big change (and benefits) will come when search engines (and I’m really talking about Google) merge your Social Media Score in with its own algorithm to help improve ranking, then I’m sure we’ll see more businesses improving the quality of their social interactions.

Klout (www.klout.com)

Easy to Read = More Online Sales

It pretty much stands to reason that when a visitor lands on your website they will be more engaged with it if they can understand it!

By their very nature, website visitors are impatient people. If they have to work to understand your web pages (navigation or content), then they will go away to find an easier site than yours. Your competitors!


Many websites that I get to look at or look after contain some very technical language that is very difficult to understand for the seasoned professionals never-mind the average web surfer. Some webmasters also like long and complicated sentences.

Long and complicated sentences are not a sign of intelligence, it doesn't suggest to your readers that you know about the topic or more educated than them, it just shows that you really don't care about the readers.

Here are some very simple tips to help you.

• Write short sentences on your pages
• Use paragraphs
• Use headings and sub headings to structure the content logically
• Use bullet points
• Avoid using complicated words. Don't say "Dulcet" when you mean sweet or sugary!
• Use relevant  images on your pages

Follow these simple rules and your website visitors will flock to your pages and engage more with your brand/business.