Nothing lets a site down more than $5 stock photography that took all of 5 minutes to source. Images of this sort lack authenticity and undermine credibility. And it indicates laziness.
A homepage, back-page or post should capture interest within the first few seconds of being viewed – well considered images can do that. But you’ll need to invest more than $5 – don’t be a tight-arse when it comes to the imagery and design elements online which are speaking for you in your absence.
Here are a few of the hackneyed classics that haunt my browser…
The Smiling Businessman Is he high on drugs or what? And those teeth.
The Signpost Of course, over there silly…
Writing on Glass Because business is easy.
Inspirational
…and I’m feeling queazy in the tummy now.
Chess Pieces So super-strategic it hurts.
The Bullseye Get it? Do ya?
The Contact Centre Babe Call me… or at least someone not vaguely like me.
The Lightbulb More of the same original thinking.
The Superhero Kid Super annoying. Not quirky.
The Dealmakers
Taking your money – we’re laughing all the way to the bank.
The Thinkers
Here’s our workplace… well, not literally.
The ‘Upward And To The Right’ Graph Dumbing it down (while magically making it go up).
Advertising for an individual capable of undertaking a wide cross-section of online and social media duties for an organisation is unrealistic. It also demonstrates that the organsiation lacks focus on where to concentrate its online firepower.
Short answer, no. You’re better off paying for good initial advice regarding the basic principals of search, creating your own content (lots of it and ongoing), and then letting the optimisation process unfold naturally…
You can get yourself known to a wider audience on Twitter by various ways of introduction:
Following – people tend to check out who their new followers are.
Mentioning – use a person’s @TwitterHandle within a tweet to get their attention.
Retweeting – giving visibility to somebody else’s tweet within your own community is a noble act and won’t go unnoticed.
Favouring a tweet – use favourites as a form of bookmarking for yourself; the owner of the tweet is also made aware you’ve marked it as special.
Add a person to a list – lists help organise Twitter accounts into group activity streams. When you add a person to a public list it’s made known to them, including the name you assigned for the list, e.g. ‘Really Cool People’!
Hashtags – use recognised #hashtags to help people find your tweets around themes of common interest.
Profile description – integrating important keywords into your profile description helps for internal Twitter searching and for standard Google searches.
And don’t forget to be interesting at all times – getting the attention of someone and holding it are two different things.
This post is by my Blogger Connect business partner, Gaynor Alder, the original post can be found here.
With the growing power and influence that bloggers have with consumers, combined with their highly engaged audiences, brands are wise to be forming advertising partnerships with blogs.
But navigating a rapidly evolving and dynamic digital landscape, with ever changing rules of engagement, can often raise more questions than answers as brands and bloggers try to keep up with each other.
But, what it does present is an opportunity to be creative with your marketing campaigns to powerfully connect your brand with a blog’s highly engaged audience. Whilst the below is an overview of traditional and some more creative advertising collaborations with blogs, you have the freedom to explore, approach and liaise with bloggers to create exciting, new and dynamic marketing campaigns.
// Sponsored Posts
You supply the blogger with a brief and associated links you would like included in a tailored article on their blog. The brief should include number of words, specific keywords for links and a direction for the content.
The blogger should be given freedom to write with their own voice and to be creative to ensure that it sounds like editorial and not advertorial, so as to best connect your brand with their audience. The blogger will need to place a disclosure statement within their post, to indicate that you paid them to write about your brand.
// Social Media
With many bloggers having a large social media reach and connecting with their followers on a daily basis, advertising directly via their social media audience is a great way to get your brand’s message across.
You can liaise with the blogger to create a content strategy, with an agreed number of messages/links, posting times and how to word your messages for best traction with their audience. It’s advisable to create a content schedule with ample time frame between posting of messages so that it feels more organic and not spammy. Because no one likes that now, do they?
// Polling
Bloggers with large amounts of traffic who have an audience within your key demographic, are a brilliant resource for you to tap into to gain marketing insights for your brand. You can liaise with the blogger to create a specific number of polling questions, length and best placement on the blog, whether it be on their sidebar or within an article.
If content is required to be written by the blogger to accompany the poll within an article, this will more than likely attract a higher fee than a poll just placed within their sidebar. However, embedding a poll within a highly engaging article is more likely to have traction than a simple poll on the sidebar. This will depend on the polling questions being asked and how compelling they are to the blog’s readership.
You can also negotiate with the blogger to include the poll in both an article and on the sidebar.
// Reviews
Because of the personalised connection bloggers have with their audience, bloggers have become strong market influencers. Recent social media conversation has indicated that many readers will buy products and brands that bloggers have reviewed on their sites, because they have come to trust in the blogger’s opinions.
Reviews can take place in a number of ways. Some bloggers will accept product in exchange for a review, whilst others will charge for the review and either keep the product or return it to the brand. Whilst many bloggers will blog for lipstick, others place a higher value on their time and increased reach.
Whilst there is nothing wrong with bloggers blogging about your product in exchange for product, many will be insulted by requests from PRs and brands to spend their time writing in return for a free bottle of dish washing detergent. That’s not a good return on their investment, nor does it respect their audience who they have worked hard to build, often after many years of blogging without income.
Reviews can be on their blog, but many bloggers have large audiences on their you tube channels. Video reviews give the reader a chance to really connect with the blogger’s personality and demonstrate how your products can be used in viewer’s lives.
// Giveaways
Another way to promote your brand is to offer your product to a blogger to giveaway to their audience. With a large number of blogs now running competitions that are promoted on social media, it is a good idea to offer a prize of good value to ensure traction, conversion of entries and thus maximised exposure of your product or service.
Many blogs will not charge for you to offer product to their audience, however many will as again you are leveraging off their readership and it takes the blogger time to write the competition article.
You should also discuss with the blogger whether your product/service will be featured exclusively within the competition or alongside other brands. You can also create targeted entry methods that include social media following or newsletter sign up.
However, with or without targeted entry methods, your brand will experience an increased level of exposure as competitions always generate spikes in traffic. Because, hey, who doesn’t want to win free stuff? But remember, the prize you are offering must be of good value and the easier it is for people to enter, the more successful the competition will be.
Personally, I have turned away from newsletter sign ups and social media following for the future direction of advertising on my magazine, and moving towards more creative entry methods for high value prizes, which open the door for more fun and interactive social media engagement and forwarding of the brand within my audience.
// Banner Advertising
Banner advertising is one of the most traditional forms of advertising with a blog. It’s pretty straightforward. You supply the blog with an image and they add it to specific places on their blogs. Media kits will detail varying placement options and banner sizes, with varying costs according to key traffic sections on blogs. Just like a newspaper, above the fold is always best.
You should also check how many page impressions your banner will receive during your advertising period. Some blogs will offer you 100% of the page impressions, whilst others may rotate advertisements within the same space. You can weigh this up with the number of unique & page views the blog receives, in order to determine how much exposure your banner will receive.
Where possible, you should consider designing a banner that visually resonates with their audience, versus just supplying the same banner to every blog you advertise with.
// Brand Ambassadorships
Brand Ambassadorships provide you the opportunity to align your brand with a blogger who represents your brand’s values. Whilst there are not specific guidelines for brand ambassadorships, this does give you the opportunity to tailor a package to promote your brand via various channels, which can include content creation, social media marketing, speaking engagements and event appearances.
Bloggers will not typically have this included in their media kit, but this does not mean they are not open to a brand ambassadorship.
// Affiliate Advertising
There are many affiliate platforms available for you to upload your banner for bloggers to publish on their sites. You can choose to approve which bloggers applications you want to approve, or allow instant approval for the blogger to be able to download your banner for their blog.
When their readers click on your banner and purchase your products, the blogger will receive a commission from the sale. The affiliate agency will also charge you to become an affiliate.
Browsing There remains the option to browse a full physical product range in-store as per the traditional retail offering. But I should also be able to browse the full product range online with customisation options, calculators and other assistance wizards for certain product categories. Newer store formats won’t necessarily stock their full range, but will be able to provide samples for demonstration purposes, to touch or to try on. Both physical store formats will be able to offer me product advice and take required measurements. I should also be able to browse the retailer’s online store while I’m in the physical store via terminals or supplied wirelessly connected tablets.
Ordering I should be able to order online anywhere for later delivery, including from any of the retailer’s physical stores via their own website or through an in-store staff member.
Delivery I should be given options to have the item shipped to a home or office address, picked up from any of the retailer’s physical stores, or delivered to a locally nominated pick-up facility with 24/7 access.
Returns I should be able to return a mail-sized item to a local postal address, irrespective of where the retailer is based. I should also be able to drop the item off at any of their physical stores, or leave it at the same local facility with 24/7 access that I picked it up from originally.
Refunds I should have the option to keep an online account with a credit balance, have the refund paid back into my financial institution, or to collect the cash amount from any of the retailer’s physical stores.
Positioning your website content to take full advantage of organic search and the ‘long-tail’ is a smart business investment – the continual addition of quality content over time is the recommended approach. Here are the 3 steps:
1. Realignment
Enhance existing web pages with fuller product or service level detail, e.g. specs, geographies. Align page headings, meta titles & descriptions. Insert aligned ‘alt text’ to all images
2. Micro-Segmentation
Identify exiting web pages containing more than one key market concept and break each into a separate page. Begin the process of publishing new pages that are targeted at specific micro-segments (use ‘buyer personas’)
3.Content Marketing Inform and empower your marketplace by publishing layer upon layer of quality information via the website and/or a blog
