Skill Build:using the internet for business

by Samantha Deakin

theweb.co.uk

Agenda/Topics To Be Covered

• Where do I start?

• Creating a website

• Which social media sites should I be using for my business?

• How do I monitor my impact on social media sites?

• What is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)?

• How do I monitor my website traffic?

• Recommended reading list

• Some interesting reports

Right here, right now

Where do I start?

At the beginning, of course...

• Get an SEO friendly domain name

– ‘florists sheffield’

– www.floristssheffield.co.uk

– www.sheffieldflorist.co.uk

• Get yourself a website orblog.

Creating a website

• Types of website

– Static HTML

– Content managed

– E-Commerce

– AVOID FLASH

• Make sure you keepit up-to-date.

What is Search Engine Optimisation? (SEO)

• Making your site relevant to search engines

• Choose the right keywords/keyword phrases

• Content

– Meta Tags:

• Title

• Description

• Keywords

• Yahoo and DMOZ

• Building links

Which social media sites should I be using for my business?• Twitter- one for all

• Facebook- great for news sites and special offers

• MySpace- going out of fashion, but still popular with bands... and...er...emos, mainly.

• LinkedIn- professional network

• YouTube- The world’s 2nd biggest search engine

Can’t I just use all of them?

Well, yea. But you’ve got to maintain them all too.

Better to do a couple well than all of them badly.

Twitter

• Pretty much for everyone

• Customer services, news updates, special offers, brand recognition

• Don’t tweet mindless rubbish. Be generous. Mentions. Retweets.

• Post articles and information that links back to your site

• Promote your witter account outside of Twitter!?! Surely not.

Facebook

• News sites and things you can becomea fan of

• Offer free stuff

• Think about your audience

• Post events/information/articles

• Promote your Facebook Fan Page

• Skittles

• Pringles

LinkedIn

• Professional network. For businesses and professionals

• Add your CV

• Get recommendations

• Add content such as blogs, slideshows, presentations, etc.

• Create groups

• Advertise jobs

• Build your network

• Contributes to the marketable brand of the individual

YouTube

• 2nd largest search engine in the world!

• YouTube Channels

• Video quality

• Promoting your YouTube channel

• Nike use YouTube extremely well...

• Some of Nike’s video have had 10m views

• This next video has only had about 80k

• But has had five video responses

YouTube

How do I monitor my website traffic?• As a start up business, you’re probably using social media to try

and drive traffic back to your website

• Get Google Analytics

• How much traffic?

• Traffic Source

• What are people typing in?

• Referring Sites

• How long are people staying?

• What’s a Bounce Rate?

• GOOGLE ANALYTICS IS FREE!

Recommended reading list

• http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/

• http://blog.hubspot.com/

• http://mashable.com/

• http://www.digtheweb.co.uk

• Look out for free webinars and e-books. A lot of companies offer these for free to get their brand recognised.

• Always check your information though as a lot of digital marketing is opinion and changes on a daily basis.

Some interesting reports

• The State of Inbound Marketing Report

• Burson-Marsteller Fortune Global 100 Social Media Study

• Small Business Success Index™

• ROI from Inbound Marketing through Implementing HubSpot Software