Posts by Caroline

When planning an internet marketing campaign, along with working to drive more visitors to your site, it’s important to give consideration to how users will act once they arrive at your site.

Generating interaction between site and user is a valuable way of encouraging loyalty. The benefits of the return traffic that comes from user loyalty can include repeat sales and gaining new customers through word-of-mouth recommendation.

Some examples of multimedia elements that you can utilise to encourage user engagement include:

1. Video

Video can be used both on and off site with the goal of increasing traffic and brand awareness. Video can take the form of product demonstrations, testimonials, education or just for plain fun!

You can get lucky, but creating a video that goes viral is not always a happy accident despite many giving that impression. Careful planning and promotion is usually behind any successful viral content campaign.

One tip: if you are going to add hosted video to your site then add a video sitemap and submit it to Google via Webmaster Tools to aid with indexing.

2. Reviews

Adding a review facility to your site to give your customers a voice is a good way of encouraging interaction. Positive reviews are great of course but, with careful management, negative reviews can be turned to your advantage. If you are seen to take criticism and suggestions on board, taking subsequent action to improve your service, you are creating an environment where users feel valued.

3. Podcasts

Publishing high quality podcasts can raise your profile significantly in a competitive marketplace. There are numerous sites and blogs targeted to a niche audience, but not so many offering podcasts. By publishing regular podcasts you are engaging with your audience in a more intimate way, more difficult to achieve with text.

4. Images

The appropriate use of images to enhance text on a site can engage a viewer. For example, a recipe site with photos of ingredients and prepared meals is far more enjoyable to use that one with just plain text. In addition, if you give users the facility to upload photos of the meals they had prepared using recipes from your site you would be encouraging some great interaction.

5. Polls

Polls are a great way of engaging with your users whilst at the same time gathering valuable feedback or data. Polls allow viewers to voice an opinion and, in turn, they often enjoy checking results to see how other people feel on a given subject. Polls are easy to set up using the many free and paid resources which are available.

6. RSS Feeds

If you add regular new content to your site (and you should be doing), then having one or more RSS feeds available for people to subscribe to is a good idea. Subscribers are immediately updated when new articles appear on your site. You can also easily inform users of any special offers and promotions.

7. Maps

One obvious use for adding a map to your site is to give the location of and directions to your premises. You could expand on this by adding local facilities and attractions, this is great for hotels! There are numerous other uses. One of my favourite sites, for instance, is for runners and it allows you to plot and save routes for your own use and to share with other people who run.

8. Forums

I’ve touched on the benefits of forums before in a previous article: ‘Turn Your Niche Site into an Online Community’.

Adding a forum to a site brings many benefits, including allowing your users to communicate with each other. Forum members often make friends online and revisit the site regularly to keep up to date with the latest news from fellow users.

Forums are also a great way of gaining user-generated content that should bring additional visitors via long tail searches.

9. Blogs

Blogging is becoming more and more popular. Enabling the facility to comment on blogs gives viewers the opportunity give feedback and ask questions. The reader gets more out of the article if they can interact with the writer.

One of the most common blog platforms is WordPress. It’s simple to set up and has many useful plug-ins to aid with SEO and usability.

10. Social Bookmarking

Add obvious social bookmarking tools to your site to make it easy for users to save and share your content. This is a great way of generating extra traffic as well as providing valuable back links.

You can also take advantage of this facility yourself by signing up with popular social sites to submit your own content. There are automated applications that you can utilise to do this for you.

More advice about getting started with social media optimisation.

The goal of increasing user interaction is to give visitors a reason to come back to your site. In addition to increasing loyalty, adding the above engagement objects will help with the optimisation of your site for inclusion in universal search results.

Caroline Bell
SEO Advisor

There are many social networking sites out there but the following are the main ones you should consider using. Before you go ahead, give some thought to if – and how – they will work for you. If you feel a particular social site is inappropriate for your business, for any reason, then don’t use it. Also, give consideration as to whether you will have the time to do the regular updates necessary to maintain user loyalty and interest.

Before you commit your business name to any online social media site, sign-up and ‘listen’ before diving in. Take the time to get a feel for how the system works and what the spoken and unspoken rules are.

Facebook http://www.facebook.com

Build a Facebook fan page for your company. Use this page to promote your company by keeping it updated with your latest news and offers. Page information could include:

Company information

Contact details

Website link

News and press releases

Blog feed

Videos

Twitter updates

To promote the page, you will need to set up a personal profile and start networking. Join groups for industry sectors that could use your services. You can also become fans of companies who you would like to use your services. Perhaps say ‘hi’ on their pages but try not to come across as blatantly self-promoting. If appropriate you could also send direct messages to people inviting them to become a fan of your page. It would be a good idea if you have some specific news or promotion to offer.

If it fits in with your business, add a ‘Join us on Facebook’ button to your website to encourage customer interaction.

Twitter http://twitter.com

Use Twitter to present the ‘human’ face of your company. Follow people related to your industry as well as potential customers for your product or service. Spend time ‘listening’ to what people are saying as it can give you a valuable insight into who you should be following, and how you should be connecting with your customers. Searches can uncover people who are already talking about your company.

You can update Twitter by using a tool to upload your site’s RSS feeds, but also take the time to converse on a personal level as this will promote interaction from your current followers and encourage new ones.

You should also take the time to customise the background of your Twitter profile. It looks professional and is valuable space that can be used to give information about yourself or your company.

Example customised twitter profile: http://www.twitter.com/carolinelbell

Linked In http://www.linkedin.com

Linked in is an excellent business-to-business networking tool. Set up a profile for your company and encourage your staff to set up personal profiles. Join relevant groups and engage in conversation with other members. Add your blog feed and upload company presentations to share your industry knowledge.

Article Submission

In addition to joining social networking sites, submitting articles and issuing press releases should also be considered. Article submission is a good way to syndicate content and gain back-links to your site.

It’s important to write quality content that people will actually want to read. As with social sites there are a multitude of article submission sites, but the following are the most popular:

Ezine Articles:  http://ezinearticles.com

Article City: http://www.articlecity.com

Go Articles: http://www.goarticles.com

Search Warp: http://searchwarp.com

Another good tip is to identify the main competitors in your market sector. Do some research into what kind of social marketing they are undertaking. If you spot a great idea, then emulate it – but add your own unique twist.

Most of all enjoy it. Social media networking can be fun!

Caroline Bell
SEO Advisor