To be seen or not be seen? - That is the question

As a business you may have some great Social Media profiles and an abundance of marketing skills, but where are you directing these people to? It is so easy to build a website these days BUT it is not easy to build a great website.

In today’s digital age your website is your modern-shop window, it is the channel through which the majority of your customers will contact you and view your products and services. Even existing customers who are loyal and long-standing customers, will look at your website occasionally. However if it looks bad or is hard to find you will be wasting money and a lot of time.

Imagine if you wish you were the owner/builder of a 5 star luxurious hotel, your entire business relies upon a simple factor: the number of people who come and stay in your hotel and the recommendations you get off the back of these.

Would you then build this fantastic five star hotel in the middle of a street full of closed down shops where no one was visiting?

The answer I would imagine, is no!

Equally if your hotel was on the other end of the scale a 1 star budget hoteI I doubt you’d shout to the rooftops about it and position it in the heart of Mayfair or Park Lane.

We are using metaphors about SEO and web marketing of course.

If you’ve paid money for a web developer to make you a really funky looking, engaging, functional website you’d want that to be seen! You’d want it to have the options and the ability to share content, optimise specific landing pages, create your own content – because after all, who knows your business better than you?

All of these things are important when considering your website development.

The free website builder sites such as (Wix, Moonfruit) are to websites what fast food restaurants are to fine catering! They might look ok from the outside but you’re just not getting the same thing inside. Remember quality is so much better than quantity or a freebie.

Put simply your website needs to be searchable, discover-able, usable and editable.

I mentioned at the start that your website is your shop window and imagine it on a virtual high street with a million other websites on it. About a tenth of these have the look and traffic which is your big national advertisers like BMW & Coca Cola who have unlimited budgets. But the rest? Well these will vary between looking very outdated and tired, to looking better than they actually are. Those are the sites you are competing with. You need to stand out from the crowd and it isn’t just about making your website look great (It helps), but you to make sure people know it exists in the first place!

That is the challenge, and that is where social media, SEO and online marketing come into their own…

Paul

Paul Waller

Digital Media Director, U2View Media Limited

www.u2viewmedia.co.uk

Taking the next step from 'do it yourself' digital and internet marketing

Every startup book and article will tell you to do your own social media, write blogs, use a free email service and make your own website when you're setting up your new business.

And yes this is all possible, and yes it is a great way to start off - especially when money is tight, and yes you'll end up with a Facebook page, twitter account and templated website you've created at midnight somewhen. I'm not saying this is a bad thing at the start – whatever means necessary and all that – it has to be done.

But the time will come when your company has grown and you'll need to be seen as more professional in the digital world, chances are those websites and social media pages have barely been touched by you in the months and years that followed your business launch.

But improving on your original setup, developing your digital marketing strategy and website offering further is hard to find the time to do when you're just trying to keep your head above water or your cashflow balanced - it can feel like there's a million things to do and more often than not, updating social media channels and improving your website get bumped further and further down the long list of tasks that are forever coming up.

But it's something that must be done in today's business world – well, done if you want to reach 1000's of potential new customers and keep your current ones coming back for more!

Having a great digital offering is now a must and the stat's just keep adding up, with numbers such as up to 81% of people reading and trusting reviews before booking a restaurant for example, or within the next couple of year's nearly 80% of internet traffic will be via a smartphone, things have moved on at such a pace from traditional media such as newspaper advertising in the past decade that it's hard for anyone to keep up – let alone a start-up business.

Stepping up

This is where companies such as ourselves come in, we can take the hassle, worry and time constraints away from it all – creating and up keeping everything online that regards your business - whether that's keeping a professional presence on the web via a properly designed website and properly serviced social media channels, or having a business app with your logo that sits on your customers phones each and every day. All will improve your company's professional image and boost interaction with customers new and old alike.

To help businesses step up to the digital world we start by offering the basics of that step – possibly running, on your behalf, your Facebook and Twitter pages, creating a professional website and having accompanying email addresses.

But to us at U2View this really is just the basics – the next step means improving your current digital offering all over and increasing it too, adding further social media profiles such as Google+ and LinkedIn, creating company videos, possibly moving your website to full e-commerce and creating a mobile App to showcase your business.

But here's what most business owners don't realise - it really doesn't have to cost the earth - full packages actually work out far less per week money wise than running an ad in traditional media such as your local newspaper - and you'll reach a much larger audience in the process.

So if you need a bit of help or guidance and fancy a chat about how we can help your businesses with it's digital exposure and marketing strategy - and ultimately gain new customers - you know where we are!

Paul.

Paul Bearman

Creative Director, U2View Media Ltd.

www.u2viewmedia.co.uk