How to Make the Web Work For You

They are - in this order:

1. Measure
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On the web - you DONT guess. You Measure, measure, measure.... Take look at your web stats - and if you havent got stats - get Analytics installed!

2. Analyze
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Use the information you have from step 1, and analyze/assess what the hell is happening, or not happening on your site. Where are people leaving, how long are they staying, which countries are you getting visitors from etc. Sit down and get a picture of what's happening on your site.

3. Renovate
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If after analyzing things in step 2, you see some alarming trends (like a 80% Bounce rate from your Home Page)..... Fix it! Much like fixing a house - take a look at your site and the problem areas, and renovate them. It'll make for a friendlier environment for your visitors.

4. Promote
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After all the hard work in step 3 - dont sit back and think that everyone is going to be pounding at your website 'door' to come in. You have to get out there and promote your site. Give people one good reason to visit - and put it out there in as many places as possible. Using - Adwords, Squidoo, Blogs, Stumbleupon, Classified ads, On Your Emails, Yahoo Search Marketing, Directory Listings ... You get the idea!

5. Communicate
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Now that people are visiting your site, communicate with them. Not just in a one-sided conversation either! Get them to : request info, ask them if they need help, let them call you on the phone (and make it easy for them to do this), join your newsletter (where you send them interesting, valuable info). Engage your visitors, and you'll find it'll help your business... HUGELY!

Hey I hope that helps.... Let me know if it does. Thanks. Mick

Okay, so you've heard from someone that this social media and social networking stuff is great and you should get involved, and it's really going to help you out. Maybe it will help you in the economic downturn. Maybe you have heard how you can use Twitter for business. But there's a lot to it all.

Where would you start? What would come first? How might you think about getting out there and joining in on the experience?

Read what Chris Brogan has to say .... It's good stuff!

www.ChrisBrogan.com

1. Get listed on Google Local Business Centre. It puts you on Google's Maps and sometimes even on the 1st page of Google's search results

Get Your Local Business Listing at - http://www.google.com/local/add

2. Make sure you Submit Your website to these 3 Search Engines:

* Google - http://www.google.com/addurl/
* DMOZ - http://www.dmoz.org/add.html
* Yahoo - https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/submit

3. Install Google Analytics on Your website. This will allow you to easily track who is visiting your website, for how long, where they are coming from. An invaluable tool for measuring your website and marketing performance. It's also Free!

http://www.google.com/support/googleanalytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66983

4. Setup an Email Signature, providing contact details, your name, business name and web address. And make use of a polite PS ? to promote specials, deals, and offers.

See - http://email.about.com/od/signatures/Email_Signatures.htm

5. Track and store the, emails you send to contacts, leads, customers, in an online location, that you can access 24/7. This is great as it stores your emails in a safe online manner that you can access from any computer, anytime. Basically an online Contact Manager , Address Book, and Customer Relationship Management tool all rolled into one! As they list on their website - you can use Highrise to:

* Review a colleague's notes before calling her contact at the printer
* See all the follow-ups scheduled for this week
* Set a reminder to write your client a thank-you note next Friday
* Keep all important emails from a customer together on one page
* Schedule a follow-up sales call with a lead in 30 days
* Enter notes from a call with a potential client

Visit - http://www.HighriseHQ.com and learn more about their free start-up account.

6. Create yourself a lens on Squidoo. Why? Because Squidoo is free and allows you to quickly and easily create

* A signpost about something that matters to you.
* A place to recommend your favorite stuff.
* A popular way to get found more on the web

Google also LOVES content posted on Squidoo, so make sure you include a link to your own website in the Introdution. This will (over time) help improve your website's page ranking on Google and other search engines. It'll also give people more ways to find you and your business online (rather than the other way around)

Get Started - http://www.squidoo.com/wizard/step1
Need more help? - See http://www.squidoo.com/creating-lenses

7. Brand your car with your Web Address.Think about how much time you spend in traffic with someone staring at your car's rear window. Captive marketing at it's best. Better still - include your mobile number and a message for them to call you now to chat! (as long as you have a hands-free kit)

8. Measure your Marketing, so that you know what's working and what isn't. Keep a log-book/ record of how people found out about your business. You should do this for all telephone enquiries.

And if you're really smart ? register a number of slightly different versions of your web domain and use these in your different marketing campaigns. (i.e. use a .net for one, .com or another, .info for yet another)

Why? Because you can then set-up redirects for these domains to your normal web address, and count every single visit that gets referred from them (as long as you've installed Google Analytics in Step 3)

This allows you to measure radio adverts, print adverts, brochures?. There's no need to guess anymore whether your marketing is driving leads to your website ? or not.

Make sure you do this on your website too (get your web developer to add a small drop-down menu of options as to how people found you) You can create your own form and replace your current email address link on your website.

Visit: http://www.formlogix.com/Form_Maker.aspx

9. Add a social bookmarking toolbar to your website. This a great way to get other people to spread the word about content on your website.

Visit - http://www.addthis.com/web-button-select.html

10. Set-up and send-out out an online Customer Survey. It's a great form of marketing, and allows you to :

* Get Customer Feedback on Your Service and Product (always make sure to ask what is Good, and How You can Improve things too)
* Gain Marketing Testimonials (make sure you ask permission to use them)
* Make contact with previous customers

Think about questions you'd like answers to about your business. Like:

* How did you hear about my business?
* What are the Things You Enjoyed about Doing Business With Us?
* What are the things we Could Improve on?
* Would you recommend us to someone else?

Then spend some time gathering email addresses from your email client/ inbox, and draft a polite email asking people to visit the survey online. It's often a good idea to provide a small incentive to customers to complete the survey like a discount off their next purchase etc. This in-turn will further promote business!

You can gather up to 10 responses for free using - http://freeonlinesurveys.com

OR for more serious surveys try - http://www.surveygizmo.com