Marketing Training in Bury St Edmunds

The good news is Cinnamon Edge is busy. The bad news is we've been too busy lately to schedule any marketing workshops or courses for Bury St Edmunds businesses.

But there's one thing that all successful businesses do, especially when they're being successful - they keep on marketing and promoting themselves. It's very easy to be too busy working in your business to even think about finding more customers or promoting more to existing customers. It's easy but it's dangerous, because it's all too easy for those customers to go elsewhere, cut back or just change their buying strategy - leaving you high and dry and with nothing in the pipeline.

So, on that basis, and taking our own advice, we're actively looking for a couple more clients for our marketing services. While we've started work for several new clients in the last few weeks, we still have the capacity for two more, and short-term work or one-off jobs can always be fitted in.

This week we've been building and optimising two websites, running social media campaigns for several clients, designing squeeze pages, making videos, writing articles and blogs and more.

But while you might be happy with business at the moment, or too busy to look for more, we're not too busy to take that job off your hands and help you attract more clients, more sales and a more secure future.

In business, you should always be marketing and selling. And if you can't find time yourself you need to think about hiring someone who can!

Roy

Go to www.cinnamonedge.co.uk and follow us on Facebook and Twitter

We've Moved Offices

We've just moved house which means that we've also moved office.

Our new address is:

2 Chichester Close
Bury St Edmunds
IP33 2LZ

And our new phone number: 01284 767193.

Now we (that's Cinnamon Edge) are back into the swing of things, we've almost stopped tripping over boxes, and we're ready to help you with your business' marketing just as soon as you want to call the new number!

That's 01284 767 193.

Blogger Joins the Mobile Revolution

Blogger has made it simple to join the mobile revolution with your blog by adding automated mobile templates.

This means you can create a mobile version of any Blogger blog with just a couple of clicks of your mouse.

To create a mobile version of your Blogger blog, go to your blogger dashboard.
Click on 'settings' and you'll see a new tab, 'Email & Mobile'.
Click on this tab and then the button labelled 'Yes. On mobile devices, show the mobile version of my template.'

That's it. You can preview the mobile blog there and then. It's very basic (as most mobile sites should be).

As a bonus, Blogger generates a QR code for your mobile site, too.

Roy

Why Leak Link Juice?

I've written several times on this blog and the Cinnamon Edge blog about the importance of link juice for your websites and blogs.

Getting inbound links from respected and relevant sites is really helpful in boosting your own sites in the search engine results, and you can create some of these yourself by setting up blogs like this one.

There are some SEO 'experts' who say that you shouldn't put outbound links on your websites because they 'leak' the very link juice you've been getting from elsewhere with your inbound links. But it isn't quite that simple.

If it was, authority sites would have no authority, because all their link juice would leak away through all the miriad links to other sites. In fact, outbound links help your website, too, and they do it in two ways:

1. Google likes websites to be helpful and to give a good experience to their visitors. Links to useful information on other sites is one very easy but effective way of being useful. You don't have to rewrite the useful information on your own site and you can never be accused of plagiarising another site's content.


2. Your website's visitors will have an enjoyable and helpful experience when they visit your site so they're more likely to come back, suggest it to friends, and so on. They'll probably forget that a lot of what they learned was actually on another site entirely!

There are a couple of things you must do to make outbound links work for you.

1. Make sure you get any links to open in a new page or new tab so your visitor never actually leaves your site unless they actively decide to. When they close the new website (that you linked to) your website will still be showing.


2. Use the relevant anchor text in your outbound links, just as you would in your inbound ones. This tells Google that you're giving people a clear path to relevant information.

Finally, another benefit of linking to other people's sites is that they're much more likely to link to yours or find other ways to tell people about your site.

It's not quite clear how powerful outbound links are compared to inbound ones, and Google isn't going to tell us, but there's no doubt they do contribute.

And being a good citizen by giving your visitors the best possible experience can only help your business in the long run.

I'll talk about the myths and mysteries of 'no-follow' and 'do-follow' links and their possible impact on SEO another time!

Roy

Google's Googly

Google threw everyone a googly last week when they changed the way local search results are displayed. It's fair to say that most people were wrong-footed!

From now on, it seems, local results will be a mixture of Google Places and organic listings, with no clear answer as to which will get priority, although a picture is emerging.

Google's changes have probably made hundreds of 'How-To' info products obsolete overnight, but fortunately our big products - all part of a joint venture that's been over a year in the making - hadn't gone to press yet.

So we've been able to include the very latest advice on how to optimise both Places and your main website (and other web 'properties') in the first new product before it launches.

That's along with all the hundreds of other pages of information, actionable tips and advice and straightforward strategies to grow your business.

In some ways it's a real nuisance for us. But it's pure gain for the people who will get their hands on the very latest on local search almost at the moment it emerges from Google.

Watch this space for the live links to the new product!

Roy

Online Marketing Course Bonus

Here's a great free tool that I was recently pointed to that helps you find good backlinks for your website.

As you know, creating relevant backlinks to your website is vital to search engine optimisation. Getting links that are at least as good as your competitors means that any extra you can add will give you a real advantage, so a tool that helps you find out who links to them is priceless.

You can do the job manually, but here's a tool that finds those 'citations' for you:

http://www.whitespark.ca/tools/local-citation-finder/

Just sign up (for free) then enter any local search term (eg, 'solicitor bury st edmunds') and you're done.

It works on Google.com or .co.uk (and even Google.ca) and you'll be emailed a list of results, plus a list of your top competitors and another list of potential backlinks (that no one is using), usually within a few minutes.

It's very impressive! Again, it's at http://www.whitespark.ca/tools/local-citation-finder/

Roy

Now Get Your Online Marketing Course Live!

Here's how to get access to our online marketing expertise ive and in person without paying us a consultancy fee!

Join us at our first Challenge Workshop in the week commencing 16 August, and you'll get three hours' worth of priceless online marketing training in exchange for a modest donation to St Nicholas Hospice Care.

It's all part of our contribution to the Towergate Accumulator Challenge, and you'll get more details right now on the Fifty Quid Challenge blog.

Roy

PS More details about The Fifty Quid Challenge are at http://www.thefiftyquidchallenge.co.uk

Online Marketing Part 11 - Using Consultants

A slight change of direction this time, as we look at the bigger picture beyond online marketing.

Because marketing is something that should be woven into the fabric of every business, carrying out a full audit of your business will inevitably reveal failures, weaknesses and profit leaks.

Looking at your business from a purely marketing perspective will highlight other problems, too. So it pays to spend some time with a business and marketing specialist who's up to date with latest methods and has the sense and intelligence to listen to you while you explain your unique business, and its strengths and challenges.

If your business isn't making the money it used to, or bringing you the lifestyle you hoped for, getting an outsider's view of things is a great idea.

Some words of warning, though: don't use a consultant or expert who offers you the perfect solution (or any solution) on your first meeting. It takes time to learn about a business and consider the possible options to make it better and you owe it to yourself and your company to find someone who will take that time.

That's why we reckon on spending at least an hour and a half (and usually more than two hours) just asking questions and noting down the answers. We NEVER offer to sell you a service at this first meeting. In fact, we won't even quote you a price or accept a deposit to secure our services.

Instead, we'll come back to you in a few days to a week or so with a list of ideas and suggestions that, if implemented properly, are guaranteed to improve your business' results.

Some of our suggestions are likely to be for online marketing of one sort or another, but not all. Some will almost certainly be minor tweaks or improvements on what you're doing already, or new ways to maximise the resources you have. Others may be 'offline' marketing methods you haven't tried before or haven't been able to make work for you.

It's not 'one size fits all' - we know every business is different, especially yours!

Being part of a very powerful mastermind group, we have access to information and ideas far beyond what any single company could normally offer. Which is a great resource to have available for your business.

But even if you don't hire us, or any other consultant, to help you with your business, it's well worth carrying out an 'audit' of your own, to see where those profit leaks and missed opportunities are. Only then can you do something to fix them.

Roy

PS. You can contact us via our Cinnamon Edge website or email roy@cinnamonedge.co.uk or jacqui@cinnamonedge.co.uk

Online Marketing in Bury St Edmunds Bonus

In the previous part of the course we looked at getting visitors to take action when they get to your website.

We concluded that the most valuable thing a visitor can give you is their contact details, because that enables you to begin and continue a relationship with them - which means you can build trust and create more opportunities to promote your goods and services.

We will look at the mechanics of email marketing soon, but I wanted to break in at this point with a look at what is probably the most powerful email subject line I've ever seen.

It will also be a great headline or sub headline on a sales latter, in the right context.

It's powerful because it not only hits an emotional hot button but also pre-qualifies readers, so only those who are really in the market for the product will read on. For anyone else, the headline will probably tell them they needn't read on, although it will still produce a visceral reaction if they used to be in the specific situation it addresses.

So, this headline isn't suitable for every business or every product, but if you can stir anything like this reaction with your services or products, you might like to adapt it.

The heart-stopping headline is:

Re: Your Unpaid Bill

Now, most of us have been in debt at some point. Even if we haven't, most of us have forgotten to pay an important bill at some time or another. But if debt has been a major issue of yours for any length of time, the memory of those unpaid bills will still be all too vivid.

The content of this email isn't important, but of course it was promoting a way to make money fast - the primary concern of anyone in serious debt. And the subject line stopped me in my tracks and it's just four words long.

Notice it uses the singular 'Bill'. This makes it more authentic, since one company wouldn't normally refer to money you owe to anyone else - they just want you to pay their bill, and soon.

Not many situations in life are as stressful as being in serious debt, and I won't offend anyone here by refering to events or situations that are even more traumatic, but whatever matters to your clients, whatever problem you help them overcome, must be an important issue for them, so stating it as starkly as this example could be all you need to do to get their attention.

We'll get back to normal with the next part, Part 10, of the online marketing course very soon.

Roy

Online Marketing, Part 9 - Collecting Customers

Last time we looked at persuading your website visitors to respond to your site in the way you want.

This could be:

1 - Buying from you now

2 - Contacting you by phone, letter or email

3 - 'Bookmarking' your website to return later

4 - Telling other people about your website, perhaps via a bookmarking or social media site

5 - Leaving their contact details

Number five doesn't sound like the most exciting option, and if you can get people to buy from you and tell other people as well, that's even better - but building a list of interested visitors is a very valuable function for a website.

In Internet marketing, 'list building' is the number one aim of many websites. You can see from Part 8 of the course that a simple web page and an incentive are often all you need to get people to join your list.

But what happens to those details, and doesn't a growing list get unweildy and difficult to organise? Well, the simplest answers are, you use an autoresponder, and no, it doesn't get unwieldy.

Using an autoresponder like Aweber (which we mostly use) means you can collect customer details automatically and contact them by email any time you want. You can have scheduled 'follow up' emails that are sent at fixed intervals after people sign up and you can add 'broadcast' emails that are sent to all or part of your list at a time and date specified by you.

These messages (or newsletters) will contain useful information, which promotes you as a caring sharing business owner, and marketing messages, news of offers, new products, and so on.

Because the system is so automated, it takes no more effort to send these messages to a thousand or ten thousand people than it would to sent them to five or ten people. Because people have opted in to receive these messages from you, there is no danger of 'spamming' anyone. (A subscriber can opt out of receiving them at any time through a link that's included in every message.)

Most autoresponder services are inexpensive, especially in the beginning, and Aweber is less than £20 or $30 a month.

Email marketing, as it's known, is suitable for most businesses, although the details of how to go about it will vary with your business type and market sector.

Feel free to contact Cinnamon Edge for more information about email marketing services.

Roy

PS. We've written a more comprehensive guide on email marketing, called 'Automated Customer Collector', that you can get free of charge at our Cinnamon Edge Website.

Online Marketing 6 - Some Changes

The world of Search Engine Optimisation and online marketing in general is constantly changing, although our Bury St Edmunds online customers needn't worry - that's what we're here for...

But if you're following SEO advice from even six months ago you might be doing a few things you needn't bother with and damaging your website's ranking by ignoring some important issues.

For example, metatags. If you're not familiar with these, they're a kind of labelling system that website designers use in the coding of a site. Human readers don't see them but search engine spiders do, and they use them to assess a website's 'relevancy'. One of the most obvious ways to start optimising a site, apart from the web copy itself, is by inserting as many keywords as possible in the 'keyword tags'.

But, back in November 2009, Google confirmed they no longer took any notice of keyword tags in assessing a website's relevance and ranking. They don't count at all any more. That's a pretty big change and one that not all SEO 'experts' have spotted yet.

It won't hurt to add keywords to the keyword tags, and it's not yet clear if Bing and Yahoo spiders still use them, or if Google will start attaching some weight to them in the future, but for now, Google ignores them.

A second example is speed of loading. Google is committed to giving users the best possible experience, and that includes not having to wait too long while a page loads. Now, it's always been a bad idea to keep your prospects waiting and we all know by now that people have even shorter attention spans online than they do with their TV remote, but now Google is taking action , too.

So now, if your web pages are slow to load, Google will punish you by reducing your site's PageRank accordingly. That will mean a lower position in the results if your competitors' sites load more quickly than yours.

This means you won't just lose customers through boredom, you could miss out on them visiting your site at all.

So if your website designer wants to include loads of slow to load features like flash and huge image files, because they 'look good', just say 'No!'

It's important that you keep up to date with SEO and remember to keep building those links - there's some vitally important information now emerging about linking strategies that I'll bring you next time.

Roy

Online Marketing Step Three

We've already looked at choosing your target key phrase (search term) and optimising your website for that phrase, in parts one and two.

Now for the next stage in search engine optimisation, or SEO, which is off-site SEO. This is where you begin to build backlinks to your website. The important thing here is to use your key phrase, and variations of it, for the anchor text of your backlinks.

The anchor text is the words people actually see, but which are a clickable link to your website. For example, we concentrated on the phrase 'online marketing Bury St Edmunds' for our test, which ended with us bagging eleven spots on page one of google for that term. If you click on that link you'll see it goes to the page on our site optimised for that phrase.

Now, the easiest place to put a backlink is on a site you control, like a blog. If you don't have a blog yet, go to Blogger.com, open a Google account if you don't have one already, and create a blog. Ideally, name that blog after your key phrase, but certainly use that phrase for the blog name and for the title of your first post.

Creating a blog takes seconds and costs nothing and it's live straight away.

Add a permanent link to your site (in the links you'll see in the sidebar - just copy the format of one of the existing links) using that phrase as well, and include a text link in your first blog post that uses the same term. Your first post can just be a welcome message and an explanation of what you do, with your key phrase and related words sprinkled in it.

This Marketing Manual blog has been established for some time, but we also have another that uses the phrase 'Online Marketing in Bury St Edmunds' in the title. Naturally, we post keyword rich content on that one, too, with backlinks to our website.

That's it - by starting a blog you've started your link-building strategy. Next time we'll look at where else you can easily add free backlinks and how to start building a brand online.

Roy

PS. I've tried to keep this mini-course simple, but for more help or more detail, just email me roy@cinnamonedge.co.uk or contact me via Twitter http://www.twitter.com/Roy_Everitt