Editorial Articles

The internet has undoubtedly become essential to business in recent years. The past decade has opened up a wealth of ways for customers to reach businesses on the interenet, through smart phones, mobile applications and social media. But, businesses need to be doing more in order to take full advantage of their online presence.

Simply paying for a stock office website, with the traditional blurb about your company, isn’t going to be a great investment of your time or money and is not alone going to drive the business forward. Tactics to maintain interest in your website needn’t cost the earth; they can be pursued with little investment, and big rewards.

1. Build a solid reputation
A good reputation is essential in business for word-of-mouth referral. If you have positive client endorsements, make sure that these are used to good effect, both on your own site as well as in other relevant forums, such as LinkedIn. Make sure that you make the most of the free social networks, such as Twitter, and professional networking sites where you can link back to your main website. Our company gets one out of ten referrals from Twitter, for instance.

Additionally, search for people asking questions related to your area of expertise and offer assistance. A little something for free can often stimulate a repeat action.

2. Improve SEO
SEO – or search engine optimisation – is the ability to use search engines to make your site more visible on the internet. In this sense it can be used to increase awareness of your brand. If your site, blog or social media listing appears on the first page of a Google search then people will see the name, even if they do not click the link. SEO is also ideal for competitive positioning, as your site will appear alongside other businesses of the same theme when users search for keywords. The higher you are ranked above these competitors, the more traffic will be directed to your site as people will perceive you as valuable.

There are hundreds of tricks that will help you achieve SEO on the cheap. One factor is what the URL text says, in particular the domain string. For example in http://cadbury.co.uk, “Cadbury” is the most important part of the URL because it takes you straight to the official site. You could also buy and insert keywords into a .tel domain. .Tel gives you a digital business card, creating instant online presence and putting your contact details in one place in the internet. For SEO, .tel is superfast, it can be your authoritative domain and it leverages the search engine’s love of domain streams.

3. App Up Your Business
Apps are often gold dust to businesses who can afford them - they are speedy, can access pretty much any hardware features on your website, and can be acquired easily by customers. The key is to make your app useful and not just about selling your product; perhaps build in some useful knowledge or additional functions with a media partner that can provide relevant services to the consumer, in return for some branding. Make sure you work with a developer that has previous experience of getting applications into the iPhone apps store as this can be an arduous experience.

The thing is, not just to have a space online, but to help people get to it and then make sure you help them with their requirements. The subtle touch of a client endorsement, or a strategically timed tweet will actually make the difference in getting your customer to the website, and building the reputation of your brand.

Justin Hayward
Director, Telnic