The first stage is to set your objectives for your website. Is it to produce enquiries, sell product, inform, increase brand awareness? If possible quantify these objectives, you can always change these targets later.

Build your website into your whole marketing strategy and make sure your internet strategy is integrated with the whole plan. Build an insight into your customers online behaviour. You will want to create a successful customer website experience for them and insights and understanding of them is vital.

Engage the user-centred design (UCD) process. Its an established approach to design and has been embraced by the website industry. UCD involves customer analysis, developing the right style and tone, usability and information architecture.

Make sure your website design is usable. Usability is critical. If people leave your website because they can’t find what they want they may never return. Make sure your products and information is easy to find. Contact details should be on every page. Navigation tools should be very easy to use.

Your website also needs to be accessible to everyone including the visually impaired. The design needs to include at least the standard accessibility tools and features to help everyone view your website.

Produce a site plan showing as much detail as possible. This adds the structure to your website and helps you see how it all fits together and can identify gaps and problems.

Now the focus is on the actual visual design of your website. This will have a major influence on your visitors and it needs to convince them quickly that your site offers what they want and that your brand is credible and can deliver. You’ll need to consider consistent branding, site personality, use of colour, images, typography, and page layouts.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)has to be built into your plan as you will need to drive traffic to your site. Research your key words and produce a list of key words that your site needs to appear in searches. These need to be built into the site and you will also need to consider building inlinks to your site and a strategy for regularly developing key word rich content.

Finally use a package like Google Analytics to constantly review your websites performance and to see if it is achieving its goals.

However the report also shows that marketers are lagging behind in using email marketing to promote their products and many do not fully understand how to make this media work for them.

The report highlighted how important email marketing is to companies and how the cleverest companies are using this tool during the recession. Key trends for email marketing over the coming year include:

• Building and improving email lists
• More integration of email marketing with websites, social networking sites and mobiles
• Focusing far more on customer retention
• Better quality, clean data and a clear strategy

Are you looking to improve your email marketing? Try our:

5 Steps to Better Email Marketing

1. Add a newsletter sign up to your website.

Encourage your clients, customers and prospects to sign up for your email alerts by giving them an idea of what the emails will contact (news, tips, offers). The sign up box should be in a prominent position and ask for the minimum amount of information – email address and name at most. EasyDrum provides a sign up form as part of the package.

2. Encourage your users to share information with others

By adding in links to popular social networking sites you can encourage your users to spread your message for you. Websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Delicious, Digg and Reddit allow people to quickly share information they find useful with others to widen your audience.

3. Study your click through data

By checking which links people click on and how many times you can get a feel for what sort of information people are interested in receiving. You can use this data to produce more relevant and popular emails in the future and keep your recipients engaged.

4. Regularly test all elements of your email marketing

Do not be afraid to experiment. Try setting up two mailing lists and send them the same email with a different subject line, does one do better than the other? What about sending it at different times? Does the amount of content affect the click through rates, what about the design style? Different groups of customers have different habits, by tapping into your recipients habits you can increase the effectiveness of your emails.

Keep in regular contact

You should pick a schedule and stick to it, if you neglect your list for too long they may lose interest in receiving emails from you. On the other hand, if you bombard them with messages they’ll soon get fed up. This depends on the type of emails you are sending and your customer base, in some cases once a week is acceptable, in others bi-monthly might be more appropriate.

DrumEdit is DataDrum’s content management system (CMS) that allows you to control your website’s content entirely inhouse with the obvious benefits of speed and cost savings. It’s easy to use and allows you to update text on your website, add new images or products, advertise a vacancy or post a news item. It’s applications are wide and can always be adapated to your requirements.

DrumEdit features and benefits

• It can be used from any PC with internet access
• Online username and password entry
• Easy to use editing system for text, images and downloads
• Very easy to use, though full training and support are provided
• All updates take place immediately
• Optional workflow system with approval process available
• Supports multiple users with separate logins, for specific content editing

How does it work?

DrumEdit works with website templates into which text, images, links and downloads are added through a simple screen interface. The system allows text, images, links and datasheets to be added and updated throughout the website. Many options are provided including the option to add and remove pages, news articles, events listings and job vacancies. DrumEdit can be set up to limit editing access to website areas through different sets of usernames and passwords.

What websites can DrumEdit work on?

DrumEdit works on all websites from general websites through to ecommerce and holiday booking websites. On ecommerce websites DrumEdit is used to control all product data including product details, prices, stock and delivery options. It provides the ecommerce retailer with a content management system that controls nearly every aspect of their product database.

DrumEdit has also been successfully used on holiday booking websites to control prices, dates, booking info and extras. Once in place the client can have full control over the whole booking process. Recent examples include Traditional Tuscany and Royal Docks Apartments.

What type of content can be edited?

DrumEdit allows you to edit the things on your website that you would want to update regularly. This includes adding text and images to pages, publishing news items and job vacancies, and creating events and press releases. You can also add downloads, video files and links to websites and emails. It has an easy to use interface to allow users to quickly add and update their content.

How much does it cost?

DrumEdit is built to your requirements and a quote can be provided. There is a cost to build the system and a small annual fee for licensing and support.

Please contact us for more information.

So how can it raise the profile of your business and produce leads? Many of you may be wondering this and LinkedIn has many different tools and features that if used correctly can produce results. Everyone likes a list so here it is – the list of “How to market your company using LinkedIn.”

1. Improve your Google Page Rank
In your LinkedIn profile you can add your website URL, blog and keywords. As LinkedIn has a high PageRank in Google these inbound links will help your search engine optimisation activities and help you get higher rankings. For example we have three websites promoting our services which we have added plus key words like web design, advertising, branding email marketing etc. Ask other people in your organisation to do this as well to create more inbound links.

2. Raise awareness of your company and brands.
LinkedIn allows you to add your company details. People will find your profile when searching for someone to do business with. They can also see who you are connected to. If it’s someone they already know then this increases your chances of them contacting you.

3. Build a network
People like to do business with people they know and trust. LinkedIn makes it so easy to build a network. Use it to add people you already know. Then ask them to connect you to people they know that you would like to meet. However don’t start spamming people and approaching people you don’t know.

4. Market Research
You can use LinkedIn’s search facilities to find out more about people and companies. For example say you wanted to find out who the marketing director for Company X is, do a search on that company. Go through the results to find out the info LinkedIn has on that company and current and ex employees.

5. Promote events and conferences
In LinkedIn you can add business events and announce them to your network. For example if your company is appearing at an exhibition then add it to your profile and announce it on LinkedIn.

6. Visit LinkedIn Answers
This tool allows people to post a question. “Does anyone know of a good IP lawyer?”, “Can anyone recommend a web design agency?”.  There are many opportunities here to network, find new customers and suppliers and raise the profile of your business. Your answers are seen on LinkedIn so it’s also a good place to promote your business.

7. Get recommended
Ask people in your network to recommend you on LinkedIn. The more recommendations you have the better your business looks.

8. Advertising on LinkedIn
If you are planning online advertising then definitely consider LinkedIn. It has millions of profiles and allows you to specifically target by job, gender, industry, age and location. You can either pay per click or per 1000 views.

9. Join Groups
There are many professional groups in LinkedIn that you can join. These can be anything from local networking groups to professional organisations. Once you are a member you can connect and network with other people in that group.

Currently 8.5 million professional people have a profile on LinkedIn and this is increasing everyday. This may seem like a lot of work to start of with but once you have produced your profile and started building a network you will start to see the benefits.

If your website does not make it on page one of Google then you are missing out on the huge business opportunities the internet offers. It is vital that your website is optimised for search engines. Our approach to Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) starts from the beginning of the web design process. We build SEO in at the beginning of all web architecture rather than tagging it on at the end as an afterthought. If you already have a website then we can analyse and improve its performance.

DrumSearch is the SEO product from DataDrum that improves the ranking of websites on the top search engines.

Our approach includes:

1. Keyword and competitor analysis

Keywords and phrases are what people type into Google to find the products or information they are seeking. We comprehensively research key popularity and attractiveness and how your competitors are optimising their websites.

2.  On-site and on-page optimisation

Websites are ranked for their relevance against the key words used. Armed with the data from the keyword analysis we optimise your website for the key words and phrases. Site maps and relevant content are also added to ensure that your site is easy to index for search engines.

3. Search engines, directories and links.

The next stage is to ensure your domain is submitted to all the key search engines and directories. One of the ways Google ranks websites is if they have good quality inbound links. We ensure your website is registered in the best relevant directories and build links with suitable websites.

4. Social optimisation

The growth in social media provides opportunities to generate publicity through websites such as Facebook and Twitter. We can help you take advantage of this development by producing and promoting content that people will want to link to, these inbound links can help to boost your search engine ranking.

5. Local search optimisation

Google Maps allows small businesses to market themselves on Google searches on a geographic basis. We can set up your website to take advantage of this.

6. Pay Per Click (PPC)

Pay Per Click is the sponsored, paid for links on Google pages. PPC campaigns are useful for new websites that haven’t achieved a high ranking yet or specific product campaigns. DataDrum can advise and run PPC campaigns for you. We work with you to develop ad copy, benefits, key words, campaign management and creating effective landing pages to maximise sale/response rates.

7. Ongoing SEO

SEO is a continuous activity required for your website to achieve and maintain high rankings. We can provide regular performance reports through the use of Google Analytics to show where your website is performing well and where improvements need to be made.

For more information:

• Contact Mark Ellaway on 01603 484484 or mark@datadrum.co.uk
• Apply for a free SEO audit
• Have a look at our search engine optimisation case studies

This is a brief guide to the two main factors that affect your search engine ranking; your website’s content and links from other websites to your website.

Your website’s content

Also known as on-site content, this refers to keywords on your website that can be read by search engines. Choosing the right keywords is very important, it involves selecting the words and phrases that are relevant to each page and using them throughout the page. It also involves checking what words people actually search for as there’s no point ranking number one for a term nobody uses.

For best effect, keywords must be used in these places:

• Once in the HTML title. These are the words that appear in the top bar of your web browser
• Once in the HTML description. This is not visible on screen but is often used in search engine results
• Around once a paragraph in the page content and in headings and subheadings.

If you are linking to a page within your website you should also use keywords in the link. For example, if you make a link to a page about web design:

For more about web design, click here.
Find out more about web design.

Links from other websites

Good content only goes so far, to get into good rankings takes links from other websites. As a rule, the better the website, the more a link from it is worth. Also, where possible, the link should go to the most relevant page which is not necessarily your home page – this is called “deep linking”.

However, getting other websites to link to yours can be difficult – put yourself in their shoes, why would they want to link to your website? Therefore you have to give people a reason to link to you, preferably without you having to link back to them. The best approach to this varies a lot depending on your particular website and industry.

How can we help?

Datadrum can help with all aspects your search engine optimisation from the keyword selection process to ongoing link-building. Alternatively we are happy to point you in the right direction.

Our content management system is designed to make your website as search engine friendly as possible, including managing your own keywords in all the most important places.

Further information

This guide is the tip of the iceberg, if you would like to know more please feel free to contact us.

Accessibility in website terms means making sure your website is available to everyone. There are accessibility guidelines (WCAG), they are mostly technical requirements but do require several manual checks. The main two areas that website accessibility fall into are human and technological.

• Human
  Your website should usable by all, regardless of ability. This is not limited to people with physical disabilities, it can be as simple as making sure that text is big enough to read. It also includes writing in a way that is easy to understand and using colours that contrast suitably with the background.
• Technological
  Website content should be viewable on all browsers and devices. This does not mean it has to look the same in every version of every web browser, or be the same on a mobile phone as on a PC, just that content can be viewed.

If you would like to learn more about accessibility, either to improve an existing website or to have a new accessible website developed, please contact us.

Content management systems come in all shapes and sizes but the end result is always the same, they allow clients to cost effectively and quickly update their website content in-house.

How does a CMS work?

Typically, content management systems are web-based, meaning that they can be accessed from any computer with internet access. Content is mostly edited by using forms, so if you’ve ever filled in an enquiry form on a website you are already qualified to use a CMS!

We have developed our own CMS, an example of a standard setup is:

• Login
  Using a username and password, users can login to make changes. It is possible to have many different users, with access to different parts of the CMS.
• Standard Web Pages
  From here users can add, edit, remove and reorganise the pages of their website. Most of the page content can be changed using a rich-text editor (similar to Microsoft Word) that allows control over text-formatting, web links, email links, images and files. All changes are immediate, though an approval process can be used if necessary.
• News and Events
  These are article-based items that can be added, edited, removed like web pages. They are still edited with the rich-text editor, the main difference is that they can be dated and the system automatically organises and archives articles where appropriate. News items can also be post-dated so it will not display until a set day.

What else can a CMS do?

The above example is suitable for most small websites but there are many more applications for content management systems, some examples that we have developed are:

• Heroes Fitness
  This website uses our ecommerce content management system to control products details, prices, delivery rates as well as standard web pages.
• Targetfollow Arts
  Content management is used to show artists and galleries of their works, as well as details of current exhibitions and projects.

If you are interested in a demonstration of our system or would like a content managed website developed, please contact us.

Email marketing, also known as email newsletters, is a great way of staying in touch with your audience. The key advantages of email over traditional direct mail are:

• Control
  Using email marketing software, you can create and manage your own email campaigns whenever you like
• Immediate
  From a template, you can build and start sending an email within an hour
• Targeted
  Mailing lists make it easy to send emails to specific groups
• Measurable
  Emails can be tracked to show information such as how many were opened and which links were clicked
• Cost effective
  A typical email marketing package has a one-off set up fee and then you pay per email. Depending on your needs this is usually around 1 to 2 pence per mail.

Email marketing can be used to for newsletters, to promote new products, promotions, offers, events, services, conduct surveys or anything else that you can think of.

If you already use email marketing, we have produced the Datadrum Guide to Successful Email Marketing which you may find useful.

If you do not currently use email marketing, please feel free to contact us and discuss how it could benefit to your organisation. We offer varying levels of email marketing solutions to suit everyone, so will be able to advise what is best for you.

For more information please visit easydrum.co.uk or call Mark Ellaway on 01603 484484. See what we have done for other people in the email marketing drumfolio.

[1] Source: Caslon Analytics

A blog, short for “web log”, refers to a website (or part of a website) which lists entries in reverse chronological order. This format is suitable for many types of websites from personal diaries to corporate communications.

There is a great deal of free software for creating blogs which is part of the reason why they are so popular. Two good examples of free services are Blogger and WordPress, both of these are easy to set up and maintain and you don’t even need your own web space. However, for a more professional approach you can install a blog on your own website.

How does this help you?

The primary purpose of a blog is to build and interact with your audience, it is an open conversation and as such should be written in a less formal tone than a news page for example.

Each blog article, or post, can be replied to publicly by your readers. While allowing the public to write on your website might seem dangerous, comments (replies) can be moderated as little or as much as you like.

The other main benefit of a blog is that it can help your site in search engines. Whenever you write a new post it can be set to notify what are known as “update services”, these tell various websites about your new post so that they can index it in various search engines. While this doesn’t directly affect your ranking it does demonstrate to search engines that your site is both active and growing.

Should I have a blog?

If you are reasonably confident that you can write regular posts that will be of interest to your audience then it can’t hurt to try.

Any questions?

If you have any questions, or would like to speak to us about setting up a blog (or anything else to do with your website) then feel free to contact us or leave a comment below.

[1] Source: Technorati, a blog search engine