Over recent years we’ve seen a shift in where businesses focus their marketing activities. Advertising spend online topped that of offline spend for the first time this year as companies are now fighting to find their space online, rather in traditional media.

So what do this mean for the typical business owner? Well they suddenly need to think about how to put together an online marketing plan. Do you sign up to Facebook? What about online PR? Should you start Pay Par Click advertising or create a Banner Ad? What about Blogging, RSS or Feeds?

All of a sudden, an understanding of a variety of new technologies is critical to taking advantage of the online marketing opportunities. No longer can you simply write a new plan and then carry it out. You need to either take on an Online Marketing Manager or find a suitable company to manage it all for you. Outsourcing your online marketing might be the right way forward as you would be taking on the expertise of a number of specialists and at the same time, drastically reducing the monthly outgoings required.

Either way the new technologies cannot be ignored, perhaps the first step is to start talking to someone who can help to shape the online marketing plan and to focus on the right places online to start marketing.

On the back of a previous MA news posting, ‘Web browser viewing trends’ we have discovered, whilst looking through our analytics report, that Firefox has overtaken Internet Explorer in terms of browser popularity when visiting our site. The significance is not a big deal, but it does point out once again the importance of testing sites on a variety of browsers.

The discovery also highlights the usefulness of the Google analytics tool in discovering the viewing habits of your website visitors. For more info on analytics visit: www.google.com/analytics/

For those of you that like your stats, below is some interesting info on the popularity of Firefox.

Source: StatCounter (web web analytics firm). Firefox 3.0 has become the most popular web browser in Europe, taking the crown away from Internet Explorer 7.0. Firefox 3.0 took 35.05% of the European web browser market followed by 34.54% for IE 7.0. It would appear that the shift is partly explained by a small switch from IE 7.0 to IE 8.0 but also by growing market share overall by Firefox 3.0.

If you are keen to drive more traffic to your website and want to increase your search engine ranking, then blogging might be for you.

We would describe a blog as – “an online journal that is regularly updated with content and built on a platform with automated syndication”. In simple terms, consider a blog to be the equivalent of an online diary or bulletin board that is very easy for web users to access.

Blogs can be hosted with blog software or can be hosted by a blog host company. The downside of a blog host company is that you will not get the benefit of SEO (search engine optimisation) for your website.

Blogs and search engine marketing marry extremely well. Search engines have historically looked for content rich websites that are updated frequently, blogs provide the perfect solution for this, provided they are updated regularly. Search engines like keyword links, which blogs can provide. Assuming of course that they are written with keywords in mind. Search engines also like unique and popular content, so it is fairly safe to assume that if your blog is topical then visitors will want to read it!

In a nutshell, active blogs can rank well in search engines, provide quality links back to your main domain, and expand your traffic and presence on the web. So the question is, what are you waiting for?

Web 2.0 content is really starting to become useful in making purchasing decisions. User feedback and customers reviews on websites can aid the website visitor in making a decision and website owners shouldn’t be afraid to allow users and visitors to add comments or post reviews on websites.

Just recently, whilst searching for a hotel in the Lake District, new Lake Windermere, I was taken on a journey across a number of websites reviewing content and ended up on www.activehotels.com. The web 2.0 content there was extremely helpful in understanding a lot more about the resort, the facilities and the hotels available there, right down to reading reviews from people of a similar demographic and their thoughts about not only the hotel itself but about the specific rooms that they stayed in.

This was followed up by a quick call to the hotel to check availability of the exact room that we were interested in. Not only did we manage to book that room but we got a significant discount off the prices on the internet!

Without doubt we will be leaving our review on the very same website in the hope that other visitors will benefit from our comments. Hotels are just one example, but web 2.0 content could be used in any industry from automotive to telecoms, any website should consider the opportunities offered by this new wave of interactive web content.

There are many Search Engine Optimisation experts offering various opinions on how to optimise a website. But there are several things you can check and change yourself, with a little bit of knowledge that may prove to be a golden nugget in the mystical world of SEO.

All search engines, especially Google, read the window title when trying to translate the meaning of a web page. Out of all the components that make up a web page (page titles, meta information, page text etc.) the window title is the most important element that will determine the relevance of a web page matching a search term when searched for on the internet.

So what do we mean when we talk about the “window title”? Web developers and SEO experts will know this as the title tag in the html code, “<title>Graphic Design | Web design | Leicester</title>”. When seen in a web browser it displays text at the top of the browser window in a blue bar (IE only). See below:

Combine this with some basic research to identify how many people are searching for specific keyword phrases, and an understanding of the competition on those phrases and you can achieve some remarkable results, quickly and at little cost.

Don’t forget to focus on traffic. It’s all very well being number 1 on Google, but if that isn’t bringing you traffic then it’s a waste of time. Following on from that, the focus has to be on conversions and return on investment (ROI). Are these the terms that your potential paying customers are entering into the search engines to find your website?

If you want a free report on your website then go to www.mastersallen.co.uk/online_marketing_leicester.htm and fill out the form at the bottom of the page and we will run a report for your website, absolutely free.

Note: The reports are not automated and will be run by real people, so please bear that in mind, it may take a few days to get the report over to you at busy times.

The longer visitors are on your business website, the greater the opportunity for branding.

Some visitors who come to your website will know what they’re looking for, but many others need guidance. Some of them are considering the competition, and if they are shopping online, your business website has to out-shine the competition to get their business.

It’s important to try to keep your visitors on your site until they become a conversion, or to at least build a relationship with the customer through the website until they feel comfortable enough with your business to come back later and complete the sale.

Below are a few useful pointers to implement within your website to increase potential branding, and branding means more opportunity for conversion.

Add some free information to your website.

The more information you have on your business website, the longer a visitor can browse the site without running into the same pages. If there’s more to read, it’s more likely that visitors will stick around to read it. An added benefit of having more information on your website is that you will get more targeted traffic through search engines to the content pages of your site, where visitors can be introduced to your brand.

The free information on your website can come in the form of articles, reviews, statistics, and tutorials. You can also use this information to increase your range of customer services through your website.

Include interactivity on your website.

Offering a website that a potential customer can interact with, can benefit your chances of a conversion. If you have a product or service that can be customised for a customer, consider creating an interactive media experience where the customer can generate price quotes based on certain information, or can see visually how a change of colour or size will affect a product.

Keep your business website live.

One of the best ways to keep a business website attractive and ’stickable’ is to make sure you have some current information. It has to look like your website is a live entity, with new information being added all the time.

These are just a few ways to add stickability to your website. As long as you keep in mind that your goal is to keep customers on your website until they become a business conversion, you can come up with some other creative ways to achieve more conversions.