If you have analytics set up on your website, but are a ‘casual visitor’ to it, chances are, you are losing conversions from people accessing your site. Think of it as a bucket of water… if you are carrying it down a hill without looking, and you know that there was water in it when you left the well, how would you know there is not a hole in the bottom and the bucket won’t be empty when you get home?

In our upcoming seminar, we will show you how to get the most out of Google Analytics and how it is such an important tool in understanding your website’s visitors and then using that knowledge to reduce the ‘bounce rate’ and increase conversions.

‘Getting the most out of your web analytics’ is being held at the Norfolk Royal, Bournemouth on 26 April from 8:00 to 10:30. To join us for breakfast and attend this FREE and compelling seminar, click here

Google Analytics, LexisClick News, Online Marketing, Website Analytics

In our recent seminar on Digital Marketing Priorities for 2012 – we highlighted the importance of communicating your value proposition in all of your digital marketing.

Well it’s not exactly new – at the end of the day it’s what marketing has been all about since the term marketing was even conceived. So why on earth did we choose it as a digital marketing priority for 2012?

We chose it because it is so important. And with so many marketing channels, widgets, bells and whistles to distract us – sometimes it can be easy to lose focus the most important things. That’s why we came up with a simple checklist to make sure that all the marketing we produce from SEO to web design does what it needs to.

Here’s the checklist that covers what we believe is essential to every bit of marketing we do for our clients:

We like to have fun and apply these 7 points to lots of the marketing we see every day and it’s surprising how much doesn’t meet these 7 points. But hopefully now you have the checklist you can make sure your marketing does – we guarantee that it will get better results if you use it.

If you missed the seminar and workshop – you can download the full slide pack and worksheets here:

Design, Marketing General, Online Marketing, Web Design

You can download the work sheets and action plan that accompany the presentation ‘Digital Marketing Opportunities for 2012′ below.

B2B Online Marketing, B2C Online Marketing, Email marketing, Online Advertising, Online Marketing marketing action plan

With this presentation we take you through a series of 12 digital marketing priorities, for you to evaluate and prioritise in relation to your business. You can also download the accompanying worksheets and action plan so that you have a prioritised list of opportunities for your business in 2012.

If you’d like help with any of the areas covered, please feel free to give us a call – we can arrange a FREE initial 1 hour consultation meeting to discuss your marketing needs.

Blogging for business, Email marketing, Online Marketing, Search Engine Optimisation content marketing, digital marketing, Email marketing, marketing action plan, optimisation, SEO

A new report from the research company Forester predicts that online sales in the UK will see a growth rate of 11%, growing from £30.1bn in 2011 to £51.0bn in 2016

Seasonal discounts on furniture and electrical goods, and early bookings of annual holidays have helped UK online retailers, as shoppers turn to the internet to find deals and offers to save money as technology becomes mainstream.

Among the report’s interesting findings:

• 53% of shoppers made an online purchase in 2011
• people believe they get the best deals when shopping online
• tablet devices like the iPad have spurred online impulse buying

If these stats don’t make you want to re-evaluate your e-commerce efforts – and perhaps a redesign – they should!

The opportunity for online retailers is huge but you’re not going to grab it with a DIY website. Cheap template driven websites look like what they are, and that devalues your brand and makes you look like you don’t take your marketing seriously.

If you want to be in business then you need to be online, but if you’re doing a bad job of it online, then you need to get help from a professional. At LexisClick Online Marketing we take website design and build seriously – click here to take a look at some of our work. We put a lot of time and effort into planning the websites we design. We start with your target audiences and what they are looking for, then we look at the key messages you want to communicate. Only when this is planned and agreed, do we let our creative web designers loose on making your website look fantastic.

If you’d like to find out more about our web design service, please contact our Bournemouth web design team.

Design, Online Marketing, Search Engine Optimisation, Web Design creative web design, ecommerce sites, Web Design

Marketing General, Online Marketing, Search Engine Optimisation internet marketing, local searches

While companies allocate a great deal of time and resource to drive visitors to their website, once there they’re often left to their own devices with much less attention paid to the landing page that needs to convert them to leads and then sales.

Here at LexisClick online marketing we believe that the following key ingredients are essential if you want to develop high performing landing pages.

1.   Headline: Your website needs to answer ‘what does this site offer?’ almost instantly so keep your headline clear and simple.

2.  Sub-headline: Your sub-headline should offer a brief description of what you do.  Avoid waffle and jargon, the content should inform the reader and add value – don’t just talk about yourself.

3.  Benefits. Prospects want to know what you do, the benefits and advantages, and what they mean to them.

4. Primary Calls-to-action. In order to drive conversions it’s important to include multiple calls-to-action above the fold. By offering two-to-three calls-to-action you will map the different stages of the buying cycle.

5. Navigation: Your visitors need a clear roadmap into your site from your homepage in order to keep your bounce rates low.  Make sure your navigation is visible at the top of the page and again at the bottom and remember to keep it simple.

6. Relevant imagery: Most people are visual. Make sure you use images that illustrates what you offer, try not to use stock images as people will recognise them as such. Short videos are great too.

7. Content offer: To generate even more leads from your homepage, feature really relevant content offers, such as a whitepaper, ebook or guide. As many of the visitors to your website are not ready to buy make sure you offer a link to resources where they can learn more, so you can develop the relationship by gathering their email addresses.

8. Multiple calls-to-action: When visitors end up at the bottom of your homepage, don’t forget to display calls-to-action there as well for even more lead generation opportunities. Calls to action are not just for the top of the page.

9. Testimonials: Customer validation is a powerful indicator of trust. Include a few of your best quotes on the homepage or clear links to them.

10. Social media: Include social sharing links to encourage visitors to spread the word

B2B Online Marketing, B2C Online Marketing, Online Marketing, Search Engine Optimisation calls to action, landing page, landing pages, lead conversion

Just when you thought you’d got on top of all the new social media, along comes another one…  Pinterest .  Pinterest, an online bulletin board for your favourite images, is stepping up as a valuable marketing tool for businesses.

Launched in 2010 Pinterest is already experiencing phenomenal growth with more than 7 million unique visitors in December, up from 1.6 million in September, and it’s driving more traffic to company websites and blogs than YouTube, Google+ and LinkedIn combined according to recent stats. To check out Pinterest for yourself click here

Hot tips for small business social media marketing

Check to see if your Vanity URL is available.

Before you launch your brand presence on social media here’s a handy little tool to check whether your vanity URL is available. Remember that it’s important to make sure that whatever you choose it’s simple and easy to remember. http://namevine.com/

Use a thirdy party platform to distribute content.

It avoids logging in and out of  multiple social media channels. Tools such as HootSuite or Crowdbooster allow you to publish once and to distribute everywhere. You can integrate your Facebook Page, Twitter account, Google+ page, LinkedIn profile and other social networks – and manage them from within one easy-to-use interface.

Find out when and what to post on Facebook.

Stay on top of the latest information in your industry by knowing what your fans engage with most, and when to post it on Facebook,  by utilising a service called Edgerank Checker.

Google Alerts.

Even though it’s been around for a while still one of the easiest tools for businesses to monitor their online reputation is Google Alerts (http://www.google.com/alerts). Each time Google finds a mention  of your business, it will send you an email as it happens, daily or weekly – it’s a free and indenspensbile tool!

If you’d like help with managing your social media give us a call for a friendly no obligation chat on 01202 788333

B2B Online Marketing, B2C Online Marketing, Blogging for business, Online Marketing, Search Engine Optimisation, Social Media Marketing Google alerts, managing social media, marketing tool, marketing tools, pinterest, social media, social media integration, vanit url, web traffic

One of the top two ways to drive traffic to your website and landing pages is through email marketing – the other is through search. Here the team at LexisClick provides some top tips to get the most from your email marketing. Stephen Bavister MD at LexisClick says ‘Although it may seem obvious, the first rule of email testing is to do it! And unless you’re highly experienced we suggest you keep it simple and just run one test at a time.’

Rule #1 Improve response rates by routinely testing: A recent survey found that 58% of marketers surveyed are not optimising their email conversion rates by testing. They just guess at which email opt-in forms, subject lines, creative and landing pages work best. On average email tests can help improve lead generation campaigns by 20%. Fortunately, email testing costs next to nothing, and you may not need to involve your IT team or a designer. Some of the most powerful tests are from wording changes alone.

Rule #2 Split your list randomly: Each test list must have as similar a group of names as possible. List sources, list type and length of time a name has been on a list are all factors that will cause large differences in response rates.

Rule #3 it’s critical you run all versions of your test at the same time: This means splitting your list and sending out all versions of the creative simultaneously.

Rule #4 Conduct landing page tests separately: Don’t run email tests at the same time as you’re testing landing pages otherwise you can cloud your results.

Rule #5 Measure results as far down the ‘funnel’ as possible: What is your goal for the campaign. Do you want forms completed, on-site engagement, phone calls or sales? Then make sure that you measure the goal against the email version that the respondent received.

If you’d like help with your online marketing give us a call on 01202 788333 .

B2B Online Marketing, B2C Online Marketing, Email marketing, Online Marketing Email marketing, email metrics, increasing traffic to website, split testing, testing email marketing, top tips for measuring your email marketing

Perhaps it’s no surpise that YouTube is up there with the most visits, but that’s closely followed by three BBC websites,  the BBC, BBC mobile and BBC iPlayer. Sky Sports slips in at fifth place before BBC weather jumps in at number 6.

B2B Online Marketing, B2C Online Marketing, Design, Online Marketing entertainment website rankigs, search engine rankings, search engines