Outwrite Media

Why Your Site Needs a Blog

Posted on January 24, 2012 by Brandie

It may seem like every website now has a blog. If you are wondering why, the answer is simple. Blogs are one of the easiest and most effective ways to increase a site’s search engine appeal.

While no one knows the exact algorithm used by search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo to rank websites and page, we do know some of the key components in ranking well.

Keywords. How often are the words your audience is looking for appearing on your site and pages? Are they included in the metatags?
Links. Do you have appropriate links to other sites? Are other sites in your industry linking to your site?
Fresh Content. Are you adding fresh content to your site regularly? Did you put up your site with valuable information and then forget about it?

Unless your site has all three of these components and each one done well, the site isn’t ranking as well with search engine as it could.

The easiest, fastest, and most effective way of boosting your ranking is to add a blog to your site and USE it. By creating quality posts with appropriate links, keywords, and meta tags, you can start increasing your search engine rank and in turn site traffic pretty quickly. With a posting plan and schedule, you can complete with other sites and increase your site traffic.

Posted in Outwrite Media Blog | Tagged Blogging, SEO | Leave a comment

The Value of Word of Mouth Advertising

Posted on January 18, 2012 by Brandie

It should come as no surprise that the most successful marketing campaigns include multiple media forms and channels. Typically those media forms and channels include social media, search engine optimization, print and possibly more. Unfortunately, many small businesses forget one of the most powerful and economical marketing tools: Word of Mouth.

So how do you increase your word of mouth advertising? It really isn’t difficult if you are creative. Here are a few ideas. . .

Ask friends, family and customers to recommend your services. It may be as simple as just mentioning you would really appreciate them talking you up or you may have to be a little more creative.

Offer a discount for referrals. Something as simple at 15% off or a free upgrade of services or products for the referrer and/or referral may be enough to really get things rolling. The logistics of the discount can be as simple as handing out business cards with the referrers name on the back or as high-tech as a custom web form.

Give away small promotional items, such as pens, notepads, magnets, etc. When a customer uses the promotional item in front of someone else it may has the potential to strike up a conversation about your business, products and services.

Of course, you can’t rely solely on word of mouth to advertise you business. Once someone hears about your business, you will need to have a great website to help complete the sale and other marketing efforts to reach those that don’t immediately contact you.

Posted in Outwrite Media Blog | Tagged Multi-channel marketing, Website Marketing | Leave a comment

5 Actionable Social Media Marketing Tips

Posted on January 12, 2012 by Brandie

I just attended yet another free webinar on social media marketing that was just another poorly disguised sales pitch. I was hoping to get at least one or two real, actionable tips. So I decided to share a few things I do that work for my clients.

Post links to other sites with useful information.
As much as any business wants to establish that they are the “end all, be all” of their industry, the reality is that other business have valuable information to share. Share this information with your fans. This will give you credibility and make your business “real.” It also shows you are constantly learning from and share information with others in your industry.
Comment on other posts related to your business.
Commenting on other posts gets your name out there and also shows that you are part of the industry. Just take the time to make useful posts. Don’t get spammy!
Develop one or more real “personalities” for your company or organization.
Today’s marketplace demands personal attention for each customer. Convey to your customers that your company is run by real people who care by posting as yourself. If you have multiple people posting on the same company page, have them introduce themselves and identity themselves in the posts. This goes a long way to develop a personal relationship with your customers.
Make posts with the purpose of discussion.
Don’t talk AT your social media audience. Start a conversation. Make posts that will incite comments. Ask questions. You may even want to !carefully! post something bordering on controversial if you know your audience well.
Ask your fans for help.
Occasionally, and I mean occasionally, ask your audience to help spread the word about your great products or services. If done very sparingly, you can get some great new fans. Overdo it and you are going to lose the ones you already have.

Social Media Marketing evolves continually. What is working for you? We would love to hear!

Posted in Outwrite Media Blog | Tagged Social Media Marketing | Leave a comment

Social Media Marketing is More Than Just Posts

Posted on December 27, 2011 by Brandie

While making a proposal to a community organization a few months ago, I was asked a question that will likely stay with me for years and is the driving force behind this post.

“Anyone can post on Facebook and Twitter. Why do we need to pay you to do it?”

The answer comes in one word. Strategy.

While it is true that anyone can post, few will find successful without careful planning and a well defined strategy. In fact, without a plan, social media marketing could actually hurt your business or organization.

One of the best aspects of SMM is that it is free and wide reaching. This however is also its downfall. Often posts are made with little thought of how far the message will travel and how freely it may be shared.

On your Facebook page, you have some control over the context. Take for example a series of posts from an animal welfare group about a recent large-scale rescue effort. The first post probably has a quite of a bit of background information about the effort.

The subsequent posts are where there could be trouble. An innocent update about the welfare of an animal, when “shared” by a reader could reach someone completely unaware of important information in that first post. Without that information, a comment such as “After hundreds of hours of staff labor, 15 animals were euthanized.”

With the background information of the first post, the comment is an update about the rescue effort and how the poor condition of the animals could not be overcome. To someone unaware of the background story, animals were killed. Unfortunately if someone saw this who is unfamiliar with the organization, they could get a very negative first impression of an organization that is actually trying to help animals.

This of course is an isolated example, but illustrated my point. Your social media message should be carefully crafted to enhance your image, not ruin it.

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Getting Creative on a Small Budget

Posted on November 9, 2011 by Brandie

Sometimes you have a need that just doesn’t fit into your budget. Unfortunately for small businesses this happens all too often. Whether the need is an advertising program, graphic design work, retail space, or a new website, don’t let your lack of dollars squash your goals.

With a little creative thinking and resource exploration, you can get more than you think. Here are a few ideas that can get you great results while stretching you budget further than you ever thought possible. You might even be able to help someone else out in the process.

Exchange services. Have a friend or former co-worker who is great at design or computers? Ask if there is anything you can do to trade. You might be surprised what they could really use some help with. We recently got a new, and amazing, logo designed by a guy I went to high school with. He needed a little HTML and CSS work and we needed a new logo.

Scout out the local college. Remember when you were nearing graduation or fresh out of college? For many this was quite a few years ago, but the fear of not finding a job was horrible. If you were like me and many current students, you would do just about anything for “real-world” experience. Let them help you. Whether it be a semester long internship or a one-time project, a college student could be the answers to your problems.

Give it a try yourself. There is a wealth of information on the internet about how to do just about everything. Take some time and invest in yourself. You might be surprised what you can accomplish if you just give it a shot. Maybe you will find a hidden talent. What have you got to lose?

If none of these solutions work, drop us an email. If we can’t do it ourselves, we can probably put you in touch with someone that can.

Posted in Outwrite Media Blog | Tagged Outwrite Media, SEO, SMM | Leave a comment

Website Analytics Are More Than Traffic Numbers

Posted on October 18, 2011 by Brandie

We routinely provide analytics reports to our customers. Recently one customer asked me a question that really made me think.

“Why do you give me so much information? I really only want to know if site traffic is up or down.”

This kind of attitude is hurting this website owner more than I can express. If looking at your website analytics takes only a couple of minutes then you are missing more than you are getting. Whether using a free service like Google Analytics or an enterprise solution like Coremetrics, you have an abundance of valuable information available to you.

Here are 5 things you need to look at regularly and use to improve your website:

Traffic Source
Where is your traffic coming from? Is all or most of your traffic coming from search engines? Or Facebook? This information provides a wealth of information on what is and isn’t working. If you get very little traffic from the search engines, then you need to invest in your SEO. If you are getting very little traffic from Facebook, then you need to adjust your SMM strategy.
Top Content
What are visitors to your site looking at? If the majority of your traffic looking at only a few pages, then you need to add more content on that topic.

Do you have great content that no one is seeing? Then you need to market this content.
Bounce Rate
A bounce rate higher than 40% is cause for concern. If a good portion of your traffic is not staying on the site then you are reaching the wrong audience or not providing enough information. You need to adjust your marketing efforts, whether that be SMM, SEM, SEO or whatever other marketing you are doing, things need to change.
Exit Pages
What are visitors looking at last before they leave your site? Are you fulfilling their information needs or pushing them away? Do you need to provide them with more information or another page to view?
Time on Site
How long are visitors staying on a particular page or your site in total? If the time it very short, you aren’t serving what they are looking for and they are looking elsewhere. If the average time on a page or your site is more than 30 seconds then you know they are taking the time to read at least a portion of your content.

Of course this is just a few pieces of the analytics puzzle. Let us help you use your analytics to their full potential.

Posted in Outwrite Media Blog | Tagged Outwrite Media, Website Analytics, Website Marketing | Leave a comment

If You Market It, They Will Come

Posted on September 9, 2011 by Brandie

In the past week, I have stumbled across numerous websites that are either incomplete or stagnant. I’m sorry to tell the website owners out there, but the popular movie quote, “If you build it, they will come,” does not apply to websites.

Building a website is just the first step. After the site is built, it must be marketed. Chances are one means of marketing isn’t enough either. The most successful websites are marketed in multiple ways.

One obvious step to bring traffic is search engines, but search engine optimization is an ongoing effort for websites. It isn’t something that is done once and never through about again. Google, Yahoo and other search engines are continually tweeking their search algorithms. Competing websites are adding new content and modifying their sites continually. If we want to make it to the top and stay there, you are going to have to do the same with your site.

Another effective marketing channel is social media. This too requires a continual commitment. You need to help your customers and potential customers find you on the social media sites and then maintain an on-going conversation with them.

And these two steps are only a small piece of the marketing puzzle. I didn’t even touch on Search Engine Marketing, Content Marketing, Print Advertising, etc.

It just pains me to see companies make the initial investment of a website and then do nothing with it. You will see no return on investment if you don’t change your thinking. Building the site is only the beginning, not the end.

Posted in Outwrite Media Blog | Tagged Basic Advice, Marketing | Leave a comment

Website Owners Learning the Hard Way

Posted on September 1, 2011 by Brandie

Over the past week or so, I have been working with a new client on a website and domain. The business owner is a member of an organization I recently built a website for and I was attempting to link to her business website from the organization’s when I noticed her site was down. I contacted her to ensure she knew her site was down and offer my assistance in getting it back up.

I heard for the second time in only a few months, that she had unintentionally let her domain renewal lapse and a less than helpful company had swooped in and purchased it almost immediately.

She has now spent more than a month trying to contact the company that now owns what used to be her domain name. I have tried to help her contact them without much success. They are not making it easy by any means. They are requiring us to submit all bids for the domain name through a third-party service. The service alone costs upwards of $99.

I am now working with the business owner to determine if it will be worth the price for her to pursue the domain name or to simply start over with a new domain name.

There is a very important lesson to be learned here. Domains are much cheaper to automatically renew than to have to buy back after losing.

With the number of websites growing exponentially every day, if you find a domain you may want at any point in the future, purchase it NOW! Chances are someone else will also want it in the future and you don’t want to have to fight for it. It will be cheaper in the long run to pay a small annual fee every year until you decide to use it.

Posted in Outwrite Media Blog | Tagged Basic Advice, Domain Names, URL | Leave a comment

Customers First

Posted on August 22, 2011 by Brandie

I recently decided to add website hosting to my list of services. In doing so, I had to move my own Outwrite Media website from the current host to my own servers. In doing so, I temporarily took down my site. I had intended to take down my site only for a day or two until I could get all of my customers moved over and the turn my attention back to my own site.

In putting my customers first, my own website was down for more than a week. I just couldn’t feel right about working on my own site for even a few minutes when one of my customers was having even the slightest issue with their site.

So, now that all of my customers are moved to the new servers and their sites are in solid working order, I am turning just a few minutes of my attention to my own site.

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Welcome to Outwrite Media.

Posted on August 22, 2011 by Brandie

We are here to help small businesses and organizations build and market on the Internet.

Just like you, we are trying to make our business successful in a tough economy. We are making it happen by being savvy with our marketing spends and leveraging social media marketing, search engine optimization and other low cost marketing tools.

Take a look around the site and see what we have to offer and what we are currently working on. Then contact us to see what we can do for you and your business or organization.

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