A great case study can boost your online sales and enquiries.

There are still millions of websites out there that don’t have any case studies at all. Give yourself a competitive advantage by discovering how to write your own killer case studies.

Why use case studies?

People like stories. They also like facts. Anyone can write something like ‘we helped one of our clients save lots of money’, but how much is lots?

Case studies can help you drill down into the detail of how your business works and how your product or service can help other potential customers.

A seven step process

The seven steps below may not be an exhaustive list, but if you follow it, you’ll have some fantastic case studies to help you pull in more business online.

• Get permission

Before you write a case study, make sure you get permission from your clients. It may sound obvious, but I know businesses that have been caught out in the past.

• Use a clear structure

Structure your case studies in a clear and consistent way. Use bod headings and bullet points to get the key messages across. You could have the best case study in the world, but if it’s all written as

• Use numbers

Using real numbers will give your case studies more credibility. For example, rather than just saying ‘we saved this client thousands of pounds’, tell people exactly how much you saved them in monetary terms.

• Highlight the problem

Before you go into detail about how you helped a particular client, you should tell people what their original problem was. For example, if you’re an online marketing company, you could say ‘Company X was only getting an average of 80 visitors per day to their website and 10 conversions per month. They wanted us to increase traffic and online sales.’

• Describe how you resolved it

You can then go on to describe the processes you used to solve the client’s problem. Using the same example as above, you might write ‘We set-up a Twitter account, wrote five blog posts per month, optimised their current website pages, and wrote three guest blog posts per month for relevant industry sites. Within two months, traffic had increased to an average of 400 visitors per day with the number of conversions rising to 100 per month.’

• Ask for a testimonial

To give your case studies more weight, you should try to get a client testimonial you can use at the end, which will effectively back up everything you’ve just said, but in the client’s own words.

• Spread the word

Once you have new case studies on your website, make sure you spread the word about them. For example you could tweet a link to them, or include them in your next company brochure.

If there’s anything else you’d like to know about writing case studies, please ask in the comment section below.

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Whether you’re new to Twitter or are just thinking about signing up, learning more about hashtags will benefit your business.

In this article, I’ll look at what hashtags are, how to set them up, and how you can use them to your advantage.

What is a hashtag?

A hashtag on Twitter works as an easily identifiable label for any topic you want to discuss. For example, if you were organising a conference, you might want the hashtag #PlumbConf12 for a plumber’s trade conference.

Anyone attending the conference can search for this hashtag on Twitter to read what others are saying in the lead-up to it, during the conference, or afterwards.

How do you set up a hashtag?

Setting up a hashtag is incredibly easily. All you need to do is add your hashtag in one of your tweets. Using the example above, you could tweet “The official hashtag for the forthcoming conference is #PlumbConf12”. You would then use this hashtag in all your tweets connected to the conference.

I have heard of people getting phone calls from so called social media experts wanting to charge them for setting up a hashtag on Twitter. It’s free and easy to do yourself as described above, so please don’t fall for this scam.

 How can I use hashtags?

There are various ways you can use hashtags; keeping people informed about conferences is one way they can be utilised, as described above.

Other uses of hashtags for business include:

• Getting your tweets read by a wider audience

For example, if you write a blog post on plumbing, you can use #plumbing in your tweet so people searching for that will see your article.

• Competitions

It’s easy to track Twitter competition entries if you ask everyone taking part to use a specific hashtag in their tweets i.e. ‘#NewSocksComp’

• Discussions

If there’s a specific news item affecting your industry, you can read what others are saying about it if you either set up or follow a specific hashtag that someone else has created.

A word of warning: Before you set up your own hashtag, make sure you do a search for it to see if one with the same name already exists.

Also, don’t use hashtags to jump on the bandwagon of popular news stories. For example, if your tweet is about plumbing, you wouldn’t want to use the hashtag #FACupFinal in an attempt to get more people to see it.

If you have any questions about hashtags on Twitter, just ask me in the comments section.

If you’re not already using Instagram for business or have never heard of it, this article will provide a quick introduction to the free photo sharing app that’s taken the world by storm.

Instagram was recently bought by Facebook for $1 billion, so they clearly feel it has potential on a number of different fronts.

What is Instagram?

As mentioned in the intro, Instagram is a free photo sharing app. It allows you to edit and share photos on Instagram itself, as well as with your existing social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.

The filters you can apply to your images are what really make Instagram stand out. You can view some great Instagram galleries by visiting http://instagrid.me/

How you can use Instagram for your business

Obviously I can’t cover every single business sector here, but I’ve come up with some creative ideas that could be applied as they are, or tweaked for use by your business.

Some of you may be thinking “oh, not another social network”, but I see Instagram as a visual extension of Twitter in particular, and one that can show your business in a new light. Make sure you have your Instagram account linked to Twitter before trying these out.

Here are my creative ideas;

• Competitions

Competitions are a great way to engage with people using Instagram. For example, if your Twitter following is made up of local people and you’re an independent jeweller, you could encourage people to take pictures of themselves wearing items they’ve bought from you and display them on Instagram using a pre-determined hashtag.

You could then award a prize for the best photo, which could be a unique piece of jewellery from your store.

• Awareness/publicity

Of course, you don’t have to run a competition or give away anything for free when you use Instagram. You could also just use it to create stunning photos of your products which you can then post on Twitter.

Using the jewellery example above again, you might be about to launch a new range and want to use Instagram filtered photos to showcase your jewellery to your Twitter followers in a unique way.

• Hiring staff

Instagram also lends itself well to recruitment in the creative industries. Let’s say you wanted to hire someone for your PR business. You could send all the candidates a prop/product and ask them to send in a picture showing how they were able to get it in front of lots of people in a creative way.

You could then use this practical test to help you select your final candidates for interview.

Do you have any other creative ideas for Instagram business use? Please share them below.

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Many start-up companies and small business owners have no previous experience of working with web designers.

This post is not a stereotypical portrayal of ‘arty’ web designers being difficult to work with. It’s a quick guide as to how you can make your relationship with your web designer run smoothly so you get the best possible website for your business.

• Before you approach a designer

Many people make the mistake of approaching web designers before they even have a rough idea of what they want from their website. If you ring a web agency and ask for a quote for a 5 page website, they will need to ask you a lot of questions before being able to come up with a quote. If you don’t have the answers to these, you’re just wasting everyone’s time.

At the very least you should put together a rough idea of things you want your site to have, colours you’d like to use, and if possible, some draft text for the site for the web designer to work with.

• Choosing the right designer

There are many ways to choose a web designer; personal recommendation, searching online and opting for one advertising a cheap deal on Gumtree are just some of your options.

A personal recommendation is usually best, but don’t feel you should just take someone else’s word for the quality of work on offer. There’s a useful list of questions to ask when hiring a web designer which will help you sort out the professional ones from the imposters.

• When your website is in development

Once you’ve chosen your web designer and the process has started, there are a few golden rules to follow:

• Reply quickly

If you’ve been sent a mock-up of your design, it’s wise to reply quickly with your feedback. Your web designer or agency will have other clients too, and long delays in getting back to them will throw their schedule out and result in your site taking longer to complete.

• Be specific

Using language such as “can you make it greener, but not too green”, “give it a more informal look”, or “the logo needs moved, but I can’t think where to” are all very flimsy and will do nothing to ensure a smooth and easy working relationship.

If you do have feedback on any aspect of your site, think it through before contacting the agency/designer and give them specifics.

• Be realistic

It always pays to remember you’ve agreed a cost in advance for your website. You need to be realistic about any changes you’re asking for. For example, if you decide you want a content management system you can edit yourself just before the site is finished, you can expect to pay a lot more for that.

The same goes for if you decide your current logo doesn’t work well on the website. Your designer won’t put together a completely new one free of charge.

If you liked this article, you may also want to read: 10 good reasons why your business needs a website

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Getting into a disagreement online now and again may seem harmless enough, but what happens when it spirals into a campaign of negative marketing?

In this article I’ll look at how online feuds with competitors can take over a business and ultimately lead to its demise.

People falling out with each other is all part of life. However, when this happens in the online marketing arena, things can easily get out of hand.

I’ve seen people lose lots of money and their businesses over the years by becoming embroiled in online disputes with other companies. Only yesterday there was a high profile example of two companies having a public disagreement: http://www.brewdog.com/blog-article/diageo-v-brewdog

Here’s an overview of how engaging in negative online marketing could kill your business:

• Lose focus

No matter how much a rival company may have upset you online, the worst thing you can do is allow it to becoming all-consuming.

If your business relies on you being focused, anything that takes it away is a problem you can’t afford. For example, you may spend time writing a reply to a competitor’s blog post, or composing one of your own in response to something they’ve written. All the time spent doing this could be put to use in doing something positive for your business.

Some people are clever about the way they bad-mouth others in their industry and may make it obvious who they’re talking about, but without actually naming names. Getting dragged into a war of words will take your focus away from your company; exactly what your competitors want.

• Damage your reputation

It still amazes me to see rival organisations very publicly arguing on Twitter. This kind of thing happens every day across the world.

If you do feel the need to have an ongoing dispute, it’s clearly much better to do it away from public attention. A reputation can take a long time to build and can very quickly be undone.

How do you think a potential client would feel if they looked at your Twitter timeline and saw a host of negative remarks either aimed at or about a competitor?

• Affect website traffic and sales

The two areas mentioned above are bad enough, but ultimately, the worst thing that can happen as a result of negative marketing is loss of sales.

If you’re not focused on your business, and other people are noticing your negative marketing tactics, the chances are you will take a big hit in your bottom line.

Negative online marketing is rife, but savvy companies know it’s a dangerous game to play. What do you think? Please leave your comments below.

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If you don’t already know about the benefits of blogging, you should read this post first.

However, if you fully appreciate how blogging can raise your business profile, improve your search engine rankings and increase online sales, then keep reading to discover three easy ways to make your blog stand out from the crowd.

• Be yourself

It’s easy just to say “be yourself” when blogging. Lots of people think they’re being themselves, but in reality are actually being held back by fear. Don’t be scared to voice your real opinions on the issues that are affecting you, your business and your clients.

Too many business owners play it safe when it comes to blogging and the result is a wishy-washy middle ground that doesn’t really strike a chord with anyone.

Blogging is no different to real life. If you are yourself 100% of the time, some people will like you and some won’t. If you try to be someone you’re not and keep everyone happy, the chances are most people will be indifferent towards you.

• Write for a specific audience

Before you start writing a blog, you should have a clear target audience in mind. As I mentioned above, trying to please everyone won’t work.

Too often people care about the people who aren’t reading their blog, rather than those who are. You don’t have to start big, building up a niche following who share your content is better than having lots of readers who aren’t passion about what you write.

• Be inclusive

Another good way to get your blog noticed is to include others within your posts and let them know about it. You need to be careful to do this in a natural way, rather than just for the sake of it.

For example, if you’re writing on a particular topic, you could link to a post that a high profile figure in your industry has written on the same subject in order to give your readers a different perspective. You can then let that person know via Twitter or Facebook that you’ve mentioned them in your post; this will increase the likelihood of them retweeting your blog.

If you liked this article you may also want to read: the only way to get better at blogging

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When it comes to setting up an e-commerce website, there are lots of platforms you can use, such as Magento and Joomla.

When you’re putting an e-commerce site together, you’ll need a platform that can be easily optimised for the search engines. Many ‘off-the-shelf’ e-commerce solutions lack this.

Keep reading to discover three key areas you need to invest time in when you want to get your products noticed online.

• Unique product descriptions

Google loves unique product descriptions. If you take the time to write these in an engaging and appealing way, using relevant keywords and phrases, your products will stand a much better chance of being ranked well in the search engine results.

Too many people simply use the manufacturer’s descriptions and miss out on this ecommerce opportunity. You can read more about unique product descriptions on another of my blog posts.

• Meta data

Writing unique meta titles and descriptions will also help boost your e-commerce product visibility. The meta title tells users and the search engines what each page (i.e. product) on your site is about. This is then displayed in the search engine results pages.

Find out more about meta titles

The meta descriptions for each of your product are your big chance to convince people to click through to your site. You should use relevant keywords (these will be highlighted in bold) in the search engine results pages) as well as mentioning a benefit to the potential customer.

Find out more about meta descriptions

• SEO friendly URLs

If your e-commerce platform allows you to write your own URLs (web page addresses) then you need to take advantage of this too.

For example, if you were selling Big Bertha Diablo Golf Drivers, you should try to include these keywords within the URL i.e. www.site.com/big-bertha-diablo-golf-drivers rather than something more generic such as www.site.com/golf-drivers

If your e-commerce site has a unique page for each of your products, you need to utilise the URL to your advantage so you improve your chances of a good online ranking for each product.

If you liked this article you may also want to read: small business e-commerce tips

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The topic of measuring return on investment for social media activities is a hotly debated one.

There are many people who say it can’t be done accurately, while others propose all sorts of complicated ways to calculate it in monetary terms.

In this article I’ll take a look at whether or not I believe social media use by small businesses can be accurately measured or not.

Setting targets at the start

Before you even think about measuring your ROI from social media, you need to have an idea of what it is you want to achieve.

For example, are you looking to get more likes on Facebook to increase brand awareness, or newsletter signups via Twitter?

The two things mentioned above are easier to measure than other metrics as they have a clear end result. Where it gets tricky is when you have less tangible goals at the start.

An own goal?

If you’ve got a social media goal which is less well defined than those above, things can start to get tough.

For example, if you want to use Twitter as a way of sourcing suppliers and keeping in touch with industry news, how do you attach a value to that?

You can certainly put a monetary value on your own time and stick to using Twitter and Facebook for a set number of hours each week, but the problem lies in then attaching pounds and pence to the benefits that has brought to your company.

You may well find a great supplier quickly and easily using Twitter which could have taken much longer offline, but how do you really know how much longer it may have taken?

The result

I could go on much longer about this topic using different examples. I certainly think that for larger corporations with more staff, there are ways social media ROI can be measured to a certain extent – read this article for more information – http://socialmediatoday.com/eric-harr-resonate-social-media/463590/5-simple-steps-measure-social-media-roi

However, for smaller businesses, I think the time taken to try and measure the ROI can actually be counter-productive and lead to inaccurate data.

My advice would be to stick to very well defined goals which are easy to measure.

Alternatively, you can just accept that your social media use is of value to your business and not worry too much about calculating a definite ROI. After using Twitter or Facebook for a few months, you should be able to get a feel for whether it’s proving to be useful or not.

What do you think? I’d love to hear from small business owners on this topic; please leave your comments below.

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But you can’t make it drink.

This phrase came to mind recently when I was looking at a client’s online marketing strategy.

In this blog post I’ll share an important lesson you can learn from this popular saying when it comes to promoting your business on the web.

The water

Your website is the water. In other words, the place you want to lead your customers (the horses) to.

The journey

There are lots of customers out there waiting to be taken to your website. In my recent experience working with a small business owner in Central Scotland, they had about a dozen different trails all leading to their website.

The problem was, no matter how many customers he managed to get to visit his website, none of them were drinking.

In his particular case, his website was more cesspool than fresh drinking water. In other words, it was turning his customers away rather than inviting them in.

The problem

My client was putting a lot of effort into leading customers to his website. He was very active on social media, used pay per click advertising, blog comments, online forums and various other channels to get traffic to his website.

The problem was his website. It was poorly designed and poorly written. Each visitor to his website was potentially a thirsty horse, but he was doing nothing to make them want to take a drink or even dip their toe in the water.

I was able to point out what a waste of time and money his online marketing activities were without the most important thing in place i.e. a decent website.

He’s currently investing in the redesign of his site at which point he’ll start leading potential customers to it again – and I’m 100% sure there will be plenty who are happy to have a drink.

If you liked this post, you may also want to read: does your website need a check-up? 

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Small business owners spend huge amounts of money every year on trying to drive traffic to their websites. Unfortunately, this cash is often wasted when a site is difficult for people to find their way around.

Rather than focusing purely on getting more traffic, investing in the navigation of your website in the areas below can deliver a better return on your investment.

• Use breadcrumbs

Breadcrumbs make it easy for people to find their way on websites. Rather than navigating through lots of different pages and getting lost, a breadcrumb trail displays all the pages visited, thereby making it easier for people to retrace their steps.

An example of breadcrumb navigation is below:

Home>Services>Domestic>Cleaning>Carpets

• Add a search box

People don’t often have much time when they’re browsing and want to find the right information right away. By having a search box on every page of your website, visitors can easily enter the words/phrases they’re looking for to cut down navigation time.

• Use different menus

Rather than having lots of different options coming from a main drop down menu at the top of each page, you may want to use sub-menus. For example, if you have a lot of blog categories, these could be shown on the left or right hand side of each page so people can go directly to them.

• Consistency is king

Even after a couple of minutes on your website, people will start to get used to the navigation. The last thing you want to do is then confuse them by having a different style of menu on one particular page. Keeping things simple and consistent is the key to good navigation.

• Make it obvious how to get back to the homepage

Many websites don’t make it clear enough how to get back to the homepage. For example, someone might be on a clothing site and want to go back to the start to take another look at a special offer. Quite often the company logo will take people back to the homepage if they click on it, but if you’re able to, it’s wise to make your homepage link as clear as possible.

Do you have any pet hates when it comes to website navigation? Please leave your comments below.

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