CREATING TRUST WITH YOUR CUSTOMERS

In the mid 1900's Dale Carnegie said people buy from people they know and trust, imagine what that entailed way back before social media and today's technology. The getting to know aspect of a business relationship is much easier in today's world as Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms create that warm call environment when seller and prospect finally meet belly to belly.

It is the trust aspect that is crucial to creating a potential life time satisfied customer.

In 1954 Ray Kroc embarked upon building a small business that would revolutionize the way business operated. He understood that by implementing systems for operation that he could ensure a predictable and consistent outcome for the customer every time. Through this approach McDonald's has become the biggest and most successful of any small business franchise in the world.

This consistent outcome is what builds the trust, i have been in this scenario myself when visiting a new city and pondering where to eat. It wasn't really about the food to me but more that i trusted the outcome to be the same as i had previously experienced and didn't have time to explore other places.

So how do i employ systems in my business to create a similar consistent experience for my clients?

I started with the administrative requirements of my business, including all of my forms used for taking contact information through to creating a work order to how delivery is made. I took a little time to envision each step to create the process from start to finish. The forms i created are unique to my business and are like gold to me, through repetition they have become the back bone of my business. In busy times these forms or my systems take over, i fill them out of course but the system creates a streamline process rather than absolute chaos that would ensue without them.

The end result is a consistent business outcome for me, this will reflect upon your results to your customers too. Through the same experience each time, from answering the phone to taking the orders and delivery, the customer knows what to expect each time and will trust the outcome making them feel satisfied, warm and fuzzy...just what we want.

The manufacturing or production aspect of my business is similar, i have forms for presenting proofs through to deliverables. My business is graphic and digital design and will require a different approach to some but some things remain constant. I will never send substandard results to a client, by keeping records with copious notes i ensure consistent results. This is important in my business to maintain a consistent brand through all of my customer’s projects.

When i was younger i worked in a large sign making facility which inspired me in many ways. They had so many systems and procedures i thought it was overboard, but after a brief time i saw the flow of work and smooth transition of projects through the place was amazing. In particular they employed a flow chart that travelled around with each project from department to department. These flow charts had the specifications for each job listed in details on them. After each employee completed his or her assigned task they were asked to sign or initial the form, then have a co-worker check it over and sign it also.

Some took this as a shot to their pride but it dramatically reduced spoilage and more importantly errors were caught and rectified before the client got their signs. This system worked to get the job done right the first time to a satisfied customer time and again building the trust we need in our business, i have taken those ideals with me and to this day tweak the procedures and systems as my small business grows.

I have been in the graphic and digital design industry for over 25 years at a technician level, starting a new small business was a tough transition. I have learned... and would suggest as you move forward to remember not to spend all your time working "in" your business...save time to also work "on" your business.

Best regards,

Michael Whenham

Backbone Advertising

mwhenham@backboneadvertising.com

www.backboneadvertising.com

 Branding for the new business owner

Your brand can be your business' most important asset. A strong brand can make any business stand out from the crowd. Every time a customer comes into contact with your business, your brand image will create an impression on them.

To create a successful brand, you can work with designers on everything from the look and feel of your website to the design of your stationery. Your brand should project a consistent and distinctive image of your business.

It is important to understand design, its relationship with branding and what it can do for your business.

While branding and brand building are complex, strategic activities, there is almost always a vital creative design component too - for example, the Nike 'swoosh', which is a simple, yet effective, logo that conveys energy and movement, and is appropriate to a company that makes performance sportswear.

Graphic design is one type of design that can create a brand image for your business. If you sell products, you can also design the look and feel of the retail environment in which you choose to market them, whether on a website, in a franchise in a department store or in a shop of your own. You could employ a retail designer or a website designer to help you determine the look and functionality of your retail environment, and to ensure that it communicates your business' brand essence.
Websites are increasingly important for many businesses to reach new customers and keep existing ones so it's important to have a brand that works online. Potential customers make emotional buying decisions based on website design and imagery.

Larger companies will have specific brand guidelines that their web designers will need to incorporate, which dictate style, colours and fonts, and how and where the logo can be positioned.

Small businesses will often need to start developing their brand from scratch, including designing a logo. A web designer can often help you with all of your branding needs.

Your corporate identity is made up of the visible elements of your business, including:

•     logo
•     business and brand names
•     any specific colours you use in your logo,   branding, premises, etc
•     letterhead
•     advertising
•     packaging
•     website
•     retail environment or office

www.backboneadvertising.com

Backlinks and your Website

When search engines calculate the relevance of a site to a keyword, they consider the number of QUALITY inbound links to that site. So we should not be satisfied with merely getting inbound links, it is the quality of the inbound link that matters.
A search engine considers the content of the sites to determine the QUALITY of a link. When inbound links to your site come from other sites, and those sites have content related to your site, these inbound links are considered more relevant to your site. If inbound links are found on sites with unrelated content, they are considered less relevant. The higher the relevance of inbound links, the greater their quality.

For example, if a webmaster has a website about how to rescue orphaned Dogs, and received a backlink from another website about kittens, then that would be more relevant in a search engine's assessment than say a link from a site about Sports. The more relevant the site is that is linking back to your website, the better the quality of the backlink.

Search engines want websites to have a level playing field, and look for natural links built slowly over time. While it is fairly easy to manipulate links on a web page to try to achieve a higher ranking, it is a lot harder to influence a search engine with external backlinks from other websites. This is also a reason why backlinks factor in so highly into a search engine's algorithm. Lately, however, a search engine's criteria for quality inbound links has gotten even tougher, thanks to unscrupulous webmasters trying to achieve these inbound links by deceptive or sneaky techniques, such as with hidden links, or automatically generated pages whose sole purpose is to provide inbound links to websites. These pages are called link farms, and they are not only disregarded by search engines, but linking to a link farm could get your site banned entirely.

Another reason to achieve quality backlinks is to entice visitors to come to your website. You can't build a website, and then expect that people will find your website without pointing the way. You will probably have to get the word out there about your site. One way webmasters got the word out used to be through reciprocal linking.
Building quality backlinks is extremely important to Search Engine Optimization, and because of their importance, it should be very high on your priority list in your SEO efforts. We hope you have a better understanding of why you need good quality inbound links to your site, and have a handle on a few helpful tools to gain those links.

www.backboneadvertising.com

Quality Backlinks for your Website
When creating your search engine optimisation (SEO) strategy, the critical factors you always need to consider are, carefully considering and placing your keywords; and building  good quality links back to your website.

This article discusses the importance of link building in your SEO strategy and provides some useful suggestions as well as some things to avoid if you want your SEO project to be successful.
 
What are backlinks and why are they important for SEO?
 
Backlinks are links that point to your website or web page from another website.
For those of us in the SEO world, we know that the number, variety and quality of backlinks is an indication of the popularity or importance of that web page. Outside SEO, backlinks may be of a personal interest because they indicate who is paying attention to that page.
Links are a bit like a “vote of confidence” or a “recommendation” from another website, meaning that your website is seen as a more credible and reputable source of information. Carrying out link building correctly is one the most difficult, time consuming and expensive parts of SEO, but absolutely necessary to push your website up the search engine rankings, especially for competitive keywords.

Here are some of the main factors you should consider:
 
Know who is linking to you...
 
As your website begins to get popular, it is necessary to monitor and manage all of your backlinks. You need to know just who exactly is linking to your site. This is especially important if you are in an industry where reputation is paramount. This is also important for SEO because having links from poor or undesirable websites can harm your SEO efforts and result in your website being punished or your rankings downgraded.
 
Go for relevance and variety..

Companies carrying out SEO campaigns desire to get more backlinks, particularly good quality links that are from websites or pages which have a high topical relevance to their own website. This helps search engines to confirm what their website is all about. While relevance is important, it is also a good idea to get a wide variety of links from different types of website including good quality blogs, article websites, press release sites, social websites and business directories, many of which are completely free.
 
Check the Google PageRank and “Link Juice”...
 
Another factor that companies look for is Google RageRank. This is a notional score used by Google to show the popularity / importance of the web page. Pages that have accumulated PageRank over a period of time provide more “link juice” – a term used to describe the weight a backlink carries.
It is possible to get a rough idea of the “link juice” by checking the Google PageRank of the web page linking to you and dividing it by the total number of other links present on that page. Where possible try to get an even spread of links from pages that range in PageRank, from 0 to 10.
 
Consider the speed you acquire backlinks...
 
Ask yourself how fast are you accumulating backlinks? Search engines may view this as suspicious if they see sudden spikes in activity. For example one day you may have 20 backlinks then the next day it shoots up to 1,000. Although unlikely, this kind of activity would look suspicious, prompting search engines to question what you are doing.
Things to avoid

When carrying out link building, try to avoid making the following mistakes:

•     Links from undesirable websites that do not compliment your  own
•     Companies and tools that carry out automated link submissions in bulk
•     Link farms and other link schemes
•     Lots of links from a single website or a small number of websites
•     Links created through client-side scripts like JavaScript
•     Paid or hidden links

Some of these techniques are considered “black hat” SEO, a term to imply unethical practices have been used which can harm your efforts and can be very difficult to recover from.
 
Summary
 
Good quality backlinks say a lot about your website and its popularity. A backlink is like a “vote of confidence” or a “recommendation” from other websites and the best examples are links from highly relevant websites, that have a good Google PageRank and use meaningful anchor text. Think carefully about your link building strategy and try to avoid some of the common mistakes that companies make when trying to achieve quick wins. There really is no such thing as a quick win when it comes to SEO, just careful planning and hard work.
Getting SEO support
For those just getting started with building an online presence, SEO strategy can be very difficult to understand.  It is essential to look for reliable search engine optimisation consultants who can help you to get your business website higher up the search engines in an ethical manner. You could even consider SEO courses to help develop your knowledge in this area.  At Backbone Advertising we have done the hours of research to find the best directories and areas to link to.
Contact us for further information on how we can help you at www.backboneadvertising.com

http://www.backboneadvertising.com/blog.html

Enjoy this weeks edition....

The Social Media Explosion
Whether your company can benefit from "Social Media" - refers to the use of web-based and mobile technologies to turn communication into an interactive process - will depend on a number of factors.
Social marketing - using social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Google+ - to connect with your audience is significant and the importance of doing so is getting more and more crucial to the way many businesses now engage with audiences on a day to day basis.

Below are some reasons why it can benefit your business and why it can be effective in communicating with your target audience.

Social Media is good at giving you access to your customers' feedback
Feedback, whether it's good or bad, helps you to improve your products and services and the consumers overall experience. Feedback also helps you in developing new products or services. Customer engagement is key to social media and therefore will be available for your company to use as a basis for ongoing improvements.
Your audience is more likely to offer an honest opinion via these channels and you can act immediately if the feedback is negative and needs to be addressed.

Social Media helps you discover your customers' preferences
Finding out what your customer's actually want will make it easier to enhance your products and plan social or other marketing activities more effectively.

Social Media can increase your Return On Investment (ROI)
Apart from promoting your products and services through Social Media, you can expect your conversion rate from leads to sales to increase if a customer has become engaged with your company via social channels such as Facebook. There are other ways your ROI will be increased:

Social Media helps lead generation
Because Social Media helps you reach a more targeted audience and helps engage that audience with your products and services, can result in higher lead generation.

Social Media can reduce marketing wastage
Another part of ROI is how resources such as time and money were spent acquiring leads and sales. Using Social Media can often be more cost-effective at reaching new and existing customers than other forms of marketing.

Social Media can generate good-quality traffic for your website
The traffic to your website from any social media channels is likely to be highly targeted and of high quality. Where possible you should always include links back from any social media messages, posts and so on, to relevant pages on you website.

Social Media is good for announcing new products and services
Not only is Social Media good cost-effective when it comes to the marketing involved in launching new products or services, but you may already have access to a wide audience who are receptive or will engage in new offerings. Social Media is a good way of spreading news about the imminent arrival or release date of a new product or service and your audience will help to spread the word for you.

Social Media can be very effective for many different types of businesses, but it does need commitment in terms of time to ensure those channels are nurtured and grown. Over time these channels will become more and more important to the way you do business.

At www.backboneadvertising.com we offer packages and services with advice aimed at promoting you and your products.

The importance and role of SEO?
 
With dramatically increased popular searching and shopping online, getting on the first page or two of the search engine results can mean the difference between keeping your day job and becoming an internet millionaire. If you have completed and launched your website, then it is time to do some marketing to enhance your visitor rate. Do you understand what SEO it is and what it does? Do you know why your website needs it and why it is one of the most effective methods of making your website more visible to your target audience? If your answers are no, then It is time that you learn more about SEO.
SEO stands for search engine optimisation. It is a method of preparing your website so that it provides high quality content and attracts a larger volume of high quality traffic. Although SEO strategies are always changing and offer no guarantee, the results of their application are often tremendously successful. At Backbone Advertising we carefully and closely work with our clients to meet their needs and to make them number 1 on top search giants like Google, Yahoo and MSN.
When optimising your website, you should always use organic SEO techniques means 'white hat' rather than 'black hat' SEO techniques like keyword stuffing, using invisible text and creating fake web pages that are not visible to users. Black hat techniques aim to manipulate search engine spiders on a short term basis. They often backfire. Once search engines like Google Yahoo and MSN notice that your website uses black hat SEO techniques then your website will be banned permanently. Then, it will be almost impossible for anyone to find your website without first knowing your web address.
Search engine optimisation or SEO is something that a lot of people are talking about since the existence of search giants like Google, Yahoo and MSN. If you run a website that relies on customer referrals or you build intranets you might not care if your site does not rank high in Google, Yahoo or MSN. Plus, getting random customers from a search engine might cause more problems for your site such as if you are not set up for international customers or your site is more private. But in general cases SEO is really important for your website, for a free website evaluation...got to www.backboneadvertising.com to see how your site rates.