In this webinar we discussed all things blogging, particularly for those of you who are new to blogging or if you're struggling to keep your blog up to date. Points covered include: 

• Why you need to start a blog
• The easiest way to set one up
• How to attract readers to your blog
• What to write about that people will want to read
• How to make sure you keep your blog going

2011 has seen some major changes in internet marketing, things are moving so fast it’s a wonder anyone can keep up, let alone small business owners!

In this webinar we shared what the most important changes have been over the last 12 months, and gave ideas for your online marketing in 2012. We know you don’t have time to waste on activities which won’t bring in the business. But in this difficult economic climate, you need to be more proactive than ever to make sure you continue to generate those all important leads and sales.

How are you going to market your business in 2012?

Is your website, blog or shopping cart safe from hackers? Are you sure?

What would you do if hackers struck? 

The impact of having your website hacked can be devastating for a small business. Not only is it inconvenient, costly and time consuming to sort out, the potential loss of income is an added blow that no business owner needs right now. Fortunately there are some simple steps you can take, which aren’t too technical, that will help to protect your website and business from the many online dangers.

In this webinar, we covered:

Current Website Hack Stats and why you need to be concerned (we recommend you sit down for this part)

Examples of some recent hacks (not for the faint-hearted either)

Good News! You Can Protect Yourself

Simple Steps to Protection For Any Website

What if I get hacked? DON’T PANIC!

The search engine scene went through some major changes earlier this year with Google’s latest update called ‘Panda’. We want to make sure your website not only rides out further updates from Google, but actually helps your business to gain from it. SEO is still a very important part of online marketing, and can’t be ignored in favour of social networking.

Tips from the slides include:

• What the latest changes in SEO are and what they mean for your website

• Tips on how to write quality content for your target market

• How to find ideas to create fresh content on a regular basis

• Back to basics SEO tips and techniques

• How to distribute your content for increased visibility and those all important ‘social signals’!

View the slides below and do get in touch if you have any questions!

SEO: What's Hot & What's Not!

As Google+ is a new network, we wanted to explain the basics of using Google+ as well as some good reasons for joining it. It's proving to be a popular network with some nice features! 

View the slides below and do get in touch if you have any questions! 

We had a record sign up to this particular webinar, it shows that LinkedIn is a hot topic with the small business community. This webinar was an overview of LinkedIn and we included ways to impress with your profile, how to join and use Groups, build your credibility on LinkedIn, what company pages are and networking etiquette. 

Please view the slides here and do get in touch if you have any questions! 

Linkedin Webinar August 2011

Our second webinar, this time on social media was held on 21 July 2011. We covered some new things in social media, such as what is social search?, along with updates in specific networks such as Facebook & Twitter. We also included some useful tips such as using automation tools and social media etiquette.

For those of you who were unable to join us on 21 July, you can view the slides here: 

On 16 June 2011, we presented our very first Savvy Marketers webinar! It was very well received and pretty much went without a hitch. It looks like we've set a new trend so will be presenting our next webinar on Thursday 21 July, this time on the subject of Social Media. To find out more and register, please visit the Savvy Marketers website.

For those of you who were unable to join us on 16 June, you can view the slides here: 

I picked up lots of tips during the evening (I don't think you can ever stop learning when it comes to internet marketing), and thought I'd share some of these with you. The focus of the evening was on social media, mostly blogging from a professional point of view and also for someone looking to further their career. 

Here's a pick of the best bits:

Twitter:

• The #1 people decide who to follow on Twitter is whether they give them useful information. 
• People on Twitter are very interested in your personal stuff, so mix with professional tweets, it’s the real you people want to get to know and connect with.

Blogging:

• If a blog post is story based, it’s much more engaging for visitors to read. 
• You need to be consistent with your posts and post when you say you will, so that your readers get used to the pattern. Think like a publisher, such as a daily newspaper. A blog is like a publication, which has to be filled and meet deadlines. No excuses for not publishing when you say you will, much like a national daily can’t publish because they didn’t finish writing their articles! 
• You need to be able react to events (like a newspaper), so that your blog looks topical.
• The blogs which are most engaging, make the most money and have the most readers. Publishing multiple times a day will generate far more leads than publishing a couple of times or once per week.  Therefore there is a relationship between the frequency of blogging and the impact is has on business generated. This can put pressure on businesses, so as a result they can miss out on the value of their blog, by just not updating often enough! This is a management issue, businesses need to work out how to post as often as possible and tell stories that engage their readers.
• You need to create a blogging strategy to ensure you meet your goals and work out how your blog fits in with other social media activities.
• It’s important to create a community around your blog so that readers can take part. Businesses need to open up to allow anyone to post comments. 
• To build your community, you need to work out who your audience is, write posts which appeal to them, build relationships, encourage feedback and sharing of ideas. 
• You can also search on Google to find blogs, start to comment on them, and engage with these people who may go onto visit your own blog. 

We'll be expanding more on some of these points on the Savvy Marketers blog, so watch out for more on this soon! 

Can you add anything to these points? What has worked well for you in building a community around your blog?

Click here to download:

CoffeeTime_30apr10.ppt (2.84 MB)

(download)

Click here to download:

CoffeeTime_30apr10.ppt (2.84 MB)

Here are the slides from our Coffee Time Talk, '7 Ways to Get More Clients
with Social Media Marketing' on 30 April 2010