Quirky Web

Web and social media for small businesses

Monthly Archives: April 2013


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How social are you? Improve your Google rankings…

Google rankingGoogle is continually changing/improving its search algorithm which means you have to keep on your toes if you want to get higher in those rankings.

Lately, it’s more favourable to an authority in your business. If you have to build some credibility within your audience, then you become more of a trusted authority.

One way that Google measures this is with your social media relationships. Don’t think that means you have to shoot off and increase your followers. That’s not really how it works. So don’t get dragged along with those companies that will ‘buy’ you lots of new followers.

What you need to do is really good and interesting content that you followers will share, retweet, re-post, re-pin and like. It’s about engagement rather than a numbers game of followers. Create good content that will engage your followers/customer.

It’s about effective and regular engagement…

This article, How to use social media for higher google rankings, has some really good tips.

Also, don’t forget to review the tips at Google for search engine optimisation.

Contact us if you want some help and advice on improving your Google rankings.

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Who will you leave your data to?

Digital AfterlifeMore and more people are running a large majority of their lives online. That’s a fact. Privacy keeps cropping up as an issue from time to time. People place so much of their day to day information on places like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest etc that is made public. It is pretty easy these days to find out a lot about a person purely from putting their name into a search engine like Google and seeing what pops up.

We all know that recruiters are using this more and more to find out about potential employees. Of course, if you are in the job market, you have no doubt created a lovely LinkedIn profile – it’s very easy to forget that many of those pictures of the office party getting out of hand at Christmas have lots of tags of you…

Clearly this keeps cropping up in the news and you can enlist companies now that will clean up your social profile. Celebrities use this too when they want to turn the tide on a raft of bad publicity.

One thing this is often forgotten here, is what happens to all the social information when you die?

Occasionally you will see some news stories when someone has died suddenly and their page has been turned into a memorial by the family or friends, but it’s not always very easy to pick up someone’s Facebook page.

There’s a very interesting article on the BBC website today – Google launches tool to determine data use after death. It makes an interesting read.

It’s a sensitive issue but it Google are starting to go some way into dealing with what happens in the digital afterlife…


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Wondering about Pinterest?

Pinterest logoI’ll bet you keep hearing about Pinterest? Have you been and had a look? What do you think? Could you work out why you might use it?

In some respects I think Pinterest is the new Twitter. People have heard about how great this chunk of social media is, but don’t really know how they’ll use it.

Well, I’d advise you to pop on over the Pinterest and have a look around.

It’s actually a great pinboard type tool. Imagine that you are looking for a new kitchen, looking for ideas for your wedding, or looking for new spring outfits. Pinterest can help here and let you pin collections of pictures. Lots of ordinary people are already doing this.

Where do businesses come in? The figures are now starting to quote 60% f the top 100 businesses having a presence on Pinterest.

Well, you are probably experts in what you do. I’ll bet there are a lot of images to do with your business? I don’t mean pictures of your products – a Pinterest board of these will soon turn people off. An example might be that you knit and sell dog jackets for various breads of dogs. You want to connect with and engage dog lovers – well I guess they’re your target audience? You could creat Pinterest boards of different dog breeds, dog kennels, dressed up dogs, dogs coats etc. Dog lovers will start to see your pinboards and hopefully start to follow them. It gets your name out there… you then might occassionally post up some of your own products.

The Huffington Post has a pretty good article – Pinterest and Quora for Business? Ignore at your peril.

Like the Post suggests, you need to look at what the top brands are doing on Pinterest. Look at how they are engaging customers without using any sort of hard sell.

Just because these are big businesses doesn’t mean that this doesn’t translate down for small businesses – remember Pinterest is another free tool that you can use to help to grown your own business!

Have a look at how Quirky Purple uses Pinterest to engage with their customers and potential customers – Quirky Purple Pinterest Site

If you want some help with getting started with Pinterest then Contact Us today!


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Small businesses can dip their toes into the web for free

OK, so you’ve got a small business, and everyone keeps asking you if you’re online. Where do you start?

You could be a  plumber, an electrician, a mobile hairdresser, or a builder. These different businesses will have different requirements and different customers, but the main thing here is that using the internet is an easy way to potentially reach a growing audience.

One thing you need to bear in mind is that getting online need not cost you any money at all.

Here’s how you can do it yourself, and for free!

Get on Facebook

Ask around and you’ll find that a lot of people you know, and your customers are on Facebook. Chances are you’re on Facebook too. Well you can set up a business page for free. Logon to your personal page and then use the link http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php

Just follow the instructions and add in a couple of photos for you header and profile picture and you’re set. Share the page with customers and friends and ask them to share it too.

Tips

– Pop up some pictures of your work e.g. hairstyles, patios, garages
– Try and get your customers to comment on photos of work you’ve done for them
– Like the pages of similar business and learn from the ones that use Facebook well

Get on Twitter

This is a great way to not only connect your potential customers but also with governing bodies, trade leader and network with peers. It’s a very fast way to keep up to date with what’s going on in your area.

Tips

– Follow similar businesses and see what updates they put out
– Keep up to date with following the governing bodies in your business area
– Check TV programme hashtags (#xfactor). Are there any TV programmes relevant to your business/trade? Get online and join in as you’ll find more followers for your account

Website

If you need a website then again you can make one for free, but with a little more effort than setting up Facebook or Twitter.  Use Wordress (www.wordress.org). It’s known as a blog, but works really effectively as a website.

You’ll find many tiny, small, and medium businesses use something like WordPress to run their main website. This website is run on a free WordPress template!

Finally

Has this wetted your appetite for getting your business online?

The only things that should cost money are buying a domain name and selling online. We’ll talk about both of these in a further blog post.

These are just your starters and there are loads more cool things out there that will suit your business.

Make sure you spend some time checking out your competitor and any businesses that you aspire to be like. You’ll soon start to see a way forward for your business.

Don’t forget you can also contact us at Quirky Web. We can get you started or review where you already are and take you to the next stage.