Who likes drinking champagne? Who likes drinking free champagne? Well we’re pleased to say that the champagne is on us.

Celebrate success
We think success should be celebrated. And success is something we’ve been delivering to our clients for over 7 years.

So now whenever we launch a new website for one of our clients we’re going to be sending them a bottle of champagne so they can toast their future success straight away!

This is not a gimmicky promotion. It’s not a time limited offer neither. We realise no one will hire us to design and build their new website purely on the basis they will get a bottle of champagne. As stated above we do think it’s right to celebrate success and we’re confident that’s what a new website from us will bring you.

So if you want success with your online marketing then get in touch and you’ll be toasting new clients in no time at all.

Get a bottle for recomending us
In addition to the above if you are the one that recommends us to the client then we will also send you a bottle of champagne when the website launches.

So if you know a company that could do with our advice and expertise then just get them to get in touch with us and don’t forget to get them to tell us that you recommended us so you’ll get that bottle of champagne delivered to your door.

We’re even using a local wine specialist The Perfect Wine here in Norfolk to choose and deliver the champagne.

So here’s to your future success!

PS: Please do not tell anyone who doesn’t like free champagne
PPS: Don’t tell anyone who doesn’t like getting new clients

So you’ve got your website and with all the confidence that it will be a great success you’re sat there waiting for the phone to ring red hot, or for the email orders to pile in and…… nothing!

When you open a new shop on the high street you have the benefit of being able to see who browses in the window, see if them come in, what they look at, what they spend time on and what they say even but with a website you can’t get all this vital feedback. You don’t know if they move past the home page or what page it is that brings them to your website in the first place.

Well fortunately you don’t have to be left in the dark. There is a way to get this vital info and to analyse it and get that feedback you need. Of course you can’t see the visitors’ faces nor gauge their body language and what they say but you can see how they get to your website and what they do when they get there.

Google analytics is a fantastic tool that allows you to see important and informative statistical data about the people that come to your website. Features include (but not limited to):

• Track how people found you including keywords and referring websites
• See which pages are attracting visitors (landing pages) and which are turning them away (exit pages)
• See information about the visitors themselves like geographical location, browser info, screen resolution and more
• See visitor loyalty, returning visitors, how long they spend on each page
• Make reports, set date ranges, set up goals

Here’s the great thing about it, it’s 100% free. You just have to add some code to every page of your website and Google Analytics does the rest. Of course this is maybe easier said than done but your website developer should be able to do this for you for a small charge.

So here’s what you need to do to start seeing where problems may lie:

1. Get a Google Analytics account
2. Get the code installed on your website
3. Learn to read the data and understand where problems may lie (a subject on its own)
4. Most importantly – act upon your findings!

More information about Google Analytics can be found here on the Google Analytics website

What are your thoughts on this? We love to interact with our readers so please leave a comment.

What is social equity and and why do I need it?

Well Social Equity (closely linked to brand equity) covers many different things but in this article it’s the value of your online reputation as dictated by your followers, readers and fans etc. That is to say do people like you, trust you and generally think you have credibility?

This value of your equity ie your worth increases or decreases based on the on-line engagement between yourself and others on various social media outlets. It’s not very tangible but it’s evident quickly if you have positive or negative social equity and ultimately this moves to the off-line world, maybe in the form of a business transaction.

How do I work out my equity value?

If you look at the diagram below you can easily see how different aspects of engagement determine your equity value.

Now there’s no definitive scale or points system and there’s no website to sign up to to get your equity value score although I no doubt someone will try! This diagram is theoretical at best but I know that when people know, like and trust you then things happen. My suggestion is that everyone starts at 0 if you’re unknown and it’s up to you which way you travel, up or down the scale.

How do I travel up the scale?

You will be part of a community that is your followers, fans, readers and those that come across you. You maybe part of multiple communities which is where it gets a little complicated so I’ll come back to that later. Within your community you have to build trust and credibility – kudos is the name of the game.

This is done in a number of ways and if you’re already actively involved in social media you’ll of read a number of articles saying how you need to be real, authentic, transparent, trustworthy, engaging, helpful etc (if you haven’t read anything then you need to be all those).

Also if you want to be seen as the guru in your chosen field then you also need to be seen as knowledgeable, the person who should be asked and of course you must respond to and answer those questions that are posed to you.

Is it a numbers game? If I have lots of readers or followers I’m doing good right?
Well not necessarily. There’s no real direct correlation between your social equity and the number of followers or readers. For example you might have a 1000 readers of your blog but they might not trust you.

How will I go down the scale?
Posting one way salesy marketing messages about your business is a good start. Not responding to any comments, tweets or messages aimed at you. Posting inconsistently, infrequently and without any substance will also send it plummeting. And of course as in life if you’re being a general douche bag that wont help.

Can I survive an equity fall out?
A tricky one. It really depends on what happened but people are people and some will forgive and some wont. Most people like to hear the word sorry as it’s the hardest word to say. That out of the way you must then rebuild what you’ve lost or indeed never had following the advice in this article.

We love to engage with our readers so please do leave a comment.

The aim of this article is to talk openly about the restrictions that having a content management system can have on your online marketing and ultimately the success of your business. CMS is sold by web designers as the perfect post launch package but is that really true? Lets take a look at the realities of CMS.

The ability for a site owner to control their own content is nothing new and there are 1000’s of off the shelf content management systems (CMS) out there for developers to use to enable clients to, at various levels control their own content. ‘That’s great’ you might say, ‘who needs to hire a web developer to make changes to a site when I can do it myself?’

More worryingly it also implies that the skill sets of the original designer can be imparted onto the client simply because they now have control

The problem with the ‘who needs to hire a web developer to make changes’ question is that it assumes that a) A CMS system can do everything your original developer can do and will update a website perfectly, it’s fool proof after all …. isn’t it? B) More worryingly It also implies that the skill sets of the original designer can be imparted onto the client simply because they now have control.

I’ve yet to see a CMS system that updates any and every part of a site perfectly and with ease, that’s because it simply doesn’t exist.

When I talk about CMS what I really mean is control and addition of the content pages such as ‘about us’ or ‘home page’ etc. I’m not talking about blogging or e-commerce. It goes without saying that for e-commerce and a blog to be effective the client has to have control but that comes with restrictions. Restrictions put in place by a good developer to make sure the site stays looking how it should.

If you’re reading this and thinking ‘What, CMS doesn’t actually give me total control of my site and let me make updates to anything?’ then you’d be absolutely right, Many people don’t realise this. CMS actually can be quite restrictive because to build in a CMS to a website there are many considerations to be made especially with the design.

Put simply it’s an expert updating the site expertly.

When a designer knows they will have post launch control over a site they can do whatever as they know that they and only they will have to update it. Put simply it’s an expert updating the site expertly. If you know that this isn’t the case then you have to factor things in.

Now with all that in mind there are several ways in which content can be updated on a website:

1. No CMS but you update it yourself as you have some html ‘know how’
2. The people that built the site update it for you
3. The people that build the site include a CMS and you update it yourself via that
4. You are big enough to have an internal dedicated member of staff to look after the site updates (a techy)

Now in the case of point 1 then so be it but either the user is a time served expert online web designer or they aren’t. If they are then why are they hiring a web designer to build the site in the first place, with maybe the exception of time constraints? If they aren’t then should they really be fiddling with it after it’s been perfectly made and is live? You don’t service your car when you don’t know your spark plug from your sink plug so why would you jeopardise your online marketing strategy by playing with your website content?

Point 3; Ok so you have a CMS system, you have control of all or some of your site. Here’s the thing. Here’s the little question or questions that have been bugging me for the past few months:

1. If only simple text updates are needed now and again (and remember I’m not including a blog or e-commerce here) then surely any good web design company would be more than happy to do it?

   ‘Why?’, I hear the website companies scream. Well, it takes less than a minute of your time and it’s an excellent way to keep in touch with your clients and keep them sweet. A happy client will steer happy prospects in your direction. If you still think it’s justified to charge £50 to change a typo then either you probably wont be in business for much longer or your traditional advertising expenditure must be huge due to the lack of referrals from happy clients.

2. So with that in mind and here’s the crux of my article. Why would a client pay a lot of money to a web design company to come up with their online marketing master piece only for them to launch it and then someone with no web design or marketing knowledge take over?
3. Are we as web design companies doing our clients a disservice by offering and in some cases pushing CMS to clients as a ‘good idea’? When you think about it is it really a good idea to give control back to the client which is comparable to handing the steering wheel of a car over to someone who can’t drive?

So is CMS in the wrong hands spelling the kiss of death for businesses as online marketing becomes so important and in many cases the sole revenue stream?

What are your thoughts? We’d love to hear them below. Please leave a comment.

Fazed by Facebook? Troubled by Twitter? Unsettled by social media generally?

Whether you’re a business owner, representing an organisation in the private or public sector or just a concerned individual the explosion in use of social media can easily leave you feeling left behind and uninformed. Maybe it seems everybody is getting involved except you?

Come to this completely free seminar and listen to experienced social media user, speaker and trainer Gary Dickenson explore, explain and unravel the mysteries behind social media. Anyone is welcome to attend the talk but it is primarily targeted towards business owners, management & staff and organisations & their staff.

The evening will be split into 2 parts with the first part giving a general introduction and the second optional part giving a specific brief twitter teach in.

Pt 1: Social Media Explored:

• Where has the social media explosion come from?
• What are the good/bad things about it?
• Is social media right for you, if so what type?
• How do you keep privacy and boundaries?
• Should you be letting your employees use it?
• Get tips on how to gain new business & exposure.
• Learn what do to when it all goes wrong.
• Learn how to use social media responsibly & effectively.
• A time for questions and answers.

Break for refreshments

Pt 2: Twitter Teach In
This is the social media channel that everyone seems to dismiss as pointless but is it and why is so popular?

• Why do I need to be using Twitter?
• How to use Twitter, the basics?
• Learn how to avoid bad behavioural traits and succeed with best practices

Where & When?
Cromer Parish Hall, Cromer.
Tuesday 30th of March
7pm for 7:30pm start

Please book your place in advance by calling Gary on 01263 579422 or email gary@creospace.co.uk so that we can make sure there are enough seats and refreshments.

People are talking about your business, brand or organisation right now,
…. are you listening?