Counselor Chat

Counselor Chat
Tuesday, February 14,2012
Vinnie ASI Today's Chat - How To Improve Your Website - will begin at 2 pm EST 11:55 AM
Vinnie ASI Chat begins in less than 30 minutes. 01:36 PM
Dave Vagnoni-
Counselor
Hi and welcome to today's Counselor chat. The topic: How To Improve 01:59 PM
Your Website. Once again this month, I'm joined in the chat by Counselor
Editor Andy Cohen. Please submit your questions or comments now.
Let's get started!
Samantha What's the best way to start adding video to my company website? 02:00 PM
Dave Vagnoni-
Counselor
Hi Samantha - The best and easiest way to introduce video to your site is
through YouTube. Not only will your site improve its SEO, but you can
embed clips right into your page.
02:01 PM
Larz Baliwate Do people really take time to watch videos? 02:02 PM
Andy Cohen -
Counselor
Hi Larz,
People definitely take the time to watch videos. But they need to be brief
and have an interesting angle.
Larz Baliwate Do you have any tips for search engine optimization?
02:03 PM

Dave Vagnoni-
Counselor
Hi Larz - Yes! About 70% of global online consumers watch online video,
according to Nielsen. Now is the time to use videos for marketing and
enhancing your site.
Henry Holland This is a great service you guys provide! I was wondering about ways to
make my website more visually appealing, other than just changing
background colors or fonts.
Andy Cohen -
Counselor
For distributors, I'd suggest starting with unique product videos to show
your clients the capabilities of promotional products. When you're at a
trade show, you can even bring a flip cam with you and record suppliers
showing of products and how they can be used in various promotional
applications.
Samantha My website is also kind of boring and I don't have a large staff or budget
to refresh it. (I'm a distributor.) Any ideas?
Andy Cohen -
Counselor
Dave Vagnoni-
Counselor
Hi Henry, I'd suggest using product images as a way to add color and
vibrancy to your site. Assume that clients are visiting your site to find the
latest items and ways they can use those items in their promotional
campaigns. Then use video, pics, and case studies to show them the
possibilities.
Here are a few ideas for improving SEO: Create unique content
(Google's search engine loves that); choose proper keywords so
consumers can better find your site; use Google places. There are many
more ideas in the November 2011 issue of Counselor in the Tech Tactics
section.
02:04 PM
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Andy Cohen - Hi Samantha, I think the key is to refresh content on your site as often as 02:08 PM
Counselor possible. So, post a new video, blog, photos, or social networking links
every day - or at least every week. It doesn't have to cost much other
than somebody's time. Take an hour a few times a week and post fresh
content to the site, so people have a reason to come back to it frequently.
Dave Vagnoni-
Counselor
Samantha - With basic design knowledge, you can also change up your
site's color scheme. That will make it instantly look fresh.
Ken Do you think it's important to add social network components to your
website?
02:10 PM

Samantha Dave, do you recommend using any online website template providers to
create a custom look?
Andy Cohen -
Counselor
Dave Vagnoni-
Counselor
Hi Ken, 02:11 PM
Social network links on your website can be very valuable. They not only
will appeal to a certain subset of your client audience, but they'll also
ensure that the content on your site is updated frequently.
Samantha - Wordpress offers some decent options. I'd start there. If you
want to go further, call a local web designer and ask for one hour of
consulting time. He/she can look at your page and give you a couple of
options. One hour won't break the bank.
Henry Holland Do you think Facebook fan pages, Twitter and LinkedIn pages will
eventually render company websites obsolete?
Andy Cohen -
Counselor
Make sure your Twitter handles and Facebook pages (for your company,
which can be a Fan page on Facebook) are linked to your website so that
any time a new post is made to either one, it will automatically appear on
your site too.
02:12 PM
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Ken How do I go about adding Twitter and Facebook accounts to my website? 02:14 PM
Dave Vagnoni- Hi Henry - I don't. Social media channels are meant to direct people to 02:15 PM
Counselor your site. So many companies are competing for social media space. You
want customers to find your site and that's how you get sales. The key to
a successful social media strategy is engagement. Talk to your clients
through social media, but bring them to your page for more specific
services.
Jen What's the best way to track what elements of my website are the most
popular?
02:16 PM

Dave Vagnoni-
Counselor
Hi Jen - A great way to track what elements are working best is by using
websitegrader.com. It's sort of an analytics tool/marketing evaluator.
Check it out for some pretty good breakdowns.
02:18 PM
Samantha Do you think an RSS feed is worthwhile to add to a company website? 02:19 PM
Andy Cohen -
Counselor
Dave Vagnoni-
Counselor
Andy Cohen -
Counselor
Terry We load Alpha and SanMar on our company's website for apparel
searches. What do you recommend for a promotional product
search engine?
Sean How much information about my products should I add? I'd like to have
hi-res images on there as well as some marketing tips but maybe just
keep the info vanilla? I don't want to over load or under load (word?)
Ken, On Twitter, scroll down to About us, then go to resources, then to
widgets. In the widget link, there's instructions for pulling your Twitter
feed into your website. It's pretty simple. Facebook is a little more
involved (and may need some code work from a programmer), but if you
search on Facebook for widgets or RSS feeds, you'll find some
instructions. Hope that helps.
Samantha - I do think RSS feeds are helpful. They provide a scrolling,
"updated news" feel to a page. Great for new content collection, looks
good and is pretty simple to install. As long as it doesn't make your page
clunky, go for it!
Hi Terry, Thanks for the question. ASI offers a website service for
distributors that's called LogoMall. It's a complete search engine that you
can put on your site that visitors can use to identify products for their
programs. If you want, email me at acohen@asicentral.com with your
contact information, and I'll have somebody get back to you with more
information.
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Ken Thanks. That definitely helps. One more question: As a small business, 02:28 PM
how much time (and financial resources) do you think we should dedicate
to our website?
Terry Ha. OK, I guess I fell into that one, Andy. Can you give us a rough
price here on the Chat line?

Dave Vagnoni-
Counselor
Sean-I'm a fan of information in bullet points. If you're a supplier, some
info on specs is fine, but if you're a distributor I'd really include info on
how a product can be a good part of an advertising mix and offer great
ROI.
Here are a few other tips to enhance your site. Use pingdom.com to
improve speed.
Also, offer special services to customers like online chat.
Larz Baliwate Do you have anything about ROI we can give to our clients and quote on
our website?
Andy Cohen -
Counselor
Dave Vagnoni-
Counselor
Hi Terry, As I'm in the editorial department here at ASI, I'm actually not
sure of pricing on Logomall. Please shoot me an email, and I'll definitely
follow up with you after this is over.
A big part of having a good website is to have a good mobile presence.
About 90 million people in the U.S. own smartphones, so your website
must be optimized to fit on a mobile screen. Remember, don't use Flash
or Java on a mobile site, because they're often not supported.
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Andy Cohen - Ken, it kind of depends on what you're looking to do on your site. If you're 02:39 PM
Counselor running an e-commerce platform where clients are placing orders through
your website, then you'll need a good portion of your resources dedicated
to it. If it's a marketing tool that you're using to get people's attention and
interest, then I'd say make it a priority for one person on your staff to
monitor and update the content daily. Blogs, videos, social networking
links, product images. These can all be used to update information
regularly--and ensure that your site has a better chance to show up on
higher on search engines.
Dave Vagnoni-
Counselor
Yes Larz. ASI produced an Ad Impressions study with some great stats.
Did you know, for example, that the cost-per-impression of a promotional
item is $0.05 or half of a penny? Your customers need to know this!
Andy Cohen - Ken, one other point I'd make about resources: Your site will definitely
Counselor give back to you what you put into it. The more effort you put into
improving SEO with keywords and fresh content, the better you'll do on
Google, Yahoo and other search engines. Create weekly and monthly
02:41 PM

goals for the amount of effort and resources you put into the site, and
work toward increasing those on a quarterly basis.
Larz Baliwate Wow Dave, that sounds like great stuff. I'll have to look that up. 02:42 PM
Dave Vagnoni-
Counselor
Generated By Zoho Chat
Larz - There's lots of useful stats on asicentral.com. Click on the research 02:43 PM
tab at the top.
OK, thanks to everyone for joining our chat today. Our next chat is
scheduled for Tuesday, March 13 at 2:00 p.m. ET. The topic: Joining The
Cloud. Talk to you then!
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