Free Tool – Refresh Your Website – WebsiteGrader from HubSpot

WebsiteGrader from HubSpot is one of my favorite free marketing tools. It measures the marketing effectiveness of your website with specific analysis of key areas: Google indexed pages, blog activity and links, readability level, Alexa rankings, etc.

But it’s not just a review, the report also provides detailed information on how optimize your site to improve rankings.

I use WebsiteGrader when I first engage with a new client, to see what’s what with their current website and have a “baseline” to measure the affect of marketing programs over time.

Check it out: www.websitegrader.com

A few ideas:

- You can “grade” anyone’s website – yours, your competitors, anyone’s – great way to get information to improve your SEO and to see what the “big guys” are doing
- Perform a WebsiteGrader review on a monthly basis to clearly measure the success of your marketing programs
- The fastest needle mover – Links, baby, links – from related websites, from press articles, from press releases…legitimate links though

Frances Mann-Craik, Addison Marketing

“State of the Press Release” — Create a “fresh content” tsunami with PR

“State of the Press Release” — Tips for Writing Great Press Releases

Business Wire’s new white paper “State of the Press Release” written by New Media Pro, Monika Maeckle, outlines the growing importance of press releases in the global, mobile, social world and provides tips on writing for maximum effectiveness.

The role of the press release has greatly expanded in the last decade. Pre-Internet, press releases were an “invitation for a conversation” with an editor. Now, a press release is a multi-purpose marketing piece that not only serves as content for editorial, but can also directly reach multiple sites on the Internet, then take off and become viral through the blogsphere and social networks. Add back links to your website and the press release has created a “fresh content” tsunami – oh so important for SEO.

Check out Monika’s white paper at: http://glomosome.businesswire.com/#?id=3.

Webinar confirmations – put the date in the Subject Line!

My pet peeve of the day – I check my calendar, I’ve got a great webinar to attend and I can’t find the confirmation email in my inbox, so I can’t log in. Okay, if I had an Outlook calendar, maybe I could have downloaded the info into my calendar, but I don’t… I use a Mac.

After missing too many good webinars, I have my personal work around – I forward the sign up information to myself with the DATE as the first thing in the subject line.

So this:

Confirmation: “Press Releases and Twitter: What to Expect When you Tweet Your News Release”

Becomes:

August 18 Webinar, “Press Releases and Twitter: What to Expect When you Tweet Your News Release”

Now I’ll be able to find the link when the day comes!

My guess is that I’m not the only one with this problem and that sign up-to-attend ratios could go way up if Webinar organizers would just do this one thing.

Frances

Trade show Exhibits – Just "Say" what you do

The OMMA Global conference this week in San Francisco, organized by MediaPost,  included an exhibition with 40+ marketing and advertising firms.  These are leading and emerging “experts” in helping companies deliver their messages and build market awareness.

Many  either don’t “get”marketing 101, don’t want to pay for extra graphics on the booth wall, or are just so “cool” they think everyone should know all about them.

Well, maybe I’m not cool enough.  I was amazed to find that for over 50% of the exhibitors I just couldn’t tell what they do without talking to them. With a sector full of  ”fun” names, like Brickfish, EyeWonder, Sprout, a big logo on the wall doesn’t give the audience incentive to take the next step – stopping at your booth.

Trade shows are expensive.  Booth graphics should reach out to people, the right people, and pull them in for a conversation. Make it easy.  Just say what you do and for whom you do it.

Lean Startups

According to Eric Ries of startuplessonslearned.com, a confluence of events has created the democratization of entrepreneurship allowing lean startups to flourish.

New lean startups grow faster because: 1) The commodity technology stack – free and OpenSource software that allows entrepreneurs to use software with no permissions or proprietary licenses;  2)  Customer driven development helps entrepreneurs discover what customers want before it’s too late; 3) Use of the agile product development methodology in which the product is built iteratively and “progress is creating a line of working code.”

Rather than the traditional functional organization infrastructure, Ries recommends two teams – the Problem Team, which is focused on who the customer is and what problem the product will solve;  and the Solution Team, focused on developing the product and testing weather the current hypothesis is still relevant.

The result – avoiding building a product that no one wants. Discovering the “pivot” point where product direction changes to meet customer needs.

The full video is available at the Stanford University Center for Professional Development, Entrepreneurial Though Leaders Seminar http://www.youtube.com/user/StanfordUniversity&rclk=cth#p/u/40/zGXAVw3vF9A

Getting the BASICS right for website SEO can dramatically increase a growing B2B’s website traffic.  For example, a large company I was working with didn’t have a “document type” in their header.  Adding just that one line of HTML code improved their traffic 25% — in one week!

Here are some SEO basics that you can use yourself to upgrade your website.  If you need some help determining which keywords to focus on in your content, contact my friend, Alison MacDonald, at KeywordDiscovery.com – Alison@trellian.com.  They have awesome tools and webinars to help you find your best, most competitive keywords.

Check out our new Free Tools on SEO basics: http://www.addisonmarketing.com/newsite/pages/seo/contenthtmlbasics.htm

Finally, the new website is complete… last but not least is the buzz/blog page – for keeping track of Addison Marketing activities and that of our cherished clients.  All for playing in the Twitter, Facebook, etc. sandboxes. 

New at Addison Marketing – an SEO program for start-up companies – just the basics to get SEO up and running.

Check out our “Free Tools” for start-up marketing.