New Year Resolution

It's the time of year for New Year resolutions and one advert I watched recently reminded me that whether it's a personal or business goal, there are certain requirements to succeed. The Nike "No Excuses" advert is intelligently created with US Basketball player Matt Scott and should be watched, regardless if you're a sports fan or not.

Setting business goals

If you're not currently setting yourself business goals, then it's time to start. What do you want to achieve and by when? You can use SMART to ensure you are setting appropriate goals. SMART means each goal should be;

Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Realistic
Timed

For instance, "Throughout 2012 I will write a new blog post at least 3 times a week of at least 400 words". It's specific, measurable, achievable (if I plan my week properly!), realistic and set against a time.

Succeeding with your business goals

After setting your goals it can often be difficult to ensure your goals meet your business need and enable your business to move forward. The attributes to succeed in a personal goal are the same as business goals. You must be;

- Honest: I've owned and run my own company for years now and one of the challenging factors is being honest with myself. That can sometimes mean learning that the goal I set was too advanced or that I needed a swift kick up the backside to meet my goals. Being honest with yourself is essential to save time and develop your business.
- Determined: There are days when you can make multiple excuses for not meeting your goals. For instance "I had too much other work", "Someone else didn't do their part" or "I felt sick". You have to make your goals happen with preparation and a focussed mind.
- Have the ability: I once wanted to be a footballer, but I lacked two key ingredients; Speed and any talent whatsoever. It was, in hindsight, an unrealistic objective. You need to ensure your business objectives are potentially possible. If you have the ability, coupled with a determination to succeed and an honest outlook then what can stop you?
- Luck: Finally, you can't control what your competitors are doing, arguably some market conditions are also out with your control and in the end you require a bit of luck.

If you have all four of these attributes your objectives are far more likely to be a success.

Nike Excuses Advert

The Nike "No Excuses" advert drives the message direct to the consumer's face. As my grandfather once said, "a job worth doing is worth doing well". This advert reminds me of that message.




Setting 2012 Goals

Good luck setting your 2012 goals. An important reminder is to evaluate your objectives frequently. Ideas for setting goals could be;

- Improving your social media numbers
- Improving your website ranking (position on Google)
- Improving your profit with an advertising campaign
- Creating a digital marketing campaign to drive brand awareness
- Starting a Public Relations campaign to improve your profile
- Set a budget for 2012 marketing
- Create a tender proposal to find a new marketing agency
- Redesign our corporate profile with a new logo and leaflets
- Use SEO techniques to drive 10% extra sales

P.s. These are not SMART objectives, but just ideas of what you may wish to achieve.

Improve My Alexa Ranking

What is Alexa?

Alexa is an online analytical system created in 1996 and purchased by Amazon in 1999 for $250 million. Since 2002 Alexa has built strong ties with Internet power-houses Google and the Open Directory Project. These two organisations are considered to carry incredible influence for website success.

Why would I want to improve my Alexa ranking?

The model Alexa works with is flawed, it can only track and analyse data from people who have an Alexa tool installed. As a result, some of the world's largest websites have a less than impressive Alexa ranking.

So, does it matter? Well, research and studies show that one indicator of the size and influence your website holds is in your Alexa ranking. If your Alexa ranking is high (in the millions) then this data will influence your website position on search engines.

As a consumer would you rather by from a website ranking 10,000 or 1,000,000? If you’re like me, you’ll choose the larger brand (if all other variables are the same).

OK, I want to Improve my Alexa ranking!

There are numerous ways you can improve your Alexa ranking. The main improvement you can make is to create your toolbar and spread it far and wide.

Toolbar

We've found one of the quickest ways to improve your Alexa ranking is to create a custom built toolbar. We've made one already for money advice charity Debt Support Trust.

Test out the Debt Support Trust toolbar by downloading here

By creating your toolbar you can share it will your customers and followers. Alexa will then be able to see how many times people visit your website and improve your Alexa ranking.
Other Routes to Improve Your Alexa Ranking

There are lots of ways you can improve your Alexa ranking. Some of these may depend on your business model, but these include;

Traffic Widgets

You can improve your Alexa ranking by creating traffic widgets for the bottom of your website. You can see it at the bottom of this post. If you want to create your own posts http://www.alexa.com/siteowners/widgets

Social Marketing

Creating additional traffic from people with the Alexa toolbar installed is one way to improve your Alexa ranking. Most people with the Alexa toolbar will be webmasters so social marketing, such as Stumbleupon, will help to improve you social marketing ranking.

Write about Alexa and link back

You can improve your Alexa ranking by writing about Alexa and linking back to your Alexa page. For instance, the Debt Support Trust Alexa page can be found here. http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/debtsupporttrust.org.uk

Try to see how quickly you can improve your Alexa ranking.

P.s. when writing this article our North Star Marketing Alexa rank was over 6 million. Let's see what we can improve it to.

PPC Problem: Smart Phones!

Whilst writing, and subsequently re-writing this post I came to a conclusion; I hate poorly formed PPC campaigns. It's infuriating and often because time and care has not been taken over the campaign.

One piece of pay-per-click stupidity which I'm discussing today is the use of mobile technology and PPC adverts. In some instances mobile technology and PPC work perfectly well together. For example, if you want to information which will help you with your purchase. I was in an electrical store purchasing a kettle. I knew the make and model I wanted but couldn't see it in store. So, I open up my smart phone, enter the company details on Google, click the PPC link and find the product. This in turn allows the store assistant to locate my kettle!

Typically, paid search campaigns work best when you don't ask a multitude of questions.

When PPC Goes Wrong

If you're fumbling over the keyboard, getting tired switching from field to field and bored of the tiny screen then you're likely to give up. In fact, most of the time you'll take one look and say "not for me thanks". Who wants to spend 20 minutes completing forms, registering, clicking the link to activate the account etc on a tiny phone? As a result, this PPC spend is wasted.

Pizza PPC example

Like many posts, they come from life experience and this post is exactly the same - ordering a pizza on a smart phone. I tried to order a pizza last night but was not close to a laptop (or internet connection). I thought, ah ha, the wonder of technology - let's use the smart phone, order online and pick up in store en route home.

One problem. To do this I have to find the website, register, activate the link, place my order and then pay online. AAARRGGGHHHH!! Why is it so complicated?

Step by step

I'm on a smart phone and I don't want to register! Why should I register - it's a pizza? By simplifying the process and allowing me to place an order for a pizza without registering saves me 10 minutes! It's no more risky than me calling for a pizza and picking it up (i wouldn't supplying my card details over the phone so why should I online).

Secondly, why do I have to spend a further 10 minutes finding my card, entering the numbers on the microscopic screen and then checking the details are correct? Ultimately, the details will be wrong somewhere!

P.s. in case you're wondering the pizza company was neither of the companies on the left. And yes, it was ham and pineapple.

Meeting Business Needs

If your business doesn't automatically fit the PPC model, adapt it or don't advertise on smart phones. There is an option when setting up a campaign to ignore smart phone applications and only show ads on desktop computers.

Businesses choosing to use PPC to drive traffic to their website via the smart phone will inevitable irritate their customer, waste money and question why their PPC campaign is so expensive!