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Interactive
Content - Blogs, Forums and Feedback
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by:
Justine Curtis, Enable UK
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Both
search engines and customers love fresh, updated information. Nothing
promotes a business online better than staying in touch with prospects.
The more interactive the continued contact, the better the relationship
that is built with a potential client. But there's no need to groan at
the thought of having to work hard at adding new content to your web
site, it's not as complicated as you might think.
For more information about how to get interactive with your customers,
take a look at our guide "Building Online Relationships" available
here: http://www.enable-uk.co.uk/html/book_4.html
The business principle of continued contact and online relationship
building has given rise to the popularity of online business blogs,
forums and feedback opportunities. Interactive online communication
define the web site owners as experts in the eyes of visitors, and
serve as a promotional vehicle for other products and services that the
business seeks to sell. Continued, interactive contact can bring many
benefits, such as:
·You'll find out what type of content visitors want to see at your web
site. This will attract your visitors to revisit and read the content.
·You'll find out how to improve existing products or services. This
will attract new customers to buy from your business.
·You'll find out which products or services your customers would like
to see you sell in the future. This will increase your back end product
sales.
·You'll find out how to improve your customer service. This will cut
down on customer complaints and how to better resolve problems.
·You'll find out how to improve your sales letters or adverts. This
will increase your sales, traffic or subscribers.
·You'll find out how to design your web site to fit your visitors'
needs and wants. This will increase the time your visitors spend on
your web site.
·You'll find out what kind of non-related products or services your
customers would buy. This will help your business easily move into a
different market.
·You'll find out how to better price your products. This will help you
sell your products or services at a price that will pull the most
orders.
·You'll find out the interests of your potential customers. This will
inform you where to market and promote your products.
Getting Started
So where do you start? Do you need a blog, a forum, or a feedback form?
All have different uses and your selection will depend on the needs of
your particular business and your limitation with regard to time and/or
budget. Below are some of the options and some ideas for adding
interactive and fresh content to your web site.
For more information about how to establish and maintain online
relationships with your viewers and customers, get a copy of our guide
"Building Online Relationships" available here: http://www.enable-uk.co.uk/html/book_4.html
Weblogs or Blogs A blog is basically a series of posts that appear by
the date posted like an online journal. Setup is minimal and the
interface is easy to learn- if you can use a word processing package,
you can write a blog! Services like Moveable Type and Blogger make it
incredibly easy for anyone to publish on the web.
Blogs can be integrated seamlessly into your site so that they have the
same look and feel. You can use a blog to publish an events calendar or
comment on developments and news from your industry. A blog can be
strictly professional, announcing special offers or new product info or
it can be casual and create a "personality" for your company.
What can a blog do for your business? Think about what your customers
want to know.
To add interactivity, several blog programs come with a "comment"
ability built in. This allows general users to create an account and
post their comments to your blog. This is something to be careful of as
you can get negative comments along with the positive.
Forums
While online forums are popular and the perfect method of relationship
building, starting a forum and maintaining one can be challenging,
especially in the beginning when members can be few and far between.
The challenge for most new forum owners is to get beyond the initial
start up phase and move onto a phase where the forum members themselves
promote the forum simply by posting.
Forums have become a common feature in many websites. With good free
scripts available, and paid scripts being relatively cheap, it seems
that every new website has its own forum(s).
But is it wise to add forums to your website?
On the pro side, large, active forums generate content for your
website. They add a "sticky" element as most people come back, at least
to monitor developments on their threads. Some forum software allows
members to opt to receive an email whenever someone replies to their
thread. Most people use it and that automated email sends them right
back to the forum and therefore, your web site.
However, forums can take a long time to pick up and an empty forum can
actually drive new visitors away. You need to constantly monitor your
forums to make sure that they are clean of spam, troll posts, and just
keep everything in order. In addition, forums are database-type
applications that generate web pages on the fly. Every time a user
views a page, it's being created from scratch. As the forums become
more active, this can take a heavy load on the web server's resources
and ultimately increase your hosting costs.
A forum is an incredible tool for building content and a community but
it's not a task to be undertaken lightly; it requires a lot of time and
energy and some technical knowledge (or a tech budget!)
If your industry has a need, or your product has a loyal following, a
forum is a great tool to build content while drawing like-minded
individuals together. A forum is great for market research, technical
support, building a fan base, trading ideas and knowledge, and many,
many other benefits. Try to get a base of people from similar business
or industry experts to post at your forum. It's exposure for them and
helps to build a solid foundation for your information.
If you decide to start a forum, be sure to use one that is
search-friendly, such as www.InvisionBoard.com or www.phpbb.com, and
set aside a good chunk of time to promote it and administer it.
For more information about how to establish and maintain online
relationships with your viewers and customers, get a copy of our guide
"Building Online Relationships" available here: http://www.enable-uk.co.uk/html/book_4.html
Feedback Unsolicited feedback is a powerful and convincing tool! Let
your customers tell other customers why they love you. It's much more
compelling than your own claims. Unfortunately, customers normally need
to be asked for their opinion. You can ask for feedback on any area of
your business, your web site, your ordering process, your levels of
customer service, your delivery service, etc.
The easiest way is to simply set up a form to allow customers to submit
their feedback. Keep it fairly brief and allow a space for comments.
You can then use the information provided to improve your customer
experience, and with permission, publish the ones you choose.
Often other web site owners that are also customers of users of your
web site can be enticed to write a review or testimonial for your site
in return for a link back to theirs. This helps them with link
popularity but it helps your site as well it shows a real person wrote
that review.
Ask The Expert This is a great way of not only interacting with
potential customers but also establishing your business as an expert in
its field. Using a simple question form or forum software, users submit
questions and someone at your company answers them. The Q&A are
both published on the site for users to read once they are answered in
a "knowledge database" or "FAQ" section. This is less time-intensive
than a full-blown forum but a great way to keep a finger on the pulse
of what customers want to know while still adding content on a regular
basis.
Summary If you are interested in building loyalty and interest in your
company as well as repeat business and you want to get increased
traffic from the editorial or free listings in search engines, you have
to offer more than just sales information to your users. If you create
a plan for content that offers value and interest to your customers,
you can have a site that is built to sell AND drive repeat business.
For more information about how to establish and maintain online
relationships with your viewers and customers, download a copy of our
guide "Building Online Relationships" available here: http://www.enable-uk.co.uk/html/book_4.html
About the Author
Is your web site driving high quality, targeted
customers to your business? Our proven Internet Marketing solutions
make your web site work harder for you. For a complete range of
Internet marketing and advertising resources to improve search engine
positions visit Enable UK. Stop losing customers to your competitors
and make more money from your web site TODAY. www.enable-uk.co.uk
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