Following on from our recent blog ‘Blogging & Business: A Match Made in Heaven’ where we looked at the art of writing a good blog and how it benefits your online businesses image. We left one stone unturned...(deliberately so we could write this piece!)

We wrote very (very!) briefly on the SEO benefits of Blogging, but this week we have decided to go one further and examine how exactly it works for you & your businesses.

SEO & Blogging: A Surprising Match….

Googles latest SEO guidance is on all things ‘real & quality content’across everything platform you use. The misconception is SEO is just all things backlinks, your landing page and site content but Googles Latest SEO Update focus on providing your businesses customers the whole experience - that’s where Social Media & Blogging come into things.

Google Loves Real Content from Real People….

 Blogging for SEO is all about communicating, collaborating, sharing you & your businesses views, news and opinions – keeping both current and potential new customers in the know.

Just be yourself, write naturally… nobody knows more about your business than you! Creating quality content is ‘two-fold’. It should generate more traffic to your site for potential newer customers but also keep current customers coming back for more (providing you write some interesting/relevant content).

The key is to be transparent, create interesting and relevant blogs. SEO is all about real sites providing real quality content and it couldn’t be easier than with Blogging!

There Will Be Sceptics Out There….

Some organisations hire fake ‘Guest’ bloggers, some key-word cram, but here at eTrader we promote quality content and ethical SEO practice. We encourage customers to actively create quality content across every medium they use. The results are more fruitful in the long term, both on and offsite. We understand that quality content is king as it plays a heavy part in your businesses Online Marketing & SEO performance.

 Here at eTrader we understand how Blogging benefits your online business. That’s why we have started rolling out our fully integrated blog for customers at very affordable prices. Get in touch to find out more!

This weeks blog is brought to you by none other that eTraders Managing Director, John will be regularly sharing his thoughts and views on all things online for Garment decorators. 

Want to know what all this stuff means?

SEO, SEM, SERP, URL, HTML, SSL, PCI, CRM, CMS, AND, ON, AND, ON, AND, ON.................... 

Or more importantly, what's it got to do with your Embroidery and Printed Clothing business?

I genuinely went to a meeting a few years ago with a web development company and thought it was some sort of elaborate game of Scrabble and that at the end of the meeting I would be asked to make words out of all the letters they'd thrown at me and win a prize or something. Sadly not, what I had experienced was the language I like to call 'Gobbledeegeek'.

Then it was off for a meeting with an online marketing company and SEO specialist (luckily my first meeting prepared me well and I knew what that meant), basically the same confusing language would be spoken but.... dare I say with a little less substance.

B2B, B2C, D2C, CTP, CTR, CPA, CPM, BOUNCE RATE, NEGATIVE KEYWORDS, META DESCRIPTIONS, AND, ON, AND, ON...........

Then I realised of course, like accountants and solicitors before them, these guys had created a new language which roughly translates to - 'You don't understand, you pay!' 

Fair enough, like the bean counters and ambulance chasers, some of them are pretty good and worth the money, but watch out for the ones who use it to show you how clever they are or to make you think you can't do most of this stuff yourself. Don't bother learning it if you're not going to apply it, the good guys tell you this stuff in a way you can understand and you can make your own mind up if it's something you want to pay for then go for it.

Anyway, now that I'm a fully fledged member of the Tech and SEO fraternity, and proud of it, I still keep this type of thing up my sleeve just in case....

http://www.iabuk.net/resources/jargon-buster

OR

http://www.directom.com/resources/internetmarketingtermglossary 

Over the years here at eTrader we have become fully bilingual, we talk both techie and garments. So if you want to talk about EMB, DTG, DST with a bit of the above thrown in get in touch and keep an eye out for our regular hints, tips and features on Social Media.

Many businesses stay away from Blogging, they see it as simply for professional opinion leaders. They don’t often realise it provides businesses a sales tool in itself, an easy way to develop your businesses image and reputation offering extended communication with existing and potential customers.

Looking for a quick way to communicate with all your customers? In the garment decoration game, your customers come from all sorts of backgrounds from the single order customer looking for personalised goods to sports teams/clubs and businesses across every sector. Communicating with specific customers proves a challenge. The audience is vast, so how do create content for all these potential customers? The Answers simple: Blogging.

Small businesses may consider it a burden or a waste of precious time but it adds value to your business and it presents the easiest way to keep in touch with both your sector and your customers. Blogging is Marketing’s worst kept secret with successful businesses from all backgrounds engaging in the art. Your businesses blog provides an extension of Social Media, a personality, a voice for your businesses brand. There is only so much you can say in 140 characters!

Blogging presents businesses, especially in our industry the chance to build a following and enhance your businesses reputation and brand. Sharing content, industry opinions and be topical presents creates and establishes a sense of authority along professionalism which can only affect sales positively. (eTrader Tip: You can blog about anything that is relevant to what you do. The key is to do it in a balanced way and be honest and thought provoking; just venting opinions on a blog is seen as bad PR practice and often deters customers).

Staying one step ahead of customers is the aim of the game; a blog presents the opportunity to do just that. Reach customers in ways you could not have imagined by simply using a blog, if done well your businesses blog should collaborate with others and encourage networking and conversation with those interested in you and your products. It generates ‘Leads’ you possibly would never have stumbled across before.

Blogs also provide your business a great opportunity to improve your businesses SEO and online performance. Blogs are an easy way to generate traffic towards your website in an organic way (which bodes well with Google). Naturally building in key words and terms associated with your business can only affect your rankings in one way - Positively! The art of Blogging provides a double sided approach to sales, generate both real and online needs for you and your business and it could not be easier.

Blogging isn’t difficult; as long as you know what you are talking about people will sit back and listen. Customers and other people in the industry often seek online advice, so why not get it from you? For garment decorators, it is easy take pictures of your latest work, showcase your businesses latest customers and products. Be inspired by the work you do and write about it!

Build up a simple blog, talk about what you love and develop a crowd and the sales look after themselves. Just give it a little TLC on top of your weekly Marketing duties and make the leap of faith, join the Blogging revolution!

For more on how to make the most of Blogging on your eTrader website, don’t hesitate to get in touch at info@etraderwebsites.co.uk

For many small businesses in our industry, social media presents huge opportunities. However, these are often met with equally huge reservations. In reality, the potential is endless for small businesses like ours. Social media is a free and universal advertising tool that allows our businesses to reach wider audiences than any of our traditional marketing activities. It’s a no brainer right?!

Social Media & Our Sector…

Looking at social media in our sector, some businesses fully immerse themselves while others watch from the side, unwilling to jump in.  Businesses are utilising social media in a wide range of ways; major industry players are being proactive (as they should be!) and truly using social media to their own advantage. At the other end of the spectrum, the everyday print & garment decoration company is mainly inactive; their presence in the social media world is dangerously quiet. In our industry, businesses are predominantly reactive with most merely using social media simply for the sake of it. Many small business owners simply deem it a distraction to core business. However, if used correctly social media represents a fantastic range of potential opportunities for small businesses to reach customers further than ever before.

But the question on every business owner’s mind is: how do we best utilise social media?

Time is precious when you’re managing a small business. There simply isn't time to be sat a computer all day mulling over Twitter Feeds, Facebook Posts & the Latest Pins on Pinterest. The trick to being successful on social media is to be savvy; find a balance between using a successful strategy and being completely spontaneous.

In this technologically shrewd world, there really isn't any excuse for business owners. With free software all over the internet to help any small business out, managing social media has never been easier saving your business time and importantly money! Traditional business owners (especially in our industry!) are reluctant to accept that social media isn’t a chore, a waste of time or a necessity. Social media is standard practice in most current businesses sectors but our industries yet to catch up! Businesses are even going as far as hiring people specifically for all things social. We’re not saying go out and hire a techy graduate who knows all things Social Media, but just embrace it and understand it’s a part of the business landscape for the foreseeable future. 

Our Top Tips for Social Media Success:

1.  Pick Your Platform: Not all platforms will be ideally suited to your business, so select carefully what social sites give your business the best opportunity to stand out.
2. Be Creative & Engaging: Invite customer participation, play around with ideas. Social media doesn’t have to be taken too seriously, just have fun with it!
3. Give Your Business A Personality: Let your customer see you as not just as a service but as a ‘friend’. Build up your online voice; develop an online personality and use your sense of humour to engage with your current and potential customers.
4. Social NOT Sales: Use social media as a subtle sales tool. Don’t overwhelm your customers with constant sales posts. Focus more on building up your businesses image and following.
5. Run Special Promotions: Give your potential customers a reason to follow you; offer unique discounts and special promotions just for followers.
6. Create a Realistic Plan: Use free Social Media planning tools to plan a week’s worth of content at once. Don’t set yourself unrealistic targets, use whatever time you have smartly.

Search Engine Optimization can be a hugely onerous and complex task for most online businesses, let alone the everyday garment decorator. At eTrader we often get enquiries from customers, asking for advice on all things SEO. Performing online is critical for most industries but even more so in the garment decoration game. Despite traditional decorators arguing otherwise, online enquiries, leads & sales can be generated for your business through your website. The rise of web 2.0 and 'Word of Mouse' generates huge amount of potential online traffic waiting to be converted to sales.

Most small garment decorators operating online face similar challenges, often asking themselves: How on earth do I improve my online sales? Or how do I take my website to the next level? I want to get ahead of my competition.

With the current economic climate and tight margins, small businesses are feeling the pinch (especially garment decorators), the need to compete online has become fiercely essential but highly competitive. Most garment decorators find themselves in the ‘catch 22’, the online version of fight or flight: Do you risk spending expensive amounts on SEO experts or do you just stand still online?

But, unlike previously, your online businesses destiny is in your hands. Most business owners previously relied on specialists - understanding and acceptance of SEO has led to more information and help being available than ever before. Whether you use a Moz beginners guide or Googles guidelines for SEO, there’s more knowledge being shared than ever before. As an owner, you have information and tools available to help you direct your traffic, optimise your content and watch your leads & sales progressively increase.

However complex the issue at hand is, simplify it. The essence of SEO is keywords and content. We often say to our customers ‘just put yourself in your customer’s shoes and ask yourself what terms would they have to search to find your website, even go as far as potentially asking your customers’.

But thankfully with eTrader SEO isn’t tricky.  With years of industry experience in garment decoration and extensive online knowledge (we decided to put it to good use!) eTrader websites for garment decorator’s development of an SEO friendly Content Management System (CMS) makes SEO for garment decorators a different ball game. This simple approach to SEO is highly user friendly offering garment decorators alike lower cost SEO for their business. Just ask our customers – they love it!