Twitter - Land Grab Or Lose Out

Whether you intend to make business use of it or not, Twitter is here to stay.  Most companies would say “we have no use for Twitter” and, for now, could be right in saying that.  However, every company, whatever the type of business, needs to do one simple thing with Twitter, which will initially protect the company and will later provide opportunities to capitalise on.

It’s been a long time since all the best website domain names were snapped up by enterprising companies and individuals who wanted to hang onto them for personal use, or sell to the highest bidder.    The same is going to happen with Twitter and it’s currently not too late to capitalise on the opportunities as follows …

First of all, go to Twitter (http://www.twitter.com) and click on the ‘Sign up now’ button.

In the ‘Full name’ box type anything (just a series of characters will do for now) and click into the ‘Username’ box.

Then type, in lower case, the name of your company (15 characters is the maximum you can type).  Or use the example of: widgetslimited.  You can use just letters and numbers, no special characters.

If your company name hasn’t already been taken then you’ll see ‘ok’ in the box to the right – this means that you can register your company name on Twitter and it’s then yours forever.   If your company name has been taken (it may be a fairly common name) then type a slight variation.

Having found a name that you can use in Twitter then complete the following fields to grab that name before someone else does:

Full name
Username
Password
Email

And then click on the ‘Create my account’ button after filling in the reCAPTCHA words shown (to validate that it’s not an automated signup).

You then have one Twitter name assigned to you and the email address you used.   But that’s just the beginning and you need to think bigger …

Let’s use the hypothetical example of widgetslimited – it’s a company that produces red widgets, blue widgets, and other colour widgets.  It may also produce different types of widgets (e.g. steel widgets).

Think from the perspective of how the online world is going to change in the future.  You may have no interest in Twitter now and not see its value but fast forward months or years to a time when it’ll be essential to have good Twitter names.  Suppose that potential buyers, who have grown up with Twitter, are looking for suppliers of, or information about, red widgets in the future.   Suppose that, hypothetically, there comes a time when Twitter pages are much more visible in search engines such as Google and there are a multitude of other things that bring Twitter to the forefront as being a brilliant way to market products or services.

For now you don’t have to think about the ins and outs of how all this may work in the future.   No-one knows for sure although many of us in the industry can see the potential (e.g. imagine if Google bought Twitter one day?).  The purpose of this article is to encourage you to land grab Twitter usernames while you have the opportunity so that you don’t find yourself months or years down the line kicking yourself because a competitor is capitalising in ways that you should be.

The only downside to registering lots of usernames on Twitter is that you need a unique email address for each one.  For most companies this is easily solved – simply create a multitude of email addresses such as email1@companyname.co.uk, email2@companyname.co.uk, email3@companyname.co.uk, link them all up to your Outlook (or whatever you use for emails), and you can register as many Twitter usernames as you like.  You can even use the same password for all of them.

So, going back to the Widgets Limited example, they go to Twitter, register their company name (and variations, to stop competitors from doing so), and numerous subsets such as redwidgets, bluewidgets, steelwidgets, etc.  

There is so much (too much to go into here) that you can do with land grabbing Twitter names for the future.   You can even register the names of competitors, which will stop them from doing so in the future (although there could be legal implications longer-term perhaps, unless doing so under a generic email address - such as a hotmail for example).

Just while creating this article, so many juicy Twitter names were proven to be available – anyone want kentaccountants, londondoctors, doverplumber, yachtloans, brainsurgeons … ????

For now, don’t worry about how you can best capitalise on Twitter in your business (ask us how – we’ll be happy to help) - for now, it’s strongly advised that you get onto Twitter and land grab as many usernames as you think will be potentially useful at such a time that you want to capitalise on the short-sightedness of your competitors.

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Detecting Plagiarism

Discovering that another company has plagiarised the content of your website is usually something that happens way after the event.   But what we’re talking about here is something that has a much bigger impact than someone who does the online equivalent of copying your homework at school.    One such impact is with regards to natural search engine optimisation because Google is going to have issues with two websites that seem to have very similar content, which could negatively impact your positioning in Google.

It’s best to be safe and spend a little time investigating who may have taken parts of your website copy for their own websites (this goes on all the time).  There are many ways to do this but a free and quite simple method is via Copyscape (http://www.copyscape.com/).   Just enter the urls from your website pages that you want to analyse and it will search for possible infringements.  

What you will find is that Copyscape looks at the website page you enter (sorry, you can only do one at a time!) and returns results of no copies being found, or that either have your page content in full or elements of it.  In many cases it’s just small series of words that have been used but probably wouldn’t have been copied. In other cases you can find that people have directly copied huge chunks of your website pages (often including content specifically related to your company, or typos that are in your website page).

As an example, go to Copyscape and enter the page url http://www.custwin.co.uk/privacy-notice.htm.  This will show you 8 results of sites that have apparently copied content from the Custwin Privacy Notice page. If you click on any of those search results you’ll see the text repeated (often in a raw format as it doesn’t tend to show the actual full website page).

In this instance the copying has been approved as we encourage clients to use a similar privacy notice to the Custwin one and there’s only one website listed on there where it’s been copied without authorisation (which isn’t really an issue because, after all, it’s only a privacy notice). 

Please do try it out – next time you have one of those long phone calls that allow you to do non-taxing computer work, go to the Copyscape website and cut and paste your own website urls into the box and see what comes up.   If you find anyone appears to have blatantly copied your content then there are certain steps you can go through if you want to, but that’s a completely separate subject.

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Client Focus: Communication

This month the client focus spot is about a generic subject that applies to all clients, whatever type of business you’re in.   The subject is about client communication and why it should be a two way street if clients are truly going to get the most from their businesses.  

We’ll use the Custwin business as the example here …

Most Custwin clients get a monthly report that details the types of clicks gained to the website, information about visitor patterns on the website, and recommendations.   Some clients rarely read the report while others pay detailed attention to it.   Call it good or bad, but some clients gain plenty of business through what we do and are happy to pay the bills and don’t feel the need to dig deeper into what’s possible.  Regardless, the reports update those clients on the possibilities to advance further forwards.   In this situation the communication is one way:

1. Custwin creates and sends the monthly report.

2. The client often doesn’t respond.

3. Custwin chases the client to speak to them about the report.

4. In situations where the clients aren’t available/don’t return calls, the process rolls into the next month.

5. End result: a client missing further opportunities through there being a largely one-way communication.

What is highly noticeable to Custwin is that those clients with which there is a regular two way communication, are the clients that advance forwards significantly.   We even have clients who are in the same business sector as each other and it’s incredibly revealing to see the results for the client that rarely responds and the more responsive client.  Both are gaining business but one is gaining a lot more than the other because of the two way communication.

In the scenario of two way communication, for the Custwin business, it works as follows:

1. Custwin creates and sends the monthly report.

2. The client responds to the observations, need for feedback, and recommendations.

3. The dialogue leads to additions and refinements to websites, PPC campaigns, and more, which are then measured the following month (or sooner).

4. The client, seeing the benefits of two way communication, will often just pick up the phone and ask a question, which will lead to more positive changes.  The client knows that whatever ‘web’ issue they have, by making contact with Custwin, it will lead to more business success.

5. End result: a client that has constantly fresh recommendations and refinements each month, that lead to higher levels of business gained.

In reality, the clients where there is a two way communication process are actually less financially profitable than those clients who rarely respond (because more time is spent on the responsive clients, but still within the same monthly fee).   The upside of this though is that the more responsive clients gain ever higher levels of business and so are much more likely to refer Custwin onto new potential clients, which is a more beneficial form of profitability than purely money.

The example here is from the Custwin business but the principle of two way communication with clients applies to many types of business and whatever line of business you are in, the question to always ask is:

“Of those clients with whom there’s only one way communication, are they really getting the best out of their businesses or is there the opportunity to have further mutually beneficial gains through moving towards a two way communication on a regular basis?”

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Behind the Custwin Fees

We’re currently in times where companies are cutting back on expenditure wherever possible.  This is also true in the Custwin business area of website success and we’re sometimes approached by companies who then shy away when the subject of monthly fees comes up.  In an industry where there are ever more ‘web experts’ appearing all the time there are always going to be those who appear to be offering a cheaper and better deal.
We thought, therefore, that it’s worth digging behind the Custwin fees to show exactly what clients get for their money each month …

A question we’re often asked after talking costs is “how much is your hourly rate then?”.  It’s a good question because it provides the opportunity to explain that it’s not about an hourly rate – it’s about expertise,  behind the scenes activity, going the extra mile, and what we call ‘swings and roundabouts’.


Expertise

If all we had to do each month was create a report based on some data and add in some recommendations, then that would allow fees to be lower.  However, it’s a lot more complicated than that because any company involved in website success and who is truly serving their clients, will spend a lot of time keeping abreast of industry changes/developments.   Of course, clients don’t pay for this directly, but significant amounts of time are spent learning what’s necessary for the benefit of all clients, and so that’s factored into the monthly fees in a small way for each client.  In scenarios where companies are offering what appears to be a similar service to Custwin, but the costs are a lot lower, it’s pretty much guaranteed that they’re not keeping their expertise at the level it should be, which means that clients won’t benefit as much as they should do.

Something that’s worth observing here is that Custwin don’t focus on being the cheapest service but instead focus on results gained, the fact that clients only ever have to give a one month notice period (and so the onus is on Custwin to get results), and the need to be constantly pushing forwards with developments that will generate more business from company websites.

Behind the scenes

To many clients, a report is received, may be responded to, and an invoice is received.  What’s not seen is what happens behind the scenes – the regular checking of clients campaigns, watching competitors of clients,  monitoring progress since certain changes were made, analysing website visitor paths, and a lot more.   The physical receipt of a monthly report represents just part of what’s going on behind the scenes to benefit clients.

Going the extra mile

‘Going the extra mile’ is a well-used phrase but it’s highly applicable to Custwin because clients get that level of service.  There can be many scenarios in which extra time and efforts are required, but aren’t considered chargeable extras.   An example here is when Google may not allow an advertisers adverts to appear but will let a competitors adverts appear – this triggers a process in which there’s what seems like a battle with Google to get answers and to speak up on behalf of the client.  Anyone who has attempted to run their own pay per click campaigns and have tried to contact Google will have been palmed off with standard answers and may have assumed that’s the end of it.  What we do is keep fighting, to speak to the people who have the knowledge and, in most cases, get the results clients need.

Swings and roundabouts

The Custwin business model is firmly based in clients paying a monthly fee and feeling happy to pay that fee month after month because results are gained from their websites.   What typically happens is that in the early months of a client relationship there’s a lot more time/effort invested than the monthly fee could possibly cover, but Custwin absorbs that.   That time/effort gives a kick start to client success, which is important when clients always have the option to give one month’s notice. 

As the client relationship evolves there will be some months in which there’s not a huge amount of extra work that needs to be done because there are client recommendations that still require action/feedback or the business is flowing in nicely so little action is required.   There are also months in which website actions have been taken and we need to assess those over a period of time before making further changes.  In these months it’s generally only necessary to produce a client report, which includes at least a few recommendations to keep pushing forwards.   However, what’s typical is that there are rises and falls in client demands and in other months clients will need a lot more input.  Overall, everything balances out, which is why the monthly Custwin fee is set at a level that allows for the changing shape of what clients need from month to month, but avoids the need for extra costs.

The key point to remember is that clients are only ever on a one month notice period.  To be able to offer such a notice period, a company (i.e. Custwin) has to be supremely confident that the expertise/time put into the client work will produce benefits that far exceed costs.   There are many companies out there that charge high upfront fees to undertake website strategy/promotion work but once they’ve gained their fees there’s no ongoing relationship or accountability.   Our view is that an ongoing relationship, cemented by a monthly fee and the expectation of ongoing strong results, is what keeps clients happy and loyal.

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Say 'Thank You' Properly

If you have forms on your website that allow people to input their details then there are many pitfalls to avoid.  The most obvious pitfalls centre around what the form contains and how confident the potential customer feels in order to complete the form.  That’s a completely separate subject (ask us without obligation and we’ll be happy to advise you) to our focus here, which is on what’s so important to get right on the page that appears after someone completes a form on your website.

Of course, we’re assuming that you do have a separate page, with ideally a separate url, that appears after someone completes a form on your website?  If you haven’t then that’s a fundamental basic that’s missing.  For example, if you go to the Custwin ‘Contact Us’ page (http://www.custwin.co.uk/contact-us.htm) you’ll see there’s a feedback form that can be completed.   If you complete that form you’ll be taken to a page url of http://www.custwin.co.uk/thanks.htm.   From a website statistics analysis viewpoint, it’s really important to be assessing how many people get as far as the page after completing a form so that you can compare that to other forms of contact.  By having a separate page displayed (e.g. thanks.htm) you can easily see how many people have got as far as that page.

By having a separate page that appears after people complete a form on your website, you then have a choice of ways in which to thank people for completing the form.  Thinking about it logically, people who complete a form want to communicate with you.  Here are the choices of how you can handle that communication:

1. Take them to a page that has minimal content that is vague about what will happen to their enquiry.
   

2. Take them to a page that’s very specific about response times and how you value their contact.

If you sent feedback to Custwin you’d see the page http://www.custwin.co.uk/thanks.htm, which contains the text:

Thank you for taking the time to contact Custwin.  We aim to respond to all enquiries within 24 hours.

If the matter is more urgent please contact us by telephone on 01227 363295 or 07810 350816.

That text is saying:

1. The form has been sent and we appreciate that the person has taken the time to contact us.
   

2. The person will get a response within 24 hours (not something vague like ‘we will get back to you as soon as possible').
   

3. If the person has an even more urgent need to make contact then telephone numbers are supplied.

Some websites go to the next level, which is even better because they either repeat the enquiry back to the people on the ‘thank you’ page, or they send an email to the enquirer so that they’ve got a record of their message for future reference.

Whatever level of customer focus you want to go to on your website, it’s certainly advisable to have a separate ‘thank you’ page and to say thank you in the right way so that the person feels valued and that they’ll be responded to within a set timescale.

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