If you’re just starting out then part of your challenge will be to get website visitors to trust in your business. Here are a few tips about what to write and where:

Cast studies/testimonials: You can showcase your products or services by getting past clients to tell potential customers how great you. If you have a number of happy clients already then they will normally be happy to give their comments for free. This helps to get visitors to your site emotionally interested in what you do.

Affiliations: Offer logos and links to the various organisations of which you’re affiliated or a member of.

About us: Tell your visitors about the key people in your business. You might include a photograph of each and short biographies.

Contact: Offer more than just an on-line contact. People like to have the option to call your business if they want. It makes them feel more secure if they can hear someone at the end of a telephone line.  Also offer a proper business address. If you’re a limited company this is the place for your company number and registered address too. It’s required by law.

Marketing, SEO and networking can all go to waste if the visits to your website do not translate into conversions. But many sites fall short on the simplest of design and content points. Pay attention to the detail and you could be surprised by the increase in conversion rates.

Here are 5 simple tips for optimising your website for conversions:

The three second test: Internet users have a very short attention span so your website must have instant appeal. Competition is only a click away, so don’t make potential customers search for what they want. Use great design and smart, straight-talking headers to instantly grab a customers attention.

What’s the incentive? Tell the customer immediately – and in a small amount of words – what they will gain from your business as compared to the nearest rival. Eg Bargain priced running shoes; the cheapest car deals; longer-lasting ink cartridges; designer frames for just £50.

Easy navigation: A well-planned site map and lots of obvious internal page links will help even the least savvy internet users. The second that a customer has to work hard to navigate a site is the second they will click on to a competitor’s website.

Picture perfect: A great image can boost your site’s looks and credibility. Use good product images and not generic stock images. Back up pictures with specific and clear captions. Try to illustrate as many products as possible. Customers like to see what they want to buy.

Close the sale: Don’t leave customers wondering where to go next. Make checking out an easy and obvious step. You goal is to get a sale so make this as simple as possible.

Google rankings can be hard to come by, but with some creative thinking – and writing – businesses can effectively boost the traffic to their websites. One way to do this is to include more detail on products and services pages. But don’t imagine for a second that you can do this yourself. Your best plan is to author and expert or an experienced content writer to put together some relevant copy.

More products/services copy

Don’t assume that web visitors know and fully understand your products or services. Not many people are experts, so the best plan is to offer a visitor clear and detailed information about what exactly it is that you do.

Tip 1: Create a new page for each service that your offer. Go into some detail, although it won’t help if you bamboozle visitors with info. Basically you need to outline a serve and tell visitors why s is special.

Tip 2: Also, most people will jump to a service that most interests then so ensure that your service pages can each act as a stand-alone description.

Tip 3: You can add testimonials or case studies for added value and content.

Tip 4: Each page will be more Google-friendly than a catch-all page that mentions a whole host of services in passing.

Expert articles

You could launch an articles section on your website offering clients advice or information that they might usually expect to pay for. For example, if you have a soft-furnishing business why not add articles about how to create a particular room look or the latest trends in fabrics?

It’s possible to publish such articles on your site in several different ways, for example, as a newsletter, a blog or video links.

It might surprise you to hear that YouTube is the second largest search engine. This massive web player attracts hundreds of millions of users a month, while 15 hours of video are uploaded every minute. All of which makes YouTube a great tool for website owners, especially if you have a bit of videoing ability.

Video ranking
The key to making good use of YouTube’s SEO and marketing potential is to aim to improve your video ranking. Here are some tips for improving your video ranking:
* Include an accurate and descriptive title.
* Make sure your description is, well, descriptive. It should be accurate and unique, and written with complete sentences.
* Descriptive keyword tags but avoid “keyword stuffing”.

Social networking
But YouTube is much more than just a video search engine. It’s also considered to be a powerful social networking community site. Which means that community opinion counts. As with any other community on the web, your best results will come if you actively participate. So, ideally, you should be aiming to share videos with other members. Try experimenting with:
* Annotations,
* Video responses
* Thumbnails.

Embedding
What’s more, YouTubers should also ensure their videos are embedded to make them more “discoverable”.

Analytics tool
Find out more about videos on YouTube by using the analytics tool to:
* Check demographics
* Find where video are posted
* Discover who posted videos
* Check Hot Spots, that is you can pinpoint the specific parts of the video that get viewed the most.

There’s a whole world of YouTube marketing out there that many people haven’t even considered. Now start filming!