Video is becoming increasingly important when it comes to ranking in search results. YouTube is owned by Google and is one of the leading search engines in the world, so having video means you're more likely to get noticed. In fact, studies show that a page with video is 53 times more likely to be seen in search results (Forrester, 2010). However, choosing a subject for your videos can be quite daunting and many businesses tend to put it in the too-hard basket.

If you're selling products, consider making a short video of what the product is and how it's used, or give a short tour of your store if you have one. If you're selling a service, you could film some examples of your service or give tips and advice related to your industry. All of these ideas will help to create credibility and make sure your business gets seen.

When making a video, make sure that you keep it short and to the point. It's also important that it's of good quality. Ensure that you film in a well-lit room and that you keep the camera steady. If you're going to speak during the video, make sure the recording is clear and understandable. Then, once you've created your videos, read up on how to embed them on your website.

Social media seems to be part and parcel of business communication these days. You can choose from Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Google+ and so on; or you can have a finger in every pie. It is up to you what will or won’t work for your business, but today we are going to talk about using Pinterest for your business.

Pinterest has been around since 2010, but has grown steadily this year possibly due to the launch of their iPhone app and integration with Facebook. Today Pinterest is the third most visited website in America and has over 13 million users.

Pinterest is driving more online traffic to retail websites than social networks LinkedIn, YouTube and Google+ combined, according to a January report from Shareaholic.

What exactly is Pinterest and how does it work?

Basically Pinterest is a social network. As pinterest put it, this is a social network meant to “connect everyone in the world through the ‘things’ they find interesting.” It allows users to visually share, curate, and discover new interests by posting, known as ‘pinning,’ images or videos to their own or others’ pinboards (a collection of ‘pins,’ usually with a common theme). Users can upload images from their computer or pin things they find on the web using the pinterest bookmarklet, pin it button, or just a url.

You can see an example of netaporter’s Pinterest boards here.

You might want to add a ‘pin it button’ on your website to facilitate sharing on Pinterest. Pins added using the ‘pin it button’ link back to the site they came from, which will in turn, increase links and traffic to your site.

Why should I consider Pinterest for my business?

1. Traffic. Any business that relies on driving a high-volume of website traffic to increase sales, should consider joining Pinterest.
2. Links. If you are using the ‘pin it button’ on your pages, every single one of your pins will include a link back to the source. However, these won't directly impact your SEO as they are no-follow links. Yet, they still provide marketing value because they allow pinners to encounter your content and visit your pages in just one click.
3. Leads. Pinterest will soon start contributing to lead generation, as users will see your product on Pinterest can link back to your site and then purchase or make an enquiry about that product.

Where do I sign up?

Like when Gmail first came out, access to Pinterest still operates under an invitation-only basis. That being said, you can request an invitation, and it shall be granted. Visit www.pinterest.com, click ‘request an invite’ and enter your email address to be notified when you have access to create your account. Or you can ask a friend who already has a Pinterest account to invite you, a much quicker way to gain access than waiting for Pinterest to grant your request.

Top Tip: Sign in with your Twitter account to share pins through Twitter as well!

Please take note…

Pinterest is not just about blatant self-promotion of your products. Like most other social networks, Pinterest is about communicating with others. It’s a conversation through visuals of common interest. You have to think a little more creatively that just posting a picture of all your products. You want to focus on the lifestyle your brand promotes. For example if you sell luggage online you might want to post a picture of your product and then all the great places each piece could go with you. What would go in the luggage in that destination etc.

Pinterest is great for ecommerce and promotion to consumers but can work for B2B too. You might want to use it to showcase your company culture or use great infographics. Link to customers using pictures of them using your product or service and quote their testimonials.

Naturally there are guidelines that you need to adhere to. You should pay special attention when it comes to Intellectual Property Rights and not ‘pin’ something that you are not legally allowed to, this means you should always have a link back to the original source.

If nothing else Pinterest forces you to think outside the square about how to visually market your brand.

Over the last few years, more and more people and businesses are using mobile devices to browse the internet. Nearly a third of New Zealand internet users access the internet via a Smartphone; and this trend will continue to grow in the future. This means that with more and more different types and sizes of devices coming online, your website pages will need to look different depending upon what is displaying them. Enter responsive design.

Responsive design is a way of designing web pages for mobile and desktop devices; in fact, the idea behind responsive design is that you design your web pages so that they respond to the device that is viewing it. Rather than forcing a mobile user to see a desktop site, a laptop user with a small screen to scroll horizontally to see a wide-screen monitor site, or a wide-screen monitor to view a site as a mobile customer might like, the design looks at each of these scenarios and adapts to display the content most effectively.

Why Responsive Design is a Good Idea

The best web designs are the ones that make things easy. Responsive web design makes your website user friendly for mobile customers. It is web design that responds to the user as they arrive at the web page.

Think about your typical desktop browser. Even if it is not maximised, it almost certainly has a width of at least 960 pixels. That is a lot of space to place lots of columns of text and images. If you compare that with a smartphone in portrait mode, you are looking at a device with about 480 pixels of width. That is half the screen space. A feature phone has even less space with 320 pixels or less in most cases.

If you create a page with a fixed-width layout 960 pixels wide, it will look great on your desktop monitor. But when you view it on a tablet, it’s going to look small. A smartphone will make it look even more cramped  and on a feature phone, the page might not display correctly at all.

However, with responsive design you create a design that works for any of the devices visitors to your website use. What sets responsive design apart from other methods of mobile websites is that you don't create a separate webpage for every type of mobile browser you want to support. Instead, responsive design simply looks at the features of the device viewing the page, and delivers the styles appropriate for that device.

Creating a Whole Separate Website is a Bad Idea

It can be tempting to create a “mobile” site with a separate sub-domain or site location. Then you just put all the mobile friendly site features like single-columns, limited content, and reduced navigation in that one location and point mobile users there.

In the short term, this can work, as it gets up a mobile site quickly. But eventually it will start to cause problems. The first issue comes when you realise that you have to post every article twice; once to the main site and once to the mobile site! Why create that extra work for yourself?

Responsive Design Treats Mobile and Desktop the Same

A responsive web design uses the exact same content to create a page that works whether you are viewing it at 1800 pixels wide or 320 pixels wide. But the pages that are created may look vastly different, while containing the same content. This means that whether you come to the site on an iPhone or a 27-inch iMac, you will get the same content; in fact you will go to the same URL. But on the iPhone you might see the page with only one column while the iMac gets five. But they are both considered equally important when delivering the content.

The website responds the the device and adjusts accordingly, while still retaining the important content.                             

Take a look at an example in action on a few different devices

Is Responsive Design Right for Your Business?

It depends what your customers are using to visit your site. You may find that it is not cost-effective enough if only a very small percentage of your customers are using mobile devices to view your website. You can use Google Analytics to track traffic to your regular website that comes from mobile devices like iPhones and Android devices. All traffic from mobile devices can be viewed by device or carrier under the 'Visitors' section in the 'Mobile' tab of your Analytics account, or in the 'Mobile advanced' section.

Responsive Design at Zeald

Zeald are now offering responsive design on all our websites.