Author: Mauricio Escobar Mármol Published: 18 May 2013.

Want to have a website that ROCK!?

Below are my key SEVEN fundamental factors all successful websites have in common:

• Uncluttered: successful websites allow visitors to quickly scan information. Clean designed websites that promotes the right amount of information are the winners. To get more tips on Web page design you can read my post on effective web design. 

• Credible: websites that rock offer credibility clues such as: professional design (great look and feel), business history, case studies, easy to find contact details (address, phone numbers), awards, videos, testimonials, experts and/or celebrities opinions.

• Great content: unique and relevant content related to how their products/services solve a customer issue. Some of very successful content types are: Expert interviews and/or case studies, “How to” articles, Interviews with producers (factory workers, service delivery staff, etc), behind the scenes articles, Sneak peaks of their new coming products and/or services, Industry trends, Consumer Question and Answer articles, Breaking news and/or weekly wrap ups, Sponsorships (National, regional, community, individual levels), Community involvement (donations), Awards and recognitions articles, e-books, games, webinars, Celebrity articles or celebrity appereances, Consumer contests and competitions, Surveys results and insight.

• Visitor details capture and segmentation: Successful websites know when it is the precise time to ask for visitor details information. Do not ask if there is not a strong reason for visitors to leave their details.

• Conversion: Measurable activity in Google Analytics ( or any other web analytics platform) and optimize accordingly.

• Buzz: successful websites allow visitors to like, comment and upload new and relevant content. They make use of blogging platforms and social media widgets.

• Responsive and approachable: Successful websites communicate what visitors can expect and are responsive to any queries or questions. You can also read how to deal with difficult commentary here. 

Hope the below helps you prioritize the key areas when improving or creating your website. eDigital can help you strategise your website revamps and source unique and relevant content.

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Author: Mauricio Escobar Mármol

Need unique, compelling content for your website? Here 100 great content marketing examples curated by the Content Marketing Institute. It includes:

• Webinars & Live broadcast
• e-Books
• Games
• Documentals
• Info-graphics
• Micro-sites
• Community blogs
• Mobile Apps
• Print content
• Transmedia

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• I can help your business create and execute a unique and compelling content marketing strategy. Just contact me via:
• Phone: +61481 367 711 or via Skype.
• Email Mauricio Escoba Mármol (Senior Consultant @ eDigital).
• Follow me on Twitter - LinkedIn - Facebook.

Author: Mauricio Escobar Mármol

NEWS JACKING! IT IS NOT NEW BUT AN OLD SUCCESSFUL CONTENT STRATEGY.

Recently digital content creators are using the term “News Jacking” as a new, innovative technique to generate traffic to websites. “News Jacking” as a term might be new but the intrinsic activity of publish digital content that is aligned to fresh and hot news topic is not new. I have been successfully used this approach for many years in different roles.

When I was supporting Homesite.com.au (Former News Limited website); we promoted home renovation content liked to top celebrities who were “hot” on the news stables at the time. An example promoting Simone Callahan home renovations activities when a great chuck of Australian public wanted to know about her and how she was dealing with her new life as an ex-wife of a popular Australian Cricket player Shane Warne. We also managed to produce content on Cate Blanchett house renovations and other celebrities who were “hot” during that time. The celebrity based content pages were some of the most visited pages of the website as users were searching for news content related to them. Those articles helped us not just increase our monthly UB’s ( visits) but also conversions to our clients pages.

Again at The Athlete’s Foot, (when I was leading all the Social and Digital Marketing activities) we were the first to create content related to some of the most popular news stories related to running shoes in Australia. Every 6 months global running shoe brands launch a specific shoe that will propagate on thousands of websites within a day. The mission here was to have the most compelling articles ready ( and SEO optimised) and push live on the day the news were officially released to the Global news agencies. These strategy helped us gain top SEO positions for specific branded related shoe terms that greatly affected our visits and conversions.

Successful Newsjacking requires not just the creation of articles related to (real time) top news and connecting them to your products or services but also:

a) A detailed plan of the key topics, celebrities and stories that you would like to monitor (using Google alerts or any other news monitoring tool) that will best align to your brand unique selling proposition.

b) Establishment of the right tone and voice that you would like to give to each new content piece created. As a successful NewsJacker, you will will need to answer: Are your content pieces going to produce shares/likes? Do your content piece want to document or show a different approach to the news story; or produce controversy? would your news related content intend to educate people? or alternatively produce an entertaining piece of the news’ story?

c) Monitoring and tracking of conversions, visits, time on site and actual conversions. You NewsJacking strategy will need to answer: is the traffic generated value to the business, is it creating revenue from new visitors who might possibly never been on the website otherwise?

Obviously, there will more more factors to analyze when doing Newsjacking such as propagation channels, timing selection, etc but overall I consider the above the key factors.

Have a nice rainy wednesday in Sydney.

Mauricio

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Author: Mauricio Escobar Mármol

Volkswagen Smileage, the first social driving app.

Even tough it is just ready to be amplified on Google+ (not Facebook), it clearly states that…

• An engaging marketing piece is just the beginning of a conversation ( not the end).
• Useful marketing is now about creating tools, not just ads.
• Marketing is not longer about telling but actually doing something useful, entertaining, that saves peoples time or makes life easier.
• We want to easily share our driving journeys, the cool activities done and the hidden gems we find.

Have a great easter week drive everyone!

Mauricio.

Nice creation from Volio for Esquire Magazine where users can (via voice) interact with user selected content.