Polling day has arrived

I said in my last Broadband Apprentice post that I wanted to add a poll as a regular feature. After a couple of tweaks, the UK Broadband Finder poll is now up - check it out at www.ukbroadbandfinder.com

I'm going to aim for one poll a month. The first one asks what is the most important factor driving visitors' next broadband package purchase. I think the results will make interesting reading as cheap broadband battles with blistering superfast speeds or unlimited downloads. I'll report back on the results at a later date.

Why am I adding a poll?

1. to learn more about what my website visitors: what they want from their broadband, biggest broadband gripes, best / worst providers, etc
2. for feedback on my broadband comparison website
3. to drive visits through publicity from press releases and news stories (about my poll findings)

So check out the poll now on www.ukbroadbandfinder.com

By Sarah, UK Broadband Finder

Find broadband faster

Problem: How to help visitors to my broadband comparison website narrow down their choice to the best broadband deal for them?

If you live in an urban area you might have all the ADSL broadband deals available to you, plus several LLU provider deals, plus Virgin Media cable, plus Sky satellite. Unless you've heard particularly good or bad things about a broadband provider, or you are buying solely on price, or you can't get ADSL broadband at all, it can be really hard to know why broadband package A might be any better than broadband package B.

Broadband can be quite a long sell, and while I want to have enough helpful content to keep buyers on my broadband website until they have made an informed decision, ideally I should be speeding up the time it takes for them to choose and buy broadband.

So I have been looking at ways I can help my visitors find a broadband package more quickly.

1. Search by bundle / just broadband - visitors could already select home or business broadband on their initial postcode or phone number search - now they can also select broadband-only or bundles on my broadband search box.
2. Best Sellers - I've written a new page (suitably optimised!) called Broadband providers - best sellers which lists the top 5 broadband providers on www.ukbroadbandfinder.com
3. I already had several pages of element-specific broadband packages, eg Cheap Broadband, Superfast Broadband, Special Offers, and Free Broadband.

In progress:

1. There has always been a filter on my broadband package listings and results page so visitors can reorganise their results by price, download speed, broadband type, and provider (alphabetical listing). But I don't think it is obvious enough so I'm looking at making this stand out much more - and adding an Unlimited Downloads filter.
2. Add a poll - a regular poll on visitors' views on different broadband providers would help other users, and help me highlight the best deals and providers.
   
3. Best Buys for each category - to highlight particularly great deals

Check out the changes already on www.ukbroadbandfinder.com. I'll be coming back to this issue as my website develops and the broadband filtering speeds up.

By Sarah, UK Broadband Finder

More broadband content!

Content is king was one of the first things I learnt when I started working as a web editor back in the mists of internet time (well, 1999). We all used to say clicks and mortar without irony as well.

I may not say clicks and mortar any more, or make my fingers into quotation marks to stress a point (ah, the delights of 20th century business meetings) but it is pretty obvious that new, relevant content is still vital. So when I started this TradeDoubler / AOL broadband affiliate mentoring scheme it gave me the push I needed to look again at content gaps on my broadband website, www.ukbroadbandfinder.com

UK Broadband Finder needed more content for three reasons:

• to keep broadband buyers on my website by answering their questions and helping them with the buying process (I think we used to call it "stickyness")
• as a vehicle for all those broadband keyword phrases I need to include, to improve my organic traffic via the search engines
• to keep the website changing regularly
  

So as a first step I have been written a few new articles:

• Getting started with broadband
• Switching broadband providers
• Dial up internet access
• Broadband for Macs
  
• Short contract broadband

I've noticed already that we're already getting more organic traffic - some of this may be down to the appalling weather but I can see from Google Analytics that some of it is content-driven.

I've also written more broadband definitions for my Broadband Glossary blog, which has also driven more visitors - to the blog itself and then on to www.ukbroadbandfinder.com.

Now, I'm off to do some SEO!

By Sarah, UK Broadband Finder