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In a bid to strengthen relationships with customers, companies often embark upon a customer loyalty programs. But just how effective are these programs? Given their popularity (every company under the sun seems to have a VIP membership card these days), it can be often be difficult to achieve any kind of cut-through or competitive advantage with a customer loyalty program.

In fact, a recent study by McKinsey of more than 55 companies across America and Europe, suggests that customer loyalty programs don’t pay dividends. According to McKinsey, companies that have a visible customer loyalty program actually grow at the same rate (or even slightly lower) than companies without one.

Despite these figures, well-thought-out and properly implemented customer loyalty programs can drive long-term value. Customer loyalty programs that actually work all tend to have a few things in common:

They build partnerships:

successful customer loyalty programs are often those that have a broader value proposition, and are implemented in partnership by multiple brands. For instance, one of the reasons that flybuys, Australia’s most popular loyalty program, is so successful is because customers can collect points at multiple retail outlets. The program covers Coles, Telstra, Target, Kmart, LiquorLand, Jetset, Budget, and even Best Western.

They address their customer’s pain points:

to have any chance of success, customer loyalty programs need to address, and solve, the problems of their customers. They need to provide real benefits, a tangible reason to join. Amazon does this exceptionally well. By becoming a member of Amazon’s customer loyalty program (which costs $79 per year), you are afforded free, two-day shipping.

They reward expenditure:

the best, and most engaging customer loyalty reward dollar spent at the cash register, in lieu of any other factor (such as frequency of visits). Priceline’s Sister Club does this really well: members earn one point for every dollar they spend. Once a Sister hits the 100 point mark, she gets a 3% discount. Once she reached the 100 point mark, the discount increases to 4%.

They offer multiple redemption schemes:

truly great customer loyalty programs recognise that their customers are all different, and value different types of rewards. As such, they offer different rewards and options for point redemption. The Woolworths Everyday Rewards scheme is quite effective when it comes to this. Members can redeem points for a $20 gift card every three months, use points towards Qanatas holiday services, or cash points to purchase more than 3,000 different products.

They focus on benefits specific to each customer:

we all know that companies with customer loyalty programs capture data on us; what we buy, how often we buy it, when we buy it. So, why not use this data to tailor customer loyalty programs, particularly if your customers are online shoppers? Offer customers discounts or two-for-the-price-of-one offers on items that they regularly purchase. Chances are, your customers will remember discounted prices on frequently purchased items, and buy from you specifically for them.

They have tiered membership layers:

giving extra rewards to your biggest spenders can be extremely lucrative. Your most generous customers feel looked after, and even more inclined to part with their hard-earned cash. And your other customers might even spend a smidgen more, in order to move up the tiers.

Above all, before you consider introducing a customer loyalty program, you would be wise to fully cost it (including development, marketing, and any ongoing costs). Once your cost analysis is done, compare the costs with a realistic assessment of the benefits of the program. These benefits should be real business benefits (like bottom-line improvement), not simply the bolstering of relationship marketing. If the benefits outweigh the costs, then implementing a customer loyalty program that integrates the six key factors above should be quite successful.

Take it from us; you don’t have to be an SEO expert to improve your website’s search cred these days. There is any number of search engine optimisation tactics that you can implement without needing to have a comprehensive understanding of all the nitty, gritty technical details. You will need a broad understanding of the basics though. So, without further ado, we bring you basic SEO tips to improve your Google ranking.

1. Do your keyword research

Search engine optimisation is all about making sure your website ranks as highly as possible in Google’s search results when specific terms are entered. So, it should come as no surprise that your first port of call should be to determine what the most popular search terms for your business actually are. The easiest way to do this is to use the Google Keyword Planner tool. You can use this tool in a couple of different ways:

• Input the URL of your website into the tool, and then review the suggested keywords that Google provides. It can often be helpful to enter the URL of a couple of your competitors (that are ranking well) as a comparison.
• Search for particular words, or groups of words, related to your industry to determine keyword suggestions as well as search volume. For instance, if you are a painter, you might enter the words ‘painter’, ‘decorator’, ‘house painting’, and so on.

2. Optimise your website content for these keywords

Once you have completed your keyword research, and know which keywords for which you would like your website to rank, include these in your website copy. Try to include keywords in your headings, as well as in body copy. A word of warning though: don’t overstuff keywords. You don’t want to end up with your website looking spammy, and putting people off. Don’t use the keyword phrase, its variation or a synonym more than four to five times per page. After all, you want to appeal to both the search engines and real, live human beings.

Keep in mind that it can actually be easier to rank for long-tail keywords (phrases that have three, four or five words) as opposed to shorter keywords. Shorter keywords are usually a lot more competitive. For instance, if we take the example of the painter, it will be near impossible to rank for ‘painter’ or ‘decorator’. However, a long-tail keyword, like ‘painter and decorator in western Sydney’ might be slightly easier.

3. Make sure that all your basic on-page SEO is done

There are a few basic on-page search engine optimisation tactics that should always be implemented, including:

• Title tag: many experts consider this to be the single most important element of SEO. In laymen’s terms, a title tag is the page title (although the two don’t actually have to be the same). The first 64 characters of a title tag appear in a Google search result. So, make sure that you include your keyword as close to the beginning of your title tag as possible.
• Meta description: this is a 160 character long description of the content contained with the particular web page to which it is related. This also appears in Google’s search results. Use the meta description to convince your audience to click on your website. Don’t simply summarise the page content; that won’t compel anyone into clicking.
• The H1: this is the headline for your web page. Every page should include only one H1, which includes your keyword and entices your audience to continue reading.
• Alt tags: these are descriptions that appear when you hover your mouse over an image. The alt tag, and the image file name, for every image on your website should contain your keyword or a variation thereof.

4. Produce great content

One of the most fundamental techniques for improving your search rank is to regularly produce and publish great content on your website, usually through a blog. In doing so, you give the search engines a reason to revisit and reindex your site on a regular basis, pushing it up the SERPs. Not only that, you give your audience a reason to regularly visit and click on your website, which also pushes it up the SERPs. If your content is of a really superior quality, you might even find that other websites, companies, and bloggers refer to your content, inserting backlinks into their own content. These backlinks also improve your search engine rank. It really is a win-win situation.

When it comes to crafting content, try to be as strategic as possible about your editorial calendar. Use your keyword research to build out a schedule of blog posts, with each one focused on a particular keyword. Then measure the results. Keep track of which type of blog post attracts the biggest audience, the highest sharing rate, the most positive comments. Then, write more of these blog posts.

5. Use social media

Google is becoming more and more intuitive and investigative. It can now track how effectively you, and your website, interact with the rest of the online world. Like it or not, Google keeps track of your likes, comments, shares and +1s. The more active you are on social media platforms, the higher your search engine ranking is likely to be.

6. Measure and monitor

Make use of the array of free, online tools that Google has to offer. Take a look at Google Analytics as well as Google Webmasters tool. These will report on how much traffic your website is receiving, which keywords are generating the most traffic, what your audience is doing once they actually land on your site, which pages are the most popular, which pages are most effective in terms of conversions. All this free data is right at your fingertips. Use it to continually improve your search engine optimisation tactics.