info

Follow me, follow you, I will follow… etc.

2009-06-25T16:15:39+00:00

Tweety-Pie probably never uses it, but Twitter is fast becoming de-rigeur as another marketing promotional tool you need to have at your disposal. The video says most of it, but if you still haven’t come across Twitter in your online life, I can only assume you’ve been banged up for a while (although recent news reports would indicate that that’s not an issue either). In the grand scheme of things does it matter? I guess not, but if you’re looking for another avenue to raise awareness and drive traffic to your web properties, you really should have a Twitter account (at least one) and preferably more; one say, for private ‘tweets’ and another for business or branding purposes. Because that’s what Twitter is GREAT for. Getting a brand message across, whether your business brand or a personal brand. I’m going to be posting more in depth information here, so watch this space.

How To Get More Traffic To Your Website

2009-03-26T09:48:19+00:00

The basic issue for all businesses relying on passing trade is that if no-one is passing, there is no trade. Find out how to get more traffic to your website. OK, it’s a basic concept, but if you haven’t grasped it yet, you’re focusing in the wrong place. Without footfall, a retail outlet won’t make any sales. You need customers in your shop before you can even sell them anything, right? It’s no different when your main business is focused on the web. Without site visitors, your website is dead in the water. The tumbleweed drifts across the superhighway and you’re left scratching your mouse. It doesn’t matter what your site looks like, what great content it has, what special - really special - great value offers it has, without web traffic, it might as well not be there. You need to get more visitors to your website. Of course, things like content and offers do matter in order to convert the website traffic that does end up at your site, but… well you get the point. Gauher Chaudhry, who is one of the most knowledgable people that I know of when it comes to making money online, has put together 10 really short videos on various methods of driving traffic to websites. The methods covered in the videos are: Social media sites Forum Marketing Article Marketing PPC Marketing Video Marketing Web Site Marketing Media Buys Domain Marketing Email Marketing Facebook Applications Now keep in mind these videos are really brief, about 2- 3 minutes each, and although they refer to ‘CPA’ offers (online ads in other words), they’re succinct and to the point, so take a look and start planning how to get more traffic to your website. If you’re new to this game, you need to watch these short videos on website traffic sources to give you your starting point. You can then plan your online campaigns properly, instead of wasting money on ineffective directory and magazine ads. P.S. You’ll need to sign up on the site before you’ll get to the videos, but it’s worth a look.)

Pay-per-Click Made Simple - Google Chief Economist Explains Google Ad Auction Process

2009-03-18T15:40:03+00:00

This is a great, easy-to-understand video about how the Google Ad auction process works. Especially relevant if you’re wondering how to get your PPC costs down.

How to choose the best domain name for your website

2009-02-15T21:34:05+00:00

Instead of rushing to buy cheap domain names for your web empire, consider these critical factors before choosing a domain name for your website. Choosing the right domain name for your website is the first critical decision you need to make in your online marketing campaign. Get it wrong and you could end up with the wrong type of traffic or very little traffic at all. Naturally, your overall business marketing strategy will dictate your objectives for your online presence, but the key critical factors which you need to take into account are these: Is your business focused on your brand? If you think about the major corporations like Virgin, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, etc. where the focus of the business is in building and maintaining a brand, then of course you want to get hold of a domain name which contains your brand name. This will then become central to your marketing plan in the future, so the first domain you purchase should include your brand name within it. Is your business focused on a particular market? Given that all businesses will serve one or more markets, you should ideally focus your domain name on keyword phrases which relate directly to your market or the products you sell into that market. For example, if you sell boilers you might target a domain which includes the word ‘boilers’ in its name. Or if you sell a number of products into the personal hygiene market, you might try to find a domain which contains a relevant generic phrase e.g. ‘womenshygiene’. There is, of course, nothing to stop you buying a number of different domain names which relate to your market and in practice you would try to acquire as many domains as possible which relate to your market focus. The difficulty - as many will testify - is that many of the obvious domain names have already been taken, so… What if the domain name you want is already taken? Time to get creative. Look at the keyword phrases which your target customers use to find you and your products and see if you can create a domain name using one of those keyphrases. If everything has been taken, you could use hyphens between the words in the phrase, but limit yourself to one or at most two hyphens. Otherwise your domain name will be seen as being ‘spammy’. Bear in mind also that domains which include hyphens are likely to be reviewed by a human reviewer, before being indexed in Google. Alternatively, if a specific domain name is important to you, establish whether the domain is being held by a domain broker, someone who is holding the domain for their own use (but which is currently inactive) or whether the domain is in active use. In the case of a broker, most will be holding the domain with the intention of resale at a profit, so be prepared to pay. It is usually better to use a third party to negotiate the purchase of a domain with potential. Domain service companies, such as Sedo.co.uk, provide such valuation and negotiation services. Such companies will also negotiate the purchase of an active website on your behalf, but this is a specialist area in itself and beyond the scope of this article. If the domain appears to be held privately, if possible try to contact the owner directly and ask what their intentions are in relation to the domain. The chances are they’ve bought the domain with the intention of doing something with it, but haven’t got around to actually developing anything. In this case, make an offer to cover a few year’s registration fees and you may well be successful in obtaining the domain. Which domain extension should you obtain? Without doubt the most usable TLD (top level domain) extension is .com. If your market is geographically spread internationally, then you will definately need the .com version. After that, go for the country code version relevant to the majority of your market, e.g. .co.uk, .ca, .de etc. If you can’t get hold of the .com, your next best bet is the .net or .org, although .org tends to be indicative of a non-profit organisation. These TLDs are the most usable, because they are the most well-known by the generality of Internet users. The more esoteric flavours such as .uk.com, .biz, .info, etc. have limited saturation on the web and attract lower value. They also tend to be more expensive to renew registration.

Get LinkedIn for FREE incoming links to your website

2009-02-05T12:53:52+00:00

Building up quality incoming links are the key to obtaining consistently high search engine rankings, so it’s worth knowing how and where you can get links back to your site. If you don’t know already, LinkedIn is the networking site for professionals, covering the whole world. As a result, the more contemporaries you network with, the more your profile is seen. And it’s your profile that is the key. As with a lot of networking sites and forums, you get access to your own profile once you have registered on the site. Dependent upon the policy of the site’s owner, you may be able to add a website URL to your signature or your profile page. LinkedIn provides you with 3 slots to add your site URL, so you get 3 opportunities to link back to your own site pages. What’s more, you have complete control over the anchor text used to link to your site AND the links are not formatted as ‘nofollow’ links, which means you get some link juice as well (albeit a miniscule amount). Google pays close attention to the anchor text used to link to your site in determining the level of relevance to be attached to it. So you see, it’s worth getting LinkedIn to get linked up.