Importance of Facebook & Twitter
The Power of Social Media Advertising
If you are at all serious about business success, you must read this article.
Facebook is an extraordinary new way for you to get customers. It’s extraordinary because of it’s size, half their followers log onto Facebook every day for at least 30 minutes. It can be used effectively by ANY type of business WHY? because 96% of Social Media users regularly recommend businesses on Facebook.
That’s over 800 million user recommendations!
A few eye-opening statistics about Social Media and how it can help your business.
- 50% of small business owners reported gaining new customers through social media – most notably through Facebook.
- 51% of Facebook users and 64% of Twitter users are more likely to buy from the brands they follow.
- 69% of small businesses reported receiving customer recommendations through Social Media.
- 44% of SME decision-makers use social media.
- Business brands that post at least once every day will reach 22% of their fans in a given week.
- There are now more than 800 million active Facebook users.
- Twitter now officially claims to have 175 million registered users.
- More than half of Facebook users log in every day – that’s more than 400 million people.
- The average user has 130 friends and is connected to 80 pages, events and groups.
- Nearly 23% of online time is spent on social networks.
- Social media users are more active and influential offline.
CAN YOU AFFORD TO BE MISSING THIS OPPORTUNITY
Why not speak to us – NO OBLIGATION – to learn how you can benefit from Social Media.
For less than you think we can help give your company a quality, great-looking, profitable and highly cost-effective Social Media platform.
3 Simple Tips on Search Engine Optimization – Important cogs of your website part 2
Important cogs in your website – Another 3 Simple Tips
You will have to be patient – Google can take 4 – 6 weeks to re evaluate your websites SEO updates
1. Include a unique meta description for each page. Include phrasing that has a call to action since it is seen under your title in many search engines. For example: Buy a used car today. We offer great financing for our used cars. Use no more than 155 characters.
2. Style your keywords. Use header, bold, and italic tags throughout your Web pages. These keywords are important and you should show that to visitors & search engines as well.
3. Name your Images. Get keywords and phrases into the file names. For example: used-cars-2005-ford escort.jpg
For WordPress users, we recommended the All in One SEO Pack as an effective plug-in that can assist with SEO on their WordPress sites. Visit our courses page for more information on the SEO course which will teach you how to apply great SEO to your website.
Remember – If you have control of your website and can add or edit SEO content, you will have to be patient – Google can take 4 – 6 weeks to re evaluate your websites SEO updates. If you don’t, book on a course NOW and take control.
7 Things to watch when you pick a web designer
You really need to watch yourself when you select a web designer and make sure that you are not going to be at a disadvantage should you choose to leave them at a future date. Remember that nothing lasts forever in business and this is equally true for your website and your website designer, so you need to make sure you have answers for the following;
- Do you own the copyright to your website? If you choose to move your hosting or choose a different web designer, are you able to use the existing design for the time during which your new site is being developed.
- Who is in control of your domain name? Some website designers will register the domain name for you and this is a mistake. Always make sure that you are registering your domain name and you have access to the domain registrar account. This way you cannot be held to ransom for your own name
- Is there a termination fee? Be wary of termination fees and cancellation fees should you decide to change providers. Just like the big telecoms providers, it seems there is an eagerness with some web designers to lock you in for a significant period of time.
- Who edits the site? A good website is nothing without regular content updates. Who can edit the site and add content? If your web designer edits the site then what is there lead time and do they offer a service level guarantee. You can find yourself waiting for weeks to have content added and paying for the privilege!
- What kind of Search Engine performance are you buying? Some web designers will promise you they can get you to the first page on google. This is very unlikely for any competitive or mainstream keywords. Anyone can get to the top of the search engines for their own brand name, especially if it is your domain name too. Spamming free directories isn’t very effective, and submitting your website does nothing if you are already indexed anyway. Real Search Engine Optimisation takes time, and free SEO is worth exactly what you pay for it!
- What other services are offered? Are you able to setup newsletters from your website? Can you add functionality as your business develops or changes. Most businesses make significant changes to how they do things every few years, and your website needs to be able to keep up.
- What support is provided? Is the site hosted with loads of other websites? Can your service provider control the actual web server so the speed and performance can be monitored? Are you able to look at the stats of your site and keep track of visitors?
I was amazed to hear of a web designer recently who took a client through ‘website hell’. They allowed their web designer to take control of their domain name. He then proceeded to claim ownership of the copyright and promised to make edits which would be done according to a monthly retainer.
After not editing the site for a number of months despite the customer paying the retainer, they decided to leave. They then had to pay a two month termination fee before they could get their domain back. The designer then turned off the site and failed to provide any of the content which he said was theirs, and when they placed a backup of their site on a new host, he then sent a copyright abuse notice out to get it shut down. After the site was shut down he then contacted the customer to offer to sell them the copyright!!
This is all perfectly legal, but not the kind of sharp practice you want to be on the receiving end of. Needless to say the victim of this web designer will never use them again. If you find yourself in this kind of situation then please contact us and we can help you get control of your website.
If you have control of your website and can add copy when you want to you will not sbe at a disadvantage. If you don’t, book on our “Build your own website for FREE” NOW and avoid all these problems.
Importance of Words on your Website
The use of words on your website is very important.
It’s definitely not Flash, animations and cool tricks your website can do, unless you’re in the entertainment industry. It’s the words on your website that people really connect with.
It’s what you say and how you say it that will keep people interested and on your site longer and that will keep them coming back for more. It’s even going to help you on the search engines and allow people to find you based on the keywords in your website.
The more content you have, the better, but it should always be great content supported by great pictures not simply any content. Spend more time on creating the words and visual impact that will inspire the reader to do what you want them to do.
Of course a website also has to be:
Easy on the eyes
Simple to navigate
Straight forward – find everything within a couple of clicks
All the functions work
The simplest looking sites on the web often sell the most because the focus is on the words and the words do all the selling.
Visit our courses page for more information on the Marketing and Picture courses which will teach you how to achieve a website that works for you.
3 Simple Tips on Search Engine Optimization – Important cogs of your website
Search Engine Optimization – SEO
Important cogs in your website – 3 Simple Tips
1. Write Website copy for humans. Search engines are smart. They know what a real sentence, paragraph, and links should look like. Don’t keyword stuff your site or talk about the same things over and over again to try to beat them. It doesn’t work.
2. Focus on 5-20 main related keywords or phrases for your entire Website. You don’t want to spread yourself so thin you don’t rank well for any search terms. Try to “own” the search for a select number of terms.
3. Check your keyword density and continuously tweak as necessary. Keywords and phrases for a page should be around 3-5 percent of the total text and links of any particular page (not too much more and not too much less). Don’t just focus on your homepage. It’s about 50 percent of the search weight of your Website but every page needs keywords to create a “theme” for search engines. The more pages that are ranked, the more entry points your Website has.
For WordPress users, we recommended the All in One SEO Pack as an effective plug-in that can assist with SEO on their WordPress sites.
Visit our courses page for more information on the SEO course which will teach you how to apply great SEO to your website.
Remember – If you have control of your website and can add or edit SEO content, you will have to be patient – Google can take 4 – 6 weeks to re evaluate your websites SEO updates. If you don’t, book on a course NOW and take control.
SEO is not rocket science
It is not rocket science
Search Engine Optimisation or SEO, is a multi million pound industry in the UK alone. There’s no shortage of ‘experts’ eager to take your cash to assist in the task of getting you high up in the Free listings on Google and the other search engines. These so called ‘experts’ have a couple of things in common.
First they virtually all refuse to be paid on results, or at least results that are worth achieving, “it will take a few months” but you will still have to pay now.
Secondly, they want you to think that getting high up on the search engines is complex. The more complicated it is the less likely you are to do it yourself and the more likely you are to buy their services.
It is not rocket science – here are a few points to consider
Your page title is very important. Google sorts by pages, not websites. The title of your page should be the main keyword or keywords for that page.
The content of your page has become increasingly important. Filling the page with meta keywords will not help your website rankings. Filling the page with focussed, relevant and interesting content will.
Make sure that Google can easily find all your pages. Include a site map that’s linked to from your home page.
For WordPress users, we recommended the All in One SEO Pack as an effective plug-in that can assist with SEO on their WordPress sites.
Visit our courses page for more information on the SEO course which will teach you how to apply great SEO to your website.
If you have control of your website and can add or edit SEO content, you will have to be patient – Google can take 4 – 6 weeks to re evaluate your websites SEO updates. If you don’t, book on a course NOW and take control, let us teach you why you do not need rocket scientists or expensive web designers on your team.
Sniper Rifle or Scatter Gun
Marketing on the internet is getting harder. Visitors have a multitude of choices when it comes to choosing a vendor for the product or service they are seeking, and those choices are only a mouseclick away. It used to be common practice to simply put up the site, then add a whole bunch of keywords and then wait for customers. No more!
Google and the other search engines are now more sophisticated in the results they show to visitors, and will use a wide variety of metrics and demographics when listing possible pages to send visitors to. If you are to make your website more successful there are a number of questions you need to ask:
- Who are we trying to attract?
- Where are they from?
- What do they do?
- What do they want?
- How will they communicate with you?
- What have they bought before they come to you?
- What will they buy after they purchase your product or service?
Successful internet marketing is now more of a sniper rifle approach than a scatter gun approach. This means a lot less time spamming information and links out there, and more time creating focussed content and placing your message where your particular targetted demographic will see it. This is the age of what we call ‘Sniper Rifle Marketing’
If you have control of your website and can add or edit content your self consider your target. If you don’t, book on a course NOW take control and start hitting the target.
It’s All About Traffic
Many business owners spend a whole bunch of time preparing their website, with many meetings, photoshoots, and interviews, and then when the website is finally up and being shown to the world, wonder why no-one is ordering or getting in touch.
The reason is that it is ALL ABOUT TRAFFIC.
The best website in the world won’t be successful with visitors, so a significant portion of time and energy needs to be spent planning how you will promote your site. It isn’t enough just to splash links all over the place either, you will be most successful when you can attract focussed traffic to your site. Here are some of the traffic generation methods we discuss in our courses;
- Natural Search Results
- Paid Search Results
- Social Media
- Offline Networking
- Offline Advertising
- Sticky Content
If you simply launch your site and then leave it hoping for results, then you will be disappointed. Remember that getting your site up and running is only the beginning. The real work is only just beginning!
If you have control of your website and can add or edit content to attract more traffic remember to review on a regular basis. If you don’t, book on a course NOW and get that traffic flowing to your website – don’t let it get stuck in the internet traffic jam.
New Website Course that gives YOU control
Profit seekers have many scars from paying for their website which was controlled by their website designers. Do not fall into the traps they did, if you want a website where you have total control.
Book Now Only £75
A fantastic new easy to follow 2hr 30 min training package that will result in you building your own website to your own specific needs and being able to edit and add content to your own website useing WordPress.