Archive for February 2011

Link Building: Self Created, Non Editorial

Posted on Monday, February 28, 2011 by

Self Created, Non-Editorial links are those that you create yourself on other people's web properties. These could be blog comments and forum posts. Read on for tips for finding relevant web pages where you can create links.


You should be careful when creating links in this way because your links will be considered spam if you not provide quality content as well.

Blog Comments

Your comment needs to add value to the blog post by asking a legitimate question, answering someone else's question or adding some good quality content. Its best not to put links in your comment, rather to put your link in the appropriate field (usually under the email address field).

You can find blogs and posts related to your website by doing a Google Blog Search or a Blog/Post Search on Technorati.

Forum Posts

You can build quite a few good quality links from posting in forums relevant to your to subject. Well placed links will bring you both traffic and search engine favour. You are expected to contribute good quality posts in order to earn your links. Many forums require you to make a certain number of posts before you're even allowed to include links. I just joined the V7 Network and they require 30 high quality posts before I get the right to include my signature.

When you are allowed to include links to your website, don't put them in the post body. Links back to your website/s belong in your signature. This is an area at the bottom of each post. You should be able to edit your signature in your forum profile.

I would focus on joining a few good quality and highly relevant forums to really focus on rather than trying to target as many forums as possible. Write good quality posts and ask legitimate questions and only post your links where and when allowed. Check the forum rules for clarification.

You can seek out forums in your niche (subject) by searching on Google and using the 'Discussions' filter in the left hand column.

Article Marketing

I would also consider Article Marketing to be a type of Self Created link. Basically you write a useful article on your area of expertise, include a link back to your website and submit the article to various sources on the web to get it seen my as many people as possible. You can submit your articles to:
  • Article Directories- There are many of these throughout the web.
  • Blogs- Either by being a 'Guest Blogger' for that blog or by swapping blog posts between your blog and their blog.



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Link Building: Manual Suggestion & Approval

Posted on Saturday, February 26, 2011 by

The Manual Suggestion & Approval method of link building involves requesting, submitting and suggesting links to various sources such as directories, link lists and blog roles. Read on for some guidance on who to seek links from.
  • Directories
  • Affiliated Businesses
  • Related websites
  • Related blogs
Directories

Submit to the local directories and industry specific directories first, these are the most relevant links. Then look for any reputable directories that will take your links.

Affiliated Businesses

Request links from your suppliers or those your supply to and any businesses that you deal with.

Related Blogs and Websites

You can do a back-link analysis on your competitors and similar businesses to yours for ideas on who to ask for links.


Remember, links that look natural have more weight in the search engines.
  • Try and request links within the main body of content.
  • Vary the anchor text that the linker uses to link to you.



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Link Building: Editorial Accumulation

Posted on Thursday, February 24, 2011 by

Editorial links are those that a webmaster simply decides to give you because they like your material. Here are some tips to increase the likelihood of obtaining links like these.


Editorial links are what search engines give the highest value as they are considered the most natural links. By the very nature of editorial accumulation you cannot affect the creation of links directly but there are several things you can do to improve the chances of getting editorial links.

Link Bait

Link Baiting is creating something that is actually good and useful so that people will discuss it on forums and social media, share it on social sharing sites and link to it from their websites and blogs. Here's a list of ideas for creating great linkable content. Another good idea is to build a useful tool such as the Link Bait Generator.

Promotion

Promote your content through social networks, social sharing, press releases, blog commenting etc. The more people who look at your content, the greater the chance of gaining links.

Automatic Link Back

You can encourage linking by including a script or tool that will automatically provide a link back to the linking source such as with trackbacks on blogs. This method borders on 'self created- non-editorial' links.


For your manual link building efforts you should try to make your links appear as though they are natural editorial links. There are a number of factors about the nature of the link and linker (linking source) that indicate whether a link is natural or not.
  • Who's providing the link (the linker)- If the linker is a directory website then its likely that the link is not natural.
  • Where on the linker's page the link occurs- Links within the main body of content are considered to be more natural than links in the header, footer or sidebars of a webpage.
  • The link's anchor text- If all your incoming links have the exact same anchor text this is a hallmark indication of unnatural accumulation.
  • When the links occurred- Natural link accumulation tends to be more erratic than constant.



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Internet Marketing Interview with Clayton Wehner

Posted on Tuesday, February 22, 2011 by

"Internet Marketing is trying attract as much qualified traffic to a web presence as possible." -Clayton Wehner, Director of Blue Train Enterprises

I caught up with Clayton Wehner, Director of Bluetrain Enterprises, in January to discuss Internet Marketing principles, tips and advice. (Clayton's answers are in italics).

What is an internet marketing plan, what are the key parts and how should it be used?

It's useful to have some form of plan written down that covers off the different marketing activities that you will be undertaking and the metrics that you will be measuring. Your internet marketing plan needs to plug into your organisation's overall marketing plan and any money spent on internet marketing needs to be synchronised with the company's offline marketing efforts. The plan needs to be explicit about where money is being spent e.g. email campaigns, competitions etc. and how these initiatives are measured (eg. number of new email subscribers, increase in Facebook Fans, etc)

How important is it to have a website optimised for mobile/smart phones? Is it important for all businesses?

Increasingly important, especially for Business-to-Consumer (B2C) businesses that deliver advice or information to their customers. In th first instance, I think it is more important to have a website that can be viewed easily via the web browser on mobile devices. This is more important, and cost effective, than developing mobile apps for all the different operating systems out there.

What are 5 simple things anybody can do to improve the internet marketing of their small business?
  1. Independent (or third party) review of your web presence - an ongoing process; keep asking yourself how your web presence can be improved
  2. Write great content- blog or articles
  3. Try search engine marketing - get a free Google voucher and trial a campaign- it's cost effective and trackable
  4. Contact like-minded businesses, suppliers and associations that you are a member of and ask for a link to your website
  5. Publish your website URL everywhere such as your brochures, business cards and other promotional material

In your experience which aspects of internet marketing get the best ROI?
  • Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) by far- You can teach yourself, so it's cost effective and the returns can be fantastic; the only cost is your time to produce content and obtain inbound links. As an example, our online bookstore Boomerang Books attracts over 6,000 unique visitors per day due to solely to SEO efforts.
  • Pay Per Click (PPC) comes in second- it's trackable and directs motivated buyers to your website, albeit at a cost.

How should flash be used in website design?

Sparingly. It's a good technology in small doses. It provides some pizazz to impress your visitors at first glance, but shouldn't be used throughout the website. Importantly, navigation elements or text should not embedded in Flash as many search engines have difficulty indexing such pages.

What do you think of Facebook and Twitter?

Twitter - simplicity is its charm, but I'm not convinced that it is here to stay. I'd say that it's likely to be bought out by Google, Facebook or Microsoft and I have no idea how it would be incorporated in to the wider offering of one of those behemoths.
Facebook - has widespread appeal and has more substance than Twitter.

There are many more detractors for Twitter than for Facebook. Whilst we use Twitter in our business, I do find lot of the information posted on Twitter banal. That said, Twitter works well for a lot of businesses and, if it fits your business objectives, then it's worth using - particularly as it doesn't cost anything to use.

Do you have any tips for outsourcing your Internet Marketing?

Beware of outsourcing because there are a lot of people who claim to have expertise in this field - proceed with care. I recommend that you have a face-to-face relationship with the person who is undertaking internet marketing activities on your behalf. I'd also suggest that you should learn as much as possible yourself about internet marketing, so that you don't have the wool pulled over your eyes.

Which internet marketing publications/ newsletters/ other sources do you subscribe to and/or recommend?

Clayton Wehner is the Director and Project Manager at Bluetrain Enterprises. He is also Managing Director and Co-Owner of Boomerang Books- Australia's Online Bookstore.



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Conversion Tracking - Superplay

Posted on Sunday, February 20, 2011 by

The conversions and methods for tracking them on the website for the Superplay Cafe.


If you look back at my Determine Conversions post for Superplay you'll notice that a number of the conversions require an offline activity which makes them more difficult, although not impossible, to track. This post deals with onsite conversions that we can track.

Conversion 1: Kids Party/ Function Contact Form is Completed

The completion of the contact form generates a lead for booking a children's party or function. I used Google Analytics Goals with the goal being the thankyou page that the visitor is delivered to once they fill out the form and click 'send message.'

Conversion 2: Someone Views the Address or Contact Information

For the 'viewing' conversions I used the javascript OnMouseOver function that records a 'virtual pageview' each time the cursor moves over a certain part of the page. The 'virtual pageviews' are recorded using Google Analytics. I set up separate mouse over conversions for the address, phone number and email address at the different locations they appear on the website.

Moving the mouse over a particular section of the page is a rough indication of where a person's attention is focused. However it is certainly not a hard and fast rule.

[This article is part of the Superplay Cafe Case Study. See the latest articles in the case studyhere or head over to the case study index for all the articles.]



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Call to Action

Posted on Friday, February 18, 2011 by

"A call to action is wording that asks the reader or viewer to take immediate action. The desired action may be to fill out and send in an order form or reply card, make a phone call, click something on a website, look for the product in a certain store or many other possible actions. The call to action closes the sale by telling the reader or viewer exactly what to do to get the product, service or information offered."- Wisegeek.com


A call to action (CTA) reduces the friction between the user and what you ultimately want them to do on your site. It is an important part of conversion optimisation. The CTA consists of the 'Call' which is a verb telling us to do something and an action which is what we are being told to do. Common Call's to Action:
  • Contact Us
  • Download
  • Get a Quote
  • Open an Account
  • Add to Cart
  • Proceed to Checkout
  • Share on Facebook
  • Book Now
  • Subscribe
  • Comment Below
You need to work out exactly what your want your website visitors to do on your page. You can have multiple Call's to Action if there are several different things your visitors can do but you need to pick the most important to make your main call to action. The main Call to Action should be something that will go towards completing a conversion and hence achieving your goals.

The call to action should stand out from the rest of the page in order to draw the attention of the visitor to it. This is commonly done by using a button of a different colour and greater size than the other elements on the page and putting it in a prominent position. Have a look at the call to action design examples in this Smashing Magazine article.



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Web Development - Superplay

Posted on Wednesday, February 16, 2011 by

The web development and design for Superplay Cafe including content, technology and design. You can see the finished website here: Superplay.com.au.

A lot of what I've done for the website is evident by going and visiting it (link above). I have made some notes below outlining the various aspects of the development process alongside the corresponding Web Development steps from the internet marketing plan.

  • Content
    • Articles- We used short sharp and shiny articles (copy), consisting of short paragraphs, tables and dot points, to allow scanning and get the point across quickly and easily.
    • Structure
      • Navigation- Top navigation, clickable logo
    • Features
      • Party Contact Form
      • Analytics
      • Conversion Tracking
    • Onsite SEO- We included keywords from our research in the titles, headings and copy.
    • Usability & Accessibility- Simple and clean design
  • Technology
    • Web Properties
      • Website
      • Social Media
        • Facebook- to come later.
        • Blog- to come later
      • Email Marketing Campaign- to come later
      • Other Pages
    • Onsite
      • Scripts
        • Contact Form- We used a free, externally hosted service from Snaphost.com for the contact form
        • Analytics- Google Analytics
        • Conversion Tracking- Google Analytics Goals & Funnels
      • Coding- Html, CSS and some javascript
    • Back End
      • Hosting- Netregistry Economy Hosting
      • Domain Name- superplay.com.au
    • Design
      • Look & Feel- Simple design with colours from the logo repeated in the page design.
    • Testing & Improving
      • Usability Research & Testing- to be completed at a later date.


      [This article is part of the Superplay Cafe Case Study. See the latest articles in the case study here or head over to the case study index for all the articles.]



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    Bluetrain Enterprises Company Profile

    by

    Company Name: Blue Train Enterprises Pty Ltd
    Founded: 2003
    Key Personnel: Clayton Wehner - Principal
    Products/ Services: Web consulting and training services for small-to-medium sized organisations. Public speaking, website 'health checks', providing the full spectrum of advice on existing websites... seo, usability, design etc.
    Specialty: Web business consulting

    Information Sources provided by Clayton:


    Contact Details

    Address: 1/193 Wakefield Street, Adelaide SA 5081, Australia
    Website: http://www.bluetrainenterprises.com.au
    Email: contact@bluetrainenterprises.com.au
    Mobile: 0438 925 613

    Sources: Interview with Clayton Wehner (Jan 2011)



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    Interview with Tony McCreath of Website Advantage

    Posted on Monday, February 14, 2011 by

    Tony McCreath of Website Advantage was nice enough to let me interview him in December last year. He gave very informative answers about internet marketing, especially search engine optimisation. You can find the interview below, Tony's answers are in italics.


    What is internet marketing?

    It can mean different things to different people:
    • Internet Marketeers: These people have a purely online business and making money through affiliations, advertising and selling virtual products, such as eBooks. In my opinion, quite a seedy world full of people wanting to make a quick buck, and normally from conning the newbies out of their cash.
    • I work with brick and mortar businesses. For them, internet marketing is the process of promoting their business on the web. Normally to increase profits, branding and reputation.
    What is an internet marketing plan, what are the key parts and how should it be used?

    The most important thing is that the client has realised that a plan is needed. Unfortunately clients
    often spent a lot on development work, before they think about why they are going online, and what they should do to best reach their goals.

    Having goals is a key part of a plan, and it’s best to define your goals in a measurable way. “10 new customers per month”, “$1,000 of sales per month”. Once you know the goals then you can start planning to achieve them. Attracting qualified visitors is often a requirement, and directing them towards your goals is another. These are often activities that get forgotten in the rush to create a “cool” website. The plan is there to keep you and your client working towards your real targets.

    I feel that doing keyword based market analysis at the start is extremely important. Understanding how to target your largest market areas is the first step to attracting many qualified
    visitors.

    How important is it to have a website optimised for mobile/smart phones? Is it important for all businesses?

    I don’t think it is important unless your business has a specific relation with mobile phone users.

    What are 5 simple things anybody can do to improve the internet marketing of their small business?
    • Page Titles for SEO
    • Submit your website to local directories (HotFrog, TrueLocal, StartLocal….)
    • Create a Google Places entry for your business
    • Register with Google Webmaster Tools and see if your website has a problem
    • Add content, then add more content
    In your experience which aspects of internet marketing get the best ROI?

    Getting your page title right is little work for big gains.
    How should flash be used in website design?

    On someone else’s website ;-)

    Use Flash for parts of your page that you don’t want to be indexed by search engines. Ignore those people saying Google can index Flash. It’s true, but very limited. The people saying this sort of thing are Flash developers that are running out of work!

    Most things people do in Flash can now be done via JavaScript and the concept of progressive enhancement. This ensures that users with limitations (such as search engine spiders) can still access and use the website, while those with kick-ass systems get a cool experience. HTML5 may also be a flash killer, if we ever see it!

    If you a
    re stuck with using a Flash or AJAX only website, there are advanced ways to improve their indexing. I did an AJAX Experiment a while back that worked with Google.

    Compare DIY/in house internet marketing to outsourced internet marketing. What are the likely differences in returns?

    Many of my clients have done some research and tried it on their own before coming to me.
    Some have followed the marketeering path and spent a lot of money to get very poor advice that does not help real businesses. Some have got into AdWords and done fatal mistakes that decim
    ated their chances of getting any return on investment. Some have actually done some things right. A recent client was already targeting their best market based on basic SEO knowledge and good guesses to where the market is.

    The problem is that there are many snake oil salesmen or novices in our business. If you go it alone you risk learning outdated or even detrimental techniques. At the same time, how do you know that the guy you hire is good at what they do, or is just going to take your money and run!
    I think this is why almost all my clients are locals who can talk to me and see me in person. It’s the only way to create a reasonable level of trust.

    What
    is the first thing you do when you bring on a new client?

    Look at their website….cringe! What’s funny though is I don’t look at how pretty it is. I look at its potential to do well with Search Engines and how it sells itself to its visitors. Often fancy effects are a negative on both points! I try and get my clients to fill in a simple questionnaire. You’d be surprised how hard it is to get basic business information, let alone clues about a clients target market and business policy.

    For me, the most important thing to do is keyword based market research so I understand where the true market is. I love it when this research reveals a new market/product for my client!
    If they have a website I then analyse it and provide a report on what we need to do so that it does its best with search engines and visitors.

    Do you do any original research? If so... Do you publish the findings anywhere? How do you use the findings to better your products and services?

    Writing my own data analyse tools means I keep finding new avenues for further research.
    One off-shoot from this is my Adelaide Top 100 Website Businesses that was very popular, so I followed it up with an Australian version.

    This m
    onth I developed a tool to find out which categories a business should add into their HotFrog listings to get the most exposure in their market. I also follow a lot of the technologies that are about to emerge, and that has resulted in a few experiments in my SEO Sandbox. Currently I am playing with semantic mark-up (RDFa, Microformats).

    Which internet marketing publications/ newsletters/ other sources do you subscribe to and/or recommend?

    Loads
    ! I follow over 100 blogs and forums via RSS as well as many recognised experts on Twitter. I’ll highlight some of the ones I think will be helpful for small businesses:
    • Flying Solo- Great for general advice related to Australian small businesses, and has some good internet marketing experts around.
    • The V7 Network- Currently my favourite SEO forum. Helps both beginner and expert.
    • Experts Exchange- Paid resource but can be quick with answers (I’m an Expert there)
    • The Startup Club- I've found this a great place to Network outside the internet.


    Tony McCreath is the Director and Owner of Website Advantage, a Search Engine Optimisation, Website Promotion & Internet Marketing Company in Adelaide, South Australia. You can find his contact details here.



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    Return on Investment (ROI) Basics

    Posted on Saturday, February 12, 2011 by

    "A performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment or to compare the efficiency of a number of different investments." - Investopedia

    ROI = (Gain from Investment - Cost of Investment) / Cost of Investment

    The internet is very well set up for evaluating ROI as almost everything is measurable to some degree. With the aid of analytical tools you can determine exactly where your new customers came from and therefore which aspects of your internet marketing efforts are successful and which aspects need improvement.

    Gain from Investment

    GfI = Number of Conversions x Conversion Value

    The gain from investment can be determined by looking at how many Conversions the website generated and the value of each conversion.

    Cost of Investment

    CoI = Initial (Startup Costs) + Ongoing Costs

    The cost of investment is the total costs associated with the project such as developing the website and other web properties, doing research, developing strategies. The ongoing costs include things like link building, advertising and content creation.

    Tracking Conversions

    Google's free website analytics tool, Google Analytics, is a great option for tracking the conversions of your website. Using the Goal and Funnel features you can determine the path people took to eventually convert or where they dropped off the path if they didn't convert.



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    Competitor Research- Superplay

    Posted on Thursday, February 10, 2011 by

    Competitor research for the Superplay Cafe case study.

    Most of the work I've done for this is in the Google Spreadsheet: Superplay Cafe Competitor Research. This post contains a summary and analysis of the data collected in the spreadsheet.

    Competitor Research- Determine who your online competitors are in order to analyse them.

    Method: I searched in Google for several phrases relating to the business and noted the competitors.
    Results: The competitors are listed in the 'products' tab.

    Benefits Analysis- What are the key benefits of their (your competitors) products that they are highlighting?

    Method: Looked at some of the key points made on the home page, the key links and anything than was highlighted in a summary that might suggest it is one of the key benefits of the product or service.
    Results: The 'Product' tab has a section listing the main benefits.

    Pricing Analysis- What are the prices of their products and services?

    Method: Go to each competitors website and look up their prices.
    Results: The prices are listed in the 'Product' tab.

    Content Analysis- What kind of content do they have? Is there anything important missing?

    Method: Had a look at each website and picked out some of the marketing methods or tools they were using.
    Results: The results can be seen in the 'Marketing Tech' sheet.

    Targeted Search Term Analysis- Which keywords are they targeting?

    Method: I looked at each website and used Keyword Density Analysis tools (see tools page) and PageRank and domain age tools (see tools page).
    Results: The results can be seen in the 'SEO' sheet.

    SEO Analysis- How well are they Search Engine Optimised?

    Method: This analysis was done in conjunction with the 'targeted search term analysis,' (see above).
    Results: In general I noted a medium to low about of Search Engine Optimisation. See the 'SEO' tab for more results.

    Technology/Tool Analysis- What technologies and tools are they using?

    This analysis was done in conjunction to the content analysis (see above).

    Usability Analysis- What are the usability strengths and weaknesses of their web properties?

    I have not completed any usability analysis at this stage.

    Functionality Analysis- What are the primary functions of their web properties? Is their any important functionality missing?

    This analysis was done in conjunction to the content analysis (see above).

    Overall Strategy Analysis- An overall look at your competitor's online strategy

    I didn't go as far as to do an overall strategy analysis. I will have to follow up on this in the future.

    [This article is part of the Superplay Cafe Case Study. See the latest articles in the case studyhere or head over to the case study index for all the articles.]



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    Local Internet Marketing Blogs, Twitter Streams, Facebook Pages & Youtube Accounts

    Posted on Wednesday, February 9, 2011 by

    Here's a list of Adelaide Internet Marketing Blogs, Twitter Streams and Facebook pages. The first list contains the best internet marketing blogs in Adelaide, judged by my standards. I like to see blogs that have original and interesting content, are updated at least once every two weeks, have a clear author or author's page so I know who's writing and allow comments with a link back a website of the commentor's choice.


    Latest Items from Adelaide's Internet Marketing Blogs:



    Top Adelaide Internet Marketing Blogs:


    Blog NamePost FrequencyAuthorRank
    Better Communication Results2 DaysLee Hopkins
    Website Advantage14 DaysTony McCreath
    Hughes PR10 DaysVarious
    Prakkypedia9 DaysMichelle Prak
    Copy Break8 DaysAnna Peterson
    Hello Ben Teoh8 DaysBen Teoh
    Twillyon10 DaysTom Williamson
    Adelaide Marketing Online10 Dayslocspoc
    Mal Chia – Southern Soapbox24 DaysMal Chia
    Marketing Nabbed8 DaysBelinda
    Versatile Assistant7 DaysSam Cannell
    Chilli Chocolate Marketing10 DaysSimon Garlick
    Website in a Week13 DaysWayne van Elsen
    The Internet Marketer7 DaysPeter Cornish
    Studio Notes20 DaysShai Coggins
    DBG Technologies16 DaysTamara
    The Grumpy Old Manager33 DaysRick Carter
    hip 2 esquared60 DaysNikki Carter
    E-Channel50 DaysFrank Grasso
    Random Action8 DaysN/A
    leadNetN/AJonathon Weston
    Get Seen OnlineN/A
    IdentitiN/AJosh
    PB Web DevelopmentN/A

    Michael Soininen Copywriting BlogN/AMichael Soininen
    Strategic Visual CommunicationsN/A
    Copy with CreamN/AKaren
    netforgeN/AN/A
    AtomixN/AJamie Esterman
    ERC MediaN/ARobina Carlson



    Lower Quality Adelaide Internet Marketing Blogs:

    Facebook Pages:
    My Facebook pages are Internet Marketing Adelaide & Nick Morris (page)

    Twitter Streams:
    Find me on Twitter @WebMarkAdelaide



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    Social Media Tools & Technologies

    Posted on Tuesday, February 8, 2011 by

    A list of all the social media tools and technologies a company might use in their social media marketing campaigns.


    I got this list directly from a brilliant article on Mashable. Their article also has links to examples of companies using each type of technology.

    Theres no way you could expect to pursue all of these options in your social media marketing strategy. You need to pick a technology (or a few) that is right for you and your business.
    • Blogs
    • Bookmarking/Tagging
    • Brand monitoring
    • Content aggregation
    • Crowdsourcing/Voting
    • Discussion boards and forums
    • Events and meetups
    • Mashups
    • Microblogging
    • Online video
    • Organization and staffing
    • Outreach programs
    • Photosharing
    • Podcasting
    • Presentation sharing
    • Public Relations – social media releases
    • Ratings and reviews
    • Social networks: applications, fan pages, groups, and personalities
    • Sponsorships
    • Virtual worlds
    • Widgets
    • Wikis
    source: mashable.com



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    Engaging Your Audience on Social Media: Ask The Experts

    Posted on Sunday, February 6, 2011 by

    Facebook pages have the advantage of having their updates appear in their fans' news feed. But, not every fan sees every update. Facebook uses a 'post quality score,' basically how frequently your fan base engages with your page, to determine how many fans see a page's updates. Therefore it is definitely in your best interest to learn how to be more engaging to your audience.


    For this article, I enlisted the help of Julia George, an Adelaide based Marketing & Communication Manager, Ben Teoh, Organiser of the Adelaide Flash Mob and Ann, Organiser and Promoter of Adelaide Zombie Walk, who are all successful users of Social Media. (My questions are in italics).

    Whats the best way to get more fans/followers?

    The more attractive you are the better - of course naturally bigger brands attract more fans, because more people know about them / buy from them. But there's nothing to say that if you're cool at what you do it won't become viral! -Julia

    Post, post post! Put your event out there and ensure you make yourself known. It helps to have a great event as well. -Ann

    There are a lot of great ideas on how to connect with more people, but I believe that the most important way is to simply offer quality content which generates quality discussions. This takes practice and variety. Use text, images and videos to convey your message, and always invite people to discuss the content. Once people feel engaged and connected, they are more likely to share your business’s page or twitter with their friends or followers. -Ben

    Do you have any tips for getting more exposure to your posts?

    The more you listen and chat with those following you the more they want to talk and share their opinion. -Ann

    Learn to tag. It’s the easiest way to get your posts out there and engage more people. Both Facebook and Twitter give you the ability to tag all sorts of things in your posts. The ability to tag gives your updates a lot more character, coverage and exposure. -Ben

    Is there such a thing as too much information, ie. too many facebook or twitter updates? What's a recommended frequency of updates?

    Yes there is - really it should be based around your campaigns/strategic plans, make it a good fit to what you're doing & don't harass people with updates, messages etc - because it will work the other way for you. -Julia

    How should businesses avoid turning their fans/followers off when they're trying to push their products/services?

    Listen to the comments made, don't attack people, create a fun environment. We promote those who sponsor us but in return they give something for us to give to our followers, e.g we had movies passes as "prizes" so we promoted those movies and the sponsors. -Ann

    Be genuine, and be conversational. Social media really needs to be more about listening to the consumer rather than telling them what they want. It’s a very different dynamic to traditional advertising. If you can learn to listen socially, you’ll be in a good place to start promoting your products to your followers. -Ben

    Big thanks to Ben Teoh, Julia George and Ann for sharing their thoughts and experiences on Engaging people with Social Media.

    sources: allfacebook.com, Interview with Ben Teoh (Dec 2010), Interview with Julia George (Dec 2010), Interview with Ann (Dec 2010).



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    Competitor Analysis Basics

    Posted on Friday, February 4, 2011 by

    Competitor analysis is the process of determining who your competitors are on the web and how they conduct their business so you can identify opportunities to increase your profits.

    Your online competition can be identified as those who are competing for the same potential customers as you. They are often those who rank highly for keywords associated with your products or services. They can also be those who are competing for the same traffic as you from sources such as paid advertising, social media and directories.

    I found two really great articles from Allied Internet Productions covering Competition Research and Competition Analysis so rather than going in to depth I will refer you to them for more info.

    The most important parts of Competitor Analysis are:
    • Competitor Research- Determine who your online competitors are in order to analyse them.
    • Benefits Analysis- What are the key benefits of their (your competitors) products that they are highlighting?
    • Pricing Analysis- What are the prices of their products and services?
    • Content Analysis- What kind of content do they have? Is there anything important missing?
    • Targeted Search Term Analysis- Which keywords are they targeting?
    • SEO Analysis- How well are they Search Engine Optimised?
    • Technology/Tool Analysis- What technologies and tools are they using?
    • Usability Analysis- What are the usability strengths and weaknesses of their web properties?
    • Functionality Analysis- What are the primary functions of their web properties? Is their any important functionality missing?
    • Overall Strategy Analysis- An overall look at your competitor's online strategy
    There can be a fair amount of overlap in the research done for 'Competitor Analysis' and the research done for other aspects of your internet marketing.

    Your SEO analysis should include a backlink analysis to see which websites are linking to your competitors. This information will come in useful when you come to do Off Site SEO and are looking for websites to link to you.



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    Copywriting Adelaide

    Posted on Thursday, February 3, 2011 by

    Not to be confused with ‘copyrighting’ (which are the exclusive rights given to the creator of any original work), copywriting is the art of writing text (or ‘copy’) for sales/advertising purposes, such as brochures, newsletters, websites, TV/radio commercials, print ads or any other form of advertising communication which requires written text.

    While copywriting is predominantly focussed on sales/advertising content, most copywriters will also be adept at writing business documents, articles and website content. Sometimes you’ll find the term ‘content writer’ (a person who writes non-sales copy) used interchangeably with ‘copywriter’ – although these terms are not technically the same.     - Anna Butler from Copybreak

    Recommended Copywriters in Adelaide:
    See all recommended of Adelaide's recommended Internet Marketers in our directory.


    Tips from Adelaide's Copywriting Experts:

    Anna Butler of Copybreak:
    1. Always ensure you introduce the main subject points at the beginning of your copy (above the fold). Readers don’t want to have to scroll down to find the important/relevant information.
    2. Write for your audience. Don’t focus on who you are and what you’ve achieved – instead focus on who your audience is, what they need and how you can help them.
    3. Make sure your keywords fit with the natural flow of the copy. They shouldn’t stick out like a sore thumb – and wherever possible, ensure you incorporate them into your page headings.
    4. Avoid long, complicated sentences and paragraphs. Most people will skim through the copy, so make your message as easy as possible to read and understand.
    5. Keep your tone conversational. The web is much more like a face-to-face interaction, so write like you would speak (avoiding slang or profanity, of course)
    Karen Zaskolny of Copy with Cream:

    1. KISS – Keep It Simple Stupid. An oldie but a goodie.
    2. Check grammar, punctuation and spelling. Apostrophes especially. I have a blog of great advertising and copywriting boo-boos...
    3. Avoid jargon. Every industry has jargon. Don’t use it, you will alienate your audience. If you can find a simpler word to say something, use it. For example..require = need.
    4. Break it up. Nobody wants to read reams and reams of text. It looks too hard. Break it up with subheadings, bolding, bullet points, anything you can to make it easier to absorb.
    5. Cut and polish. Ladies – think ‘diamonds’, gentlemen – think ‘cars’. Cut and polish means edit, edit and edit again. Most of us over-write, so the trick is to cut out the waffle, to polish the words, craft the phrases, get rid of anything that doesn’t help your message. Most people just write something down, then that’s it. The best copy you will read has been edited many, many times.
    Top posts on this subject:
    > Read our latest posts on Copywriting



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    Video Marketing Adelaide

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    Video Marketing is the process of using online video as a method of communication information to potential customers to convert them into sales and leads.

    Recommended Video Marketers in Adelaide:
    See all recommended of Adelaide's recommended Internet Marketers in our directory.

    Tips from the Video Marketing Experts:

    James Whitrow of Get Seen Online on a few questions:

    'What are the main factors to making a video go viral?'
    • There's definitely something to having an X factor
    • Marketing is also important
    • It has push boundaries and there’s got to be something that makes you want to share
    • Short - around 1 to 3 minutes
    • Video and audio quality are important, people need to see and hear clearly what’s going on. Sound extremely obvious, but overlooked by so many videos. For some videos the music can make or break the video.
    What are five things that small business owners can do to leverage online video for marketing?
    • The most important thing is to get good quality content. Think about what content might interest your customers, what do you see everyday that they might find interesting?
    • Steer away from blatant self promotion
    • Do research. See what kind of videos are popular on Youtube in your niche and use Google’s keyword tool to see what people are searching for
    • If you don't have much editing skill or software, plan your shot carefully to try and shoot everything in sequence so there's not much editing required.
    • Ask around, there’s plenty of people involved in film in some way who can help and advise.
     Top Video Marketing Articles:
    > Read Our Latest Posts on Video Marketing




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      Web Development Adelaide

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      Web development is a broad term for the work involved in developing a web site for the Internet (World Wide Web) or an intranet (a private network). This can include web design, web content development, client liaison, client-side/server-side scripting, web server and network security configuration, and e-commerce development.- Wikipedia

      Wicked Cow Marketing provides Website Development services for Adelaide and the Adelaide Hills. They build functional websites that are professional, easy to use, easy to update and great value for money.

      Contact Wicked Cow Marketing today for a Free Consultation






      Top posts for this subject:



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      Website Usability Adelaide

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      Usability is the ease of use and learnability of a human-made object. The object of use can be a software application, website, book, tool, machine, process, or anything a human interacts with.- Wikipedia



      Top posts on this subject:



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      Social Media Marketing Adelaide

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      Social media marketing is a recent addition to organizations’ integrated marketing communications plans. Integrated marketing communications is a principle organizations follow to connect with their targeted markets. Integrated marketing communications coordinates the elements of the promotional mix;advertising, personal selling, public relations, publicity, direct marketing, and sales promotion.- Wikipedia


      Recommended Social Media Marketing Providers in Adelaide:

      See all recommended of Adelaide's recommended Internet Marketers in our directory.

      Tips from the Social Media Marketing Experts:

      Tom Williamson of Twillyon Social Media Solutions


      How do you get more fans & followers?
      • Organically.
      • Promote through your offline marketing.Have a 'like' and/or 'follow' button on your website as well as sharing tools on each page.
      • On Twitter having lots of followers may give you some credibility but its more important to get the right followers.Facebook- Organically, get people to interact.
      • Run competitions and campaigns.
      • Be sure to follow Facebook's Terms and Conditions. I have seen several prominent pages with strong followings shutdown for running and illegal competition.

      Top posts on this subject:



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      Search Engine Optimisation Adelaide

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      Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the "natural" or un-paid ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results.- Wikipedia 


      Recommended SEO Providers in Adelaide:
      See all recommended of Adelaide's recommended Internet Marketers in our directory.

      The search engines are trying to return the best results for a given search. Internet marketers, SEO's and website owners are trying to make themselves or their clients rank closer to the top, regardless if they have the best website or not. As a result, Google keeps their ranking algorithm mostly private to prevent people from exploiting the ranking factors that they use. This doesn't stop the internet marketers because the potential reward if they are able to figure out how to rank well is enormous. What results is a constant cat and mouse battle between Google and the internet marketing and SEO companies. Google is so sophisticated now that many SEO experts agree that the best approach is to try and follow Google's guidelines, and produce the best content, rather than trying to cheat your website to the top.

      Google is upfront about some of the factors they use and some others have been figured out to a high degree of certainty by experts in the SEO community. The links below have the most up to date information regarding ranking factors and Google's guidelines regarding SEO.

      Tips from Adelaide's SEO Experts:

      Tony McCreath of Website Advantage:
      1. Page Titles for SEO
      2. Submit your website to local directories (HotFrog, TrueLocal, StartLocal….)
      3. Create a Google Places entry for your business
      4. Register with Google Webmaster Tools and see if your website has a problem
      5. Add content, then add more content
      Internet Marketing Tips from Clayton Wehner of Bluetrain Enterprises:
      1. Independent (or third party) review of your web presence - an ongoing process; keep asking yourself how your web presence can be improved
      2. Write great content- blog or articles
      3. Try search engine marketing - get a free Google voucher and trial a campaign- it's cost effective and trackable
      4. Contact like-minded businesses, suppliers and associations that you are a member of and ask for a link to your website
      5. Publish your website URL everywhere such as your brochures, business cards and other promotional material


      Resources:
      Top posts on this subject:



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      Pay Per Click (PPC) Adelaide

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      Pay per click (PPC) is an internet advertising model used on websites, where advertisers pay their host only when the ad is clicked.- Wikipedia


      PPC Tips from the Experts:

      Chris Schwarz of The Search Guys:
      1. Compelling offer and call to cation
      2. Landing page that replicates the message
      3. Conversion tracking setup
      4. Keyword research using a keyword tool and/or competitive research software
      5. Give it a shot! It's costing you more money not to try Adwords.
      Andrew Webber of SEO Maverick:

      1. Use one of the free advertising vouchers from Google
      2. Set up a small campaign based on a couple of local keywords and use to determine market size, competitive and potential – then use this to power your SEO efforts
      3. Use it to drive customers to your site and sign them up to your mailing list
      4. Use in conjunction with your Google places page to dominate your local area
      5. Start right away!
       Top posts on this subject:



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      Internet Marketing Plan Adelaide

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      Before starting any internet marketing activities you should do the appropriate research and come up with a strategy and plan that will achieve your goals and give you the best return for your time and investment.


      Top posts on this subject:



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      Mobile Marketing Adelaide

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      Mobile Marketing is a set of practices that enables organizations to communicate and engage with their audience in an interactive and relevant manner through any mobile device or network.- Wikipedia


      Top posts on this subject:



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      Local SEO Adelaide

      by

      Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the "natural" or un-paid ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results.

      SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, video search and industry-specific vertical search engines.- Wikipedia

      Recommended Local SEO Providers in Adelaide:


      Resources:
      Top posts on this subject:



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      Link Building Adelaide

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      Link building is an important part of search engine optimisation. Many search engines, most notably Google, consider links to a website as votes for that website. The authority and weight of the vote depends on the quality, relevancy and authority of the website providing the link.


      Wicked Cow Marketing provides Link Building as part of their SEO Services for Adelaide and the Adelaide Hills. They focus on content development, link building, on-site optimisation and social search.

      Contact Wicked Cow Marketing today for a Free Consultation




      Top posts on this subject:



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      Keyword Research Adelaide

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      Keyword research is a practice used by search engine optimisation professionals to find and research actual search terms people enter into the search engines when conducting a search.- Wikipedia

      Wicked Cow Marketing provides Keyword Research as part of their Search Engine Optimisation services for Adelaide and the Adelaide Hills. They focus on content development, link building, on-site optimisation and social search.

      Contact Wicked Cow Marketing today for a Free Consultation





      Top posts on this subject:



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      Facebook Marketing Adelaide

      by

      Facebook is a social network service and website launched in February 2004 that is operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. As of January 2011, Facebook has more than 600 million active users.- Wikipedia

      Facebook Marketing is any use of Facebook for marketing.


      Top posts on this subject:



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      Email Marketing Adelaide

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      E-mail marketing is a form of direct marketing which uses electronic mail as a means of communicating commercial or fund-raising messages to an audience.- Wikipedia


      My top posts on this subject:



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      Conversion Optimisation Adelaide

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      In internet marketing, conversion rate is the ratio of visitors who convert casual content views or website visits into desired actions based on subtle or direct requests from marketers, advertisers, and content creators.- Wikipedia

      Recommended Conversion Optimisation Providers in Adelaide:

      See all recommended of Adelaide's recommended Internet Marketers in our directory.

      Our top posts on this subject:



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      Affiliate Marketing Adelaide

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      Affiliate marketing is a marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate's own marketing efforts.- Wikipedia



      My top posts on this subject:



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      Media Mouse Company Profile

      Posted on Wednesday, February 2, 2011 by


      Company Name: Media Mouse
      Founded: 2004
      Key Personnel: Ian Reilley (Director)
      Products/ Services: SEO, website conversion optimization, website design, Affiliate marketing
      Specialty: Conversion Optimisation
      Price Range: Varies depending on client needs.
      Guarantee: Your business will be on Page 1 on Google for your business type. (Guarantee Terms)
      Clients: Wall Street Journal, Singapore Airlines, Paypal, Disney


      Contact Details


      Address: 99 King William Road, Unley, SA 5061 Australia.
      PO BOX 511, Unley, SA 5061 Australia
      Email: info@media-mouse.com
      Phone: +61 8 8172 1757
      Fax: +61 8 8271 7541

      Sources: media-mouse.com, Interview with Ian Reilley (Dec 9th 2010).



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      Keyword Research- Superplay

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      The process and results of keyword research and analysis done for the Superplay case study.


      The keyword research conducted for this project has been compiled into a Google docs spreadsheet available here: Superplay Keyword Research

      Methodology
      1. Open Google's Adwords Keyword Tool
      2. Click on 'Advanced Options' and select Australia instead of the US
      3. Type in 'Play Cafe Adelaide' and transfer the data into a new spreadsheet tab
      4. Type in 'Childrens Parties Adelaide' and transfer the data into a new tab
      5. Prune the irrelevant terms and the monthly data columns
      6. Collect all the terms from the two tabs that include the word 'Adelaide' and move them into a list in another tab
      7. Create an 'SEO Score' for each term by dividing the local monthly searches by the competition
      8. Order the terms in each tab by SEO Score, from largest to smallest
      9. Highlight the most relevant terms in yellow
      10. Group terms made up of the same or very similar words by drawing a box around them
      11. List the top groups of terms for each tab on the results tab
      12. Highlight the groups of terms in yellow that you are going to target

      Results

      The terms the research showed we should target are highlighted in yellow on the results page with preference given to those closer to the top. I discarded some of the terms on the results page as I thought they were too general and too competitive for a new website to have a chance ranking for.

      [This article is part of the Superplay Cafe Case Study. See the latest articles in the case study here or head over to the case study index for all the articles.]



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      Web Development & Design Basics

      Posted on Tuesday, February 1, 2011 by

      The steps for creating the web properties that will deliver the content to your visitors and drive them to convert into customers. Content should always be put before design.


      The five basics steps of development are:
      1. Content
      2. Technology
      3. Structure
      4. Design
      5. Test & Improve
      The order of the steps indicates the order they should be done in as well as a rough guide to the importance of each step. For instance, Content is always more important than design.

      Content

      Web content includes:
      • Articles
      • Headings
      • Tag lines
      • Multimedia
      • Information
      • Onsite SEO
      • Usability
      • Analytics
      You should start developing content early as it can be quite time consuming.

      Technology

      This is the technology that will house and deliver your content to your market. Included in this step is determining which web properties you want to develop eg. Website, Facebook Page, Google Place Page etc.

      Structure

      The structure of the content is an important step which should be considered as the content is being developed. It encompasses the structure and layout of each page and the structure of all the pages. It also includes the navigation system through which the different pages are accessed.

      Design

      Design is the look and feel of the website. The design should work with the technology to highlight and enhance the content.

      Test & Improve

      This step is an ongoing one which should be revisited often. Conversion optimisation relies on continually testing and improving the web properties so that more visitors convert.

      Testing involves:
      • Usability & Accessibility testing
      • Cross Browser Testing (Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari)
      • Cross OS Testing (Mac, Windows, Linux)
      • Cross Device Testing (Desktop, Laptop, Netbook, Smart Phone, Tablet)



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