Tag Archive for 'seo'

Is Your Website Broken?

Published
by
Christian Bowman
on June 30, 2009
in General
. 1 Comment

Want develop an online component to your business - but don’t know how? Internet Marketing is much easier than 10 years ago, thanks to a variety of helpful software - from setting up your site, to bringing clients to see it, to mass emailing people with your offer, to tracking how many people have actually opened your email.

There is software out there for every aspect of running your online business – let’s take a look at a few options.

How Good Is Your Website?
How much traffic you get is the key to success. Do you really know how good your website is?

Some Free Tools
A very useful and free tool is http://www.grader.com/ You can get a score of your website, Facebook, Twitter and a few others. At least grade your website. Each time you make a change check your grading.

This grader will analyse the market effectiveness of your site. It is also a Search Engine Optimisation tool - a strategy that maximizes the opportunities that your site will show on search engines like Google and Yahoo when people type in phrases related to your products/services.

If the SEO tool shows very little optimization, it means that you need good writers who are specialized in SEM (Search Engine Marketing).

Also have a look at http://www.linkvendor.com It does a similar job. In some ways it’s a better tool for grading your website and keywords.

Find The Best Software
What software should you buy to market your site? Don’t be fooled by pretty website designs; that’s not what you want. You want a website that will reach thousands of potential customers. Have a look at http://www.hubspot.com/products for some useful information.

Peter Caputa, the author on the hubspot blog, suggests…
“Don’t just stop with a content management system. Make sure you can launch landing pages (the page that appears when a potential customer clicks on an advertisement or a search-engine result link) and edit the right spots on your pages to do SEO.”

Make sure you have a marketing analytics package that knows where your leads are coming from. Based on my experience, it’s very beneficial if your SEO analytics tools gather data from your analytics package and your customer relationship management integrates with your landing pages.

Others Can Help You
OK, it’s a bit confusing at first. But you don’t have to learn all the technical jargon. If you team up with a reputable marketing company (do your homework, just like for any supplier), they will do most of the work for you. After all, there are specialist internet marketing companies that can help you out.

You Must Have Good Copy
I mentioned skilled writers at the beginning to help you obtain the most benefits from search engines. One place that you can try, probably the most successful in the freelance business, is http://www.elance.com

There you will find a whole array of specialists who can help your site become successful, from copywriters, to web designers, to SEO specialists, to software engineers. There is a profile for each provider that lets you choose the most experienced and most competent for much less money than through a regular supplier.

And don’t forget the social networking.

HubSpot also suggests…
“This may be obvious now, but you’ll be much more successful if you can connect online with your real world clients, suppliers and networking partners. If you can get your whole network blogging or using LinkedIn effectively, you’ll stand a much better chance of success yourself.”

Most Important
Make sure you have an effective tool to measure your response rate from your email campaign (Oh, yes, email remains the most effective tool to sell something on the Web).

Again, choose the software you use carefully. Some products are very expensive. You may want to start with a cheaper software that gives you the basics.

In other words, how many targets opened your email (the text is extremely important, so consult a specialist) and how many of those actually clicked on your link (that will take them to your site).

CALL TO ACTION
1. I have built up some good contacts when it comes to Internet Marketing. If you have any questions or want to know where to get advice

OR

If you want some help with technology to handle your internet marketing…

Then contact me:
gail <at> achaeus.com.au. This email address comes direct to me and is the best address to use.

2. Use Google Analytics (www.google.com/analytics) to measure statistics related to website visitors. It’s the best. There are other choices but you can’t go wrong with Google Analytics.

3. Keep track of email statistics like open rates and links clicked for all emails you send to your mailing list. Your email ‘Subject Line’ is a key component for getting emails opened. Monitor different email ‘Subject Lines’ for open rates.

3 Ways To Get Into the “Good Books” with Google

Published
by
Christian Bowman
on October 3, 2008
in General
. 0 Comments

 Google Webmaster Tools

There are lots of things related to Search Engine Optimisation to get good rankings on Google. But sometimes it’s easy to forget the basics. Here are 3 ways very basic ways to ensure your website is in Google’s good books.

1. Sign up for Google Webmaster Tools.

This will enable you or your website techy to see what Google sees on your website.  Why do this? Well using webmaster tools allows you to identify broken links, broken pages but more importantly tell Google what it should index to increase your visibility in the search results.

I worked with a client who had a website which was coming up as  “Warning, do not view this page” in the Google search link to their site. By using webmaster tools, it was identified that there was a vulnerability with  their CMS software from not updating it. I could then use Google webmaster tools to check and verify all of the links and connections of the site with Google’s “Goggles” so to speak. I was even then, via the webmaster tool console, able to contact a Google admin to review the site after I had patched the CMS software.

I also use Google webmaster tools to ensure Google uses the primary link achaeus.com.au opposed to www.achaeus.com.au. What’s the difference? I’ll write up a blog post about that next week.

2. Use relevant descriptive titles for your page headlines, page names and Heading (H1,H2 etc) tags.

It’s fairly basic in terms of making sure Google gets what it wants from your website. It’s all about consistency. If you have a title of a page about your company’s services with the name untitled.htm instead of services.htm then page is less relevant than another site. This applies to page titles and headline titles.

Here is an example of your site structure should look like for a page called Company Services:

Page name: “services.htm” (depending on if you’re using html site, could be .php, .asp etc)

Page title: “Company Services - ABC Company” (Have the name of your page before your company name in the page title)

Headline name: “Company Services” (Make sure its a H heading tag instead just paragraph made bold and bigger)

These seem very basic, but it can be so easily to just put aside for “next time”.

3.  Don’t make your site a “dead end”.

Whilst it’s great to get heaps of relevant sites linking to you, it’s also good practice to link to other sites. The web is about sharing information, and if you don’t want to engage and share then the web doesn’t want to know about you. From a Google point of view, they can see if you are a “dead end”. And like driving through the back streets of the City, nobody likes trying to navigate through roads dominated by signs with “No through road” on them.

If there is anything you reference, whether it be venue, event, or something that may not be in your audience’s vocab, help them out. If you’re scared they won’t come back, make the link appear in a new window. Your techy will know how to do this. Otherwise people will appreciate showing them the way, and they too will keep you on their “Good Books”.

If you want to take this further and enter the world of Search Engine Optimisation, then sign up for the weekly newsletter at SiteProNews, I’ve been on their mailing list for over 6 years.

Day 1 of our Internet Marketing Workshop in Brisbane

Published
by
Christian Bowman
on April 3, 2008
in Events
. 2 Comments

Achaeus Internet Marketing Workshop Brisbane

Yesterday was Day 1 of our 2-day Internet marketing workshop at the Bardon Conference Centre in Brisbane.

In a packed house, we had our guest speakers presented to the delegates some new ways of getting the Internet and their websites to generate leads, get traffic and convert to sales. We have delegates from the SME, Government and Non-Profit sectors and in multiple industries.

We had Gail Geronimos Introduce the event, Andrew and Daryl Grant were our Keynote speakers and talked about how the transition from traditional marketing to Internet Marketing has helped them. Sue Gardiner talked about copywriting for Internet Marketing. We had Matt and Amanda Clarkson who has developed an eBay business share their story. Barnaby De Palma from Alive online talked about Blogging, Social networks and SEO.

I’ll be speaking today (Day 2) about technology, automation, SPAM and metrics  along with Monte Huebsch from AussieWeb Conversion who will be talking about Google Adwords, Meyrick Adams from Gen3 Media talk about his Email marketing solution. West Loh will be introducing online outsourcing options. Then Andrew and Daryl Grant will discuss Internet Strategy to be concluded with Gail Geronimos on “Putting it all together”

I’ve been rehearsing my talk, I’m covering quite a bit and when it comes to technology, it’s important to be succinct as possible. My job is to help the delegates understand how technology can help instead of confusing them with jargon and detail.

If you are at the workshop today, I’d love your comments, not only on my talk, but also my fellow speakers.