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Social Media Network Marketing Etiquette

August 25th, 2010

Social Media Networks such as Facebook, Twitter Youtube and LinkedIn is quickly becoming the latest trend in powerful business marketing.
Never has there been a marketing tool so dynamic that can promote your brand on a massive scale and link you instantly to a global network of potential customers.

Social Media Marketing truly has the capability to generate awesome sales with almost no hard costs involved…just a little time, and a little marketing knowhow.

However, Social Media Network Marketing is a little different to traditional marketing. As the name suggests, it goes down to ‘networking’.

If you want to really success at online network marketing you need to focus on your etiquette.

Attracting Followers
Think of Social Media Networking in the same way you would traditional networking.
Don’t just follow anyone just because you want to be known by everyone, selectively search for followers you want to be associated with and that you can see the potential of a future business partnership.
Online social networks usually have an easy search tool allowing you to search keywords or business names to find others in a similar industry or the industry you want to attract to your business.
When you decide to connect with that person or business, send them a greeting to say ‘hi’ and introduce yourself. Keep it brief, simple and lighthearted.
First impressions can possibly be your only opportunity to connect with that person so as well as being informative, let them see your true character and also see how they can benefit by connecting to you.
Twitter only gives you 140 text characters, so it needs to be straight to the point, a little like having to introduce yourself and your business to someone in one single sentence.
Remember people don’t always respond straight away to your requests, so don’t keen trying every day if they don’t respond or you will just drive them nuts!
Give them time to respond to your request.

One of the easiest ways to get new followers on most social media networks is simply post messages that attract interest!
Whether it is a blog, a new Youtube clip or just a short tweet on Twitter, what you write and how you write it can be the difference to losing followers or gaining hundreds of new ones.
A social network doesn’t have to be 100% all about your business. What makes a social network really work is the personal touch you give it. People love to know about other people, even if they don’t really know them.
Post something insightful, a quirky message, add a little humour or even post a question for people to respond to, and people will respond to you, and your personality.
Sharing what you can do for them with interesting tips (like this blog post!) can be hugely successful in gaining new customers. It doesn’t have to always be about directly flogging your products all the time, otherwise you start looking like a television commercial…and we all hate TV commercials!

New Connections
When someone connects with you, always acknowledge them.
They have chosen to connect with you for one reason or another, whether it is just to make them look more popular or to actually want to genuinely be interested in what you do or sell, so so your appreciation and say thanks.
Drop them a short tweet or message back and tell them thanks for following and let them know you are always happy to help, or give your product a light plug.
For example, if you sell financial advice, your message could be ‘Hi Janet, thanks for following! Visit my blog (add web address) for more helpful hints on reaching your financial goals”
You will then be not only acknowledging them as a person by adding their name, but also directing them to your website or blog, which they will most likely visit as soon as they get your message.
Now, add other Social Media Network buttons to your site or blog, like Facebook, and you will find they will also start following you there as well, which then every time you post a message on Facebook they will receive and their friends will also see it, attracting new potential friends for you!
It’s a simple little system, but works very well!

Posting Etiquette
Whether you have decided to connect with others or they have connected to you, the secret of retaining them is in your posts.
Keep your audience interested but also always remember to watch what you type. The worst thing about the internet is that you can’t really express yourself humanly.
You can’t actually laugh, smile, frown, cry, show love, etc. And sometimes what you write can come out sounding not like what you really intended.
So always re-read your messages before hitting the send button. Social Media messages have the potential to spread like wildfire…if your message is witty or useful people will click their ‘like button on Facebook or retweet it on Twitter, but if it comes across rude or annoying, people may also retweet this, which can instantly give your business a bad name.
Don’t ever badmouth an actual identity online (even if they are a politician!). Your views may not be that of others, and when you send that message out into cyberspace, there could be many more people reading than just your network.
The old saying what goes around comes around can bite you on the bum!

Happy social networking!

Author Chris Bourke of Devision Design and WebSEOCoach.com
Chris is a graphic designer, web developer and online social media marketer.


Follow Chris on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/webseocoach
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Property Project Marketing in a Global Financial Crisis

August 23rd, 2010

Over the past 18 months or so we have seen many sectors of the retail, property and financial market drop, and still continuing to fall.

The property and housing market in particular has been hit hard by the GFC.
But is it really the global financial crisis to blame, or a global marketing crisis?

A few years back when the financial market was a blossom of buyers ready to throw their money into every new development and investment properties, marketers really didn’t have to push their marketing too hard..
A few billboards, good press advertising, nice glossy brochures, a few Television commercials in primetime spots and they had the sales rolling in.

But as the GFC kicked in sales started to slow down, and people weren’t as committed to hand over their hard earned cash, mainly concerned or scared of financial security.

So what has really changed.. the marketplace, the mindset of the consumer?

Are the marketing and advertising professionals adapting to this change and counteracting the situation?

Are property marketers still thinking inside their square and not looking at a bigger picture?

Many advertising professionals still look to the traditional methods of marketing because in the past it has proven to work for them.
Smart TVC marketing, elegant brochure designs worked a treat, and quality press advertising in premium publications. Maybe even a nice looking website to sell the product.

Apart from the website, the problem with these other traditional forms of marketing is they are not really trackable.
Does your ‘marketing guru’ know the age of every single person that saw your advert, can they tell you how many times that person read the magazine ad, or if they are english speaking or foreign?
And most important, did they capture that person’s details for future potential marketing?
The answer to most of the above is probably not.

If doesn’t really matter how glossy your brochure is, how ‘wow’ your TV ad is, or how nice your website is, if it doesn’t capture your target audience, and more importantly doesn’t capture your audience’s details for potential sales, you may as well sack your marketing and design team.

Traditional marketing is dead.

Here is a few helpful tips on how to enhance your traditional marketing and make spectacular sales through a Global Financial Crisis:

1. If you are doing TV advertising, make sure your ad has a link on the screen to point people to a special page on your website, so you can track the effectiveness of your TVC campaign.
This could even be a series of ads all pointing to different web pages to monitor which works most effectively.
If you are selling a real estate project the page must have an enquiry form to capture leads. Provide an attraction to entice the viewer to subscribe to your marketing form.
This may be as simple as a download of your brochure, or something more impressive like a night’s accommodation at one of your hotels. For the cost of a night’s accommodation this is still extremely cheap marketing.
This enquiry form should be linked to a professional email marketing system such as Aweber. Don’t try doing email marketing through Outlook..it is a guaranteed way to fail!
Aweber allows you to set up automated campaigns so you can send targeted marketing on a scheduled basis to your market. Most people don’t impulse buy real estate and won’t usually purchase on first contact, so targeting them with scheduled email marketing will usually eventually hook them. This is where traditional brochures and TV ads can’t compete.

2. Brochure Marketing – A nice glossy brochure is great, but again only if there is added value for the reader. If it is simply showing nice design and photos and not really prompting them to want to find out more it usually ends up in the rubbish in a few days. The brochure should always have a link to the website as well, allowing them to sign up for a special VIP membership, so they get first pick at new real estate projects. Adding ‘VIP’, ‘Exclusive’, or even ‘FREE Membership’ and people feel important and want to sign up. They are no longer just part of your anonymous marketing campaign…they become a ‘person’ to you and feel special. remember, these are the people that could turn out to million dollar clients in time, so capturing them and treating them nicely is important. The usual marketing brochures don’t do that and usually can cost a sale.

Incorporate online social media into your brochure – Adding links to your Twitter, Facebook and Youtube accounts [help your potential audience to interact with your business and extend your branding online.
These people that connect usually share their links with their friends, usually with similar interests, and before you know it you have a global audience of thousands.

3. Press Advertising – Similar to brochure advertising, your press needs to draw your market to a webpage to capture your audience, and again you can also do this through other online networks such as Youtube.
Upload your TVC to Youtube and then add a link in your press ad. A press advertisement is very two-dimensional and capturing an audience with a few sales words, a nice design and a couple of static photos of a new real estate project is pretty bland. Drive traffic to a video can secure a deal. Make sure you brand up your YouTube Channel with the company logo, and a few tricky advertising tools to drive them back to your site to sign up to your mailing list.

4. Website – I see a lot of property developers and real estate websites which are usually designed by a ‘graphic designer’, not a ‘web developer’. What’s the difference?
It doesn’t matter how good a graphic designer you might be, unless you know how to apply the principles of website development and internet marketing your nice shiny design won’t hit awesome sales, especially in hard financial times.
The website needs to work as a marketing tool, not just an online brochure.
Make sure you pack it with all the tools required to capture the online marketplace, and think big. Remember, your audience is GLOBAL. You have potential sales leads coming from every corner of the world viewing your website and looking at your properties.

Adding tools such as Language Translation tools, the enquiry marketing forms (mentioned above), Social Networking links, Google Maps, A live chat support system, TVC videos on your homepage, plus the standard tools to create traffic, such as search engine optimisation, will help turn your website into the the most powerful marketing tool (and probably the most cost effective) you could ever have.
Most of the tools mentioned here are totally free, so if you’re not using them you should be.

If you can’t get at least 1000 good leads a day in Property Marketing with modern marketing tools you advertising team is doing something wrong.

before planning your next big ‘traditional’ marketing campaign, consider if your current marketing is really working for you.
Maybe a few changing in the way you market could change the global financial crisis, for your business at least.

Author: Chris Bourke – Devision Design Australia and WebSEOCoach.com
Chris Bourke is an graphic designer, web developer and Internet marketer, who also runs a online global accommodation network.

Follow Chris on Twitter at twitter.com/devision or twitter.com/webseocoach

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5 Ways to Market Your Business With LinkedIn

August 19th, 2010

When it comes to online social networks for business, it’s hard to beat LinkedIn.

One of the main differences between LinkedIn compared with other online social media networks is that LinkedIn is a business network rather than just an entertaining social network like Facebook, Myspace, etc.

LinkedIn allows you to connect with other business minded individuals and companies that you would like to work with, or already work with.

LinkedIn is the online hub where connections, friendships and partnerships are created, business leads are generated and business deals can happen!
If your business is not on LinkedIn you could be missing out on valuable business.

I’d like to share my top 5 ways to market your business with LinkedIn:

1. Creating New Leads

Imagine if your current offline business networks could generate you 100 fresh leads every single day! You’d probably be pretty happy with that, right?
LinkedIn can easily achieve this for you if you understand the basic know-how.

Creating a Group in LinkedIn attracts likeminded businesses and individuals to connect to your Group, but your Group must be interesting enough for people to want to join.
Your LinkedIn Group should relate to what you do, whether it is advice on helping people with understanding Tax (if you are an accountant), or just a general group you want to create to connect similar business partners in your local area. The Group you create is like setting up any group or club in the real world, where people with similar interests can mingle, chat and provide feedback.

You can use your LinkedIn Group to start conversations on current issues that affect your industry, and people will chip in their 2 cents worth and possibly help you find solutions. The main idea of the LinkedIn Group though is it provides a way to create a bond and trust between business owners and possibly even secure your reputation as an expert in your particular feed. This can lead to your connections followers wanting to connect with you as well, and soon you have a nice group of business connections that are willing to do business with you because you share a similar connection.

Another way to create leads is not only setting up your own group but also joining other LinkedIn groups, particularly in your local area. If you do a simple search you will find there are many groups of interest right in your business backyard. Join up, and join in the discussions. If people like your feedback they’ll want to connect with you and your group, and then their connections, etc. Building new business leads through LinkedIn is very simple!

How to Maximise Your Group:

In your Group profile make sure to include the keywords and description, as this will increase your rankings on LinkedIn’s searches, plus also in the search engines. Yes, LinedIn is also picked up well in Google!

Make sure your website or blog address is listed in your Group and personal profiles. This will drive traffic to your website, giving you more credibility (if you have a good website!)

If you have a Blog or a good Content Management System website, you can add your RSS feed to the group, so each time you add content or a blog post your group will see the headlines, prompting them to view the full article on your site. Another good web traffic generator. MAke sure you post regularly though.

Grow your group by connecting others in your group with a simple introduction. Building partnerships between members will see your group flourish quickly, and help your connections build their own leads at the same time.

Combine all these simple techniques above and you will generate leads real fast!

2. Creating Events

A great way to attract new connections is to create events. LinkedIn allows you to create and market an event, Whether it be an online presentation, a webinar or a real traditional seminar.
LinkedIn allows you to send an invitation to people, and RSVP to your event directly from your Event announcement, allowing them to share the event with others, and in turn attracting a much larger audience than you may have originally anticipated.

When someone RSVP’s your event it will show up on their home profile, which spreads the message for you automatically! Great cheap marketing!

3. Sending Personal greetings to new leads.

Once you find new leads, make sure you welcome them. Connecting with new people helps build trust and shows you are approachable. Get them on a personal level as possible, build the trust and this will lead to potential sales and business together down the track.
Prompt them with a few basic questions to find out more about themselves, their needs and how they could benefit with your services. Connecting is the key to any good business, offline or online.

4. Create an Advanced Search in Your Target Market

If you get smart and use the LinkedIn tools provided it is very easy to generate leads with Linkedin.
LinkedIn provides an Advanced Search function to allow you to connect with the exact people you want to connect with.
Don’t just try and connect with everyone or you will spend a lot of time chasing dead leads. The Advanced Search tool connects you fast to real leads that can work for you.

Simply search by keywords, industry, company, title and other criteria. It’s easy!

5. Build Your Credibility.

If you want to gather momentum on LinkedIn you need to get active! You can do this by simply asking and answering questions.
Set up the Answers Application on the bottom right hand side of your homepage for subjects you can relate to. People post questions all the time in your industry, and you can cement yourself as an expert by providing the right advice on posted questions. This can very quickly lead to work from the people you responded to, and their connections.

Before answering questions, research the person who asked the question, so you can provide a response that really works for them. Some questions have many answers, find the right one for that person and you strike a relationship.
be as helpful as possible so they don’t require any more advice. If you don’t have a genuine answer, don’t respond with half-guess or it can damage your reputation.

Always leave the answer with an open invitation for them to connect with you further. Even invite them to contact you in person, showing you are genuinely interested to help them.

Get Connecting on LinkedIn and watch your networks grow!

Author: Chris Bourke from Devision Design and WebSEOCoach.com
Chris Bourke is a web designer and online marketer from the Sunshine Coast in Australia, with a passion for online social media marketing.

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7 Steps to Top Search Engine Optimization Results with Google Caffeine

August 17th, 2010

Since the conception of the original Google search engine back in 1996, Google has undergone many revisions and updates to their site including the change in how the search engine functions, and the additional services that integrate into Google’s listing page. Yet none of these updates really changed the main structure of the Google algorithms until the most recent upgrade to Google Caffeine.

Many web developers saw immediate changes in how their website’s presence on Google site, even though they may not have changed their own website for some time. Some listings climbed, many fell.

When Google launched Caffeine they wanted to help ‘clean up’ the web at the same time, and in the process rewarded websites that were built well, and penalized sites that weren’t so good though may have got away with it in the past.

So what are the major factors to ensure your website ranks well on Google Caffeine?

1. Website Loading Speed
If you have a fast loading website, Google will most likely reward you and give you prominence over the slower loading websites, even if those other websites may be keyworded better than yours.
Try and avoid elements of your website which may make your site ‘clunky’, such as slow loading Flash graphics or Flash Navigation, large video content on the initial pages of your website, optimize your images so they load fast, and overall keep a nice balance between text and image content so each page loads as fast as possible.

2. Overall quality of your website
Previous versions of Google, webmasters were often told to minimize keywords to just a handful of the most specific keywords. To achieve a broader search spectrum, add a few more keywords than you used to, but don’t go overboard.
Alt tag images with a few more keywords than you used to, and overall ensure the body content of your page has the correct text with the specific keywords you want to be found under.

3. Broken Links
It’s already a common element of a good search engine listing that broken links can affect your ranking, but even more so than ever with Google Caffeine. Check and recheck that your links are all working correctly, and include a 404 page which has a link to your sitemap, to avoid any dead-ends by the search engines.

4. Linking to bad neighborhoods
While it can work to your advantage to get backlinks from other websites, do your research on these sites first and make sure they are not linked to spammer sites, or your ranking will drop swiftly.
stay away from Link farms which have a bad reputation. If in doubt, check them out in Google by searching the website name and the words ’spam review’ after it.

5. Get rid of any spam elements from your site
Google hates spam! remove anything that could be considered spam by Google, including over-use of keywords throughout a single page, hidden text, or even text that is a similar colour to the background. If you have more than one duplicate website, at least optimize it different from the original and move it to a different hosting provider so the IP address doesn’t match or Google will instantly recognize it’s the same site.

6. Review your website’s design and structure.
Make sure your website is user-friendly and easy to navigate. If it’s hard for site visitors it’s probably hard for the search engines too.
Each page title and description should be unique and relate to the content within that particular page.

7. Obtain links from social media websites and social bookmarks.
Links from social networking and bookmarking sites such as Delicious, Digg, Facebook and even Twitter give you huge brownie points with the search engines in regards to your placement.

Work on these features above and then resubmit your website to Google and you should see a change in your ranking in as little as a few weeks.
Don’t be surprised if you drop off the search engines totally for a couple of days.
Often when resubmitting a website with some major changes Google likes to start with a fresh listing to give you maximum results…if you deserve it!

Author: Chris Bourke – Devision Design and WebSEOCoach
Chris Bourke is a web designer and developer in Australia, who also specialises in SEO and affiliate marketing.
Follow Chris on Twitter: twitter.com/webseocoach

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How I sold $100,000 worth of accommodation online in one month, while I slept.

August 6th, 2010

If you are new to online marketing and want to make money fast, one of he easiest products to sell is hotel accommodation.

The online accommodation booking market is growing at a staggering 400% each year, with more people now starting to choose online bookings for accommodation than walking into a travel agent.

The beauty of online accommodation is that you have the option to easily compare the best rates at your own leisure, which is great if you already know the location you want to holiday at.
the other advantage of online accommodation websites is that you can read reviews of other people that have visited the same hotels or resorts and get some feedback. This feedback is a general overview but gives you a good idea that your travel agent might not be able to.
Often travel agents are paid incentives to try and get you into a particular hotel, so the advantage of choosing yourself online is great.

If you are looking at an online venture to make money while you literally sleep, hotel accommodation marketing online is great as the returns are high, so if you set your website up correctly you really don’t have to work to hard to market the website. You literally make money while you sleep.

Here is my story on how I turned a day’s work into $100,000 worth of sales in a single month with a simple, small, accommodation website.

A few years back as I was already designing and building accommodation websites for other people, I thought I’d try my hand at creating my own online accommodation website, more as a hobby website than anything else.
I chose the Whitsunday Islands as my niche as I am a regular visitor to the Whitsundays and Airlie Beach, so know the local area.
Yes, it’s a small niche, which was probably a mistake on my behalf as the internet is global. Since creating my Whitsundays website I now have 4 International hotel accommodation websites as well. So, before diving in, think big!

Step 1:Find your niche, and your niche market.

Find your accommodation niche. It might be schoolies accommodation, romantic holidays, luxury holidays (pays better, but sales are usually less than budget accommodation), or choose a particular location or country you would like to focus on.

The website design should also suit the location and your target audience. Don’t use dark black colours if you are promoting a luxury beachside resort. Take into consideration the age of the market you want to target. If they are younger you can make the website design a little more fun and funky, if they are older think about making the text larger, and with simple navigation.

Step 2:
Choose the right domain name

You will have greater success on the search engines if your domain name is specifically related to what you are selling. For instance, I chose www.WhitsundayApartments.com.au as I was selling Whitsunday Apartments, resorts and hotel accommodation. (I also registered WhitsundayHotels.com.au to cover more search terms).
By having your main website with a good domain and some simple but good search engine optimisation, you are almost guaranteed to be on the first page of Google, if not the #1 spot for at least this search term. If you can achieve this there is really no need to spend money on paid advertising to get a good sale rate.

Step 3:
Set up a website
Purchase a hosting account and create a website. I usually choose Hostgator.com web hosting for international accommodation websites because Hostgator are based in the United States, which means international visitors will have a faster viewing rate than if I host locally here in Australia. If the website audience was purely targeting Australians I would choose a local web provider in Australia, like Webcrowd.

Hostgator allows you to purchase one account and split it into multiple accounts, so if you want to build multiple websites there is no extra costs for hosting. You simply purchase additional domain names, split your initial hosting account and hook up the domain name to the newly split account, so it acts like a totally independent hosted website. Nice and cheap!

Step 4:
Building your website.
Believe it or not, this is actually the easy part of the process!
You don’t have to actually know anything about hotel accommodation bookings, or spend thousands on creating an expensive accommodation marketing system, you can start with one single webpage.
The hotel accommodation booking system itself is actually provided by an affiliated company, so you simply build a simple webpage and link to their system for free, and you generate income for each sale that is created through your website.

Obviously, you want to look professional, so for the return you will be getting it is worth hiring the services of a web designer for a day to create and set your website up for you. Make sure they also offer search engine optimisation services as part of the deal.

To get started, you will need to find an accommodation affiliate partner, such as HotelsCombined.com or HotelClub.com There are plenty to choose from, as well as Airlines, Car Hire, Tours and more holiday related products.
Many of the best online hotel brands will offer an affiliate program. You can find them by either scrolling to the footer of their website and look for Affiliate Program, or simply type in ‘Hotel Affiliate Programs’ into Google.
You usually need to have a basic website setup before they will approve you, so build a simple page first, and you can change it once you are approved.
Affiliate programs are usually free to join and on average pay around 6% to 10% per sale on the booking price. So on average if someone books say a week of accommodation for $2100 you would make $189 in commission from a single sale.
Thats not bad from one single booking! If you can get 10 bookings a day you will be doing nicely.

Most affiliate programs will provide you with an affiliate coded piece of script which you simple customise and then past into your webpage, which created the booking form on your page, allowing people to search through the hotel affiliate’s accommodation database. When they find and book, you make money! It really is that simple!

Step 5:
Optimising your website for the search engines
the major misconception with many web developers is they believe you need to flood a page with search engine specific keywords in order to achieve a good ranking. This is totally untrue. I can show you a number of examples I have created myself that have only 3 lines of text on the entire single page website and they achieve a #1 Google listing.
Choose the keywords that relate you your domain name, the target location and add them in a short paragraph or two at the most, and try and leave out as many non-specific words as possible, without the sentence sounding like it is written for the search engines to your visitors.

Run your website through a good SEO software package such as Web CEO before uploading and submitting your website to ensure it has a good keyword ranking. Web CEO will also let you submit your website for free to all the major search engines, usually with great results within days.


SEO software by Web CEO

And that is the step finished! Sit back and wait for the search engines to do their thing and the booking to flood in.
There is nothing better than waking up and finding you have earned your days’ pay before you were even awake!

$100,000 sales in a month for one day’s work isn’t bad, and the money keeps coming in each month for doing almost nothing.

Step 6: Marketing your website
If you want to really give your new website the extra push, you can use paid marketing such as Google Adwords to attract visitors, or include a Subscribe/VIP club newsletter form allowing people to sign up and be added to your mailing list for future marketing. This helps generate potential sales to people that have already visited your website.
Check out Aweber email marketing system which is perfect for this type of online marketing and promotions.

Of course, you can always book your own holidays through your own website, saving you on the full price of accommodation! You’ll never pay full price for your holiday again!

Happy online earnings!

About the Author:
Chris Bourke from Devision.com.au and WebSEOCoach.com
Chris is a web designer and online marketer, specialising in holiday accommodation website development for clients throughout Australia.

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Translating your website into an online global business

August 5th, 2010

These days having a website to promote yourself to the local community is not enough.

The beauty of the internet is that you have the potential to reach a totally global audience.
Even if you are only a small home based business, your little business can compete with the biggest companies online.

To do this though you need to think outside your corner of the globe.

Here are a few tips to make your website more ‘globally accessible’:

Communication is the Key
While it is all good to develop your website in English, remember there are many online visitors from other nationalities that may want to view this and don’t have perfect English skills.
If you regularly check your website statistics you will most likely see visitors from many foreign countries, and if your website is only in English you may be missing online sales due to the language barrier.
Make sure your website can be easily translated into other languages.
This is so simple yet rarely do you see translation tools added to most websites.
Google offers a free script that you simply add to your webpages which allows visitors to easily convert your HTML website to their native language by simply choosing the language they like!
Simple go to Google’s Translation page http://translate.google.com and select Tools and Resources and you will see the code you need to add to make your website translatable.

Is your Domain Name Global?
While the domain of your country is perfect for attracting local traffic, such as .co.uk, .com.au, etc, making sure you also have the .com domain is a must for global business.
You may not realise this, but Google.com and your local Google list your business very different, and tend to give preference to the domain that suits the local region more.
So if you are in Australia your .com.au domain will work great, but if you type in the same search term in say Germany’s Google, you probably won’t show up with your .com.au domain. In fact many international search engines won’t even add you to their local online search engines if you aren’t a .com domain.
Also, if you were in Australia and a .co.uk domain name came up in Google would you be as likely to purchase with them as you instantly realise they are in another country? Statistics show most people don’t, however they will purchase from a .com even though they are still in another country, because it is accepted as a global domain name.

Optimising your Website for International Traffic
Many people don’t consider the difference in the English language between countries, and a term that is popular in your country may not be the same in a foreign english speaking country.

For instance, in Australia you might holiday in an apartment and go drinking in a hotel, yet in the USA, you live in an apartment and holiday in a hotel!
In the USA you also go on ‘vacation’ rather than on ‘holiday’.

There are many instances where this occurs in English speaking languages, but it can be easily fixed.
Create your website as a local version and then simply set up a sub-directory and name that directory to suit the country. For example www.yourwebsite.com/US or www.yourwebsite/Australia
Then simple duplicate the entire website but change certain terms to suit the local language you want to target, and then on your homepage create a link to the different local directories.

This will not only make it easier for your online visitors, but will help with your international rankings on the search engines.

Author: Chris Bourke from Devision.com.au and WebSEOCoach.com
Visit www.WebSEOCoach.com and download Chris’s free ebook on Twitter Marketing Made Easy

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The real price of a website?

July 29th, 2010

When it comes to web development it is always interesting to see the reaction of the potential client when I produce a quote.

Smart business owners who know the importance of a good website usually think I am too cheap, the rest usually choke on the price.

See, most people don’t see past that dollar sign on the quote and understand the real potential and power of the internet, and the fact that there are ‘websites’ and then there are online marketing websites.

Every time I build a website I try to encourage the client to think past using their website as an online poster, but create a website that works as a powerful marketing tool.

Sure adding in value might mean paying a little more, but in the long term, or even as little as a week, you will see the returns pay for themselves.

I’d like to share a recent example…I had a potential client who owns a motorcycle shop ask me for a quote on the rebuild of an existing website. The website looked ‘okay’ at first glance, but it wasn’t working as a marketing tool, it was more like a roadside hoarding online, and probably not directly making him any money.
After a quick review I found at least 20 things that could be improved on the website to most likely double his profits, yet when I presented the quote, (which was less than one of his average motorcycles!) he balked at it.

Now, I’m not giving this chap a hard time…I get this reaction a lot from people that don’t understand the power of the internet.

If I were to put it into simple terms for him it would be easier to compare a website to a motorcycle..
Firstly, the difference between a motorcycle and a website would most likely be that you pay a big price for a motorcycle with maybe around 35% of the total price probably going to the dealer, another 20% going to shipping/export costs, another 5% going to the manufacturers big marketing campaigns, which leaves you with a 40% value, which then depreciates each time you ride it. Then of course you have registration, insurance, fashion accessories, etc. Unless you run a postal or courier service, that motorcycle probably isn’t going to provide a return worth way more than what you purchased it for.
(These figures may be incorrect – I build profitable websites, not sell motorcycles, so I am approximating the breakdown of costs.)

On the other hand, a website designed as a marketing tool will most likely pay for itself within months and then continue to make money for you, in some cases while you sleep, depending on what type of business you have. Keep the website for a few years and I usually see a 800% or more return on investment.

So while a motorcycle is fun to ride, I’d love to have someone get me an 800% return on my purchase after a few years.
I’d jump at the chance to purchase one if that were the case!

Yet, explained so simply, people still don’t get it.

So how do you add value to a website to get an 800% return?

Let’s look at just a few of the basics…

Always make sure your website is well branded.
If you have a logo you use for your business/business cards/stationery/press ads, use the same logo and colour scheme on your website so your brand is strong and consistent. Branding is everything!

Make contact simple.
I see so many websites (including the motorcycle site mentioned) that don’t have a phone number visible, or they have it way down in the footer of a long scrolling page. Thats perfect, if you DON’T want people to call you!
always try and keep the phone number near the top of the website, and reinforce it on every page of your site, in the same location, and even throughout your web content.
Add a contact form on your website so people can contact you outside of business hours, and add clearly defined links in your main text that link to the contact form (eg CLICK HERE TO CONTACT US).
And make sure the links actually click through to the page! It’s amazing how many people forget to add a live click through link or forget to test it.

Create a marketing list of potential clients
It doesn’t take much to set up an automated email marketing system with a simple form on your homepage to entice people to join your mailing list. Adding a mailing list to your website is one of the most important marketing tools a website can have, and you will find on average your potential client database will grow around 400% every week!
Using an email marketing system such as Aweber allows you to easily add a contact form into your website, and the contact details of each person that signs up is saved to a database for future email marketing, which is fully trackable for each campaign.

Online Brochure
When people are visiting your website looking for a particular product, odds are they are also going to look at your competitors websites as well. If they visit a bunch of competitors sites there is always a good chance they will forget your web address. Add a downloadable PDF flyer of your latest products to your website, so they have something to keep after they leave your website. Ideally kill two birds with one stone and add the downloadable brochure into the Mailing List subscribe form, so you collect their data each time someone wants a copy of your PDF brochure. Your marketing database will grow fast!

If you are marketing a product (such as motorcycles), they look much better when they are moving rather than a static photo. Adding a Youtube clip into your website is quick and easy and adds another dimension to your website, plus it creates additional online marketing for you through Youtube. Youtube videos allow you to create a live link from the videoclip to your website, producing much more potential traffic for your website.

Online Social Networking
‘Tweeting’ new products through Twitter, and adding the Facebook ‘Like’ button to your website allow visitors to share your product marketing with their friends, who usually share similar interests. This creates a great deal of website traffic for you and potentially a lot more new business. Social Network marketing is a must of the modern age of online marketing.

Search Engine Optimisation
We all know the importance of being on the first page of Google, yet a lot of people struggle to get their website up there.
google is not as complex as many people make out, and a few simple steps can see you reach a page one spot on Google, and retain it. Always ask your web developer to include search engine optimisation when they build your website, and ask them to integrate Google Analytics into your website so you can monitor the results of where your visitors are coming from and how they found you online.

Ask for feedback
Unless you ask your website visitors for feedback you won’t really know how you are performing online. Website visitors’ feedback can really help you create a successful online marketing tool and most people are happy to give feedback if you ask. Add a Feedback form on your website in the footer, or simply ask through Twitter occasionally and review the responses. It’s always good to look at your business from the other side of the window!


Author: Chris Bourke of Devision Design and Web SEO Coach.

Chris is a graphic designer, web developer, internet marketing and SEO expert based in Australia

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The Recipe for a Successful Website

July 20th, 2010

If you are considering the thought of creating a new website or blog, whether to just promote your business online, or in order to make money online, the easiest way to ensure success is to think of your website as a meal.

Before creating your website, just like cooking any meal, there are a number of things to consider:

Planning. When it comes to creating a successful meal, unless you are a master chef you don’t just hope the ingredients in your refrigerator are going to create an award winning dish. There are a number of elements to think about, such as who is going to be eating the meal, how many ingredients and how much of each ingredient is the correct amount to get the perfect flavour and texture, how will you present the final product, and most important of all…is it something they will enjoy.

Your website should be no different.
Before diving in and hoping your website will magically be a success, think about who will be reading it (eg, gender, age, etc), how many categories, topics or pages your website or blog needs to cover. Too little it might not cover enough to be interesting, too many and it is hard for you to complete or just too much for your reader to absorb. Finding the correct balance in content is critical.

And like a meal, getting the ‘texture and flavour’ is very important. Your website or blog could be the most informative site out there, but if it doesn’t have any character to it it will be just plain boring! Add some humour, something unique, or just your own quirky twist to brand it as your own unique ‘dish’ and you will find you will get the end result you want…people will enjoy it!

The flavour of the webpage or blog isn’t just about the content though, ensuring it looks delicious is even more important, so you can catch the attention for people to ‘taste test’ it.

Templated websites are the equivalent of a packet mix. The restaurants of the top restaurants in the world most likely don’t use a Sara Lee pudding mix to serve in their restaurants, so if you want a website that is uniquely your own and not a replication, don’t use a website template unless you really can’t help it. Templated sites never really fit your personal style and always look out of place and usually unprofessional. Pay the money for a few hours design by a professional web designer and start with something unique that you own.

Establish your point of difference. In a city like New York there are literally thousands of restaurants that would serve up a nice juicy steak. Yet what is the difference between the restaurant that struggles for the business compared to another restaurant just up the street which is booked out months in advance? You will find usually it is their unique point of difference…it might be the lighting, the friendly staff, the presentation of the meals, the view, the music, or the additional touches like a warm cloth to wipe your hands with. Whatever it is, this is the secret to their success and popularity, and in the end their revenue.

Your website should be no different, offering something that makes your website uniquely different to all the other websites out there. It can be as simple as offering free downloads, or information no one else provides. A free online service such as quick easy bookings, or a regular newsletter about products. Whatever it is, find yours and integrate it into your website.

Once you have cooked up your website, the secret is to keeping it popular.
Like a meal, the best way to achieve this is keeping it fresh!

Revise your website’s ‘ingredients’ regularly, making sure that the content is fresh and up to date.
Request feedback from visitors, or if you are running a blog allow comments and actually read and reply to people’s feedback. these are your readers and if they can help you improve your website you will ensure they are coming back, and probably recommending your site to others. Keeping your readers appetite wanting more is what drives them back!

Bon appetit!

Author: Chris Bourke of Devision Design and Web SEO Coach
Chris is a web designer and online internet marketing coach from Australia.

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When Google says your website is stuffed!

July 16th, 2010

Every proud new website owner wants to get their business to the top of Google’s page.

After all, they have just forked out cash and eagerly waited a few weeks for their web developer to create the website that will propel their business into the global webisphere, and they are now keen to watch their business flourish from their investment in their new online marketing tool.

But some owners and even the web developers themselves get a little too keen and assume that they will naturally climb to the top of the search engines if they use the correct keywords. Thats partly true, but then some do a very nasty ‘technique’ called ‘keyword stuffing‘.

I inverted the word ‘technique’ because this is putting it politely. Keyword stuffing is not really a technique, it’s an unprofessional tactic – and for a business owner of the website it can be quite damaging to your online presence.

Keyword stuffing is when you see a webpage, usually the homepage, full of the same major search term over and over again.
I have seen some accommodation websites in particular, use keyword stuffing to such an extent that the text doesn’t even make sense any more as the keywords are on the page 5 or six times in each paragraph!

Not only is keyword stuffing a skill-less tactic used by the web developer in an attempt to get a top ranking, but it annoys the crap out of your website visitors.
If your local newspaper or favourite magazine was written this way, would you keep reading it? Probably not.
Your website visitors feel the same way, and will most likely exit your website faster than telling your kid he’s off to the dentist.

But it’s not only your visitors that don’t like this tactic, Google won’t tolerate it either and can ‘Google-slap‘ you for it.
What’s a Google slap you ask? ..it’s where Google slaps your website off their search engine and locks you out and throws a way the key. Once you have been Google slapped it can take months or longer to get accepted back onto their directory, and most likely cost your website a rebuild to get accepted back.

It could cost you the extra developer costs in fixing your website, but also cost you more in lost business. It’s not worth the risk to keyword stuff your website!

So if your new website reads like a broken record and is more repetitious than an Telemarketer with a bad stutter, give your web developer a slap before you get ‘Google Slapped’ for stuffing!

Article by Chris Bourke – Devision Design and Web SEO Coach

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