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Social Media Network Marketing Etiquette

Wednesday, 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
or Facebook – webseocoach

Tags: marketing on facebook, social media marketing, social networking, sopcial media, twitter marketing
Posted in Marketing, Online Marketing, Social Networks | No Comments »

Property Project Marketing in a Global Financial Crisis

Monday, 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

Tags: global financial crisis marketing, project marketing
Posted in Marketing, Online Marketing, Social Networks | No Comments »

The real price of a website?

Thursday, 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

Follow Chris on Twitter @webseocoach

Tags: Online Marketing, web development, website marketing
Posted in Marketing, Online Marketing, Social Networks, Website Development, affiliate marketing | No Comments »

Choosing an Email Marketing System

Friday, July 9th, 2010

When you’re considering email marketing to help your business flourish, you should look into a few important aspects before making a firm decision on which way to go.

Firstly, somethingI have to advise against…DON”T use Outlook or any other email app running directly from your own personal computer!

Why not? Personal computers are for personal emails. If you want to use emails for promotional marketing, you need to be able to track your readers, allow them to unsubscribe, and most importantly subscribe to your email database as well as send the email to a friend.

The best way to do all this is to choose a professional online email marketing solution.
Yes, there is a cost involved to do this, but we are talking as little as around $15 per month. If your email marketing campaign is good you will make this money back without a doubt.

Making sure you choose the right provider for your email marketing needs is a bigger decision than you might think, because if you find you are unhappy with the service once you have started growing your email marketing database it can be a huge setback to change over to another provider. You see, most professional email marketing systems will ensure that each person that subscribes has clicked and given permission to add them to your database list. If you then go and move to another provider, you will them need to ask each person to re-subscribe to your list, which usually leads to a 40% drop in your subscribers. This can take a long time to build up again, equating to the loss of a lot of revenue through email marketing campaigns.

So choose your email marketing provider wisely.

WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN A GOOD EMAIL MARKETING SYSTEM

Firstly, you want a system that is easy to use.
Creating emails needs to be easy, sending and monitoring the success of the emails needs to be even easier.

SETTING UP TEMPLATES FOR YOUR EMAIL CAMPAIGNS
Most good email marketing systems provide both these options, and even allow you to create your own Subscribe forms, response forms and auto reply email templates. Aweber allows all this, but even goes the next step and lets you set up timed auto response follow up emails, which is ideal for online marketing. Sending out additional emails for the following weeks can ensure a sale before they forget who you are.

EMAIL RESPONSE TRACKING
Tracking the response of each campaign can help you determine who is reading your emails, which products they clicked on in your email, who they forwarded the email to, and even how long and how many times they read it. This sort of marketing information is very important. My 3 favourite email marketing systems, Aweber, iContact and Constant Contact all provide these type of services, though I find Aweber the easiest to read. They provide simple graphs that you can review quickly.

iContact is a close second, though a big plus for iContact that Aweber is yet to develop is the free iContact iPhone App, which allows you to check your campaign success anytime, anywhere from your iphone! Brilliant for the busy marketer, especially when you are running multiple campaigns at the same time.

Constant Contact and MailChimp also offers iPhone Apps, though being a graphic/web designer I just tend to like the iContact App and website much better. It’s fresh, simple and both the website and iPhone App are easy to learn and use.

MANAGING AND IMPORTING CONTACTS
whatever system you use, make sure you have the ability to be able to easily add or download your mailing list database of clients. You don’t want to sign up and then find you have to individually add one person at a time! Make sure you can quickly and easily upload a CSV or EXCEL file so you can get started on your emailing success faster

SETTING UP FORMS ON YOUR WEBSITE
This is usually where the systems let me down the most…setting up a Subscribe form on your website.
Mailchimp seems a little awkward if you aren’t too web-savvy, and I haven’t had too much luck with getting the contact form layout just right when I have used Constant Contact.

Icontact and Aweber are both fairly straight forward and easy to do, even for a novice, allowing you to fully customize your Subscribe form as well as providing you some great templates to get you up and running quickly, though I did have a few issues with Aweber not totally liking the fact that I was doing it from a Mac, though it runs fine on a PC.

PRICING
The pricing to use an online email marketing package various a little from business to business. Most start at $15 a month for around 500 subscribers and then allow you to send 3000 emails a month. Aweber lets you sign up for the first month for just a single $1! So you get a good try out of their system and if you don’t like it you can change before you get too attached to it. Aweber works out a couple of dollars more expensive than some of the other leading packages such as iContact, but in the long run the tools they provide for professional email marketing will probably provide a higher return to your campaigns, which is why most email marketers usually choose Aweber.

But have a look at them all, try them all out for a test run and see what you think yourself before making a decision.

Article by Chris Bourke of Web SEO Coach and Devision Design Australia
Chris is a full time web designer and developer as well as an internet affiliate marketer.

Tags: aweber email marketing, constant contact, email marketing, email marketing systems
Posted in Marketing, Online Marketing, affiliate marketing | No Comments »

Building Your Business Using Twitter

Friday, June 25th, 2010

Popularity of the Twitter social network is growing tremendously on a daily basis. It’s the perfect place for people and businesses to share their thoughts and suggestions for personal and business benefit. Businesses can profit from the use of Twitter, and building your business with Twitter is possible if you have the knowledge.

Enjoy the benefits of Twitter business marketing

There are many benefits to using the Twitter social marketing program. Some of the most important benefits include the following:

News related to your niche, and technologies related to it are available online when and where needed. The latest enhancements to make your job and marketing endeavour easier can be found. Also many people are willing to share their experiences and ideas with others who need the information and assistance.

Using Twitter is an excellent method for traffic generation. More visitors to your website and online presence will help to increase sales, and perhaps more importantly potential sales.

The social database is a very good source for building a contact list, finding potential employees for your business and more sales will be generated from your marketing efforts. Many professional marketers have built their contact lists in this manner.

To find more potential customers the easy way without having to manually do the hard work yourself, download a copy of Tweet Adder.
Tweetadder is a brilliant software package that pretty much manages your Twitter account for you.
You can pre-set tweets to send on a regular basis so there is no need to remind yourself to post new messages. You can literally be on holidays and Twitter will be working for you!

Prove to the community you are an expert in your niche. The more beneficial information you can provide, the better the impression that you leave.

Another benefit is that using the network marketing method is free. The only investment is your effort, time and determination.

Not only is this enterprise used for building your business, it can also be fun to keep in touch with your family friends and colleagues. Share an entry or two to let people know what you have been doing. Let your true self shine through when posting comments

Easy and valuable tips for successfully building your business with Twitter:

1.Twitter is a place where people share information about themselves and other aspects of their lives and their specific niche. Because of this, it is important not to spam. If, in error, you are banned the possibility of building your business with Twitter will be exhausted.

2.You should follow people and not only have followers. The more people you follow and the more followers you have, and the higher your exposure will be.

3.Post information and share comments as often as possible. Posting may be time consuming but worth the time and efforts when you reap the benefits. Commenting or reply to other member posts is also recommended.

4.As the saying goes, ‘Garbage in, garbage out.’ Post information followers can benefit from.

5.Build your collection of followers. You may be intimidated by knowing this but the task is not as difficult as you think. Links to your Twitter ID can be placed on your own website and also in the signature in forums and message boards used for promotion of your website.

6.Follow as many people as possible. Try to balance the number of people following you to the number of people you are following.

7. Once you get a good flow of followers going look into using tools to manage your Marketing, such as Easy Tweets.
Easy Tweets is so easy to manage through it’s simple user-friendly interface. While it may sound like an advanced piece of TWitter software, it is so easy to learn, even for beginners. In fact, they will even give you a 30 day money back guarantee if you can’t use it!

If you are really serious about using Twitter for business, check out Twitter Rockstar. Twitter Rockstar provides you with all the professional tools to really power your Twitter marketing and to use Twitter to generate income online. Brilliant.

Tags: twitter, twitter business, twitter business marketing, twitter for business, twitter related
Posted in Marketing, Online Marketing | Comments Off

Professional Business Marketing on a Small Budget

Sunday, September 13th, 2009

Starting up any new business can be tough at the best of times, and the current economic climate doesn’t make it any easier!

But don’t let all the doom and gloom you hear everyday stop you.

I would like to share some simple cost saving business marketing tips and services that our business, Devision, can provide that can have you looking as professional as the big guys, all for under $1000, including professional logo, business cards, letterheads and well ranking website!

Read on and I’ll tell you how!……

Branding & Logo Design – A few hundred dollars

We all know that one of the most important assets of any business is their brand and corporate identity. A professional eye catching and clever logo and brand is one of the key ingredients to any successful business, however a custom designed logo and corporate branding can usually cost big dollars.
But if you want a professional logo at a budget rate, many agencies such as Devision have a bank full of hundreds of unused logos created in the design process for other clients, which we offer at a discounted rate. Obviously it will not be a totally custom logo for your business, however many of the logos are generic enough that they can suit almost any type of business by simply changing a few colours, and you will save hundreds on the cost of your branding.

Business Card Printing – 1000 full colour for $50

Professional Business Cards are one of the next things on any new business list. They are the ‘first impression tool. for most businesses, so you don’t want some cheap laser-printed homemade business cards!
And with any new business you will want to hand out as many cards as possible to get your business name out there.
Devision offer 1000 full colour business cards for just $50!These are double sided (full colour front, greyscale/black reverse side) on a nice 300gsm artboard stock. There is a small charge if artwork or delivery is required, but you’ll agree it’s still very affordable!

Letterhead Printing – 500 full colour $170

Letterheads are the next thing you’ll be needing for your invoicing, promotional letters, etc. You can get started with 500 full colour professionally printed letterheads for as little as $170! And like most printing, the price per copy gets cheaper the more you have printed, saving you a packet!

Website – as little as a couple of hundred dollars

As I have mentioned in previous ramblings, your website is probably the single most important and most affordable marketing tool you can possibly have for your business. We receive around 85% of all new business directly through our website, and have clients all across the world that have found us online. The beauty of a website is you can start with a small website – a single page or a couple of pages for just a couple of hundred dollars, and in time build it up to suit your needs. With every website Devision design we professionally search engine optimise and submit it to the search engines using the latest techniques and SEO gear, so you’re not paying additional expenses later on to get on the search engines. In fact we are happy to coach you in SEO techniques so you can learn the secrets yourself and make sure you always stay ahead of your competitors!
Alternatively, for a few hundred dollars you can purchase a copy of Web CEO, the leading search engine optimisation software used by the professionals, and quickly learn to do it yourself.

Website Hosting - $7.95 a month

With your website you will also require a domain name and website hosting. Our partner company Webcrowd offer professional hosting plans for $7.95 a month, which are perfect for any small to medium professional business website, and you get the domain name of your choice (pending availability) for free!
The Webcrowd hosting includes unlimited email account, professional website statistics for your website, and you have full control via a Control Panel, allowing you to set up email accounts, add databases, etc as you need. And the best thing about Webcrowd is they are located in Australia so you get real local support!

So, add the services up that I have mentioned and you have no excuse not to get your business up and running in a few easy steps at a cost much cheaper than you probably thought. You have no excuses to get out there and beat the Economic Crisis Blues!

For full details and plenty of examples of our work, visit Devision at www.Devision.com.au

Posted in Branding, Brisbane Printing, Brisbane Web Hosting, Brisbane Website Design, Caloundra Website Design, Marketing, Maroochydore Web Site Design, Mooloolaba web site design, Noosa Website Design, Printing, SEO, Sunshine Coast Website Design, Sydney Printing, Website Development | No Comments »

Business Marketing Tips to flourish in an Global Economic Crisis.

Monday, August 31st, 2009

We all hear people every day blaming the ‘global economic crisis’ for a decrease in business sales.

We hear them saying people just aren’t spending on services, or people are’t going on holidays, or people aren’t buying new products, etc etc.

I find the term ‘global marketing crisis‘ more of an excuse for business failure, than the truth.

If an economic crisis is truly the case then why are some of the major retail players such as Apple, JB Hi-Fi and others posting record profits in the past 2 quarters?

The answer is ’simple’ – The employ simple marketing strategies!

By using simple, and often free, marketing tools and strategies you will blow off the excuse of a ‘global marketing crisis’ and your business will boom, no matter what the media is saying!

Here are a few handy tips to help:

1. USING THE WEB…

Your website is a great point of presence and reaches a wider audience than most other advertising and promotional mediums. And the best thing about it is that web hosting only costs around $95 a year. Thats value for global marketing!

Make sure all you website content is up to date and the site looks fresh and professional. People are more likely to deal with someone with a professional looking website. You wouldn’t paint your own signage, or build your own office building, so don’t build your own website! Get a professional!

Make sure you have the main basic contact details so people can contact you easily. Add a contact form to your website and collect additional information, such as how did they hear about you, would they like to join your mailing list, etc. This information can be used for future promotions.

Make sure your website is well search engine optimised. If you aren’t on the first page of Google you are out of the running. And believe it or not, a first page listing on Google is easily achievable if correctly optimized. If you’re not on that first page, go have a quiet talk to your web developer! SEO should be part of the standard service provided with any website. Without it, it is like buying a car without an engine…you won’t go far.

Embrace the many free Google Webmaster tools to promote your business, like the free Google Business listing, Google Analytics, Google Maps, Google Keyword Tool, Blogger, Google Trends, etc. Google have made it so easy to be found online, and they charge nothing!

Invest in SEO Tools such as WebCEO – It’s a great tool for reviewing your website’s SEO (and your competitiors, and fine tuning and submitting your website yourself. It really makes the difference.

Use online Social Networks such as Twitter, Facebook and Myspace to promote your business and services. Your listing on any of these also gets found easily on the search engines. Using Twitter alone, one of my businesses profitability has jumped 180% in the past 3 months. Free marketing works wonders!

Create and write a regular blog. Blogs such as Wordpress and Blogger provide free software, and they get picked up on Google within minutes. They can also be lined directly to you Twitter account or LinkedIn accounts so your post automatically reaches an even larger crowd.

Submit your website to as many free directories online as possible. The more sites you are directly linked to the better your pagerank, and in turn the better your listing chances on the search engines. Plus you reach a much wider audience from people that use the directories.
For starters, you can add a free listing to our own directory, BusinessBrisbane.com. It currently ranks as one of the best directories in Brisbane and we don’t charge a cent to list! Go on..sign up! www.BusinessBrisbane.com (for Brisbane regional businesses only).

Employ email marketing tools, and send regular enewsletters to your customers. Many customers will usually send to a friend if it is interesting, so your potential customer base rapidly expands.

2. BRANDING…

Ensure your branding and advertising is professional. The use of an effective logo and brand elements such as a slogan can be a very simple yet powerful marketing tool. Look at McDonald’s for example..they probably don’t make the world’s best tasting burgers, but they are still the world’s largest hamburger seller! Their iconic logo and simple catchy adverts is the real success. If you don’t have a nice little logo, it is worth the small investment.

Ensure your branding remains consistent. Make sure your logo is always the same colour, your advertising templates remain consistent, and print work is always in tune.

3. SELF PROMOTION & NETWORKING…

People like to deal with people they know and trust. Find your local business networking clubs and sign up. Many invite you as a guest to your first meeting to get a feel for it. Within no time you will be meeting business referrals that will be needing your services!
Make you go to each meeting well equipped with the basic marketing tools including a few brochures and nice business cards. Spend the extra few dollars and go for the nice feeling matt celloglazed finish full colour business cards. You can usually purchase 1000 for around $140, which is a great first impression investment!

For more tips on how to market your business on a budget, visit our website blog: www.devision.com.au/blog

Article by Chris Bourke from Devision Design Australia

Posted in Brisbane Printing, Marketing, SEO, Social Networks, Website Development | No Comments »

E-marketing on a Budget. We show you how to do it FREE!

Thursday, July 16th, 2009

The sure fire way to successful e-marketing in a recession.

E-marketing is one of the most cost effective ways to promote your business or services on a budget.

The advantages of emarketing over conventional promotional marketing material are huge -

• Cost effective – no need to purchase stamps, stationery/envelopes.
• Less time to prepare and send
• Successfully track reader response.
• Cross promote products
• Make extra money with affiliate marketing (which I will mention shortly!)

But before you decide to rushing toward your computer (although you are probably already there to read this!) and start planning your email to send, there are a few things you need to consider….

First up, DON’T ever send a mass email marketing campaign through Outlook or another email program! There are certain laws against spamming, and one of the main laws is that your email must be ‘permission’ based and must have an automatic Opt-out link, so the person is removed from your database immediately if requested. Outlook cannot do this. Furthermore, sending a bulk email out can clog your mailserver leading to your email being removed from the mailserver and nothing gets delivered.

There are a number of great online systems to send law-abiding email marketing to your clients, such as Vision6 or Constant Contact, both of which require very little internet related knowledge to send great looking emails allowing you to send and track the response. The only downside is that they charge you for sending bulk emails, and if you have a large group or send regularly, while still reasonably cheap, you do have to pay.

But if you already own your own website you can download a program called Pommo, which is a free professional email marketing system which you upload to your own web server, and set up in about 5 to 10 minutes. And there is no cost whatsoever!

If you don’t own your own hosting, then for a tiny sum of around $7.95 a month you can purchase a hosting plan from WebCrowd.com.au and we will install the software for you for nothing! This works out much cheaper than what you would be paying for the other systems mentioned, and Webcrowd also give you a free domain name and unlimited email accounts as part of the standard yearly hosting fee!

Now that you have your email system up and running, lets get down to business!….

You don’t need a degree in rocket science to know that to get people to read your enews it needs to be:

• Short and sweet – people will trash it instantly if they see a days worth of reading.
• Informative and interesting – Don’t just drone on about yourself or your products, include some interesting facts, some fun stuff, a thought of the day…add things people want to share with others..this is a great way to viral market yourself.
* Add incentives for signing up and reading your enews, like subscriber-only discounts or specials. This always works!

Now, how about if I was to tell you about a way you can make an income from e-marketing, with no products!?

No I am not joking, and yes, it is very easy…

Affiliate marketing is one of the easiest ways to make extra cash every day, even every hour. Investing a couple of hours a week on email marketing can very easily reward you with a full time income. I’ll share with you the basics of how it’s done once you have your hosting and email marketing system in place…

Step A - Find yourself a few affiliate marketing programs.They are free to join. My favourites are Clickbank, DGM Pro, Commission Monster and Commission Junction. There are also plenty of travel agencies, fashion labels and others offering affiliate programs to choose between. MAke sure it ties in with your enewsletter topic.The process is simple – You sign up, you pick the products you wish to promote and they provide you with a script that you cut and paste into your enews. When someone click on the product link and makes a purchase you are rewarded with a commission. This commission could be anywhere from a few dollars to a few hundred dollars. All you have to do is have that link in your email and attract them to click it and make a sale.

Step B – Join up with Google Adsense. Adsense is the other half of Google Adwords. The way Google Adwords works is people pay Google to promote their business or products, but for Google to get those ads out there they rely on affiliates that are willing to promote them, so they developed Adsense. Adsense lets you join up for free and you simply add the google code into your enewsletter and the Google script will automatically find ads that match your content of your enews. When someone click on the Google Ad while reading your enews you are rewarded. On average it doesn’t pay as well as Affiliate programs but you can easily make $10 or more on Adsense.

Step C – Work out a calendar to keep your marketing consistent and regular. Don’t send them too often or people will get annoyed, but don’t leave it too long either.

If you’d like to see how easy it really is to turn a few hours a week into an income, contact Devision and we will be happy to teach you the secrets to e-marketing success!

Article by Chris Bourke of Devision Design
Devision are the Sunshine Coast’s leading graphic design and e-marketing specialists.

Posted in Marketing, SEO, Website Development | No Comments »

Twitter – Spreading the Tweet!

Monday, May 11th, 2009

By Chris Bourke of Devision Design Australia

So you’ve set up your Twitter account and followed my notes from ‘Making an Income from Twitter‘ and you are now hopefully building a continuously growing base of followers to your Twitter account.

But how do you catch up to the Twitterers that have thousands, even tens of thousands of followers quickly?

Well, I would like to share a few of my favourite Twitter Tools and online Twitter directories that you can add your Twitter account to, attracting many new followers faster than you can say Tweet!

My first and favourite Twitter directory is Twellow. Twellow is a Twitter Directory which is free to join and grabs your details from your existing TWitter accounts, so getting started on it is easy and set up in a couple of minutes. Twellow is basically a Yellow Pages of TWitter, allowing you to search for users with similar interests or similar products, or may be located around you. Twellow is the perfect companion if you use Twitter for online marketing.

Just Tweet It is another great easy to use Twitter directory service which helps you find other users just like you. This directory is great for business as it has a huge selection of pre-categorized sections to add your business, or to search from.

Another very popular Twitter directory on the rise is We Follow. We follow breaks the categories up into the most popular Tags (eg, Celebrities, TV, SocialMedia, News, Music), and then sub-categorizes into the most popular of each section. Once you add yourself to We Follow you will quickly see arise in followers, plus it is easy to search for other people you would also like to follow. You will have thousands of followers in no time!

GeoFollow is a Twitter directory with a difference. Geofollow is a location-based Twitter directory, allowing you to search by City and State, as well as the usual Tags, Username and Keyword. Another very easy to join and use directory service, and quickly gathering momentum as one of the most popular Twitter Directories

Remember, you don’t have to understand the Twitter phenomenon, but you have to be part of it! Adding your Twitter account to these directories is a great start to really benefit from Twitter.

Next week I will be chatting about Mashable Tweets.
It might sound tasty, but it’s not..but it is very interesting!

Author: Chris Bourke from Devision.
Chris is a graphic design/ web developer specializing in search engine optimization & online affiliate marketing. Chris is also co-mananager of Devision Design based on the Sunshine Coast, Australia

Tags: twitter, twitter directories, twitter promotion
Posted in Marketing, Social Networks | No Comments »

SEO – Get your Business to the top of Google

Monday, May 4th, 2009

By Scott Van Achte

In today’s online world search engine rankings can make your business succeed, and while rankings in Yahoo and MSN are very valuable, their combined market value is still less than that of Google. This makes achieving top rankings in Google that much more important.
In this three-part series on How to Optimize for Google we will touch on a number of important aspects for top Google rankings including website optimization, links, Google Webmaster tools, and a number of other considerations.
The focus of Part 1 will be with on page website optimization.

THE RIGHT KEYWORDS
This article is not about keyword research so I will not spend too much time on this topic, however, I felt it was important to at least brush on this slightly.

Make sure that your targets are achievable. If you select the wrong keywords it can make your entire optimization experience essentially a waste. Choose keywords that are attainable but yet still provide a reasonable search frequency for your industry. Your phrase selection should also be targeted to bring qualified traffic to your site.
Using the hotel industry as an example, targeting the word “hotel” would make very little sense but by narrowing it down to “Victoria BC hotel” you now have less competition, and a more qualified audience. Keep your targets in perspective and go after the obtainable rankings.

WEBSITE OPTIMIZATION
There are many on-site factors that play a role in your search engine rankings. Here are a number of those factors and what you can do to improve your chances of success.

Title Tag
The title tag plays one of the most important roles in search results at Google, and is almost always the heading Google chooses for each of its listings. Placement of your target phrase is best used near the start of the tag and repeated again in the middle or near the end. Three uses of your target phrase may be helpful in some instances, as long as it is not too overwhelming. For best results each page on your site should have a totally unique title tag.
It is also important to remember that because Google will use this title as the main heading for your listing, you will want to keep it attractive to potential searchers. Try to also add a call to action, or other wording to help make your listing appear attractive to searchers.
To help illustrate the fact Google takes this tag into consideration, simply do a search for your target phrase and take a look at the titles of the top 10. I tried a search for a rather broad term “hotel” and saw that all 10/10 listings had it in the title tag, and 6/10 had it as the very first word. A quick scan showed that the entire top 30 either had the word hotel, or hotels in their title tags.
If you do only one thing to your website, make sure that all your title tags are relevant, unique, and contain your target phrase for each page.

Meta Description Tag
The Meta Description tag is still occasionally used by Google as the description which appears in the search results themselves. While this used to be a more common practice Google tends to use it most often on sites with very limited content, or those which are flash based. I have seen it still used for content rich sites, however this is less common.
The Meta Description tag still has an impact on search rankings. Your best bet when using this tag is to keep it short and sweet with your target phrase close to the start and not repeated more than 3 times. Like the title tag, each page on your site should have its own unique description tag.
Meta Keyword Tag
When it comes to Google this tag is useless, and won’t influence your rankings. There is some speculation as to whether a spammy keyword tag can however, have a negative effect on Google rankings. As a result, if you do utilize a keyword Meta tag for the smaller engines, it is best to keep it clean and play it safe.

Density
Keyword density plays a role in overall rankings; however, it is not as cut and dry as it once was. Once upon a time there was a magic number that when used could almost guarantee top rankings.
This is no longer the case. Today the ideal density varies from industry to industry, phrase to phrase. To find out what density you should aim for, take the top 10 or 20 search results and see what percentage those sites are using. In most cases you will find that the majority of these sites have a very similar density to one another, and this average density is a good estimation of what you should aim for.
Body Text and Keyword Placement
The location of relevant text on your site will help establish the overall importance of your target phrase. While you do not want to overwhelm the engines and site visitors with a bombardment of target phrases at the top of the page, try to sprinkle in some instances as close to the top of the page as possible.

Synonyms
Be sure to include various synonyms for your target phrases within your body text on your site. Google will use these synonyms to tie in the overall relevance of the page for your main target phrases, which in turn can improve your odds.
To find possible synonyms you can use a thesaurus, but the best way is to search Google itself and see exactly what they consider to be similar. Simply search in Google for your target phrase preceded with a tilde, such as “~hotels”. Next scan through the search results for any text Google has bolded. These are all words that Google considers to be related. Using the “~hotels” example Google brings up phrases such as ‘travel’, ‘tourism’, ‘accommodation’, as well as various hotel chain names such as ‘Hilton Hotels’.

Keywords in Domain
There is still some speculation if having a target phrase as part of your top level domain (TLD) is of use to search rankings. From my experience, yes, there is value here, although, nothing like it was several years ago.
If you are starting off in the online world and are contemplating which domain to go for, consider one that uses your target phrase, assuming that it is both relevant to your business name, and uses no more than a single hyphen. While multiple hyphens in a domain can be successful, they are very common with highly spammy websites, so it is best to not take that route if possible.
While having a keyword located within your domain can provide some ranking juice, I would not suggest heading out and doing a domain swap. In most cases you would be better off working on your existing site than starting from scratch with a new domain.

Keywords in page specific URL
Using keywords for specific page URL’s can also help add a little bit of value to your site, providing you use them responsibly. Consider using a keyword as a directory name and as part of a file name where it naturally makes sense to do so. If you have a website that focuses on tourism and includes local hotel listings, you may want to consider the following structure for your page on the Hilton:
MyTourismSite.com/Victoria/Accommodations/Hotels/Hilton.html

Link Anchor text
This is the actual text you click on as part of a link. When full or partial target phrases are used within your text links they help pass on some value to the linked page for those phrases. This is also true when considering surrounding text. When the content around the link is also relevant, the link holds slightly more value.
While a link that simply states “click here” or “www.domainname.com” does have its place, they provide considerably less value than a link that would use “discount hotels” as its anchor.

Image Alt Text
While image alt text still plays a minor role, its biggest part is within the use of image based navigation. If you have an image linked to another page, the alt text will be attributed much the same way as standard link anchor text is.
Image Alt text should always be short and to the point and should accurately describe either the image itself, or the page the image is linking to. Do not use alt tags as a place to stuff keywords.

Inline Links
These are links that are found mid sentence or mid paragraph as opposed to a simple listing of links as found in a menu or possibly on a sitemap. Links found mid paragraph tend to pass on a little more value from the surrounding text and can offer more relevance to the linked page.

Site Navigation
It is absolutely imperative that your website be fully spiderable by the search engines. This may seem obvious, but often webmasters overlook Google’s ability to crawl a website. Google has become very advanced in what links it can follow and how it can spider a website, but there are still some things that can cause significant roadblocks.

- Flash: One of the most commonly made mistakes is the use of flash. If flash is used as a sole means of site navigation then you can count on Google not viewing your internal pages, and having a significant disadvantage in terms of site rankings.

- Java Script / DHTML: These days most Java Script and even DHTML menus can be spidered by Google, however, this is not always the case. If your site utilizes any kind of fancy navigation and you are wondering why Google has not indexed your internal pages, check out Google’s Cached Text version of your page. If you do not see any text links, then your navigation may be invisible to Google.

- Images: Image based navigation has been safe for many years now, but if your site uses this form of navigation it is essential to have brief, relevant alt text on all your buttons. This alt text will act much like standard anchor text for text based links. This is not only for the purpose of search ranking value, but take a look at Google’s cached text version of your page. If you have image based links that do not have alt text, those links do not appear. This doesn’t mean Google won’t follow them, but for anyone viewing your site on a text based browser, your links will be invisible to them.

URL Structure
Avoid long elaborate URL’s with extraneous characters. While Google has reached a point where they can index massive URL strings, it is best to avoid them if at all possible. For dynamic sites consider utilizing mod rewrites to significantly clean up the URL to not only make it more search engine friendly, but more user friendly as well.
MyTourismSite.com/?locid=”victoria”&catid=”accommodations”
&type=”hotel”&comp=”hilton”
stands a better chance if cleaned up to read:
MyTourismSite.com/victoria/accommodations/hotels/hilton.htm

SUMMARY
Basic website optimization is a critical component for successful placement in Google but is only part of the overall picture.

Scott Van Achte is the Senior SEO at StepForth Web Marketing Inc.; based in Victoria, BC, Canada and founded in 1997. You can read more of Scott’s articles and those of the veteran StepForth team at http://news.stepforth.com or contact us at http://www.stepforth.com

Tags: search engine optimisation, SEO, traffic
Posted in Accommodation Websites, Brisbane Website Design, Caboolture Website Design, Caloundra Website Design, Mackay Website Design, Marketing, Maroochydore Web Site Design, Mooloolaba web site design, New Zealand Website Design, Noosa Website Design, Restaurant Website Design, SEO, Sunshine Coast Website Design, Website Development | No Comments »

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