Internet Marketing Advice - Making the Most of Online Marketing for Your Business

Some Useful Google Search Tips

2008-07-16T15:59:00.001+01:00

We all take Google for granted these days, the reliable search engine that almost always finds us what we are looking for. But did you know that there are many tools built into Google.

I've created a list of my favourite tools to show you how you can get much more out of the most popular search engine. Please try these out, it may change how you use Google.

1. If you would like to find out who is linking to your website type link:www.yourwebsite.co.uk - this will list all of the sites that have a link back to yours. Useful when you are doing search engine optimisation

2. How about you want a definition of a word and don't have a dictionary handy. Try define: followed by the word you want a definition of e.g. define:internet. Google will return a list of definitions and the websites where you can find out more detail.

3. Need a calculator? simply type in your sum into Google - e.g. 6+6 (hit search button) and the result will come back 12.

4. What about if you want to know the weather. Type in weather and your nearest city and hey presto, you have a 4 day weather forecast.

5. To find out how your stocks and shares are doing just type in the four digit stock exchange code. This will give you charts on how that stock is doing that day.

6. There is a currency converter. So if you wanted to convert £'s to $'s you might try something like - 150 GBP in USD. You can do this with measurements as well - try 10 inches into centimetres.

7. Google will also have a crack at finding the correct spelling of a word for you - just enter it into the search box and see what Google suggests.

So there you have it, Google is a bit more than just a search engine. I use it for the above and much more, it means I don't have to trawl the internet quite as much.

Another Successful Internet Market Seminar

2008-07-11T16:07:00.002+01:00

Once again we ran the Internet Marketing for Business seminar and I have to say that this one was even better than the last.

The seminar was held at La Riviera Restaurant on the Quayside which for those who are not familiar with it is a great quality Italian Restuarant Newcastle & Gateshead.

During the Internet Marketing Seminar we covered the three principles of great internet marketing.

Driving visitors to your website - this could be using SEO, PPC and email marketing - plus a whole host of other tools and options - including blogging ;)
How to convert the traffic ito leads and sales.
Using continuous marketing techniques to convert the leads into sales

The comments we got back from the seminar were great -

"Very good presenter and easy to follow presentation. Good hand out material and all very relevant" - Sue Pender, Business Link North East

"Excellent - all made sense. My concentration do not slip at all which says a lot about the quality of the presentation" - Maggie Cottier, MSC Training, Newcastle

"Really well covered, informative, relevent and practical with REAL tips. Very Good" - Penny Jones, Business Link North East

"Very understandable, pitched at a 'Laypersons' level. Excellent" - Judith Falla, Business Link North East

"Enjoyed the whole session" - Peter Moran, Newcastle City Council

"Well presented and very easy to follow. Informative" - Bruce Allison, Design Aid

We are running the next seminar in September - please visit www.marketingontheinternet.co.uk for more details - or if you want a taster of what it is all about why not download our internet marketing podcast

What are the implications of using Brand names in your Google Adwords?

2008-06-13T10:44:00.003+01:00

Published with the kind Permission of Matthew Rippon, Property Lawyer with BHP Law Newcastle.

As Published in the NEBusiness Blog - 12th June2008

"EIGHT years or so ago a refreshingly clean search interface developed by Larry Page and Sergey Bryn overtook the likes of Yahoo! and MSN to become the web’s most popular search engine.

At the time, many asked how the site was ever going to make any money. As Google powers forward, it makes you wonder whether those commentators were living in a parallel universe.
Of course, hindsight is a wonderful thing. It’s doubtful that even Page and Bryn perceived then that Google would, within a decade, become one of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful companies. But if information is what powers the world economy, then Google must be the 21st Century’s Standard Oil.

In 2006, Google’s advertising revenues in the UK overtook Channel 4. Late last year, it reached a par with ITV.

Although Google has a diverse product range these days, it is still the AdWords service on the search engine that provides its most significant revenue stream.

For the uninitiated, AdWords are the little text adverts that pop up to the right of your search results. Containing a short title (25 characters), two lines of description (each 35 characters) and link to another website, they are triggered by your search query.

Such a powerful tool can be used in very damaging ways of course, which is why Google operates a procedure through which trade- mark owners can complain to Google about the unauthorised use of trade marks in AdWord advertisements. Google investigates and usually suspends the advertisement in question. The trade- mark term in dispute is also then blocked from further use in AdWords for the future.

If you’re looking to start using AdWords, you might want to use a competitor’s trademark term in the text of your advertisement. For example, if you enter the term ‘Waterstone’s’, an AdWord advert for WHSmith pops up.

Google still processes complaints relating to the use of trademarks in third party AdWord text, but since April, it no longer accepts complaints about keywords. And keywords that were previously the subject of a successful complaint will be unblocked.This has caused fury amongst some big retailers.

Teletext has threatened other travel agents with litigation if it finds its name used as a keyword. And a consortium of brandowners including Arcadia are thought to have discussed whether any action may be taken against Google.

It’s a murky area. To be an infringement, the trademark in question must be used “as a sign”.
Those brand owners would have to establish first that an infringement had occurred and this would mean convincing the courts that the keywords in question were a sign even though they didn’t appear in the adverts themselves.

The problem is that there hasn’t been much litigation on this subject. Of course, the mere existence of Google’s previous policy didn’t prevent the brandowners from litigating this issue before. They just chose not to, preferring the quicker and cheaper results generated by going direct to Google. So they have been hoisted by their own petard.

At times like this, I like to come back to the core function of a trade- mark – that it should act as a guarantee to the consumer of the trade origin of the goods or services to which it is applied. If you lived in London and wanted to buy electronics, you might head to Tottenham Court Road where you’d see all the biggest names side by side. I wonder whether WHSmith’s advert next to the search results for Waterstone’s is really so different?"

Internet Marketing Seminar Newcastle

2008-06-04T17:37:00.003+01:00

Our next Internet Marketing Newcastle seminar has been announced.

Internet Marketing for Business
Thursday 10th July 2008
La Riviera Restaurant - Gateshead Quayside

To find our more visit www.marketingontheinternet.co.uk

The seminar is delivered by Internet Marketing experts Mancala Technology.

The last seminar was sold out so book your place early.

Visit www.marketingontheinternet.co.uk to reserve your place today.

Search Engine Optimisation Goes Glamorous

2008-05-07T16:18:00.002+01:00

Why celebrities are getting into search engine optimisation and why you should be too.

The word in the Internet Marketing Business is that even celebrities are getting their noses into it. It was reported that stars are paying to have their online images cleaned up. It has been discovered that celebrities with not so squeaky clean pasts have paid specialist web placement companies lots of money to get positive results at the top when you type in their name.
Most often it is Google who get targeted more as it accounts for 80 per cent of all internet sources. This works in the same way as most search engine optimisation and web placement companies work to get your key phrases at the top, so by performing search engine optimisation on names there is more good references at the top and bad references move down the page, and because most people never go past the first page of Google it is becoming more popular to get the squeaky clean image right on the front page.

Internet Marketing Seminars In the North East

2008-04-14T20:49:00.004+01:00

Internet Marketing for Business Owners
8th May 2008 - 1.30pm, La Riviera, NewcastleGateshead Quays

How can your website be the hub to all your leads generation and new business?
This seminar will show you in practical and easy to understand steps what you should be doing to generate great quality business from your website. We are so confident that you will benefit from this course that we are offering a Money Back Guarantee if you are not satisfied.
Book your place for only £97 + VAT

Places are limited - book online now at http://www.marketingontheinternet.co.uk/

“Extremely interesting and able to put technical content into easily understandable chunks”
Les Hodgson, Next Level Financial Management Ltd

About the Seminar
How much are you taking advantage of the internet? Does your internet marketing strategy get you business, or (as it is for many businesses) could you do much better?

Internet marketing for business owners will give you the practical information you need to kick start your internet marketing strategy. The seminar will show you how all the pieces of the Internet marketing mix can be linked together to obtain truly amazing results.

The seminar will cover:

Generating leads from your website
Driving traffic to you website
What you really need to know about Search Engine Optimisation
How Pay Per Click campaigns can work for your business
Effective email marketing
Integrating all of the above to get amazing results
Monitoring exactly how effective your internet marketing is

“This was a ‘Keep it Simple’ guide to Internet marketing. It was delivered clear and concise without confusion or patronising the recipients”
Jackie Marston, Jam Marketing & PR

At the end of the seminar you will have developed your first internet marketing strategy and be ready to take advantage of the customers the internet can deliver to you!

About your Expert
Deryck Harlick has eight years experience in Internet Marketing and is an expert in his field. He has implemented Internet Marketing Strategies for FTSE 100 companies and large blue chip organisations but now shares his expertise with smaller enterprises.

Deryck brings with him a wealth of Internet Marketing knowledge that is unparalleled in the North East. He is committed to helping businesses get the most from the internet and believes that every organisation can increase their number of leads and sales using his very simple techniques.

Book Today
Book your place today for only £97 + VAT
SPECIAL OFFER
Book now and receive a second place on the course for less than half price! Only £47 + VAT
Places are limited so book online today at http://www.marketingontheinternet.co.uk/

“What a great investment! For years we have been told how important a website is to a business, but as a busy organisation we have not had the time really to get the best out of it. Mancala’s seminar helped us identify both a useful internet marketing strategy and how we can deliver it. It cut through the techno-babble and straight towards helping our bottom line.”
Andrew Willson, Director AQCT

Money Back Guarantee
We are so confident that you will find this seminar informative and beneficial for you and your business that if you attend and are not satisfied then we will give you your money back.

STOP PRESS: We are also giving away a limited amount of one to one evaluations with one of our advisors. The advisor will look at your website and your marketing activity and give you practical advice on what you could be doing to improve the number of leads you get.

BOOK NOW - http://www.marketingontheinternet.co.uk/

Internet Marketing Newcastle

2008-04-07T12:15:00.002+01:00

We are just about to announce our first Internet Marketing Seminar in Newcastle that will be open to business owners.

The seminars will cover what a typical business needs to know to develop a great internet marketing strategy.

The first Internet Marketing Newcastle Seminar will be on Thursday 8th May at 1.30pm. The location will be on the Newcastle Gateshead Quayside at the fantastic La Riviera Restuarant. More details to follow.

The Joy of Autoresponders

2008-02-24T21:11:00.002Z

This week I have been spending an unhealthy amount of time setting up a new marketing campaign on the Mancala email autoresponder.

I love autoresponders but I always find starting a new campaign as a bit of a struggle. i guess the comparison would be a writer starting a new book - the first few paragraphs are the hardest, but once you get started it flows.

Generally when I set up an email campaign on an autoresponder I like to get the first three emails done and dusted, that way I can sit back and think about how I want the campaign to end. Obviously the main aim is that the reader eventually becomes a client of mine, but it is what service or product I am targeting that dictates the direction of the email campaign.

Of course I don't always use just an email autoresponder in my marketing, quite often after several emails we may send a prospect a letter - even follow that up with a phone call and another letter. This is how online marketing and traditional offline marketing can mix very well and we find it works great. Quite often by the time we call our prospects they know what we do so well (and we have built up a relationship with our emails and letters) that they are desperate to talk to us and want us to help them out. This is the stereotypically win win and a great way to do business.

Microsoft Offers £22.4 billion for Yahoo

2008-02-01T12:00:00.001Z

A significant move in the world of online advertising. Microsoft has today offer a huge amount to buy Yahoo. Why? Well Microsoft and Yahoo and playing second fiddle to the all dominating Google. Is this a serious attempt for Microsoft (and Yahoo) to take a more significant slice of the online marketing pie?

We will wait to see what happens and what the detail of the any deal is.

UK firms Waste £3bn

2008-01-28T14:49:00.000Z

The following Article was recently published by Ian Williams, vnunet.com

The UK's small and medium sized businesses are wasting an estimated £3bn of investment on websites that are virtually invisible to search engines, according to a recent report.

Research by Microsoft's adCenter unit revealed that, although 2.79 million small businesses have an online presence, a hefty 62 per cent are not investing in search marketing campaigns to help potential customers find them online.

The survey found that 44 per cent of SMEs believe that search marketing is too time consuming, while 56 per cent consider it too expensive and 33 per cent too complicated.

This is despite the finding that 76 per cent of SMEs promoting their website on search engines see an immediate increase in sales.

To help combat this wastage Microsoft adCenter has launched a set of Search Marketing Guidelines to help small and medium enterprises set up and reap the benefits of search marketing.

"UK SMEs are missing a trick by not investing in search marketing campaigns, " said Nigel Leggatt, marketing manager at Microsoft adCenter.

"In today's world, just having a website is not enough. You have to drive traffic to your site to ensure you are front-of-mind with your potential customers. Search marketing is one of the most cost effective ways to achieve this."

It seems that small business owners already understand the power of search marketing to promote their business online, as 96 per cent said they use search engines themselves to find a product or service.

This is reflected by over half of SMEs claiming that they would be willing to set up search marketing campaigns themselves, and 34 per cent are planning to use search marketing in the future.

"A well-known website can allow a small business to compete on an equal footing with larger competitors, but only if the site can be found by potential customers," said Peter Scargill, IT chairman at the Federation of Small Businesses.

"Having an online presence is something that more and more small businesses are using to drive growth in the future, but they will be wasting their money if they do not make people aware of it."

The new guidelines set out to dispel the myths surrounding search marketing and offer a range of tips on how to get started with search marketing while making sure that the process is as quick, simple and cost-effective as possible.

Read the Full Article

Christmas online sales 'rise 50%'

2008-01-18T12:01:00.000Z

The proof is in that Internet sales boomed last Christmas.

From the BBC
"UK online sales rose by more than 50% in the three months to Christmas, according to an industry survey.
Internet sales between 1 October and 31 December hit £15.2bn, up from £9.61bn a year earlier, with electronics and clothing doing well, Capgemini said.
Firms with both a High Street and online presence, such as John Lewis, did best, the survey said.
For every pound spent on goods in 2007, 15 pence was spent online, pushing annual electronic sales to £30.2bn.
In 2006, for every pound spent on retail goods, the Internet spend had been 10 pence. "

Read the full article at BBC.co.uk

Of course not every web site will be a winner. The successful ones will be using all forms of online marketing to ensure that they get customers on to there site. The thing is that this sort of marketing is available to everyone, not just the big boys.

Now is the time to start thinking about how you can take advantage of next years Christmas sales, here is a quick checklist for you to get on with - start with number 1

Search Engine Optimisation. This the slow burn of the online marketing world, but can give the best long term results.... so start now. Make sure your site is listed in as many external sites as you can find, if you were to target getting you site linked into 5 sites per week from now until Christmas you would have around 250 incoming links to your site. Why is this important? A major part of the search engine rankings is links that are incoming to your site, the more you have the more important the search engines see your site.
Email Marketing. Store the email addresses of anyone who buys from you, encourage people to sign up to newsletters, get peoples email addresses and permission to use them! You are now in a position to regularly get in touch with them and give them offers.
AdWords Campaigns / PPC. Get started on an AdWords or pay per click (PPC) campaign.
Make sure your website has a Call to action, a telephone number to call, enquiry box to fill in and make it easy to buy your products. Don't be shy put these calls to action all over the place, shy bairn get nowt as they say here in Newcastle.

Happy New Year

2008-01-08T17:35:00.000Z

Better late than never, HAPPY NEW YEAR from all at Mancala.

Of course last year was an extremely busy year, especially at the end and this year has started in the same way. Christmas was a record breaking year for those of you with ecommerce - in particularly our clients had a bumper one - on line sales are bucking the general retail trend so it might be worth thinking about how you will make great sales this year.

I look forward to uploading more posts this new year.

Only one Week Till Christmas

2007-12-18T19:36:00.000Z

Its just one week to go until we get out our paper party hats and fall asleep on the sofa... and of course enjoy the festivities that surround Christmas. Here at Mancala and Webbeads we are winding down and looking forward to Friday when we close shop until the new year.

Of course Christmas would not be Christmas without a little magic show to get you in the spirit.... so I would like to present to you David Chesterfield, the worlds greatest Magician.

Happy Christmas, and we look forward to seeing you in the New year.

Slowly Slowly Catchy Monkey

2007-12-11T00:15:00.000Z

From the BBC News Website-

"Internet retailers are flourishing UK shoppers will spend a collective £370m on purchases through the Internet on Monday, the highest ever daily amount spent online, a study estimates."

There will be an estimated £17.2 Billion, yes £17.2Billion spent online during the last 3 months.

If you didn't take advantage of this years record breaking spend on the Internet start planning now for next year. Slowly slowly catchy monkey, as a wise man once said.

Think about things like email marketing, start creating your database now - by the time next September comes (which is when you should be primed and ready for the Christmas rush) you will have a decent sized database to market your Christmas offers to.

Get your search engine optimisation plan in place, you don't get to the top of search engines over night but you now have almost a year to get there, use the time wisely by getting links to your site and updating your content.

Promote your website in whatever way you can, business cards, flyer's, press ads - any form of offline marketing should include your website address.

Keep an eye on this page and I will keep posting tips on what you need to do, for may retailers Christmas is the most important time of the year, the same is true for online retailers. Good luck and hopefully next Christmas will be a great success.

Tell Your Clients About Christmas Ordering

2007-12-03T13:38:00.000Z

We are now in the final straight of what is for many the busiest time of the year online (in particular for those of you with ecommerce shops).

Now would be a good time to implement an email campaign to educate your clients on your final order dates if they want delivery before Christmas. This email campaign can also be used as a call to action - obviously if the clock is ticking then your email will prompt them into action.

Setting up Google Analytics on Your Website

2007-11-25T23:11:00.000Z

Not got Google Analytics? Here is a short video showing you how to get started with this powerful website statistics packages (and it is completely FREE)

A Little Often Goes a Long way WIth Search Engine Optimisation

2007-11-22T13:36:00.000Z

When was the last time you updated or added new content to your website? Yesterday? Last week? Last Month? NEVER!

I hope it is not the later, but don't worry if it is you can change that from now.

Search Engine Optimisation Tip - Did you know that many search engines check to see when you last updated your site and use that as a gauge as to whether your site is up to date and relevant - the logic here is that a site that has been update in the last month is going to be more relevant that a site that has not been updated for over a year.

So what to do about this. Well assuming you have access to edit and add content to your website (either via FTP or through a Content Management System) you should go in an make sure that the information on your website is up to date. It is? well start adding some content - Make it a once a week habit (once a day if you can really spare the time).

There is another added bonus of doing this - over time you will be building your website so it could have potentially hundreds of pages of content. Each of these pages is an access point for someone to visit your site via a search engine - the more pages you have then potentially the more Keywords and Phrases you will be targeting - before you know it you will have hundreds, if not thousands of daily visits to your website. What you do with that traffic once it is there is up to you (I'm sure I will cover this in a post some time in the near future).

Here are my tips on what to do if your imagination is struggling to think of how to update your site with new content -

Create an Articles Section on your website
Think of 5 articles related to what you do and write them up (try and make the article at least 300 words long if you can).
You now have 5 weeks worth of updates for your website.
Keep a notepad handy, when ever you think of a new article title jot it down. You will then start to develop a list for when you can't think of what to write about.
Keep with it. Short term you will not get much benefit from doing this - 12 months down the line, you will be amazed by the results.

Good luck

Free food on Offer

2007-11-07T15:32:00.000Z

We will very soon be launching a new site called Independent Restaurants Newcastle which as the name may suggest is all about the promotion of Restaurants in Newcastle. The site is live now, but the big launch event will be in the next couple of months.

The site is part of a marketing strategy to promote the diverse range of restaurants in Newcastle that do not form part of a national or international chain.

Anyway, enough of that preamble HOW ABOUT THAT FREE MEAL? The site is due to offically launch early in 2008 and as part of the launch many of the restaurants are going to be offering discounts, buy one get one free offers an the like (thats your free meal by the way, you didn't expect it to be totally free did you?). If you sign up to the enewsletter you will be sent this voucher booklet straight to your inbox as soon as it is ready!

To get the booklet go to the Independent Restaurants Newcastle website and sign up for the offer at the bottom left of the page.

This is a no strings attached offer, all you have to do is sign up to the Independent Restaurants Newcastle Newsletter - you will regually recieve other restaurant offers after that as well.

Crank up you Adwords Campaign NOW

2007-11-05T17:15:00.001Z

It's been a while since my last post but I thought I best get back online and tell you about what you should be doing now to get the most from your ecommerce store in the run up to Christmas.

Like any shop Christmas can be one of the most important times of the year, often contributing to a large amount of the annual turnover of a company. If you were running a shop you would want to be dragging people through the door when they have the money in there pocket and the intent to spend it. Well it is exactly the same with your ecommerce store.

It could be worth ploughing a lot more money into your Google Adwords budget to get those buyers onto your website. As long as you are measuring the cost per sale correctly you are likely to see this figure go down - which means your Google Adwords campaigns are running much more effectively. Assuming you are making a profit with these sales (and lets face it if you are not then Google Adwords may not be for you) then spend more money, up your daily budget. After all Christmas only comes once a year.

Good luck.

7 Top Tips To Choosing the Right Web Development Company For Your Business.

2007-10-05T14:09:00.000+01:00

Gone are the days when Internet Marketing was a tool that only those with a large budget or great technical expertise could actually make use of on a day to day basis. These days most businesses of all sizes and backgrounds recognise the important part that online marketing and web development can play in promoting and expanding their enterprise.

Baring all of this in mind, I’ve put together ‘Mancala’s 7 top tips’ when choosing a Web Development Company:

1. The first thing to think about is what does your website need to achieve to expand your business. This is important as many businesses can end up spending money on unnecessary features which may not directly be beneficial to them. It is important that you have a clear idea of what you would like your website to accomplish early on, as the greater the functionality, the more research and work will be involved which will inevitably push up you costs.

2. Even if this is your first foray in to online marketing check your developer credentials. It is important that you and your development partner should be able to communicate easily and that you feel you can trust them to deliver the best possible solution within your budget. By researching other clients the developer has worked for you can begin to build up a picture of how they work.

3. When it comes to reading through the developer’s proposals it is important to look carefully at exactly what is being offered. Developers will base their proposal on not just what you have discussed initially but also on what they feel they can offer you, which may include extra features and functions. By weighing up the practicality of how these will directly affect your business, you will find yourself in a better position to make an informed decision which isn’t just based on the cheapest/most expensive option.

4. Although not everyone can be an expert, it wouldn’t hurt to be armed with a bit of information regarding web development best practise. These include any legislation which may affect your business, including the DDA (Disabilities Discrimination Act) and The Companies Act. It’s also important to have an awareness of Search Engine Optimisation as having a great website is all very well but if it isn’t visible to search engines then it is unlikely to gain decent exposure. By making sure your potential development company are not only aware of these issues but can also elaborate on them you’ll know that you’re in experienced hands.

5. Getting your website off the ground and gaining a good spot in the search engines is all very well, but it is worth thinking about the future and how your needs are likely to change in the coming 2-3 years. It is important that your web developer will be equipped to offer you a good upgrade on your site, or a whole new system if needs be without compromising your SEO and putting your web presence back to the start. It may seem a long way off, but by discussing these issues now, you’ll get a greater idea of if you will be able to work with the development company long term.

6. Once your website is launched it is important you know exactly what it is you can expect from your web partner in terms of support and maintenance. For example will they provide support in terms of written user guides, through phone training, or be on standby should you need any extra advice or training? By setting out the details of a long term support plan you know exactly where you stand.

7. Finally, although it may seem obvious it is important that not only do your web developers have a good understanding of your business needs but also that they are compatible on a personal level too. Web development can be an involved business and it is important that you feel you can rely upon your supplier to deliver the best possible solution for your company.
For further information on this, Email Marketing, Search Engine Optimisation, Adwords Campaigns and other new media please visit http://www.webbeads.co.uk/

Hit’s Versus Visitors – What Are Your Webstats Really Telling You About Your Website?

2007-09-26T16:50:00.000+01:00

One of the most common queries I come up against time and time again from my clients is the confusion surrounding the difference between visitors and hits on sites. It’s a common misconception that is used to great effect in marketing and PR to dazzle target audiences with mid boggling statistics on the huge amount of hits a newly launched sites have received during its first month.

Working in the SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and New Media field as a whole for many years, this has long been a bug bare of mine and I hope to dismiss some of the myths surrounding it in the hope of educating consumers when deciphering their own webstats in the future.

First of all, Website owners should be most concerned with Visitors whom account for individual activity on a site. The difference between a Visitor and a hit is that a hit is created every time an action on a webpage is recorded or a page is loaded up.

For example logo’s, images, files, and graphics loaded as HTML, CSS and Java Script all create a hit when the page is loaded. This means that massive scores and counts can be created merely by one visitor navigating their way around the website depending on the amount of content on each page providing unrealistic totals.

It is also worth baring in mind that page counters are similarly misleading, as quite often they are set up to count page views, not unique visitors. Page counters are also susceptible manipulation, adding a new count every time the page is refreshed allowing webmasters to creative massive distortion in terms of actual recorded activity simply by continuously refreshing their site.

So there we have it, I hope that my mini rant about the ambiguous manner in which Webstats can be presented has helped to dispel some of the myths surrounding this issue. So next time you come across a press release boasting of hits instead of visitors you’ll know the score!
For further information on this, Email Marketing, SEO, Adword Campaigns and other new media please visit http://www.webbeads.co.uk/

Ecommerce Tips for Christmas 2007!... Already

2007-09-19T00:35:00.000+01:00

Although most of us have only just unpacked from our Summer Holidays the retail year marches relentlessly on, as I discovered to my horror in my local supermarket over the weekend. Keen to stay ahead of their competitors, giant retailers are unabashed at panicking their customers in to preparing for Christmas with the ever expanding array of seasonal foods and gifts available from September onwards.

Despite the palpitations it evokes in most of us it does bring home the importance of preparation for this period and it couldn't be more important to retailers this year as research shows that in the UK alone consumers will spend over £10 billion pounds in the run up to the festive season.

As a web design and development company Mancala Technology have begun to contact our Ecommerce clients with the following 7 top tips to ensure that we all receive a little Christmas cheer this year:

1) Planning is everything.
Take a tip from the high street and get organised early. Give your business or web development supplier enough time to produce timely and effective marketing campaigns on your behalf. This includes making sure your online marketing is in place, now is the time to make sure your Adwords Campaign is up and running and optimised to get the best return on investment (ROI),

2) Relevant Design.
Take the edge off the wide spread panic which Christmas normally induces by developing a seasonal motif that works along side your branding and creative copy but highlights the coming period.

3) Target your Homepage.
Your Homepage is the first port of call for most online shoppers so gearing it towards a creative and hassle-free shopping experience will seriously boost your traffic. Think carefully about your use of copy, the availability of useful information, and don't forget to ‘get creative' by providing quick solutions to finding the right gift. This may include the option to shop by budget, product or recipient for example. We truly believe that by providing a clear route around your site and providing ideas, will reduce your bounce rate.

4) Delivery.
This is always a bit of a hot potato with retailers. Eager to push ahead with proactive marketing, the logistics of delivering your product or service can often be neglected. By making sure you reconcile your stock, man power and realistic delivery times and dates, you should avoid the usual pitfalls. Remember that communication is the key and a concise explanation of your delivery policy from your Homepage (see top tip no. 3) should keep everyone in on the loop.

5) Email Marketing.
By drip feeding your customers with a well planned email campaign about the products and solutions you can provide for the coming Christmas you should create awareness with your customers and hopefully begin to reap Christmas related profits sooner rather than later.

6) Packaging
If, like me, you're a sucker for pretty packaging then you'll know how irresistible the option to spend a little extra to put the finishing touches on a great gift and be. It's an easy opportunity to generate extra revenue and also offers your customers a more complete service which they are more likely to re-use. However, remember the importance of planning to avoid becoming bogged down in the detail however pretty it may look!

7) Monitoring.
Finally, make all of the marketing tools you've used and developed over the Christmas period work for you throughout the year. By measuring your website traffic, sales, feedback, performance and statistics you can learn more about your customers shopping habits and how your service can be developed in the coming year.

We hope that these top tips help to take the edge off the Christmas madness, further advice can be found at our website http://www.webbeads.co.uk/

Don't forget to Email your Client List

2007-09-11T14:13:00.000+01:00

It is easy to forget that you have a list of clients who have bought your services/ products before. Don't forget to get in touch with them. Assuming you have done a good job they are more than likely to buy from you again - and it is a lot easier than trying to find new clients.

Make sure you make the effort to send an email out to them. See what happens

Email Marketing Newcastle

Christmas is coming! Well not quite but it is time to start thinking about it

2007-09-11T13:41:00.000+01:00

A reminder popped up in my calender today telling me to start my campaigns for Christmas. 'Its only September', I thought, 'Fenwicks haven't even started to clean there windows for there Christmas Display'. However I new my reminder was correct as Christmas does have a habit of creeping up.

This year I will be telling all my ecommerce clients to check their AdWords campaigns to ensure they are allocating the correct budget and are testing the campaigns so they are getting a maximum return on investment (ROI).

It is amazing how well AdWords campaigns perform at any time of year, but during the Christmas season it is the only sure way to get traffic to your website. There is another reason why you should be spending time now on getting this right - AdWords and the keywords you choose are ranked based on how much you want to pay per click (PPC) and also the 'quality' of you advert - if your advert has a high click through rate then it is likely that it will appear higher in the list of adverts. The higher it appears the more likely you will get someone clicking on it - so if you get started on your AdWords campaign now then come the crucial months of November and December you will (hopefully) have good quality ads showing high on the left hand side of the page.

I love Adwords. I really do believe it has been a revolution in marketing (not just online, any form of marketing). Of course if you are not sure what to do about getting your site promoted using adwords then get in touch.

Welcome to Online Marketing for SMEs

2007-09-07T13:47:00.000+01:00

Hi my name is Deryck, and welcome to my first post on Online Marketing for SMEs. I have been working in IT for 18 years, the last 8 of those years I have been involved with business large and small promoting them online. Currently I run Newcastle Based Web Design and Online Marketing Agency Mancala Technology Limited.

I decided to start this blog because I often come across ideas and suggestions that will help businesses like yours get a competitive advantage in the world of online marketing.

What is online marketing?
Online marketing covers a whole range of functions - I will list a few, but this is not an exhaustive list.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), the ability to get your site listed high is search engines such as Google, Yahoo, MSN (to name but a few). As someone once told me, getting to the top of Google does not happen by accident. By implementing a good SEO strategy over time you will see your site climb the rankings.
Google AdWords Campaigns, or Pay Per Click (PPC). PPC campaigns allow you to target the customers who are looking for you! Think about that for a minute. You only target people who are interested in what you have to sell at the moment thet are thinking about it - what other form of advertising lets you do that? I had a client come into my office yesterday who had tried all forms of offline advertising, back of newspaper, specialist magazines etc - he also tried Google AdWords and now he is scrapping all other forms of advertising. Why? Because the ROI from Google AdWords was streets ahead of any other marketing he did. I, of course am a compete convert to AdWords and I am now an Accredited Google Advertising Professional.
Email Marketing, how often are you getting in touch with your clients and prospects via email? for most SME's it is not often enough. The best chance of future work and product sales are through people who have bought from you before.

There are two types of email marketing that could benefit your business - Broadcast Emails, where you send all or a specific group of people an email containing an offer or any enticement. And then there are Auto Responders - these are great and I will be covering these a lot over time - basically an auto responder will allow you to set up a sequence of emails to go out over time. The recipient will receive these emails dependent on when you started sending to them.

That is the start of what I will be covering. I will try and get a post up every week, if not more often and I will be sharing my experiences which will hopefully in turn help you.