Search Engine Optimisation Goes Glamorous

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

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

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

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

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

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%'

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

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.
2. 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.
3. AdWords Campaigns / PPC. Get started on an AdWords or pay per click (PPC) campaign.
4. 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.