New Blog Launched

Mancala has launched a new blog. Mancala Today is the official blog of Mancala - Newcastle based SEO company.

The blog will give advice, background and general chit chat about Mancala, its staff and what is happening in the world of Internet Marketing.

Please feel free to check out the blog today.

Mancala Today

Google, Yahoo and Microsoft colabarate to launch the Canonical Tag

So what is a Canonical Tag?

A big problem with large website is the amount of duplicate content caused by the same page being displayed but with different URLs. This is a problem we at Mancala have already gotten around by rewriting out URLs to be search engine friendly - but the Canonical Tag reinforces this even more.

How does it work? basically a tag is included in the code of your web page to tell the search engines what the definitive URL is for this page. That is then the page that should appear in the search engine results.

So what? Well it means that in the future the results you get from searching should contain less duplicate information from the same website and so you should get to the content you want easier.

Simple.

Introducing Magento Ecommerce

We at Mancala towers have been spending the last few of months getting ourselves up to speed with Magento Commerce.

Magento Commerce is highly sophisticated ecommerce software which will make running an ecommerce store a breeze for our clients who take it up.

The first of these store will be coming on line soon and they are brilliant. From the front end ease of ordering (after all that is the most important thing about having an ecommerce store) and from the back end ease of management, Magneto and Mancala are providing top class solutions for any online store owner.

If you would like a free demonstration on how Magneto Commerce could change the way you run your online store then please just get in touch with us on 0191 241 6726 to arrange demo.

Jelly and Icecream Please - Mancala is six years old and better than ever

Mancala reached a milestone yesterday... six years old! And we are stronger than ever before despite the doom and gloom in the market place.

When I started Mancala in 2003 there was only a small appetite amongst the north east business community for internet marketing. It was only business owners with real vision who could see the benefit of making sure their website was ranking high in the search engines - now of course it is common knowledge that the Internet is one of the best (and I believe the best) forms of advertising and attracting new business.

So what has changed in the last six years? well pay per click advertising has really taken off, for many business and clients of ours this brings in significant business - easily making more money than is spent - after all if for every £1 I spent I got £5 back wouldn't you just want to do that all day long? The problem with pay per click is that if you set it up wrong you could be pouring money down the drain - that's why we became Google Accredited Advertising Professionals so that we could set these campaigns for our clients and get maximum ROI (return on Investment).

Email marketing is now a necessary tool for any business serious about gaining leads and business from the internet. We set up sophisticated and effective email marketing campaigns for our clients with proven results.

What about those who's website does not work for them. We now carry our independent reviews of website for anyone who wants one (they don't have to be our client) and will tell them what is not working well and where they could dramatically improve the website and Internet marketing to not only get move visitors but to increase the number of enquiries or sales when a visitor arrives at the website.

We are looking forward to the next 6 years.... in two years time the Internet turns 20, it has grown up and Mancala will be there to make sure that our clients are running grown up sensible and most importantly profitable Internet marketing campaigns.

Now for some more jelly and ice cream!

Running an Ecommerce store or Online Store?

Lately I have been spending a lot of time looking at ecommerce stores and what makes a good one and what makes a bad one. Well my research has come to the conclusion that there are a lot of bad ecommerce stores out there.

So if you are running an ecommerce store, or you are looking to set up a online shop of some description here are a few tips to make sure you head in the right direction with it.

1. Remember the purpose of your online store.... not sure what that is? well the purpose of your store is to sell your products, simple as that. So make it easy for your visitors to buy from you.
2. Most of your visitors do not know who you are... so there is a little trust issue that you need to overcome. Think about what sort of reassurances you would need to to buy from someone you didn't know. Here are a few ideas - have a prominent telephone number on the page - if they have a query they can give you a call. Offer them a money back guarantee on your sales if you can - if the buyer is not taking a perceived risk then this will help them make a decision to buy. Make sure your web store looks professional.
3. Give as much information about your products as you can - some of your buyers will only want the highlights of the product information BUT some will want to know everything - cater for both.
4. Make sure your website is search engine friendly! that means that every page, every category and every product page can we indexed by the search engines - in short it will help you get every product you list into the google database - and if you are lucky, you will get high rankings on every one of these and so lots of free customers!!
5. Try out pay per click advertising. Google Adwords is a good place to start.
6. Use Google Base to list all of your products - Google base is like a shopping comparison tool and can generate a whole load of traffic for your website.
7. Ask friends and family to try and buy certain products from your website. watch them as they do it (but don't give them any help) - see where they struggle, you will be surprised. Try and improve on the areas where they struggle.

These seven tips are the bases for good ecommerce internet marketing. There are plenty more things you can do - so many ecommerce stores do nothing to promote themselves - make sure your's isn't one of them.

SEO Newcastle is now on Twitter

In an experiment to try out all the new fangled communications devices on the internet I have set up a Newcastle SEO Twitter account. For those of you not familiar with Twitter it is basically blogging for the text generation.

I will try and use my Twitter account to give short sharp SEO tips. Please follow me by Visiting Twitter and then click on Follow! (that sounds a little desperate - but is still a heart felt plea).

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0

At last, WCAG 2.0 guidelines have been released!! So what?
Well a hot topic for quite a few years now has been the accessibility of website for the disabled, whether that be visually or physically impaired. The web content accessibility guidelines (WCAG) where set out by the World wide Web Consortium (W3C) to standardise the way in which website were built for the visually and physically impaired - problem was that the requirements were so ridged (and in some case ridiculous) that it restricted creativity and functionality - many web developers were frustrated.
The good news is that the new guidelines take into account many of the new forms of media available and make a little more sense.
Find out more by visiting the web content accessibility guidelines online at W3C

Have a great Christmas