However, like every business, there are good companies and
there are lemons. Knowing the right questions to ask and
the criteria to look for will help you in choosing an
affordable, effective search engine optimization company.

When looking at different companies, begin by considering
the approach they employ to raise your search engine
positions. Steer clear of companies that use cloaked,
doorway, or bridge pages to raise your positions. These
techniques violate most search engine policy, and in the
worst case scenario, will only get your website severely
penalized, if not removed entirely from a search engine’s
index.

A cloaked page is a page that is created which is invisible
to the regular visitor to your website. The cloaked page is
coded to detect a search engine spider and divert them to
this special page, which is set-up to artificially boost
your search engine position. Doorway or bridge pages
utilize the same concept, but often reside on an entirely
different server. Google, one of the largest and most
important search engine on the Internet, will remove your
website from their index if they detect you have cloaked
pages. Never, never employ any company that uses this
technique!

Another important element is to get a guarantee that the
company you hire will not work with your competitors while
they are working for you. Obviously, this would seriously
compromise the effectiveness of the search engine
optimization campaign. Be aware that some companies will
use the success they achieve for your website to sell their
services to your competitors. So get your guarantee in
writing, and make sure it is legally binding.

Of course, one of the most important factors you want to
check out is the company’s track record of results.
However, don’t take the company’s word for it. They will
undoubtedly be slanting their results in order to sell
their services to you. To go beyond their simple statement
of success, ask them a few pertinent questions, and verify
their answers.

Ask them which engines they have achieved the best results
on. The ones that are important are the most popular
engines, and these are the ones you want to see good
results on. Since the popularity of search engines can
change with the landscape of the overall Internet, check
out the Nielsen Netratings page at Search Engine Watch.

Next, find out what keywords and phrases they are claiming
great results with. It’s easy to get high rankings with
unpopular words. For instance, the keyword “cat leashes”
will get high popularity ranking because no one else would
think of using it. What you are looking for is good results
using popular keywords. Check out the software Wordtracker,
available at www.wordtracker.com. You can order a free
trial, or a subscription ranging from 1 day to 1 year. This
software rates the popularity of keywords and phrases based
on actual search engine use.

Next, look for good results over an entire site that the
company claims to have successfully worked for. You want to
see a wide range of positions over a number of different
search engines using different keywords or phrases for the
entire site. Request a report for any client the company
claims to have done well for. This report should show good
positions on a number of the most popular search engines
for a variety of different, popular keywords and phrases.

When you are checking out search engine optimization
companies, make sure they have actually done the work they
are claiming to have done. Some companies will use other
company’s results in order to get you to sign on with them.
If you are in doubt, call the company they are showing you
results for, and ask for the name of their search engine
optimization company.

It’s important to keep in mind that a successful search
engine optimization campaign will result in maximum
exposure across a wide range of popular search engines
using a variety of keywords and phrases. This is the
formula for a successful campaign, and you should keep it
always in the forefront of your marketing strategy.

Ask the search engine optimization company you are
considering for a report that shows you rankings across a
number of popular search engines for a period of at least
six months. Remember: search engine marketing is a process
that is continual, and you need a company that not only
understands this, but keeps constant tabs on your search
engine positions. That company must also be able to adjust
its strategy in the event that search engine rankings drop.

Since search engine marketing is an on-going process, your
positions must be constantly monitored. If you want your
search engine optimization company to do this for you,
request a sample of a monthly report. It is essential that
this report should show rankings for the most popular
search engines. Don’t be impressed by a report that only
shows great results for a limited number of small search
engines. These are fairly easy results to acquire. Also
confirm that the popular search engine results they are
showing you are indeed the popular search engines
currently.

Be sure the sample report the company shows you is in a
format that you can easily understand. For example, it
could be in the form of a chart that covers a period of at
least six months and presents data such as the top 50
positions broken down on a monthly basis or the top 5 pages
each month. Then, ascertain that the company you are
considering actually monitors these positions or pages
every month, and that the sample report they show you
includes findings and recommendations for the specific
site. This insures that the company will actively monitor
and make adjustments to their strategy on a continual basis
rather than simply gather statistics on your positions. You
need a company that is actively participant in your search
engine marketing campaign, not just an information
gatherer.

Obviously, your finances have to figure into your choice of
company, but bear in mind that a search engine optimization
company is crucial the success of your marketing campaign.
It is not just a casual accessory. If you cannot afford a
company that will do a thorough and reliable job for your
website, you might consider waiting until you do have the
finances in place.

If you have to find a company and can’t wait for your
finances to catch up, you may be able to find an affordable
company that will also be able to supply quality, reliable
work, such as a fairly new company. Just remember that
there are risks involved with using a company without a
proven track record – and that risk is your money! Don’t
take that leap unless the company can supply you with a
least a few references.

References are the most reliable indicator of a good
company. Don’t use a company that won’t show your
references because of any reason, confidentiality included.
Remember – even doctors will provide references! The firm
you choose should provide you with a minimum of two
references, one that is from the past, and one that is
current.

When you contact these references, be prepared to ask
precise, specific questions so that neither of your time is
wasted. Ask them what their experience was like with the
company, such as their availability to answer questions and
deal with problems and their ability to meet deadlines. Ask
the reference to rate the overall performance of the
company.

Find out if the company requested that the reference make
significant changes to their web pages that affected the
visitors coming to their site. You are looking for a search
engine optimization company that can balance the needs of
both search engines and site visitors without compromising
either.

The most essential question to ask is whether the work of
the search engine optimization company resulted in higher
profits for the reference. Without profits, it doesn’t
matter whether your positions are at the top of the list or
not.

A sitemap of a website is similar to the table of contents of a book. Sitemaps are important because it guides web surfers to the particular part of the website they have a point of interest in. With it they would save time following links and get right to the point instead.

Sitemaps are also where search engines look at if somebody is looking for a particular keyword or phrase. If you have a site map, you can most likely be searched.

Creating a sitemap, now with software technology surging in, is relatively easier than before. You need not be a programming guru to be one. All need is a notepad, a program editor, and some patience. Here’s how you do it:

Create the listing on a notepad.
It doesn’t necessarily have to be a notepad. Any word processing program will do. First off, make sure to type in all the parts and pieces of your website. Include all pages and all links you have. Create it as if you listing the contents of your book. Make a draft first. You’re sure no to miss something out this way.

Create a new page for your sitemap.
You can insert the sitemap on your website on one of its pages or you can create an entirely different page for it. Using your notepad, incorporate all tags necessary to it to make another webpage. Open up your website creator program and tag your sitemap using it. If you have created your website on your own, this will be easy for you.

Create a link for the sitemap.
You wonít be able to view the sitemap if you won’t put a link for it, of course. Create the link on the front page of your website so that visitors can view it right away and be directed appropriately.

Check your work.
It is important to validate the functionality of the links you created on the sitemap. Test each and every one in there and if you get an error, be sure to fix it accurately. Run through every single page to make sure that all are accounted for.

Upload your work.
Place the sitemap now on your live browser and double check it. It should function as smoothly as the dry run. Error should be minimal at this stage since you already have verified it locally.

The steps provided herewith is the manual way of creating a sitemap. These days, if you search hard enough on the web, you will find online programs that will do all these work for you. All you have to do it type in the URL or the link of your website and they will create the sitemap with click of a button.

Of course that method is generic. All of you who have created their sitemap that way will have an end product that is all the same, plus thereís that possibility that something else will be inserted in there too. Then again, the process is less taxing and way, way simpler.

But if you want a more personalized output, and you are pretty good with computers and programming yourself, better make one of your own. And since you made your website anyway, creating sitemap is just like creating any other page on the website. Other than you’ll know for sure the links are accurate, you can organize the links the way you prefer it to be. Major parts of the site are emphasized compared to less significant. This is important especially if you are selling products or offering services online.

Sitemap is vital to a website. People search the web a lot for something. If your website has what that particular person is looking for, and your sitemap reports it, then you have a new customer looking at your items. Not only that, they will see some other things up for sale that they might be interested in as well.

Sitemaps, be it generated by a program automatically or you made it yourself, presents the same purpose. That is to lead your visitors to where they’re likely headed, and for you to be seen on the World Wide Web through search spiders. So with these, make sure your website has a sitemap of its own, lest make one.

Before you can start into blogging for business, you should first make a plan as to how you are going to get started in the first place. Why? Simply for the reason that blogging, though it may be quick and easy to set up, also entails some factors that will need your utmost consideration. Here are some helpful tips that you may use to start your blogging site on the Web now!

Classify Your Target Audience

As in any business, the first and most crucial step in starting your blog site is that of identifying which is your target audience or niche market and eventually applying the Paretto Principle which states that you must first identify the top 20% of your key customers or target market which will surely bring the 80% of business sales you want to achieve.

Decide What You Really Have To Say And Say It

In the process of setting up your blogging for your business, you should first immediately decide what you have to say to your target audience or target market. And make sure that when you write what you have to say, your customers are surely going to read them and learn something from them. Sometimes, bloggers would just write anything to keep their blog sites alive. Oftentimes, there are bloggers who tend to be talking about something which in essence, they are completely unknowledgeable of. What a pity, because they are just throwing away their opportunity to add more prospective loyal customers to their database.

Pinpoint Where You Want To Keep Your Blog

It is also important to identify beforehand where you prefer your blog to stay. If you do not know yet how to set up your location for your blog, it might do you good to just grab a hold of the various software packages which allow you to add your blog to an existing Web site.

Try Blog Hosting Site

Or if you prefer an easier one, simply go for the blog hosting site wherein a link coming from your own Web site will automatically bring more customers over your site. This is truly very simple and trouble-free since the site is the one that will give the already formatted designs and alternatives from which you can select.

Get Your Facts Straight And Start Communicating

It is not sufficient that you throw all your efforts into writing down your thoughts, or pooling all your observations as well as your view points into your blog. More so, it is not enough that there is something for your customers to read, oh no. What is really important is that you make sure you give your blogs a taste of freshness and uniqueness at all times. This will definitely boost your blogging traffic really fast.

Remember, a successful business owner does not only blog by declaring some marketing speech about how good your business has turned out, why and how? Or chatter the blog away with some news and current events which are not actually your forte at all. Remember, your readers can always feel what you are writing. Be true, heartfelt and pleasantly convincing and you are sure to make more success in your business for sure.

Just don’t focus on the home page, keywords and titles.
The first step to sales when customers visit your site to see the products they were looking for. Of course, search engine optimization and better rankings can’t keep your customer on your site or make them buy. The customer having visited your site, now ensure that he gets interested in your products or services and stays around. Motivate him to buy the product by providing clear and unambiguous information. Thus if you happen to sell more than one product or service, provide all necessary information about this, may be by keeping the information at a different page. By providing suitable and easily visible links, the customer can navigate to these pages and get the details.

Understanding Your Target Customer
If you design a website you think will attract clients, but you don’t really know who your customers are and what they want to buy, it is unlikely you make much money. Website business is an extension or replacement for a standard storefront. You can send email to your existing clients and ask them to complete a survey or even while they are browsing on your website. Ask them about their choices. Why do they like your products? Do you discount prices or offer coupons? Are your prices consistently lower than others? Is your shipping price cheaper? Do you respond faster to client questions? Are your product descriptions better? Your return policies and guarantees better than your competitor’s? To know your customer you can check credit card records or ask your customer to complete a simple contact form with name, address, age, gender, etc. when they purchase a product.

Does your website give enough contact information?
When you sell from a website, your customer can buy your products 24 hrs a day and also your customers may be from other states that are thousands of miles away. Always provide contact information, preferably on every page of your website, complete with mailing address, telephone number and an email address that reaches you. People may need to contact you about sales, general information or technical problems on your site. Also have your email forwarded to another email address if you do not check your website mailbox often. When customer wants to buy online provide enough options like credit card, PayPal or other online payment service.

It is worth cataloguing the basic principles to be enforced to increase website traffic and search engine rankings.

• Create a site with valuable content, products or services.

• Place primary and secondary keywords within the first 25 words in your page content and spread them evenly throughout the document.

• Research and use the right keywords/phrases to attract your target customers.

• Use your keywords in the right fields and references within your web page. Like Title, META tags, Headers, etc.

• Keep your site design simple so that your customers can navigate easily between web pages, find what they want and buy products and services.

• Submit your web pages i.e. every web page and not just the home page, to the most popular search engines and directory services. Hire someone to do so, if required. Be sure this is a manual submission. Do not engage an automated submission service.

• Keep track of changes in search engine algorithms and processes and accordingly modify your web pages so your search engine ranking remains high. Use online tools and utilities to keep track of how your website is doing.
• Monitor your competitors and the top ranked websites to see what they are doing right in the way of design, navigation, content, keywords, etc.

• Use reports and logs from your web hosting company to see where your traffic is coming from. Analyze your visitor location and their incoming sources whether search engines or links from other sites and the keywords they used to find you.

• Make your customer visit easy and give them plenty of ways to remember you in the form of newsletters, free reports, reduction coupons etc.

• Demonstrate your industry and product or service expertise by writing and submitting articles for your website or for article banks so you are perceived as an expert in your field.

• When selling products online, use simple payment and shipment methods to make your customer’s experience fast and easy.

• When not sure, hire professionals. Though it may seem costly, but it is a lot less expensive than spending your money on a website which no one visits.

• Don’t look at your website as a static brochure. Treat it as a dynamic, ever-changing sales tool and location, just like your real store to which your customers with the same seriousness.

It is recommended to use keywords in page titles itself. This title tag is different from a Meta tag, but it’s worth considering it in relation to them. Whatever text one places in the title tag (between the portions) will appear in the title bar of browsers when they view the web page. Some browsers also append whatever you put in the title tag by adding their own name, as for example Microsoft’s Internet Explorer or OPERA.

The actual text you use in the title tag is one of the most important factors in how a search engine may decide to rank your web page. In addition, all major web crawlers will use the text of your title tag as the text they use for the title of your page in your listings.

If you have designed your website as a series of websites or linked pages and not just a single Home Page, you must bear in mind that each page of your website must be search engine optimized. The title of each page i.e. the keywords you use on that page and the phrases you use in the content will draw traffic to your site.

The unique combination of these words and phrases and content will draw customers using different search engine terms and techniques, so be sure you capture all the keywords and phrases you need for each product, service or information page.

The most common mistake made by small business owners when they first design their website is to place their business name or firm name in every title of every page. Actually most of your prospective customers do not bother to know the name of your firm until after they have looked at your site and decided it is worth book marking.

So, while you want your business name in the title of the home page, it is probably a waste of valuable keywords and space to put it in the title line of every page on your site. Why not consider putting keywords in the title so that your page will display closer to the top of the search engine listing.

Dedicating first three positions for keywords in title avoiding the stop words like ‘and’, ‘at’ and the like is crucial in search engine optimization.

With thousands of web hosting companies in the market it can be difficult if not impossible to know which web site hosting companies truly provide an excellent hosting solution at an excellent price. When you have an established domain name with a good web hosting company, you can get reports on your traffic and which of your pages your customers are visiting most often, as well as many other statistics.

Your web host will charge you a fee for monthly service that ranges from $10 or $20 to the more expensive $50.00 per month. Plan to pay between $300 and $500 per year to your web host.

Always avoid free or very inexpensive web hosting services, because you may experience bouts of server downtimes and you are likely to have significant limitations in storage, number of email addresses, FTP upload etc.

Be sure your web host can accommodate e-commerce and storefronts, wireless capability, bogs, forums, chats, online interactive helps and anything else you want to add onto your site.

Estimate what your growth needs are and ensure that this web host can serve you as you grow. The last thing you want to do is change host mid way unless you absolutely have to do so.

Check your bandwidth capability to be sure that, if your website traffic grows rapidly, your customers will not have to wait to download or view information. Three things to look for in a web hosting company are:

1. Excellent Customer Support:
Your hosting provider should be there for you 24/7 and give you instant access to the technicians you need to solve your problem. Ask them how long it takes for them to typically respond to your problem. A good test is to call them in the mid night to check if you get to a live, level 3 support.

2. A Sound Infrastructure:
Check whether they offer a multi-homed network powered by multiple bandwidth providers to ensure redundancy. Some offer a 100% guarantee on its network availability or network uptime.

3. Financial Stability:
If you’re running very critical operations, you can’t afford to be with a hosting company that may not be in business in a few months.

Choosing an appropriate domain name is very important. First and foremost, when it comes to domain names, try to stay away from the silly, stupid, ridiculous or clever. Keep your domain name simple and make it something your customers can remember if they lose the link to your business website.

Take note that, while your domain name on Geocities or AOL may seem like the least expensive way to go, it may also get you dropped from certain search engines. Some search engines ignore domain addresses that reside on these ‘free servers’ or on the ‘cheap’ servers.

Even if your site is recognized and considered by search engines, a professional domain name that uses your primary company name or associated words is likely to get more attention and be considered as a stable business by your prospective customers.

Purchasing domain names are not that expensive which cost about $100 and there are many companies that can register the name for you, provided it is available and has not already been used by another company.

Using one of your keywords in your domain name can increase your score on some search engines. For example, solderingirons.com could be more effective as Electric-soldering-irons.com, if that domain name was available.

You might also choose to establish more than one domain name using keywords and then link your ‘doorway’ domain sites to your primary site. But you will have to pay for each of the domain name and also the monthly hosting fees. It all depends on the type and size of your business and your competition.

Keep in mind that some search engines disregard ‘doorway’ sites. So put at least a page of content on the doorway site with some useful information and then link it to your primary site. But don’t design it as an empty page. The other reason being, you can have one, three, five, or even more email addresses that all contain your business name, and give your business a professional feel. When customers get emails from dominicstone@solderingirons.com they feel as if they are dealing with a stable, professional business operation.

No need for customers to understand how you manage all your email boxes on your domain. They just need to feel your business is dependable and reputable.

Search Engine Optimization is a process of choosing the most appropriate targeted keyword phrases related to your site and ensuring that this ranks your site highly in search engines so that when someone searches for specific phrases it returns your site on tops. It basically involves fine tuning the content of your site along with the HTML and Meta tags and also involves appropriate link building process. The most popular search engines are Google, Yahoo, MSN Search, AOL and Ask Jeeves. Search engines keep their methods and ranking algorithms secret, to get credit for finding the most valuable search-results and to deter spam pages from clogging those results. A search engine may use hundreds of factors while ranking the listings where the factors themselves and the weight each carries may change continually. Algorithms can differ so widely that a webpage that ranks #1 in a particular search engine could rank #200 in another search engine. New sites need not be “submitted” to search engines to be listed. A simple link from a well established site will get the search engines to visit the new site and begin to spider its contents. It can take a few days to even weeks from the referring of a link from such an established site for all the main search engine spiders to commence visiting and indexing the new site.

If you are unable to research and choose keywords and work on your own search engine ranking, you may want to hire someone to work with you on these issues.

Search engine marketing and promotion companies, will look at the plan for your site and make recommendations to increase your search engine ranking and website traffic. If you wish, they will also provide ongoing consultation and reporting to monitor your website and make recommendations for editing and improvements to keep your site traffic flow and your search engine ranking high. Normally your search engine optimization experts work with your web designer to build an integrated plan right away so that all aspects of design are considered at the same time.

think of many of the major global companies, such as Nike, Apple, McDonaalds, Microsoft….you can just catch a quick glimpse of their logos at for a moment on a product and instantly recognise who the product belongs to and what the brand represents.

A great logo is essential for every single business, large or small.

So what are the main principles to a great effective logo design for a successful business?

There are 5 basic elements to a great logo design:

1. Your logo design must be simple.
Keeping your logo design is important for a number of reasons. Firstly, it is usually much easier to identify a simple logo. Think about Apple or Nike, or Commonwealth Bank for instance. Their logo branding is so powerful that you can just look at the icon without actually needing the text to recognise who the logo belongs to. The logos also stand out easily, so even with blurred vision you can probably identify the brand!
Simple logos also are usually easier and cheaper to reproduce. Most of the largest business’s logos are only 1 or 2 colour designs, which can save them hundreds of thousands of dollars on their printed material costs every year as it, plus it is easier to produce marketing material around the brand with simple colour guidelines to stick with, creating more powerful integrated marketing.

2. Your logo should be timeless
When designing your logo, think about if it will still suit your business in 5, 10 or even 30 years. Again, looking at simple icons such as Apple, their logo could now be used to sell cars if they wanted to, because it is an icon and identifies with their name, not their products. The Apple icon will probably still be a modern logo in 20 years time without a doubt, because it is simple, isn’t ‘ultra modern’ so it won’t date and is accepted by a wide audience – men, women, young and old. It’s almost the perfect logo!

3. Your Logo needs to be flexible
Make sure your logo is flexible and easy to reproduce for marketing. When designing the elements of your logo think about how it will be used and it’s application. Will it work well in print, on uniforms, fashion accessories, signage, etc?
Always make sure your logo is provided in a vector format, which you can take to a signwriter or printer that they can easily work with. If you are having your logo professionally designed make sure they provide you with a VSM (Visual Style Manual) which outlines the correct colours used, the elements of the logo and the alternate variations the logo can be reproduced in (eg, mono, greyscale, reverse colour, etc). All these variations are usually supplied in the correct file types ready for instant use. This makes reproducing the logo so much easier when you need to, saving you time and money.

4. The logo design needs to be appropriate for your business.
Is your logo design appropriate for your business? Does it reflect your target audience? Does it reflect your products or services and your business personality?
For instance, if your logo was for a Jewellery Store, you wouldn’t use some thick ugly bold font or a Comic Script typeface, in bold bright cheap colours…this will become the image people perceive your business to be like. You would aim for an elegant sophisticated design to capture the audience that appreciates fine elegance in jewellery. Before designing any logo, write a design brief and think about who your audience is and how your logo will reflect your products.

5. Your logo must be memorable!
Keeping the design simple, people remember your business icon much quicker. Choose clean simple colours which won’t date, a font style which is clean and visible and try and give your brand the ‘iconic’ touch, so people instantly recognise it anywhere.

Author: Chris Bourke of Devision Design Australia – www.Devision.com.au
Chris is a graphic designer and brand development consultant, creating thousands of logos over the years for business of all shapes and sizes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bon appetit!

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

Download your free ebook ‘Twitter Marketing Made Easy’ – Click Here

Facebook now has well over 400 million members and viewers, so your advertisements mean you can reach a huge targeted audience more easily than ever before with an understanding of Facebook Ads.

The secret to getting the best results out of your Facebook ad marketing is using a few simple strategies which anyone can do, to achieve huge success.
Facebook advertising is inexpensive and the results are staggering. You can make serious money within minutes of your Ads going live, and for much less than you think!

Facebook Ad wizz Ian Fernando shares his secrets to how he makes thousands of dollars every day using his simple techniques.

Check out Ian’s sneak peak video below of how he successfully uses Facebook Ads to earn the big dollars, and see for yourself how easy it really is.

Give up your day job and work on Facebook!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

If Twitter is being used to promote something, having a custom background will provide an exceptional marketing opportunity.
A perfect tailor made Twitter background can give any average company a great corporate image. There are far more benefits of a Twitter custom background than you probably have ever thought of.

Here are some of the benefits of a Twitter custom background.

1. A Twitter custom background legitimises your profile:
A well designed Twitter background is the best way to legitimise your profile or a business Twitter page. Leaving the right impression in the minds of visitors is one of the benefits of a Twitter custom background designed exclusively for your company.

2. It provides you and your company free advertising space:
The pre-made Twitter backgrounds are used by almost everyone using Twitter and it becomes very monotonous for visitors to view the same backgrounds repeatedly. Having a beautifully designed custom made background for you and your company makes visitors stop at your profile page. This pause time acts as free advertising space.

3. Increases the number of your followers:
One of the benefits of a Twitter custom background is that an appealing and informational profile background allows you to attract more visitors, increase your network and add more followers to your twitter profile.

4. Adds weight to your tweets:
Tweets are useful for developing new relationships, announcing offers and promotions etc. Your business is bound to miss out on more than half of the benefits of advertising on Twitter, if your profile does not have an attractive background along with valuable messages. With a personalised, custom background that is appropriate for your company, you can gain instant value and create an impact on the users.

5. It allows you to add more information and photos:
You can store limited information on the basic, pre-made Twitter profile backgrounds. Having a custom background will allow you to add photos, contact information, information about your company etc.

6. Allows you to send direct marketing messages:
Sending direct marketing messages in your tweets is a very risky task as there is always a risk of losing your following. Having a customised background image allows you to send direct marketing messages freely. Choose the most important messages that you want your visitors to know and communicate them through your profile.

A custom twitter background allows you to present anything you like to your visitors. It not only helps you to establish your company’s brand or your brand, make your profile legitimate and publish contact as well as other important information but also helps you to differentiate you Twitter account from the remaining accounts.

1. Sharing Links to Items of Interest

As soon as you read something online that you think is interesting, it is easy to share it on Twitter with all of your followers. Twitter is highly effective in this manner because it is such a quick way to be able to reach a large group of people. You can also get a lot of great ideas for blog posts from Twitter since many new ideas and stories are floating around that haven’t even made it to the blogosphere and definitely not to mainstream media.

2. Building Your Network

Using Twitter is a great way to build your network because it allows you to find and follow people with similar interests. You can use Steeple to find people who live in your geographical area. You can also use other tools that help you find new people to follow based upon who your Twitter friends follow.

3. Build Relationships within Your Current Network

People in different networks often use Twitter to connect with their contacts instantly rather than using instant messaging for that purpose. Furthermore, many people use Twitter to connect with their network during events like conferences.

4. Re-Distributing Content from Your Blog or Website

Twitter can be used to redistribute content from your blog or website. However, you should take care to do this thoughtfully since many of your Twitter followers may already read your blog. For that reason, you may want to avoid using a blog plug-in that automatically Tweets your posts. Your best bet is to Tweet your content manually and customize each Tweet so it doesn’t get old.

5. Get Involved in Live Tweeting Events

Twitter launched at SXSW last year, catapulting microblogging conferences to fame. Live Tweeting events are great because they are a form of citizen journalism that allow you to connect with several new people in your niche while making active and valuable contributions to current discussions in your community.

6. Pitching Stories to Journalists on Twitter

You can send a direct message to a journalist who is following you on Twitter to pitch a story idea.

7. Communicating with Your Team

You can use Twitter as a company intranet that connects all of your employees. Twitter can be particularly useful in this regard if you have a virtual business with employees in different geographical locations. You can set your updates to private for security reasons. Anytime you are working on group projects, you can stay in touch with your team members using Twitter.

8. Brand Monitoring

Stay up to date with any mentions of your business on Twitter. If there is anything negative, you will be able to counter it quickly. You can also use Twitter as a way to receive feedback from your customers and improve your business. Just ask your followers to give their opinion on something. For example, if you designed a new website, ask your followers what they think about it and get their constructive criticisms so you can make your site design even better.

9. Acquire More Votes on Social Media Websites

If you have submitted a story to Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, or any other social voting website, tweet a link to that submission to try to score more votes from your followers. If your followers like what they see, they are sure to vote for your content.

10. Hiring People

Looking for a programmer, designer, or writer? Whatever type of professional you seek, try finding them on Twitter. Simply send your followers a tweet telling them you are looking for someone for a job. They can either recommend someone to you or offer themselves for the job. Using Twitter in this way is ideal for finding qualified freelancers. It is much more convenient than putting out a classified ad.

11. Build Your Personal Brand

When you use Twitter to talk about things as mundane as what you ate for breakfast or how you are going to sleep early tonight, you make your followers feel like you are casual and approachable. Even those with running a company that has a cold, corporate brand image could create more appeal and build a unique personal brand using Twitter.

12. Streamline Electronic Communications

When you use Twitter, you’re likely to find yourself using IM, email, and other electronic communication methods less. Twitter not only provides public chatting through Tweets, it also allows you to send direct messages. Twitter will help you streamline your electronic communications, allowing you to scale back online.

Google Buzz is like a social networking tool made especially for Google users.

Not only does Google Buzz allow you to post messages to your friends in a similar way that Twitter does, but Google takes it to the next level, allowing you to share locations tagged with geographical information, show where you are on a map, share photos, updates and more.
It also allows you to link directly to images or play videos online all within the Google system rather than having to jump from one website to another like other social networking tools.

You can choose to share your posts with everyone, or just your selected Google network buddies, and integrated with Gmail, you can share directly through your Gmail account. It’s really so simple!

Google Buzz is also available for mobile, so you can keep in contact with those that matter most, 24 hours a day!

Google Buzz opens huge opportunities for businesses to promote marketing products and services to your online business partners and client database, allowing you to viral market to a huge global audience.

Want to know more about online viral marketing? Talk to Devision Design – the experts in online social business networking.

Check it out at buzz.google.com

Author: Chris Bourke – Senior web developer at Devision Australia and professional web SEO coach at Webcrowd

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

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

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

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

1. Creating New Leads

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

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

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

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

How to Maximise Your Group:

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

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

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

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

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

2. Creating Events

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

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

3. Sending Personal greetings to new leads.

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

4. Create an Advanced Search in Your Target Market

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

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

5. Build Your Credibility.

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

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

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

Get Connecting on LinkedIn and watch your networks grow!

Author: Chris Bourke from Webcrowd.com
Chris Bourke is a web designer and online marketer from Australia, with a passion for online social media marketing.

Follow Chris on Linkedin: http://au.linkedin.com/in/devision

You can build a blog or a video website, upload plenty of quality content but yet still lacking the connections you were hoping for.

Connecting with others online is the core of social media, but it doesn’t happen by itself…you have to make an effort to make it happen.

Whether you are a traditional bricks & mortar business, an online business or just a home based social media business, you must dig yourself into the social trenches and start conversing and connecting with others, to build up a relationship and trust.

It is all about your connection that will draw people towards you and connect with what your business or services have to offer.

But yet most people in social media aren’t doing this. Why?

Simple. Most people don’t understand there are 5 simple steps to online social media success.

You need to connect with the social media culture and get involved with others already online. After all, this is who you are targeting.
Give them the ‘online handshake’ and introduce yourself.
You can’t afford to just set up your social media and then decide to be anti-social!

What are the 5 steps to social media success?

1. Connecting
2. Conversing
3. Building Trust and Value
4. Creating a Doorway
5. Gaining Customers

Step 1 – Connecting
Connecting with others on social media is where successful social media networking begins. Connecting with people on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, and any other niche social networking site online that matters. Getting yourself known on as many social networks as you can.

Here’s a tip…you will connect much easier to those that are looking for you. Make yourself visible and accessible to connect to.
Add your social media links to your email signature, your website, even your business cards.
Brand up your accounts where possible… Create a unique Twitter background and icon. Your Twitter background can also be used to promote your other online connections such as other online networks, your website, etc
Add a unique Welcome page to your Facebook account so people can link straight to your Twitter account, make your user pic a banner which promotes your online networks as well as your brand.
Create a Youtube Channel and brand it up, and again flaunt your online network addresses.
Linkedin – promote your accounts…etc

This is so easy to cross promote through other online networks, and it costs nothing to market yourself this way! Enhance and embrace the technology, people!

2. Conversing.
Once you look the part, go out and start introducing yourself. Find people on Twitter simply through the search panel, and connect with people that are in a similar region or that appear to share similar interests. These are the easiest to connect with.
Get chatting and also mention you are on Facebook, etc. Most likely they are as well, and you can then share that connection as well, and then hopefully you can connect with their connections and the chain begins.

Keep them interested. Talk about what they want to talk about, and study their profile and pictures and you can learn a lot about them just by paying attention.
You can then use this knowledge to target their needs and wants later on. Work on building that relationship first.

Make sure you stay in touch and listen when they communicate with you. This will ensure they want to stay connected with you as well.

3. Building Trust and Value
Once you have started to build an online social relationship with potential customers you can bring out the Trust & Value Magnet and begin to pull them towards your services you offer.
Playing on their needs and wants, show them value they can obtain from your products that will enhance or improve their lives.
You could simply do this through tips or how to do videos or even simple blog posts, as well as tweets.
By reaching out through your posts to this targeted audience you not only appear to be a trusted professional in your industry but also in the process expand their dreams through offering them something that can enhance their life, make their financial position easier, or just simply offer them something they hadn’t though about purchasing before until they met you.

4. Creating a Doorway
Creating the link between the conversation to creating a doorway of a sales opportunity is where you convert the prospect to a customer.
If you have followed my previous steps, this is the simple part…

‘Give’ them an offer they simply can’t say ‘No’ to!
The magic word here is ‘Give’.. Offer them a unique but limited opportunity.
It might be a 24 hour ‘Twitter Only’ special to receive 2 for the price of 1, or 20% off a product, or just the fact that the product is only on sale at a ridiculously low price for 3 days. But give them the opportunity to realize they won’t get this opportunity again and need it now. Impulse buying is one of the most successful sales methods around. We’ve all seen it on the late night TV ads..’Buy now and get this free…for the next 10 callers only’ Guess what…it WORKS!!
Get your customers’ addicted to your Message, Value and Emotions you are portraying. Really tell them how much they need the product and if they miss out it is a huge opportunity lost.
But don’t force them…let them decide and realize the opportunity.

5. Gaining Customers
Once you make the initial sale this should not be the end of the business relationship. This is where you start building it.
Always give customers more than they expect. After the initial purchase, offer them free things. It could be a free ebook download, or a special VIP discounted rate on their future purchases.
Or allow them to unlock a special members only area to your website or product range.
Always encourage them and thank them after the sale, even with just a simple email, and let them know you appreciate their connection. People really appreciate this.
This simple technique works in both traditional and online business and will gain you serious long term customers and additional customer referals. Cheapest and most genuine marketing you will even have!
They will probably become your best marketing tool, because they will embrace your emotions, products and value you provide, and tell their social friends about it.

Author: Chris Bourke of Webcrowd – www.webcrowd.com

Chris Bourke is a web and graphic designer with Devision Design Australia, and online affiliate marketing coach at WebSEOCoach.
Follow on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/webcrowd

Unfortunately this isn’t always the case on the internet.

You can build a blog or a video website, upload plenty of quality content but yet still lacking the connections you were hoping for.

Connecting with others online is the core of social media, but it doesn’t happen by itself…you have to make an effort to make it happen.

Whether you are a traditional bricks & mortar business, an online business or just a home based social media business, you must dig yourself into the social trenches and start conversing and connecting with others, to build up a relationship and trust.

It is all about your connection that will draw people towards you and connect with what your business or services have to offer.

But yet most people in social media aren’t doing this. Why?

Simple. Most people don’t understand there are 5 simple steps to online social media success.

You need to connect with the social media culture and get involved with others already online. After all, this is who you are targeting.

Give them the ‘online handshake’ and introduce yourself.

You can’t afford to just set up your social media and then decide to be anti-social!

What are the 5 steps to social media success?

1. Connecting

2. Conversing

3. Building Trust and Value

4. Creating a Doorway

5. Gaining Customers

Step 1 – Connecting

Connecting with others on social media is where successful social media networking begins. Connecting with people on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, and any other niche social networking site online that matters. Getting yourself known on as many social networks as you can.

Here’s a tip…you will connect much easier to those that are looking for you. Make yourself visible and accessible to connect to.

Add your social media links to your email signature, your website, even your business cards.

Brand up your accounts where possible… Create a unique Twitter background and icon. Your Twitter background can also be used to promote your other online connections such as other online networks, your website, etc

Add a unique Welcome page to your Facebook account so people can link straight to your Twitter account, make your user pic a banner which promotes your online networks as well as your brand.

Create a Youtube Channel and brand it up, and again flaunt your online network addresses.

Linkedin – promote your accounts…etc

This is so easy to cross promote through other online networks, and it costs nothing to market yourself this way! Enhance and embrace the technology, people!

2. Conversing.

Once you look the part, go out and start introducing yourself. Find people on Twitter simply through the search panel, and connect with people that are in a similar region or that appear to share similar interests. These are the easiest to connect with.

Get chatting and also mention you are on Facebook, etc. Most likely they are as well, and you can then share that connection as well, and then hopefully you can connect with their connections and the chain begins.

Keep them interested. Talk about what they want to talk about, and study their profile and pictures and you can learn a lot about them just by paying attention.

You can then use this knowledge to target their needs and wants later on. Work on building that relationship first.

Make sure you stay in touch and listen when they communicate with you. This will ensure they want to stay connected with you as well.

3. Building Trust and Value

Once you have started to build an online social relationship with potential customers you can bring out the Trust & Value Magnet and begin to pull them towards your services you offer.

Playing on their needs and wants, show them value they can obtain from your products that will enhance or improve their lives.

You could simply do this through tips or how to do videos or even simple blog posts, as well as tweets.

By reaching out through your posts to this targeted audience you not only appear to be a trusted professional in your industry but also in the process expand their dreams through offering them something that can enhance their life, make their financial position easier, or just simply offer them something they hadn’t though about purchasing before until they met you.

4. Creating a Doorway

Creating the link between the conversation to creating a doorway of a sales opportunity is where you convert the prospect to a customer.
If you have followed my previous steps, this is the simple part…

‘Give’ them an offer they simply can’t say ‘No’ to!

The magic word here is ‘Give’.. Offer them a unique but limited opportunity.

It might be a 24 hour ‘Twitter Only’ special to receive 2 for the price of 1, or 20% off a product, or just the fact that the product is only on sale at a ridiculously low price for 3 days. But give them the opportunity to realize they won’t get this opportunity again and need it now. Impulse buying is one of the most successful sales methods around. We’ve all seen it on the late night TV ads..’Buy now and get this free…for the next 10 callers only’ Guess what…it WORKS!!

Get your customers’ addicted to your Message, Value and Emotions you are portraying. Really tell them how much they need the product and if they miss out it is a huge opportunity lost.

But don’t force them…let them decide and realize the opportunity.

5. Gaining Customers

Once you make the initial sale this should not be the end of the business relationship. This is where you start building it.

Always give customers more than they expect. After the initial purchase, offer them free things. It could be a free ebook download, or a special VIP discounted rate on their future purchases.

Or allow them to unlock a special members only area to your website or product range.

Always encourage them and thank them after the sale, even with just a simple email, and let them know you appreciate their connection. People really appreciate this.

This simple technique works in both traditional and online business and will gain you serious long term customers and additional customer referals. Cheapest and most genuine marketing you will even have!

They will probably become your best marketing tool, because they will embrace your emotions, products and value you provide, and tell their social friends about it.

Author: Chris Bourke of Web SEO Coach – www.webseocoach.com

Chris Bourke is a web and graphic designer with Devision Design Australia, and Webcrowd.

Follow on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/webseocoach