We start this week with Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs). These are due to replace Regional Development Agencies and are aimed at providing a joint local government and business approach to development in areas such as housing, planning, local transport and infrastructure, employment & enterprise and the transition to the low carbon economy. The deadline for proposals is 6 September so there isn’t long to talk to your council and find out how you can make a difference in shaping development in your area.
Businesses who have an annual turnover of more than £100,000 or who registered for VAT after 1 April 2010 already have to file their VAT returns on line with optional on line filing being available for other businesses. Now the Government has announced that on line filing of VAT returns will be compulsory for all businesses from April 2012. To avoid the final rush it might be worth scheduling a switch to on line filing within the next year.
Bank of England reports last week brought two pieces of news which are potentially worrying to SMEs. The first was a confirmation that Bank lending to business continues to fall. The second was that according to the Bank’s regional agents, business confidence has fallen in recent months and that consumer spending growth has also fallen slightly. Exports and manufacturing have picked up and services are edging higher so it is not all doom and gloom. Remember if you have a business success story then share it with us at mail@wefinda.co.uk as Wefinda loves to spread good news around the business community.
According to research by Gartner, worldwide sales of mobile devices grew by 13.8% in the second quarter of 2010 although competition is driving prices down. Combine that with a recent Ofcom report showing that we spend 45% of our waking time watching TV and using our mobiles and other communication devices. The survey appears to concentrate on social media outside work, looking at texting, TV, social sites such as facebook and surfing. At least multi-tasking isn’t dead with people simultaneously using more than one form of communication. The 16-24 age group are best at this, cramming 9.5 hours of consumption into 6.5 hours of the day. Watch out for the Wefinda report on social media coming soon with hints to help your business make the most of the social media boom.
And finally, we are all aware of the statistic that most job interviewers will have made up their minds about interviewees within a few seconds of meeting them. A study in the USA takes this one further with a warning that any interviewee associating themselves with alcohol will worsen their chances of getting a job. The survey showed a mock interview to over 600 managers. In the interview the candidate choose either coke or wine to drink. Those who chose wine were rated as inferior to those choosing coke.
We’re not sure what the impression would be if the candidate had arrived in a car powered by whiskey by-products but according to scientists in Edinburgh last week whiskey could be the answer to our fuel problems. The by-products of the whiskey process can be turned into biobutanol which can be run in most cars without the need for conversion.
Monday, 23 August 2010
Wednesday, 18 August 2010
What is the difference between a domain name & website hosting by reallysimpleseo.com
This whole area is really quite confusing, so here’s a beginners guide
It is quite easy to buy a domain name these days. Just visit a domain registrar such as 123reg.co.uk and start looking for the name of your choice.
What is it and what do you do with it?
Once you’ve chosen you can simply buy the domain and it’s yours. But what do you do with it then? And what have you bought anyway?
The Domain Name System (DNS)
Domain name are define by the protocol called The Domain Name System (DNS). This makes it possible to assign domain names to groups of internet users in a meaningful way.
DNS will turn easy names you can remember into IP addresses which are simply numbers, that can be understood, by any internet connected server (computer).
Easy to understand
So www.reallysimpleseo.com that you can understand, will become 67.210.109.225 that an internet computer can understand and so display the web page you’d expect.
Hosted on an Internet server
But wait a minute, how does it display the web pages? For a website or web pages to appear when you enter a domain name in a browser they need to be hosted on an Internet server.
Domain name pointed to an Internet server
An Internet server is simply a computer that is connected up to the internet, and the domain name is pointed (using DNS), to that computer. So that is why it appears when you type it into a web browser to click on a link.
When you buy your domain name you don’t automatically buy the hosting. But you can usually buy them from the same company if you wish.
The original article is here http://www.reallysimpleseo.com/domain-names/domain-hosting-questions
Thank you to David Howlett of reallysimpleseo.com for allowing us to reproduce this article.
It is quite easy to buy a domain name these days. Just visit a domain registrar such as 123reg.co.uk and start looking for the name of your choice.
What is it and what do you do with it?
Once you’ve chosen you can simply buy the domain and it’s yours. But what do you do with it then? And what have you bought anyway?
The Domain Name System (DNS)
Domain name are define by the protocol called The Domain Name System (DNS). This makes it possible to assign domain names to groups of internet users in a meaningful way.
DNS will turn easy names you can remember into IP addresses which are simply numbers, that can be understood, by any internet connected server (computer).
Easy to understand
So www.reallysimpleseo.com that you can understand, will become 67.210.109.225 that an internet computer can understand and so display the web page you’d expect.
Hosted on an Internet server
But wait a minute, how does it display the web pages? For a website or web pages to appear when you enter a domain name in a browser they need to be hosted on an Internet server.
Domain name pointed to an Internet server
An Internet server is simply a computer that is connected up to the internet, and the domain name is pointed (using DNS), to that computer. So that is why it appears when you type it into a web browser to click on a link.
When you buy your domain name you don’t automatically buy the hosting. But you can usually buy them from the same company if you wish.
The original article is here http://www.reallysimpleseo.com/domain-names/domain-hosting-questions
Thank you to David Howlett of reallysimpleseo.com for allowing us to reproduce this article.
Tuesday, 17 August 2010
Give your website the best chance of being found (wefinda guide to SEO)
Without SEO, your web site is an interesting piece of information that you have posted on the web in the hope that someone may stumble on it. With SEO, your web site is a living breathing being, jockeying for top spot with the other web savvy companies and bringing in new business to you.
SEO, or search engine optimisation, is the way you get your web site noticed by the web crawlers who rank web sites in order. Of course, if every site had great SEO then it would be impossible to have everyone sharing top spot but a regular attention to your SEO, either by you or by an SEO specialist, can do wonders to your ranking and the likelihood of attracting new business. Whilst some SEO techniques are best left to the specialists, there are some fairly simple techniques that you can follow to improve your site’s ranking. So what could you look at to improve your SEO?
Content
In this context, content consists of the actual words and pictures that you put on your site. These can be broken down into:
> Key words - identification. Keywords are the ways in which the web crawlers pick up and understand what your site is about. So, for example, if you make and sell gates then your key words might include “gates, garden gates, electronic gates, wrought iron gates” etcetera. Start by trying to think of all the words that your clients might use to search for your products. Then use a search engine, such as Google AdWords, to check how many times the words are actually used in searches and what other words or phrases you could use.
> Keywords – use. The keywords are used in two places. Firstly your web designer will use them in the web code as tags for the crawlers to pick up on. Secondly, you can use the key words in your script. However, be careful how many times you use the keywords and make sure they are relevant. If you have too high a keyword density, not only will the crawlers rank you lower, the content is likely to be stilted and your clients will be switched off.
> Pages. The crawlers look at each page separately. They don’t like copying so information repeated on different pages will count against you. However, using different key words on each page will help your ranking as will links between the pages.
> Words, pictures, videos. Whilst words are king, crawlers do look for other content and pictures and video will help the ranking. Conversely, complex diagrams tend to be ignored. Don’t copy content from other sites; duplication won’t get you any points.
> Changing content. Wipe out and replace all your content and you will shoot down the rankings. However, the crawlers like content which changes over time. Consider adding a weekly blog or news piece to your site. Make sure it is relevant to your business and if you are too busy or not a natural writer then contract a specialist writer to produce the blog for you.
Links
The crawlers love sites which are linked to others. However, the links have to be relevant. Randomly linking your site to thousands of others is known as black hat SEO, effectively an attempt to cheat. The crawlers will soon pick up on this and discount your site heavily. What you can do is:
> Link to another of your sites. So if you have a twitter, facebook or similar account then linking your posts to your main site is a bonus. For example you could blog about a new product on your main site, link this to a facebook advert and publicise via twitter. You could even post a video on you tube and link that with your site.
> Link to local and trade directories. Linking with trade directories or business clubs not only gets you more advertising, clients clicking through from those sites will help to improve your ranking.
> Set up a separate blog. Setting up a blog outside your site and linking to it can also help the ranking. However, you need to balance this with the need to keep your site content slowly changing so you may want to mix news on your site with longer blogs on another site.
> Post articles on specialist article sites such as Ezine or Buzzle. These give you back links to your site and if your article is taken up by others they should acknowledge your authorship and provide links back to your site. For example, if a building company posts an article about loft conversion it can be picked up by DIY, plumber, electrics companies all over the world which gives great back links.
Click here to get three quotes for all your online marketing needs from wefinda.
SEO, or search engine optimisation, is the way you get your web site noticed by the web crawlers who rank web sites in order. Of course, if every site had great SEO then it would be impossible to have everyone sharing top spot but a regular attention to your SEO, either by you or by an SEO specialist, can do wonders to your ranking and the likelihood of attracting new business. Whilst some SEO techniques are best left to the specialists, there are some fairly simple techniques that you can follow to improve your site’s ranking. So what could you look at to improve your SEO?
Content
In this context, content consists of the actual words and pictures that you put on your site. These can be broken down into:
> Key words - identification. Keywords are the ways in which the web crawlers pick up and understand what your site is about. So, for example, if you make and sell gates then your key words might include “gates, garden gates, electronic gates, wrought iron gates” etcetera. Start by trying to think of all the words that your clients might use to search for your products. Then use a search engine, such as Google AdWords, to check how many times the words are actually used in searches and what other words or phrases you could use.
> Keywords – use. The keywords are used in two places. Firstly your web designer will use them in the web code as tags for the crawlers to pick up on. Secondly, you can use the key words in your script. However, be careful how many times you use the keywords and make sure they are relevant. If you have too high a keyword density, not only will the crawlers rank you lower, the content is likely to be stilted and your clients will be switched off.
> Pages. The crawlers look at each page separately. They don’t like copying so information repeated on different pages will count against you. However, using different key words on each page will help your ranking as will links between the pages.
> Words, pictures, videos. Whilst words are king, crawlers do look for other content and pictures and video will help the ranking. Conversely, complex diagrams tend to be ignored. Don’t copy content from other sites; duplication won’t get you any points.
> Changing content. Wipe out and replace all your content and you will shoot down the rankings. However, the crawlers like content which changes over time. Consider adding a weekly blog or news piece to your site. Make sure it is relevant to your business and if you are too busy or not a natural writer then contract a specialist writer to produce the blog for you.
Links
The crawlers love sites which are linked to others. However, the links have to be relevant. Randomly linking your site to thousands of others is known as black hat SEO, effectively an attempt to cheat. The crawlers will soon pick up on this and discount your site heavily. What you can do is:
> Link to another of your sites. So if you have a twitter, facebook or similar account then linking your posts to your main site is a bonus. For example you could blog about a new product on your main site, link this to a facebook advert and publicise via twitter. You could even post a video on you tube and link that with your site.
> Link to local and trade directories. Linking with trade directories or business clubs not only gets you more advertising, clients clicking through from those sites will help to improve your ranking.
> Set up a separate blog. Setting up a blog outside your site and linking to it can also help the ranking. However, you need to balance this with the need to keep your site content slowly changing so you may want to mix news on your site with longer blogs on another site.
> Post articles on specialist article sites such as Ezine or Buzzle. These give you back links to your site and if your article is taken up by others they should acknowledge your authorship and provide links back to your site. For example, if a building company posts an article about loft conversion it can be picked up by DIY, plumber, electrics companies all over the world which gives great back links.
Click here to get three quotes for all your online marketing needs from wefinda.
Monday, 16 August 2010
wefinda small business weekly news - 16th of August 2010
Top spot this week goes to the Bank of England inflation report with the Governor, Mervyn King, predicting inflation is likely to stay above the 2% target until the end of 2011. Whilst this is partly due to the VAT rise at the beginning of 2011, the Governor predicts continued choppy times ahead with downward pressure coming from spare capacity in the job market pushing down wages and continued uncertainty over bank lending.
One piece of potentially good news was the release of Germany’s growth figures for the second quarter. At 2.2%, the growth was well above expectation and helped the Eurozone as a whole to post overall growth of 1%. With the UK already having reported second quarter growth figures of 1.1%, we have one indicator that Europe may be on the way to recovery.
Mixed news on the housing front with the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors reporting an overall fall in house prices in July. With only London and the North West bucking the trend, the fall seems to be as a result of more properties being put on the market combined with a fall in demand. As many people are still reluctant to move, this could be good news for SMEs in the home improvement trade with house renovations and improvements being preferred to moving.
For those of you with an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad, Apple released a patch this week which fixed a flaw in the PDF application which would have left the devices open to hackers. More information about the release can be found on the Apple website, search for release iOS 4.0.2 for iPhone and iPod touch or iOS 3.2.2 for iPad.
Action fraud is warning us to watch out for scam phone calls and e-mails which appear to come from HMRC asking for bank details to enable them to pay tax rebates. Over 180 websites sending out fake HMRC emails have been closed in the last 3 months alone. HMRC will never phone or e-mail asking for bank details so keep alert.
In view of the response to last week’s piece on the company which increased its turnover by 400% due to improved SEO, wefinda is putting together a SEO hints article. Watch out for it on our blog soon and in the meantime, if you have a good news story, share it with us on mail@wefinda.co.uk.
And finally, if you are looking to take on staff but still failing to find the right people, perhaps your job titles need tweaking. The South Australian government is trying to entice more young British backpackers to visit on a one year working visa. Jobs such as “shark personality profiler” and “roo-poo harvester” are on offer alongside “koala catcher” and even “beer taster”. Let us know if you have come across any unusual job titles and we’ll share them with the wefinda community.
One piece of potentially good news was the release of Germany’s growth figures for the second quarter. At 2.2%, the growth was well above expectation and helped the Eurozone as a whole to post overall growth of 1%. With the UK already having reported second quarter growth figures of 1.1%, we have one indicator that Europe may be on the way to recovery.
Mixed news on the housing front with the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors reporting an overall fall in house prices in July. With only London and the North West bucking the trend, the fall seems to be as a result of more properties being put on the market combined with a fall in demand. As many people are still reluctant to move, this could be good news for SMEs in the home improvement trade with house renovations and improvements being preferred to moving.
For those of you with an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad, Apple released a patch this week which fixed a flaw in the PDF application which would have left the devices open to hackers. More information about the release can be found on the Apple website, search for release iOS 4.0.2 for iPhone and iPod touch or iOS 3.2.2 for iPad.
Action fraud is warning us to watch out for scam phone calls and e-mails which appear to come from HMRC asking for bank details to enable them to pay tax rebates. Over 180 websites sending out fake HMRC emails have been closed in the last 3 months alone. HMRC will never phone or e-mail asking for bank details so keep alert.
In view of the response to last week’s piece on the company which increased its turnover by 400% due to improved SEO, wefinda is putting together a SEO hints article. Watch out for it on our blog soon and in the meantime, if you have a good news story, share it with us on mail@wefinda.co.uk.
And finally, if you are looking to take on staff but still failing to find the right people, perhaps your job titles need tweaking. The South Australian government is trying to entice more young British backpackers to visit on a one year working visa. Jobs such as “shark personality profiler” and “roo-poo harvester” are on offer alongside “koala catcher” and even “beer taster”. Let us know if you have come across any unusual job titles and we’ll share them with the wefinda community.
Friday, 13 August 2010
What can you do for my business?
Good question. Why would you go to the trouble of getting three quotes for your business? What is in it for you?
The wefinda service makes search simple. As a business owner or manager, time is our most precious commodity and we need to make the most of it. Managing a business is what we do and we need to work with professionals who feel the same. We want our enquiries answered, services explained and we want the best value that our cash flow allows us. wefinda saves you time, every time.
If you are worried about growing your business, need help with your website, accounting or payroll or if you need professionals to help you answer telephone enquiries, contact wefinda. We will find you a great solution at the most effective price.
Our suppliers are the best in the UK. They are the best because they are experts at what they do and they care about your business. A wefinda supplier deals with businesses like yours every day. When you leave a request with wefinda you can expect up to three quotes that same day, at a time that suits you.
At wefinda we find you three quotes from top UK suppliers so you can get back to your business.
wefinda - home to the UK's best business.
The wefinda service makes search simple. As a business owner or manager, time is our most precious commodity and we need to make the most of it. Managing a business is what we do and we need to work with professionals who feel the same. We want our enquiries answered, services explained and we want the best value that our cash flow allows us. wefinda saves you time, every time.
If you are worried about growing your business, need help with your website, accounting or payroll or if you need professionals to help you answer telephone enquiries, contact wefinda. We will find you a great solution at the most effective price.
Our suppliers are the best in the UK. They are the best because they are experts at what they do and they care about your business. A wefinda supplier deals with businesses like yours every day. When you leave a request with wefinda you can expect up to three quotes that same day, at a time that suits you.
At wefinda we find you three quotes from top UK suppliers so you can get back to your business.
wefinda - home to the UK's best business.
Wednesday, 11 August 2010
Online Marketing (SEO & PPC) for small business
When we start up in business there are so many things to do that most of us write a list and work down it. Bank account, business cards, web site, letterhead etc all done so we can now sit back and get on with the business itself. Well, actually we can, but we shouldn’t. A web site is for many the visible presence of a business. A static web site is like a picture of a flower that you’ve stuck on your office wall, nice to look at but frozen, unchanging and unlikely to bring in much business.
Used properly, your web site can be more like a garden, interesting, forever changing and providing you with flowers and produce, or in business terms, clients and sales. This is where online marketing comes in, turning your web site into the driver for your business, attracting clients and generating revenue. So what questions do you need to ask when considering marketing online?
What can Online Marketing do for my business?
Just as every business has unique needs, there is no one size fits all solution for online or digital marketing. However, online marketing itself falls into a few main areas and it is worth considering what these are and how they could help your business so that you can have a rewarding discussion with the marketing specialist. Start by asking yourself the following questions:
• What is my core product and does my website mention it? This may seem like a strange question but there are web sites which spend pages talking about industry expertise, being market leaders and optimising the client experience but forget to say what the company actually does. This leads on to the second question:
• If I wanted to find a company which sold my product, what would I search for on the internet? Search engine optimisation (SEO) at its most basic will come up with the key words that searchers use and make sure that those words are both used within the text on your web site and also in the source code that runs behind your site. Incorporating those key words in your site means that when a potential client searches for your product, your site is more likely to come higher up the results list. Most clients give up after page 3 so you need to try and get as high in the search results as possible to attract more clients. However, the search engines don’t just work on key words, they look at other factors as well to decide how to rank results. These lead on to further SEO services questions:
• Am I a member of any organisations or industry bodies? If you are and the organisation keeps registers of members on line, the register will often include a web address. This links their site to yours. Search engines like links, particularly where they are relevant. On a note of caution, sometimes having 500 links is better than having 50,000 links. Too many and the search engines will back away.
• Do I belong to any chat forums? Again these will allow links back to your site and enhance your ranking.
• Do I have something to say? Websites which have some content that changes tend to be ranked higher than static ones. Incorporating a news article or blog on the site will help, as will posting articles on other sites with links back to your site.
• Does my product naturally fit with another product that I don’t sell? For example, continuing the gardening theme, you may sell gardening equipment but not cover garden ponds. You could set up a link on your site to another site which does sell pond equipment. If someone clicks the link from your site and then buys from the other site you will get a percentage of the sale. This is known as an affiliate scheme. Payment is generally based only on sales although there are some schemes where you will get a small fee from your affiliates whether a product is bought or not. When the client clicks from your site to the other one a cookie is created which records the client as coming from you. Cookies are only kept for a set period of time so while you may get a payment for a click within the last month, don’t expect it if the client takes a year to buy. Affiliate marketing schemes where clients click from your site to others bring money to you for no effort; those where clients click to your site from your marketing affiliate bring increased sales for the payment of a small percentage.
• Am I prepared to pay to encourage potential clients to look at my site? This is where another online advertising tool comes in. Pay per click (PPC) is a way of advertising your site in the search engines. You start by choosing the key words that you think potential clients may search on. When those words are searched your advert appears on the top or right hand side of the results page. If your advert is clicked the client is taken to your web site and you have to pay for that click. The amount you pay is set at the start and depends on a complex mix of the popularity of the key word and the search engine’s opinion of your site. However, PPC internet advertising is flexible as you can set a maximum budget per day and you know that the only people clicking on to your site are those who are already searching for your product.
What questions should I ask the online marketing agency when we speak?
Start by running through the areas that you have identified and check that the company can help you with these. In addition ask them:
• What areas do they specialise in? Some companies will concentrate on search engine marketing or PPC; others will offer a full online web marketing service. It is also worth checking what other services they offer. For example, some may offer full web design services and will be able to help with streamlining your web site to work faster or updating it to take full advantage of online marketing. Others may also offer other marketing or advertising services so that you finish up with a co-ordinated marketing campaign.
• How long will it take for a difference to be seen? In general beware of companies that promise a search engine ranking such as page one in Google after a day. Whilst your PPC advert can get there, the SEO improvements that you make can take some weeks to result in improved Google SEO and other search engine rankings. In fact, if you need to completely re-write your web site content, it effectively becomes a new search engine submission and it can actually go down in the ranking for a short period before the search engine crawlers pick it up and rank it higher.
• Can they give you examples of successful campaigns? The marketing company should be able to give you examples of increased ranking through SEO, or increased sales through PPC or SEO. Take the time to talk to the clients involved and check their experience with the company.
• What are their charges – see below
• Can they write content, articles and blogs? In the same way that being able to add two and two doesn’t make you an accountant, being able to put words on paper doesn’t make you a writer. Writing interesting and engaging articles and blogs for the web is an art form and unless you are lucky enough to have a natural SEO writer in your team it is better to outsource than to put potential clients off with stilted prose. Some online marketing companies can provide content whilst others will have links to specialist writers.
What will an online marketing company need from me?
The first thing that a SEO company will need is a full understanding of your business, products and client base. Whether the SEO consultant is looking at choosing search phrases for PPC and SEO, revamping your website content or setting up links with other sites it is important that these are targeted and relevant.
Online marketing works best when it is part of your overall marketing strategy. The online marketing specialist will therefore need regular meetings with your marketing and advertising team to ensure a co-ordinated strategy.
Finally, the online marketing company will need commitment and an understanding that SEO marketing is ongoing and ever changing. Yes, peppering your site with SEO keywords, adding a few links and writing a couple of articles will help in the short term. Unless you keep up with keyword trends, add fresh articles and forge new links your site will slip back into oblivion. Online marketing should therefore have a continuing presence in your ongoing marketing budget. Which leads us on to:-
Finally, what will online marketing cost?
Some website marketing companies will offer an initial free review of your web site. This can give you an idea of their initial recommendations and therefore of the costs. They will then either offer you a fixed price for the marketing work or charge on an hourly rate.
Whilst hourly rates may be as low as £25 per hour, in general expect them to be at least £50 per hour. We recommend that an hourly contract includes minimum work levels. For example, if you were paying someone to write a blog for you, an hourly rate gives the writer freedom to get carried away in researching the blog and you could end up paying for 3 hours research for a 300 word blog. A minimum work level agreement would allow you to cap the amount of time spent on the blog.
Fixed prices will generally vary depending on the amount of work needed. If you are appointing a company to undertake SEO, PPC and affiliate identification then try and get a breakdown between the various elements. Fixed “off the shelf” packages can cost as little as £250. In general the more you pay, the more work will be done to improve your ranking and sales.
Some companies also offer packages where you pay a set amount with a bonus if the web site reaches a pre-determined ranking level.
Pay per click rates vary from a few pence per click to hundreds of pounds. However, as you have complete control over your PPC budget, you only spend as much or as little as you can afford. Again PPC management is an ongoing process and your campaign should be reviewed regularly.
Used properly, your web site can be more like a garden, interesting, forever changing and providing you with flowers and produce, or in business terms, clients and sales. This is where online marketing comes in, turning your web site into the driver for your business, attracting clients and generating revenue. So what questions do you need to ask when considering marketing online?
What can Online Marketing do for my business?
Just as every business has unique needs, there is no one size fits all solution for online or digital marketing. However, online marketing itself falls into a few main areas and it is worth considering what these are and how they could help your business so that you can have a rewarding discussion with the marketing specialist. Start by asking yourself the following questions:
• What is my core product and does my website mention it? This may seem like a strange question but there are web sites which spend pages talking about industry expertise, being market leaders and optimising the client experience but forget to say what the company actually does. This leads on to the second question:
• If I wanted to find a company which sold my product, what would I search for on the internet? Search engine optimisation (SEO) at its most basic will come up with the key words that searchers use and make sure that those words are both used within the text on your web site and also in the source code that runs behind your site. Incorporating those key words in your site means that when a potential client searches for your product, your site is more likely to come higher up the results list. Most clients give up after page 3 so you need to try and get as high in the search results as possible to attract more clients. However, the search engines don’t just work on key words, they look at other factors as well to decide how to rank results. These lead on to further SEO services questions:
• Am I a member of any organisations or industry bodies? If you are and the organisation keeps registers of members on line, the register will often include a web address. This links their site to yours. Search engines like links, particularly where they are relevant. On a note of caution, sometimes having 500 links is better than having 50,000 links. Too many and the search engines will back away.
• Do I belong to any chat forums? Again these will allow links back to your site and enhance your ranking.
• Do I have something to say? Websites which have some content that changes tend to be ranked higher than static ones. Incorporating a news article or blog on the site will help, as will posting articles on other sites with links back to your site.
• Does my product naturally fit with another product that I don’t sell? For example, continuing the gardening theme, you may sell gardening equipment but not cover garden ponds. You could set up a link on your site to another site which does sell pond equipment. If someone clicks the link from your site and then buys from the other site you will get a percentage of the sale. This is known as an affiliate scheme. Payment is generally based only on sales although there are some schemes where you will get a small fee from your affiliates whether a product is bought or not. When the client clicks from your site to the other one a cookie is created which records the client as coming from you. Cookies are only kept for a set period of time so while you may get a payment for a click within the last month, don’t expect it if the client takes a year to buy. Affiliate marketing schemes where clients click from your site to others bring money to you for no effort; those where clients click to your site from your marketing affiliate bring increased sales for the payment of a small percentage.
• Am I prepared to pay to encourage potential clients to look at my site? This is where another online advertising tool comes in. Pay per click (PPC) is a way of advertising your site in the search engines. You start by choosing the key words that you think potential clients may search on. When those words are searched your advert appears on the top or right hand side of the results page. If your advert is clicked the client is taken to your web site and you have to pay for that click. The amount you pay is set at the start and depends on a complex mix of the popularity of the key word and the search engine’s opinion of your site. However, PPC internet advertising is flexible as you can set a maximum budget per day and you know that the only people clicking on to your site are those who are already searching for your product.
What questions should I ask the online marketing agency when we speak?
Start by running through the areas that you have identified and check that the company can help you with these. In addition ask them:
• What areas do they specialise in? Some companies will concentrate on search engine marketing or PPC; others will offer a full online web marketing service. It is also worth checking what other services they offer. For example, some may offer full web design services and will be able to help with streamlining your web site to work faster or updating it to take full advantage of online marketing. Others may also offer other marketing or advertising services so that you finish up with a co-ordinated marketing campaign.
• How long will it take for a difference to be seen? In general beware of companies that promise a search engine ranking such as page one in Google after a day. Whilst your PPC advert can get there, the SEO improvements that you make can take some weeks to result in improved Google SEO and other search engine rankings. In fact, if you need to completely re-write your web site content, it effectively becomes a new search engine submission and it can actually go down in the ranking for a short period before the search engine crawlers pick it up and rank it higher.
• Can they give you examples of successful campaigns? The marketing company should be able to give you examples of increased ranking through SEO, or increased sales through PPC or SEO. Take the time to talk to the clients involved and check their experience with the company.
• What are their charges – see below
• Can they write content, articles and blogs? In the same way that being able to add two and two doesn’t make you an accountant, being able to put words on paper doesn’t make you a writer. Writing interesting and engaging articles and blogs for the web is an art form and unless you are lucky enough to have a natural SEO writer in your team it is better to outsource than to put potential clients off with stilted prose. Some online marketing companies can provide content whilst others will have links to specialist writers.
What will an online marketing company need from me?
The first thing that a SEO company will need is a full understanding of your business, products and client base. Whether the SEO consultant is looking at choosing search phrases for PPC and SEO, revamping your website content or setting up links with other sites it is important that these are targeted and relevant.
Online marketing works best when it is part of your overall marketing strategy. The online marketing specialist will therefore need regular meetings with your marketing and advertising team to ensure a co-ordinated strategy.
Finally, the online marketing company will need commitment and an understanding that SEO marketing is ongoing and ever changing. Yes, peppering your site with SEO keywords, adding a few links and writing a couple of articles will help in the short term. Unless you keep up with keyword trends, add fresh articles and forge new links your site will slip back into oblivion. Online marketing should therefore have a continuing presence in your ongoing marketing budget. Which leads us on to:-
Finally, what will online marketing cost?
Some website marketing companies will offer an initial free review of your web site. This can give you an idea of their initial recommendations and therefore of the costs. They will then either offer you a fixed price for the marketing work or charge on an hourly rate.
Whilst hourly rates may be as low as £25 per hour, in general expect them to be at least £50 per hour. We recommend that an hourly contract includes minimum work levels. For example, if you were paying someone to write a blog for you, an hourly rate gives the writer freedom to get carried away in researching the blog and you could end up paying for 3 hours research for a 300 word blog. A minimum work level agreement would allow you to cap the amount of time spent on the blog.
Fixed prices will generally vary depending on the amount of work needed. If you are appointing a company to undertake SEO, PPC and affiliate identification then try and get a breakdown between the various elements. Fixed “off the shelf” packages can cost as little as £250. In general the more you pay, the more work will be done to improve your ranking and sales.
Some companies also offer packages where you pay a set amount with a bonus if the web site reaches a pre-determined ranking level.
Pay per click rates vary from a few pence per click to hundreds of pounds. However, as you have complete control over your PPC budget, you only spend as much or as little as you can afford. Again PPC management is an ongoing process and your campaign should be reviewed regularly.
Monday, 9 August 2010
How your website can attract traffic and drive sales.
Having a simple contact page may get you to page ten on Google if you are lucky but it is unlikely to bring in much work. However, with some thought, your website can drive your business forward and dramatically increase turnover and profit.
Let’s start with looking at the different types of websites which are available. The most common are
· Brochure sites,
· Content management sites and
· E-commerce sites.
In practice, you will probably finish up with a website that is a combination of different types but it helps if you are aware of the options.
Brochure site
The simplest form of web site is a brochure site. This originally evolved as an online copy of existing company brochures and is designed to be fairly static. Typically brochure sites will have three to five pages containing information about the company and its products. Because of their simplicity, brochure sites are the cheapest, costing from around £300 - £500+ for a couple of pages. Brochure sites should contain some Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) but this will be fairly basic. Because brochure sites tend to be static, the web crawlers don’t rate them very highly and you are unlikely to reach top spot with a simple brochure site. However, they are invaluable for providing information to customers and establishing a presence and should not be dismissed by those businesses with a low budget.
Content Management site
Content Management web sites are for those who want a living, changing website to match their business. In the simplest form this means that you can add blogs or articles, provide information about special offers or show today’s menu. More complex content management sites will allow you to add chat rooms or link in with e-commerce modules. With the content on these sites changing regularly you can really work on SEO and the web crawlers are more likely to move your site towards top spot. The cost of content management sites varies according to content but you should expect prices to start around the £600 - £800+ mark. Bespoke features will add to the cost.
e-commerce site
E-commerce sites are content management sites which allow you to sell your products via your site. An e-commerce site will enable you to take orders and collect payments via credit card and PayPal. You will be able to upload product pictures, descriptions and prices. Some systems will also link directly to your stock control programme and show volumes on the site. You can even link directly through to a despatch department. E-commerce sites can effectively take over your entire sales process. Because they link into your sales and accounts processes they are more complex than other sites. You should expect to pay at least £1,200+ for the most basic e-commerce site.
Search engine optimisation
Whatever site you decide your business needs, it is important that you pay attention to the SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) or your site will languish well down the lists and won’t generate the sales that you deserve. We will be giving you further guidance on SEO but there are a few basic techniques which will help. Firstly, make sure that you include lots of key words in your text. Think about what people might search for when looking for your product and include those words or phrases. Secondly, changing sites rank higher than static ones so a weekly blog will help. Thirdly, creating back links your will also help to improve rankings so for example a hotel might advertise on a tourist board website with links back to the hotel’s own site. These back links need to be relevant as web crawlers will dismiss those that aren’t.
wefinda can help you get up to three quotes for all your business website needs. Just ask one of our trained customer service team when you contact us.
Let’s start with looking at the different types of websites which are available. The most common are
· Brochure sites,
· Content management sites and
· E-commerce sites.
In practice, you will probably finish up with a website that is a combination of different types but it helps if you are aware of the options.
Brochure site
The simplest form of web site is a brochure site. This originally evolved as an online copy of existing company brochures and is designed to be fairly static. Typically brochure sites will have three to five pages containing information about the company and its products. Because of their simplicity, brochure sites are the cheapest, costing from around £300 - £500+ for a couple of pages. Brochure sites should contain some Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) but this will be fairly basic. Because brochure sites tend to be static, the web crawlers don’t rate them very highly and you are unlikely to reach top spot with a simple brochure site. However, they are invaluable for providing information to customers and establishing a presence and should not be dismissed by those businesses with a low budget.
Content Management site
Content Management web sites are for those who want a living, changing website to match their business. In the simplest form this means that you can add blogs or articles, provide information about special offers or show today’s menu. More complex content management sites will allow you to add chat rooms or link in with e-commerce modules. With the content on these sites changing regularly you can really work on SEO and the web crawlers are more likely to move your site towards top spot. The cost of content management sites varies according to content but you should expect prices to start around the £600 - £800+ mark. Bespoke features will add to the cost.
e-commerce site
E-commerce sites are content management sites which allow you to sell your products via your site. An e-commerce site will enable you to take orders and collect payments via credit card and PayPal. You will be able to upload product pictures, descriptions and prices. Some systems will also link directly to your stock control programme and show volumes on the site. You can even link directly through to a despatch department. E-commerce sites can effectively take over your entire sales process. Because they link into your sales and accounts processes they are more complex than other sites. You should expect to pay at least £1,200+ for the most basic e-commerce site.
Search engine optimisation
Whatever site you decide your business needs, it is important that you pay attention to the SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) or your site will languish well down the lists and won’t generate the sales that you deserve. We will be giving you further guidance on SEO but there are a few basic techniques which will help. Firstly, make sure that you include lots of key words in your text. Think about what people might search for when looking for your product and include those words or phrases. Secondly, changing sites rank higher than static ones so a weekly blog will help. Thirdly, creating back links your will also help to improve rankings so for example a hotel might advertise on a tourist board website with links back to the hotel’s own site. These back links need to be relevant as web crawlers will dismiss those that aren’t.
wefinda can help you get up to three quotes for all your business website needs. Just ask one of our trained customer service team when you contact us.
wefinda UK small business weekly news 9th August 2010
Top of this week’s news is the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee which held interest rates at 0.5%. The European Central Bank also held its rate at 1%. If you missed the announcement then sign up to Wefinda on twitter and catch next month’s announcement and much more.
Most worrying topic of the week is the predicted world grain shortage. With the late winter and hot spring we have just had, some UK farmers had already begun to cut the wheat crop green to provide silage to feed their animals this winter. Now with the drought and fires raging in Russia leading to a ban on wheat exports from Russia, the prospect of a world shortage looms higher. With wheat and grain prices predicted to rise sharply, foods making use of grain, from bread to beer, are likely to rise in price. Meat and animal products will also rise due to higher costs for animal feed so expect the cost of milk and eggs also to rise. With inflation already on the up, the added prospect of food inflation is a particular worry for all businesses involved in the food trade.
NetRegs are currently highlighting the duty of care that all businesses have towards their waste including paper and printer cartridges. This duty even extends to home based businesses so it is worth checking out the regulations. Further information is available on the NetRegs website on www.netregs.gov.uk/netregs/63197.aspx.
For SMEs using Sage 50 accounts, the latest version has now launched. Sage say that this version will help to simplify the management of customers, suppliers and finances. Let us know what you think if you upgrade.
So what do we have to look forward to in the coming week?
The main item of note next week is the latest inflation figures which are out on 11th August at 10.30. With Parliament and the EU remaining in summer slumber mode, Wefinda suggests that all you London based businesses should make the most of the summer. Ping London in association with sport England has set up 100 table tennis tables around London. Find one and play for free.
Finally, at Wefinda we love to celebrate business success stories. We were therefore really pleased to hear that the Duckworth Group (www.duckworthgroup.co.uk) has managed to increase its turnover by a massive 400% in the last six months. The secret of the Duckworth success was simply to concentrate on improving its websites’ SEO via key words, articles and back links. The group’s three main divisional websites have achieved page 1 on Google and the increase in business includes the contract for end of term cleaning at the Bristol University Halls of Residence and a contract to transform office premises in Holborn into luxury flats. The Duckworth Group which offers a range of cleaning, building and other services for the home and business in London and Bristol is close to completing plans to expand its offering in three other areas of the country and is living proof that getting your website right can dramatically increase turnover.
If you have a business success story, share it with us on mail@wefinda.co.uk.
Most worrying topic of the week is the predicted world grain shortage. With the late winter and hot spring we have just had, some UK farmers had already begun to cut the wheat crop green to provide silage to feed their animals this winter. Now with the drought and fires raging in Russia leading to a ban on wheat exports from Russia, the prospect of a world shortage looms higher. With wheat and grain prices predicted to rise sharply, foods making use of grain, from bread to beer, are likely to rise in price. Meat and animal products will also rise due to higher costs for animal feed so expect the cost of milk and eggs also to rise. With inflation already on the up, the added prospect of food inflation is a particular worry for all businesses involved in the food trade.
NetRegs are currently highlighting the duty of care that all businesses have towards their waste including paper and printer cartridges. This duty even extends to home based businesses so it is worth checking out the regulations. Further information is available on the NetRegs website on www.netregs.gov.uk/netregs/63197.aspx.
For SMEs using Sage 50 accounts, the latest version has now launched. Sage say that this version will help to simplify the management of customers, suppliers and finances. Let us know what you think if you upgrade.
So what do we have to look forward to in the coming week?
The main item of note next week is the latest inflation figures which are out on 11th August at 10.30. With Parliament and the EU remaining in summer slumber mode, Wefinda suggests that all you London based businesses should make the most of the summer. Ping London in association with sport England has set up 100 table tennis tables around London. Find one and play for free.
Finally, at Wefinda we love to celebrate business success stories. We were therefore really pleased to hear that the Duckworth Group (www.duckworthgroup.co.uk) has managed to increase its turnover by a massive 400% in the last six months. The secret of the Duckworth success was simply to concentrate on improving its websites’ SEO via key words, articles and back links. The group’s three main divisional websites have achieved page 1 on Google and the increase in business includes the contract for end of term cleaning at the Bristol University Halls of Residence and a contract to transform office premises in Holborn into luxury flats. The Duckworth Group which offers a range of cleaning, building and other services for the home and business in London and Bristol is close to completing plans to expand its offering in three other areas of the country and is living proof that getting your website right can dramatically increase turnover.
If you have a business success story, share it with us on mail@wefinda.co.uk.
Monday, 2 August 2010
wefinda small business wonderful weekly news - 2nd August 2010
This week Ofcom announced the allocation of two more 116 numbers; 116006 will be used for victims of crime and 116117 for non-emergency medical services. They are now looking for potential service providers as the first stage in the number allocation process. 116 numbers are unique in that they are the same all over Europe. For example, whether you are in Belgium, Germany or the UK or another European country, 116000 will get you access to a missing persons helpline.
Everyone who has an interest in financial services, and let’s face it that means all of us, should take a glance at the Government’s consultation paper on financial regulation which was issued on 26 July. This is our chance to say how we think financial services should be run and how we should pay for them. So, should you pay for advice or loans, should advisers and banks take commission from the insurance companies, how easy should it be to complain, who should supervise your bank and make sure it is lending properly. Let the Government have your comments on all these questions and more relating to the financial services firms, including banks, building societies, insurance firms, independent financial advisors, exchanges and brokers. The more we have our say, the more we will finish up with a financial services framework that fits our needs.
So what do we have to look forward to in the coming week?
Well, to be honest, not a lot. With Parliament and schools on holiday life has become a little quiet on the SME reporting front.
Highlight of the week will be the MPC monthly decision on interest rates which is due on Thursday 5th. With this meeting coming a week ahead of the quarterly inflation report and mixed messages coming out of the economy we continue to watch this meeting with interest.
And finally in a week for bizarre tax evasion stories, a Lancashire man has been send to jail for just over two years for hiding money in his chip shop and behind bushes in his garden in an attempt to conceal his sales of illegally imported cigarettes. However, he has been beaten to our top spot by the man who buried £140,000 in his aunt’s grave in a bid to hide it from the tax man. The Sun was told that customs officers got a tip off and with permission dug up the money and took their £50,000 share.
Everyone who has an interest in financial services, and let’s face it that means all of us, should take a glance at the Government’s consultation paper on financial regulation which was issued on 26 July. This is our chance to say how we think financial services should be run and how we should pay for them. So, should you pay for advice or loans, should advisers and banks take commission from the insurance companies, how easy should it be to complain, who should supervise your bank and make sure it is lending properly. Let the Government have your comments on all these questions and more relating to the financial services firms, including banks, building societies, insurance firms, independent financial advisors, exchanges and brokers. The more we have our say, the more we will finish up with a financial services framework that fits our needs.
So what do we have to look forward to in the coming week?
Well, to be honest, not a lot. With Parliament and schools on holiday life has become a little quiet on the SME reporting front.
Highlight of the week will be the MPC monthly decision on interest rates which is due on Thursday 5th. With this meeting coming a week ahead of the quarterly inflation report and mixed messages coming out of the economy we continue to watch this meeting with interest.
And finally in a week for bizarre tax evasion stories, a Lancashire man has been send to jail for just over two years for hiding money in his chip shop and behind bushes in his garden in an attempt to conceal his sales of illegally imported cigarettes. However, he has been beaten to our top spot by the man who buried £140,000 in his aunt’s grave in a bid to hide it from the tax man. The Sun was told that customs officers got a tip off and with permission dug up the money and took their £50,000 share.
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