What’s one thing you’re going to do better in 2012? I hope it’s taking action to improve your website! It’s a huge untapped resource for most of us small businesses as we can sometimes fail to see it as an investment. Like any investment it should be showing you a profit.

Marketing your website and ensuring it is converting leads and getting you more sales should be at the top of your priorities for 2012. I have 12 pointers to help you get started on this… but trust me; they won’t work unless YOU take ACTION!
 

Pointer 1: Set your Goals.

If you don’t have a clear direction or a set goal to target, then how do you know you’re improving? You don’t! Setting special goals can allow you to plan each step of the way and measure how far away you are from reaching the end goal.

Make sure you have SMART goals in other words they need to be: Specific, Measurable, Accurate, Realistic and Timely. Here are some examples:

• Increase sales by XX% during the next financial year

• Grow my subscriber list by XX by June 2012

• Generate XX leads on a weekly basis

• Grow my Facebook fan base to XX fans by June 2012

• Grow online sales by XX% over the next 2 months without increasing my advertising spend

As you can see from these examples, they provide a specific target that’s measurable, accurate, isn’t unrealistic and provides a timeframe in which it needs achieving. Make yourself accountable.

So, how can you carry out achieving these goals? Through the use of Tactics!

Pointer 2: Defining tactics for achieving your goals.

Put simply, tactics are what you’ll use to carry out your strategies in order to accomplish your goals. Once you identify the reasons for creating and investing in your website, you’ll find it easy to put strategies and tactics in place.

So really you need to work backwards. Define your goals first and then work out how you’ll achieve them. Here are some examples of tactics you could implement:

• Build a database of email prospects

• Promote my business through email marketing

• Sell my products 24/7 using a shopping cart

• Share my expertise through a blog

• Get a guest blogging gig on XYZ blog

• Create one webinar per month on specific topics

These tactics will help you ensure your goals are SMART and can be accurately undertaken without being unrealistic for your business.

Pointer 3: Are you telling your customers where to go?

If your website doesn’t clearly state what the next step is for a customer or where they should go to purchase a product or download a report, how will the customer know where to go? They won’t, and this means they’ll either wander your site aimlessly or leave your site as it’s ‘too hard to find’ what they’re looking for.

Therefore, ‘Calls to Action’, known as CTAs, need to be placed on your site in order to clearly direct your visitors to do what you want them to do. The customer came to your website to hopefully buy, so place a CTA on your homepage that clearly points to your products, and ideally at least one CTA on every single page to encourage secondary actions like add to cart, join your newsletter, download your eBook, book a consultation, etc.

The use of catchy headlines and compelling copy is what can also be used as a CTA. If your headline doesn’t catch your reader’s attention straight away, then you risk losing that customer.

Pointer 4: Lead Capturing – What ‘FREE’ can really mean for your business.

People love getting things for free – if they feel there’s value. Putting a small hurdle in the way of someone getting something of value and then seeing whether they jump over it is a great way to filter qualified leads from casual browsers. Lead capture is the capturing of details (name and email as a minimum) for this qualification process. On the flip side, you could always offer free content without a barrier to encourage your content to spread more virally.

Lead capture, properly implemented, helps a visitor get to know you, like you and trust you. Give them something of value, offer them ongoing information and freebies – and once they’re ready to buy, you’ll be front of mind.

When you’re planning out how to do it, it’s best to think of it as a sale where the customer is paying with information. You’ll want to use all the sales techniques you’d normally use to try to convert visitors into leads as you would converting a prospect into a customer. Use eBooks, reports, whitepapers, webinars, calculators, templates, checklists or ongoing advice as your “product”. Keep in mind all the profiling you’ve done of your ideal clients and use their hot buttons. Create content that helps solve their problems and you’ll have them eating out of your hands!

Pointer 5: Ditch the generic stock photo!

Stop relying on the same old stock photos for your website. Hire a professional photographer or even better hire a student photographer who will only charge a small fee!

Nothing beats authenticity and originality. People like to see exactly what they’re getting and they want to know it’s of good quality. Even with service based business, having photographs of your staff and what they do will add that personal touch and feel to your website. Real is better. As Ali G would say…  “Keep it real.”

I’m not saying don’t use stock photos because in some cases they are needed, but consider for your 2012 website marketing to include new and original photos of you and your team.

Pointer 6: How to get more email subscribers.

If you want to increase subscriptions to your newsletter, try changing the copy and making it more about your prospects’ problems, fears and concerns. Instead of saying ‘Join our Newsletter’, try ‘Free Expert Tips & Success Strategies to Make You More Profitable’. Offering them something of value is the trick! People’s inboxes are overcrowded with newsletters these days – what would entice them to join yours? A gift voucher? A Free report or eBook? Regular Free Advice? The list is endless.

We did this with ours and got a whopping 3600% increase in newsletter subscriptions!

What are you going to include in yours to convert them later on too? Free accounting advice? Industry updates? Expert webinars? Always send good quality content that will interest your subscribers. Continuous blast-outs of product announcements just doesn’t cut it these days.

Pointer 7: Accelerate your conversions via landing pages.

Landing pages are simplified pages on your website dedicated to capturing leads or sales for one specific offer or product. I’m sure you’ve come across these before – a page with a sales pitch, lead capture form and one button – one way in, and only one way out.

Your response and conversion rates can be drastically improved by directing campaigns to landing pages – it keeps your message and your sales pitch crystal clear and ensures they’re not distracted by any other of your messages. Landing pages for campaigns targeting different markets can push the hot buttons of different types of ideal clients.

How can you utilise this tactic? Simple:

• Create a landing page that includes all the information about the campaign you’re running. For example if you’re offering a free eBook for the purpose of lead capture and you’re advertising it through online ads. Ensure the landing page has all the information required for the prospect to download the eBook. Include the benefits they’ll receive by downloading the book, and of course include your lead capture form. Don’t get greedy with the fields you make them complete either. Keep it simple at this first stage.

• All your advertisements should link to this one landing page. The one-click to the landing page allows the customer to qualify the product instantly and quickly download what they want.

• Ensure you keep your leads and add them to your database for further nurturing!

Landing pages are also great for promoting workshops, special product packages, eBooks or whitepapers and other valuable insider content you want to market.

Pointer 8: Become an Educator.

Building a higher presence within your industry comes down to how much credibility the viewers of that industry perceive you have. A blog is a great way to position yourself and your business as experts in your field – as well as generate quality traffic for your website. Think of it as a personal journal, explaining something related to your industry (and your ideal clients) without being sales-focused. And consider getting controversial too. Make a real statement with your opinion and you could gain more traction and comments on your blog.

This integrates closely with the building of trust – for the kind of reader who goes into depth on your website, they’ll see that you’re knowledgeable, trustworthy and not going for the hard sell.

A blog, like your website, is a living, breathing asset. Google loves recent content. Google loves newsworthy content. Treat it with love and care to keep your customers and prospects coming back!

Other tools that show you are an educator within your field include:

• eBooks

• Whitepapers

• Reports

• Email Newsletters with tips and advice

• Tutorials

Test each type of tool and see which one your audience prefers the most!

Pointer 9: Go Video in 2012.

Video is the new way to improve your Google ranking. Utilising video on your site can make improve your rankings in Google 50 times better than a page of text!

Not only does video improve your ranking, it also allows you to explain what you do easier and will give you a better chance to build trust with your customers rather than using text on its own.

You don’t need a film crew or expensive camera to do it either. There are heaps of free tools that allow you to edit video. Search your computer – it’s bound to have one!

Pointer 10: Slow and steady wins the race.

Search Engine Optimisation is a set of tactics and practices you can implement or outsource to drive your website up the natural rankings in search engines for the keywords you want to be found on.

The best way to handle SEO is to outsource it – make sure you go with a reputable provider, but know that the hours of work required to do a good job with SEO can be substantial.

However, there are a number of things you can do to improve your SEO performance without spending a cent or investing too much time:

• Think about what your ideal client is going to type into Google to find you. Do your keyword research.

• Update all your online listings. To find out where they are type your domain name into Google with inverted commas like this: “www.mydomain.com.au” and hit search.

• Build additional external links. E.g. get your suppliers to link to your site, write guest blog posts, write articles and submit them to online directories for publishing.

• Set yourself up a Google Places Account – for help with this, you can see this post Listing with Google Places in 3 Easy Steps

• And use video where you can.

It’s a known fact that 90% of search engine users won’t go past the first 3 pages, in fact about 42% of people click on the number 1 result. That’s almost half!  Therefore you need to get your business ahead of competitors. If you’re on a tight budget or the DIY type, you could even try a 30 day DIY program to improve your rank.

Pointer 11: Social Media – Just do it really well.

As we all know by now, social media is where people (and your customers) are hanging out at. This means that your business should be there as well, utilising it to communicate with customers in a more personal way.

However, the point of social media tools like Facebook and YouTube isn’t about just being present. If you really want to make an impact and gain higher conversions from using social media, then you need to do it really well!

This is easier than you think if you have a good strategy behind you. Ensure you communicate on a regular basis if you’re on Facebook and encouraging participation in your posts from your ‘likers’. If you utilise YouTube, ensure you are regularly updating content and pushing links through to Facebook. Keeping active on social media will keep your audience aware of you and will eventually convert them.

Remember, only spend time where you know your audience does. Don’t waste time on Twitter if your audience isn’t using it yet. Research first then approach it from a strategic standpoint and you’ll succeed.

Pointer 12: How to implement and action for 2012.

Your brain has probably just overloaded and you’re now thinking, “How do I go about implementing things like this for 2012?” Don’t stress! It’s all about planning and setting out what you want to achieve… remember Pointers 1 & 2? They are your first steps. Then you need to sort out what tactics (pointers 3-11) you will use to achieve your goals.

Here are some quick tips of getting started on implementing:

• Set Your Goals – what do you want to achieve and by when?

• Create a Content Calendar – what are you going to market and when? Think of what you’re going to do on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly & annual basis then plan it out in your calendar.

• Measure using Google Analytics & Your Website Statistics – Measuring is important to ensure you are on track to achieving your goals. Don’t miss this crucial step.

• Review your progress on a monthly basis – if you aren’t on track then you should refine your processes or refine your goals to be SMART. If one medium isn’t bring any sales, maybe it’s time to ditch it and put your energy into something that will.

As you can see, when you break it down, it can be a lot easier to take action for marketing your website for 2012. By taking action, and being patient, I guarantee you’ll see positive results and you won’t look back!

What have you got planned for 2012? Share your ideas below. Leave a comment now. 

You don’t have to prove yourselves to us -- we already think you’re awesome. And just by being so incredibly awesome, your business helps our business! To pay it forward for all the positive PR you give us already for being the best for affordable Web Design in Melbourne, we’re relaunching our Referral Program. (And when I say “pay” it forward, I mean with cold, hard cash!)

From here on out, we’re offering $200 cash, moolah, dinero, and quite a few buckaroos to anyone who refers a new client to us. If you’re already a Web123 client, we’ll sweeten the deal even more by giving you the option of either taking the $200 cash or upping that reward to $300 in credit (that’s over 6 months hosting! FREE!).

So start shouting from the rooftops and tell everyone you know -- just make sure we know you sent them.

Find out more about how you can start turning your contacts into easy cash by visiting our Referrals Page or giving us a buzz on 1800 932 123. Thanks for spreading the word!

Hi, it’s Sarah McCormack here with you today. I’m Web123’s Marketing Manager and I’m lucky enough to be interviewing Jack Delosa.

Jack Delosa has been repeatedly featured as one of Australia’s top entrepreneurs, from having his company listed in the Fast 50 Start-Ups in Australia, being listed as one of the top 10 entrepreneurs under 30 in Australia in the Dynamic Business Young Guns and three times listed in Australian Anthill’s 30Under30 Publication.

Jack Delosa has consulted for brands such as Microsoft, Virgin and CPA on the topics of business growth and performance. Today he is a spokesperson for entrepreneurship in Australia and we are very lucky to have spoken to Jack about his journey and the advice he can provide small businesses and entrepreneurs!

Listen to the live recording NOW!

Sarah McCormack: So, Jack, you've been repeatedly featured as one of Australia's top entrepreneurs. What made you want to take this path in your career, and did you have any doubts along the way?

Jack Delosa: What really inspired me to take this path; when I was very young, I had a mentor – although I didn't attach that label at the time, but in hindsight, he was a bit of a mentor for me, early on – he said, "Jack, your success in life is going to come from one of two things. It's either going to come from inspiration or desperation." That was something that I really liked hearing, because I had a lot of both.

I think, predominantly, for me, there was always the need to challenge the status quo and do something a little bit different. I had never felt at home through the traditional education system, so high school was a bit of a strain.

I started a Commerce/Law degree early on coming out of high school, and I only lasted three months, and then I was given an opportunity to buy into a business-to-business call centre down in Melbourne. I hated call centres, because I had worked in call centres as a sales rep since the age of about 15, but I was so hungry to start my own business and get involved in something at a shareholder and a management level that I took that opportunity.

Now, that opportunity probably wasn't the best commercial opportunity in the world; we lost a lot of money very quickly, and had to dig ourselves out of a hole. So, it was a very rough introduction to business where I learned a lot about what not to do, and I learned a lot about what to do, but it really gave me, I think, work ethic, and an understanding of the emotional fortitude required to get a seat at the table in business.

Sarah McCormack: Did you have any thoughts along the way – when you got yourself in that big hole – about any doubts; should I just quit now, or do I keep going?

Jack Delosa: Sure. Through our MBE Groups –, we've got two different educational institutions. We've got MBE Education, which helps small businesses raise capital from investors, and we've got the Entourage, which is entrepreneurial education for under 35's.

So, through those combined educational institutions, we see about 10,000 business owners every single year, and I think any entrepreneur who doesn't say they have doubts about themselves every single day is probably hiding a little bit of the truth, let's just say. That has always been certainly true for me.

I think taking an entrepreneurial path in life or even for people going through a more traditional career and driving for greatness in any field is going to come up against significant obstacles and significant challenges along the way. One of the things I often think about is that nothing is easy and therefore if it is easy, it is often nothing.

So, challenge and difficulty and self-doubt, I think, is something that entrepreneurs need to be comfortable experiencing, and it's not about, how do I turn that off? You can't. It's more about, how do I manage that along the way and continue pushing myself despite that self-doubt and those challenges that may arise along the way.

Sarah McCormack: In regards to your age, you became quite successful; I guess we could say when you were quite young. Do you think your age played a factor in this success, or did it bring about any challenges?

Jack Delosa: There are two sides to every coin, and I know that's a cliché, but it's highly appropriate in this instance. Early on, it really played on my mind that I was young and I often say that the problem with starting a business or buying into a business at the age of 18 is that you know everything.

At the age of 18, I certainly thought I knew everything. So, I did run into a number of obstacles along the way in that, although I thought I knew everything, I actually knew very little. I was over-naïve and over-optimistic, and I was perhaps over-confident as well.

If you look back on that, you think, well, that is probably a strength, because it's those qualities that get you into business. It's those qualities that make you say to yourself, 'I can actually make this happen, even though I'm 18 years old. But then, of course, at times, they can be your biggest weakness as well, because you'll do things which perhaps aren't the right things to do at the time because you have that over-confidence.

I think that often our strengths can become our biggest weaknesses, and the optimism of youth often fits both those categories, I believe.

Sarah McCormack: Great. So, you're definitely a role model for Gen Y. What do you think about Gen Y, overall, in the workforce?

Jack Delosa: Well, we do a lot of consumer insight stuff, so we speak to a lot of small business owners around Australia on a fairly regular basis, and we're just continually trying to better understand, what the core objectives are and what the core obstacles that small businesses face around Australia are.

One thing that our research continually picks up is the lack of effective education out there in the marketplace for entrepreneurs or small business owners. For a recent survey, we asked the small business owners of Australia, how effective was your university's degree in educating you and preparing you for the business world? On a scale of zero to 10, universities and TAFEs and traditional education came out with an average score of 3 out of 10.

So, that highlighted a real gap in the education model for us, and it continues to be seen through our interactions with businesses and our interactions with clients that there is no real place, particularly for Gen Y, to go to get educated on how do you pursue your own path and how do you build a business from scratch and actually start to bring in some revenue, and hopefully make it profitable – and all those sorts of things which typically aren't really covered at university.

So, I think Gen Y are a very entrepreneurial generation in terms of their characteristics, and I think more could be done on the part of organizations, the part of the media, the part of the traditional education system, etc. to do more to encourage Gen Y to pursue their own path.

That could be seen through further education channels, it could be seen through just encouraging Gen Y to actually pursue something worthwhile, rather than living by the paradigm that we must go to high school, go to university, get a job and work our way up to retire at 60 on a superannuation fund.

Sarah McCormack: I definitely agree with you there. So, what about the business owners, a lot of businesses have the perception or the stereotype version of what Gen Y is like; such as lazy in the workforce. Out of your research, have you found that this is right, or is this wrong?

Jack Delosa: I think it's great, because there's often studies coming out an employer, who said this, or the media have said this, or a politician has said this. I think it's fantastic. The facts and stats must be coming from somewhere, so I think they probably are true. I mean, I'd be the first to admit that there are a lot of Gen Y's – perhaps the majority of Gen Y's – who are disengaged at a professional level, or at a career level. However, my take on that is that what we're seeing is a marketplace that's tailor-made for Gen Y's that do want to get ahead.

In our generation, there's not a lot of traffic on the extra mile, so those that do stick their head up and those that do pursue something worthwhile – particularly at a young age – will tend to stand out, and will tend to garner the support of those around them, which will ultimately push them forward. The disengagement and all the stuff that goes on about Gen Y, I think, is great, because it means there's more opportunity for those that are happy to go out and get it.

Sarah McCormack: Perfect. So, I guess the seed of that is originating from, again, what you've said, getting bored in high school and how they're growing up, with the beliefs and perceptions they're getting influenced into them; that that's how they're going to keep going, if they want to, or don't want to.

Jack Delosa: Yes, and I just probably have a slightly biased opinion, because, school never really suited me. Yes, I had lots of fun and all that sort of stuff, but from an application standpoint – from learning about the world standpoint, from learning about myself or human psychology standpoint – I never really took a lot from it.

I'd love to see primary schools, high schools, universities doing more to teach emotional intelligence, to teach financial literacy; what is a credit card, how does it work? What is a mortgage, how does that work? What is the difference between healthy debt and negative debt? What is an investment, etc. None of that is really covered, or at least it wasn't when I was there.

Sarah McCormack: Now, how can other entrepreneurs and small business owners learn from your success to better their own business?

Jack Delosa: I read a book about six months ago which, I'm pretty sure, changed my life. It's a book called Talent is Overrated by Geoff Cole.

What this book does is, it looks into the greats of history; the people who we would consider to be great, the Mozarts, the Tiger Woods, the Michael Jordans, the Richard Bransons, the Jack Welchers.

 It asks the question, how much of a part did talent play in achieving their level of success, and through consolidating a lot of research and looking into the factual backgrounds of these people and looking through the case studies, the conclusion of the book is that talent, being a natural aptitude in a particular field, does exist. If you give one person a golf stick at the age of two, he might hit it better than another person at the age of two. So, talent as a natural aptitude does exist.

However, in achieving a certain level of success, or even a great level of success, the book actually determines that talent is irrelevant, and that actually comes down to something they call deliberate practice – which, translated, is pretty much hard work.

In terms of what could people learn from my story, I think it is that as long as you have a clear direction and understanding of what you want in life, and you're willing to go the extra mile and work really hard toward that, you don't need to be smarter than everybody else. You don't need to be funnier than everybody else. You don't need to have more money than everybody else. You don't need to be luckier than everybody else. You just need to out-learn everybody else, and you will ultimately achieve what you set out to do.

Sarah McCormack: Good advice. Okay, now moving back onto your business, how have the Internet and online tools helped you succeed throughout all the businesses that you have started up?

Jack Delosa: Social media is quite a fundamental platform for us these days. We're able to interact with our clients and target market on a daily basis, in terms of asking them questions and starting dialogue, and even sort of shifting some of the things that we will do, depending on the feedback and the interactions we'll get through Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn or whatever it is.

So, social media has been really crucial. I suppose the other thing is, we're always working towards bringing on really intelligent people in any field of our business, so finding people who are great with online marketing and online sales, and even online brand building around blogging and all that sort of stuff, that's what we'll always be pursuing; how do we surround ourselves with the best, when it comes to online strategy.

Sarah McCormack: Okay, so in regards to small businesses and entrepreneurs, what do you suggest would be the most effective online tool to focus on, if they wanted to build on their relationship with their customers?

Jack Delosa: Yes, I think if I could sit on the fence on this one, I would say that it really depends on what that company is trying to achieve. I believe that every website should have one purpose; so, that is, we are trying to collect the details of potential clients, or, we are trying to sell stuff, or, we are just wanting to be a brochure and we want people to call us.

Whatever that might be, I think having a web strategy which is aligned with your corporate strategy and your overall objectives is probably what's first, and then I'd say what is second is going and talking to someone like you guys about, how do we best achieve that objective, because you're far more qualified to answer that question than I am, Sarah. [laughs]

Sarah McCormack: Now, talking about generating clients, what advice would you give small businesses and entrepreneurs from your experience and knowledge?

Jack Delosa: This is a good question. I am a big one for leveraging business development; so, when I say that, I mean how do we do more with less?

Through the last seven or eight years being in business myself, the most effective ways I've found to drive business is to put in place mechanisms that pull business towards you, rather than you having to always push out to go and find business.

Two quick examples I'll give of that is, number one, developing strategic partnerships with people who are in your industry or in a complimentary industry. I'll try and give you a real example of one we've either done or one we've seen a client do.

Through the Entourage, for example, we run the Young Entrepreneurs UN Conventions. They are the largest events for young entrepreneurs in Australian history. We often have three or four hundred people arrive at that.

How we were able to get that many young entrepreneurs in a room, despite the fact that entrepreneurs and small business owners are a fairly segmented market – fairly independent thinkers, rarely would come together – we were able to do that through developing strategic partnerships with people like Microsoft, CPA, ANZ and Yellow Brick Road.

In engaging these organizations in a way, which was fantastic for them, to attach their brand to what we were doing, but also in a way that invited them to invite their clients to the events as well.

Through the partnerships which we would develop in putting on an event like that, we would probably send out something close to 500,000 emails in the lead-up to an event, and it has cost us nothing. So, if you're an accountant, you could partner with a lawyer and gain access to the lawyer's clients. If you're a lawyer, you could partner with an accountant. If you're a DVD store, you can partner with the restaurant next door, and just always cross-pollinating between the two. So, that's what I mean by strategic partnerships.

The second example I'll give you quickly is PR. So, if you can position yourself in the media, either as a subject matter expert or as a business expert or in your particular field, putting yourself where opportunity can see you will ultimately mean that people will start to find you.

Whether they be investors, whether they be partners, whether they be employees, whether they be potential customers; PR is probably the second most effective business development strategy that I could share with you.

Sarah McCormack: So, what's your view on traditional advertising then; does that work, or do you think it's just a big waste of money?

Jack Delosa: I'm probably leaning towards the latter. Again, it depends on the business, but I think that any paid advertising campaign should be coupled with PR and should be coupled with strategic partnerships.

I think as long as you're doing the other things which are free to do – and which cut through paid advertising anyway – as long as you're doing all of that sort of stuff, and really leveraging those strategies, often paid advertising can complement those sorts of strategies.

I'd say put the strategic partnerships and put the PR first, and then if you want to bolt on a paid advertising campaign to those strategies and you can do so in a way which is profitable, then, why not?

Sarah McCormack: So, last question. In all your success, you must have some top pointers for small businesses and entrepreneurs. Out of these top pointers, what would you like to say for all small businesses and entrepreneurs for 2012?

Jack Delosa: 2012, my number one tip would be, spend 80 per cent of your time on sales and marketing. If you as an entrepreneur or a small business owner do just that one thing – just spend 80 per cent of your time on sales and marketing – because research shows that the average small business owner in Australia spends 13 per cent of their time on sales and marketing.

If you can build a business and systemize the business and build a team in a way which removes you from the day to day operations, which I understand can't happen immediately, but hopefully it can happen over time, and you just spend 80 per cent of your time on sales and marketing, then it will revolutionize your business.

Listen to the live recording NOW!

Web123 would like to thank Jack for sharing his thoughts, wisdom and advice. We hope all our customers and readers gained a piece of knowledge or an idea to implement in 2012.

If you're a small business owner looking for online success, download a free Website Starter Kit and learn the 5 critical things you MUST do before spending a cent on the web!

Functional Updates

For a long time now, reordering products and categories has been a little bit tedious, especially if you've got a big product catalogue.

As of this week you may have noticed that you're now able to reorder your products directly from the category you're in! You'll also be able to reorder sub-categories by editing the parent category.

We've also made reordering pages much easier: To reorder the pages under your "About Us" page for example, you'll just edit your "About Us" page and look in the "Child Pages" panel.

If you're confused at all or things aren't working the way you expect please be in touch by leaving us a comment, raising a ticket or giving us a call on 1800 932 123.

Aesthetic Updates

If you're using a gallery slideshow in your main banner area we're giving you a little more control over how it appears. You'll now be able to choose the transition the slideshow uses to get from one images to the next: so you can make them slide up or down rather than fading from one into the next. This update only applies to some websites right now, but if you want to try out some other transitions let us know so that we can switch it on for you.

As a valued Web123 client, you are guaranteed free updates to your site - for life! Keep in touch with us by email or on Facebook. And let us know what you think of the updates in the comments below.  

Wildfire Growth

With roughly 100,000 Aussies creating accounts on Facebook every single month this year, that means there are now 10,721,800 Australians actively using the Facebook platform. And by “active”, Facebook means those users log in at least once every 30 days. That's roughly 50% of the entire Australian population. Incredible!

Demographic Breakdown

Facebook users in Australia are nearly as diverse as the country is wide, but there are a few noteworth statistics of who uses Facebook. 54% of Australian Facebook users are female, 46% are male.

The largest age group of Facebook users in Australia is 25-34 year olds, followed by 18-24 year olds. Thinking Facebook is only for kids? Don't be fooled! In 2011, more than 28% of all Australians on Facebook were between the ages of 35 and 54 (that's over 3 million people!). Women aged 55+ are the fastest growing demographic on Facebook.

Looking at Location

If you zoom in to look at Facebook usage by city, Brisbane leads the pack with the highest percentage of Facebook penetration, followed by Perth, Sydney, Melbourne then Adelaide. 

Even though Melburnians didn't top the list for Facebook penetration, parts of the Melbourne Airport did snag the number 1, number 2 and number 5 spots of the top 5 most popular places to "check in" in Australia for 2011. Victorians sure must love to fly!

Most Talked About Topics

It's no secret that social media is where the world goes to gossip, giggle and trade advice. Facebook Australia is no exception to this! In 2011 Facebook kept track of the most popular topics users were talking about on the site, and compiled a list by country. The most talked about topics on Facebook Australia in 2011 were:

1. Planking
2. Cyclone Yasi
3. Census
4. Death of Osama Bin Laden
5. Skrillex
6. Victorian floods
7. Daniel Morcombe
8. Charlie Sheen
9. Death of Amy Winehouse
10. Cadel Evans.

Consuming Consumers' Time 

If you're one of the few holding off on joining Facebook because you think it takes too much time, you could be partly correct. Facebook Australia is definitely consuming your customers' time. The average user spends 26 minutes and 27 seconds on Facebook every single time they log in according to Experian. In an average month, they'll spend 6 hours and 46 minutes on Facebook according to a Nielsen report. That's over 80 hours a year!

A Professional Perspective

I know Web123’s Facebook page has seen some impressive growth this year, but we’ve got to hand it to these Australian brands who are doing so incredibly well on Facebook. Pages offer businesses a unique opportunity to connect and converse with customers and potential customers in an informal, non-salesy way. 

Australian businesses of all sizes are taking advantage of Facebook business pages. According to a study by eMarketing Connected, of the top 50 brands in Australia, 48% of them have a presence on Facebook. Australian small businesses are fast following in those footsteps, making big waves with nearly 40% of Australian small businesses now using some form of social media to promote themselves.

According to Social Baker, the top 5 most liked Australian brands on Facebook for 2011 were:

1. Quicksilver (over 1.3 million fans!)
2. Bubble O' Bill Ice Creams (growing by nearly 5000 fans every week!)
3. Ugg Australia
4. Coca-Cola Australia (one of the most "Talked About" pages in Australia)
5. Bonds

Small Business YouTube Page

If you've already created a video for your busienss that you'd like to share on YouTube, the first thing you'll need to do is set up a YouTube account. One of the most important things for your small business YouTube strategy is that your account to looks professional and works properly. This will help you generate interest and hopefully increase sales! Branding is a major part of building a web presence, so make sure that your company's YouTube profile matches with your brand. 

Your YouTube profile page will serve as a hub for all the video content your business posts. Similarly to your Facebook Business Page, your YouTube page will be a resource for anyone who wants to find your videos or learn more about your business.

YouTube will give you lots of options when you are first creating your account so you can customise the page to your liking. If you're doing the design yourself, make sure to add your business logo and background colours to the YouTube page that will match your branding and more. 

Uploading Videos 

Tagging

Tracking

For any online business, finding ways to manage your time effectively is essential. YouTube has advanced traffic tracking tools to assist you with monitoring the success of your YouTube campaigns. 

Along with the basic details of seeing how many people have viewed your videos and the number of “likes" or "dislikes” each video has received, you will also get options in tracking location and other demographic details of your viewers.

Tracking demographics will show you which age groups and genders your videos are most popular with. This information is very powerful if you are looking to target a certain audience for a new product or promotion for your small business.The demographic information for age and gender is based on the YouTube account info of the people who are watching your videos. However, remember that since YouTube videos can be viewed with or without logging in, this data will not account for all of your viewers -- only those who have logged in. 

Tracking location information, on the other hand, will include details for every single viewer based on where the Internet service they used to watch your video is connected. This location information contains exactly where in the world your videos are most popular. You could find that your videos are growing a fan base for your small business on the other side of the world!

Small Business YouTube Works

The benefits of having a business YouTube channel generally outweigh the potential negatives, provided you have the time to create the content. Creating relevant videos for your small buisness can help you  reach a whole new field of potential customers!

YouTube makes testing and tracking video strategies a powerful but easy small business tool. 

If you're ready to get your business going on the ongoing version of the Big Screen, make sure you're putting your best foot forward with a profesionally designed YouTube channel page. 

Firstly, let’s look at the definitions of each of these words and see what they really mean to us as a consumer buying a product or service…

Expensive – adjective – entailing great expense; very high-priced; costly. To a consumer we assume that expensive products are of high quality and are superior to all else.

Affordable – adjective – that can be afforded; believed to be within one’s financial means. To a consumer we see affordable products as a substitute ‘next best’ to expensive products, consumers buy affordable products when they aren’t on a tight budget.

Cheap – noun, adjective – costing very little; of little account; of small value; shoddy. To a consumer cheap products or services is often something that is bought on a tight budget and assumed that it will only last a short period as it’s perceived as poor quality compared to others.

We can also say that businesses buy a certain product or service because of what status that product or service will provide the business buying it. For example BMW is more likely to purchase a web design that is expensive due to the nature of their business and the perception they need to on flow to their consumers.

So let’s talk about the businesses offering these expensive, affordable and cheap web designs…

As a consumer you would assume that if you were to spend tens of thousands of dollars on a web design you would get everything you would ever need, yes? Well, you’re wrong! Most, let’s call them ‘High End’ web design companies, like to charge an arm and a leg for the most minimum amount of work just so they can get more ‘add-ons’ and then charge you for another arm and leg! Mind you, the design you should get from expensive web design businesses should be second-to-none.

The money you invest into your web design needs to correlate to the work the business is providing you – this means you need to be getting results from your website in fact AMAZING results, the usability of your website needs to be seamless, the content must be compelling etc. etc. I could go on all day about what a website SHOULD be but let’s face it, not all expensive web design companies will provide you with a service that matches the price you will pay.

Let’s go to the opposite end of the scale and analyse cheap web designs! As a small business owner a business that can provide you with a web design for only a couple of hundred dollars, sounds like a wonderful idea does it not? Well, the only problem with this is that in the web design industry Cheap = Nasty = No Results = A waste of a couple of hundred dollars!

How do you know it’s a waste of money? Well when your website crashes or you can’t update the content, or you have no ongoing support, or your friends, leads or customers can’t find you on the web; that’s when you know you have wasted your money!

Cheap web designs usually look like they have been put together by a 12 year old cutting and pasting stuff into a Word Document and then got their Dad to publish it somehow to the web, and due to all the back alley’s they took to get your website to the internet they actually have no idea who is hosting it or how they would change it if you asked… Sounds great doesn’t it? NO!

Small Businesses need a happy-medium and that is an affordable web design, something not too pricey and not to crappy. However, just like every purchase you make you will need to compare businesses to other businesses to see which affordable web design company is providing you with the best quality, the most amount of useful features, no hidden fees, ability to change your website when you like for no cost, a durable content management system, the ability to integrate email marketing, inbuilt analytics and more.

Some businesses that class themselves as affordable web design actually have hidden fees and use the ability of additional ‘add-ons’ to make more money. For example some businesses say they will design 10 website pages, set up analytics, the functionality for a two level menu option and a CMS.

What you don’t realise that when buying into this, even though the price is great and you think what else could I possibly need? Is that you will start getting into your website and you will need another page added, or you want another menu level, or you want to change the heading banner image, which is all chargeable expenses to that affordable web design business you bought the services from.

You don’t want to get stuck in a trap where you have paid so much money for a web design that you have to continuing paying for the design every time you want to update or change something. Many small businesses fall for this mistake!

So beware! Choose carefully and ask the following:

• How long will it take to get my website up and Live?
• How much are the ongoings?
• Do you charge extra if I need to change anything, and I mean ANYTHING, on my website? Remember, you want full control!
• Do you provide ongoing support?
• How extensive is the CMS?
• Will it actually generate me business and be found in search engines?
• How much to redesign if needed?
• How much is Web Hosting?
• Do I have to pay for upgrades or new functionality?
• What’s the total cost?

Affordable web design, as you now know, is the most effective medium for a small business. Affordable web designs not only provide you with a low cost but also enough functionality to have the freedom of doing what you like to your website.

So, what’s the difference between expensive, affordable and cheap web design? Basically, it has to do with the quality, the price and the service provided. So remember, affordable web design will help your small business get online in the most effective and efficient way.

Have a read through the following profiles and pick the one which feels most like you: then read the services we recommend!

I love learning how things work and I want to get in there and get my hands dirty! I find it really satisfying to work things out on my own and I get a real sense of acheivement when I do it all myself.

• SEO for Beginners eBook
• SEO in 30 days eBook

I'm on a tight budget and I can't afford to pay an expert and I don't have time to learn anything new. Can't you just tell me exactly what to do?

• SEO in 30 days eBook

I want to do it myself but I think I might need a bit of a boost to get me started...

• Keyword Research & Competitor Spying Report
• SEO in 30 days eBook

I don't want (or don't have time) to do it myself, but I don't really want another ongoing monthly expense...

• Flat Fee SEO

I've got my own business to run: Can't you just do it for me?

• Maximiser SEO Package

SEO for Beginners eBook

The SEO for Beginners eBook is a fabulous resource which will give you all the information you need to start lifting your results in the search engines. 30 pages of information and you'll learn:

• What is SEO and how search engines work.
• The importance of quality content for SEO.
• How to choose the right keywords to rank well.
• Online tools to uncover the best keyword niche opportunities.
• Commons mistakes most SEO newbies make.
• The top 10 tips for SEO success plus much more!

The SEO for Beginners eBook is just $29 but if you've got a Web123 website just drop us a line and we're happy to send you a FREE copy!

Also available bundled with the SEO in 30 days handbook for just $67.

SEO in 30 days Handbook

To be used with our without the SEO for Beginners eBook, the SEO in 30 days handbook will give you a simple, practical outline for what you can do to improve your Google ranking within one month. 

It's easy to get overwhelmed by theory and jargon - the SEO in 30 days handbook gives you a simple and straightforward task to do each day. It's designed to be easy and not too time-consuming. 

The handbook is $49 but once again if you're an existing client we'd love to give it to you for free so just let us know!

Also available bundled with the SEO for Beginners eBook for just $67.

Keyword Research

It doesn't make sense to be "at the top of Google" for a term which nobody ever searches on. Keyword Research is the process of working out which terms are going to be most profitable for you - with the best likelihood of success. A Keyword Research & Competitor Spying Report by our team will give you a huge boost with your DIY SEO and you'll know you're not spending your time on unprofitable terms.

Flat Fee SEO

Every website is different so we work with you to determine the best keyword choices and action required to get to page 1 of Google. With Flat Fee SEO You pay one low flat fee upfront and we'll let you know how long we need to get you great results and what we're going to do. After we've done our job, we'll send you a detailed report of exactly what we did and you can watch your traffic soar! All for one low cost!

The cost will depend on your keywords and how competitive they are. Packages available for 1, 2 or 3 Keywords.

SEO Packages

We've a number of SEO Packages available starting from $299 per month for Web123 clients. Check out our Search Engine Optimisation Packages to find out which package will suit your business and your budget.

If you're still not sure which product or products is right for you, send us a comment or give us a call! 

It's rarely wise to just throw money at someone without knowing what they're doing. So here's a handy guide to help you understand what is SEO, and if you're hiring someone to do SEO for your website, what exactly they may be doing for you and how to choose a company for SEO. Some of the things an SEO expert may do for you (or claim to) could be potentially harm your site just as much as they could help it, so it's important to go with a company for SEO that is honest and upfront about its methods.

The process of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is to fine-tune (or optimise) your website so that it looks relevant (to a specific set of keywords and key-phrases) and important  to Google and other search engines. The best way to look relevant and important is of course to BE relevant and important.

I've seen a lot of people taken advantage of by dodgy SEO companies who rely on their clients not understanding or taking an interest in what they're doing. Don't just blindly trust someone who promises you an increase in traffic! If they're doing something which seems dodgy or underhanded, then it probably is a bad thing. If you trust your website to a dodgy SEO company, your website will be the one that suffers the consequences when Google penalises you -- and your SEO "expert" gets off scott free and moves on to the next sucker!

If you engage the services of a company for SEO, ask for a breakdown of what they're doing. Here are a few things that should (and shouldn't) come up...

Setting up Analytics

If you pay someone to do SEO for you, you're going to want to make sure you get results! Unless you know what your traffic is like before you engage someone then how will you be able to tell how much it's improved? If you don't currently have access to any statistics about your site traffic then you'll never know if your SEO expert actually helped or not.

If you're a Web123 customer, or you've got a good CMS, you should have access to site statistics from the moment your website went live. If you don't have a CMS then you'll need to set up and wire up Google Analytics (a fantastic free tool) so that you can see how many people are hitting your website and where they're coming from.

Once again, setting up Analytics may be quite trivial or require some technical knowledge depending on your CMS (if you have one). If you're a Web123 client then we can easily wire your website up to your Google Analytics account once you've signed up.

If you don't have access to Site Statistics in a CMS then you should get Google Analytics set up right away (and if you've got statistics but you like graphs feel free to set it up in addition to what you've already got!).

Increasing your relevance

The following three services (Keyword Research, Meta Information and Copywriting) are designed to make your website appear more relevant to the search terms and keywords, which will bring you more business. If you focus on traffic without making sure that it's relevant then you might end up with a lot more visitors but no more sales! A great SEO provider will focus on increasing the right kind of traffic - the sort of traffic that's going to buy!

Keyword Research

You can have the best looking website in the world, but if Google doesn't know what your website is about then it's hardly likely to suggest your website as an appropriate result for your potential customers. Keyword Research will help find out what your potential customers are searching for and ensure that Google sees your website as an appropriate match. 

This is absolutely something you can take care of yourself - if you've got the time. But if you engage the services of a good SEO company they can cut to the chase and tell you which keywords you need to incorporate into your website copy.

Without proper Keyword Research it's easy to waste time, effort and money optimising for unprofitable terms: make sure you pick an SEO company who recognises the importance of Keyword Research!

Meta Title & Meta Description

Craftying a good Meta Title & Description for the homepage and any other important pages (especially product pages) can take skill. This information is text that doesn't appear directly on your Website - but it appears when your website appears in Google results.

If you don't have a Content Management System then the process of actually entering the Meta Information can be a bit technical, and if you're intimidated by HTML code you simply may not be able to do this yourself. That means your SEO expert would require full access to your website - so make sure you're working with someone you trust!

If you've got a Content Management System you may be able to set up your SEO company as an administrator so that they can access the content to put it in themselves. Once again - you're handing over the reins to your website so make sure you know they're in good hands. Make sure that each person who has access to your CMS logs on with their own account if possible - that way you'll be able to find out who did what and when.

If you've got a good Content Management System, it should be pretty easy to enter your Meta Information. All Web123 clients have the ability to easily add Meta Title & Description to any page on their website. If you're a Web123 client it may be unecessary to give your SEO expert access to your website (unless you really want to). Just ask them to provide you with the text and then you can copy and paste it in yourself. 

Crafting good Meta Information can take time and skill - well worth paying for when you've got someone who knows what they're doing. The process of getting the Meta Information into your website may be trivial, or it may require a bit of technical knowledge. If you know you've got a CMS but your SEO "guru" is charging you a boatload for getting the Meta Information into your website (in addition for what they're charging you to write it) then start asking questions.

Website Copywriting

If your SEO expert has done their keyword research, after putting your keywords in the Meta Title & Meta Description then they'll probably suggest some changes to the text on your homepage and other pages on your website.

Incorporating keywords naturally into the text on your website can take writing skill -- you want the copy to read fluidly and compellingly, all while incorporating those valuable keywords. The best website copy will be written by a copywriter who specialises in writing for websites. Remember that you don't just want traffic - you also need leads and sales! If your SEO company doesn't provide copywriting services then you may want to also engage the services of a copywriter: you'll provide them with the list of keywords your SEO company has put together!

It's generally less of a headache if you find an SEO company who also provides copywriting services: whether they do it in-house or outsource it. 

Increasing your Importance

There may be several websites that are relevant to the search terms or keywords that your potential customers are searching for. So how does Google decide who to put at the top of the list? This is where importance comes in. Google sees websites which have a lot of incoming links (other websites link to your website) as being more important than a website that nobody links through to. Think of these backlinks as referrals from other websites -- you want your site to be endorsed by quality referrers.

Link Building

You or your SEO expert should approach non-competitors in your industry and ask them to link through to you. Your SEO expert should let you know how many new links they expect to generate to your website and where they'll be coming from.

Blog Writing

A great way to get more links through to your website is to write engaging, useful content on your website that hopefully other people will link to. It will depend on your industry as to how well this will work. You'll also need to try and build an audience by commenting and responding to other people's blogs. Writing and responding to blogs can take up a huge amount of time, but it can be well worth doing. Blog posts are another excellent place to pull in those keywords your SEO company has researched for you. However, blogging is only worth doing if you've got something to say that other people will find of value. This may be absolute gold for your SEO: or it may end up being a waste of time and/or money. 

If your company for SEO suggests or offers Blog Writing, get a list of other similar blogs in your industry. You want to make sure that there's an audience available and also that you've got something unique to offer.

Article Submission

Rather than (or maybe in addition to) having a blog on your own website, your SEO company may suggest publishing articles on other websites. This works best when you have your own blog as well - you can "guest post" on another website with an established audience, then link back to your own website in your byline. If people like what they read they're more likely to click back through to your website and read your blog too, or read about your products and services. 

Other Services

XML Sitemap

It's pretty important for Google to know about and read every page on your website - content that Google can't see can't help you in your rankings! An XML sitemap is a list of links presented to Google so that we know that Google knows about all the pages on your website.

If your website has been developed properly, Google should be able to find all of the links even without a sitemap. And depending on your Content Management System you may have a sitemap generated for Google automatically.

If you're a Web123 client then you've already got an XML sitemap which is dynamically generated and automatically updated if you ever change your site structure. That means it's just not necessary for your SEO expert to provide one.

If you're a Web123 client and your SEO expert is charging you to develop or implement an XML sitemap: let them know you don't need one.

Search Engine Submission

If Google doesn't know about your website at all, then you'll never appear in any Google search results. Most of the time Google and other major search engines will crawl (or find) your site within a few weeks of going live.

Search Engine Submission is generally only necessary for very new websites with no incoming links. If you appear in the listings at all (even if you're on page 10 or page 100) then there's no need to submit your website to search engines.  I've seen requests for websites to be submitted to a whole list of Search Engines (that hardly anyone uses) - which just isn't necessary. Most search engines will pick up on websites that appear in Google's listings. Chances are that if you haven't even heard of these other engines, neither have any of your potential customers so you probably don't need to worry about listings.

Other Tools, Tracking or Uploads

I've occasionally received a whole bunch of files that some SEO company wants uploaded to the root directory with no indication of what they do or what they're for - and my client has no idea either. Looking into it further, I found that they were all for pointless or unpopular services - at best a complete waste of time.

Make sure you know what your SEO is doing and (more importantly) how it's going to benefit you. Some SEO "experts" will try to pull the wool over your eyes by using a bunch of acronyms and technical terms. Make sure you know what you're paying for and how it's going to bring you more business!

Red Flags

There are a lot of blackhat SEO techniques that you should be wary of when choosing a company for SEO. Hidden text, invisible links, link exchange schemes, cloaking, redirections, empty promises of tens or hundreds of links through to your website (with no indication of where those links will be coming from), spammy content.... there's a very long list of dodgy SEO techniques which may work in the short term and then get you penalised or banned from Google entirely.

Some of these dodgy techniques may temporarily seem helpful, or your SEO expert may claim that Google doesn't know about this particular trick: but Google is always changing, updating and refining their algorithms.

Good SEO makes sure that Google knows how important and relevant the services on your website are to searches. Bad SEO makes you look more important or relevant than you actually are. If you ever think something you or your SEO expert is doing feels like trickery, if you wouldn't be comfortable explaining what you're doing to a customer or a competitor, then think twice before you hand over the cash.

You'll want to make sure that you engage the services of an SEO company who'll be doing real work to get you more traffic - and more importantly, traffic that's going to increase your revenue! You want an SEO provider who tells you what they're doing and provides measurable results.
 

Now that you're informed and prepared, let's talk about getting a good SEO strategy on your website!

This week, Web123 hosted our first ever workshop -- Facebook for Business Bootcamp. Nearly 80 small business owners from the greater Wagga Wagga area joined us for three intensive hours of web marketing and Facebook strategy. And I must say, the results were incredible!

Heads are still spinning (in a good way!) from the massive amount of information that was covered in this event, and rave reviews are pouring in. Can't wait to hear the success stories of how you're implementing these strategies in your business! We had tons of fun putting this workshop together and hope all of you who attended did too. 

For the lucky ones who were able to join us in person, they also got a special sneak peak at some of the new products we've been cooking up here at Web123 -- like the Facebook for Business eBook, our awesome new SEO packages, or the much anticipated Facebook Kick-Start Kit. 

Thanks so much for making this first workshop of ours such a tremendous success. If you weren't able to make it, you certainly missed out but don't fret! We were able to record the entire session, which will be available for replay in the next few weeks.

We had a really wonderful time and have learned a lot from this experience. We can't wait to hear your success stories!

Feeling like a million bucks and want to share? We'd love to hear from you! Send us your testimonial and we'll happily add you and your business to our page.

Website statistics allow you to work out:

• How many people are visiting your website
• Where those visitors came from
• What they were looking for (if they came from a search engine)
• How many pages they looked at before they left
• Whether or not they bought anything or filled out any online forms

The great news is that a good Content Management System should give you all of this information, tracked from the moment your website went live to the public.

And the other great thing about Web123's built-in site statistics is that we remove your administrator traffic from your stats. Including yourself in the statistics is not going to help you understand your customers!  So with Web123's site statistics, that means that whether you are logged in as an admin or not, you won't be polluting the numbers. The graphs will ignore you if you're looking at your website from any computer you've ever logged in as an administrator from. 

If you've got a Web123 website, then the 'Statistics and Report' area of your Web123 Control Panel will allow you to see graphs and tables about how many people visit your website (you can break down by year, month or even day) and how many pages they're looking at: as well as how many sales or enquiries resulted!

You'll be able to see how many people came through from Google, what keywords they might have been searching for to find you, or if they came through a social platform like Facebook or Twitter.

You'll also be able to see how many sales or enquiries came through based on different search terms. And once you know which visitors bringing you the most sales, you'll know where to focus your advertising budget!

Many Web123 customers find the in-built statistics give them more than enough information - and we're always working to improve our stats. However, if you're a stats junkie and you just can't get enough information, the absolute best tool available for Website Statistics is Google Analytics - and it's free!

Google Analytics gives you all of the information I've already talked about, but in more depth and there's much more of it! 

If you're a Web123 client already and you want to wire up Google Analytics, it's really easy for us to do so, so don't hesitate to let us know so that you can start crunching those numbers.

Ready to get your site to the top of Google? Check out our brand new SEO packages and learn how to make the most of your website.

The challenge we tackled this week was making your Web123 Shop more social -- getting greater interaction from your visitors and encouraging them to comment and share.

General Changes

You might have noticed that items set to "DoNotPublish" now show up overlayed with red stripes (When you're logged in as an Administrator, of course!). This makes it easy to tell which objects are visible to the public, and which aren't.

Product Changes

Along with some aesthetic improvements to tighten up the way that products look on your website you'll now get...

Share Widget

If you've got a great product that someone has just bought or is thinking about buying, we've integrated some easy-to-use social media buttons with the most popular social networks (Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn and Facebook). With the click of a button, your visitors will now be able to tell all their friends - or ask them - about any of your products. Your Share Widget should show up automatically on all of your products. If you don't see it, let us know!

Related Products

Do some of your products work better together? Are customers who buy Product A likely to be interested in Product B? Relating products to each other helps your customers find other products they'll love - giving you more sales. Everybody wins!

If you've got a Web123 shopping cart you can start relating products to each other right away: just edit any product and select another product that should be related. The relationship shows up on both products right away!

Public Inventory

Do you have limited numbers of products available? Encourage your visitors to purchase immeditely by letting them know there's only 1 or 2 of this item left. If you track inventory through your Web123 website we can display the current inventory value to your customers and it will automatically update when a customer purchases.

Comments or Reviews

When purchasing online, a lot of customers love to read (and write) reviews. Positive (or negative) comments about a product will strongly influence a buying decision. 

If you'd like to give your customers the ability to post comments on your products just raise a ticket or give us a call on 1800 932 123 so that we can switch it on for you.

Product Attributes

If the weight, finish or measurement of a product is likely to be important to your customers' buying decision, you may want to make the information more prominent than just putting it in the product description. Product Attributes allow you to consistently display important information about a product in a easy-to-read table - so that your customers can easily compare similar products across the site. If you think this will benefit you or your customers, raise a ticket or give us a call so that we can enable Product Attributes on your site.

Still to come

We've got some big changes in the works for the way that your Blog or News section works - both in looks and functionality. Stay tuned!

We've been working hard on these new changes and we hope you're as excited as we are. If you've got any feedback, or ideas for additional changes you'd love to see, leave us a comment!

Wishing your website could do all this and more? See how Web123 compares with the other web developers, then contact us to learn how you can get a cheap, easy-to-use website with all the bells and whistles. You'll be glad you did! 

Getting Started: 

The first step towards becoming successful on Facebook is... joining Facebook. If you're reading this wondering what this internet fad your colleagues keep buzzing about is and you haven't the first idea where to begin, don’t fret! The very first thing you’ll need to do is create a personal profile. (Yep, even if you only plan on using Facebook for business purposes, there needs to be a person behind it! Read this if you’re confused about the difference between a Profile and a Page on Facebook.)

MORE Leads

Implementing a website allows you to generate more leads and track where they are coming from, this gives you a good indication of who your target audience is and how they perform once on your website.

Generating more leads can be done through various channels. The most popular channel is obviously online advertising where you pay to advertise on other relevant websites to generate click-thru’s to your website.

Pay-Per-Click advertising is another popular medium, where businesses can set up ads within Google, Facebook and LinkedIn to attract customers to their website.

Social Media is a free resource you can utilise to find more leads and to expose yourself to a wider community.

Google Analytics is a tracking tool, which can track where all the above leads are coming from. This will provide you with a good indication of what is working and what isn’t working.

MORE Sales

With more leads comes the potential of more sales, but this only will work if your leads are getting the information they required… you can find out more about this further on in this book.

Implementing a website gives you a non-human selling machine that is working around the clock every day of the year. This means leads have the possibility to turn into a customer straight away from visiting your website, whether that involves buying something online, calling your store, or going into your shop front afterwards.

Not only will you be able to generate leads and sales locally, you will receive international views and the possibility of internationals buying your products.

If you consider how many sales you generate through a shop front that works 9am-5pm Monday to Friday, compared to an online store that is open to an international audience open 24/7, 365 days a year, and with the fact that more and more people are turning to the web to buy; you will find that being online will generate more sales.

MORE Cost Effective Marketing Tools

Your website is now the most cost effective marketing tool you will EVER have! The ability to constantly update your website and have it change and grow with your business will allow you to effectively target your market on a low cost budget.

With all the lead generation you perform through online advertising or social media, it means you can cut out printing costs and mailing costs and just focus on all online marketing materials.

Utilising your low cost website and other low cost marketing tools, means your budget can be reduced, which means over-heads are reduced and you can put that budget towards something significant to also improve business growth, such as customer loyalty programs or in-store demonstrations.

MORE Customers

Basically, implementing a website expands your market considerably.  It allows improved customer service, the ability to build and maintain customers, and due to the fact you would be generating more leads and more sales, your will then naturally gain more customers.

Your job once you have a customer base is to nurture your customers and entice them to purchase again, in other words turn them into a loyal customer. The book later explains how to do this.

MORE Brand Awareness

The fact you are a space where anyone can view your website means your brand is out there amongst everyone else’s brand. With the combined effort of marketing your website and selling through your website your brand awareness will increase due to the number of people viewing and buying from your site.

A ‘Refer a Friend or Family Member’ brand awareness campaign would also be a great promotion for your website, not only is it cost effective but it's free marketing of your brand. Perception of having a website also provides your brand with great credibility and with the ease of use of websites it will attract customer loyalty.

This all leads to more leads, sales and customers; thus growing your business.

So, focus on doing MORE to get MORE! If you need help on getting MORE and doing MORE, call us and we will help!

Frustrating, I know! 

So, how do you create a website? There are a lot of tools out there that let you create a website but don’t let you have much freedom to do what you like with it. Many web companies are like this also; they will quote you thousands and thousands of dollars and promise you a fantastic website but in some cases it will take them over a year to build and get live, they will only give you a certain amount of pages, and they won’t give you access to edit your website how you like.

So, how do you create a website that’s right for you with all the freedom and access you want; a website that will yield results, bring in sales, and brand your company perfectly? Well, it’s easy!

You need to consider that if you want a website that is actually going to work for you that you will need to spend some money on getting it up and running. However, don’t be fooled… if you get quoted for anything over $3,000 for a simple website I’d be looking elsewhere!

You need to make sure that the company you are getting to do your website is actually going to allow you the freedom to edit whatever you like whenever you like, which includes editing content, uploading photos and documents, editing your design template, changing colours and fonts, a CMS that allows you to do all this and most of all the support that will help you and not charge you! Hint: Web123 does all this ;)…

Once you find a company that will provide you with a seamless website it’s time to actually create your website; by this I mean adding your content and what to add and what not to add!

How do you create a website with great content?

The golden rule about website content is that you MUST engage your reader within the first 10 seconds. If they’re not hooked within that very short space of time, they never will be.

This is why you must work extra hard on your headline and opening sentence. Making sure that the headline grabs their attention. It might do that by promising to solve a problem or satisfy a desire.

Follow up a strong headline with interesting and relevant introductory sentences that promise even greater things to come. Do those things – within 10 seconds – and your readers are more likely to read everything you have written!

The next step in creating compelling website content may seem a little obvious but it’s amazing how much web content tells you absolutely nothing. So, if you are going to say something just say it! Compelling website content makes a direct connection with the reader. It says ‘I understand you’. ‘I know what concerns you’. ‘This is how I can help you’.

To make this connection, do some market research about your readers and the things that interest or concern them. By knowing your reader, you’ll know what they want to read.

When writing the web content, don’t make it all about you. Of course it is about you to an extent; but try and look at things through the eyes of your average reader. As far as they’re concerned it should be all about them: What do they want? What is their problem? What is their deepest desire?

Instead of using “we” or “our”, replace it with “you” instead.

Use keywords in your headings and copy. The use of keywords is to raise your search engine rankings. Keywords are basically what a person will type into a search engine to find what they are looking for. For example if someone is searching for a business to design them a website they will type in “website design”, this is a keyword and the use of this keyword in your copy will allow you to be placed in those search results when searched.

Don’t be too clever or fancy with the words you use either. Again, consider who your readers are and tailor the content to suit them.

Don’t use irrelevant information on your website either and don’t be unprofessional, make sure your spelling and grammar is correct.

How do you create a website – next steps

As you can see, it’s actually easy to build a website. You just need to make sure you get the right tools to begin with and then utilise good content writing to make your website interesting for the reader and a good target for search engines.

One you have done that consider your imagery and make sure your photos are of high quality. Post a FAQ page where you can answer all customer questions before and after they consider buying. Make sure your website has your contact details readily available and that you provide numerous ways customers can contact you.

Once you have the structure of your website completed, it’s time to get it out there and seen! You want to make sure you utilise all possible marketing activities that fit to your budget. Sign up with the free social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter; implement some more SEO through keywords on your website.  Participate in blogging or sharing eBooks and your knowledge through social media or email marketing to your customer base.

The realm for marketing your website is endless! Read more of our blogs on how you can set up your online business from scratch >> or small business marketing essentials >> or when to launch your website >> we have many blogs and are happy to provide you with ideas and help whenever you need. So if you’re struggling and asking everyone “How do you create a website?” why don’t you just ask us? We’ve got the answer!

You must think I’m crazy stating this! But I’m mostly not… Think about it for a minute… Big businesses have a lot of money and not all of them use it wisely. Why would someone consider advertising on a billboard when it lasts a couple of weeks and then it’s removed and the thought of it is forgotten? The amount of money that big businesses spend on billboard advertising could be put more wisely into much more effective media outlets.

Consider this, as a small business you have a budget that can accommodate for social media advertising; as you are able to control your daily budget and your specific audience.  Now someone please tell me how a billboard advertisement would be more effective than a specific social media pay-per-click campaign???

Businesses need to be sensible with their marketing budgets. It’s not about how much different types of mediums can I utilise so as a marketer I can have a really awesome resume because I have done everything! It’s about being able to show results and measure how effective each campaign was. If you can’t measure your campaign and you are just marketing for the ‘sake’ of marketing, then you may as well go stand on top of a building and throw the businesses money off it.

Small businesses have the capability to leave a positive experience with customers, compared to big businesses. How? Well, small businesses can add a personal touch to every client they serve, even on a small budget, effectively nurturing your clients can enhance your client base without any budget spent! Now, big businesses have trouble with the personal touch and following up. This is due to how many levels feedback has to go through before there is an answer and how many procedures people must undertake before getting an answer for a customer.

Small businesses should indulge in the fact that they have so many advantages compared to big businesses. A case study I read earlier about Honda is an excellent example of how a big company can tune down its marketing and even still get a great result! Basically, Honda created a social media campaign that sent buzz around; this campaign generated much more interest than using traditional media!

When I talk traditional media I mean magazine advertising, billboards, radio and TV. Don’t get me wrong, if used correctly these mediums will work! However, large companies use these mediums purely because it’s tradition or because they want to be seen everywhere and anywhere. Online is the future and the future of TV advertisements is almost out the door with the capability to pause, fast forward and rewind TV!

Big businesses need to stop thinking BIG. Customers like to be noticed and taken care of properly. You have probably heard so many people complain about Telstra and how poor their service is etc. etc. etc. But what if they just stopped, and treated themselves as a small business. Yeah yeah, we have heard the whole thing about Telstra trying to improve their service; the fact is they have already left a black mark on many customers and it is very hard to regain a customer’s trust and loyalty.

Basically, I just wanted to let small businesses know that you do still need to be proactive and keep up with trends within your industry, but your customers are number 1 and you are so good at keeping them and trying to please them, that is why you are still standing!

My advice for the next 12 months is to really get your online presence going. Setup your website, get a shopping cart on it, get onto social media and connect with your customers and prospects. Really just focus on going online as the economy is going to be hit hard and as small businesses you will suffer. Being online will give you another outlet to sell your service and products and will help once this so called ‘recession’ hit, if it does!

If you need any help, we are dedicated to small businesses and we believe in your success so please don’t hesitate to contact us for any queries!

Marketing is all about trying to get someone to know about your product or service and buy your product or service, and hopefully become a repeat buyer (loyal customer). You think that targeting EVERYONE possible will help you get the few customers needed… it may work but there’s a better solution.

What if you turned your sales funnel upside down? You then have a right-way-up triangle looking shape. Now consider this, what if you targeted a small number of consumers, this targeted group creates word of mouth amongst their groups of family and friends, which then creates an interest amongst a wider amount of people, to then create a mass awareness. Now, this all happens with YOU only spending a little budget on targeting a small group of the right consumers. How EASY is that?

TOO EASY!

So how do you pick the right customers to market your product for you? Well, it’s all about knowing what niche markets are interested in your product. You should already know that there will be about 20% of your customers that will give you 80% of sales… these customers are perfect to target as they are already loyal. So, why don’t you offer a ‘Friends and Family’ offer, you can email your customer and tell them to forward it onto friends and family, which will give them a discount on your products. Not only is this easy to setup, it’s also free word of mouth to an audience you may not be hitting yet! Social media is a great way to measure word of mouth of your customers also.

Ideally, you need to be able to create a behaviour change with your targeted audience in order to persuade them to buy. Each consumer’s mind is difficult to understand as everyone has different perceptions, morals, beliefs and behaviours. Your loyal customers have already been through the behavioural change process, as they are now loyal buyers – they know your brand and product and feel comfortable in purchasing it. So, use them as creditable resources in order to change the behaviour of other audience members.

It’s time to change your thinking and turn it up-side-down. Not only will your finances thank you, but your sales and customer base will increase. So remember, target your niche to create a greater awareness via word of mouth in order to change the wider audiences behaviour. 

If you're having difficulties in marketing to your customers and need some help on how you can improve, let us know and we would be happy to give you some advice!

 Here are a 6 time saving tricks for updating content on your website.

1. Keep a running list

2. Write when you think about it

3. Schedule publication

4. Break it into chunks

5. Replace your keyboard with a camera

6. Go for video

What other ways have you come up with to streamline content for your website?

No matter how much time you invest (or save!) in keeping your content updated and your website fresh, it's always good to have the professionals around for backup. Our expert copywriters are just a click away if you need help!

Internet Explorer 9

Safari for Mac

Mozilla Firefox

Google Chrome

Ready to get your business online? Download our free Website Starter Kit today! 

1. Email

Email is the backbone of all communication online, it is used by absolutely everyone to communicate and share information online. Mozilla Thunderbird is a free email program, made by the same folks that have given us the outstanding Mozilla Firefox web browser. It offers a simple-to-use interface, simple to setup, is packed full of features and is always up to date on the latest security fixes with constant updates from Mozilla themselves. Thunderbird is available for download from www.mozilla.org/thunderbird.

2. Calendars

Online calendars are invaluable when it comes to organising your time effectively. Google has recently made sweeping changes to how its online calendars function. By signing up for a Google account, anyone can create and share calendars easily. With the options of sharing calendars between people you can also organise meetings at the click of a button. Visit Google Calendar to easily organise your time www.google.com/calendar.

3. Social Plug-ins

With more and more people signing up for social networking services such as Facebook and Twitter, new tools have been created to maximise the functionality you can get from these services. Tweetdeck is a free desktop software suite that allows you to easily manage one or more Twitter accounts. With Tweetdeck you can follow your Twitter feed closely, reply to tweets, and even split your followers into different groups. Combined with on-the-go URL shortening to get the most out of every tweet Tweetdeck is a great tool for any Twitter user. [See also: Essential Guide to Twitter Tools.] Download Tweetdeck to take full control of your Twitter account http://www.tweetdeck.com/

4. Cloud Storage

It has happened to everyone at least once in their online life. You are visiting a friend and have left an important file back on your computer at home. With cloud storage solutions such as Dropbox these problems are a thing of the past. With Dropbox you upload your important files to the cloud, where they are then accessible from any computer you then login from. Accounts with Dropbox start out with 2GB of data allowance for free and further upgrades to your account are available if you need more space. Sign up for an account with Dropbox and never leave a file behind again, www.dropbox.com

5. Image Editing

Should the need ever arise that you need to edit a photo quickly and need some editing software that just works out of the box, try using GIMP. With features such as photo retouching and support for every popular image format GIMP is a powerful photo editing tool that won’t cost you a cent. GIMP can be further customised to perform even more advanced functions with the addition of plug-ins, these plug-ins are also free. For the powerful yet free photo editing suite visit www.gimp.org/

6. Word Processing

As far back as I can remember, computers have been primarily used for creating, editing and sending word documents. Unfortunately most word processors cost hundreds of dollars and require an update every few years. Open Office is as it sounds, completely open and free. Distributed under an open source licence Open Office is free, is constantly being updated and supports all of the latest document types. To get a long lasting, powerful and free word processor download Open Office, www.openoffice.org/

7. File Sharing

Have you ever tried to send a large file to someone via email? The process is usually plagued with all sorts of error messages and in the end you might be lucky if the file sent at all. YouSendIt is a free online tool that allows you to send large email attachments without the hassle. With the option to send 50MB per email, and have an online storage box of 2GB for each free account, as well as having the option to upgrade your account at any time to allow for even larger file transfers YouSendIt is the easiest way to send a large file. To signup for a free YouSendIt account visit www.yousendit.com/litesignup

What other free tools have you discovered for saving time online?

Get in touch with the friendly bunch at Web123 -- we love to talk websites! Call us today on 1800 932 123.

If Facebook is like an afternoon barbecue with friends, LinkedIn is the trade show where you swap business cards and smiles with everyone in your industry and beyond. And just like in any gathering you might find yourself chatting a bit longer with those of similar interest, LinkedIn has a great feature for connecting you with other professionals with things in common to you. If you’ve used any sort of social media before, the concept of groups shouldn’t be too much of a shock. LinkedIn Groups is a way of connecting with other business people in a meaninful way.

LinkedIn Groups consist of discussion threads, members lists, and messaging around common topics. Groups provide a good way of breaking into a larger market that’s already established, or to carve out your own corner niche. As Facebook is slowly phasing out many of their group features, LinkedIn Groups has become one of the best free resources for online conversations. And since groups can be either public or private to members only, they're quickly becoming essential to online entrepreneurs.

So what sort of groups are there? There are LinkedIn Groups based on geography, interest, industry, purely for networking, or dozens of other topics to facilitate all types of networking. As you're getting started with LinkedIn, I suggest joining a handful of groups to get a feel for how they work. Looking for a group that doesn't yet exist? You can create your own group and tailor it to your niche. While some groups require membership approval (you'll know if you see a padlock symbol next to the name), many others allow anyone interested to join. Since you're already on LinkedIn you don't have to sign up for anything, just click "join group" and you're in!

[Pro Tip: When you sign up for a group it will automatically put you on all mailing lists for that group. To avoid your inbox overflowing, as soon as you join a group a link will pop up with the option to adjust your subscription settings. Digest emails are great ways of keeping tabs on all activity in the group, but for groups with thousands of members this can be overwhelming! Adjust your settings based on how closely you'd like to keep up with what's going on in the group.]

Once you've joined a group, jump in and join the conversation! If you see a discussion thread that interests you, speak up and offer your two cents. As you're first getting started in LinkedIn Groups, I highly recommended joining at least one or two dicussion thread (even if starting your own!) as soon as you join a group to make make your presence known. Typically discussion threads are about topics related to the group, but they might deviate a little and include things such as specific business projects someone might be looking for feedback on, a call for what type of person someone might be hoping to connect with, or general questions for the community. 

Every group has a Members area that will allow you to see a full list of everyone else who is in that same group. You can send messages to other group members to connect with them individually. 

How are you using LinkedIn Groups in your business? Have we connected on LinkedIn?

As you're working out the best ways to grow your business online, make sure that first impression of your business online is the absolute best. Check out our logo design packages and put your business's best foot forward!

How can LinkedIn Ads benefit your small business, you’re asking? Well, the great things about LinkedIn Ads are how targeted and specific you can be with the audience.  LinkedIn Ads provide an efficient way to spend your advertising dollar ensuring you are targeting the right people and not receiving any unwanted clicks.

If you have searched through LinkedIn before you would know that people have profiles that state their occupation, the company they work for, previous jobs, experience, education, location, group’s people are joined in on, and so on. All this information is gathered by LinkedIn, which allows them to create segments within their community of professionals.

See below the segments LinkedIn allows you to utilise when selecting your target audience. Under these headers are further categories that allow you to drill down to the finest point, such as the title of a professional, the name of a company, qualifications, groups joined, city or country, the list goes on and on… and on.

The Nitty-Gritty

Practically, this is the boring stuff of setting up your business… You need to work out:

• What you are selling?
• Who are you selling too?
• Is there a gap in the market you are entering?
• Is your idea viable… as in, will it actually meet the audience’s needs
• Do you have the skills and expertise to sell this?
• Have you registered a business name?
• Do you have all the equipment you need?
• Have you written a business plan?
• Have you investigated all legal considerations for doing business?        
• Have you got business insurance?
• Have you considered the tax options and obligations?
• Have you registered for GST?

If you require more information you should visit the Australian Government website for small business >>

If you haven’t done the above already, get to it now as it is essential before ANYTHING else! If you have completed the nitty-gritty work on starting up your online small business, then let’s discuss the four main areas to focus on!

The Nature of a Successful Online Small Business

It can be tempting, sometimes, to scrimp on hosting: after all, people are coming to look at the monkey, not where it is sitting.

But cheap and dodgy hosting can make your website unstable, unreliable and unsecure. If your monkey doesn't have a nice clean place to sleep - what do you think it's going to start throwing?

Big enough?

Sometimes cheap and dodgy hosting plans have extremely small data and bandwidth limits. What if you want to add more images? What if you run a radio ad and your traffic doubles? How do you feel about surprise bills?

If your website were a monkey you need to make sure that it has room to grow and enough space for your visitors. 

All Web123 customers have unlimited data and 20GB/month bandwidth allowance. (Hint: That's a LOT).

So whether you've got 2 products or 2,000 you'll never receive a surprise hosting bill or suddenly be unable to make changes to your website.

Anybody Home?

If you're running an online business you want to make sure that you are... online. 100% uptime may not be your number 1 priority, but if your website fails to load, then your potential customers will go elsewhere. If your website vanishes, even temporarily, your potential customers may assume you've gone out of business.

If your website were a monkey, cheap and dodgy hosting means that your monkey might not be there when you go visiting. And you might not have control over when it comes back.

All Web123 customers can be confident that their website will be up when they need it to be. If our primary network happened to go down, we've got a redundant network that can take over within a few minutes. If you're interested in the ins and outs of our network we're more than happy to answer your questions: but all you really need to know is that your website will be online.

What are you selling?

How would you feel if instead of selling or advertising your products and services your website was suddenly selling porn or viagra. What do you think that would do to your professional image? Do you think those visitors are likely to ever return or recommend your products or services to their contacts?

Google and many Anti-Virus programs keep a look-out for infected websites and warn people away - which can mean that people will refuse to visit even once your website is clean again. 

If your website were a monkey, cheap and dodgy hosting puts your monkey at risk of being infected. 

Security is extremely important to us here at Web123 - your Web123 website will only ever sell your products. Once again, if you want to know all about what we do to keep your website secure then let us know.

"My website isn't that big - it's not important"

"Sure," you might be thinking "If you're a big multinational with hundreds of thousands of visitors or sales then I can see that being down unexpectedly for an hour or a day would be a big loss - but that doesn't apply to me: people can just call if me website is down."

Think about it this way: how many leads can you afford to lose? If you're a small business, losing even one sale can be pretty disappointing. 

"I'm not a target - it would never happen to me"

"I'm just one of the little people," you might be thinking. "Nobody would want to hack my website!" and you're probably right. It's unlikely that someone would decide to maliciously attack you, specifically. But these aren't isolated attacks against individual websites. If your web hosting is cheap and dodgy then you can be taken down along with hundreds or thousands of others.

Recently a hosting company was hacked and more than four thousand websites were permanently lost - I bet those 4800 people didn't think they were targets either.

Hosting a website with Web123 is included in your monthly fee which starts from just $49 per month. We're very proud of our pricing and we think it's an extraordinarily good value. I've deliberately left the technobabble out of this blog post, but if you want to know what we do to get and keep your website online feel free to leave us a comment and we'll be in touch!

Ready to go online? Learn more about what a Web123 website can do for your business!

Get Online Now!

No, don’t just jump onto the internet! 78 percent of the Australian population are internet users, so that’s nothing new... but what about your business as an internet user?

You need to utilise every resource you can find and use it to your advantage! Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube and blogging... these are now classed as the ‘norm’ for communication within society.

Did you know 47.9 percent of the Australian internet users are Facebook users, so why would you not use this to your advantage and set up a FREE facebook page and target your customers and prospects? If your target audience are 30-45 year old male mechanics that love skinny leg jeans, Facebook will let you specific target them through ads. BUT WAIT... there’s more... check out this blog to see more Facebook for Marketing tips >> 

The most wonderful thing about all the social media available to you is that you can link it all together... whether you have links on your website to your social media or vice versa... You can set up links from Twitter that relate to a blog post that is on your website, which the blog post can have button links for people to Tweet or Post on Facebook... it’s like you have your own little universe on the net!

Smiling makes your business live longer

Research continually tells us that smiling will make us live longer… so can it make our business live longer too? YES, it can!

You’re probably thinking “what does smiling have to do with marketing my business?”… Marketing isn’t just about paying for advertising space to sell your product, which a lot of businesses consider marketing is. Marketing is everything a business does to facilitate a sale between your business and consumers, for example research, media buying, public relations, sales strategy, customer support pricing, distribution, advertising and products are all apart of marketing.

One aspect of marketing a lot of businesses do not consider to factor in is smiling! Smiling brings many benefits to marketing your business… Smiling is contagious and it releases good endorphins… so if you are smiling, your customer will smile releasing a whole bunch of positive endorphins… thus, creating a positive environment for your customer to shop in.

Smiling also makes your customer feel as if you are willing to help them and that you know what you are talking about, hence making them feel comfortable in dealing with you.

If a customer receives a positive experience during their decision-making-process, they will favour your business over others and in turn hopefully buy your product or service. If a customer is satisfied this will also result in repeat purchases and positive word of mouth for your business.

So, how else can we interact and smile? You can… Smile when you are speaking with customers or prospects over the phone. Believe it or not people can pick up on a smile through the tone of someone’s voice! Also add smiley faces to your emails! Not only will you be helping yourself live longer by smiling, but you’re providing customers with a positive feeling during their experience hence resulting in sales and profit growth!

So… market your SMILE!

Communication is key to any good relationship

The good old saying… “Communication is key to any good relationship”… lets run with this… YOU need to include communication techniques within your marketing efforts to keep your customer relationships STRONG! Why? Because this will yield repeat purchases, positive word of mouth and a larger customer base (thus larger profits).

So, how can you do this? Easy! Here are a few things to consider:

• Make yourself available to clients – ensure your clients know they can contact you about issues or requests from a certain time, for example 9am-9pm every day of the week.
• Make your clients know they mean something to you – send your client’s special vouchers, Christmas cards, thank them for purchases, or just give them a call out of the blue to see how they are going with everything – they will love the effort!
• Keep your clients in the loop – implement email campaigns that are sent to your customers every week or month with handy tips or information on products or the business.
• Keep up with your clients – know what your client’s interests are, get personal with them, understand their needs… and deliver!
• Be a leader – let your customers know you are a savvy business owner. Have your own Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts and encourage your customers to join up too!

Looking after your customer base is just as important, even not more important, than seeking new customers. Customers make your business what it is and without them you would have no business, so implement retention strategies and use communication as a main focus.

Nothing in life is free... So why not make it?

The word free is flung loosely around these days and many people know that free ultimately means there’s some sort of catch! You need to set yourself aside from competition and be different… here are some ways:

• Offer a free subscription for the first 20 or so subscribers
• Provide charities with free products and services – this will also boost your credibility within the community
• Offer workshops or excursions for free – people love boosting their knowledge!
• Setup a community competition such as footy tipping where everyone can participate for free but the winners receive some sort of prize
• Take your client or prospect a coffee and cake on your next visit

People love receiving something for free and it makes them feel special and differentiated from everyone else. I’m sure you could think of heaps more ideas on what you could offer, but try it… because it will help with your customer satisfaction and it will be a positive impact on your business.

So, now your brain is exploding from all this goodness information on Marketing Essentials for Small Business, go line up all your ducks and write down how you can get online, how you can include smiling into your customer support and sales strategy, write your retention strategy that includes communication techniques, AND see what you can offer for free!

Have you already successfully implemented these Marketing Essentials for Small Business? Leave us a comment below on what you did and how it worked!

Web123 can help with Marketing Essentials for your Small Business by adding Email Marketing to your website capabilities! Find out more here!

1. Business cards

2. Word of Mouth

3. Shout it from the... Register
 

4. Print it up

5. Sponsored Love

This technique requires a few more bucks but could pay off in sales as much as it does in karma. Consider sponsoring a group, team, or charity your business supports. Imagine having your company logo and web address across the shirts of a dozen junior footy players, or on the water bottles given to marathon runners raising money to cure cancer. A big part of promoting your website offline is building brand recognition. The more we see something the more we internalise it. Phone numbers are very difficult for many people to remember, but a memorable web address is a great tool for branding.

Sponsorships are a great way of getting your business name (and website!) in the public eye by developing a relationship with the local community. By customising your sponsorships to match up with charities and organisations that match your business goals, you can create a positive platform to communicate your products and services to a whole new market. 

Mastering the marketing business is challenging, but it doesn't have to be overly complicated. The more exposure you can get the more traffic you'll get to your site, and that's where the conversions happen!

Got your marketing strategy down pat but not feeling so confident about your website? Check out our Website Starter Kits to see how we can help you revamp your online image.

Removing comments and posts

While I'm a strong believer in using every negative comment as an opportunity to demonstrate your business's amazing customer service skills, there are some posts that just can't be saved. Sooner or later it's bound to happen, and it's going to happen on your Facebook wall for all the world to see: spam. As a business owner, the last thing you want your prospective clients to see when they come to your Page is a wall full of spam posts! Fear not, friends, as a Page admin you can easily banish this unsightly rubbish from your wall in just two clicks.

If you mouse of the top-right corner of the offending post, a blue cog will appear. Click on this cog and it will give you the option of removing the post, removing the post and banning the user or page who posted it, or reporting the offending post as spam. Just click the appropriate option and the post will disappear from your wall, out of sight from your prospective clients.

You can use this same tactic for unwanted mentions, spammy promotions, competitor posts, or any other comments that are beyond saving even with good old-fashioned public relations spin. 

For an entrepreneur, getting your business online is a huge step. You can easily spend months working out the perfect combination of copywriting and colours to make your business’s big debut online. But spending too much time working out all the little details can potentially do more harm than good -- sometimes it’s better just to dive in and get something online!

The first thing you need to do is have a think about how to price shipping.

How are you going to deliver your products to your customers? How much is it going to cost you?

You’ll probably want to make sure that your product prices will either cover the shipping on their own or else you’ll want to add a shipping charge to your orders.

This means that your online store will need to anticipate how much a particular order is going to cost you to ship and charge your customers accordingly.

The second thing you need to do is to stop worrying.

I often have conversations with clients who are very anxious about getting their shipping price just right. They want to use Australia Post and they want the website to calculate the cost based on the sizes and weights of all of their products… but they don’t know what their products weigh and don’t have size information for all of them and some of their products are too large for AusPost and they’ll need to use a courier company and suddenly they’re telling me that they think this whole online shopping lark might be a bit too much trouble.

“Hold on!” I tell them. It doesn’t have to be this hard!

Let me ask you this: if you get an order through the website and your website charges two of your customers $7 each for shipping. The first order costs you $5 to post and the second one costs you $8.50…

Does this really matter? Is it of grave concern? Should you spend sleepless nights worrying about spreadsheets and scales and measuring tapes and mathematical formulae? Is this, in fact, a Big Deal?

Because most of the time it really (really!) isn’t.

We can spend the time  – we can implement immensely complicated shipping profiles and product profiles and dozens of rules and exceptions to those rules…   but before you do that I want you to think about whether you have anything more important you could be doing.

Your shipping rules need to do two things

• Ensure that you, the business owner, are not losing money. You need to cover your costs
• Appear reasonable to your customers and not discourage people from buying

If your shipping rules can fulfil the above; if your customers are happy to pay what you’re charging and you’re covering your expenses: then that’s really all you need.

Shipping is not somewhere you want to be making a lot of profit on – unreasonable shipping costs are generally fairly transparent and you’ll just discourage people from buying. You might lose on some orders and win on others. The point is to put rules in place that ensure that you don’t lose more than you win; and remember that you might be making enough on large orders that you won’t mind copping a bit on the shipping for those orders!

If you’re setting up an online store for the first time I highly recommend that you put in place some simple shipping price rules and try them out for the first few orders… and adjust them as soon as you feel they’re inappropriate. The simpler your rules are the easier they’ll be to change! If we put something complicated in place right off the bat and it turns out to be wildly wrong – well there’s a lot more time involved in tweaking it.

Start simple! We can always make it more complicated later if we need to.

If putting your shipping rules together is holding you back from going live then give us a call - we'll work with you to put together a simple set of rules so that we can get your website to the point that it can start making you money!

LinkedIn has been around since 2002 and shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon. Unlike other social media platforms, LinkedIn isn’t about silly videos or breakfast foods -- it’s about building your professional network. You might think of the site partly as a sort of “digital rolodex” for all those business cards you might collect through networking events. LinkedIn is also a powerful tool for driving traffic to your website and getting sales leads. As a business owner, the professional connections you make are one of the most important things you can do for your business. If you work in B2B, there is no reason why you shouldn’t be on LinkedIn. Here are a few ways and reasons you and your company can get started using LinkedIn for business.

Introduce Yourself

The best way to go about getting your business started on LinkedIn is to start with yourself. Complete a profile for yourself, WITH a photo! People like to do business with those that they know, like, and trust. For the same reason that you may go out for coffee with a potential business partner, adding a photo to your LinkedIn profile is a way of demonstrating that you are a real, trustworthy person with whom your prospects should want to do business.

Introduce Your Business

Meet and Greet

Make Professional Connections

Ever want to run a crazy business idea past other professionals before you try it out? Ever dream about being able to pick your competitor's brain on a topic? LinkedIn has a Groups feature that lets you join in conversations related to a certain topic or interest. There are groups based on geographic region, industry, general interest.... Join groups relevant to your field and take part in the discussions. Contributing to these groups is an excellent way to build relationships with other professionals while subtly promoting your business. 

Build Your Professional Reputation

More and more, customers are going to the internet seeking reviews or recommendations before making a purchase. If you offer a service, ask your clients (past or present) to write you a recommendation or endorsement explaining how the service you've provided has helped them. These recommendations can be made public and will turn up in Google searches for your name and your company. 

Are you already on LinkedIn? Meet and connect with the Web123 team on LinkedIn!

What is Google+?  Do you need one? Should you use it? How can you sign up?
 

Google+ Accounts

Google+ is a bit like facebook and a bit like twitter. A person looking at their Google+ account will see a feed with updates from the friends, acquaintances and celebrities they follow. 
 

Notice that I didn't say businesses or companies or products. Google+ doesn't (yet) have business accounts. Some company accounts on Google+ have already been shut down... And when Company Google+ profiles are released you may not be able to turn a personal account into a company account later.

So I would NOT recommend that you create a Google+ account for your company - yet. Once they're available for businesses we'll make another blog post and let you know!

Of course depending on your business you may want to set up a personal Google+ account under your own name and connect with your customers and clients on Google+. 

Google+ is currently open to anyone with a gmail address.
 

+1 Button

If Google+ is a bit like facebook, the +1 button is like the facebook 'like' button. Google+ users can +1 items in their feed. 

People can also +1 search results and websites. The great thing is that you don't need to be a Google+ user to see +1 recommendations or +1 search results - you just need to have a Google profile (If you've got a Google account you use for Gmail, Google Apps, Google Docs, Google Analytics or any other Google Service, you should be able to use that account to +1 search results or websites).

So if I do a Google search I might see that Company ABC is showing up as the first Google listing, and Company XYZ is only fifth in my results...but four of my friends might have +1d Company XYZ and nobody I know has +1d Company ABC. So I'll probably be more likely to contact Company XYZ because people that I know are recommending them.

Have a think about the people that search for or use your products or services. Are they enthusiastic internet users that are likely to be early adopters of Google+? If so you might want to get yourself an account (a personal account! No business accounts yet) and start interacting with them and ask them (nicely) to +1 your website.

Otherwise my advice would be to stick with facebook and/or twitter for now. There's no point over-extending yourself and over-committing to too many services. You'll just get burnt out and spend way too much time and energy talking to people who aren't actually all that interested in you. 

We're thinking about building a +1 feature item which could be incorporated into a Web123 website. If you're a Web123 customer and you'd like a +1 button for your site, leave us a comment here and we'll get back to you when it's ready to go!

1. Make it match your business.

Your domain name is going to be the signature of your online business. It's the name you'll print on your business cards and the first thing people see in Google about you. Consider what keywords are most relevant to your business and try to find a domain that is either exactly of your business name or something very closely related to what you offer. 

2.  Make it short and sweet.

Not only do shorter domain names mean less room for error when typing out the address, but some websites (like Twitter) will only display the first twenty or thirty characters of the address. That means if your domain is very long, the full name might not be displayed in listings. 

3. Make it memorable.

Keeping your name short is good, but over-abbreviating to the point of confusion won't get you much traffic either.  Be wary of words that can be spelled in more than one way (reed/read) unless the rest of the name gives enough information for it to be obvious.

4. Consider whether you need a domestic domain.

If your target audience is mostly within a certain country, you might want to register a country-specific domain. Within Australia, .au domains are an excellent choice for many businesses. Because of the restrictions of who can get an .au domain, registering a .au for your website gives you more credibility as a business owner.  If your business deals more internationally, a .com, .net or .org might be better suited. You might consider also buying multiple versions of the domain (e.g. net and .net.au) if you're really on the fence to make sure that no one else can have the alternate versions of your domain.

5. Make it easy to read. 

One of the primary goals of your domain name should be to give your customers an easy way to find your website, so keep it as simple and easy-to-read as possible. Avoid clever spellings like substituting numbers for words (2 = two = to = too) or trendy spellings (i.e. "cats" = 'katz"). Watch out for confusing characters ("I" looks a lot like "1", which also looks a lot like "L"). Don’t use hyphens unless absolutely necessary. Similarly, if you’re combining keywords to create your domain, think about any possible words that could be interpreted from bunching letters together that would normally be clearer with spaces. Think about the difference from a bakery name going from “Cake Don” to “Caked On” just because someone didn’t read it the way you wanted them to!

6. Avoid copyright infringement.

We’ve all heard the tales of the little guy who “got it first” and bought the ultimate domain name before the Suits thought of it, so they paid him handsomely to hand it over. This may have happened once or twice, but more and more big businesses aren’t opening their wallets to get the domains for their trademarked terms, they’re calling their lawyers. Do your research before you purchase a domain to make sure you're not setting yourself up for potential conflict. 

What else do you need for a website? Download our free Website Starter Pack or Contact Us and we'll help you get the domain name you need to get your website started. 

But what’s involved in getting your website from a staging address (The address that we put a website on for you to work on it before it’s visible to the general public) onto your domain so that you can start ranking in Google and Tweeting and FaceBooking about your great new website?

It’s really disappointing when someone’s ready for their website to go up but they need to wait for domains and passwords and transfers. The good news is that if you start thinking about these things early then we can make sure that everything goes quickly and smoothly when the big Go-Live day rolls around.
 

What’s in a name? Or: Renting an Octopus.

You can buy a website before you know where you want to ultimately put it, but eventually you’ll need an address to put your website on. Almost all of the time you’ll have your own domain and your web address might look something like this.

http://www.yourcompanyname.com.au

In that case your domain is yourcompanyname.com.au

To get a domain you need to register it. You won’t be able to register the same name that someone else has already got, and in order to register a .com.au domain you’ll need to have an ABN and the name will need to closely relate to your business name or your operations. Generally you’ll register your domain for 2 years and every 2 years you’ll need to pay your domain registrar to keep your domain. It’s not usually a lot – If you purchase a domain through Web123 it’s just $49 for 2 years and it’s often an included part of our Website Packages.

How does this affect “Going Live”?

1.       I haven’t registered a domain yet – what should I do?

If you haven’t yet bought your domain I highly recommend that you buy your domain through Web123 – our prices are very competitive but most importantly it means that Web123 will already have all the information we need to get your website up and going.

2.       I registered my domain through Web123

Great! We’ll already have the information we need to put your website on your domain.

3.       I registered my domain though another company. Can I still put my website on my domain?

Absolutely! It’s not compulsory to register your domain through Web123. You can register your domain through whatever company you like (and if you’ve had a website previously, you’ve probably already got a domain registered). You have two options

A.      Leave your domain where it is – you’ll pay this other company (probably once every 2 years) to keep your domain. You’ll just need to remember to pay this bill when it arrives. It’s only once every 2 years so make sure you remember what it is when it comes up for renewal!

If you’re leaving your domain with your current registrar you’ll probably need some log-in details that your registrar might have provided when you registered the domain initially. Make sure you have those!

B.      Transfer your domain to Web123. You’ll pay Web123 $49 every 2 years for your domain and we can deduct it off your credit card for you.

In order to transfer your domain to Web123 you’ll need to have access to the email address that was used when the domain was initially registered. If you’re not sure what that is, and you’re a Web123 customer, we can help you find out.

It's really important to make sure that the octopus lease is under your name!

Whether you leave your domain with your current domain registrar or you transfer it over to Web123 it’s very important that your domain is registered under your name. If your domain is registered under someone else’s name then it might be a little trickier to for you to get access to it if you don’t have, or if you misplace, the appropriate passwords. It’s surprisingly common for a domain to be registered under the name/email address of

• A previous business owner – you’ve bought the business from someone else but the domain is still in their name.
   
• A previous web host – some web companies will register domains under their own name instead of yours.
   
• An IT consultant – you engaged the services of someone to help you out with some web services and they put their details in when they registered the domain
   
• An ex-employee – this person no longer works for you
   
• It’s your name but out of date details - an old email address that you no longer have access to

If any of the above apply to you there may be some small delay in getting your website live on your domain – so it’s best to get this stuff sorted out sooner rather than later.

Note: If you bought your domain through a provider other than Web123 we might not be able to help you redelegate or transfer your domain. We'll always do our best but sometimes that other company won't talk to Web123 and some companies are easier to deal with than others. 

So when you register your domain it’s like renting an octopus. You pay an ongoing fee and while you keep paying, the octopus is yours. So now that you’ve got an octopus… where on earth are you going to put it?

The Octopus’s Arms.

So before we get too much into what DNS hosting is, lets talk a bit about Octopuses (Contrary to popular belief, the plural of octopus is not octopi. It’s Octopuses).

Octopuses, as you know, have 8 arms. Your domain doesn’t have any arms. But if your domain DID have arms then you’d be able to choose where those arms were pointing.

If your Domain (yourcompanyname.com.au) was an Octopus you’d have the “Website” arm which would point to your website at http://www.yourcompanyname.com.au. And an “Email” arm which would point to your email (@yourcompanyname.com.au). And you might have a VPN arm or other websites on sub-domains or all sorts of things that the other arms could point to (Most people just use these two arms – but some people use several of them)

So if you’re a Web123 Customer you’ll need your domain-octopus to point its website arm to Web123. And if you have email with Web123 you’ll want the Email arm to point to Web123 too.

In this blog post I’m only going to talk about Website Hosting and Email Hosting. You might need your octopus to point to some other services too. If you move your octopus without pointing all of the arms correctly, you might break some things so make sure you double check before you change anything!
 

Website Hosting

When I talk about website hosting I’m talking about what servers your Website actually sits on. If your website was a monkey, then website hosting would be the enclosure that you put your monkey in. When someone types your web-address into their address bar the request will go out via their ISP. They’ll find your octopus and work out where the Website-Arm is pointing… they’ll follow that arm and go to visit your Website Monkey.
 

Do I have to host my Web123 Website with Web123?

Yes. You can rent your octopus off anyone you like, but you’ll need to house your monkey with Web123. A Web123 Website just won’t work if it’s not hosted with Web123.
 

Email Hosting

When somebody emails you@yourcompanyname.com.au it doesn’t just go straight to your computer. Your friend or customer will send the email via their outgoing server. Their outgoing mail server will find your octopus and follow the email arm to your email host. An email host is like your very own post-office where you have a post-office box for each email box you have. The email will sit in your post-office box until your computer comes to pick it up for you.
 

Do I have to host my email with Web123?

Hosting your email with Web123 is not compulsory, but if you have a Web123 website then email hosting won’t cost you any extra. But if you’ve got an exchange server or you’re using Google Apps and really happy with it then you might want to just leave things as they are – and that’s more than fine. You’ll just need to let us know. Or if you have an IT company who looks after a number of your IT services and you want them to host your email, that’s cool too!

The only important thing is that if Web123 is holding your octopus, you let us know where the email-arm should point.

Other Services

There are innumerable “Other Things” you might have on your domain. VPN. Sub-Domains. If you don’t know what they are then you probably don’t have anything to worry about. But it doesn’t hurt to check, so if you’re not sure please let us know so that we can point you in the right direction.

So if you’re a Web123 customer we know that the Website Arm of your Octopus needs to point to Web123. Maybe your Email Arm too. And you might not be using any of the other Octopus arms.

Redelegating your Domain and Holding your Octopus.

Once your domain is Registered you’ll need to delegate it to some name servers. If you bought your domain through Web123 it will already be delegated to Web123’s name servers.

So if Registering a Domain is like Renting an Octopus, delegating your domain is sort of like working out who is going to hold your Octopus.

And if all of the arms that you’re using are pointing to Web123… well it makes sense for us to hold the octopus for you (it doesn’t cost you any extra whether Web123 holds your octopus or not). This means you’ll delegate your domain to Web123’s name servers.

But if you have an IT company who looks after your email and a VPN and some subdomains it might turn out that it’s only the Octopus's Website Arm that points to Web123. In that case it’s probably better if your IT company holds the octopus, and they just point the Website Arm at us.

This means you’ll leave your domain delegation as it is and you’ll ask your DNS Host to point the A-Record of your domain to Web123’s web server. (They might get a little confused if you start talking to them about octopuses).

In order to delegate (or re-delegate) your domain you’ll need to contact your domain registrar. Generally you’ll just log in to their website and change the information yourself. So to change who holds your octopus, you need to go back to the people you rent your octopus from and let them know who you want to hold your octopus. If you purchased your domain through Web123 or if you've transferred your domain to Web123 then we'll be able to do this for you.

And once you’ve rented an octopus and organised for somebody to hold it, it will be possible for us to put your website up on your domain!

So if you’ve got a staging website with Web123, even if you’re not ready to go live right away, and you don’t have all of the information you need or you’re not quite sure please send us a ticket or give us a call to have a chat about Octopuses: that way when you’re ready to go live we’ll be able to do it right away!

Got any questions or comments? Leave them in the box below.

Need a hand with getting a wesbite started? Give us a call on 1800 932 123 or send us an email now.

Marketing these days is about face-time and as we’re increasingly getting busier (some say the average female is hit with 4,000 messages on any given day) it’s getting harder and harder to get your message in front of the right people, and your brand remembered.
 

 
Let’s assume your website is ready for a stampede. You’ve got an opt-in form, great copy, good calls to action and a compelling offer. It’s the Myer stocktake sale but you just haven’t got the numbers queuing at the door yet. Ready?

Now let’s get off your website altogether and into web marketing online. Think of your website as the cash register, you still need to get them in the door first and that’s where the Internet world is your oyster.

Here are 13 ways to marketing your business online effectively:

1.   Search Engine Strategies

What’s the point in having a great website if no-one can find you? There are a lot of things to consider here. Firstly you want to have a killer ‘on page’ (on your website) search strategy, meaning you’ve done extensive keyword research, have correct Meta Page Titles and page descriptions and have compelling copy that’s been written for both your audience and search engines in mind.

Secondly, you should consider paying a professional to conduct Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) for you. SEO is the process of making you appear on the first few pages of Google for certain keywords. This is termed ‘off page’ SEO and is primarily geared around getting backlinks to your site through publishing articles, submitting your site to directories and social bookmarking to name a few.

Having good on page optimisation is not always enough to pull in traffic because your keywords could be really competitive. As you can imagine, it’s extremely time consuming so you’re probably best spending your time doing what you’re good at and hiring a professional.

2.   Pay for online advertising with PPC

PPC stands for ‘Pay-Per-Click’ and can be a good tactic if you want some instant traffic. Advertising still serves a purpose and especially if it’s a well targeted campaign.

Paying for clicks is a lot more cost effective than paying for a TV, newspaper or radio campaign and its results are a lot more measurable. Plus, you can change it on the fly, try new ad copy, test different key phrases and pause it whenever you want. Unlike traditional media, you can also get great reporting and analytics to study and improve constantly.

Follow this link to set up a Google Adwords PPC campaign.

3.   Create a Facebook Page for Business

If you’re new to Facebook for business, check out our blog post Creating a Facebook Page For a Business. There are many advantages to having a presence of Facebook. Most importantly it gives you a way to informally network with others without doing the hard sell. It allows you to be a person instead of a business, so don’t be afraid to let your personality shine through on your Facebook page.

Also see 15 Ways to Use Facebook in Business

4.   If your audience is tweeting, try Twitter

One of the first things you'll notice is that no-one wants to be 'sold to' or 'marketed’ to on Twitter. That said though, there is a world of opportunity ready for the picking if you get smart about it and do it right. Twitter is an excellent forum for talking to your clients (or prospective clients) about your business or industry.

Twitter can be your best friend or your worst nightmare. It’s a challenge to get in a rhythm and find your mojo on Twitter, but you also have to be careful not to get too caught up in the streams of 140-character stories and waste time too.

Most importantly, develop a strategy, set aside blocks of time and be consistent with your approach. If you’re new to Twitter, download our Twitter for Business Short Course here.

5.   Get connected on LinkedIn

If you sell to other businesses (B2B) then you definitely want to be on LinkedIn! It’s more than just a place to publish your resume and past work experience. There’s Questions & Answers where you can demonstrate you’re an expert or ask a question you need answers to. 

You can also join relevant groups to network with others in your industry. Then there’s also the ability for you to link to articles and content posted elsewhere like blog posts, with a summary of why it’s valuable to add to your credibility. That’s just a taste, jump on and see for yourself.

6.   Facebook & LinkedIn PPC Ads

What could be better than honing in with pinpoint accuracy (kind of) on the exact people you want to do business with? It’s far better than the ‘spray and pray’ approach that most traditional media offers.

Facebook has lots of targeting options to help you choose exactly who you want to advertise to so that you’re only paying for the eyeballs you want. You can target by location, age and birthdays, gender, education, connections and even interests they post in their profile. 

Similarly, on LinkedIn you can target by job title and function, by industry and company size, by age or by groups your audience might be a member of.

7.   Give the tried and tested Article Marketing tactic a go

One of the oldest and best ways of web marketing online is article marketing. If you want to achieve maximum effectiveness, target ‘long-tail’ keywords. This is because it’ll make your articles more optimised therefore ranking higher on Google.

Be sure to come up with a compelling title and keep your articles to 300-500 words.

You can submit your articles to high-ranking article directories like Ezine Articles, Goarticles, Buzzle and eHow. By doing this you get high quality backlinks to your site and can easily get a ton of new traffic. eHow alone gets over 65,000,000 monthly visitors!

8.   Become a blogger (not just for yourself)

Last week I wrote about the Pros & Cons of a Business Blog to illustrate just how many benefits can be had business blogging – and, of course, to also make you aware of the pitfalls. Not only can you attract a substantial amount of traffic and new subscribers, but you can become a guest blogger for others and leverage off their success.

Get selective and pick the right blogs that already talk to your audience by the masses and you’ll be amazed how quickly you can grow your own audience.

9.   Build your list and do email marketing

Email marketing or ezines or EDM (meaning Electronic Direct Mail) is one of the easiest and cheapest ways to drive traffic back to your site. Period. One of your highest priorities as a website owner is to build your list. Did you hear that? I said build your list.

You should have a complete strategy outlining the tactics you’re going to use for list building. The money is in the list. Treat it like gold too, promise to take good care of it and in most cases, when you send out an email campaign, you will make money.

10.   Get creative with Content Marketing

Create great content like eBooks, checklists, infographics, studies, research reports, webinars, audios, podcasts, etc you name it. If you create great content you can not only use it as bait and get people to opt-in to your list (in other words give you their email address in exchange for your content) but you also make your content shareable.

People want to share great content. Get other people to do your marketing for you. What could be better than that?!

11.   Frequent the Forums

Forums are a great way to learn off your peers, solve problems and be part of a discussion online. Web forum commenting is often overlooked but can also be a successful way of generating traffic to your website if you include a link to your site - so long as it’s relevant to the discussion. 

You should frequent forums relevant to your niche as part of your online web marketing strategy. Although not as good as blog or article links, forum links can still play an important role in gaining backlink popularity for your site.

12.   You don’t need to be Spielberg to do Video

Can’t find your own website in Google search? Videos can help. Forrester Research reports that an indexed video has a 50 times greater chance of appearing on the first page of search results than a page of text.

Videos are the perfect lure to draw traffic to your site and increase your online visibility. For more info on getting into video marketing, read 6 Ways to Get Started in Video Marketing Online

13.   Advertise using Display Ads

Display ads are just like placing magazine ads but on websites. You can be fairly targeted in your approach in the sense that, unlike PPC where you’re targeting users that are specifically looking for what you offer, you can reach high potential customers who are not yet looking for what you sell, but who are engaging with content specifically related to what you offer. 

With Google Display Ads, you can create non-text ads that use images, Flash, video and other technologies to grab your audience’s attention. Even if your audience don’t click these ads, they will see your brand which is helping build awareness so this can be a highly lucrative vehicle for traffic and also brand awareness if done right.

There are so many ways to effectively marketing your web business online. I wanted to write lots more but it was getting too long I wasn’t sure I’d hold your attention for another 13 ideas. So stay tuned for Part II of this series.

Remember, Rome wasn’t built in a day so be patient. Develop a 12-month plan using a combination of these tactics and make the most of your web marketing online.

There’s nothing ground-breaking in this blog post but hopefully it will open your eyes to simple tactics that can bring a huge amount of opportunities. Keep plugging away and the traffic (and profits) will be sure to follow.

What are your thoughts on web marketing online in today’s world? Leave us a comment in the box below.

If you need help with your web marketing online, check out our huge range of affordable web marketing services. Or call us today on 1800 932 123.

1. Internet users are actively and voluntarily watching advertisements online.

YouTube  gets almost half a billion unique visitors each month! Did you know that the average visitor to your website will only stay for a matter of seconds? If you have an interesting video on your site, you can grab their attention and get them involved with your brand.

Create quick, entertaining, and informative videos about your business. Have fun with it! Social media tactics (especially video) should be about putting a face and a personality to your brand. Say hello to your audience, introduce yourself and your business, talk about why you’re doing what you do.

2. Your competition probably isn't using video yet. Beat them to it! 

While there were over 2 billion videos uploaded to Facebook just last month, the vast majority of them are home videos of friends and music and random humour. The internet is enamoured by video, but most small businesses aren't taking advantage of this yet. Be among the first in your field and add credibility to your brand. According to the most recent survey by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project, 7 in 10 adult internet users watch videos online. Add the videos to your Facebook, Twitter, website, blog....

3. Videos rank

Can’t find your own website in Google search? Videos can help. Forrester Research reports that an indexed video has a 50 times greater chance of appearing on the first page of search results than a page of text. To use a fishing analogy, videos are the perfect lure to draw traffic to your site and increase your online visibility.

4. Creating a video is easy!

Most smartphones will record video, you can use your webcam, or you can get a record-free Flip video recorder that fits right in your pocket. Once you’ve recorded the video, if you want to edit it there are several free tools you can use. Here are a few:

• Microsoft Movie Maker
• Apple iMovie
• Free Studio

While online videos certainly don’t need to be perfect (a few “umms” or unpolished cuts add a degree of authenticity to your message), a little editing can still go a long way. If you do no other editing, I suggest adding an intro and an outro screen that shows your website address and logo. Again, you’re building brand awareness and driving traffic to your site. Make sure your audience knows who you are and how to find out more!

5. Maximise the video keywords

Before you send your video out for the whole world to see, take a few minutes to research your keywords. Before you upload it, rename the file so it includes one or two of the keywords that you want it to rank for. Fill out your complete profile with links to your website. Anywhere that you have the option of adding a description or details about your video, fill it out as completely as possible.

6. Post your videos

YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, Dailymotion, Yahoo Video... There are heaps of sites where you can submit your videos. YouTube is by far the most popular, but that doesn’t mean it needs to be your only account. Anywhere you decide to post a video, make sure to complete your own profile with details relevant to your business.

Have you seen a really great example of video marketing? Share it with us in the comments box below.

Ready to really show your customers behind the scenes of your business? Web123’s SEO Packages can help you get the traffic you need, and our custom-designed YouTube pages can help your brand build credibilty.

A very successful blogger, Dan Zarella reported that about 50% of people read blogs every day. That sounds like a goldmine just waiting to be tapped by small business if you ask me so let’s look at some pros and cons of starting a business blog.
 

By the end of this post, you should have a clear idea which direction you’re going to take. To blog or not to blog, that is the question. Here goes…

Pros of a Business Blog

1.   Increased traffic

Like your website, it’s not a case of build it and they will come, but if you follow a few simple rules when blogging, you can dramatically increase your website traffic. Our organic traffic is increasing at a rate of between 30-40% per month and it’s largely due to our blog!
 

2.   Increased inbound leads

Effective blogs are a key player in increasing inbound marketing results for business. Thousands or even millions of eyeballs can potentially see your blog thus increasing the exposure for you and your business and increasing leads.
 

3.   Helps sell products

Dan Zarella also blogged that 71.4% of users say that blogs effect their purchasing decisions “somewhat” or “very much.” Use your blog to write product reviews, 'how to' articles to explain product benefits or detailed opinion blogs about how competitors differ in your market. This will help sell your products without ‘selling’ your products if you know what I mean.
 

4.   Provides value to your clients and prospects

Use your blog to provide real value to your audience by helping them solve problems. ‘How to’ blogs are great for this. Be a leader. Ask questions and engage your audience. Get them commenting on your posts and even use the comments as market research into what you need to deliver to them.
 

5.   Positions you as the expert

If you’re regularly writing great content on your core area of expertise and your competitors aren’t, what does that make you? The expert! People will label you as one in their own mind and come to you first when they need advice, or are ready to buy what you sell.
 

6.   Improves sales cycle by educating your prospects

Think about all the questions and objections you handle when selling your product or service and create blog posts around them. You’ll soon be moving people along your sales cycle without even talking to them.
 

7.   Lets your potential new customers see the people behind the business

Have a personality. Be unique. Have an opinion. Let your audience see who you really are behind the website front door. People do business with people they like, so be you.
 

8.   Allows you to leverage of other experts by publishing guest blog posts.

If done right, this can be like rocket fuel for your website. For an awesome read about leveraging off experts, grab a copy of ‘Launch: How to Quickly Propel Your Business Beyond the Competition’ by Michael A. Stelzner, founder of www.socialmediaexaminer.com

9.   Boost your search engine results: Get found by Google

If you’re constantly updating your website content through your blog, Google not only rewards you but it will come back to your site on a regular basis to check what’s new, meaning your content makes it to the search engines and in front of your audience much quicker than if you didn’t publish regular content.
 

10.   Linkable content

If you publish great content, chances are people will want to link to you. Quality links are pure GOLD when it comes to improving your search engine rank i.e. move you to page 1 of Google.
 

11.   More keyword niche opportunities

A business blog is a great way to take advantage of other keyword opportunities. You will have your website keywords but you can’t really expand on them so much unless you’re publishing regular content which is why a blog is such a great avenue.
 

12.   Opens up new opportunities

Use your own blog to establish credibility then set out on a mission to become a guest blogger on other successful blogs that speak to your target audience. This can open up a whole world of opportunities and the cost? A little time and effort on your part. You can’t beat that!
 

13.   Allows more opportunity to build your list

Make sure that when you land on your blog, you’ve also got a way for people to stay connected to you whether it be through an RSS Feed, a subscription to your newsletter or an eBook or guide you offer as an opt-in download. Your list is King, a blog is a great way to build your numbers a lot quicker than your standard website might.

 

Cons of a Business Blog

1.   You have to be patient (not something most entrepreneurs are good at)

With a business blog you need to adopt the ‘It won’t happen overnight, but it will happen’ mentality. Be patient. Keep plugging away and over time you will see results.
 

2.   It’s a substantial time commitment

I would suggest, and it’s only my opinion, that you would need to dedicate at least 4-5 hours per week minimum to your blog. That includes writing posts, publishing content, researching keywords, submitting it to sites, working on your blogging calendar etc. You will get quicker at writing posts over time but if you can’t spare at least 4-5 hours, preferably more, then perhaps a business blog isn’t for you.
 

3.   You must be consistent

Consistency is one of the most important things. Publish on a schedule and stick to it. Research shows that most blogs get read at around 11.00am so keep that in mind when you do your schedule.
 

4.   You have to feed it all the time - at least weekly, daily is better

More successful blogs do publish posts daily but as a small business owner, that can be quite a task. We publish 2-3 good posts per week and find that that works for us. I wouldn’t do any less than 1 post per week or you might struggle building your audience. Find what works for you and stick to it. You could sit down on a Sunday arvo and write 3 posts in a couple of hours and you’re done for the week.
 

5.   Once you commit, you MUST dedicate yourself for the long haul

You can’t stop and start with a blog. If you’re a sole trader, and have the sole responsibility of maintaining your blog on your shoulders, you best organise a library of posts to publish if you want to go on holidays for a month. In my mind, it’s not a biggie but it is a commitment.
 

6.   You need to know how to do proper keyword research

There’s no point plugging away every week writing great content for your blog if A) no-one is searching for what you’re writing about and B) people are searching but you’re not using the right keywords so people can find you. We’ve had some great success with long-tail keyword niches we research using Wordtracker Keyword Tool.

If you want to get the most from your time and energy blogging, spend the time learning about how to find and use keywords in your posts. Make sure your target keyword appears once in the post title and at least once in the body of the post. Can you guess what the keyphrase is for this blog post?
 

7.   Owning a successful blog requires more than just publishing posts

You should also link to other blogs, use clean URL’s, link back to old posts in the body of your new posts, put links to your most popular blogs in your sidebar and try and get backlinks to your blog from other websites. Sound overwhelming? Don’t worry, it becomes habit after you get the hang of it.

8.   It requires a lot of planning, strategy and research

Don’t be fooled by those who say, “It’s easy, just start a blog and you’ll make more money”. You could take a carefree approach but like anything in business, the more you research, plan and work on a proper strategy, the more success you’ll have. Plan your blog before your start and you’ll find the transition from business owner to blogger much smoother.

If you’re serious about starting a business blog, I highly recommend you read ‘Problogger – Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income’ by Darren Rowse and Chris Garret. It covers everything you need to know to get off to a flying start.

Remember, keep at it. It’s not a sprint. It’s a marathon. Slowly over time, blog post after blog post, you will build an audience and a community. And done right that WILL equate to a better bottom line for your business.

Interested in learning more about promoting your business blog? These blog posts will help you get started.

How to Research Your Keywords

DIY SEO for Free

What is a "Meta Title" and "Meta Description" and why are they important?

How to Find Links and Get Links

If you have a blog already, tell us what works for you? Leave us a comment below.

If you need help with starting your blog or writing blog posts, get in touch with the friendly bunch at Web123. Call us today on 1800 932 123.

Facebook Profiles

The most common type of account on Facebook is a Profile. Profiles are intended for individual users. This is the type of account you'll want to connect with your family, friends, that old friend from primary school you haven't seen in years.... Unless your business has a birth certificate, it probably shouldn't have a Profile!  

Having a Profile for your business is a violation of Facebook's Terms of Use and could get your account suspended. If you "oopsed" and have already set up a Profile for your business, Facebook has a tool available to convert your Profile into a Page, HOWEVER know that you'll lose a lot of information that way. If you're in this situation, I'd suggest creating the Page yourself to minimise how much information would be lost in moving it over. 

Facebook Pages

A Facebook Fan Page, also frequently referred to as a Page, is a single page on Facebook's site that they allow for you to set up for non-personal use. In order to set up a Page you'll need a Profile first. Pages are the ideal space for businesses, organisations, bands, and celebrities to connect with their fans and promote information about themselves. (See also: How to Create a Fan Page for Business and How to Use Your Fan Page in Business.)

While you'll need a Profile to set up a Fan Page, the reverse is not true. Fan Pages are managed by one or more Profiles. So say that you decide you want to join Facebook. You create a Profile. Then say you want to create a Facebook Page for your business. Through your Profile, you'll create a Page. Once it's created, you can add other users as administrators to your Page as well. 

Key differences

• A Profile's connections are friends. A Page's connections are fans.
• Profiles gain friends by sending and receiving friend requests. Pages gain fans by other Profiles and Pages "liking" their Page. Pages cannot send direct requests for someone to "like" their Page. 
• On your business Page, you can post either as your Profile or as your Page. That means you have the option of interacting with customers either as your business, or as the business owner. 
• Pages have statistics and demographic info about who their fans are.
• Profiles are limited to 5000 friends. Pages can have unlimited fans. 

Feel like you're ready to take on the internet masses by creating a Fan Page? Check out our Facebook Fan Page design options so we can help your business put its best foot forward on Facebook. 

Before we begin, it’s important to note there are three types of pages on Facebook. They are:

• Personal profiles
• Groups
• Business Pages

Profiles are for people. Pages are for businesses. Now let’s get started!

15 Reasons & Ways to use Facebook in your business:

Creating a website is the first step in developing a web presence, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re as established online as you should be. Your web presence can be made up of business directory listings, your social media profiles, blog posts... anything related to your company!

When someone does a search for your company name, you want there to be enough information out there for them to find you without difficulty, and on multiple platforms. From a customer standpoint, there is an expectation that a search for your company name should be enough to learn about and connect with you.

Your web presence is how and where your business positions itself online. There are many ways of getting your name all over the internet, but doing so in a way that maximises your efforts and builds credibility ought to be done with strategy, goals, and foresight.

One of the best ways to unify all the snippets of your web presence is to develop your brand. Anywhere your business might already have mention (have you Googled yourself recently?), claim that listing as your own and make it a micro version of your website.

Just getting a website is not enough. But once you have your website, it’s easy to get overwhelmed when you’re told “just start a blog”, “do Twitter” or “create videos or podcasts” because how do you know that it’s right for your business?

Your website is like a 10 speed bike. Most of us have gears we never use. Follow these 7 small business marketing tips and your website’s success will suddenly shift into top gear.

1. Develop a strategy
2. Create an effective website
3. Get quality traffic
4. Capture leads
5. Nurture your prospects
6. Sell to your list
7. Test & measure, then optimise and repeat

These are explained in more detail below.

Step 1: Develop a strategy

Do your research. Survey your ideal clients. Find out what your customers really want. Define exactly who you’re targeting? Get specific. Once you know who you’re targeting, you can then figure out where they hang out so you can market to them directly instead of spraying and praying.

Ask yourself: “What are my objectives?” “Why am I doing this?” Set some specific and measurable goals. What are you going to offer your prospects when they land on your website? What free content can you develop to use as ‘bait’ to collect prospects’ details?

It sounds simple but the strategy is often skipped over altogether in the rush and excitement of getting online but it’s probably the most important part! If you haven’t yet developed your website strategy, download our Website Starter Kit which will help bring your thoughts together into an actionable plan.

Step 2: Create an effective website

Start with your keyword research. If you’re new to this, check out Wordtracker. It has awesome tools and resources for effective keyword research. Develop your site structure based on your keyword research and include them throughout your content in all the right places.

I’d highly recommend hiring a professional copywriter for your website content but if you must do it yourself, make sure you write compelling, engaging, emotionally charged copy. Demonstrate your value to your prospects. Solve problems. Don’t sell. Solve.

Make sure you tell your visitors what you want them to do. This is called a ‘call to action’ and I’m appalled at how many sites I come across that have zero calls to action. Call now. Book a free consultation. Download this free report. Sign up to our weekly tips. These are all examples. Make sure you make them prominent and ensure they’re on every page.

Step 3: Get quality traffic

This is where most business owners fall down. Don’t expect that if you just build a website, they will come. You need to work hard to drive the right kind of traffic to your site and it’s not for the faint-hearted.

Here’s the 5 best ways to generate traffic:

1. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), which is the process of moving you closer to the top of Google ‘organically’. If your industry is competitive, this can be very, very time consuming. Consider paying a professional for SEO services.
    
2. Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising on Google, Yahoo, Bing, Facebook
    
3. Go to where your audience is already hanging out. Try Social media like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, YouTube, forums or social bookmarking. Write articles and publish them on popular websites your audience frequent.
    
4. Email Marketing – do your own or advertise in others or rent lists that are inline with your target audience. Make sure if you advertise or rent a list, make an opt-in offer so you can own the eyeballs yourself.
    
5. Publish a blog. Blogs are great traffic generators if done right and tell Google that you publish regular content. Your website will get 'spidered' by Google more often if you publish regular blog posts.

Step 4: Capture leads

What are you going to use for lead capture once you drive all this new traffic to your site? Have you got specific landing pages that focus on one main action you want your visitors to take? If not, consider creating a free eBook, report or guide to help your prospects. Offer this if they give you their name and email address in return. Once they’re on your list, then you can nurture them, which leads us to…

Step 5: Nurture your prospects

It takes 7-20 touches to convert prospects into customers. Now is the time to work on how you’re going to get in front of your prospects often. Repetition is key.

Use email marketing to build credibility. It doesn’t have to be an epic every month either! Try sending out one brief but useful tip each week to your audience. Once they get to know, like and trust you they’ll feel more comfortable buying from you. They could even be referring you business before ever becoming a client themselves because you are in the front of their mind.

Consider setting up ‘auto-responders’ to automatically nurture your leads for you. Auto-responders are pre-written emails that you can set up to send automatically to help move your prospects along the buying process. You could set them up two years in advance if you wanted to then kick back at the Bahamas! Try Aweber, iContact or Mailchimp for auto-responder email services.

Step 6: Sell to your prospects or clients

It’s no good having this great long list of prospects if you’re not going to sell to them. After all, that’s why you’re doing all this isn’t it? Use traditional forms of marketing as well as online methods to get your offers in front of your list.  

Consider offering something low cost when they opt-in to your newsletter or download your eBook. Actually, if you are selling high priced products or services, I’d definitely recommend having a lower priced product to warm them to you first. Selling high priced items online is a real process. Build trust first with a less expensive sale. Think of it as going on a few dates first before asking for the first kiss.

Step 7: Test & measure, then optimise and repeat

Remember those goals you set at the beginning? Now it’s time to pull them out, dust them off and see how you’re going. Use Google Analytics to analyse your website’s statistics and metrics. Check your website statistics often, at least weekly and see where you can improve. See what keywords are working for you in getting organic traffic, then follow Wordtrackers’ methods for getting more of a good thing.

Try different things and do A/B split testing. Test your headlines, copy, calls to action and forms. Try using video to increase conversions, especially on opt-in pages.

Find out what works best and do more of that. Simple really, isn’t it?

To sum things up, remember, strategy is King and your list is Queen. Don’t rely on your web designer to do it for you - unless you find a really good one and that’s sometimes like finding a needle in a haystack. You need to take your business by the reins, harness the wonderful power of the Internet and learn for yourself. If you become a small business marketing guru, you’ll be successful (and profitable) in any business you create.

What are your thoughts on small business marketing in today’s online world? Leave us a comment below.

If you need help with your small business marketing, get in touch with the friendly bunch here at Web123. We’re all about creating websites as good as the big guys but for a fraction of the price. Call us today on 1800 932 123.

• http://nonprofit.about.com/od/resources/tp/grantinfo.htm
• http://foundationcenter.org

Facebook and Twitter can be a great place to spread the word:

• http://stepbystepfundraising.com/fundraising-on-facebook-a-beginners-guide/
• http://nonprofitorgs.wordpress.com/2010/08/23/how-to-add-your-nonprofit-to-facebook-places-and-claim-your-new-places-page/
• https://www.facebook.com/nonprofits?v=app_17037175766&sk=app_17037175766
• http://www.diosacommunications.com/twitterbestpractices.htm

When venturing into the waters of Social Media, though, make sure you plan ahead and you've got policies and protocols in place.

• http://socialmediagovernance.com/policies.php  

There's not a lot of point having a website if it doesn't help your cause: make it easy for people to donate, volunteer or spread the word to others. Here are some more website tips:

• http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/05/14/non-profit-website-design-examples-and-best-practices/
• http://vandelaydesign.com/blog/design/non-profit-organization-websites/

As always, we're here to help. If a FREE website could help your Charity, we'd love to be involved. Find out if you qualify for a Free Charity Website. 

1. Make your mission clear

2. Make it easy to contribute

3. Explain how contributions will affect your mission

4. Tell stories

5. Use imagery

6. Connect events & news

7. Be gracious

Non-profit's guide to a profitable website:

• What action do you want the person to take from the site? Make it easy for your visitors.
   
• Make it easy to donate, and explain exactly where that money goes and whether or not it's tax deductible.
   
• Explain your cause! Try looking at it from an outside perspective -- how hard is it to figure out what you support?
   
• Be gracious.
   
• Make the content easy to share.
   
• Do you need volunteers? make it easy to help. Provide a list and explanation of positions.
   
• Don't hide your address/phone number. Keep that credibility.
   
• Make your website media friendly; does your cause get press? Feature News and Events on your website.
   
• Check out our list of resources for Charity and Not-For-Profit websites.

Could your Charity benefit from a Free Web123 Website? We'd love to be involved! Find out if you qualify for a Free Web123 Charity Website. 

Here are 7 deadly website mistakes you don’t want to fall victim to.
 

Mistake #1: Poorly written copy.

Unless you’ve done a web copywriting course, I’d seriously suggest leaving it to the experts. Writing engaging, compelling, benefit driven copy that contains the right keywords in the right places is challenging and can mean the difference between success and failure. My advice, hire a professional!
 

Mistake #2: Selling features instead of benefits.

This is probably one of the biggest newbie mistakes you can make. People don’t want to buy a drill; they want a hole. Talk about how you solve their problems in your product descriptions and website content rather than your traditional sales pitch. Why do people really buy your products or services?
 

Mistake #3: No lead capture.

You’ve done all this hard work to get people to your site, they come, they browse, the leave and within 5 minutes, forget you ever existed. If you haven’t got some form of lead capture like a free report, eBook, guide, newsletter signup even, then how are you going to remind people to come back? It’s like paying for TV ads and having no contact details.
 

Mistake #4: Lack of promotion & marketing.

This one is probably the most damaging of all. Little or no marketing and promotion of your site means your website investment could be straight down the drain. When you create your website you should have money left in the kitty to implement an SEO or PPC (and preferably lots more) marketing campaigns so you’re in front of your prospects eyes. There’s literally hundreds of ways to market your site, don’t not do something!
 

Mistake #5: Lack of quality content.

Publishing content should become habit for you and part of your daily, weekly or monthly ritual. Look at content creation like balancing your books. It’s a necessity if you want to make it in the new age of marketing. Publish a blog, articles, press releases, eBooks, reports, surveys, email newsletters, studies, webinars, podcasts, videos the list goes on. Use your content to not only get found, give visitors a reason to return to your site and help solve their problems but it greatly positions you as an expert over your competitors.
 

Mistake #6: Not optimising pages with correct keywords.

Keywords are an important part of how search engines view your site. Now if you’ve hired a really awesome web copywriter who has done their job properly, chances are your pages will be smokin’ but you need to learn how to use keywords in all your additional content you’re going to add to your site like blog posts. There’s plenty of keyword tools out there like Google’s Keyword Tool to help you.
 

Mistake #7: The worst thing you can do is do nothing.

Why do most websites fail? Because their owners do nothing! Don’t sit on your plop once your site goes live and expect the leads to start banging down your door. It doesn’t work that way. Dedicate at least a few hours a week to make constant improvements, market your site, write new content, study your statistics, develop new tools and market yourself as the expert. If your website’s not succeeding how you’d like to, find out why.  There’s a ton of information online, just make the time to learn.
Remember, you never fail until you stop trying.
 

Need more help and guidance on this topic? Download our Website Starter Kit to get you on the right track to website success. 

Got any other great tips and advice? Leave us a comment below!
 

Grabbing and keeping the attention of visitors to your site is something that requires a certain level of finesse, but with a few tweaks any site can be more clickable. Here are some rules of thumb for how to make your website worthy of clicks -- one of the first and most important steps for attracting customers.

Compelling Headlines

• Tell your reader what to expect
   
• Convince them they want more
   
• Talk benefits, not features
   
• Use your keywords

Getting Started

These guides will cover the most basic parts of Facebook -- creating an account, introducing you to standard features, and helping you start thinking about how you and your benefit can benefit from being a part of it. 

Facebook’s Guide to Setting up your Profile
Exploring Facebook
Getting your business on Facebook

FB Ads & Marketing

With nearly 700 million users, more than half of whom spend a minimum of 15 minutes a day on the site, Facebook is a marketer's dream. Learn about the different types of marketing and advertising that you can do on Facebook. 

The Basics of Marketing on Facebook
How to get started with FB Ads
Facebook’s official Media Guide they suggest for business pages
10 Rules for Advertising on Facebook
Top Facebook Marketing Resources
How to Sell Products via Your Facebook Page

FB Promotions & Contests

Running contests on Facebook is anything but straight-forward! Read these articles before you launch any sort of giveaway or promotion, or risk having your page shut down.

Facebook’s Official Promotion Guidelines (updated regularly)
Facebook Promotions: What You Need to Know

FB Pages

A Facebook Fan Page is the essential place for businesses to build brand awareness, market their products, and communicate with customers, both prospective and current. Here are some of the best resources we've found on how to take full advantage of this space.

15 Frequently Asked Questions About Facebook Pages
Build a Facebook Fan Page the Smart Way
Essential Guide To Facebook Page Changes
Features of Facebook new Fan Pages
Status Update Tips
How to Manage your Facebook Wall in any Situation
How to Measure Your Facebook Engagement

FB Places

Tweetdeck & HootSuite

Most of the time, most of Twitter’s users are not actually on Twitter.com. Similarly to how you can set up your business email through Outlook or Gmail, using third party platforms to manage your Twitter account(s) is very popular. Tweetdeck and HootSuite are two of the most popular options for this. They’ll allow you to manage multiple accounts, save searches, schedule updates (it’s ok to put your social media on autopilot for a while!), and even combine your Twitter accounts with other social media, like Facebook. HootSuite is a little more advanced than Tweetdeck and offers built-in analytics. There’s a paid version as well as a free version, but for most users the free version will be sufficient.

Klout

Klout looks at your Twitter account and gives you a ranking. On a scale of 1 to 100, just how influential is what you tweet? Klout is considered to the be the industry standard for ranking your social media presence. Aside from giving you a general score and some statistics, it also tells you who you are influenced by on Twitter, and more importantly, who you are influencing! This is a great tool for identifying fans of your tweets (and prospective clients) that you might not have known about.

Tweetstats

If you’re a fan of charts, Tweetstats is going to be your new favourite website. Just enter your Twitter name and in a moment’s time they’ll produce colourful charts detailing when you tweet and who you interact with the most. Check out the word cloud option that creates a visual of the terms you tweet about most.

TwentyFeet

This is a fantastic resource for monitoring your social media. Did you lose followers? Gain a dozen? Not only will it give you a full report with easy-to-use charts, it’ll also email if you anything noteworthy changes – like you’ve just won the Twitter lottery and something you posted was retweeted 100 times more than what’s normal for you. Even better? Your first account with TwentyFeet is 100% free, and you can add additional accounts (Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Bit.ly, etc.) for less than $3 each a year.

TwitCleaner

Follow, follow, follow… Who? It’s easy to follow more people on Twitter than you can keep track of. You certainly don’t need to read every tweet for every person you follow, but eventually you’ll find some users you no longer want in your feed. TwitCleaner looks at everyone you follow and lets you know who is inactive, who isn’t following you back, who of those adorably endearing online stores might potentially be a bot…

Backupify

Did you know that Twitter only keeps record of your most recent tweets? After a week or two, that tweet will be lost forever and no one (other than Google and the US Library of Congress) will have any record of what you’d posted. Backupify is a free resource that will create an ongoing archive of all of your tweets, which you can download from their website to a spreadsheet. This is a great tool to keep a simple archive of your business happenings (surely you’re tweeting about promotions and developments?) as well as your developing relationships.

RetweetRank

I love Retweetrank, but not for its original purpose. When someone retweets something you've posted (that is, reposted something you tweeted so that all of that person's followers can see what you posted too), you might never see that they’ve done this. The idea of Retweetrank is to show you how likely your tweets are to be retweeted by other users, but what I think the most thing it does is show you who retweeted your content and how. You could be an internet celebrity and never know it!

Twitpic

In a world of 140-character bursts, there isn’t a lot of room for visual. That’s where Twitpic comes in. Twitpic lets you upload pictures and link them through a shortened URL into your tweet. It can be used both for mobile and on your computer, which is great for sharing snapshots on the go.

Listorious

In 2009 Twitter rolled out a feature that allows you to group Twitter users by a common field. There are lists by industry, location, common interest, buzzwords... For the 200+ million users on Twitter, lists are by and large the best way to find the users tweeting about the things important to you. Listorious is an online directory of all those lists. Add yourself to their database or browse lists others have created to connec twiht

The above mentioned tools are far from the only resources that exist to juggle all the possibilities of Twitter, but they’re a few of my favourites.

What are your favourite Twitter tools? What other things would you like to be able to do on Twitter? Tell us in the comments below.

Need a hot looking Twitter design? Check out our Twitter design service here.

Most websites, for most users, will not open new windows for links. Big, popular websites such as Google, YouTube and Amazon open new links in the same window. So it’s fair to say that most people will be used to the fact that a link opens in the same window they were already in. This is what users expect and we feel that it’s important that things work the way your visitors expect them to.

Lets think about two example users of your website; an experienced “Web Savvy” visitor and an inexperienced visitor.

Your “web savvy” visitor probably regularly uses tabs in their browser. They happily navigate websites and open new links in new tabs when they know they want to go back to your website. These sorts of visitors know how to open links in new websites when they need to and they’re unlikely to get lost or stuck and unable to return to your website.

If you open links in new windows you’re probably going to annoy Web Savvy visitors. If they wanted to open your link in a new window they’d take care of it themselves! Forcing a new window can really annoy someone who wants to open some things in new tabs.

I’m a “web savvy” visitor, and for me forcing links to open in new windows is probably in the top 10 most annoying things a website can do to me!

But what about your inexperienced visitors?

These visitors probably don’t use the internet very much and they might be a little intimidated by it. Research shows that these visitors may have trouble navigating with tabs and like to do one thing at a time. For these visitors the “back” button is very important. It’s how they navigate between the websites they’ve been looking at.

If you spring a new window on an inexperienced visitor, chances are they’re not even going to notice. And when they want to go “back” to your website? They can’t! The back button no longer leads there and they’re stuck on some other website. By the time they close the window and end up back on your website, chances are they’ve already lost interest.

I know you want to keep visitors on your website but, funnily enough, opening windows on your visitors when they don’t expect them may cause people to get lost or frustrated.

What do you prefer? Tell us in the comment section below.

Need a hand with your website? Think about making the switch to Web123 where you get free support for the life of your website! Find out more about a Web123 website for your small business.

SEO can also be expensive and if you’re small, or just starting out and you have a bit of spare time available there’s a lot of SEO you can do yourself, with little to no technical knowledge.

Note: This article assumes that you’re using a Web123 website, or a website with an easy-to-use CMS (Content Management System). If your website isn’t one you can update yourself, or it’s very difficult to do so why not consider a Web123 website?

Before you start

Make some notes about your current position in Google for the search terms and phrases that you’re interested in. You’ll want to have something to refer back to later, to see how you’ve improved!

Research your Keywords

The first thing to do, before you start editing your content, is to research your keywords. Which keywords will get you the most traffic, which keywords will get you the most sales?

Once you know which keywords will be the most valuable you can use them in your content and your meta information.

Read more about How to Research your Keywords

Where are you now?

Now that you know your Keywords you might want to revise the list of search terms you’re interested in. Record your placement on any new search phrases or terms you’ve thought of in the meantime!

Use your Keywords in your Website copy

Once you know what your keywords are, you’ll want to make sure you’re using them!

Concentrate on your homepage and the pages dedicated to your most important products and services.

• Use each keyword once or twice (no more than 3 times)
• Don't repeat your keywords over and over
• 1-2 short paragraphs
• At least one key word or phrase per sentence

Read more about Using your Keywords in your Website Copy.
More about Website Content

Update your Meta Information

Your Meta Information is where you can describe your website outside of the content itself. Meta Title and Meta Description are often used to display your website in the Google Results so they’re great not only for getting you up there, but for enticing people to click through!

Read more about Meta Information

Build your Links

There’s only so much you can do on your own website, once you’ve polished your website up it’s time to build your “backlinks”.

The number and quality of links that point to your website has a big influence on your placement in Google’s listings.

In Link Building vs Link Exchange you’ll learn about what sorts of links can help or hurt you.

Assess your results

Once you’ve made your changes you’ll want to know how it’s affecting your ranking in Google… but remember that it can take up to 2 weeks for Google to have another look at your website (it’s not usually that long, though!). Google won’t know about your changes right away, so be a little patient and give it a week or so.

Once Google has re-spidered your website go and compare your ranking on the search terms you made a note of in the first step.

Hopefully you’ve moved up a notch or two! Now keep experimenting, keep tweaking, keep refining.

Congratulations! You’ve just saved yourself a boatload of money on SEO.

Have any more questions? Still don’t know how to proceed? Let me know in the comments! 

If you're not the DIY type, check out Web123's cost effective SEO packages.

When someone does a search on Google for something, in order to decide which pages should be displayed first, Google weighs several different factors. Keywords and links are two of the primary things considered. If someone trustworthy links to your website, Google sees this as a positive endorsement of your site and will bump you up rankings. 
 

In the real world, if someone you trust sends you a recommendation, you’ll take note and remember that suggestion long after. Google and other search engines are always looking for recommendations for great new sites, so getting other sites that Google already trusts to recommend yours is one of the best ways to gain traction in SEO.

Major upgrade to your Site Statistics

As we grow, and our clients grow, we’re having to crunch ever more data – and sometimes we hit bottlenecks. Over recent months statistics have run noticeably slower, particularly for clients who get a lot of traffic – so we’ve been working for a while in the background to fix the speed issue and also add extra depth to the information.

Here’s some of the key changes:

• Huge speed improvement in all areas of stats
• Traffic and Sales activity (if you have a shop) are now shown on separate graphs
• Social media sites (Facebook and Twitter) are now segmented from other traffic more clearly – the same goes for common webmail sites including Gmail and Hotmail.
• Statistics are broken into separate tabs, which can be refreshed individually (click the green refresh icon at the right-hand end)
• Keywords can now be viewed individually, showing you the traffic, sales, and ranking history for individual keywords. This is very useful if you’re doing SEO to help you monitor the results.

As always, your statistics exclude any traffic from computers that you’ve logged in from as an administrator, and any search engine spiders or bots – so what you’re seeing is the number of visits, page views, etc, from people other than yourself – actual visitors. Actual potential customers.

We’ve got more changes in the pipeline to stats, including the ability to better track where traffic on individual pages is originating from and going to – so stay tuned.

Also - if you’re among those of our clients who watch their statistics closely, you will have already noticed this – we rolled the changes out over the Easter weekend, but have spent the time since then fine-tuning the changes and we’re now happy with the speed and depth of information available.

New, improved Webmail

One common question we get asked is how our clients can access their email while away, or not at their own computer. To help with this we’ve rolled out an improved webmail setup for all Web123 clients. This can be found by heading to http://webmail.web123.com/ in your browser - you’ll need your full email address and password to get in. This address will work in any recent web browser, or even from smart phones (including iPhones) or tablets (including iPads).

In most cases you will have configured your computer to connect using POP3 – which means emails aren’t left on our server, but are downloaded to your computer when you connect and then removed from our end. If this is the case, webmail will show any new emails since you last collected emails at your home/office. If you’ve set your email up using IMAP, you’ll be able to see your old email as well.

We’re always keen to know what you’d like to see more (or less) of – so please do send us your thoughts or comments on anything in the system or our website.

Google Places is a Google’s gift to local businesses to help them connect their online presence with their physical store. Essentially, Google Places is like a digital business directory that ties together your company name, physical address, and website. It’s a way of organising relevant information about your business, all in one place. 
 

Do you have a physical store and a website, but are having a hard time figuring out how to connect the two? Here are three steps to get both your website and your storefront on the map using Google Places.

Step 1:  Create or claim your business.

Start off by doing a Google search for your business to see if a Google Place listing already exists. Google indicates “Places” listings by marking them with a red  pin symbol next to it. If your business isn’t there when you search by your name, name and location, or business address, you’ll want to create a new listing. You’ll need a Google account (Gmail, etc) to go beyond this point. To create a new listing, go here. If your business is already listed in Google Places, click on the “Places page” link. Here you’ll see a rundown of all the details Google has collected on your business. You’ll also see a link at the top marked “Business Owner?” Follow this link to claim your business listing.

Step 2: Verify your listing.

Google is serious about making sure they only give away the rights to Places to authorized persons, so as part of claiming a business you’ll have to go through an authentication process. Depending on what works best for your particular company, you’ll either get a phone call to the number listed for the business or a card by post, sent to your store’s physical address. While this is a small headache, think of what it’s worth to know that nobody can mess with your business except you. Once Google has given you the thumbs up that you do in fact own that listing, you’ll get a “Verified by Business Owner” tag added to your listing – a great way to build consumer confidence! 

Step 3: Optimise your business listing.

Even while you wait to be verified, you can edit some basic information within the listing. Double check that your full address is there (Will prospective customers need a suite or unit number to find your store?), and that your phone number is correct. Once you have been verified by Google as the rightful owner of the business listing, you’ll be able to add your website, photos, business hours…

The more information you can put in this page, the better!  Make the most of this valuable internet real estate and fill out every bit that you can. A few noteworthy fields that many businesses skip when they complete these listings are categories, keywords (perfect for SEO!), and service area.

Remember that everything about this listing is positioning your business for Google, so really focus on what your customers would be searching for to find you. Filling out your Google Places listing won’t replace your website and you shouldn’t throw out your SEO strategy, but it’s an ideal supplement to your online presence.  

For more help getting your website the traffic it deserves and listing with Google, contact us about our SEO services. 

Geolocation is the integration of a user’s physical location with social media. As smartphones are multiplying in popularity, geolocation services like Foursquare and Facebook Places are going to continue to grow, so as a business owner it’s important to understand how they work and how your business fits in. Here is an overview of the most popular geolocation apps and how you can get started with them as a business owner.

There are heaps of geolocation apps available to smartphone users now. The two most popular are Foursquare and Facebook Places. We’ll cover these in more depth in a later post, but here’s what you need to know about them to get started:

Foursquare

Foursquare is a location-based game that users play via their smartphones. Users get points by “checking in” to physical locations via the app. They can earn badges for certain combinations of check-ins (i.e. checking in to five coffee shops gets them the “Fresh Brew” badge). These little incentives have gone a long way in building a solid base of users; as of April, Foursquare had 8.5 million users worldwide and over 77,000 unique visitors just in Australia.

What does this geeky game have to do with your business? Well, as long as your business has a physical address, your company is a part of the playing field. Check out Foursquare to find and claim your venue.  

Takeaway: Foursquare users have a “game” mentality, so learn the rules and position your business to play along!

Facebook Places

Facebook Places is a giant among geolocation services, mostly because it’s centred on Facebook’s 700 million user platform. Through Facebook mobile or http://touch.facebook.com, users can check in to venues to share their whereabouts with their Facebook network. The most important distinction between Foursquare and Facebook Places is users’ motivation for sharing this information: on Facebook Places, users are checking in for the sake of informing all their friends, rather than for playing a game like on Foursquare.

Takeaway:  If you have a website you should have a Facebook Fan Page, and if you have a physical address you should have it on Facebook Places. 700 million users is too big to ignore!

Deals & promotions

Now of course there will always be a fair amount of users who are willing to try out any new application that comes their way, but in order to get the rest on board, Facebook Places and Foursquare are teaming up with business owners (like you!) to entice more users to play along. Foursquare allowed business owners to offer deals and specials, which are ways to run mini promotions for anyone who checks in to your venue. Facebook Places is expected to be setting up a similar system in Australia very soon. 

For example: I’m on my smartphone and I check-in to a coffee shop on Facebook Places. When I go to the app to check in, I see that two of my mates from the office have also been here recently, and they've left a comment about how good the soy lattes are. Taking my workmate's advice, I order a soy latte (delicious!), and then happily start telling people about this great coffee shop, both in real life and all over Facebook. Social proof!

You can even use these check-in promotions to steal away your neighbors’ customers! On Foursquare, when a user goes to check-in somewhere it brings up a list of other nearby places. If your venue has a promotion listed, your venue will be featured in bright letters to gain attention.

For example: I’m on my smartphone and I’ve just checked in to that same great coffee shop, this time on Foursquare. I’m just sitting down to enjoy my latte, and Foursquare shows me a list of other venues in the area. I see that there’s a bookstore on the next street over I’d never noticed before, and they’re offering a $5 off special for new customers. Normally I'd buy my books at ABC Books on the other side of town, but the promotion is enough for me to decide I’ll stop by on my way home rather than getting that novel I’ve been wanting somewhere else.

The absolute best part of all this? Currently, business listings and related promotions on Facebook Places and Foursquare is 100% free.

Still not convinced you ought to bother with all this? Think in terms of SEO, where every mention of your business puts you and your customers closer together. 

Have you had any experience with Geolocation services? Tell us about it in the comments below!

Not sure what to make of all this social media stuff? Check out our social media packages to see what we can help you with and how.  

While there isn’t any silver bullet solution, there is a new tool just launched in Australia that will help you, the small online retailer, make your products known. Introducing: Google Product Search. 

In a typical Google search, when someone types in a product, say “organic cotton baby blanket” (or any other tangible item that can be sold via the web), your store is competing not only with every other online retailer that sells similar items, you’re also competing with discussion boards, review sites, and any other site with those keywords... regardless of whether they actually offer a product for sale!

Now with Google Product Search, when someone does a search for that baby blanket, they’ll have the option of narrowing the search down to only baby blankets available for purchase online, just by clicking the Shopping option from the lefthand navigation menu.

Even better, where that same baby blanket query would have previously turned up image results at the top of the search page, it will now show pictures and prices of items for sale. 

What does this mean for you and your online store?

It means you'll be able to add your products to Google's Shopping database, which will help streamline you and your website to the front of any relevant search queries.

As a valued Web123 customer, over the next couple weeks we'll be rolling out a way to set this up entirely for you, because you and your products are front-page worthy.

Tell us what you think of Google Shopping. Leave a comment below.

Download our free eBook ‘7 Secrets to a Hugely Profitable Website’ to learn more about how what it takes to be great online.

Myer is now selling products direct from China by setting up another site called myfind.com.

According to Forrester Research, the online retail sectors in Australia alone grew 17.5% to $28 billion last year but about a quarter of all online sales are going overseas.

Here are some quick and cheap ideas you can implement straight away to help make your website a better marketing tool for your business and hopefully increase website conversions.

Tip #1: Don’t sell. Solve problems instead.

Writing good web content is not easy. Its way harder than writing for print so unfortunately you can’t just reuse what you did for your last brochure. Your copy needs to be engaging, emotionally charged. Use the right keywords in the right places and be all about your customers. You need to identify their pains, fears and concerns then use great copy to clearly assure your customers how you’re going to solve their problems.

Our suggestion for most small businesses is that it’s worth hiring a professional copywriter to do the job right from the outset. Your copy is so important and can be such a mammoth task that it’s worth bringing a professional in, even if it’s only to do a touch-up on what you’ve already written.
 

Power task: Print out each page on your website and grab a yellow highlighter. Go through and highlight how many times you use the word “we”. Now go and rewrite it so it’s reads “you” instead. This is a simple way to ensure you’re writing about your customers needs instead of your own.

Tip #2: Start an Email Newsletter.

If you think you don’t have time to create and send a monthly newsletter, you could be cutting your nose off to spite your face. It’s the perfect way to stay in touch with prospects and remind them to come back to your website and when compared to traditional forms of advertising, it’s dirt cheap.

If you’ve got a Web123 website, it’s built in to your site so you can create an entire campaign in minutes. If not, there are loads of mailout programs out there, like Mailchimp, you can use.

The trick is to get creative with how you present it. Don’t just call it a boring old ‘newsletter’.  Who’s going to subscribe to that?  Our inboxes are already overloaded with junk mail these days. Instead of saying ‘Join our Newsletter’, try ‘Free Expert Tips & Success Strategies to Make You More Profitable’. And don’t be afraid to add incentive for signing up by offering something for free. 

Offer them something of value. Then deliver just that.

Fact:  We changed our newsletter subscription opt-in copy from ‘Join our Newsletter’ to ‘Free Weekly Advice’ and our conversions increased by 3600%. It’s powerful stuff.

Tip #3: Develop a free guide or eBook.

eBooks are a great way to capture leads and provide real, genuine value to your prospects that they’ll appreciate. It will position you as an expert in your industry and help build trust. Not to mention it will help put you in the front of those prospects' minds when it comes time for them to buy. Think about some of the key questions you get asked all the time; list them then write a short book or guide. It doesn’t have to be an epic, just a few pages will do.

When it comes to the title of your new masterpiece, provide a compelling solution to a problem. Be sure to include a subtitle explaining in more detail what it’s about and, if possible, try to include related keywords. Try to make the title compelling so people absolutely must download it to learn more about your offering.

Here’s an example:

          Get Your Free Website Starter Kit
          The top 5 critical things you MUST know before spending a cent on web!

Now here’s the trick. Don’t just throw it up on your site and let anyone download it. Use it in exchange for their name and email address instead. Simply create an opt-in form but remember you don’t want to scare people off, so don’t get too greedy with the fields you put in your form. Just keep it to a minimum until they get to know you better.

Here's an example of simple opt-in form:

There are six main steps to getting started to creating a successful ad on Facebook.

1.) Identify your goals

What do you hope to achieve through advertising on Facebook? Do you want more people to “like” your Fan Page? sign up for an event? buy a featured product off your website? 

If you can't decide between multiple goals, try running more than one ad simultaneously to find out what works best for you. Facebook Ads offer great tracking tools so you can adjust and readjust your ads however you see fit to best suit your needs. 
 

2.) Identify your audience

Who do you want to reach via your ad? Facebook allows for unbelievable targeting by demographic, so if you know your customers are Sydney mothers in their early 30s, you can restrict the ads so that they only display for people who match that criteria. Via the self service tool (more about that in a moment), you can target ads based on age, gender, location (current or hometown), education level, political views, birthday, relationship status, languages spoken, or any other affiliation you can possibly imagine. No other tool on the internet allows you to segment your audience quite like this, so take advantage and get to know your customers.

You can also target Facebook users who either are or are not already affiliated with your business. Say you want to put an ad up for a special offer that would be best suited for those already familiar with your business. Just target your ad to people who have already "liked" your Fan Page. Easy! On the flip side, if you want to place an ad to attract new customers, you’d set it so the ad only displays to people who haven’t already "liked" your Page.

Pro Tip: Beware of being TOO specific in your segmenting! While you may be able to describe your ideal customer to a tee, be careful not to be so specific that you exclude prospects. Following the example above, 30-something-year-old mothers from Brisbane might still be part of your demographic if you're selling a product that can be shipped, and you won’t want to miss them. Try to find a balance between targeting your perfect client and braodcasting to the entire internet. 

3.) Create your ad

Most of the ads you see on Facebook are set up through an easy-to-use self service tool. The self service tool is designed for individual marketers, not big agencies. Even if you’ve never advertised online (or at all!), it’s something you can easily handle. It will guide you step-by-step through all your Facebook Ads options. 

Pro Tip: When going through the "Targeting" section of the self service tool, you'll see a box along the righthand side that gives you an estimate of how many people Facebook expects you'll be able to reach with your ad based on the criteria you've set. 

4.) Set your budget

Facebook Ads allow you to price your campaign several different ways. First, you'll need to decide your overall budget. How much do you want to invest? This amount will depend greatly on what your goals for the ads are. Second, you'll need to decide whether you want to pay per impression (number of times the ad is displayed) or pay per click (number of times the ad is clicked). If this sounds way too complicated, spend a little time going through Facebook's Advertising Help section.

5.) Review FB’s advertising policies

Warning! Just because it’s really easy to create ads on Facebook doesn’t mean it’s a easy to keep them. Facebook is notoriously picky about technicalities (see: Facebook Advertising Guidelines) to make sure you're playing by their rules. 

Pro Tip: Be extra cautious when posting any sort of contest, promotion, or other incentive to click in your ad unless it's been pre-approved by Facebook. With as much traffic as Facebook gets daily, they're extremely cautious of potential spammers. Unauthorized promotions can get your ad removed, or worse, your account suspended!

6.) Analyse and adjust

Since you now have well-defined goals and a well-defined audience for your Facebook Ads campaign, gauging your success will be easy peasy using the reports tool. You'll be able to see the just how well your ad has done and the demographic information of who has responded to it. Use this information to make changes to your ads and maximize your marketing dollar.

Want more help advertising your brand on Facebook? Web123 offers expert assistance in Pay Per Click advertising for both Facebook and search engines. 

But remember that there’s no point getting to the #1 spot in Google if everyone’s clicking on the website sitting at #2 or #3.

The Meta Title and Meta Description of your website give you control over how your listing appears in the Google results.

The Meta Title (or SEO Title) of your website generally appears in the title bar of your visitor’s web browser.

Quite simply: you want other people’s websites to link to your website. You can think of it like a “vote” for the awesomeness of your website. The more votes, the higher your Google rank!

But the wrong kind of votes could have negative repercussions for your ranking! If Google doesn’t approve of your links you could get demoted or removed from their listings.

What to do

Approach non-competitors in your industry and ask if they’ll link to you. Think about (if you have them)

• Suppliers
• Dealers
• Retailers
• Wholesalers

Think about complimentary products or services: If you sell baby toys, think about approaching companies who sell baby clothes.

The key is to think about whether real people visiting those websites would find a link to your website relevant and useful.

Create things that people want to link to. 

If you can write engaging and useful blog posts, articles or ebooks that people can get excited about: they might link back to yours! Find industry related blogs and websites and start commenting: don't just link back to your own website (that looks like spamming!) but try and create a dialogue and relationship with whoever wrote the post: chances are that they'll be curious about you and click through to your blog. If you've written engaging blog posts and articles they just might mention you!

Of course, if you don't have time to write blog posts or articles: we can help!

What not to do

Don’t get unrelated websites to link to you. Would somebody looking at a website about a Chiropractor in Carlton really find a link to a Toy Store in Wagga useful and relevant? No. But if someone was looking at a Bed and Breakfast they may very well be interested in your Winery just down the road!

Don’t pay for links. The idea is to add links that will benefit the visitors to a website. If your link benefits their visitors (in a non-competitive way, of course!) then payment shouldn’t be required. Some SEO companies will offer you a certain number of ‘backlinks’ for a fee. But you won’t necessarily know who’s linking to you and remember: you’re the one that is going to suffer if Google removes your listing!

Don’t participate in link exchange schemes. Say you approach the Bed and Breakfast and ask them to link to your Winery website. They might ask that you link to them back – fair enough! Swapping links may very well benefit both of you. But a link exchange scheme is different: that’s where you link to a certain number of people and a certain number of people link back to you (usually for a fee). Google can spot these a mile away, don’t risk it!

The Golden Rule

You know, and I know, that what you really want is to appear higher in the Google search results: but when performing any Search Engine Optimisation you need to ask yourself the following question:

Is this useful for real people (not just Search Engines)? If Google changed its algorithm tomorrow, would you still be comfortable with what you’re doing? 

Useful Links

• Link advice from Smart Company
• Google's Guidelines

Haven't got time to burn getting quality links for your website? Talk to us about Search Engine Optimisation SEO where we take care of the link building for you. Check out our cost-effective SEO Packages.

The basics:

Where your website is like a booklet, brochure, or even catalogue of your business, a lens is like a single-page flyer. Imagine Squidoo as the biggest digital bulletin board ever, and Google absolutely loves it. By cooking the information you have on your website down to a single page of content, you make it easier for search engines to find. And, while much of it might just be a repetition of what your website says, saying it again means you’ve just doubled your potential exposure.

Squidoo was founded on the philosophy that, “Everyone’s an expert on something.” You might not think of yourself in precisely those terms, but as a business owner, you are an expert in your field. Squidoo is the perfect place to showcase your specialty through creating lenses.

How it works:

You have a website, but want more traffic. You go to Squidoo.com and create a related lens (aka: flyer) about your industry, a product you sell, or any other tangentially related topic. WITHOUT BEING SPAMMY, reference your business name and regularly link back to your website.

And did I mention Squidoo is completely free?

How to use it:

You can create as many Squidoo lenses as you want. Make one for each sort of product or service you offer. For instance, say your company sells wine. You could create one lens about certain varieties of wine, one about a wine gift giving guide, another lens about wine pairings, and yet another lens about tips for buying wine online. All of which will point back to your website, where the customer will have an opportunity to actually purchase… your wine! This is a great way to expand and explore new keywords that might drive additional traffic to your site.

Did you know that Web123 can write, design and create your own Squidoo Page to help drive more quality traffic to your site? See our Squidoo Page Design service now.

Looking for more marketing help and ideas? Download Web123’s free eBook: 47 Best Ways To Promote Your Site. 

Newsfeed is a staple feature of Facebook– it’s where all activity on the site is channelled for friends, fans, and most importantly, potential clients to see. The default display on this feed is Top Stories, which are the most popular posts and updates within your network.

While Facebook isn’t exactly handing out the actual formula they use, we do know a thing or two about what tends to be “stickier”, and a few tips for keeping your posts in your potential customers’ line of vision.

• Relationship – Someone in your network might have posted the most amazing video of all time, but if it’s someone you haven’t interacted with since that one drunken night in Phuket, Facebook assumes that you don’t much care nor need to see that person’s updates. As a business owner, that means if you’re not interacting with your fans, the chances of them seeing your posts is significantly less.
   
• Type of post – Not all posts are created equal.  Edgerank tends to prefer media posts (photos, videos, links) over status updates, so if you are going to post about a new product, try adding a photo.
   
• Engagement – Numbers don’t lie. The more comments and “likes” a post has, the more likely it is to appear as a top story. Try asking questions; you know who your Facebook audience is, talk to them!
   
• Time – Last but not least, it’s worth noting that everything about Newsfeed is time sensitive. Posts will only be visible through Newsfeed for a short time, so make sure you're adding quality content on a regular basis. 

Why does all this matter? The more time your post stays in Top Stories, the more eyes that will see it, and the more valuable those “likes” to your Fan Page become.

Too busy to manage your Facebook fan page? Web123 offers some great Social Media Management packages designed for small businesses. We get to know your potential customers and we create an environment that they love to visit, chat about, engage with and be a part of.  We build you a community of dedicated followers (both on the big social media pages and on your own blog), willing to gladly accept your advertising, to showcase your products in their space and even to brag to all their friends about it! Find out more.

There is a lot more to social media for businesses than reconnecting with grade school friends or going on about what you had for lunch! Used with the right branding strategies, social media can be your company’s #1 PR rep, sales person and ambassador …all in one!
 

Here are 7 tips for using social media to promote and market your website:

Social Media For Businesses is what we're all about. View our Social Media for Businesses Design Packages now.

Looking for more marketing ideas? Consider delivering your business info directly to your clients' and potential clients' inboxes with Email Marketing. Find out more information on how Web123 can help you market your business with Email Direct Marketing. 

You can advertise on these keywords using Pay Per Click advertising but you’ll also want to use these keywords and key-phrases in your website content.
 

What is website content?

What we mean by ‘content’ is the text on the pages of your website. The most important website content is the text on your homepage.

If you offer specific products or services that you know (from your keyword research) that people are searching for you’ll probably want to look carefully at the content on the pages of your website dedicated to those products or services.

Before you start

Make some notes about your current position in Google for the Keywords and Key-Phrases that you’re focussing on. Also take a look at your current traffic levels and conversion rates. Most people find that the traffic and conversion rates change over the course of a week (you may be busier on weekends (or weekdays) or month (you may be busier at the beginning or end of a month).

Depending on how much your traffic varies, you may want to wait a couple of weeks or a month before you judge success or failure of your changes.

But either way you’ll need a baseline to use for comparison once you make your changes. So make sure you’ve got your data! (If you’re using Web123 statistics or Google Analytics your data won’t go anywhere: but make sure you know what changes you made and when you made them!).

• Where are you ranking right now?
   
• How does your traffic vary over a week or month?
   
• Record the dates that you make major changes

What to do

You should aim to use each of your keywords or key-phrases at least once or twice in your homepage content. Don’t go overboard: just repeating your keywords over and over again won’t help your ranking and will put your customers off! 

Aim to have 1-2 short paragraphs on your homepage and try to have one key-word or key-phrase per sentence. If you’ve got a large number of keywords you might try focussing on the most important keywords or key-phrases for your homepage: and use more product-specific or service-specific keywords on pages dedicated to those products or services.

If you’ve only got a few keywords? that’s okay! if your business is very focussed you may only have one or two keywords that are worth focussing on.

• Use each keyword once or twice (no more than 3 times)
   
• Don't repeat your keywords over and over
   
• 1-2 short paragraphs
   
• At least one key word or phrase per sentence

Strike a balance

It can be tempting to stuff all of your keywords into your copy: but remember that you still need to sell to the visitors that hit your website! 

Repeating yourself or dropping in irrelevant terms will make your text look clunky and spammy: make sure that you're content is still readable and immediately outlines the benefits of dealing with you.

• Be readable and engaging
   
• Outline the benefits of your products/services

Read more copywriting tips.

What's next?

Remember that it can take 1-2 weeks for Google to re-spider (look at, read and index) your website. After your site has been re-indexed have a look at your position in Google for each of your keywords and key-phrases. How does it compare to where you were before you made changes? Do the same for your traffic levels and conversion rates.

Use these results to decide what to change next! 

If you're having trouble working your keywords into your copy without sacrificing readability (or you don't have the time to craft your copy yourself) check out our Copywriting Services. 

Where to start

Think about:

• What words do you use to describe your products or services?
   
• What words do other people in your industry use to describe your products or services? Your competitors, suppliers or dealers?
   
• What words do your customers (or your competitors’ customers) use to describe your products or services?
   
• What words do people who aren’t yet your customers use to describe your products or services?

Are they the same words or terms? Remember that people who don’t live and breathe your industry may use different words than the “correct” terms. They won’t be as familiar with brand names or product names (or conversely, they may only know the most popular brand names and not the more generic terms!)

Also try:

• Listening carefully to the way your customers talk: what are they asking for, what words are they using to describe your products or services? Make notes!
   
• Asking your customers, friends or acquaintances what words they’d use to ask about your products or services
   
• Looking at your competitors’ websites or marketing collateral. If they’ve done their research you might be able to benefit from that!

Group your keywords by the type of people who are likely to use them and think about what they’re looking for from you. Who do you want to target?

What’s next?

Once you’ve got a list of key words and key phrases you’ll want to hit the web to compare the search volumes on those terms.

The best place to look is the Google AdWords Keyword Tool.

You’ll be able to use the Google AdWords Keywords tool even if you don’t have an AdWords (pay-per-click advertising on Google) account.

Need help with your keyword research? Web123's specialised web copywriters can help. 
Get in touch with us today.

Setting up a Facebook business page is a great way to advertise and sell, but so many small businesses give up before they succeed, why? One of the necessary components for using Facebook for business is to have a dedicated fan base. Without fans interacting on your page, it can seem like you are talking to yourself. There’re plenty of ways to grow your fanbase, it just takes time, consistency and a bit of determination!
 

Saying Hi!

When you like a page, don’t just click the like, post a quick hello on the wall.  Don’t sell or demand they visit your page too, never post a picture or any other advertising material, simply say hi and that you are interested in the topic of the page.  If the page owner is interested in your brand, they may like your page in return.
 

How To Use Facebook For Small Business

To start, you will need to create your own Facebook account (if you don't already have one!). Make sure you fill out your profile with your real name and other details, - remember your profile is always about you, not your business. It violates Facebook rules to have a business profile (or more than one profile), so you risk getting deleted, besides, a person profile allows your friends to find you more easily (and your friends will probably be your first business fans!).

You can create and manage as many Facebook pages as you like – Facebook pages are designed specifically for businesses and organisations.

Watch this hilariously funny and quick 4-minute presentation by Alexis Ohanian to see the full story of what's possible in the Facebook age.

Alexis Ohanian: How to make a splash in social media

Here are our top 5 reasons why should be diving right in to email marketing:
 

1. Remind your visitors you exist.

9 times.  That’s how many visits a customer will make on average before they buy from your website.  That’s a lot.  Good EDM hurries things along by enabling you to market direct to potential buyers in a more timely and targeted way.  Think about it.  If someone visits your site and doesn’t buy from you the first time, how are they going to remember to come back? Chances are they’re not.

2. Build trust and rapport.

Most people buy from people they know, like and trust. Use email marketing to get your visitors to warm to you.  Make your emails personable. Let them feel as though they know you to say hello to in the street. Once they feel like they know you, they’ll feel more confident in buying from you or better still, telling others to buy from you.

3. Keep your clients informed.

Forget snail mail when you need to next let your clients know of changes, or new products, or new products. Use email marketing instead. It’s instant and almost free!

4. It’s cheap! Really cheap!

Email marketing is one of the most cost-effective forms of marketing around today. Don’t believe us? We let you send 1,000 emails per month for just $10. Compared to your traditional forms of marketing, that’s pretty damn cheap. Of course it takes you time to put it together but I know what I’d rather do.

5. It’s fast and easy.

If you want to run an ad in a magazine, you’ve got to plan months ahead. And even newspaper or radio will be weeks. With email, it’s so fast, you could decide to have a promotion and launch it to your audience in just a few hours. Plus, you can do it all yourself because it’s so easy! There are so many email programs on the market today there’s simply no excuse. 

If you have a Web123 website you can send campaigns direct through your Control Panel. Just give us a call to enable it if you’re not yet signed up. If not, give Mailchimp a try. It's awesome, really easy and will make you smile.

Just remember, send relevant and quality content that people are interested in. Make sure you do your research. There’s plenty of info on how to create successful email campaigns. Just ask Google. Stick to a schedule whether it’s daily, weekly or monthly and only send to those that have opted in to receive information from you.

You’ll soon fall in love with email marketing as a huge profit spinner for your business.

Got an interesting comment? Talk to us!

From the simplest of newsletters, to getting serious with targeted campaigns, Web123 helps you send professionally branded emails that capture attention, strengthen relationships and increase sales. Find out more about our email marketing services.

Often email marketing works in seamlessly with client-specific information – for example, Qantas send out Frequent Flyer points balance emails to all their Frequent Flyers every month – this includes their point balance, but also always a couple of special offers: flight specials, credit cards, or accommodation.

People who buy products marketed through email spend 138% more than people who do not receive email offers - there’s a reason why 83% of marketers choose email as the most important advertising medium.

Email Marketing is not a way to generate new leads: Don’t be a spammer.

I’m going to repeat that: Email marketing is not a way to generate new leads. There’s a name for trying to do that – it’s called Spamming. It’s common practice in some markets to buy lists of email addresses – maybe up to a couple of million people at a time, but it’s never a good idea.

No matter how tempted you might be, seriously, just don’t do it. Not only can it make you look really, really bad (lumping you in with Russians touting knock-off pharmaceuticals and mail-order brides), it’s also illegal under Australian law. You can be fined tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars for flagrant breaches.

But what’s the best argument against spamming? It doesn’t work! See this article from MailChimp (superstars of email marketing): 

So who do you target? Simple – your existing network. All your existing and previous customers and contacts are prime targets, as well as anyone who’s filled out a lead capture form on your website. Just make sure you don’t include anyone who’s previously told you they don’t want to hear from you, and make it easy for them to get off your list (unsubscribe)!

TIP:  The easiest way to know if what you’re doing is legitimate is this: do you have permission from each and every person on your list to send them emails? If you built your list by using lead capture, you should have collected permission when you captured the leads. If the answer for anyone on the list is no – don’t send them an email.

The Most cost effective form of marketing

Email Marketing is the most cost effective form of marketing out there. Perhaps this is because – when done right – everyone you’re talking to is already a customer or has already “engaged” with you in one way or another (signed up, downloaded an eBook, etc); so you’ve already got their interest – the initial building of trust is already done.

For all those leads you’ve meticulously gathered, segmented and classified – now that they’re in your database, it’s time to help them get to know you. Consider writing the email from you personally as the business owner – you want to connect with people. Think about your existing customers – do they know about all your products and services? There might be services you have that they’ve never needed, but when it comes time for them to find someone, will they think of you?

So - what works?

From our experience, here’s three steps to successful email campaigns:

1. Firstly, share something personal about yourself but relevant to your audience. -  (this is where blog posts can come in!)
    
2. Then educate them in some way about what they’re interested in. (this is where cherry picking content from your lead capture ‘products’ can come in!)
    
3. Finally, sell them relevant services and products you have to offer that help solve their problems

If you plan your website well, you should be able to re-use content from the website heavily in your email marketing – you shouldn’t have to write much for your regular newsletter except a brief introduction and possibly a signoff.

Remember that your email marketing campaigns in themselves should not be a dead end – make sure you encourage readers to engage with you further:

• Invite them to join you on Facebook and/or Twitter. 
   
• Encourage them to click to read more so you can drive them to your site.
   
• Offer readers ‘one time offers’ – in this way, you can make additional money from every stage of your sales pipeline. Are there any low-cost items that a prospect could buy before or after a “major” purchase? Remember you can sell your expertise here too – putting eBooks up on your website for sale is a common and accepted practice.

Make sure you segment your lists – in most cases it’s good practice to send one kind of newsletter to your existing clients and another to your prospects (the aims, and the emotional hot buttons you’re going to be working with may be quite different).

Make sure that however you send your emails, you’re able to measure your success through campaign reporting tools. They may be built into the email marketing platform you use, the CMS behind your website, or you may need to plug in third party analytics (this is a bit trickier). 

However you do it – make sure you know what percentages of people are:

• Reading your emails (approximately)
   
• Clicking links in your emails
   
• Enquiring or buying something after following a link from your emails
   
• Unsubscribing from your emails

By comparing these rates to the content in your emails (or the frequency at which you’re sending them out!) you can get the balance right. Always test and measure.

Lastly – make sure that you’re constantly building your list! Collect consent to send email marketing wherever you can – not just on the website: at trade shows, in your shop, when you meet people. The list is king!

Share what works for your business. Leave us a comment.

This is an excerpt from our E-book 7 Secrets to a Hugely Profitable Website. Download and read the whole thing - your bottom line will thank you for it!

Don't start with a whimper

Never treat your homepage like any other page. This is where you introduce yourself to the world and is not the time to greet all those people with the equivalent of a limp, clammy handshake. You have just seconds to make an impression. Make it a good one with catchy headlines, well written introductory copy and eye-catching visuals, like a well-produced introductory video.

Don't be too clever  

No one likes a smarty pants. Big words that the average thesaurus hasn't even heard of might look impressive to you, but not to the poor people who have to read your content. Your average reader will only stop and look up the meanings of little-used words up to a certain point; after that they'll quit your site altogether. Keep written content simple so that everyone understands what you're on about.

Don't be too fancy

Same goes for the visual components of your website. Fantastic graphics and introductory videos add an exciting edge to your website – but when the visuals overshadow your information-laden written content, then you've gone too far. Visuals should complement, not distract. Avoid the temptation to throw in another fancy visual trick just because you can.

Don't be rude

Ignoring your audience is one of the worst things you can do when compiling website content. If you make the content all about yourself, without acknowledging the wants and needs of your readers, then you're guilty of first degree ignorance. And nobody likes being ignored. Don't just tell your readers how good you are – tell them how good you can be for them.

Don't be irrelevant

Irrelevance leads to confusion, as your reader loses focus on what your website is actually about. It's easy to get off track and meander into areas that have nothing to do with the primary topic. To stop this happening, regularly check your website content and make sure it is all relevant to the original concept AND your readers. Check that the funny story you're dying to tell actually ties in with the rest of your written copy. Check your visual elements too. Don't use that nice picture or entertaining video if it is not relevant to the rest of your website content.

Don't be unprofessional

Never go online without checking your website content for spelling and grammatical errors. One small mistake can be more memorable than all the really good things on your website – people remember errors, and are distracted by them. Checking your spelling and grammar is the right, and professional, thing to do.

Your website is competing against thousands, maybe even millions of other sites. Having great content within your website will help lift it above the pack. Hopefully, all this 'don't' business will have that positive effect!

Tell us what you think. Leave us a comment below.

If you want a money-makin', profit shakin' website for your small business then you'll love our Small Business Web Design. It's one all inclusive, no hidden costs and no holds barred website offer that puts others to shame. Check it out now.

Engaging. Charming. Seductive. The sort of content the reader couldn't possibly tear their eyes away from. Fortunately, it's relatively easy to make your website content as alluring as the visuals. Just follow a few rules and you'll keep your readers reading.

The golden rule of website content

This rule is the most important rule of all when it comes to writing website content. If you break this rule you might as well kiss your reader goodbye. The golden rule of website content is this – you must engage your reader within the first 10 seconds. If they're not hooked within that very short space of time, they never will be.

This is why you must work extra hard on your headline and opening sentences. Make sure your headline grabs their attention. It might do that by promising to solve a problem or satisfy a desire. The headline for this article might not be the most creative headline ever devised but for a reader who is perplexed by the business of writing website content, it is certainly enticing. Well it enticed you, didn't it?

Follow up your strong headline with interesting and relevant introductory sentences that promise even greater things to come. Do those things – within 10 seconds – and your readers are more likely to read everything you've written.

Have something to say

The next step in creating compelling website content may seem a little obvious but it's amazing how much web content tells you absolutely nothing. Take a look at a few websites and see for yourself.

So please, if you're going to say something, have something to say! So many people, when creating a website, opt for witty phrases and cute puns that have all the substance of a meringue - just to fill an empty space. This space is much better filled with relevant and authoritative copy that intersects with the thoughts, concerns and passions of your reader. In other words, compelling website content makes a direct connection with the reader. It says 'I understand you'. ‘I know what concerns you'. 'This is how I can help you'.

To make this connection, do some market research about your reader, and the things that interest or concern them. By knowing your reader, you'll know what they want to read. Sounds obvious – but not too many people get it.

I could be so good for you

When writing web content, avoid the temptation to make it all about you. Of course it is about you to an extent; but try and look at things through the eyes of your average reader. As far as they're concerned it should be all about them: What do they want? What is their problem? What is their deepest desire?

Instead of using "we" or "our", replace it with "you" instead.  Whenever you write about yourself, balance the equation by pointing out how the good things you do are done with the reader in mind.

One idea per paragraph

This article is broken up into sections for a very good reason. Imagine all the words on this page merged into one big block. Not at all appealing to the reader.  And certainly not good at highlighting that really great idea.

When writing web content, go for one idea per paragraph; this gives your brilliant idea breathing space and makes your content much more reader-friendly.

Be easy to find

Litter your headings and copy with keywords so that potential readers will find you. A density of up to 5% should do the trick.

After all, what's the point of writing compelling website content if nobody finds it?!

Find a friend

Do you have one of those friends who always tells it like it is? A blunt and direct character who gives their opinion freely and without fear or favour? Good, you're in luck. Before you post your content, let your friend read it. If they're true to form they'll tell you what's good about it (and what's not so good).

Better to have a friendly critic at this point than a not so friendly critic who is about to move onto another site because yours isn't up to scratch.

Having read those tips you're probably thinking ' Is it really as simple as all that?’ It is, if you keep these tips in mind. Just remember - many of your competitors will create their website content without using these guidelines. So, by following these tips you'll gain a competitive edge while creating compelling website content.

What's the best advice you've recieved when it comes to how to write a website? Leave a comment below.

If you'd rather leave your website writing content to the pros and get back to your core business, Web123 offer some great Content Writing Services.  Check them out today or give us a call on 1800 932 123 to have a chat about your content needs.

To get a better handle on exactly what your website can do for your bottom line, you’ll need to get down to the nitty gritty. Only then can you analyse what you'll need to do to reach your goals.
 

Let’s get started.

1. Firstly, study your stats!

I can’t stress this enough. Don’t get so obsessed with them that you have withdrawals when you’re not near your computer, but study them at least once a week. If you haven’t got a Google Analytics account yet, set one up. It’s free and you can wire it up to your site to give you very valuable information on your visitors’ behaviour. (If you’re a Web123 client, we can easily plug in Google Analytics to your website.)

When studying your stats, look at the following:

• Number of unique visitors
   
• Number of page views - then the average number of pages viewed per person.
   
• Bounce rate - this is the rate at which people hit your home page then straight away leave.
   
• Number of Conversions - this could be an enquiry, newsletter subscription, sale etc.
   
• Most popular pages
   
• Traffic sources - where did they come from?  Google?  Bing?  Email newsletter?  Facebook?  Twitter?  Direct?
   
• What keywords did they type in Google to find you?

There’s plenty more but just start by getting your head around the above.

2. Now let’s work out your conversion rate.

You now know what a conversion is. Next you need to know your conversion rate. This is important so make sure you set aside some time to study yours.

To work out your conversion rate, divide the number of conversions by the number of visitors you get to your site over a certain period of time. Eg. If 500 visits nets you 5 sales, your conversion rate is 1%.

Now let’s imagine you sell widgets for $50 each.  And you want to generate an extra $20,000 in widget sales per year through your website. That means you need to sell 400 widgets per year, right? To make the maths simple, let’s say that equates to 7 widgets per week, or one a day.

We know that your conversion rate is 1%, so if you want to make 1 sale per day to meet your goal of $20,000, you’ll need to attract at least 100 people per day to your website.

You can now see that if you’re only attracting 10 people per day to your website and your conversion rate is 0.5% – 1%, which is quite normal, you might need to look at ways at increasing your exposure. Which leads us to your traffic...

3. How do you get more traffic?

As I mentioned in this week’s newsletter, your website will never generate leads for your business. Someone doesn’t just type your address and land on your site unless they’ve seen or heard about you through some other form of marketing or word of mouth.

The secret then is using the right tactics to drive quality traffic to your site. Be aware that you need the right kind of traffic too. It’s not just about numbers. You need to provide your website with a steady flow of leads and quality traffic for it to do it’s job for you.

Here are some great ways to increase traffic to your site:

Search Engine Optimisation SEO or is the process of moving your page up the ranks of Google so people can find you. It’s probably the most popular with small businesses on a budget and you can do a lot of it yourself for free. There’s tons of information out there on SEO and how you can optimise your website to make it effective with search engines. It is time consuming so if you’d rather stick to what you know, you can pay an SEO expert to do it for you. Also see our blog posts What is SEO? and Growing your business with Google.

Online Advertising can vary hugely online. You can advertise with Google Adwords where you Pay Per Click for traffic. Facebook now also has Facebook Ads which can be highly targeted and sometimes more cost-effective than Adwords – especially if your industry is competitive online.

You can also advertise on other websites or blogs with advertisements or get an ad in a newsletter with a large subscriber base. The trick here would be to offer something for free as a hook so you can capture people’s details and put them on your own list instead of always paying to use someone elses

Social Media has come a long way and it’s now easier than ever to make a success of your business using Facebook or Twitter to name a few. In the old days you were told to sell, next you were told to market.. nowadays it’s all about “engaging” – which is just advertising talk for making people feel emotional about your product or service. Use social media to link to your website, eBooks, products or blog. If other people also share the link love, it’ll help your search engine rankings.

Email Marketing has got to be one of the best forms of advertising around today and is the preferred method for most of the top marketers around the world. It’s said that  a customer needs to visit your site 9 times before they buy from your website.  That’s a lot.  Good email marketing hurries things along by enabling you to market direct to potential buyers in a more timely and targeted way.  Use regular email marketing to remind people who you are and prompt them to visit your website. It’s powerful stuff. 

Content Marketing is so important if you’re to rake in real profits from your site. Create videos relevant to your audience and publish them on YouTube, share presentations you’ve done on Slideshare, create eBooks and publish on Scribd. You could also write relevant articles and get them published on high volume websites. Good articles will position you as the expert and in most cases you can get a link back to your website and potentially generate a truck load of traffic. (Google will look kindly upon you also if you have links on high ranking sites.)

Don’t forget about blogging either. Blogging gives you the opportunity to penetrate new markets, gain valuable backlinks (Google loves them!), sell your products, build your mailing list and so much more, FREE!

But don't stop here; I’ve really only scratched the surface! These are just a few ideas of what you could do online. Don’t forget about all that you can do offline to drive leads to your site.

It takes a lot of hard work and perseverance to make it big online but with such wealth of information at your fingertips, anyone can do it.

Start with your stats, know your conversion rate, then work out what tactics you’re going to use to feed your website the nutrients it needs to keep the traffic levels up and be a huge success for your business. 

What works for you? Tell us all about your wins and losses. Share your thoughts.

Prefer to leave it to the experts? Web123 has a whole suite of small business online marketing services available to suit all budgets. See our SEO packages, PPC Services and Social Media Content Marketing service to learn more.

There are several ways to harness Google to draw in more customers and get more sales!
 

Organic Search Results

When you do a search on Google you’ll generally see two different types of results. “Organic” or “Natural” search results are the main list of search results.

Google decides which sites appear in the Organic search listings and the algorithm they use to determine the order of results is not known to the public. We do know that Google is trying to provide searchers with quality links. The process of improving your website in the eyes of Google is referred to as Search Engine Optimisation.

Once your website is appearing in the listings for keywords related to your business, products or services the next step is to make sure that people are visiting your website. Before a visitor clicks through to your site they’ll have an opportunity to view a preview of your site. If you’re using a Web123 website you’ll already know that your website looks attractive and professional, but if you’re not a Web123 customer (yet) take a look at the preview of your website in Google and make sure that you look good compared to your competitors.
 

How to Get There

Techniques to boost your position are called Search Engine Optimisation. Some simple SEO techniques you may be able to do yourself, or you can engage the services of a Search Engine Optimisation specialist.
 

How much it Costs

If you do SEO yourself, you won’t pay anything - but it will take up time that may be better spent making sales! SEO Consultants vary in price and there’s a large amount of Snake Oil out there – be very careful when engaging SEO services. Do your research carefully to make sure that you’re dealing with some reputable, or ask for a recommendation.
 

What to watch out for

Never engage the services of someone who approaches you by email, website enquiry or phone. Almost all of these people are just trying to rip you off!

Dodgy SEO "experts" will generally use “Black Hat” techniques. Watch out! Google will penalise (or even ban!) you for using underhand techniques.

Paid Search Results

As well as the organic search results, Google provides paid results at the top and side of the organic links. These can be distinguished from the Organic Search Results by the background colour, size and placement of the results.

Your listing in paid search results is an advertisement and your position in paid search results is based on how much you’re willing to pay. You’ll pay “per click” which means that you’ll only be charged when visitors actually click through from Google to your website. (This is different to some other advertising schemes where you pay “per impression” – for “per impression” advertising you pay (usually only a very small amount) each time that your advertisement is viewed).
 

How to get there

In order to start appearing in the paid results for Google you’ll set up (or have someone set up and manage for you) a Google Adwords account. You can do it yourself, but you can save yourself a lot of time by engaging the services of a specialist.  
 

How much it costs

The cost per click for Google Adwords depends on the popularity of your chosen keywords. Generally you’ll specify how much you’re willing to spend on clicks in a month and your ad will stop appearing once you’ve used up your monthly quota.

If you’re not managing your Adwords yourself make sure that you know exactly what you’re paying and what for. Ensure you know what you’re paying for the listings and what you’re paying as a management fee.
 

What to watch out for

I’ve heard of so-called experts claiming that they have a “Special Arrangement” with Google and promising better results for a monthly fee – nobody has a special arrangement with Google and you’ll always pay for Google Adwords on a per-click basis (not a monthly fee).

Additional Google Services

As well as appearing in the organic and paid search results, there are a number of other Google services you can sign up to to get more traffic from Google. Google doesn’t charge for Google Places or their coupon service.
 

Google Places

If you’ve got a physical shop or showroom make sure that you set up with Google Places. Google Places are used for local business listings to show potential visitors businesses within their local area. As well as marking your physical location you’ll be able to specify your phone number and your opening hours.
 

Coupons

Once you’ve submitted your listing to Google Places you can create “coupons” or vouchers to be redeemed in store. (Note: these types of coupons can’t currently be redeemed on your Web123 website but if this is something you’re interested in let us know so that we can build it!). Customers can either print the coupon out, or display it in store on their mobile phone.

Need a hand growing your business with Google?

If you need help with SEO, check out Web123's Affordable SEO Packages for small business.  

Nobody knows the exact methods that Google uses to serve up results to people doing searches but Google tries to provide someone doing a Google search with the links that Google thinks they’ll find the most relevant and useful.

The goal of SEO is to convince Google that your website is important, trustworthy and relevant (for a particular search term or terms).
 

If you read up a little on SEO you might find the terms “Black Hat” and “White Hat” floating around. “Black Hat” SEO methods are SEO methods which are trying to trick Google into thinking that your website is more important, trustworthy or relevant than it really is. Black Hat methods often work in the short term but Google are constantly refining and tweaking their ranking methods and will quickly penalise (or even ban entirely) websites which appear to have gained their ranking undeservedly.

Importance

Visitors tend to want to visit sites that are important or popular. Pages are assigned a “Page Rank” which is used to rank how important Google thinks a given page is. This is closely tied to the number (and quality) of links which point to you. If a lot of other websites are linking through to your website, you can think of those links as “Votes” for your website. Links from highly ranked pages are themselves more valuable.

Do: Approach your suppliers or dealers and ask them to link to your website

Don’t: Piss off your customers in the hopes that they’ll link to you through negative reviews.

Trustworthiness

I’ve mentioned that lots of websites linking through to your website increases your ranking, but before you go and sign up for a “link farm” (a website whose only purpose is to link to people, with the goal of increasing the destination websites’ page rank) you’ll need to know that links from important websites will help you appear more important but links from untrustworthy sources are worse than useless – they can actually hurt your ranking!

Some SEO companies will encourage you to hide text on your website by making it the same (or similar) colour to the background, or by using other means to hide text from the eyes of your visitors and only show it to search engines. They may also try redirecting your website. There are innumerable “tricks” they can use but remember: Google knows most of these underhand tricks by now and the ones it doesn’t know it soon will. You might get short term gain by employing nefarious SEO techniques but sooner or later you’ll be penalised (or banned) from Google results for them.

Relevance

Before your potential visitor can see your listing in Google they’ll need to do a web search: what do your customers search for?

A goal of SEO is to establish which search terms your customers or potential customers search for and then ensuring that your website is optimised for those terms. Make sure that the words your customers use are the same ones you use on your website.

By ensuring that your website is and is seen to be important andtrustworthy, your website should appear higher in the rankings when one of your potential customers performs a search which is relevant to your business, products or services.

The actions that you perform on or for your website in order to increase your importance, trustworthiness and relevance in the eyes of Google (and other search engines) are called Search Engine Optimisation.

Got a question about SEO? Ask us in the comments section below.

Did you know?

90% of search engine users will click on a result in the first 3 pages of search engine rankings. What page is your business on?

SEO can be overwhelming and time consuming work. If you need help with SEO, check out Web123's Affordable SEO Packages for small business.  Web123's SEO Services will bring more business to your website.  It’s that simple.

It’s not every day that a business like ours would undergo such a dramatic change after just nine months. However with a growing list of client needs and the pace of the Internet changing so damn fast, it was an easy decision really.

What the last nine months has taught us (and yes, even we are still learning!) is that building your website is just the first little step. Small Business Web Design is one part of it but It’s how you then ensure you make real profits from it that can sometimes be the hardest part.
 

You asked. We listened.

You told us you wanted to know how to drive more traffic to your sites, convert more browsers into buyers, sell more products, collect more leads and ultimately make more money, so we developed a complete range of tools, guides, courses, products and services to help you do just that.

We’ve spent the last four months reinventing ourselves and innovating our business to give you all the right tools you need to take on the big boys and reach your goals. And we sure hope we’ve delivered.

Take a tour of our brand new Products & Services categories and you’ll find:

Getting Started:

Containing a range of products to help you kick off your website on the right foot. From a free Website Starter Kit to ensure you’ve covered off the 5 most critical things when creating a website, to Web123’s own Website Template Customisation, Banner Design and new Logo Design services, we’ve left no stone unturned. If you haven’t got a Web123 Website just yet, start here with our Small Business Web Design offer.
 

Website Packages:

Here you’ll be sure to find an ideal website package to suit your needs. Whether you’re the DIY type, or prefer to leave it to the experts, our Affordable Website Packages range from the Kick Starter Package to the full, double-garage with ensuite, Business Deluxe Website Package.
 

Website Builder:

If you haven’t yet got a Web123 website yet then you might like to read about some of the Benefits of choosing a Web123, why you should choose Web123 and also find out how to get started with our Website Builder.  Visit this section and you’ll also find our Website Builder Demo Video or if you’re the reading type, download our step-by-step instructions and easily create your very own website yourself.
 

Web Design Templates:

Like a kid in a candy store, visit this section to get a taste of almost 100 different website styles just waiting to be devoured with your branding. And for existing clients, remember that once you get tired of your current design, you can easily swap to a new one completely free of charge. Happy browsing!
 

Content Writing Services:

We of all people know how hard it can be to find the right words for your website. There’s so much more to it than stringing together a few sentences about why and when you started your business.

Read more about the importance of copywriting and explore some fantastic options we’ve developed to help turn your boring copy into a selling machine. Check out our Website Copywriting, Blog Writing, Article Writing, Press Release Writing & Distribution and our eBook Writing Services – all neatly packaged at a price you can afford.
 

Social Media Design Services:

Let us pimp up your Facebook page, makeover your Twitter background or go to town with your YouTube channel. Web123’s new Facebook, Twitter and YouTube design service is ready to help you take on the social media arena. Better still, buy a Social Media Design Package and save 20%.
 

Social Media & Content Marketing:

For those that are ready to tackle social media head-on but have no idea where to start, you’ll love our Social Media Strategy. And for ongoing help to manage your social media endeavours and keep up with your website's content strategies, check out our Social Media & Content Packages designed to take the social media burden off your shoulders and generate great leads for your business. If you want to help drive traffic to your site but you only have a limited budget, then our Hub Pages & Squidoo Lenses might be for you. They're a great and cost-effective way to get quick traffic to your site.
 

Online Advertising:

If it’s instant results you want, read more about our Pay Per Click (PPC) packages.  We’ve developed three very affordable packages that include expert management and the price of your clicks for your very own Google Adwords campaign.

If you’re more the DIY type, you might like our Do-It-Yourself PPC Package. We’ll set up your campaign properly, test that it performs over a one-month period then train you on how to effectively manage it yourself - so you can save the monthly management fee. And if you’ve found some websites or blogs you want to advertise on, you can’t go past our Banner & Blog Ads Service, expertly written and designed to get you results.
 

Search Engine Optimisation SEO:

Did you know that 90% of search engine users will click on a result in the first 3 pages of search engine rankings? Where’s your business? If you want to move your website from page 17 to page 1 on Google, then you need our affordable Small Business SEO Packages.

SEO moves your website up the search engine rankings (Google, Yahoo, Bing etc) by making it more appealing and visible to them, and the higher you move through the search engine rankings, the more potential customers (and their wallets) you can reach. Read more about SEO if you’re serious about bringing more business to your website.
 

Courses, Guides & eBooks: 

Web123’s collection of How-to Guides, Training Courses and nifty eBooks are designed to quickly help newbies make sense of online marketing and web design.  They’re easy to understand, packed with useful information, tips and step by step instructions and will give you the confidence to grab onto the Internet and give it a good hard shake!

Member Vs Non-Member pricing

You’ll notice on our new site, the majority of our products vary in price.  This is based on whether you are an existing Web123 website owner (a Member) or have not yet purchased a Web123 website (a Non-Member).

Existing Web123 clients get significant discounts on the services we provide. We’re always looking for awesome ways to look after clients and this is one of them.  It’s our way of saying ‘thanks’.

If you’re not a Web123 Member yet, you will have to pay a little more.  We simply can’t offer the same rates for website owners not using our Web123 platform.  We’d go broke.  I think you’ll agree though, they are still very competitively priced.

Member’s Lounge

…is coming real soon so stay tuned! The new Web123 Member’s Lounge is where you’ll find loads of useful resources all in one handy place.  As we build up our content library with articles, eBooks, training courses, How-to Guides and more, this is where it’ll be housed ready for you to sink your teeth into it when you’ve got a spare hour or two.

We’ll always try to notify you through our newsletters when new content becomes available.  You’ll notice in future newsletters that some content will be for Member’s only whilst other content is for all eyeballs. Feel free to still call us though if you need any help or advice.

Our new and improved blog

Can we just say... We LOVE our new blog! We’re going to feed it with informative yet engaging tips, tricks, lessons, tutorials, advice and whatever else you ask us for!

We’ll try to keep you updated as much as possible through our weekly advice emails but we won’t be able to tell you about all of our new blog posts. Check back regularly to see what’s new or even better, subscribe to our RSS feed so you know the minute they’re posted. We hope you enjoy!

Free Weekly Advice

Along with offering great advice and the success strategies you need to develop your website into a real profit machine, we’d like to also extend an invitation to Web123 members to advertise in our weekly newsletter free of charge. It’s another small thing we can do to help you promote your business online. Details are coming soon so stay tuned. 

Make sure you tell your friends and colleagues too to subscribe also.  We’re all about sharing the love!

Noticed out new tagline?

You might also notice that our tagline has changed from:
 

                                       ‘Build your own website…Easy As!’ 

                                                                   to 

                                       ‘Real People. Real Profits. Easy As.’ 

We felt our previous tagline didn’t position us in the right light now that we are so much more than just another website builder.

A big “thanks” to the clients that gave us feedback and helped us determine where our strengths lie. It was awesome for us to learn exactly what’s important to you in your dealings with us.

Turns out, majority of you value our service and support, our people and our ‘can-do’ attitude along with the affordability of our product and the ease-of-use of the Web123 system. So you can start to see why we’ve chosen ‘Real People. Real Profits. Easy As.’  

Thanks again! We hope you like it as much as we do.

Thanks to our clients. We're feelin' the love!

Finally, an extra big “THANK YOU” goes out to our very special clients who have stood by our side through our journey. You witnessed our birth, our teething pains (hopefully not too many!!) and now our re-birth. We truly hope you’ll embrace our changes and love all that we’ve developed. After all, we’ve done it for you. We want to deliver an exceptional experience for you and your business, for years to come. This is just the beginning really.

Now let’s kick some online butt!

Tell us what you think! We're dying to know! Leave us a comment now.

When it comes time to making your website imagery look great, it’s easy to fall in a heap if you don’t have a huge budget for a professional photographer.  The good news is there is an alternative that’s cheap, easy and plentiful… And no, it’s not what you’re thinking.

Nothing beats the real thing but...

Now before we tell you what the big secret is, be aware that you can never beat ‘real’ photos of your business, especially if you are a café or restaurant. Nothing beats authenticity and originality.  But if you can’t take reasonable quality photos yourself; you can’t pull in any favours from photographer friends (no, not your nephew’s best friend who owns a camera and once took some photos at a school reunion); and you don’t have the budget for a professional photographer, then stock photography might be for you.

Stock photography is the massive bank of images around the world that are licensed for specific use by designers and individuals.  Basically it’s used instead of hiring a photographer.

When browsing stock photography libraries around the world, you’ll find that there are literally millions of images to choose from.

Rights Managed Vs Royalty Free

There are different types of stock photography. Some are ‘Rights Managed’ which means the stock photography company manages the usage rights of the image and you have to have an agreement in place.  This might be that you can use, for an agreed fee, the image on a brochure that your company is printing 2,000 copies of and distributing via a letterbox drop.  If you wanted to use it on your website, you’d have to purchase it again for your web needs.  This can get expensive though and is more something for designers to worry about for on behalf of their clients.

For most small businesses, especially if your budget is a concern, just stick to ‘Royalty Free’ imagery. Royalty Free images allow you to use it for whatever purpose you want (within their Terms of Use of course) and so long as you don’t resell it! And the best part is, there’s plenty of these sites around that offer great images for less than you would pay for a good cappuccino. 

Stock Photography sites to visit

Stock Photography has gained popularity over the years as a great alternative to paying photographers a small fortune to come up imagery for your website or brochures.

Take a look at some of these websites dedicated to Stock Photography:

1. www.shutterstock.com
2. www.bigstock.com
3. www.jupiterimages.com
4. www.dreamstime.com
5. www.istockphoto.com

You’ll have access to millions of photos that you can browse through by industry, keyword, most popular or theme to find just what you’re looking for.

You can even download free photos at sites like www.sxc.hu and www.freerangestock.com

What to pay for stock photography and how to buy

It varies how stock photography suppliers sell their images from site to site. Whether it be for your website, product catalogue, flyer or e-newsletter, you can purchase your stock photo of choice at different sizes and resolution - and the size you choose often affects the price.  So if you only need it to appear quite small on your website, you could purchase the smallest size for $1.00 whereas if you need a high quality print version for a poster design, it might cost you $10.00. It’s better to buy the next size up if you’re not sure though.

Depending on the site, you can buy a number of credits then use those credits depending on how many credits each photo requires.  Or buy a set number of image downloads like 5, 10, 20 or 50 images; or buy a monthly or annual subscription.  If you only need a few images for your site then it’s probably best to buy 20, 50 or 100 credits to keep your expense to a minimum.

Often is the case that the more you pay for an image the better quality it is - but make sure you look around and don’t always fall into this trap of believing it to be true.  It pays to explore.  In a lot of cases you can find the exact same image on another stock site for a lot less. 

Does your site need an image makeover?

So take a look at your website, do an audit on the quality of your imagery and decide whether some professional shots can enhance the overall look and performance of your site. Chances are, it will.

If you’re just embarking on creating your website, browse through some of the stock photography sites mentioned and see what you can find. You’ll be surprised.

If you can afford your morning cup of coffee then you can afford to have a rich, vibrant professional stock image that is going to look great in your website, and move visitors to take action!

Know of any other awesome stock photography sites? Tell us about them. Leave a comment.

If you need a hand choosing the right imagery for your business website, consider Web123’s Banner Design service. We’ll design eye-catching custom banners for you that sell, and with each banner we include the purchase of up to 3 stock photography images for your use.

Understanding social media, and which social media people use, is a very important part of your online marketing strategy. A well designed website is a fantastic selling tool in its own right, but add social media into the mix, such as Facebook or Twitter, and you'll be better able to target the people you most want to impress.

Knowing where to find your perfect customer is a whole lot easier with a few facts and figures at your fingertips. Social media demographics, such as those below, will give you a clear idea of where your tribe is hanging out.

Source: Wikipedia

Social media demographics – not just 50/50

The increase in social media outlets, while not quite an explosion, is still very impressive. Better known applications like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace are now facing competition from up and comers such as Reddit and Ning. This just proves that while focussing on larger social media outlets might put you in touch with a lot of people, they might not be the type of people you're looking for.

It pretty much goes without saying that a little research into social media applications, and how the world uses them, could pay big dividends when you're devising your online marketing strategy.

A little 'social media demographics' Googling could uncover a virtual mine of information. For a start, you'll discover that there is a gender imbalance. Some 60% of Facebook and Twitter users are female, while the fairer sex also dominates Myspace, with about 66% of overall usage. If you want to go where the guys are, check out applications like Reddit and Digg.

Money, social media and you.

As part of your social media research, you'll probably want to know which sites attract the most money.

Recent research shows that LinkedIn, the professional networking site, has considerably more high income followers than other applications.

At the other end of the scale, MySpace and Ning are the social media hangouts of choice for lower income earners. Depending on what you're selling, and how much you charge, this sort of information is vital in helping you formulate your marketing mix.

Social media – a question of age

Just 4% of MySpace users are aged 65 plus. Then again, that figure of 4% features right across the board including Facebook and LinkedIn. The percentage is even lower for Twitter, showing that the more mature market has yet to embrace social media. This will change, but it will be generational change.

Certainly something to consider if you're aiming to entice older customers. 34% of MySpace users are aged between 0 and 17 years; Just 3% of the same demographic use LinkedIn. This age imbalance, while quite obvious in this case, is another reason why a little research is incredibly important when using social media in conjunction with other marketing tools.

Got any tips on social media? Leave us a comment!

If you need help finding out where your tribe hang out, check out Web123's Social Media Strategy designed to give you a step by step plan to approach your social media strategy head on.

Your decision to build your own website is a smart one.  Don't blow it by filling it with dumb copy!  Writing dumb copy is the easiest thing in the world to do – anyone with half a brain can do it, including professional copywriters.  So before you have a go at writing copy for your new website, take some time to consider what copywriting actually is, and what it's supposed to achieve. Because there's more to writing copy than stringing together a few clichés and the occasional cute line.

Think of copywriting as a well chosen collection of words that explains who you are, what you do, and why people should be so interested in who you are and what you do. It is a craft, not an art.

Copywriting should sell before it entertains. Sure, your copywriting should be engaging and interesting – this will keep the reader hooked and the longer they're hooked, the more they'll get to know you.

But, if your copywriting doesn't provoke a reaction beyond a mere ' gee, that was entertaining' then, sorry to say, you've failed!

Writing copy for the right audience

So what do you need to know about this copywriting business? The first thing to know is your reader. If your website is devoted to the sale of Barry Manilow memorabilia it's a fair bet that your average reader will be of a certain vintage, and almost certainly female. How would you talk to this person if you encountered them on the street? 'Gidday mate'? Probably not, mate. 

When writing copy always use the language your average reader will connect with. Trying to be too trendy when writing for a conservative market, or too patronising when writing for a Gen Y audience, will alienate the people you need the most.

Frequently check your language is appropriate to your readers. No matter how well you write, if it's not written with the target audience in mind, you won't hang onto them.

The long and short of writing copy

Now that you know your audience, it's time to dazzle them! You don't have long to turn on the charm, mind you. Some research suggests that a reader will stick with you for about 8 seconds – it's up to you to overcome this short attention span. Start with memorable, snappy headlines that promise great things ahead.

Connect with the reader by continually pointing out how the benefits and features of your business intersect with their needs or desires. Don't get off track by blowing your own trumpet too loudly – always keep the reader in mind when writing copy and make it all about satisfying them.

Of course you should establish your credentials, but those credentials, your expertise and your undoubted genius should always be of benefit to the customer.

The last word on writing copy

You know your target market, you've written copy that they understand, and you've sold them the benefits of dealing with you.

Now, one more thing. Check that your grammar and spelling are perfect. One little mistake could overshadow your whole website – people do tend to remember errors. And even the smallest faux pas could cast a very large cloud over your reputation.

Look like a professional at all times by doing a spell and grammar check when you've completed your copy. Let your readers remember you for reasons other than basic spelling and grammatical errors!

Do you have any copy tips you can share? Leave a comment now.

Without great copywriting, your product is balding, toothless and saggy bottomed. If you need some help with the words that hook a reader in and empty their wallet out, check out the various Copywriting Services we offer at very affordable prices.