by Francois Muscat | May 5, 2010 | Online Marketing
To grow your online business, you need a high flow of new customers. How will they get to your website? How can you increase the constant flow of new visitors to your website?
- Organic SEO: Search Engine Optimization uses keywords in the text, headings, page names and META tags. Links from other relevant websites are another important factor.
- Pay per Click: Advertise on Google and other search engines to get almost instant results. These ads come up based on the keyword query and you pay each time someone clicks thru on your ad.
- Affiliate Marketing: Advertise on other relevant websites and you pay the website owner each time a referral purchases or takes a particular action such as signing up.
- Article Writing: Write and publish educational articles and place them on article syndication sites. Other web site owners can publish them on their web sites. Links in the bottom resource box will lead interested people to your website.
- Blogging: Blog marketing attracts readers. Blog regularly about related topics your targeted customer is interested in. Include links back to your website.
- Social Networks: Set up profiles at popular social networking sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace , etc.
- Forums: Participate in online forums as an expert. You get to promote your business “quietly” in your signature line.
- Promo Items: Purchase things like pens or stress balls with your Web site name and URL on them and give them away at trade shows and industry events.
- Video: Setup viral video about your company, products and upload them on to a video network site.
- Free Offer: Offer a free ebook on your site. Give away a free report or analysis. Promote this on the social networks or in emails.
by Francois Muscat | Apr 15, 2010 | Online Marketing
I just uploaded a new Squidoo Lens for myself called Francois Muscat Internet Marketing Consultant.
What is Squidoo
Squidoo is a great web tool that allows anyone to build a page (called a lens) for subjects of interest. In this case I have built the lens around myself as an Internet Marketing Consultant. Squidoo’s step-by-step process is easy to follow so that you can do the same if you’re wanting to build an online presence for your name, company, products and/or services.
Francois Muscat: Internet Marketing Consultant in South Africa
My Squidoo Lens has been optimised to promote myself as an Internet Marketing Consultant. Follow the link to go to my Squidoo Lens where you’ll find some information on:
- Myself and my work as an Internet Marketing Consultant
- Some of my achievements as an Internet Marketing Consultant
- WSI Corporate Information
- A link to my Blog with a live RSS Feed
- Some of my YouTube videos
Here is an extract from my Squidoo Lens:
“Francois Muscat is an Internet Marketing expert in South Africa. He owns his own WSI Internet Marketing franchise and is fast becoming one of the most highly-regarded Internet Marketing Consultants in the world. He has helped big and small businesses enjoy vast success on the Internet.”
by Francois Muscat | Apr 6, 2010 | Online Marketing
Internet marketing, digital marketing and interactive advertising revenues are expected to grow to $62.4 Billion in the US by 2012 according to a forecast by The Kelsey Group.
In 2007, this was $22.5 Billion for the US. This represents a 21.3% annual growth rate.
Compare this with traditional advertising and marketing such as the Yellow pages and you will you notice that they are expected to decrease by 1.4% annually over the same period.
Forrester Research is projecting similar growth rates for digital advertising (social media) in their projects through 2014. They claim that interactive budgets will grow at the expense of traditional marketing. Sixty percent of the respondents said they will grow their digital marketing budgets by shifting funds away from other marketing channels.
Newspaper and magazine advertisements, radio ads, yellow pages, outdoor and telemarketing advertisements are all expected to decline while internet marketing is expected to grow.
Categories expected to grow the most (Data from the Forrester Research revenue estimates for 2014)
- Search Marketing : $31.6 Billion (15% annual growth)
- Display Advertising: $16.9 Billion (17% annual growth)
- Social Media Marketing: $3.1 Billion (34% annual growth)
- Email Marketing: $2.1 Billion (11% annual growth)
- Mobile Marketing: $1.3 Billion (27% annual growth)
Search marketing will be the major marketing area that companies will be investing in to market their business online. This will be a combination of SMM (social media marketing), SEO (Search Engine Optimization) organic search and PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising. Companies are moving their advertising funds from traditional marketing to online marketing methods.
Leave a comment below if you require more information regarding the growth of internet marketing.
by Francois Muscat | Mar 29, 2010 | Online Marketing
More people are starting to browse the web with mobile devices as it is now an on the move business tool. Usually when people are not in their offices, they are not near a computer and so they cannot reach you online. This is false! By having a mobile website you are opening your doors to users accessing the web from a mobile device such as a cell phone.
A mobile website can also be part of your internet marketing strategy as it opens up other ways that visitors can reach you.
Most companies have a regular website but not a mobile website. A mobile website (light version of a normal website) is optimized to be viewable on the mobile web and a cell phone. Very few businesses today have a website that can be easily viewed on a mobile phone.
Mobile websites are different from normal websites found on the web. Cell phones have small screens and usually limited abilities and cannot process large websites full of graphics because most websites are developed and designed for the web, not the mobile web. Cell phones requires simpler websites, smaller in size and with few graphics.
A dedicated optimized mobile website is needed if you want your “website” to be displayed on cell phones. Mobile websites are much smaller and usually have fewer pages. The message on your “mobile” pages should also be more focused what your mobile audience wants to know.
The mobile web is much lighter than the normal web. Desktop computers connects to the web through a stable high-speed connection. Cell phones by their nature have to connect on the move. Connections are transferred from cell tower to cell tower and are affected by carrier coverage. This makes it quite limited in bandwidth.
Even though to view your website depends on network coverage, by having one you are enabling yourself to be found easily.
Reasons for having a dedicated mobile website
- If your company depends on local customers.
- If your company depends on advertising.
- If your prospects want to get information on the go.
The mobile web is still young but it is growing fast. To be the leader in your market and niche, it is highly recommended to get a dedicated mobile website. I have been using the mobile web for a couple of years now and we have optimized this blog to be “mobile” ready. Browse to our blog from your cell phone and you will see.
Leave a comment below if you require more information regarding mobile websites.
by Francois Muscat | Mar 24, 2010 | Online Marketing
All the major search engines measures and gives credit for the number of good “quality” inbound links a website has. Every link pointing to your website is viewed as a popularity vote. The more popular (votes), the higher the website will rank. Many believe that it isn’t that important any more but they are wrong.
Link building is still a key part of organic Search Engine Optimization and to get good results.
Link building is not about the number of links you have
Link building is not about getting the maximum number of inbound links to your website. 1 Good quality link is more important than 50 not so good ones. It is all about developing a wide variety of links from many sources. Links from social media, authority websites and relevant websites to your topic (niche) gives the best results.
Automated link building doesn’t do the trick
If someone told you that automated link building is the best, they are wrong. Unfortunately there’s no easy solution. Link building takes time and it is hard work. The best natural solution is to add a blog to your website where you can write informative original topics (posts) that others will want to link to.
Don’t include your company name in your links
The best way to optimize links is to use keywords that you would like your website to be found with in the link text or anchor text of the link. These keywords is more important than the number of inbound links.
Reciprocal linking has lost its authority
Reciprocal links do not provide that much authority any more, they are still valuable as links. Never use reciprocal linking as you only source for link building. You want to establish a diversified approach to link building.
Directories and article marketing still works
They both still work. Choose directories that are relevant to your niche (topic). Submitting articles to article syndication sites can produce good back links.
With paid links my website will get penalized.
Not entirely true. The worst case is that search engines (Google) will not count these as links. Use paid advertisements and text links to only drive traffic to your website. If you get credit for the link, see it as a bonus.
Don’t measure a website on PageRank
This is also FALSE. A website’s PageRank (PR) is about 3 months old. PR is affected by the quality of links and even the number of links on a particular page. Most frequently, the PR is posted wrong by Google and it doesn’t match the credibility from what your actual backlinks are. This is a major problem as most “SEO Experts” still believes that PageRank is relevant and considered important.
The Google “Link” command will never show all your backlinks
Google only shows a small fraction of the links it detects on your website. Only 6-9% of the actual number is shown. MSN and Yahoo reports a number quite higher than Google and they are much closer to the real number.
Link building is still a very important aspect of Search Engine Optimization and internet marketing. If no one including the popular search engines can’t find you, what is the purpose of having a website at all? Your website is a business tool and it can increase your business leads and sales if optimized correctly.
Leave a comment below if you require more information regarding internet marketing and link building.
by Francois Muscat | Mar 18, 2010 | Online Marketing
Your website is the image of yourself and business to the world. It is the building blocks to establish your online presence. There is one problem with your website – how to get targeted interested visitors to your site? Find below a couple of tips on how you can increase the traffic to your website.
Search Engine Optimization
Make sure your website has been SEO optimized by including all the on page optimization elements in to it. On page optimization includes:
- Use keywords in your content, headings, page names and META tags;
- Include alt and title text in your images;
- Create a XML sitemap file so that search engines can find all your content pages;
- Use keywords in outbound and inbound links;
- Use valid heading tags. Search engine crawlers notice the usage of <h1>,<h2>,<h3> and views this as important text;
- Use keywords in your URL’s;
- Create search engine friendly URL’s for your website;
- Correct HTML validation;
Pay per click
For instant results, advertise on the top search engines. Pay per click (PPC) advertising allows you to pay to have your ad listed on the major search engines. They usually appear at the top, bottom or right side of the search engine results page (SERP) and are identified as Paid Listings, Sponsored Links, Sponsored Listings, or Featured Listings. This is the fasted way to promote your website.
Blogging
This is my favourite. With a blog you can attract interested readers. Blog regularly about related topics your targeted customer is interested in. Always include backlinks to your website.
Social Networking
Create and setup your profile in popular online social networking websites. Create links on these back to your blog and website. Popular ones include LinkedIn, Facebook and MySpace. Social networking isn’t simply creating your profile and be done with it. Join targeted groups on these sites and participate in the groups. Even though this takes a while to setup, your return will often exceed the time and cost you have dedicated to this.
Forums
Participate in online forums as an expert. This can also help to build trust and credibility for your online presence. With most forums, you can promote your website or blog by including a signature back to your site.
Article
Write and publish articles and place them on article syndication sites. Other web site owners pick them up and publish them on their web sites.
Signatures
Include links to your website in every email that you send out. Include your company name and your website URL.
Printed materials
Include your company name and website URL on all your invoices, statements, proposals, letterheads, business cards and brochures.
Links
Trade relevant links with as many websites as you can. Relevancy is the key.
Video
Setup a viral video about your company and your services. Upload the video to popular video sharing websites like YouTube and Viddler. You can also create a dedicated YouTube channel for your business.
Free Ebook or Report
Promote and give away a free report, analysis or ebook. This could be information that would be helpful to your visitors that contains your business information. You can promote this on your social networks, forums and emails.
Newsletters
Keep in touch with your clients and potential clients by sending out a newsletter on a regular basis. This can be printed or email. Add newsletter subscription to your website.
Even though these are ways to increase the traffic to your website, they don’t happen overnight. Once you have realised that your website can be more than a simple online brochure, you will realise the importance and the time that you must dedicate to increase the visibility of your website.
