by Karl Hudson | May 15, 2015 | Advanced SEO Techniques, SEO
The 2015 consumer will let the way a company handles itself online be the deciding factor on whether they make a purchase or not. Handling here refers to how your online presence looks like. Your brand needs to be authentic, relatable and highly recognisable. This is what sets you apart from the competition. High visibility increases your credibility. Creating an online presence is about capturing the attention of consumers. After all, it is what people think of you when you are not available.
Feature a catchy headline
The headline you use can either make or break your sales. It is often the first thing visitors see so it must be interesting enough to grab their attention. In addition, it must be compelling enough for them to read what you’re actually talking about. Do you know what a successful headline does? It highlights a problem your audience faces every other day. It shows the audience that there is a solution to this problem. At the end of the day, your target audience is probably not going to remember your product’s name. Instead, they’re going to sing praises about how much it changed their lives.
Add images
Adding images can end up boosting your product’s desirability. However, this method can work either in your favour or end up killing the sale. You need to be careful. Images of your products make it real and tangible to consumers. On the other hand, revealing a product too early can have damaging effects. If you don’t want to take too big a risk on this one, do an image test first. Test place images near the top of the page or near the call to action tab at the bottom. This is something you must always do. By test placing, you can analyse which methods maximise sales (whether people respond more to images or the opposite).
Focus on THEM, not you
Increasing your online presence is all about knowing your priorities. Yes, your business is a priority that you feel you need to talk about every single time. However, you should not try to sound like you’re constantly pitching new products to your audience. Too many uses of ‘I, me and we’ makes you come across as a selfish organization that is on social media to further their own agenda. Instead of saying something like ‘I designed this with the busy homeowner in mind…’ say ‘The busy homeowner will love how this design cuts up their time in ½’.
SEO
SEO is one of those things that has great results that are dependent on its application. Sometimes you can employ all the important aspects of SEO, but still end up not getting the right kind of traffic. Why? Because you may have applied all the aspects, but who says they work as well for you as they have for others? SEO is not just something you wake up and do. You need to spend time on keyword research, keyword optimisation, analysing content, link building, etc. You can do all this by yourself or you can get a competent online marketing team to work with.
All these methods can do wonders in increasing your online presence when combined. These are just some of the basics. Pick up one or two and see how it affect your traffic. Operating a business is all about taking risks. Are you the kind of risk taker your business needs?
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by Karl Hudson | Mar 11, 2015 | News, SEO
Do we suspect a mobile update coming soon to major search engines? Over the past few weeks users have been seeing significant changes in search rankings with regards to mobile search.
Google’s own Jon Mueller was asked about an algorithm update in one of his Google+ Hangouts, he stated that it was not related to a Panda or Penguin refresh, which means it could be some form of new algorithm.
The cherry on the cake was where Google has been sending out warnings to webmasters whose websites were not mobile-friendly and asking them to update their site.
Users suspect the mobile update to be launched around 20th April 2015 so if your website is still not mobile friendly then please wake up and smell the roses and act. It takes very little time for a standard sized website to be converted into a responsive site, making it friendly for all devices.
If you have seen a drop in mobile traffic since the 24th January 2015 then it would be worth checking to see if your website is mobile friendly and if it is not, then act now.
Check more of GetMediaWise https://old.getmediawise.com/
by Karl Hudson | Mar 6, 2015 | SEO
The ways SEO can benefit your online business are numerous. Search Engine Optimisation encompasses everything from reputation management to just a simple increase in traffic flow. SEO is unique in an advertising sense that it connects you with people seeking you out already, this is hugely advantageous to any business.
Search engine optimisation can also be used to propagate awareness of your brand online. Anything from local awareness, even to an international scale. SEO does this by focusing on getting you to rank highly for brand or keyword related search terms.
SEO is a 24 hours 7 days a week endeavour. It will work for you when you’re sleeping as search engines never rest. Once you’re brand is recognised on the first page for keywords of your choice it will continuously bring in visitors seeking what you offer.
Being in the spotlight for your keywords naturally means more sales. Expanding your business to reach hundreds, thousands or in some cases millions of people who are seeking your product will result in increased revenue.
Pay Per Click is ubiquitous with online businesses, unfortunately many businesses aren’t aware of all the nuances of ad management, split testing and landing page optimisation. This could save massive amounts of money on their campaigns. Thats where SEO companies come in, they can offer their vast experience with ad campaign management.
Long term cost for pay per click is reduced through keyword optimisation. Pay Per Click judges your ads based on the quality of optimisation of your website. This means that if your website is poorly optimised the cost of running your ads will always be at the apex of ad bidding. Hiring an SEO specialist to optimise your website for your keywords will reduce the amount of money coming out of your budget to get those customers on your website. Eventually you could get rid of cost per click all together. If you’re website is already ranking first for your chosen keywords, Then PPC is no longer needed. Long term SEO can achieve these results.
However keep in mind when you hire an SEO specialist, that it’s like any other business there are always going to be people who will sell poor quality service, for premium prices. SEO evolves like any living being over time. It constantly changes and can be every bit as disastrous for your business as it can be profitable if not handled carefully. Hire an SEO company that care for your brand and can provide a clean service. Black hat SEO is very popular in the underbelly of the search engine optimisation world and if not carefully monitored can destroy your chances of online visibility.
Being a UK born company GetMediaWise are proud to stand out from rogue SEO agencies that want to take your money and offer very little or nothing in return, in some cases even damage your brand. GMW will always strive to go one step further to achieve your goals. Our online marketing team marketing team is ready to handle anything that is thrown at us.
by Karl Hudson | Mar 6, 2015 | Case Studies, SEO
We are currently setting up a case study where we have taken one of our affiliate site that’s currently ranking 3rd in the search engines for its main keyword. This site has had no real social signals sent to it.
For those who don’t know what social signals are; if someone mentions you on a twitter update, for instance;
In this instance, the social signal would be to the URL that is linked to the status – my b-daily articles. The same applies to Facebook updates, Pinterest pins, Linkedin Statuses, etc. Anything that points back to your site on a social site is classed as a social signal.
One of the reasons for this study is because we have noticed sites that have hardly any backlinks but are very active on social media networks have been ranking quite highly within the search engines. So we wanted to create our case study to see if it could help push a website that has become stagnant in the search.
So what are we doing to get hold of social signals?
We have a few tools that we will be using; I won’t mention them on here as they are some secrets we like to keep private.
The other places where we will be gaining the majority of social signals is fiverr.com we are searching for social signals and finding gig’s that have good reviews.
Our aim will be to send around 10-20,000 social signals of the next week. Ideally we will look to send anything between 1-4,000 per day.
I will update this post with our latest amount of social signal’s that have been sent and the influence it is having on the search.
Update 1 – 06/03/2015
We have purchased over 5000 social signals day 1. We have sent them all to the website. I will let you know the results once these have been published.
Current rankings before social metrics have been acquired:
Keyword 1: 3rd
Keyword 2: 10th
Update 2 – 07/03/2015
I have purchased two lots of social signals now.
Keyword 1: 3rd
Keyword 2: 9th – +1 Spot
Update 3 – 11/03/2015
Keyword 1: 3rd (No movement yet)
Keyword 2: 8th (+1 since last update)
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by Karl Hudson | Apr 17, 2014 | Business advice, SEO
The simple answer is no – search engine submission isn’t necessary. The majority of search engines nowadays (most notably Google) crawl and index pages by following links. Using that logic, a single inbound link from any already-indexed page will identify your page to the engine. Subsequently, if that page links to other pages within your site, they will also be indexed… and so on.
For this reason, inbound linking is very important. In fact, acquiring back-links may be the most important of SEO. In theory though, a website owner shouldn’t have to ’scout’ or ‘hunt’ for links. If the presented content is of interest, useful, and/or important, there is a natural tendency among web users to link to information. This is the basis for the Google PageRank algorithm.
With all due respect, submitting your site to the search engines can’t hurt. Plus, it only entails about 5 minutes of added work assuming you only submit to the big guys. And once is enough… you don’t need to submit your site more than once. It doesn’t help or get your site crawled any quicker or more often.
It should be noted that submitting your site to Google, Yahoo, MSN, and many others doesn’t cost a fee. Many SEO companies assert that you need to pay to be indexed. This isn’t the case and I would stay away from these companies. They are money hungry and aren’t looking out for your best interest.
Would you ever consider going on a vacation across the country without bringing a map? It is hard enough to find your way in some places with a map. How hard would it be if you tried this adventure without one? Yet, this is exactly what people do every single day in the online world. They tried to build their own businesses online without having a roadmap to success. Then, after months or years of just wandering around online, they give up in frustration and quit. They walk away saying that the Internet doesn’t work for them. The reason it didn’t work is that they didn’t pick up a map and follow it!
You don’t have to end up lost in the online shuffle. Below I will give you ten steps to help you map out your course and get you started in the right direction. It isn’t everything that you need to know by any stretch of the imagination, but it will give you a basic foundation to build upon.
Consider it your beginner’s map to Internet marketing profits.
1. Choose a targeted market
The biggest mistake most people make when starting a business is that they choose a product and then try to find people who want to buy it. If that is the direction you are starting from on your journey, then you are going the opposite direction from your destination. Wise businesses operate from a different concept. They pick a market first, and then they pick a product those people are searching for. In other words, instead of trying to find leads to sell their product to, they find targeted leads and then ask them what they are wanting to buy.
Don’t even consider starting a business until you know exactly where you are going to get your leads from. Think targeted customers first. Then, you can come up with a product for those individuals. Would you rather have 1,000 hits a day at your site of a general audience OR 10 hits a day of people who are desperate and willing to pay any price to buy your products? If you are smart, you will choose the people who are ready to buy!
2. Develop a Product
Next, you need to develop a product or service for this market. Don’t just jump on the bandwagon of affiliate programs when you come to this step. There are three major ways to selling a product online:
a. You create your own exclusive product.
This is the best opportunity you have. If you develop your own product, you can pick it’s price, sell reprint rights to others, set up an affiliate program, etc. Don’t tell me you can’t do this. Tens of thousands of innovative entrepreneurs have used their own information products to get their careers started. You can to.
Throughout your life, I am sure that there is something you have learned that you can share in a How-To product. Maybe you know someone else who has the right knowledge for a How-To product and you could offer to help them create a product if you both shared the rights to it. Don’t just jump past this opportunity and say it can’t be done.
b. You buy the rights to a product or you JV for an offline product.
You can buy the rights to successful products for $500 – $20,000. If someone else has created a product that you know your targeted market is interested in, offer them a large up-front fee for the rights to it. This way you can get your own product and never have to pay a penny in royalties. You can also search through magazines your targeted market reads and look for products people are selling. Then, give them a call and ask for the exclusive Internet rights to their product for a certain percentage of the profits or an up-front fee.
c. You join an affiliate program.
If you are just starting out online, this can be a good choice. You do have to keep in mind though that it doesn’t offer quite the profit potential that creating your own product or obtaining rights to one has.When choosing an affiliate program, make sure that it is something your targeted market cannot be without. They absolutely have to have it. Also pay special attention to the profits you receive from each sale.
If you are only be paid 5% commissions on the sales of $10 books, you will only be making 50 cents per customer. It would take 2,000 customers just to product $1,000 in profits. You cannot make money like this online! Look for higher priced products and higher commissions…especially commissions in the 25% or higher range.
3. Create a USP
Create a Unique Selling Position for your product or service. Too many companies are just trying to be me-too companies online. You cannot be just like the next guy and expect to make a profit in a global economy. Just going to the next guy’s web site to order is too easy for your customers.
You have to create a Uniqueness to your product or offer. What can you offer that no one else can? Can you offer better guarantees, better customer service, more technical support, faster shipping, or lower prices. Think of something that will set you apart from all of your online competitors and tell in complete detail what it is.
4. Pick a Domain Name and Hosting Service
The next step is to pick a domain name that describes your company, USP, and offer. Try to keep them as short and descriptive about your business as possible. Avoid using dashes or misspellings of your product. Both of these things will cause people to leave out part of your domain if they type it in. Someone else will be getting free traffic that you worked hard to obtain.
For hosting, I personally choose to use Virtualis since they have the Fastest customer service and technical support in the industry. Test them out. They will respond to you within the hour…anytime 24 hours a day. No other company I have ever been with has even come close!
5. Develop a Customer Friendly Site
The next step in the process is to develop your web site and put it up for the world to see. If you are planning to own a full-time Internet business, I recommend that you learn how to design the site yourself using one of dozens of programs which are readily available at any software store.
You will save so much money if you can do the work yourself on just the editing alone as your site grows. If your main business is offline and you are just adding a secondary income, then you may want to consider having a professional do your site for you.
When designing your site, keep the customer in mind always. Provide order forms for online credit card orders. Make all of the links easy to understand. Try to keep your site simple. Think like a customer, not the business owner.
Your customers are not nearly as interested in your business as you are. Make sure to put the benefits of your site and your USP right on top of the site. More than half of the web surfers never drop down past the first screen full of information. So, you have to give them the information they need as quickly as possible. The rules for any type of business are Benefits, Benefits, and more Benefits.
6. Offer a Freebie
One of the major keys to developing traffic and sales at your site is to always offer some type of freebie as a drawing factor. For example, I offer dozens of free reports, weather reports, news, and more. My greatest drawing factor throughout the past 8 months though has been the two free e-books which we offer on our site to people who subscribe to this newsletter.
You need to come up with a freebie no matter what type of business you are in. Create a free report and give it away. Add in a message board or some other type of CGI program on your site. Give a free demo of your software. Create something that you can give away for free on your site to draw in the visitors.
7. Start Your Own Opt-In List
Almost every full-time Internet marketer I know has developed their own Opt-in email list of some type. For most of them, it is a weekly newsletter they send out by email. For others, it may be a Tip of the Day. Other people might just have a list that they send out important updates to.
No matter what you choose to do, odds will be on your side if you concentrate on building a list of loyal email subscribers. Very rarely do customers purchase from you the first time they visit your site. Most of them will get on your list, hang out for a few weeks or months, and then they buy from you. They have to get to know you before they are willing to spend their money with you.
I have found that the most effective leads come from offline advertising. For example, you could purchase ads in a popular targeted magazine for your business. You could also purchase a postcard in one of the card decks. Start up a co-op and get 10 other people to advertise with you and run your own ads for free. Offline leads which come to your site often turn out to contain a much higher percentage of buyers than any of the online advertising methods.
Once you put our short 10 step outline together you have a basic map to creating your own Internet success story. You wouldn’t consider going on a trip without a map. So don’t try to go it alone online without a map.
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