Case in point: the recent “Penguin” update!!

But then again – google now *massively* favours Amazon & the massive guys…

Regards

Dave

All I can say is YIZERS!!!!!

To say that the SEO world is going crazy over this is an understatement…

For example – on Google’s own blog here: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/another-step-to-reward-high-quality.html

Take note of the title… “Another step to reward quality”…

The first is to have your site on it’s own dedicated server.

If you’re not sure what that is, it’s a server that only your site resides on – meaning that there’s going to [...]]]>
There’s really only a few ways to make your wordpress site load faster.

The first is to have your site on it’s own dedicated server.

If you’re not sure what that is, it’s a server that only your site resides on – meaning that there’s going to be less “load” going through the server, as it’s not on a server “shared” by other websites.

So obviously, if there’s only your site on the server – it’s going to (potentially) be able to handle more people visiting your website without slowing it down much (this depends on your server set up) but generally that’s the case.

And other than making database optimisation tweaks etc, the best way to speed up your site is to utilize a Content Delivery Network or “CDN”.

This is especially important if your site is on a shared server.

Why make your site faster?

There are two users of your site – The general public, and Search engines. People love visiting a site that is FAST as it increases retention & conversions. Search engines love visting a site that is fast – and they’ll assist you with your rankings accordingly…

Now there are multiple CDN’s out there that *could* be used for wordpress, but there’s one that is incredibly easy to install and configure and it can make your website FLY.

If you’re wanting to run a quick test on how you can speed your site up, you can go to Google’s own page speed online tool here and run a test for free. If you’re running wordpress, you’ll probably find your site needing some speed up tricks.

So Here’s How To Do It:

1. Install WP Total Cache – a plugin designed to speed up the way that your website serves images and content to the end user. There is a very good tutorial by the guys who created WP Total Cache written here.

2. The Second is to subscribe to MaxCDN. It’s AWESOME.

Watch this brief video to show you how to integrate it:

You need to create what’s called a “pull zone” and integrate the CDN to your website – all of the integration is done within WP Total Cache.

Here’s how to create a pull zone:

Even if your website is existing – with all of it’s existing content there, you can get it all moved over in a matter of moments…

So there you go – see how you get on fixing your site speed…

Have Fun!

Dave

It’s that time of year.

The Yellow Pages rep rings you up to arrange “that” meeting.

They come in, wheeling a small trolley bag.

They have to wheel that thing around… after all – it’s not easy lugging around a massive book where ever you go… (hey ask school [...]]]>

It’s that time of year.

The Yellow Pages rep rings you up to arrange “that” meeting.

They come in, wheeling a small trolley bag.

They have to wheel that thing around… after all – it’s not easy lugging around a massive book where ever you go… (hey ask school kids these days).

They sit down and explain to you what you did last year.

They then explain to you how much they can STILL do for you now, and that how the internet is changing everything.

They’ll pull up real time stats on your area, your listings, your “potential reach” to supposedly lots of people…

All this is totally fine.

If you are in 1995.

But you’re not.

You’re spending your hard earned cash on advertising in something over a year or so that you can’t even tell if it’s going to work…

…Or can you?

Believe it or not, most businesses still don’t do this stupidly simple thing:

They don’t Test and Measure.

Granted, you can’t make a change to your copy, or your ad for 365 days (so get it right!!!) but there are a few ways you can actually test your yellow pages ads.

1. Have a tracking phone number instead of your actual phone number – with yellow pages metered advertisements – you can do exactly that (nice!)
2. Actually ASK people where they got your details from when they visit your business.

Now – this assumes three things:

a) This is actually EASY to do – If you’re in retail, on a busy street, you’re not going to ask everyone coming into your shop how they found out about you… but you can ask one subset of this population…

… THE BUYERS.

(unless you’re a supermarket – and are getting 20,000 transactions a day…

b) The second thing I’m assuming is that you actually CARE about how much money you’re spending on yellow pages. Do you do it just because it’s what you’ve always done?  Or just because “everyone else is… so I better do it too…”?

c) Your target market includes people that actually USE yellow pages (book). Despite how much people are saying – “the Internet is where it’s at…” what if your target market is directed at over 65 year olds who have no internet connection or mobile phone?

In the end, you need to know two things;

1. How many buyers you have, that come from the yellow pages.
2. How much they spend.

As long as you’ve got a margin (!), and you multiply your margin by the number of sales, you’ll be able to pretty quickly see if that $1000 a month you’re paying yellow pages is actually paying for itself.

So the answer is… YES. Your yellow pages ad MAY be worth it.

But can you tell? If you can, brilliant. Keep tracking it. If you CAN’T tell… Then what you should do is reduce your ad spend, and send the rest to me. (Kidding)

You see… the yellow pages is losing it’s effectiveness every year.

Here’s an example of a (good quality) advertisement that has been running for 5 months, and has a tracking phone number. 15 calls total. Ad spend ~ $1500 so far:

And this is in a market that supposedly gets a reasonable number of inquiries a week… Total revenue: $1426. That’s revenue… (not profit…)

You’ve got to wonder if this business spent the exact same amount of money on (for example) targeted Facebook ads – if they would gather a greater return…?

As a comparison, in the exact same time frame, the following analytics occurred on their website:

We’re not talking big numbers. And no – I don’t know exact conversions for these stats.

But folks, these are targeted eyeballs.

And this traffic was 100% FREE.

That’s why the books are literally “shrinking” in size. Less advertisers, less people using the book (you can even opt out of getting one here).

But, like any business, they want to try and keep the revenue up there (who wouldn’t??).

So, now – you’ll get sold on monthly “package deals” – that combine both online and offline advertising – for one easy payment every month…

However, the same things exist online as they do offline.

You’ve got to measure everything.

Nothing works better at making your yellow pages rep squirm more than getting them to show you your online results, and then you showing them what actually happened at your end.

One could argue that as long as you make more than what you spend – it’s worth it, however – the time is coming soon (for a lot of businesses) that it just will not be “worth” advertising in the yellow pages slab.

YP’s online site has one nice little bonus though – and that’s a bit more “credibility” in the eyes of Google, with regards to their (free) Google places listings. Google knows that if you’re willing to spend some cash and have a proper listing on the YP site, you’re probably more legitimate!

So there you go… A little food for thought.

If you like it, share the love! Thanks!

Cheers,
Dave

But how?

It’s pretty simple, thanks to Google Web Fonts.

It’s incredibly easy to use.

Despite what your website designer may have told you…

Is complete bollocks.

You can’t just make a fancy website and expect people to just magically “find” it – it’s just not going to happen.

There are [...]]]> S.E.O. is a acronym for “Search Engine Optimisation”.

Despite what your website designer may have told you…

Build It And They Will Come…

Is complete bollocks.

You can’t just make a fancy website and expect people to just magically “find” it – it’s just not going to happen.

There are many factors associated with getting your website “seen” by search engines. In fact – you need to do more than just be seen – you need to be recognised as an authority.

You want lots of pages in the top 1-3 in search engines...

You can split SEO into two main categories:

1. On Site SEO – This is fixing your website up so that it’s seen properly by the search engines, and
2. Off Site SEO - Which, in short, is getting back links to your site (thereby giving it a “vote” in the eyes of search engines)

The primary way to go about sorting out your on page SEO is to look at your Title tags, and your meta description. It’s helpful to have the webpage, name the same or similar to the title tags.

Of course, most people don’t know how to do this.

It’s absolutely POINTLESS fixing up your title tags etc, if you don’t know what people are are actually searching for.

So that’s where you start.

By figuring out what people are searching for!!!

We know exactly where your competition is getting their traffic from. We know exactly why they are ranking in the search engines and you’re not…

It’s not rocket science. It’s common sense.

You START with finding this type of thing out FIRST, and THEN you build or change your website around that.

All too after you see sites that are “trying” to rank for specific key phrases, but are failing for multiple reasons. And, the primary reason is that the webmaster or website designer has built the site according to what the client wants to see, not what the search engines want to see.

Off Site SEO is another thing entirely.

This is an ever changing area, but primarily, if your site has good quality content – and back links from multiple sources including social media, the chances of Search engines thinking your site is awesome, is a lot higher than those people who don’t have back links.

So there’s some food for thought.

What are you doing with your site to get it ranking?

No Idea?

Contact us, and we’ll take a quick look for you…

Best Regards,

Dave

You had to contend with several pain in the butt factors such as:

In fact – according to data analytics company Chitika – just recently, iOS (mobile) devices browsed the internet more than Mac desktop + laptops combined.

This create [...]]]> These days there is definitely a trend toward mobile phone or tablet users searching the internet and browsing using those devices.

In fact – according to data analytics company Chitika – just recently, iOS (mobile) devices browsed the internet more than Mac desktop + laptops combined.

This create a bit of a problem for businesses, because their fancy website they’ve spent huge amounts of dough on doesn’t “Fit” the screen size of (for example) an iPhone.

You’ve probably seen it before – someone share a link on Facebook, you click that link (on your phone), and you then have to resize the browser to attempt to read the content (unless you’ve got awesome vision like I do… lol)

So – why make your website mobile friendly?

Take a look at your analytics. Do you see (under operating systems) a presence of android or iOS based operating systems?

If the answer is yes, depending on your demographics, and type of site, it may or may not be “Worth” changing/altering your site to be mobile friendly. I mean, if only 1% of visitors are on a mobile device, why bother?

The thing is, that number today is highly likely to increase over time, not decrease.

And – implementing a mobile friendly site depends on whether or not you’re just starting out, or have an existing site.

The following ways are not ALL of the ways to accomplish “modification” of your website, but it’ll point you in the right direction…

If You’re Starting A New Site:

Consider the design aspects of the site. There is a big “push” towards a frameless grid (or “responsive”) type of website set up, that basically allows blocks of content to be “resized” automatically – depending on what size the browser is.

If you’re using a CMS: 

Using a CMS (content management system) like WordPress, the stock standard out of the box theme (called “twenty-eleven”) is automatically mobile friendly. There are becoming more and more responsive professional themes in the marketplace nowadays… One of the best I’ve ever seen is made by Pagelines and is extremely customisable. Another system which I’ve used extensively in the past is Genesis by Studiopress – who have a couple of “child themes” that are instantly mobile friendly as well.

If you’re NOT using a CMS:

The 1140 grid is an awesome place to begin, as is the frameless grid system. From there, you can code up the site you want, and minimise everything, making the site load insanely fast, but perhaps limiting it’s potential for Search Engine Optimisation… (Although, I’m sure it’s possible to rank in some markets!). These are really only if you’re planning on starting a static type website (i.e. non CMS) from scratch.

If You’ve Got An Existing Site:

Using a Static Site or Entreprise CMS:

If you have an established website, even if it’s built on a CMS like Magento or Sitecore, one of the best ways to virtually instantly get your website mobile friendly is use a service called “mobify” – which simply requires insertion of a piece of javascript in the header – and blammo, you’re mobile…

Using WordPress: 

There is one tried and proven way (other than use a mobile friendly theme) – and that’s using WP Touch - a free plugin that has a paid version, but does a relatively good job. The only thing is, as with several wordpress plugins, from time to time there are plugin conflicts, and all I can say is – if you’re a fan of WP-Caching type programs, take extra care when installing this puppy.

Using Joomla:

The open source CMS Joomla also has a plugin that is apparently quite good (I’ve never tried).  It’s called Mobile Joomla (surprise surprise!) – and has got rave reviews from the legions of fans that love it.

So there you go… There are quite a few options out there to make your website “mobile friendly” – it really depends on you, your demographics, and website goals!

Cheers

Dave

If you’re a business that has any retail presence, you’ll understand that position is (almost) everything.

You’re going to pay a whole lot more for downtown CBD of any [...]]]> It’s no secret that there’s been a MASSIVE increase in people looking online for products and services in recent years.

If you’re a business that has any retail presence, you’ll understand that position is (almost) everything.

You’re going to pay a whole lot more for downtown CBD of any city than you are in a rural town. A lot more.

You see, busy shopping areas are just like search engines in that they can deliver “traffic” to, or past your “shop”.

But there’s a fundamental difference.

If you’re in (for example) a Westfield mall, you’re paying the higher rent costs associated with the traffic that people around you are pulling into the store.

For example, if you go specifically to an Apple store that’s located within a Westfield mall, you’re (probably) going to be walking right past 25 other stores on your way there.

If you’re one of those 25 stores, and Apple wasn’t a tenant, the people that are specifically going to apple – probably wouldn’t be walking past your store, and (potentially) walking INTO your store.

The main difference is this:

The people landing on a website from a search phrase, are there for a specific reason (and it may not be to “Buy” stuff from you)…

Sure – if they’ve typed in “Buy [Insert Your Product Here] Now” there’s a good chance that they are keen to buy from you.

Compared to “[Your Product] Review” where they are not necessarily looking to buy from you, just gather information.

How can you remedy this?

Think about the intent of the searcher. The “searcher” is a potential, or current customer.

Don’t think about the intent of YOU. You’re not the one who’s looking for your products or services.

There are very specific ways to go about this, and tell exactly what people are searching for – before they even get to your website.

And the good news is that some of this information is free!!!

Best Regards, Dave

What is WordPress?

For most small business owners, they’ve got absolutely no idea how to create a website, and – one of the fastest and easiest ways is to use “wordpress”.

WordPress is actually a blog “CMS” (content management system) that essentially takes a fair amount of pain away [...]]]>

Wordpress Is Ideal For Small Business

WordPress?

What is WordPress?

For most small business owners, they’ve got absolutely no idea how to create a website, and – one of the fastest and easiest ways is to use “wordpress”.

WordPress is actually a blog “CMS” (content management system) that essentially takes a fair amount of pain away from building a website.

There are 2 types of wordpress:

• The first is one that is hosted for you, at wordpress.com. When you sign up there, you get a website address that will look like this:  http://yourbusiness.wordpress.com. Which is free, and awesome if you just want any website – without anything fancy. Or there is:
• The second is a version that you host yourself. That is, you can “install” wordpress on a server yourself – it’s a free download available at wordpress.org. This option is a lot better, as you’ve got far more control over the design elements of the site.

There are many reasons why wordpress is a very good option for a small business, and here’s 7 of them:

1. It’s free.

For small business, nothing is more enticing than free!! All’s you have to do is have a hosting provider that allows wordpress to be installed on it – and away you go. It takes about 30 seconds to get it “online” once you have your domain name (website name) “pointing” to your hosting server…

2. It’s simple to set up.

Like I said, it literally takes just a few “point and clicks” to get things on a roll. You need a domain name, and a hosting account, both of which can be acquired at very little expense.

3. It’s easy to customise your sites “look”.

There are two ways to customise a wordpress site… The first is to know a little HTML code, and perform some tweaks on the base framework. This can be done, but is generally quite time consuming!! (Unless you’re a developer).  The second is to use what’s known as a wordpress “Framework” which alters wordpress slightly to allow the simultaneous use of what’s called a “Child Theme”.  We use several of the best known wordpress frameworks, professional themes, and customise them from there…

4. It’s easy to customise your sites “function”.

Website function is one of the first things you’ve got to think about… It’s probably a little more than “I want to sell some stuff” (Well, that’s important obviously). What matters most is the end result you want your visitors to achieve or get out of your content. Yes – it’s easy to do this with other site formats, but with the thousands of free & paid plugins available, you can make this process easy.

5. It’s Search Engine (SEO) friendly.

SEO has one core fundamental, and that is content. WordPress makes it seriously easy to create content on your website, and have that content seen by search engines. It makes it easy for other people to link to you, you to link to them. All of this functionality exists “right out of the box” (even though there is no actual box…:-)

6. You can create content using an easy microsoft word type of editor.

Regardless of what computer system you use, you’re probably familiar with MS word. The same type of set up applies when writing content using wordpress.  There’s an easy way to bold. An easy way to italicise. An easy way to underline. The only thing it doesn’t have is a spell checker! But then, you can just copy & paste from MS word anyway…

7. You can post content from your phone.

Just take a look around you at any train station or shopping centre, and tell me how many people have their heads buried in a smartphone. Using wordpress, you can just easily update your website directly from your mobile phone using an app on either android or iPhone… This is particularly important if you are out and about and just catch something on your phone (such as an image), and want to tell your audience about it immediately…

8. You can automatically link it to social networks.

That’s one more than I promised. (I could keep going!!) Got a Facebook fan page? Twitter account? You can set your blog to automatically post your new content directly to these sites. Post once – distribute lots.

 Hopefully that’s enough food for thought if you’re contemplating building a website form scratch but want it easy to maintain, and easy to update (like many small businesses do!). If you’ve got any questions, just fire away in the comments below!

Cheers,

Dave