Myer says the internet, mobile phones and tablet computers will play an increasingly significant role in its offering. Myer has already expanded the range of products on its website to more than 2,300 items and improved its online gift card offering.

“There are a number of ways we can move into social media at a rapid rate to ensure we have a competitive offering,” Mr Brookes said today. ”There is no doubt Myer needed to move ahead with its online offering.”

It’s great to see the top levels of Australian business are paying closer attention to the Internet. With Myer now participating actively in social media, we should see other corporations with a public image doing more on facebook and youtube.

First, let me show you the amazing difference in costs between Google and facebook. 

CASE STUDY #1

A recent client of mine came to me asking if I could reduce his Google advertising costs and increase his flow of traffic. He was spending on average 50c per click and generating 100 leads per day on AdWords. So then I created a facebook advertising campaign and within days we’d cut his CPC from 50c down to 2c per click. I also managed to cut his daily ad spend by 40% while returning 2000% more traffic. Yes, TWO THOUSAND PERCENT more traffic using almost half the normal budget!

This is a typical example of how much I save my clients when setting them up with social media campaigns. Often, they choose to turn off their AdWords once they see how cheaply you can pick up new customers using facebook. There is a catch though! You can’t simply take your ppc ad with keyword copywriting skills and replicate an AdWords campaign on facebook. The targeting works different, the user mental model is different and people interact differently within the facebook platform compared with google.com

CASE STUDY #2

(BEFORE)

(AFTER)

Another client was already using facebook advertising to promote their business online after hearing about facebook ads. Unsure of the best way to setup social media ads, they used their logo as an image with a keyword headline and paid what facebook suggested. You’ll see from the shot on the left that generating almost 1300 leads was costing them $531 per day with each click around 41c

Now compare that with the results on the right, which is how their campaign performed after receiving our social media tune up service. We’ve reduced their cost per click from 41c down to 6c. This means they now spend 75% LESS each day in terms of budget, while receiving about 90% MORE traffic.

I’d like to repeat that these results are typical, we have hundreds of test cases just like these. If you’re interested in knowing how to do more with social media get in contact with us today and ask how to get your social media checkup for free (worth $250)… click here to message us now

Christies have released an auction brochure of a genuine 1976 model Apple 1 personal computer. There is no screen, or tower, or keyboard. You dont even get a plug to connect power from the wall. Back then, this is exactly how Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak would send out Apple computers.

Apple 1 computers sold for the handsome sum of $666, packaged and mailed from Jobs’ parents house. Now the starting bid at auction for this collectors piece of IT hardware is $161,600. Here is the description in case you’re thinking of bidding on this original Apple 1 computer at auction…

APPLE-1 — Personal Computer. An Apple-1 motherboard, number 82, printed label to reverse, with a few slightly later additions including a 6502 microprocessor, labeled R6502P R6502-11 8145, printed circuit board with 4 rows A-D and columns 1-18, three capacitors, heatsink, cassette board connector, 8K bytes of RAM, keyboard interface, firmware in PROMS, low-profile sockets on all integrated circuits, video terminal, breadboard area with slightly later connector, with later soldering, wires and electrical tape to reverse, printed to obverse Apple Computer 1 Palo Alto. Ca. Copyright 1976.

ACMA chairman Chris Chapman says the figures in the new “Australia in the Digital Economy” report show that not only are Australians accessing the internet more frequently, but they are also changing what they do while online.

“To the majority of Australians the internet is not just an entertainment tool but increasingly an essential part of their everyday lives, providing access to critical information and services,” he said in a statement. 

Even our local statistics here in Australia show that Facebook dominates the online world, taking up 81% of the time spent on social networking sites and 82% of web pages viewed. ACMA figures show 8.7 million Australians visited social networking sites, including Facebook, during the month of June alone. 

WOW! Low usage Aussies are spending an hour a day online with typical usage being above 3 hours per day, and for over 3/4 of that time they are just on facebook! Imagine running tv or radio ads for a few hours to your target audience… it would cost you tens of thousands dollars! Yet you can reach that same audience, at a time when they are captive and able to interact, using social media for just a few hundred dollars. Show them a promotion you’re running, have a youtube video of your most popular product, run a survey and give away free stuff… it’s so simple to interact and connect with new customers using facebook, twitter and youtube.

If you’d like to know how you can use these free online tools to promote your business get in touch with us today. We’ll give you a special report on internet business and perform a 20pt social media checkup for free.

Click here to to grab your Free Report & Social Media Checkup worth $250

Web design packages for Brisbane based businesses are available from $3,900 and include the following services:

1. Custom designed website that fits your brand
2. Content management system so you can edit your webpages
3. Full training on how to manage your website
4. Google AdWords & Facebook Ads to bring visitors to your website
5. 40% any of our social media packages
6. 8 week turnaround (ask about our express service)
7. Brisbane based web hosting for $29.50/month
8. 7 day technical support via email and phone

This Brisbane web design package is suited to business owners that want to market a new or existing range of products. You get great tracking reports plus a range of internet marketing tools are provided with this package allowing you to promote and track campaigns via: facebook ads, google adwords, msn/yahoo ads, linkedIN, plus more.

There is no limit to how many pages can be created with this package as you control the content for your website. You can design and edit your webpages either from home or work without software. We give you a secure login account that allows you to manage the website through your internet browser. This makes it faster and convenient for you as a website owner, while reducing the need to pay for web design services by the hour.

Secure, reliable hosting is an absolute must when running any commercial venture online so we use and recommend Black Label Hosting. They are based in Brisbane and have some of the most sophisticated servers in Australia, hundreds of websites trust them for hosting and so do we.

Web design packages for Brisbane based businesses are available from $8,900 and include the following services:

1. Custom designed website that fits your brand
2. Content management system with secure shopping cart
3. Full training on how to manage your website
4. Accept credit cards, paypal and more
5. 25% any of our social media packages
6. 10 week turnaround (ask about our express service)
7. Brisbane based web hosting for $69.50/month
8. 7 day technical support via email and phone

This Brisbane web design package is suited to business owners that want to sell products online within a secure platform. A range of promotional tools are provided with this package, so you can market individual items and track stats in realtime.

There is no limit to how many pages can be created with this package as you control the content for your website. You can design and edit your webpages either from home or work without software. We give you a secure login account that allows you to manage the website through your internet browser. This makes it faster and convenient for you as a website owner, while reducing the need to pay for web design services by the hour.

Secure, reliable hosting is an absolute must when running any commercial venture online so we use and recommend Black Label Hosting. They are based in Brisbane and have some of the most sophisticated servers in Australia, hundreds of websites trust them for hosting and so do we.

Web design packages for Brisbane based businesses are available from $2,600 and include the following services:

1. Custom designed website that fits your brand
2. Content management system so you can edit your webpages
3. Full training on how to manage your website
4. Google AdWords & Facebook Ads to bring visitors to your website
5. 25% any of our social media packages
6. 4 week turnaround (ask about our express service)
7. Brisbane based web hosting for $19.50/month
8. 7 day technical support via email and phone

This Brisbane web design package is suited to individuals and business owners that want to start with a professional online presence. Many internet marketing tools are provided with this package, allowing you to promote and track campaigns via: facebook ads, google adwords, msn/yahoo ads, linkedIN, plus more.

There is no limit to how many pages can be created with this package as you control the content for your website. You can design and edit your webpages either from home or work without software. We give you a secure login account that allows you to manage the website through your internet browser. This makes it faster and convenient for you as a website owner, while reducing the need to pay for web design services by the hour.

Secure, reliable hosting is an absolute must when running any commercial venture online so we use and recommend Black Label Hosting. They are based in Brisbane and have some of the most sophisticated servers in Australia, hundreds of websites trust them for hosting and so do we.

SEO services (Search Engine Optimisation) copywriting services provide writers who will take the information you give them and create the article, blog, or web text that your clients will easily find and understand. By describing your target group the writers will be able to create work that can be read and enjoyed by the people that come to your site so that they’ll stay longer. If you specify keywords for your site, they’ll also place them in effective places throughout the content so your site can climb its way into the top results from search engines.

Some companies may not realize that when they are selling a product that’s geared to a certain group of people, the way they explain what their product is can be just as important as the product itself. Using college level terms when describing a product that is appealing to teenagers can cost you business. Copywriters will not only use any information you give them but also research your product so that your website is designed for the consumer’s ease of use. The longer a customer stays at your page, the more likely they are to make a purchase.

A good flow to the writing is just as necessary as appropriate language. The writers that SEO copywriting services provide are professionals who understand the English language and know how to keep your content interesting and enjoyable to read. No one wants to read sentences that sound as if a robot is talking, so your site should avoid that at all costs. Fortunately, the writers are real people, not robots, so you can rest assured they can get the job done.

Keyword placement is used for getting your site noticed on search engines. Search engines use a certain pattern when finding sites that match what the user is looking for and knowing where to put the keywords in your website’s text can make or break your site. If people can’t find your site, they can’t learn about your product, let alone buy it! Writers will provide thorough research of the keywords you should use and where in your text they should go. The end result: search engines will have you high on their search page results list.

There are many companies on-line that provide these services. Prices will vary depending on the length of text that you need done, the amount of keywords you’d like put in, and of course the provider you chose to go with. Most sites will allow a consultation where they’ll look at your site and tell you what to improve if you need to. We have a complete range of SEO services that can fit your business and budget so get in touch today!

Some aspects of SEO simply can’t be ignored. For instance, keywords – these are the words and phrases that people will put into search bars to find what they need. If you want your search engine optimisation to work, you absolutely must understand how keywords work. If you work keywords into your search engine optimisation, you’ll definitely increase traffic to your website. If your website serves ads or sells products, then this will give you more page views, click-throughs, and sales.

Link building is another very important part of the SEO process. If your site has a lot of other websites linking to it, even if its links from other pages that belong to you, this can increase your visitors by a lot. The reason for this is that Yahoo! and other search engines take links as positive referrals to your web site. Their logic is that if other people are linking to your site, there must be something worthwhile there. As such, more links will lead to a higher search engine result rank – that’s search engine optimisation advantage!

The process that search engines use to search through websites and index them is called “spidering.” The search engines use automated programs, also known as spiders, to “crawl” through the Internet and collect data. The spiders will follow links that they come across before moving on. The more links to your site, the more likely it is that spiders are to crawl to your site and index it in the search engine.

Another way to get search engine optimisation advantage is to consistently check how your SEO is going. After all, what good is SEO if you can’t tell if it’s working? In today’s hectic world, you can’t afford to waste time or money on search engine optimisation that’s not going to get results. So, you should be sure to check your web site’s ranking in search engines, as well as check keyword trends to make sure your site stays relevant.

Web analytics are a tool that can help you keep track of how your SEO plan is working. These services track all kinds of data – such as which keywords are leading people to you, the numbers of people visiting based on keywords, and which search engines are leading to your site.

These are just a few stops along the path to search engine optimisation advantage. They’ll get you started, but if you want the top spots on Google’s search page results, you’ll need a lot more. There are a ton of articles and services available to help you master SEO and catapult your website to the front pages.

Search engine optimisation is the process of making your site more easily found by search engines. These search engines send out spiders which scan your page for any key words; they use this information in order to better rank your webpage on their result lists. SEO can be difficult to achieve correctly.

You must maintain a good balance of keywords in the content of your site. Too many of the same word can get you banned; so don’t think you can fill up a page with the same key word in order to get a high ranking. Put key words in the title tag of your webpage, in the headings, and in the major paragraphs.

One of the more popular and successful forms of internet advertising are monthly email newsletters. All you need to do is offer to send the visitors to your website a free newsletter each month when they give you their email addresses. This is a great way to market your business because you are reaching the same person repeatedly.

Every time you send out a newsletter you are giving the recipient another chance to take advantage of your services. The best part is that you can eventually get hundreds or thousands of people to sign up for you newsletter. Just make sure that you are sending them a quality email each month that is written professionally. If you are not a writer, then you can hire someone to perform this task for you.

Pay per click ads are offered by search engines such as Google and are a great way to promote your business. The way they work is simple. They will put your ad on the search results that are relevant to your site based on the keywords that you supply them with. Whenever a person clicks on one of your ads, you will have to pay a small fee, usually a few cents to a dollar or so.

The cost depends on the keywords that you use and how high up they show your add. You don’t have to worry about being charged too much either; you set your monthly budget and once that runs out your ads will stop being shown for the remainder of the month.

The final method of online advertising that will be discussed is website advertising. Most websites that operate solely by content offer ad space on their sites. There are some sites that offer very inexpensive ad space, while others can only be afforded by large corporations. When advertising on websites, do your best to pick a site that is relevant to the business that you are advertising on it. 

If you try out these forms of internet advertising you will be amazed at how well your website performs.

This is what makes internet market research so important. By conducting this research you are better prepared to know who your target audience is as well as the best methods of reaching them.

Many companies find that the markets in which they serve are filled with customers, competitors, and continually changing marketing conditions. Meeting the demands of these constantly changing market conditions is one of the most difficult aspects of marketing. It is because of this that market research is so important.

The same marketing techniques that work today are not guaranteed to work in the future. This marketing research can provide information on what the target market is going to look like in the future, and how to prepare for it.

Research is the process of gathering information in order to learn about something. Yes, that is a simple definition of something that is actually quite complicated. For the marketer, research is not simply for the purpose of learning, but is an extremely important ingredient in the decision making process.

Internet market research will give you a full picture of both what is occurring and what is about to occur in the marketplace. When it is performed well it can let you know what the best choices are to be made. Marketing decisions are less risky when you have looked at all available options.

There are countless decisions to be made in business that are effected by marketing; these include: target markets, products, distribution, promotion, pricing, external factors, and others. Each of these marketing segments will require research. It is important that you perform the correct research for each of these segments or you will be wasting your time.

Because marketing involves people, it is one of the social sciences. Social science is the study of people and how they react to different situations. In marketing, you study people and how they react to different marketing campaigns. Many marketing research techniques, such as surveys for example, are in actuality scientific experiments.

Not all marketing research will require studies to be performed, but if these studies are not performed correctly then they are producing inaccurate results. Of course, any research, no matter how well performed, has the ability to be wrong. It is because of this that you must undertake many different methods of research in order to produce the most accurate results. Research reliability depends on making sure that the data gathering leads to accurate results. If you always make sure to conduct the proper Internet market research, you will find that your business will be much more profitable than if you had not.

So to maximize your potential, it is important to use key strategies to offer the best options to your customers. You should set yourself apart from the competition; continuously attract new customers and retain current clients.

What products and services do you offer to your clients or customers?  It is so important that you offer the highest quality in whatever it is that you offer.  If you cannot stand behind your products and services, it will be unlikely that you will attain your business objectives. 

In order to develop your online marketing strategy, you will need to look at exactly what you have to offer and determine first what audience it will appeal to and second how you can reach that audience.  It’s unlikely they will come to you without your developing a way to go to them first.  You can easily find ways to target your potential clients by identifying them and then looking specifically at ways to utilize the internet to get the information about your products and services to them.

After you have determined what you have to offer to your potential clients and customers and looked at ways to use the internet to reach them, you next need to look at ways to differentiate yourself from your competition.  If you and five other online stores all offer the exact same product and service, why should they choose to buy from you instead of one of the other businesses?  What, exactly, can you offer to ensure that you are the most valuable choice that they can make?  Whether it’s free shipping, enhanced support, superior reputation or any other factor, you need to identify these explicitly to your potential clients.

Finally, you need to continuously attract new customers as well as retaining your current clients in order to remain viable in your business objectives.  Although some new clients will probably be reached through word of mouth promotion by your existing clients; you cannot count on this as your only means to build up your clientele. 

You need to continuously find new ways to reach additional shares of the marketplace.  You may also need to continuously update your products and services in order to continue to appeal to your past clients.  If you sell a one-time-use kind of product, look for any products or services that may be related or may enhance your primary offering. 

Always remember to go back to your past clients in order to advertise new offerings while showing how valuable they are and reminding of the value you’ve offered in the past.  By diligent work, you can develop your online marketing strategy and enhance your ability to reach your business objectives.

You’re no doubt familiar with the basic concepts of search engine optimisation, but are you familiar with SEO organic methods? While search engine optimisation is a very important aspect to any online business’ marketing plan, it’s become increasingly standardized and mechanized. Many SEO services and applications simply use the same basic plan to enhance a web site’s search engine rankings.

This has led to a lot of marketers using nasty search engine optimisation methods to get results. These types of methods can be great for generating traffic, but in the end they make the Internet an uglier place. These methods, known as “Black Hat” SEO methods, are just a bad idea. Not only do they frustrate potential users of your web site, they may not even work forever…

You see, Google and other search engines are constantly looking for ways to defeat Black Hat SEO techniques. If their efforts are successful – and really it’s just a matter of time before they are – your time and money may be wasted. Why spend money on search engine optimisation that could be useless in just a few months? Worse yet, search engines aren’t just knocking these sorts of sites down in rank; they’re totally removing them from search results.

Some of these Black Hat methods include using cheap labor or robots to perform a number of tasks. For instance, sometimes these services will sign up to tons of forums and or social networking sites and simply spam the link to a site everywhere possible. This is a definite annoyance for many webmasters, who end up with sites cluttered in meaningless links.

Link farms are another common type of Black Hat SEO. These sites are knockoffs are legit online directories, and are packed with links, many of which lead to very poor web sites. Some of them just link back and forth between each other and the link site, causing users to get lost in a sea of useless information. SEO organic techniques can be a great alternative to some of these Black Hat search engine optimization plans.

The main thing that people associate with web sites is their domain names. Domain names that feature the keywords that your website is targeting are a great start to organic SEO. Another, related, search engine optimization idea is to customize your web site’s title the same way: feature the keywords that your site targets. Both of these elements are factors that search engines use to rank a site.

There are many more ways to optimise a site with an SEO organic plan, but these tips will get you started.

When you think of social media marketing and social networking sites, there are some obvious candidates that may immediately come to mind. It may be surprising to know how many different social networking sites are actually out there. Here is a basic list of social networking sites online, but this list is by no means exhaustive.

Blogging – These are social networking sites that either center completely around communicating through blogging, or put a large emphasis on the concept of blogging.

- Blogger, http://www.blogger.com
- Livejournal, http://www.livejournal.com
- Twitter, http://www.twitter.com
- Windows Live Spaces, http://www.spaces.live.com/
- WordPress, http://www.wordpress.com
- Vox, http://www.vox.com
- Xanga, http://www.xanga.com

General Social Networking – These are the core of the social networking concept, with names like MySpace, Flickr, YouTube and Facebook leading the pack.

- ClassMates, http://www.classmates.com
- Bebo, http://www.bebo.com
- Deviant Art, http://www.deviantart.com
- Facebook, http://www.facebook.com
- Flickr, http://www.flickr.com
- LinkedIn, http://www.linkedin.com
- Meetup, http://www.meetup.com
- MySpace, http://www.myspace.com
- YouTube, http://www.youtube.com
- Gather, http://www.gather.com
- imeem, http://www.imeem.com
- Itsmy, http://www.itsmy.com
- My Yearbook, http://www.myyearbook.com
- Webshots, http://www.webshots.com

International Social Networking – These sites are especially popular in international countries, or are intended to cater to residents of a specific country. Friendster, for example, is a worldwide social networking site but it is especially popular in countries other than the United States. Biip, on the other hand, is a social networking site designed for the Norwegian community.

- Friendster, http://www.friendster.com
- Face Party, http://www.faceparty.com
- Friends Reunited, http://www.friendsreunited.co.uk/
- Biip, http://www.biip.no/
- Cloob, http://www.cloob.com/
- Cyworld, http://us.cyworld.com/
- Fotolog, http://www.fotolog.com/
- Frühstückstreff, http://www.fruehstueckstreff.org/
- Grono, http://www.grono.net
- Habbo, http://www.habbo.com
- hi5, http://www.hi5.com
- Hyves, http://www.hyves.nl
- IRC Galleria, http://www.irc-galleria.net/index.php
- iWiW, http://www.iwiw.hu/
- Profile Heaven, http://www.profileheaven.com/

Niche Interests – These are social networking sites that are geared toward certain interests like music lovers, bibliophiles, coffee enthusiasts or pop culture.

- Advogato, http://www.advogato.org/
- Amie Street, http://www.amiestreet.com/
- ANobii, http://www.anobii.com/
- CafeMom, http://www.cafemom.com
- Buzznet, http://www.buzznet.com
- Broadcaster, http://www.broadcaster.com
- Cake Financial, https://www.cakefinancial.com/
- Care2, http://www.care2.com/
- Eons, http://www.eons.com
- TravBuddy, http://www.travbuddy.com/
- Travellerspoint Travel Community, http://www.travellerspoint.com/
- BlackPlanet, http://www.blackplanet.com
- Elftown, http://www.elftown.com
- Flixster, http://www.flixster.com
- Geni, http://www.geni.com
- Goodreads, http://www.goodreads.com
- Gossip Report, http://www.gossipreport.com
- Guild Café, http://www.gamerDNA.com
- Hospitality club, http://www.hospitalityclub.org
- Last.fm, http://www.last.fm
- Library Thing, http://www.librarything.com/
- Lifeknot, http://www.lifeknot.com/
- Live Mocha, http://www.livemocha.com
- One World TV, http://tv.oneworld.net/
- Plaxo, http://www.plaxo.com
- Ravelry, http://www.ravelry.com
- Sci Space, http://www.scispace.net/
- WAYN, http://www.wayn.com/

Social Media – These sites specialize in sharing media and news with other members of the community.

- Digg, http://www.digg.com
- StumbleUpon, http://www.stumbleupon.com
- Del.icio.us, http://del.icio.us
- Reddit, http://www.reddit.com
- Fark, http://www.fark.com

Younger Generation – These are social networking sites that are best suited for younger generations and students.

- College Tonight, http://thequad.com/
- Gaia Online, http://www.gaiaonline.com
- NeoPets, http://www.neopets.com
- Student.com, http://www.student.com
- Reunion, http://www.reunion.com

Adult and Dating – These are social networking sites that focus on dating and relationships.

- Adult Friend Finder, http://www.adultfriendfinder.com/
- Ok Cupid, http://www.okcupid.com
- eHarmony, http://www.eharmony.com
- Fubar, http://www.fubar.com

Each one of these sites can be a good solid way to drive targeted traffic to your articles or your website. Before you ask, yes, you have to be careful not to do and outright sales pitch on your post. But with a little thinking on your part you will be able to make a useful post that is directed to your target market, without coming across as spam.

Some of the sites will not lend themselves to this marketing strategy, unless you are very creative in your post. Consequently you will find yourself being banned and your post being deleted if you violate the terms of service of those and others reflected on this list of social networking sites.

This is a pay per click method of advertising that anyone can easily incorporate into their online marketing plan. When placing an online ad, you should always keep your target audience in mind. You will want to have your ads written in the language that your target audience speaks. If you are using English, then don’t advertise to countries that do not have a large English speaking segment of the population.

You should also test 2 new ads at the same time. This is known as an A/B split test. Using this method, you can see which ad performs better by achieving a higher click through ratio. Continue to use the ad that performs better and get rid of the one that performed poorly. You can then write up a new ad and test it along side the one that performed the best. Continue doing this so that you can have the most powerful ad.

One of the most important things you can do in internet marketing promotion is to include your keywords in your ads. Since online ads are relatively short, you will not be able to put too many keywords in and have it still make sense. If you can fit 3 or 4 keywords in your ad then you are doing fine.

Make sure that you are using the same keywords that are being used in your web site description. The reason this works is because the keywords that you type into a search engine show up in bold in the results. Studies have shown that ads with bolded keywords in them will be clicked more often.

When writing your ad, you need to lay out what you can do for your customer. The catch is you only have a very limited space to do this in. Stay simple and do it in a couple words. If you are helping people lose weight, then simply put “get slim.”

If you are helping people make money, put “make more money.” You can see how these simple phrases will not take up that much needed space while still informing people of what you do. Use attention grabbing words like: New, Proven, Discover, How To and etc. Use words that are a call to action. Just make sure that the words you use truly fit your site. Search engines such as Google consider the alternative to be spam.

Finally, do your best to remove stop words from your ad. These are words such as: a, an, it, in, on, and, but, if, etc. You have to make sure that every word in your ad helps you to get a click. With these and other internet marketing promotion tips at your disposal, you are sure to see an increase in the amount of traffic to your site as well as an increasing customer base.

Email is actually a marketing tool that can be useful as long as you don’t overdo it.  Don’t spam anyone who hasn’t asked for information from your business, especially with a mass mailer that goes out every week.  What is acceptable is to create a mailing list that your customers can opt to join and have the option of leaving at any time. 

Another perfectly acceptable way of using email as a marketing tool is to put information about your business in the signature portion of each message.  You won’t have room to say too much, so most people simply list their company, their website, and sometimes the address or phone number.  This way, everyone you email gets a small reminder of your business in a non-obtrusive way.

If you want to define marketing tools that reach more than those whom you regularly email, you might think of message boards.  These online communities allow people to discuss various topics and exchange ideas without being online at the same time.  Some of them have specific areas for posting about businesses, contests, and the like.  Be sure to read the board rules before you post, though, or you might be banned for spamming.

Chat rooms are similar to message boards with the exception that the only people who see your message are the other people in the room.  Chat rooms aren’t the greatest place to market your online business since people are often discussing things that aren’t at all related to your site.  You can spam in chat rooms, of course, but again, you’ll likely be banned or simply ignored.

Spam, as you can obviously tell, is not a great marketing tool, and it’s one of the things you have to be very careful about.  Everyone is on the guard against spam, or unwanted messages, these days, and it’s next to impossible to get unblocked once you’ve made it onto someone’s spam filter list. 

To prevent that from happening, remember that the definition of an online marketing tool is not a message that reaches as many people as often as possible.  Never send unwanted email to someone, especially if you’re just sending them information about your business.  It is acceptable to ask people if they’d like to be added to a mailing list when they purchase items from you, though.

No matter which of these marketing tools you use, just be sure to always use them responsibly.  Think of how annoyed you would be if someone were to constantly post about their online pharmacy on your message board about dogs or in your painting chat room.  Define marketing tools for online businesses as only those messages you’d like to get and you’ll do very well.

Inexperienced people may know the techniques that search engine professionals will use, but when the techniques are used the wrong way they can cause irreparable damage to your site. Search engines filter sites for various things, and they can either place a site at the top of what they’ve found or skip over it all together depending on what your site contains.

For example, search engines like Google look for matching keywords to what the seeker has stated they’re looking for. However, if the SEs’ finds an overabundance of matching phrases your site may be skipped over. Sites cluttered with the same keywords are not attractive to anyone, not even search engines and if they see it enough times on your site you may even be banned by them.

That’s not to say that keywords aren’t useful when a search engine optimisation specialist who knows what they’re doing uses them properly. Every search engine is looking for a certain percentage for the match to what the user is looking for and the closer the percentage of the keywords on your site’s text matches the search engine’s percentage, the higher you’ll be on their list. Other factors go into where you’ll stand in the results but as long as they’re taken into account on your site, the keyword placement will help put your site in an optimal position.

Your SEO expert might suggest using link building, which would put your site in directory sites and increase the amount of people who view your web page. Search engines love websites that people already go to a lot, so having more people view your page leads to even more people being directed there. If there are other sites that relate to yours without competing for business, a specialist can find appropriate places for your links that people in the market for your product are more likely to see. No advertising will go to waste when you put a good search engine optimisation specialist on the job.

Every website is different so the techniques used on your website might differ from ones on other websites, but they will still be able to max out your place on the search results. Be sure to know what it is you’re looking for from SEO and who your target audience is for your product. Once the information is in their hands, the search engine optimisation specialist, you’ve entrusted your site to, will take all the necessary steps to increase your site’s traffic.

If you use offline marketing strategies, think about how you reach out to your target audience.  You must first develop a profile of what your target audience looks like.  Then, you might need to consult with outside resources to find ways to reach your target audience.  After that, you will spend a lot of time, money and effort to reach that audience.  With the internet, this process becomes easier as it is streamlined.  Using a variety of online analytical tools, you can easily determine how best to reach your target audience.  After doing so, there are so many different resources that you can tap into to ensure that your marketing campaign continuously reaches out to potential new customers.  Best yet, this can be automated so that you only have to monitor the progress of your marketing campaign instead of executing each step on your own.

Another benefit of online direct marketing is the many different ways in which you can use the internet as a means of presenting your products or services.  Through web sites and blogs, you can make available more information than your potential customers would ever need to access to show why they need to become your client.  Through visual and written advertisements, you can capture the attention of those who will spend money on your offerings.  By utilizing keyword maximization skills as well as search engine optimization, you can ensure that you come up in web searches frequently and relevantly.  And you can also buy ads that correspond to popular online searches so that when a potential client is doing a search, information on your business can appear.

Finally, a large benefit for online marketing versus traditional offline marketing is how much you will save in time, money and effort.  Advertising through various internet web sites is often far more inexpensive than nearly any offline resource.  Buying adds that appear in blocks on related web sites or as responses to search engine queries is far less expensive that buying spots on network television.  In addition to those money savings, you will also save time through the ways in which your marketing campaign can be automated.  When you don’t need to perform every step of the marketing process yourself but can instead depend on automation, you will save both time and effort.  The benefits of online direct marketing practices are nearly endless and can lead to the maximization of your success.

Some of the advantages e commerce websites have over traditional stores are the reasons that shopping online has become so popular. If e commerce sounds complicated to you, don’t worry. It’s not a difficult concept at all. E commerce is simply the exchange of goods and services through electronic data transfer. You pay online and either download an electronic item you’ve purchased like a digital book or music, or the physical goods are shipped to you. Almost everyone has used some sort of e commerce. Online auctions like eBay are e commerce, too, but that’s considered C2C or consumer-to-consumer commerce. And if you’ve ever used file-sharing software, whether money changed hands or not, that’s a form of P2P or peer-to-peer e commerce.

The term e commerce has been around a lot longer than eBay or Amazon.com. In the days before the Internet when businesses used to exchange information electronically, the term e commerce was born. But only after the invention of the Internet did e commerce become something the average consumer could use.

With more and more people getting online every year, more people discover the convenience of e commerce, so sales are growing right along with increased Internet usage. Most traditional retail stores now have an online presence that accounts for a large percentage of their sales. Even small local Mom & Pop shops often have online stores that allow them to sell electronically, and bring local business into their retail stores. So many people search online and comparison shop before they actually go to a store to purchase an item, that not having an Internet presence makes no sense in today’s marketplace.

The advantages e commerce offers business makes running an online store a highly desirable thing to do. Not only do you show up in Internet searches for your products, if you’ve taken care to make sure your search engine rankings are good, but you’ll draw local customers as well as long-distance customers who can order your goods or services online regardless of location.

Advantages e commerce offers the merchant also include the ability to change prices, and even an entire business structure, just by making changes to a website. A merchant can try several different methods of online promotion and marketing, and track each one to see which works best. The ability to quickly adapt to trends and adjust sales efforts is one of the chief advantages e commerce offers over traditional marketing and promotional methods. If a print ad or even television commercial isn’t giving you results, there’s little you can do. But a banner ad online can be changed and tweaked until results are more favorable. Customisation is one of the advantages e commerce offers merchants and consumers. Web sites can be designed to offer recommendations based on a customer’s last viewed or purchased items.

The ability to shop without having to stand in line or pay for fuel is also one of the chief advantages e commerce offers today.

Establishing your own E-commerce site is not like what it used to be. There are thousands of competition that is all too willing to get a bigger share of the pie. Every scheme and method you can find to augment your sales would be very beneficial.

We have got to admit to ourselves. Most of us are into it for the money. We are not going to waste our time and effort just for the fun of it. Many sites would not wait until hell freezes over just to see their profits. While there are some who takes things lightly there are always those who would rather see profit any given day.

It is common knowledge that without traffic we have no business. Like any business, without any customers you don’t get sales. Traffic represents all the people that gets a chance to see what you have to offer. The more people who see your products the more people there would be to buy them.

Nobody puts up an E-commerce site that doesn’t expect profit. We have a startup capital that needs to be regained. With a consistent traffic, we at least have a fighting chance to achieve that probability. Monetizing your traffic would optimize your chances of making the best out of it.

Making Money out of your Traffic

The best and most proven method of making a profit out of your traffic is using advertising. The internet generates hundreds of thousands upon hundred of thousands of traffic everyday. Most of them are searching for something. While some are just looking for information there is also a good percentage that is looking for something that they need.

The internet has proven to be a very reliable source in finding what was deemed to be a very unsearchable product. The internet has made the world a smaller place; you can advertise a product from the depths of Istanbul and still find a buyer from the center of Philadelphia.

Generating traffic is not an easy task. You have to contend with a great number of sites to generate a good number of traffic flow. But if done successfully this could open up a Pandora’s Box of possibilities. One of the benefits is monetizing your traffic flow.

So, to get to the core of it the more traffic you generate the more likely you are considered as a desirable, desirable, in a sense that a good traffic flowing site is easily convertible to profit. Basically traffic equals profit. Advertising is the name of the game; with the good advertising scheme you can use your traffic flow to your advantage.

When you have good traffic you have a good number of potential customers, customers that are willing to pour money into your coffers. Other than that these are also traffic that can be redirected to sponsored links that are willing to pay you for a sizeable portion of the traffic that you have generated.

This scheme is called “pay-per-click”. With every click a visitor of your site makes on an advertised link you will be paid. The more traffic you generate and the more clicks that happens would spell to more profits.

Affiliate Programs

Another method of monetizing your traffic are affiliate programs. You can link up with other tried and tested sites and online companies and monetize your traffic by having a percentage of sales generated by traffic coming from your site.

The basic idea is, traffic generated from your site will go to another site that can offer a product that you do not carry. Many programs can keep track and make records of transactions that was made possible because of site linkage.

When purchases are made by customers that was led by your site to their site you get a percentage of that sale. Affiliate programs would give you the benefit of monetizing your traffic without the actual need of carrying or promoting a certain product.

There are so many ways and methods to monetize your traffic. All it takes is a bit of hard work and the desire to successfully launch a profit-earning site. The internet is a veritable source of information, many tips and guides are offered everywhere in how to monetize your traffic and make your site a good profit earner.

Putting up a company would of course require a lot of things, to get straight to the point, you need a capital. To make money requires money as well. But of course, with the versatility the internet offers, there are many ways you could find that could help optimize the potential of your site or business in generating traffic.

While there are ways to jumpstart your traffic flows, many sites don’t have the resources that others have to generate more traffic for your site. Well, you don’t have to spend a cent; all you need is the proper mindset and a lot of eagerness. You also must have the drive and perseverance to do hard work and research to generate more traffic for your site.

How sweet it is to have more traffic for your site without spending a single cent.  Now it’s a sure thing that many sites have articles that offer tips and guidelines in how to generate traffic using only free methods. Because it is possible, you don’t need to speed a single cent, it may take time, to say honestly, I’m not going to beat around the bush with you. You get better chances by paying for your advertisements, but at least you get a fighting chance with some of these free methods I’m about to tell you.

Take advantage of online forums and online communities. The great thing about forums and online communities is that you can target a certain group that fits the certain demographic that you are looking for. You can discuss about lots of things about the niche that you represent or offer.  Another great advantage is that you know what you are getting into and you will be prepared.

With online communities and forums you can build a reputation for your company. Show them what you are made of and wow them with your range of expertise about the subject, with that you can build a reputation and build trust with the people in your expertise and knowledge.

You can also make use of newsletters. Provide people with a catalog of your products and interesting and entertaining articles. If you make it really interesting and entertaining, more people will sign up for your newsletter and recommend it to other people. The more people who signs up for your newsletter, the more people there will be that will go to your site increasing your traffic.

Another great idea is trading links with other sites. You don’t have to spend a cent. All you have to do is reach an agreement with another webmaster. With exchanging links, the efforts both sites do will benefit both sites. Every traffic that goes to the site could potentially click on the link of your site and visit your site as well. This works well especially when both sites feature the same niche.

Write articles that could pique the attention of people that have interest in your product. Try writing articles that will provide tips and guides to other aficionados. Writing articles that provide good service and knowledge to other people would provide the necessary mileage your traffic flow needs. 

Many sites offer free submission and posting of your articles. When people find interest in your articles they have a good chance of following the track by finding out where the article originated. Include a link or a brief description of your company with the article and there’s a great probability that they will go to your site.

Write good content for your site. Many search engines track down the keywords and keyword phrases your site uses and how they are used. It is not a requirement that a content should be done by a professional content writer. You could do your on but you have to make content for your site that is entertaining as well as informational. It should provide certain requirements as well as great quality.

Generally, internet users use search engines to find what they are looking for. Search engines in return use keyword searching in aiding their search results. With the right keywords, you could get high rankings in search engine results without the costs.

All of these methods and more will drive more traffic to your site for free. All it takes is a bit of effort and extended man hours. Learn all you can about the methods depicted here and you will soon have a site with a great traffic flow without the usual costs that come with it.

There are so many success stories you will hear about businesses making it good in the internet. The troubling thing is, there are maybe a tenfold or even a hundredfold of stories contradictory to theirs. Many have unsuccessfully launched a business enterprise that is internet based but only a handful shall succeed.

Is this through luck? That is even more remote. It takes good business sense and a lot of help and team effort. Most importantly, it is the eagerness to succeed and the determination to learn and the willingness to invest in a lot of hard work and some money.

The Very Basics

Like Neo in the matrix, traffic is “The One”. Without traffic, all your effort would just go to waste. Every business needs customers, without them you wouldn’t have anyone to sell your products to. In the internet world traffic is the walk in customer. The more traffic you have the more people would be able to sell your products to.

But like any business that’s in every corner building or in the mall, not everyone that goes in will buy, but the greater of number that do come in to browse your merchandise, the greater number of people that will buy your products. It is a simple and known fact.

But, how do you get traffic, traffic large enough that could make a small percentage of eventual buyers enough to make a good profit. Many big companies generate traffic of tens of thousands a day and a measly ten to fifteen percent actually buys, but that small percentage is enough to provide them with good business.

Many of these success stories get their traffic from paying others. Yes that’s right; you have to spend money to make money. Advertising is the key. The more people that knows that your site exists; the more people would of course go to your site, that’s common sense.

While there are many ways that can get you advertising for free, this do not generate the same high volume as those methods that are getting paid. These paid advertisements include advertising schemes by Google and Yahoo.

The Value of Searches

The search and will be the easiest and fastest medium in finding what a person needs in the internet. Search engines have been very popular because they provide a vital service to many people. They are free and easy to use. With this popularity, they get many visitors and clicks that they are the most common sites that people go to. It is easy to understand why so many companies would pay to advertise with these search engines.

Search engines provide information to the millions of users that they have each day. They provide links to many sites that a user may be looking for. If your sites link pop up in the high ranks of the search results page, you get a great chance that they will go to your site. While search engine optimization is a cheaper and low cost way to get your site a high rank, paying for advertisements will ensure that you will be on the top ranks.

When you pay for your advertisements, it is like paying for your traffic. This may sound like not such a good idea, but the payoffs would tell a different story. When you pay for your traffic, you are guaranteed of a consistent traffic flow to your site. You will never go with an empty sales day.

Paying for your Traffic

Usually, you will be charged with the number of hits a link gets when your ads is clicked, this is called pay per click. For some search engines, you will be charged with the number of times your ad shows up when a certain keyword or keyword phrase is searched. It is imperative that you have good keyword content in your ad. There are many tools that aid you in using the right keyword for the right moment.

All the money you spend in paying for your traffic will not be for naught. You will get an impressive boost in traffic which will also result to a great boost in your sales figures. Paying for your traffic would be a really good idea and you will get all the benefits it has to offer.

A lot of successful websites depend on returning visitors to account for a major part of their traffic. Returning visitors are easier to convert into paying customers because the more often they return to a site, the more trust they have in that site. The credibility issue just melts away. Hence, keep your visitors coming back to your site with the following methods:

1) Start a forum, chatroom or shoutbox

When you start a forum, chatroom or shoutbox, you are providing your visitors a place to voice their opinions and interact with their peers — all of them are visitors of your site. As conversations build up, a sense of community will also follow and your visitors will come back to your site almost religiously every day.

2) Start a blog

Keep an online journal, or more commonly known as a blog, on your site and keep it updated with latest news about yourself. Human beings are curious creatures and they will keep their eyes glued to the monitor if you post fresh news frequently. You will also build up your credibility as you are proving to them that there is also a real life person behind the website.

3) Carry out polls or surveys

Polls and surveys are other forms of interaction that you should definitely consider adding to your site. They provide a quick way for visitors to voice their opinions and to get involved in your website. Be sure to publish polls or surveys that are strongly relevant to the target market of your website to keep them interested to find out about the results.

4) Hold puzzles, quizzes and games

Just imagine how many office workers procrastinate at work every day, and you will be able to gauge how many people will keep visiting your site if you provide a very interesting or addicting way of entertainment. You can also hold competitions to award the high score winner to keep people trying continuously to earn the prize.

5) Update frequently with fresh content

Update your site frequently with fresh content so that every time your visitors come back, they will have something to read on your site. This is the most widely known and most effective method of attracting returning visitors, but this is also the least carried out one because of the laziness of webmasters. No one will want to browse a site that looks the same over ten years, so keep your site updated with fresh bites!

For anything to work well, care must be taken to make firm, workable plans to execute it and the same goes for website designs. With a well thought out website design, you will be able to create a site that generates multiple streams of revenue for you. In fact, may websites turn into online wasteland because they are not well planned and do not get a single visitor. Gradually, the webmaster will not be motivated to update it anymore and it turns into wasted cyberspace.

The crucial point of planning your site is optimizing it for revenue if you want to gain any income from the site. Divide your site into major blocks, ordered by themes, and start building new pages and subsections in those blocks. For example, you might have a “food” section, an “accomodation” section and an “entertainment” section for a tourism site. You can then write and publish relevant articles in the respective sections to attract a stream of traffic that comes looking for further information.

When you have a broader, better-defined scope of themes for your website, you can sell space on your pages to people interested in advertising on your page. You can also earn from programs like Google’s Adsense and Yahoo! Search Marketing if people surf to those themed pages and click on the ads. For this very reason, the advertisement blocks on your pages need to be relevant to the content, so a themed page fits that criteria perfectly.

As Internet becomes more widespread, advertising on the Internet will bear more results than on magazines or offline media. Hence, start tapping in on this lucrative stream of profit right away!

Your website is where your business resides — it’s like the headquarter of an offline company. Hence, it is important to practise good web design principles to make sure your site reaches out to the maximum number of visitors and sells to as many people as possible.

Make sure you have clear directions on the navigation of your website. The navigation menu should be uncluttered and concise so that visitors know how to navigate around your website without confusion.

Reduce the number of images on your website. They make your site load very slowly and more often than not they are very unnecessary. If you think any image is essential on your site, make sure you optimize them using image editing programs so that they have a minimum file size.

Keep your text paragraphs at a reasonable length. If a paragraph is too long, you should split it into seperate paragraphs so that the text blocks will not be too big. This is important because a block of text that is too large will deter visitors from reading your content.

Make sure your website complies to web standards at www.w3.org and make sure they are cross-browser compatible. If your website looks great in Internet Explorer but breaks horribly in Firefox and Opera, you will lose out on a lot of prospective visitors.

Avoid using scripting languages on your site unless it is absolutely necessary. Use scripting languages to handle or manipulate data, not to create visual effects on your website. Heavy scripts will slow down the loading time of your site and even crash some browsers. Also, scripts are not supported across all browsers, so some visitors might miss important information because of that.

Use CSS to style your page content because they save alot of work by styling all elements on your website in one go.

No matter how brilliant your website design is, if it is hard to reach the content of your site then your site is as useful as an empty shell. Here are some tips to improve the usability of your website to ensure it serves its functions optimally.

The first method is to make sure the typography of your content is suitable. If you have large blocks of text, make sure to use CSS to space out the lines accordingly. The longer a single line of text is, the greater the line-height of each line should be. Also, make sure the font size of your text is big enough to read easily. Some sites have 10-pixel-tall text in Verdana font; while that may look neat and tidy, you have to really strain your eyes to read the actual text.

Make it easy for visitors to find content that they want on your site. If you have thousands of articles on your site and a certain visitor wants to find one single article from that pile, you have to provide a feasible means to enable visitors to do that without hassle. Be it an SQL-driven database search engine or just a glossary or index of articles that you have, providing such a feature will make sure your visitors can use your site with ease.

Ensure that your site loads fast if you do not want to lose visitors. Most internet users will leave a website if it doesn’t load completely within 15 seconds, so make sure the crème de la crème of your website is delivered to the visitors as soon as possible to retain their attention.

Last of all, test each and every link on your site before it goes online. There is nothing more effective in tarnishing your professional image than broken links, so be very careful about that.

Convincing your prospects to purchase from you is a hard job, but have you ever thought that you’re making the process twice as difficult for both parties if your prospects are convinced but don’t know how to buy from you? No matter how good you are at convincing your prospects, they won’t buy if they find the process cumbersome.

First, you will want to check that people can find your order form easily and hassle-free. You can write a clear, concise paragraph to direct your prospects to your order form so that you can minimize the chances of them getting lost. You can also reduce the chances of losing prospects by putting a prominent link to your order page from every other page on your site.

Also, do you offer multiple payment options? Some people may feel comfortable paying via Paypal, some may only want to pay with their credit card and others might want to send a cheque. The more options you offer, the better your chances of covering your prospects’ desired payment method. After all, it wouldn’t make any sense to sell hard to a prospect only to find that they won’t be able to pay you when they want to.

On the other hand, you will want to prove that you are a credible merchant. Is your order form secured using encryption technology? You would want to look into SSL for this. You can also offer a money back guarantee so that people will feel confident about buying from you. How about after sales support? Who do they contact when they have problems after purchasing?

Alternatively, you can add customer testimonials, your contact information, address, and so on to boost your prospects’ confidence. Make them feel safe about buying something from you, a total stranger to them on the other end of the Internet.

As a conclusion, it would be very pitiful if you sold hard and sold well to a prospect and something goes wrong when he or she is ready to pay. Eliminate any chances of that to maximise your profits!

Flash-based sites have been a craze since the past few years, and as Macromedia compiles more and more great features into Flash, we can only predict there will be more and more flash sites around the Internet. However, Flash based sites have been disputed to be bloated and unnecessary. Where exactly do we draw the line? Here’s a simple breakdown.

THE PRO’S:

Interactivity

Flash’s Actionscript opens up a vast field of possibilities. Programmers and designers have used Flash to create interactve features ranging from very lively feedback forms to attractive Flash-based games. This whole new level of interactivity will always leave visitors coming back for more.

A standardised site

With Flash, you do not have to worry about cross-browser compatibility. No more woes over how a certain css code displays differently in Internet Explorer, Firefox and Opera. When you position your site elements in Flash, they will always appear as they are as long as the user has Flash Player installed.

Better expression through animation

In Flash, one can make use of its animating features to convey a message in a much more efficient and effective way. Flash is a lightweight option for animation because it is vector based (and hence smaller file sizes) as opposed to real “movie files” that are raster based and hence much larger in size.

THE CONS:

The Flash player

People have to download the Flash player in advance before they can view Flash movies, so by using Flash your visitor range will decrease considerably because not everyone will be willing to download the Flash player just to view your site. You’ll also have to put in additional work in redirecting the user to the Flash download page if he or she doesn’t have the player installed.

Site optimisation

If your content was presented in Flash, most search engines wouldn’t be able to index your content. Hence, you will not be able to rank well in search engines and there will be less traffic heading to your site.

Loading time

Users have to wait longer than usual to load Flash content compared to regular text and images, and some visitors might just lose their patience and click the Back button. The longer your Flash takes to load, the more you risk losing visitors.

The best way to go is to use Flash only when you absolutely need the interactivity and motion that comes with it. Otherwise, use a mixture of Flash and HTML or use pure text if your site is purely to present simple textual and graphical information.

Even though more and more Internet users switch to broadband every year, a large portion of the web’s population is still running on good old dialup connections. It is therefore unwise to count them out of the equation when you’re designing your website, and a very major consideration we have to make for dialup users is the loading time of your website.

Generally, all the text on your website will be loaded in a very short time even on a dialup connection. The culprit of slow-loading sites is mainly large images on your website, and it is very important to strike a delicate balance between using just enough images to attract your users and not to bog down the overall loading time of your site.

You should also go to a greater length and optimise every image on your site to make sure it loads in the least time possible. What I really mean is to use image editing software to remove unnecessary information on your images, and thereby effectively reducing the file size of your image without affecting its appearance.

If you own Photoshop, it will be obvious to you that when you save an image as a JPEG file, a dialog box appears and lets you choose the “quality” of the JPEG image — normally a setting of 8 to 10 is good enough as it will preserve the quality of your image while saving it at a small file size. If you do not have Photoshop, there are many free image compressors online that you can download and use to reduce your image’s file size.

On the other hand, you can opt to save your images in PNG format to get the best quality at the least file size. You can also save your images in GIF format — the image editing software clips away all the color information not used in your image, hence giving you the smallest file size possible. However, saving in GIF format will often compromise the appearance of your image, so make your choice wisely!

There is no point in building a website unless there are visitors coming in. A major source of traffic for most sites on the Internet is search engines like Google, Yahoo!, MSN, Altavista and so on. Hence, by designing a search engine friendly site, you will be able to rank easily in search engines and obtain more visitors.

Major search engines use programs called crawlers or robots to index websites to list on their search result pages. They follow links to a page, reads the content of the page and record it in their own database, pulling up the listing as people search for it.

If you want to make your site indexed easily, you should avoid using frames on your website. Frames will only confuse search engine robots and they might even abandon your site because of that. Moreover, frames make it difficult for users to bookmark a specific page on your site without using long, complicated scripts.

Do not present important information in Flash movies or in images. Search engine robots can only read text on your source code so if you present important words in Flash movies and images rather than textual form, your search engine ranking will be affected dramatically.

Use meta tags accordingly on each and every page of your site so that search engine robots know at first glance what that particular page is about and whether or not to index it. By using meta tags, you are making the search engine robot’s job easier so they will crawl and index your site more frequently.

Stop using wrong HTML tags like <font> to style your page. Use CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) instead because they are more effective and efficient. By using CSS, you can eliminate redundant HTML tags and make your pages much lighter and faster to load.

Your website is the hub of your online business; it is the virtual representation of your company whether your company exists physically or not. When you are doing business online, people cannot see you physically like how they could if they were dealing with an offline company. Hence, people do judge you by your covers. This is where a good design comes in.

Imagine if you are running an offline company. Would you allow your salespersons to be dressed in shabby or casual clothes when they are dealing with your customers? By making your staff wear professionally, you are telling your customers that you do care about quality. This works simply because first impressions matter.

Similarly, the same case is with your website. If your website is put together shabbily and looks like a 5 minute “quick fix”, you are literally shouting to your visitors that you are not professional and you do not care for quality.

On the opposite, if you have a totally professional looking website layout, you are giving your visitors the perception that you have given meticulous attention to every detail and you care about professionalism. You are organised, focused and you really mean business.

On the other hand, you should also have anything related to your company well designed. From business cards to letterheads to promotional brochures, every little bit matters. This is because as you grow your business, these items become the face of your business. Once again, think of the “salesperson dressed shabbily” anology, and you will get my point.

A sitemap is often considered redundant in the process of building a website, and that is indeed the fact if you made a sitemap for the sake of having one. By highlighting the importance of having a well constructed sitemap, you will be able to tailor your own sitemap to suit your own needs.

1) Navigation purposes

A sitemap literally acts as a map of your site. If your visitors browses your site and gets lost between the thousands of pages on your site, they can always refer to your sitemap to see where they are, and navigate through your pages with the utmost ease.

2) Conveying your site’s theme

When your visitors load up your sitemap, they will get the gist of your site within a very short amount of time. There is no need to get the “big picture” of your site by reading through each page, and by doing that you will be saving your visitors’ time.

3) Site optimisation purposes

When you create a sitemap, you are actually creating a single page which contains links to every single page on your site. Imagine what happens when search engine robots hit this page — they will follow the links on the sitemap and naturally every single page of your site gets indexed by search engines! It is also for this purpose that a link to the sitemap has to be placed prominently on the front page of your website.

4) Organisation and relevance

A sitemap enables you to have a complete bird’s eye view of your site structure, and whenever you need to add new content or new sections, you will be able to take the existing hierarchy into consideration just by glancing at the sitemap. As a result, you will have a perfectly organized site with everything sorted according to their relevance.

From the above reasons, it is most important to implement a sitemap for website projects with a considerable size. Through this way, you will be able to keep your website easily accesible and neatly organized for everyone.

Anyone who has been marketing online knows that the lifeblood of a business is the traffic of a site. More visitors equal more sales. However, here are some ways that you can tweak your sites with to improve sales without the need to get more visitors.

The first method is to weave in your personal touch in your sales message. Nobody wants to be sold to by a total stranger, but many people will buy what their close friends recommend to them. If you can convince your audience that you are a personal friend who has their best interest at heart, they will be convinced to buy your products. Remember to speak to an individual in your salesletter, not to your whole audience.

The second method is to publish testimonials and comments from your customers. A good idea would be to publish both good and bad comments; that way prospects will be really convinced that these testimonials are real. When prospects see testimonials on your website, they will have the confidence to buy from you because human beings follow the herd mentality; when others have bought and proven it authentic, they will jump on the bandwagon and buy too.

Use visual representations for the problems and solutions that your product offers. Not everyone will read your text copy from the head to the tail, but most people will pay attention to images on your website.

Offer quality bonuses to accompany the product. When you offer bonuses that complement your product, your prospects will feel it’s a very good deal and it would be stupid to miss it. Be sure to state the monetary value of your bonuses so that people will be even more compelled to grab your good bargain.

Lastly, ask for the sale! Many people entice their prospects with the benefits of their product, sell to them with stories of how it has solved many problems, even offered killer bonuses but forget to ask for the sale. Give a clear instruction on how to buy your product (e.g. “click the button to buy now!”).