Get Business Online

As inventive as ever, Google is now launching a new version of its crawling and indexing engine. They’ve even given it a name: Google Caffeine.

To the person searching for something, Google Caffeine will seem like plain old Google – the search page looks the same, the results look the same – so what’s so different and why should anyone care?

Well, “under the hood”, Google has aimed primarily to improve two things: speed and accuracy. Let’s take a look at each of them.

Speed

Google has made site indexing a lot faster and improved the speed of listing search results in the new version. Faster indexing allows Google to keep up with the growth of the Internet, especially with social sites, like Twitter and Facebook.

Website owners are now expected to help Google index things faster by implementing some coding guidelines that will improve site performance. Faster sites will be deemed better and show up higher in search results. Google has even made special programs available for analyzing site performance and reducing the loading time of websites.

The downside is that non-technical folks who maintain their own sites are now at a great disadvantage compared to professional site builders who keep up with technology. This is yet another reason to let professionals build your website.

Accuracy

Google Caffeine seems to rely more heavily on keywords than the old version. This is not surprising, because it probably helps speed up pre-processing of crawled pages and reduces the size of the Google search index.

This means that do-it-yourself site builders will again fall behind Search Engine Optimization (SEO) professionals, who have the know-how to put keywords in all the right places.

Bottom line

Now, more than ever, a professional Internet marketing consultant can help clients rank well on Google Search and get business online. Small businesses that try to go solo and save will end up getting less and less, while those who focus on their own craft and outsource their Internet marketing will benefit.

Here are sites I have created and/or promoted online, each with its own story. As you will see, the results are impressive and have made significant impact on the respective businesses.

Plastic2go – plastic pallets, crates and bulk containers

Within 6 months of launching this website, inquiries for plastic pallets, crates and bulk containers were strong and steady. While I initially used paid ads to attract targeted traffic, I gradually cut back until I turned off the AdWords campaign completely. Plastic2go – plastic pallets, crates and bulk containers now receives only free search traffic and site referrals, being #1 or #2 in Google Search for every one of its keyword phrases. Even the images from Plastic2go feature highly on Google Image Search for the relevant searches, which means more free traffic.

Despite being a country-specific website, Plastic2go receives inquiries from outside Australia, simply due to its outstanding search performance.

Be Happy in LIFE – life coaching

This website has been redone 3 times based on its results and feedback from visitors who became clients. It is promoted using a combination of paid ads, search engine optimization and blog referrals. As of the time of writing, it is one of the highest ranking websites for the very competitive phrases “life coach” and “life coaching” on Google Search against well-funded coaching schools.

Over the past 2 years, Be Happy in LIFE – life coaching has been pulling in a regular stream of life coaching, parenting classes, relationship coaching and kids assessment inquiries, building a list of prospects and sustaining this small coaching practice.

Family Matters – parenting blog

This website has received a steadily increasing flow of visitors who come to read the daily parenting posts, subscribe and participate in discussions. Based on Wordpress, Family Matters makes posting content easy, allowing for more than one author to contribute and for many people to post comments every day.

This blog has been promoted using only my time and skill, yet gets thousands of visits per month, advertising requests, loads of syndications and drives traffic to other related websites. It receives its traffic from search engines, social networks and other websites continues to do better all the time.

Family Matters – parenting blog appears on the first page of Google Search for the term “family matters” against the government and a movie and in the first position for searches like “positive thoughts for kids”, “positive thoughts for children” and “positive parenting quotes”.

As you can see, these sites are doing extremely well for their owners and operating on a very small budget. The ways in which I promote each website depends on the nature and target market of the site itself, but they are all very well optimized to be found easily, read and navigated easily and perform well for their business.

If you would like similar results for your own business, contact me today.

You may have heard this saying from people already

What you don’t know, doesn’t hurt you

Well, I’m here to tell you this saying is really wrong when it comes to getting business online.

You see, the Internet is a very BIG place and it keeps cHanGIng all the time, faster than anyone can keep up with, let alone anyone who happens to be busy making products, servicing clients or doing the accounting.

On the Internet, what you don’t know can hurt you. A lot!

For example, say you want to develop a website and all you know is Microsoft Word. You create a simple site that looks good to you and you publish it online. No niche research, no usability design, no speed optimization, no SEO and no dynamic content. Just an online brochure, really. You think, “It cost me nothing and it looks nice. Now, all I have to do is wait”.

WRONG! Your website takes months to be picked up by search engines and sits at the bottom of page 523, never to be seen by anyone, let alone buyers.

What you need is someone who can help you put business sense into your website from Day 1.

But let’s say you got some help and your website looks professional and even includes a shopping cart for your products, but you have not done your Internet marketing research, so your keywords are off and your structure is sub-optimal. You cleverly figure out that AdWords can get you traffic quickly and create a campaign.

BAD MOVE! Your ads will receive low quality scores by AdWords, which means they will appear lower than they should and you’ll be paying a lot more than you should. If that’s not enough, you’ll get the wrong type of visitors, the kind that doesn’t buy.

What you need is someone who can help you put business sense into your website from Day 1.

But let’s say you hire someone to put links all over the Internet back to your site. Surely, this will help bring you site up in searches and get you more business, no?

Nope. It will certainly improve your position, but working outside your site can only improve so much. Incorrect structure and content will still result in a low conversion rate and require a lot more links to make any noticeable difference to your business.

What you need is someone who can help you put business sense into your website from Day 1.

I could go on for a while, but the gist of it is

On the Internet, what you don’t know can hurt you. A lot!

If you don’t do this stuff (Internet marketing, that is) all the time and stay on top of things, you will pay more and get less than you should and make a lot less profit. Why waste time and money and why frustrate yourself? Find an Internet marketer you can trust (I know this great guy) and hire him to get you business quickly and easily from the ground up.

You new Internet business is not far away.

Talk to you soon,
Gal

In the past few months, I’ve gone deeper and deeper into social networking. As the Internet evolves, this medium now provides website referrals with implied trust. Basically, someone you “know” recommends something, so you are more inclined to go check it out.

When you sell something online, or just when you want to get your name out, social networking sites can be great promotional tools for you. Here are some of them:

• StumbleUpon – very quick to bring traffic, but visitors only stick around if you can really grab their attention. Friends and groups are helpful, but once your page makes it into the SU database, it may get propagated by random users who “stumble upon” it with the toolbar
• Digg – mostly news items and technology, but famous for bringing sites down due to the massive amounts of traffic sent over a short period of time. Requires time to build a following
• Twitter – a “mini blogging” platform, surrounded and supported by a host of applications for filtering tweets, vetting friend requests and grouping friends. Tweets can go to and from your mobile phone while you are away, as well as to and from your website automatically
• LinkedIn – invitation-only website for professionals and business people, featuring excellent group discussions and allowing you to build business affiliations, create joint ventures and find strategic clients online. Self promotion is frowned upon, so participation and adding genuine value are the best approach

Of course, there are others, like MySpace and Facebook, and the social interaction can quickly take up all of your time if you are not focused, so you must do your homework before choosing the best social networking sites to promote your website, pick the best tools and consider hiring people to help you do the work, while you are busy selling.

I’m doing quite well out of the social scene and getting good content, good referrals and lots of traffic for several of the sites I promote. If you’d like to get my help with your site promotion, let me know.

Happy marketing,
Gal

Until further notice, I will perform a quick website review for anyone who contacts me.

Of course, this service is not as detailed and customized as my full website review service, but it contains valuable information that will get you started on improving your online presence and looking professional to the search engines.

Best of all, it’s FREE, so you have nothing to lose by contacting me and asking for the quick (and free) website review.

It’s show (off) time. I haven’t been posting too often because I’ve been busy getting results for my clients, which is as it should be, right? But I can’t just not tell you how well you could be doing right now, so here goes (you can click on each link to run the Google search yourself:

1. crates – plastic2go.com.au is #1 – this website receives well over 100 significant inquiries every month
   
2. plastic crates – plastic2go.com.au is #1
3. plastic pallets – plastic2go.com.au is #2
4. bulk containers – plastic2go.com.au is #2
5. life coaching – behappyinlife.com is #4 & #7 – very tough keyword phrase (others are Wikipedia and large coaching schools)!
6. life coach – behappyinlife.com is #9 – very tough keyword phrase (all others are large coaching schools)!
7. parenting classes – behappyinlife.com is #2
8. organic gold coast – celticorganic.com.au is #9 (and listed in business results in #1C)
9. african connection – africanconnection.com.au is #1 out of over 36 Million results and against YouTube videos!
10. family matters – ronitbaras.com is #6, ahead of familymatters.net!
11. middle eastern music melbourne – ashkarmusicanddance.com is #1

Is this good or what?! I’m so proud of myself I’m going to explode.

Of course, the best part is that from all this ranking comes traffic and from all the traffic come leads and sales. Another good part is that this is all free search. There is no cost involved here whatsoever. I did my online market research, I did my magic with the sites, I did my magic in other places and voilà!

Business from the Internet is not far away. Inquire here.

Here are some very important things one must understand before taking a business online. I often explain these things to my clients who are offline business owners already, so I thought I’d post them here as I’m sure many others will benefit from the understanding.

Internet shopping is vastly different from offline shopping

Internet users search for different products and service than they would offline and the use different ways to search for them. Based on this premise, the first step in any Internet marketing campaign is to find out how the online market thinks, what it is looking for and what online niches will be profitable to engage.

Search engines are rapidly losing their leadership in driving traffic

With the advent of social networking and social bookmarking sites, which is the online equivalent of business breakfasts and social circles, more and more traffic is directed at websites from mega-sites, in which there is some built-in mechanism for implied trust, sharing and reciprocating. Therefore, a good Internet marketing strategy examines the online social vibe, as well as search trends.

Website content and structure are critical to having a profitable website

Bringing traffic to a site that does not convert visitors to business leads is a waste of money. Whether it is link creation, paid advertising or newsletter marketing, having a focused website with quality content reduces the costs and increases the effectiveness of the online marketing by at least a factor of 5. Therefore, work should be done on the website itself to prepare it for the off-site promotion work.

The local game is not the same

The Internet is everywhere, so the best online business is one offering products or services to the entire world. Competing in a local arena requires specific focus and a totally different set of strategies in order to avoid getting too much “noise” and wasting money on visitors who will never become clients. Therefore, it is best to acquire knowledge of the local market and possibly couple the online effort with an offline promotion to raise awareness and start a local “vibe”.

The Internet is ever changing

No matter how much effort is spent promoting a website, incoming links will always “fade”, as the number of links on referring pages grows, the number of pages on referring sites grows, the referring pages move away from the top of the referring sites and more sites are created on the Internet. If this is not enough, there is a disruptive change every 18-24 months in the world of technology, which either puts “state of the art” methods in the baseline or makes them obsolete. Therefore, Internet marketing is an ongoing operation, much like offline marketing is.

As always, if you need any clarification on these things or you want my help to take your own business to the Internet, you are more than welcome to contact me.

If you’re reading this, you are most likely a business owner looking to market your products or services on the Internet. So what should you do first? What should you do next? Where can you find more information?

The answer is: right here, of course. Let’s start at the beginning, then, shall we?

Finding a Niche

In the offline world, when customers want to buy something (say a bottle of olive oil), this is what they do:

1. They go shopping at the nearest mall or shopping center
2. They enter the store where the product is most likely to be sold (say Wal Mart)
3. They find the shelf or aisle in which the product is kept
4. On that shelf, they typically find several types and several brands of their product
5. They start reading labels and price tags and compare the different options against one another and against their needs
6. They decide what to buy and add it to their shopping basket, in which there are other, completely unrelated products

Sounds familiar?

In the Internet world, however, things are totally different. When Internet shoppers want to buy something (say a bottle of olive oil):

1. They go looking for information using their favorite search engine (say Google)
2. They type in “olive oil”
3. They take a look at the title, description and URL of the websites listed and consider ways to fine tune their search
4. They type in a more specific search query (say “extra virgin olive oil” or “cold pressed olive oil”)
5. They take a look at the title, description and URL of the websites listed and pick out the most relevant sites
6. They visit only the sites that seem relevant, typically from top to bottom, and stop reading when they believe they have enough information
7. Now they are ready to buy
8. They look for sites that sell their preferred choice of olive oil, possibly by searching for “buy cold pressed extra virgin olive oil” or by clicking one of the sponsored links around the search results
9. They directly “land” on the page that sells what they were looking for and they buy it

Different, isn’t it?

So you see, even if you have a pretty successful offline business selling olive oil, putting up a website featuring all your products on one page or mixing your shopping cart with some history of olive oil or olive oil recipes will get you absolutely nowhere on the Internet compared with sites that have a page dedicated to one very specific thing – cold pressed extra virgin olive oil. One click to get to it, one click to buy.

The upside, of course, is that you can have as many pages as you need on your website, so you don’t have to save. There’s not rent to pay for commercial space by the square foot, no cleaning for the extra pages, only the setup cost. But the returns, oh, the returns!

The difference between having your website listed at the top of the first page of search results and having it listed on, say, page 15, is pretty much like the difference between having a website and not having one. So you must identify your online niches first, and then have your website designed to have dedicated pages for each niche.

Doing this step first makes all the rest of your search engine optimization (SEO) possible. If you don’t do this first, you are effectively crippling anything you will do later on.

Of course, being deeply involved in your own business and having an offline mindset, it is best to engage an Internet marketing consultant to help generate ideas and check how often people search for them, because some niches are not worth your effort. Not wasting your time and money on those niches and discovering “golden nuggets” you couldn’t think of yourself will bring you more than enough value to cover anything the Internet marketer will charge. Guaranteed.

Depending on where you are on your Internet journey, please choose from the list below:

I’m still thinking about putting my business online

I want to have a website

I already have a website, and I want it to do better

I’m happy with my website, but I need more traffic

Why should I choose you as my Internet marketer?

“I’m still thinking about putting my business online”

Free, no obligation consultation

• I will answer any questions you may have about taking your business online, show you examples of Internet successes.
• At the end of this step, you will be comfortable making a decision whether to take your business online.

Contact me to request your free consultation, get great value from me and pay nothing. When you’re happy to continue, consider doing more with me.

“I want to have a website”

Internet market research and recommendations report

• I will understand your business goals for going online and then perform a thorough analysis of the online marketplace to identify Internet niches in which your business can do well.
• This includes competitive analysis, search volume checks, keyword phrase generation and other areas, as your business requires.
• At the end of this step, you will have a detailed report, which your web designer can use to build a powerful website, which will attract search engines and convert visitors to clients (or leads).

Contact me to arrange our initial discussion, spend about 1 hour with me discussing your business performance indicators and Internet goals and invest $495.

“I already have a website, and I want it to do better”

Quick website review (FREE) – try before you buy

• I will review your website for some basic criteria and give you recommendations for making it more professional and more attractive.

Contact me to request the quick website review, get some great value from me and pay nothing. When you’re happy, consider doing more with me.

Website review, Internet market research and recommendations report – the real deal

• I will understand your business goals for your website, thoroughly review your website and recommend ways to make the website perform better and bring you more profits.
• This includes a review of the design (look & feel), navigation, functionality and performance statistics, as well as online market research, competitive analysis and generation of ideas tailored to your business.
• At the end of this step, you will have a detailed report, which your web designer can use to update your website, so it will receive more traffic and generate more sales (or leads). Often, having someone else look at your website results in massive value.

Contact me to arrange our initial discussion, spend about 1 hour with me discussing your business performance indicators and Internet goals and invest $795.

“I’m happy with my website, but I need more traffic”

Search engine optimization, incoming link building, article marketing, social bookmarking and more

• I will understand your online marketing parameters, agree the best online marketing strategy with you and drive more traffic to your website.
• This service can be delivered based on time, budget, method or performance.
• Through this service, you will get targeted traffic to your website, which you will be able to link with more sales, more leads and more business profits.

Contact me to arrange our initial discussion, spend about 1 hour with me discussing your business performance indicators and Internet goals, agree the scope of work and budget.

“Why should I choose you as my Internet marketer?”

You should find it easy to choose me for the following reasons:

My aim is to give you more business. I don’t sell design, I don’t sell hosting, I don’t sell domains and I don’t sell traffic. What’s good for you is good for me, because when you’re happy, you’ll want more websites and you’ll send your friends my way too. I’m not some kid, so your business is safe with me. I’ve been in professional IT services for many years, I’m a parent of 3, still married to the same wife and you can trust me with your business.

• If it ain’t gonna work, I’ll let you know. No point wasting your time or mine chasing red herrings if we can both do something useful instead.
• I have proof that my methods work. I have succeeded in tough markets by doing what I do best. See my Internet marketing results for yourself.
• I structure my charges so that most of them will come out of your new online profits. You can book as much of my time as you like and ensure you get value all along the way.

The other day, I typed “be happy in life” (without the quotes) into my Google Toolbar search box and, lo and behold, my very own life coaching website appeared in the first position, followed by links to its subpages and then another entry, pointing to the free inspiration articles on my site.

Google AU search for"be happy in life"

See for yourself.

“But this may be only in Australia”, I said to myself and checked on the main Google site. Be Happy in LIFE was showing in the first and second positions there too.

See for yourself.

“This is too good to be true!”, I thought in excitement, “I wonder what’s happening on the other major search engines”.

Well, in MSN/Live Search, Be Happy in LIFE appears first and my contact page appears second.

See for yourself.

If this isn’t amazing enough, Yahoo! Australia agrees with Google.com, showing the Be Happy in LIFE home page first and the free inspiration articles second.

See for yourself.

The only one that rained lightly on my parade was Yahoo! global/USA, listing Be Happy in LIFE in the 5th place and the free inspiration articles page 6th. I decided this was OK and my day was still great.

Of course, I share the secrets of how I’ve done this with my clients, so that they can get the same for their business. Would you like your business to top the search engines too?