How to make more money online

July 29th, 2010

I like money!

Once you’ve got a shiny, workable, awesome website (assuming you got one from Edge of the Web, of course!), there are things you can do to make even more money out of it.

There are two main forms of online marketing that can help you climb search engine rankings and attract more clicks and customers.

Pay Per Click (PPC) marketing is the most immediate way to get your site noticed and probably the method that brings you most control.

Organic marketing requires more time and effort, but can bring about a far more lasting and productive result.

Pay Per Click

PPC ads usually appear on the right of the main listings when you search. It ranks websites by how much they are willing to pay to appear in the listings for particular keyphrases. The more you are willing to pay for a click, the higher your company will rank.

One of the great things about PPC is that you keep tight control of how much you are paying, and how much benefit you are getting from it.

It also means you can tinker with your keyphrases and how much you spend on each click, so that you can work out what gives you the best return for your money.

Organic

Organic marketing is less immediate than PPC, but is a highly valuable way to optimise your site.

Organic listings in search engines are hard to climb, but are more likely to bring you high volumes of traffic, as most people click on organic listings before the paid for adverts.

The best way of getting your site to rank higher in search engine listings is through inbound links. Links from other websites to yours are very valuable, when search engines find them they know that your site is considered credible by someone else, which is taken into account when they rank you.

However, search engines are not easily fooled. If you go out and buy 100 links from online directories in a week, search engines know you’re just trying to improve your ranking, and won’t play along. The best links to get are from people in similar or related industries, relevant blogs or articles.

Simply turning up on a blog and posting an ad and a link to your site isn’t very helpful (it’ll probably just get you deleted for spamming), but involving yourself in the discussion, and including a link as an explanation or for extra info could be very useful.

The main thing with link building is to ensure you’re getting links from relevant or highly regarded sources. A link from the BBC counts for far more than one from justpayusforalink.com.

Of course, online marketing isn’t a one-or-the-other option, a mixture of both could be the magic blend that lets you make even more money online.

hannah marketing , , , , ,

How to make money online

July 23rd, 2010

Making money is sadly one of the most important things in life. Not because people are inherently greedy and materialistic, but because we enjoy things like food, clothing, and not living in a box.

The internet is still a new opportunity for lots of businesses, even those that have been established for a while, but lots of people still find it difficult to work out how they convert that opportunity into a money-generating operation.

Far too many companies think that the internet isn’t the right place to do business, and simply don’t feel the need to get an online presence, but even if you’re a bricks and mortar firm, a website can help you find new customers and make more money – you just have to choose the right kind of site for what you do.

So what is the main idea behind your site? What do you need it to do?

Inform
An information-based site is usually the best option for a company that’s new to the world wide web. All it needs to do is provide the information about who you are and what you do. It can include anything you think is important; prices, service information, testimonials, but its main purpose is to promote your company.

This kind of site will augment your company’s ability to make money through greater exposure, creating a sense of professionalism (lots of customers have more confidence in a company with an online presence), and by making your business more available – visitors can get in touch whenever they want to, without you needing someone to answer the phones at half-past midnight!

Making money with an information site is also relatively easy to track. You can look at the statistics of people visiting your site and filling out your enquiry form (we provide our clients with an AW Stats package to keep track of these numbers), and it’s usually best to ask people how they found out about you if they call in too, as some people prefer to phone after seeing a site and get more immediate contact.

Sell
A website that sells, or an ecommerce site, is pretty self-explanatory when it comes to making money.

A website is a lot cheaper than a physical store, and it’s also open to a wider range of people for a much longer time. Making your products available for purchase by people all over the world at any time is a lot easier on the net than in person.

Again, you can use your stats package to find out the search terms people are using to find you and how long they stayed – useful information to let you know how your site is performing and how it could be improved.

Whether you’re looking to advertise your company online or directly sell across the net, a website can be a hugely valuable asset to a company.

Next week, I’ll be explaining how to make MORE money from the internet, by using Pay Per Click to manage your online marketing.

hannah marketing , , , , , , ,

Selling a sheep in wolf’s clothing

May 27th, 2010

Who's afraid of the big bad . . . oh who am I kidding?

Cold-calling random people is likely to p*ss off 90 per cent of the people you talk to, whereas identifying people who might genuinely need or want what you’re offering will get you a much better reception.

Pushing your website marketing towards popular keywords, regardless of their relevance is just as likely to p*ss people off. They might not be able to say anything colourful and hang up on you, but they’re not likely to call you in the first place – and that’s the point of marketing to begin with.

On the net, relevance is the most significant factor.

If you’re trying to sell sheep, don’t dress them up as wolves. If someone types “wolf” into a search engine, clicks on your site and finds a small fluffy lamb, they aren’t going to hang around and buy one.

Stay specific to the things you do and provide. There can be hundreds of different keywords that actually work for your company, and relevant marketing to a smaller audience is always going to be more successful than just pushing your marketing towards any popular terms, whether that’s wolves or XFactor.

There’s no point having lots of visitors if they’re all looking for something you don’t have.

If you’ve got sheep – sell sheep!

hannah marketing

Election day marketing

May 6th, 2010

It's all about YOU!

Ever put together a campaign, pouring time, effort and money into it, being enthused and excited, only to get to launch day and discover that your customers weren’t nearly as excited as you were?

A month ago that was how the General Election was looking, like an exercise more for the politicians than the electorate, and there were expectations of a historically low turnout.

But now here we are on May 6th, and facing a totally different election.

And the difference is because the voters feel like they are really involved now. The television debates were an opportunity for the leaders to actually connect with the public, and for the public to feel like they had a connection and a place in the political landscape.

Getting your audience involved is a lot harder when you’re talking at them, and not with them. That’s why making a sale face to face can be easier than sending a leaflet, and why the debates were more effective than releasing editorials in the papers.

Being a person instead of an institution is hugely beneficial, but how can you achieve that on a website?

Step one is to speak to your customer and not at them – identify what they really want to know, and tell them about it.

Step two is to use those opportunities to drop in why you provide that service better – how you’re cheaper, faster, better qualified, better quality.

Step three is to make their choices clear – make your ‘buy now’ button, your contact page and your list of services really easy to find and easy to read.

In the end it’s up to the visitor to make up their own mind, but sometimes a little involvement is all they need.

hannah copy writing, marketing

Bells Shoes international website launch

March 16th, 2010

clarks shoes
we are pleased to announce the launch of the new Bells Shoes microsite, designed specifically to assist overseas customers in their purchase of Clarks Shoes, which are not readily available outside the United Kingdom.

thomas marketing

How to be the best (part 2)

February 11th, 2010

Sorry, you can’t be the best.

Because we are!

Edge of the Web has been voted the Best Business Provider in Warwick for 2010!

Thank you to everyone who recognised our hard work & high quality service, and voted for us or left a testimonial (bribes will be delivered in unmarked brown envelopes*).

Now Tom, Bhups, Mark and myself will have a celebratory muffin, and get back to what we do best – building awesome websites.

And that’s not just our opinion; it’s the judgement of the people!

*Actually we’re going to have to stop bribing people. As the Best Business Provider in Warwick we feel that shady dealings are probably beneath us now.

hannah marketing, random

Newspaper advertising is more effective than a website?

February 8th, 2010

think simple!When you advertise in print, the competition for attention means you’d better dumb down your message and make it big, bold and obvious.

When you advertise in print, the restricting nature of the medium forces you to use only static text and few (if any) colours for basic images.

When you advertise in print, the cost of the space forces you to restrict the number of words you write.

Then along came the internet and everything changed. The problem is… it didn’t need to change.

The problem is that we all forgot that one thing remains consistent in all forms of advertising:

“the audience time is precious, and you can’t afford to waste it”

So, I love your new website with it’s flash animation and tasteful colour scheme, and technical data, and story about how you started your business in a damp shoebox you found in a bin, and how you put customers first and you put value and quality above all, and that you say you are number 1, and your glowing testimonials, and your pictures of the team, and your news feed, and your twitter feed, and your facebook page blah blah blah.

But you (yes YOU) forgot that my time was precious. You got so carried away in what you thought was “marketing” and “branding” that you forgot to tell me what you sell and why I should buy it in as few words as you could articulate it.

You were so busy trying to word “professional” sentences telling me why you are so good, and honest and customer focussed, that you forgot to just tell me what I want to know…do you have what I want, and what does it cost.

If you can do that, I might (MIGHT) have a browse through your site and make my own decisions about how good  you appear to be. (Hint: writing “We pride ourselves on XYZ” will not make me beleive it).

Just because the medium of advertising changed, didn’t mean that people suddenly couldn’t get enough of your advertising. People didn’t suddenly develop an inclination to go hunting for company profiles and cheesy animation.

As a new business owner (or new to the internet) it looks good when you see your name up in lights (or pixels). You felt all posh and businessy when you found that profound quote, or the metaphoric picture of the sapling (acorn, puzzle, cog, piggy bank, smiling team). It looks good to you…but I see Apple, and Coca Cola and Marks & Spencer advertising all the time. That means I’m unlikely to be impressed by it unless you have done something truly EXTRAORDINARY.

Of course I’m not saying don’t have a good looking website, don’t have any animation, testimonials, company history, quotes, stock photography. Of course I’m not saying that!

What I’m saying is let me access the cheese when I choose. Treat me like a print reader, and that is to say communicate with me like your life depends on it, and I might just taste your brie.

thomas marketing , ,

is the internet a cheap way to grow your business?

January 19th, 2010

is the internet a cheap way to grow your business

seeking attention?

The internet has made many things cheap.

  • Building a website and creating a retail platform is cheap.
  • Maintaining a website is cheap.
  • Conveying vast amounts of interactive information in text, image and video is cheap.
  • Talking to somebody on the other side of the world is cheap.
  • Selling to people on the other side of the world is cheap.

However, there is one that is definitely not cheap, and that’s ATTENTION. People’s time is as valuable as it ever was (arguably more), and just because your website can be accessed by somebody in Mexico, doesn’t mean that person will access your site.

Search engines are, of course, a ruthlessly efficient way of finding the right attention for your products (because people type into search engines what they are interested in) but you pay for that efficiency. If you provide pay-day loans, you now don’t have to cast a wide net over the Jeremy Kyle television demographic. You can restrict your advertising to people who type “pay day loans” into Yahoo (Google, Bing etc).

The internet is a mature sales environment however (it matured quickly because huge sums of money were involved), and the growth in potential targeted attention is mirrored by the growth in competition for that attention.

So yes it’s cheap to get to market, and you can open up your business to the world…but so can everybody else. We are all competing for attention online, and it’s the demand for attention that drives the price.

thomas marketing ,

How to be the best

January 13th, 2010

Ask people to vote for you!

Edge of the Web is

Vote for us!

Vote for us!

 proud to have been nominated for an award as the Best Business Provider 2010, by The Best Of Warwick.

However, that pride will turn to embarrassment and self loathing if we don’t actually win the thing.

So we’d like to shamelessly solicit your vote.

Obviously we can’t provide you with any sort of incentive (Hannah has already eaten all our muffins), but if you’ve dealt with Edge of the Web and been pleased with our designs, our prices, our service, our blog or even our tea-making skills, then please head on over to http://www.thebestof.co.uk/local/warwick/awards  and vote for us.

We’d really appreciate it.

And maybe in return, we could provide you with a free cuppa if you stop by the office (providing that Tom has finally done the washing up).

hannah marketing

how long does it take for your website to show up in Google?

January 11th, 2010

shutterstock_15237865So, you’ve just spent your hard earned on a (hopefully) shiny new website, and it’s time for the search engines to start sending visitors through to your website, right?

“I’ll just navigate to my favourite search engine, tap in a term that is related to my company and shazam! ”

Nothing.

And worst of all? It’s a list of less good competitors with rubbish websites and a bunch of unrelated services.

Time to put your expectation management hat on, and here’s why.

Search Engines (i.e. Google) are not the internet. They are websites.

Google (and Yahoo, Bing etc) have done a smashing job of becoming a first stop online for almost everyone, but fundamentally a search engine is a commercial online service that make money by helping people find their way around the internet (through selling advertising). Whilst their agendas are fiercely commercial they are still reasonably complimentary to the needs of owners of good quality websites.

The agendas of search engines are heavily influenced by spammers.

In life and business, lots of money is made by understanding  rules and exploiting loopholes (see any lawyer, tax accountant or benefit cheat for more info). The world of search engines are no different. They were created using rules intended to support the successful exposure of good quality information, and inevitably these rules were flaunted and abused by people who wanted to make money with rubbish websites. This abuse happened to such an extent that search engines now find it hard to trust what new websites have written on them. One way of overcoming this barrier is by having trusted and established websites link to your website. This is like a vote of credbility. The more votes of credibility you receive, the more confident a search engine will be to trust your content and suggest your website to it’s visitors.

(please note: any good idea you may have to get links artificially has already been thought of by spammers and search engines alike…don’t bother unless you really know this industry)

So to get to the point…when is your website going to show up in Google?

Well, if you just use the “site submit” services that the search engines offer, it can take many weeks to get your site reviewed (crawled) and, even when it has been reviewed, there is no guarantee that your site will be in the top 100 results for any given search term.

If you can get some links from established websites, you can get reviewed in just days (or sooner), and you are much more likely to appear more highly in the results.

But it’s very hard to get links from popular and established websites (which is kind of the point). So you can make a choice:

1) Sit and wait for your website to be found

or

2) Get out there and start building links to your website.

  • Mention your website in discussion groups (don’t spam them!)
  • Ask related websites to give you a link (don’t spam them!)
  • Call in favours from old companies and contacts who have websites (spam away!)
  • List your website on web directories
  • You can provide articles to related websites
  • You can do something newsworthy which will get your website mentioned around the net
  • You can start a blog and compliment or insult some of your industry peers

There are lots of ways to get links back to your website. As a rule, the ones that are provided by third parties for just a few (hundred) pounds with almost no effort on your part are a total waste of time, however good the rhetoric.

thomas marketing

Older Posts »

Privacy Policy | Terms of Use