In this issue
Business Marketing Tips -
Search Engines and Directories
Article - The top 10 things you need to do
NOW to prepare for the year's biggest
shopping season
Recommended Reading - Why You're
Dumb, Sick and Broke ...
Business Tools - Internet
Entrepreneur Club
Newsletter Archives - click
here
Business Marketing Tips
This month we cover Search Engines & Directories
A search engine is a searchable database of websites
collected by a computer program (called a crawler, robot or
spider). When you enter a keyword, the search engine looks for
keywords in its database, and any relevant records are
displayed. Currently there are thousands of search engines and
directories on the internet. Some of the main ones include:
Google - www.google.com
Altavista -
www.altavista.com
Yahoo - www.yahoo.com
Excite - www.excite.com
AllSearchEngines -
www.allsearchengines.com
Northern Light -
www.northernlight.com
DogPile - www.dogpile.com
AllTheWeb -
www.alltheweb.com
Lycos - www.lycos.com
When submitting your website to the search engines, you can
either do it manually by going to the search engine website and
adding your URL (website address) or you can employ the services
of a Search Engine Submission company, who will do it for you.
Check out some of the following
www.submitexpress.com
www.wpromote.com
www.website-submission.com
Search engines try to list sites that contain good content,
so you need keywords and phrases on your pages that best
describe your service and products. For example, if you are a
florist, use the words such as florist, online florist, virtual
florist, wedding florist, florist in Sydney, florist on line,
flowers, floral, bouquets, floral arrangements etc as many times
as possible to ensure high search engine ranking. To find out
what keywords your customers may be searching on ask your family
and friends or go to:
http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/
http://www.wordtracker.com
Once you decide on the keywords, use them in
(a) Your website’s domain name
(b) The title of your page - This is displayed in the top bar of
your browser window
(c) The heading of your home page
(d) The first paragraph of your home page
(e) Meta tags - Keywords, page title, description
(f) Titles of your graphics
Whilst it is important to use keywords as much as possible,
it is also important you use them only if they are relevant and
do not sound awkward. If you spam your keywords you may be
penalised or even banned by some search engines.
If this all seems too overwhelming, you can employ the
services of a Search engine optimization company, who will make
your website’s content more search engine friendly to make it
rank higher. Contact
ivana@web4business.com.au if you are looking for a reputable
company to help with this.
Article
The top 10 things you need to do NOW to prepare
for the year's biggest shopping season
By Derek Gehl
There's a particular word that strikes terror in my heart when I
hear it at this time of year.
And that word is?
Christmas.
Don't get me wrong, I love the holiday season -- the food, the
time with family, the parties... and of course, the presents!
;-)
But I'm the kind of person who ALWAYS leaves my shopping to the
very last minute -- which means December 23rd or 24th usually
finds me running around in over-crowded, over-heated shopping
centers, getting frustrated because the stores have run out of
the things I was planning to buy, so I have to think up new gift
ideas on the spot...
Ugh.
Fortunately, I'm much better at selling during the holiday
season than I am at buying!
The holidays are by FAR the busiest shopping season of the year,
when businesses that sell mostly to North American, European,
and Australian customers tend to pull in their highest revenues.
But in order to make the most of this year's big shopping
season, the time to start preparing for it is now.
To make it easy for you, here's my list of the top 10 things you
MUST start doing now in order make sure your holidays are as
full of cheer as possible (and by "cheer" I mean, PROFIT):
Derek Gehl's "Holiday Sales Preparation" Checklist
1. Split-test your salescopy
Make sure you do some testing to discover the salescopy format
that converts the highest percentage of your visitors to
customers. (A great tool for this is Google's Website
Optimizer.)
Test long copy vs. short copy, different kinds of headlines, and
different calls to action.
Make a note of the winners -- this will be important information
when it comes to writing your "holiday copy." (More about that
in a moment.)
2. Make sure you're using your best keywords for the season
Take the time to dig into your web logs to discover what your
best SEO terms were for November and December last year. Which
keywords drove the greatest number of buying visitors to your
site?
Make a list -- and then make sure you embed those keywords in
your "holiday copy."
Speaking of which...
3. Start writing your "holiday copy"
During November and December, your salescopy should speak to the
needs of holiday shoppers.
They're looking for presents for their loved ones, so make sure
your copy presents your product as the "perfect gift" for that
special someone in their life.
Would your product make a good gift for Mom or Dad, or a
teenager, or a child's elementary school teacher? Then make sure
you describe it as such in your copy.
(And don't forget to make good use of the keywords that yielded
the best results last holiday season!)
You should be prepared to "turn the switch" and put up your
holiday salescopy as soon as Thanksgiving is over (if your
customers are mostly American, that is).
In the U.S., the weekend after Thanksgiving is usually the
busiest shopping weekend of the year -- you want to be ready for
it.
4. Make sure your bonus offers are as strong as possible
Your bonuses are a key component of your sales pitch. You want
to make sure you're offering valuable bonuses to "sweeten the
deal" and make it even easier for those holiday shoppers to
reach that all-important buying decision.
Consider making your bonuses "soft" products, such as electronic
information products (such as eBooks or online videos), or
online coupons.
They're easy to create and don't cost anything to ship, which
means you won't have to change your order form. (And that'll
save you a huge headache!)
5. Set up your holiday pay-per-click campaigns
A great way to drive even MORE holiday shoppers to your site is
to write some holiday-shopping themed pay-per-click ads. This is
another place where those holiday keywords from last year will
come in handy!
Once again, if you sell to a lot of Americans, you should be
ready to activate your holiday pay-per-click ads by Thanksgiving
weekend.
6. Confirm your shipping capabilities
What's the most important thing holiday shoppers want to know
before they buy a gift?
That it will arrive at its intended destination BEFORE
Christmas!
Contact your postal and shipping services to find out what the
"order by" dates are to guarantee deliverability before
Christmas to different parts of the world. Then prominently list
these "order by" dates on your site, so people can make a
purchase, confident that the gift will be under the tree on
Christmas morning.
7. Tune up your email list
If you have built up a healthy list of subscribers, email should
play a major role in your holiday promotions.
To make sure you get the most "bang" for your email "buck," do
some testing to make sure you know how to send mass emails
effectively and that your deliverability is good.
Also, be prepared to send MORE emails than usual. If you
normally send one email a month to your list, you should be
prepared to send as many as four during the holiday shopping
season (say, from the end of November until your last possible
“receive before Christmas” shipping date)
8. Put "live contact" opportunities on your page
A great way to increase holiday sales is to include live contact
opportunities on your salespages.
This can be a phone number or a live chat program -- whatever
allows people to ask you questions and get answers right away.
Remember, holiday shoppers are short on time! And when they're
shopping online, they can go from store to store very easily.
They're going to buy at the site that is most credible and does
the best job of resolving any questions they might have about
the product.
Make sure that site is yours!
9. Dress up your site
What's Christmas without a little mistletoe? ;-)
Add a few Yuletide decorations to the design of your site so
that it reflects the mood of the holiday season.
In order to be inclusive, you might want to think about adding
some graphic elements that refer to other seasonal holidays
(such as Hanukkah) as well.
10. Start planning your Jan/Feb backend NOW
(No, that's not a reference to what your rear end's going to
look like once all that delicious holiday food has been eaten!
;-)
A great sales process doesn't end with a purchase. The people
who have bought something from you once are most likely to buy
from you again, so you want to make sure you stay in touch with
them and present them with new offers in the future.
Ask yourself what people who just bought or received your
product would also want to buy. Focus on products or services
that make a great match with your product.
(For example, people who just bought or received a new video
game console are probably very interested in buying new video
games!)
Just remember, in order to present your backend offers to
people, you need to have their email addresses. And since many
new owners of your product might have received it as a gift,
they're probably not on your mailing list.
So make sure your product package includes an email registration
form for the end user. You may want to include an attractive
offer for free valuable information -- or a free downloadable
product -- in exchange for their email address.
Then, once you've got them on your mailing list, you can develop
a relationship with them and sell more products to them over
time.
Okay, so those are my top 10 suggestions on what you need to do
to start getting ready for the holiday season NOW.
You have about a month and a half to accomplish as many of these
tasks as you can... so it's time to get cracking!
If you do things right, you can expect to get twice as many
visitors as usual. And if you keep your conversion rate as high
as it is right now -- or are able to push it even higher -- then
you can expect at least twice as many sales during the holiday
shopping period!
And that's a pretty good way to end the year right, don't you
think?
To your holiday success,
Derek Gehl
-----------------------------
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Derek Gehl specializes in teaching real
people how to start profitable Internet businesses that make
$100,000 to $2.5 Million (or more) per year. To get instant
access to all his most profitable marketing campaigns,
strategies, tools, and resources that he's used to grow $25 into
over $60 Million in online sales, visit:
http://www.marketingtips.com
Recommended Reading
Why You're Sick, Dumb and Broke and How to Get Smart, Healthy
and Rich!
This practical, yet inspirational book combines
timeless principles of wealth-building and success with
no-nonsense guidance on how to succeed in today’ s complex,
competitive world. Brash, thought provoking, and always
entertaining, Randy Gage explores all the issues that affect
personal health, happiness, and prosperity.
To order this book in Australia,
click here
To order this book in USA,
click here
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Websites 4 Small Business
www.web4business.com.au |
