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Business Marketing Tips to flourish in an Global Economic Crisis.

Monday, August 31st, 2009

We all hear people every day blaming the ‘global economic crisis’ for a decrease in business sales.

We hear them saying people just aren’t spending on services, or people are’t going on holidays, or people aren’t buying new products, etc etc.

I find the term ‘global marketing crisis‘ more of an excuse for business failure, than the truth.

If an economic crisis is truly the case then why are some of the major retail players such as Apple, JB Hi-Fi and others posting record profits in the past 2 quarters?

The answer is ‘simple’ – The employ simple marketing strategies!

By using simple, and often free, marketing tools and strategies you will blow off the excuse of a ‘global marketing crisis’ and your business will boom, no matter what the media is saying!

Here are a few handy tips to help:

1. USING THE WEB…

Your website is a great point of presence and reaches a wider audience than most other advertising and promotional mediums. And the best thing about it is that web hosting only costs around $95 a year. Thats value for global marketing!

Make sure all you website content is up to date and the site looks fresh and professional. People are more likely to deal with someone with a professional looking website. You wouldn’t paint your own signage, or build your own office building, so don’t build your own website! Get a professional!

Make sure you have the main basic contact details so people can contact you easily. Add a contact form to your website and collect additional information, such as how did they hear about you, would they like to join your mailing list, etc. This information can be used for future promotions.

Make sure your website is well search engine optimised. If you aren’t on the first page of Google you are out of the running. And believe it or not, a first page listing on Google is easily achievable if correctly optimized. If you’re not on that first page, go have a quiet talk to your web developer! SEO should be part of the standard service provided with any website. Without it, it is like buying a car without an engine…you won’t go far.

Embrace the many free Google Webmaster tools to promote your business, like the free Google Business listing, Google Analytics, Google Maps, Google Keyword Tool, Blogger, Google Trends, etc. Google have made it so easy to be found online, and they charge nothing!

Invest in SEO Tools such as WebCEO – It’s a great tool for reviewing your website’s SEO (and your competitiors, and fine tuning and submitting your website yourself. It really makes the difference.

Use online Social Networks such as Twitter, Facebook and Myspace to promote your business and services. Your listing on any of these also gets found easily on the search engines. Using Twitter alone, one of my businesses profitability has jumped 180% in the past 3 months. Free marketing works wonders!

Create and write a regular blog. Blogs such as WordPress and Blogger provide free software, and they get picked up on Google within minutes. They can also be lined directly to you Twitter account or LinkedIn accounts so your post automatically reaches an even larger crowd.

Submit your website to as many free directories online as possible. The more sites you are directly linked to the better your pagerank, and in turn the better your listing chances on the search engines. Plus you reach a much wider audience from people that use the directories.
For starters, you can add a free listing to our own directory, BusinessBrisbane.com. It currently ranks as one of the best directories in Brisbane and we don’t charge a cent to list! Go on..sign up! www.BusinessBrisbane.com (for Brisbane regional businesses only).

Employ email marketing tools, and send regular enewsletters to your customers. Many customers will usually send to a friend if it is interesting, so your potential customer base rapidly expands.

2. BRANDING…

Ensure your branding and advertising is professional. The use of an effective logo and brand elements such as a slogan can be a very simple yet powerful marketing tool. Look at McDonald’s for example..they probably don’t make the world’s best tasting burgers, but they are still the world’s largest hamburger seller! Their iconic logo and simple catchy adverts is the real success. If you don’t have a nice little logo, it is worth the small investment.

Ensure your branding remains consistent. Make sure your logo is always the same colour, your advertising templates remain consistent, and print work is always in tune.

3. SELF PROMOTION & NETWORKING…

People like to deal with people they know and trust. Find your local business networking clubs and sign up. Many invite you as a guest to your first meeting to get a feel for it. Within no time you will be meeting business referrals that will be needing your services!
Make you go to each meeting well equipped with the basic marketing tools including a few brochures and nice business cards. Spend the extra few dollars and go for the nice feeling matt celloglazed finish full colour business cards. You can usually purchase 1000 for around $140, which is a great first impression investment!

For more tips on how to market your business on a budget, visit our website blog: www.devision.com.au/blog

Article by Chris Bourke from Devision Design Australia

Posted in Blogging, Google SEO & PageRank, Hosting, marketing, Search Engine Marketing, Site Promotion, social networking, Website Design, Website Development | No Comments »

Webcrowd is on Twitter!

Tuesday, April 21st, 2009

Webcrowd has joined the Twitter community, so to celebrate, we are giving you a 20% discount. Just use the promo code “twitter” at the checkout, and we will give you 20% off your purchases.

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Posted in Hosting, Site Promotion, Webcrowd News | No Comments »

Manage your hosting files with cPanel

Monday, March 9th, 2009

Cpanel is a control panel for web hosting used on various web hosting systems on internet. a big number of hosting companies provide their users with some versions of cpanel so that they can handle functionality and administrate the website very easily.

Basically cpanel is a user friendly interface that helps you to manage your host account environment. It is so simple that even a new user finds it uncomplicated Web Hosting Services and easy to use. its a web interface instead of console, that’s why anyone can use it and complete the tasks faster. cpanel consist of a wide range of features embedded into it. By connecting a web browser to your control panel, you can make any changes you want in your system. It may be ftp server, email configuration, database software etc.

Generally all commercial web hosting companies provide you with an account when you buy any web hosting package from that company. When you log into your account, you are driven to the installation page or sometimes directly the cpanel page. This page gives access to all the features like email, ftp and some other tools so that you can make any changes any where just being connected to the net. Some of the great features are described below:-

Site tools- some very helpful tools like Web Protect, file manager, install/Uninstall FrontPage Extensions and Search engine tool submitting are embedded in a cpanel.

Email- the email program in a cpanel allows a user to add and change passwords to manage email accounts. Auto responders, Forwarders, Mailing Lists, Spam filtering and some more options are also provided in a cpanel.

Back up- back up is a procedure to create copies of account files and database. The back up menu also lets you download any automatic backups that were downloaded by your cpanel administrator.

ftp – using this feature a user can control the ftp accounts by adding, removing or changing passwords, changing ftp login message, anonymous FTP controls.

Stats – the popularity and efficiency of a website can be analyzed by using some tools like Webalizer web stats, Webalizer FTP stats, Analog stats, View latest visitors, View bandwidth usage and View error log modules. These cpanel tools are very helpful in determining how popular the site is.

Advanced stuff and tools – some advanced technical tools are also present in a cpanel. Sub domains can be added or removed. Some pre-defined cgi scripts are java Chat, HTML Chat, phpMyChat, CGI Wrapper, Interchange Cart, CGIEmail, Entropy Search, and Entropy Banner.

Also there are few database management tools like managing MySql database. cpanel is compatible with almost all the popular web browsers like IE, opera, firefox etc. New and inexperienced users those who don’t know command line console programs find a great help in cpanel.

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How to Use an Ftp Client to Transfer Your Files

Monday, March 9th, 2009

FTP is file transfer protocol. FTP is the easiest and also the most secure way to transfer files from one server to another.

What is an FTP client: An FTP Client is software that is designed to transfer files back-and-forth between two computers over the Internet.  It needs to be installed on your computer and can only be used with a live connection to the Internet. You get a number of free FTP clients that you need to download from net and install on your computer.

FTP Client Interface:  FTP client has a very user-friendly interface. It simply involves drag and drop technique of transferring the files between your computer and your website server. The classic FTP Client look is a two-pane design. The pane on the left displays the files on your computer and the pane on the right displays the files on your website server with which you want to start the file transfer process.

Get started with file transfer process: To use an FTP client for file transfer, you need to get connected to your website server. For establishing a connection, you need to enter some basic information regarding the server. The information to be filled in includes:

Host Name: It can either be the IP address of the server else it is of the form ftp.YourSiteName.com

Username and password: This can be either your control panel username, password. Or if you have an FTP account, you can fill in its username and password.

To hold the transfer process, you can simply select the file on either of the panes and drag and drop to the other pane. But before starting, you need to select the respective directory in which you want the transferred file to reside. Or you can just highlight the respective file to be transferred, and click on upload if you want to upload it to the server or click on download if you want to download it from server.

Advantage over online web-based file managers: In case of online web-based file managers, you need to download or upload the files one by one. Thus it can be a tedious process but, this is not the cast with FTP clients (software to handle FTP), in which we can select any number of files at one go and start the process of file transfer. Another very important feature that file transfer process through FTP client is that the files that are selected for transfer gets queued. This feature helps in cases when file transfer process gets terminated in middle of the process. Thus, next time, when you log in to your FTP client, you don’t have to restart the process, the transfer process resumes from where it was last interrupted.

Other Features of FTP client: The auto re-get or resuming feature, a queuing utility, the scheduling feature, an FTP find utility, a synchronize utility, and for the advanced user, a scripting utility.

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Understanding the Basics of Web Hosting

Monday, March 9th, 2009

What do you do when you decide that you want to start a website online? You begin your search for a web host. A web host is the basic name that is given to any company or business who hosts your website and makes it available for other people to see on the internet.

On the surface it may seem easy, but when you begin to break it down a bit, you will understand why so many people get confused. You will see terms such as “FTP”, or “data center”, or “Linux hosting”. These terms can make trying to choose a company to host your website much more confusing. If, however, you break it down and know what to look for, you can discover that it isn’t quite so difficult.

The first thing you need to figure out is what type of internet website you would like to start. If you’re looking to start a personal website, for example, you will need much less space on the host’s server and will likely be able to get away with purchasing a less expensive plan.

If, however, you would like to start a business website, you may need to have quite a bit more space on the server which, in turn, means that you will be required to pay a lot more for your hosting. It may seem a bit frustrating, but it makes sense when you remember that a business website will be bringing in income, whereas a personal website most likely will not. But how do you choose your web hosting company? The first thing to look at is prices. You need to make sure that no matter what company you choose, their price will be in your range. However, this doesn’t mean that you should automatically go for the cheapest web hosting company you find. Remember: you get what you pay for, which means that you may pay for cheap web hosting and may get even cheaper customer service.

The next thing to look at is just that: customer service. Check around online and see if the company you are looking at has a good rating among your internet peers. If they do, you may be in business. After all, you don’t want to have to call customer service only to have to deal with technical engineers who have no idea what they are doing, especially if you have to call them late at night or on a weekend.

The next thing to look for is the bandwidth allowance. Every web hosting company has different allowances that you will be able to access, usually on different levels of service. If you have a business you will need to plan for higher volumes of visitor traffic, but if you are looking only for a personal website, you can get away with buying a less expensive, lower bandwidth plan.

Web hosting may seem confusing, especially if you are just beginning your journey, but remember one thing: if you find a good hosting company with excellent customer service, you will be able to get answers to any question that you may have.

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The Advantages Of Linux Server Hosting

Sunday, March 8th, 2009

Even with a huge amount of information about modern technologies as well as our daily use of computer equipment and software, most people are unaware of the differences in scripting languages and the variety of web hosting services available. Many may not even understand what web hosting or scripting languages mean!

In the simplest of terms when a business or individual has decided to create a website they will more than likely require the services of a web hosting company. Web hosts own the server equipment that keeps all of the data and files necessary for the site to run, look and perform as the website owner desires. The data and files are all going to be written with special programs and languages which are recognizable by computers around the world. Currently the two most common platforms are Linux and Windows.

There are reasons that a business or individual will need to know which of the platforms their hosting provider uses including the design of an existing site, the need for certain functions or applications and their own budget constraints.

The advantages of using Linux server hosting will generally include:

Compatibility – Linux web hosting allows for a full range of integration or compatibility with other operating software or applications. The software can run easily on a Windows server, while the reverse is not so easily done. Additionally, many of the most commonly used databases and applications work smoothly in Linux. This also means tons of stability.

Cost – Linux software is totally free for developers to use or modify as they require. This is not just the operating software but all of the other applications that have been written for it. This translates to entire suites of server applications that can be downloaded and put to use on the server at no additional costs.

Ease of Use – Linux initially earned a reputation as a bit more complicated than the familiar Windows OS, but today web developers and software writers have made the Linux applications incredibly easy to use and even modify for customized functions.

Security – The jury is still out on this issue, but most experts acknowledge Linux as the least prone to security issues and also the OS that delivers the most guaranteed amounts of uptime.

There are clearly many advantages for choosing a Linux server hosting provider, but the real key to knowing if it is the right choice for your needs is to simply compare it to the work that may have all ready been done for your site – if it is primarily Windows software or applications you may want to choose a Windows provider, but the beauty of Linux is that is perfectly capable of using the Windows language as well.

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