Archive for the ‘Site Promotion’ Category

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The Importance of a Sitemap for your Website

Thursday, January 21st, 2010

So, you’ve had a great looking website designed, and hopefully your web developer has search engine optimised the website for the best possible results on the search engines. After all, what is the point in spending a pile of dollars on a nice looking site if no one can find it, right?

But sadly, while many websites have a lot of effort put into the look and functionality of the website, many website developers fail to finish it off with the essentials that play the most important role in ensuring you can be found easily on the search engines, and one of the most important (and often overlooking) is the HTML and XML Sitemaps.

There are a few types of sitemap:

HTML Sitemaps – This is usually just a link on the footer of every webpage that will point you to a page with all pages of the website listed, with links to these pages. The advantage of this is for people to find your pages easily, which is important especially in larger websites. It also plays a key role in helping search engines to trawl through your website quicker.

XML Sitemaps – The XML Sitemap cannot be seen through the main website through a browser, however hopefully your web developer or webmaster has created and uploaded this for your website as it is even more relevant than the standard HTML sitemap. The XML sitemap can be easily generated using specific software designed for this purpose.
Once the XML sitemap is created it should be uploaded to Google through their Google Webmaster Tools, which you will need to create an account for. You should also do the same for Bing Webmaster Center and Yahoo Siteexplorer for the best results on all the major search engines.

If you are making frequent changes to your website, or run an online shopping cart or directory, then it is important to ensure the sitemap is recreated every time these changes take place, and then your XML sitemap is resubmitted to Google, Bing and Yahoo to ensure your new pages or changes are updated.

At Devision Design, large websites have a special automatic Sitemap Generator added which allows the site owner or the team at Devision to simply push a button and the new HTML, XML and ROR Sitemaps be recreated and submitted to all the mentioned search engine Webmaster accounts, not only saving you a heap of time-consuming work, but also generating an immediate response from the search engines, so you can often see the new pages appear in the search engines in a matter of minutes.

So, if you are unsure about if your website had an XML Sitemap or an XML Sitemap generator, then I advise you to ask your web developer as you could be missing a lot of valuable visitors to your website through a poor search engine listing.

Author: Chris Bourke of Devision Design & Web SEO Coach
We recommend Web Crowd Website Hosting Australia

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Posted in Google SEO & PageRank, SEO, Search Engine Marketing, Site Promotion, Website Design, Website Development | No Comments »

The Top Twitter Tools for promoting your business

Wednesday, January 20th, 2010

In my last article I discussed how to start using Twitter as a tool to promote your business.

The steps are very basic, yet very effective and proven to work.

But if you really want to see great results you will need an extra hand from some additional tools.

These tools are specifically designed to really promote Twitter accounts, and believe me they really work. And the best part is they are totally free!!

So here goes…

Twitpic allows you to share photos with your visitors, plus each time you post a photo on Twitpic it not only posts the message to your linked Twitter account, but it also allows any other fellow Twitpic user to see the pic as soon as you submit it, so you instantly attract people. You can also tag each image with particular keywords. So for instance if you were a Ford car dealer, as you post that photo of the vehicle you would add a subject topic that will attract people, such as Perfect used red Ford Coupe, and then add the tags; ford, red car, used cars, coupe, etc…
Works very well to attract a particular follower interested in your services or products.

Twitwall works in a similar style, though it goes one step better and integrates your Twitter account background into your Twitwall account, so make sure you have a nicely branded Twitter background. For an example of this, check out one of my Twitwall sites: http://twitwall.com/view/?who=whitsundayaccom

Tweetdeck is a very handy tool to help speed up the process of adding Tweets. The main TweetDeck website is also a kind of TWitter yellow pages, so you can easily target the specific audience you want to attract. Tweetdeck is actually a bit of software you download which allows live updated of your Twitter account or even multiple accounts, so you can easily post, respond and follow your friends Tweets without having to log in to the actual Twitter website.
For the iPhone users out there, Tweetdeck also has a handy App which works just the same as the the one on your PC, so you can tweet from anywhere!

On the subject of Yellow pages for TWitter, take a look at Twellow. Twellow is exactly that..a yellow pages for TWitter users. Simply sign up a free account and you can then select and follow specific people just by a simple search and click of a button!

Another handy tool for keeping in touch with fellow Twitter users is a handy little piece of software called Digsby. Digsby is an instant messaging software for IM, Email and Social Networks, all in one.
Simple to use and very handy for multi-tasking all your accounts at once. Sorry MAc and Linux users…it’s not available yet, but coming soon, so I will keep you posted!

If you run an RSS feed or a blog and want to easily post messages to your TWitter account or Facebook, then Twitterfeed is the tool for you.
You simply create an account and do a little bit of set up and then Twitterfeed will allow you to track your feeds easily. It really is as simple as it sounds.

for the traveller, Check out Twitwhere. Twitwhere is a cool little bit of software that allows your tweets to appear in a Google map, which can then be added to your website. It works on GPS data embedded into photos that you link to. Probably very handy if you are a tour operator, or travel the country doing motivational coaching or similar.

For those that are interested in searching and following particular tweets posted, a great little application is twhirl. Based on the Adobe Air platform, Twhirl is a smooth sleek running app. Much simpler and less screen room required than Tweetdeck, this handy little app can run all the time while you work.

With the recent arrival of the latest Android phone from Google, Twitter users are also catered for with Twidroid. A very stylish mobile version of Twitter, this handy app is a real winner for Twitter fans.

If you want to search for particular tags (keywords) that people are broadcasting on Twitter, check out Tweetscan. This is an easy way of finding followers interested in similar products or topics that you relate to. It even finds people!

For more Twitter Apps, free and paid, check out Twitdom
It has pretty much every type of Twitter solution available!

Combine a few of these great handy tools and you will quickly learn how easy it is to promote your business and attract new potential customers!

Until next time, Keep Tweeting…!

PS: You can also follow me at twitter.com/webseocoach or twitter.com/devision

Author Chris Bourke @ Devision Design and Web SEO Coach

Posted in Site Promotion, social networking | No Comments »

Let Google pay your bills for you!

Monday, January 18th, 2010

Wouldn’t it be great if you didn’t have to worry about your day-to-day bills you simply can’t avoid, such as electricity bills, groceries, phone bills etc….

Wouldn’t it be great if Google would put money in your bank account on a regular basis to put toward your next holiday, that something special you have been trying so hard to save for….

Imagine if Google would pay you money for doing almost nothing, which could cover all these bills to ease your financial pressures….

What if I told you this was all possible and you barely have to barely raise a sweat to earn it!

Now I know right now you are probably thinking this is starting to sound like a sales pitch to buy some incredibly expensive internet related package that you have no idea how to use.
Well, you are actually totally WRONG!!!

Ok..there may be some minor costs…around 0.30 cents a day – (No good investment is free!), and a little hard work on your behalf (we are talking a once-off in single digit hours)…

OK, starting to sound more interested?

I though so!

This easy money earner I am talking about is Google Adsense.

Google Adsense is a service provided by Google, which is totally free to join, allowing you to add their sponsored advertisements into any website, and when someone clicks on the banner ads you make money! Sounds very simple right? Well, it is!

The beauty of Google Adsense is that you can customize the colours, size, fonts and even select the target advertisements that reflect your own website, so they blend in perfectly to the surrounds of your website. As people are all ready on your website for a particular product or service, the advertisements generated will also reflect these, tempting people to click the advertisements.

Depending on how popular the product is and how much the advertiser is paying Google will depend on how much you get paid per click, and of course how many times the ads are clicked will determine your total income generated.

The best way to generate a good income from Google Adsense is to create a simple website that generates plenty of traffic, such as a small business or accommodation directory. (This is where the investment of the domain name and web hosting are required).

This doesn’t need to be a huge directory. In fact, the site only needs to be a single page, and keyworded correctly with the right content to obtain a good ranking on the search engines, and the visitors will flock to your website, with a very good chance that they will click on the Google Ads.

An even easier way, if you are familiar with Blogs, is to set up an interesting blog on a particular topic which attracts the interest of visitor traffic, and place the ads throughout your blog. A free service is Blogger, which allows you to easily create your own blog with no outlay of domain name or hosting costs. All it requires is for you to provide regular interesting content to your blog and as the readers start flocking to your blog, the Google Ads are clicked, and your income grows!

It really is that simple.

A word of advice…it will help greatly if you use the correct keywords throughout your blog, and have a general idea of how to promote your blog, such as using Twitter, Facebook and other blog directories. The more traffic you can push to your website the bigger the income you will make!

If you are planning on getting serious, search engine ranking and optimization software such as Web CEO will help to keep to find the best keywords, see your density of your website, and keep an eye on your competitors to help your overall performance skyrocket.

Good luck and start enjoying the freedom of extra money for doing nothing!
You gotta to love Google!!

For more information on setting up your own blog to generate income contact Devision Design – www.Devision.com.au

Author: Chris Bourke – Senior Designer and SEO Strategiest at Devision Design Australia @ Web SEO Coach

Posted in Affiliate Marketing, Site Promotion | No Comments »

Making Sense Out Of Google Analytics

Monday, October 26th, 2009

Getting targeted traffic is definitely the most important thing for any website owner. And understanding how traffic comes and goes is crucial in maximizing the traffic that you get. Thus, web analytics is a must to do for any site webmaster.And this is the part where using Google Analytics comes in. But what the heck is it anyway? As the name says, Google Analytics, or GA for short, is a tool for studying web statistics.

It is distributed free of charge by Google, either as a stand alone software or integrated into their other web marketing programs.GA tracks down all visitors coming to the site from various sources and referrers, such as search engines, and compile them. These are then presented to to the user as statistical data. Often other types of information is also present in the data, like those coming from pay per click networks and email marketing materials, as well as PDF links. And when integrated with other Google market analysis tools, such as AdSense, GA will also show data from the areas covered by these.Because of the large amounts of data that GA present, it can be quite confusing for many first time users. However, once you get the hang of it, it should become much easier.

However, there are some items that you need to take note from the very start.The traffic chart at the top of your GA page is the easiest to notice. It is also the most important, as it gives you a visual overview of your site’s traffic. Here, you can adjust the coverage of the chart by simply selecting your desired dates. You can also immediately compare different data sets by choosing the time periods you want to display.Below the traffic chart graph is the Site Usage section. Here, you will see a breakdown of site traffic into its components. There are six sections in here, three of which provide you with important general data.

The Visitors section obviously gives you the actual number of people going into your site. Pageviews, on the other hand, tells you how many times each page of your site has been accessed. Lastly, the New Visitors section gives you an idea of how many new visitors you are getting, this is very important as it will help you determine your increase in reach. Each section also has a View Report option so that you can see a more detailed analysis.In addition to these major features, GA also has a map overlay section, which gives you a breakdown of the countries from where people are accessing your site. This is especially important for those that want to market their sites globally.

The application will also give you a lowdown of where the traffic actually comes from: whether it is a direct access, a query from search engines or a link from other sites. These information will then come in handy for optimization purposes.Because of enormous information that Google Analytics churn out, it has become an indispensable tool for many. However, how you use these data and actually make the most out of them is an entirely different story altogethe

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Posted in Google SEO & PageRank, Site Promotion, Website Design, Website Development | No Comments »

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, Search Engine Marketing, Site Promotion, Website Design, Website Development, marketing, social networking | No Comments »

One Way Link Building Explained

Friday, June 12th, 2009

Many of you have probably heard on using Link Building to improve your website’s rankings on the search engines, and in turn attract more visitors, but if not done correctly, One Way Link Building can also see your website drop dramatically from the search engines, or even worse, blacklisted!

So what is the correct method to achieving successful lasting results with One Way Link Building?

Firstly, lets explain a bit more about One Way Link Building, and how it works….
Link Popularity is one method that Google, Yahoo and other Search Engines use while evaluating pages.

I like to use my analogy of the ‘Popular Kid’ Theory…

If you are the new kid at school and you have no friends then obviously your popularity is O. You can excel at subjects, or attract attention in another way and your popularity will eventually but slowly rise. Or alternatively you can hang out with the popular kids and in turn you become popular more quickly.
But what if you hang out with popular kids that don’t have anything relative to you. For instance, if you like football, but they like surfing? Then your popularity might not be as good because you don’t have as much in common. And of course, if you have nothing in common at all, then you are wasting your time totally.

Page Rank works in a very similar fashion. If you build links to similar pages using reference tags that relate to that other linking page then your page rank will quickly increase. For instance if you have a hotel and you want to link to an already popular hotel accommodation directory then as you both have relative links and therefor your pagerank should increase dramatically. But if you have a hotel in New York and the hotel directory is all about Sydney Hotels then your pagerank may not do as well. And if you have a hotel in New York and you link to a car sales website then you are just probably doing yourself damage! You have no relative link.

There are two types of Link Building – Reciprocal Links and One Way Links. Reciprocal Linking is when you exchange links between websites, so a link for the other relative website is placed on your site, and vice-versa.
One Way Links are as it states..a one way link with no reciprocal link. One way links are difficult to acquire as many websites do not link linking back to avoid dropping their own established page rank, but once you have acquired them the long time benefits are fantastic. As I mentioned above, if they share similar topics to your website then they add real value on the search engines and you will gain a great long term pagerank and the visitors to your website will flock.

So how do you get these links? You can either go the slow process of scouring for websites that relate to yours and then send them an email or phone them up kindly requesting a link back. Many will want to charge you for the opportunity, and many will flatly reject you. Or you can use SEO Link Building Services, and for a small fee (usually monthly) they will use their professional software and find sites that offer One Way Linking and do all the work for you. The results are usually very good, and for the small price you might pay, the long term benefits will outweigh!

Author: Chris Bourke is a website designer @ Devision.com.au and author of WebSEOCoach.com

Posted in Google SEO & PageRank, SEO, Search Engine Marketing, Site Promotion | No Comments »

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