1. Finding the right idea – something that combines your interests/skills/expertise with what people actually need/want
2. Doing your research – into biz models, profitability, a point of difference in the marketplace etc.
3. Building the framework of your biz – your products, your customers, your brand etc.
4. Giving yourself a timeframe – ‘portfolio building’ stage
5. Starting right now with a simple marketing strategy

Finding the right idea

Most people, when trying to start their own business, fall into two categories. The first category are people who have a particular skill, hobby or expertise that they think they can make money out of and turn into a business. The second category are people who like the idea of having their own business but don’t know exactly what it is they want to sell or what service they can provide and charge money for. What ever it is you do or sell, you have to keep in mind that not only does your product or service need to be something you can provide but also something that other people need. So if you already know what it is you want to sell, you now have to find people who want to pay for it, which can be pretty difficult. On the other hand, if you already know that there is something that other people need or want, it becomes easier to sell because you already know who you are going to sell it to. The important thing is to find something that you are willing to do that other people will pay for.

Doing the research

Before you start your business, it’s important to research who else is selling the same thing or providing the same service. It can really help to know how other people are conducting their business and to find out what you can do better and what you can learn. It’s pretty easy to find someone with a good buisness model that you can turn into something unique by making a few tweaks here and there and calling it your own. It is also important to know how profitable your business will be and how much you should be charging for your product or service. For instance, if you are selling homemade jewlery and you are charging twenty dollars for earings, you might be pushing away customers who are looking for high quality products. It is always easier to start off pricing high and then bring the price down if that isn’t working for you than it is to start off pricing low and then raise the price later.

Building the framework of your business

When starting a business you need to be clear on what your product is, who is going to buy it, how you’re going to sell it etc. You need to make sure you have a specific audience who you are targeting and you need to know how you are going to sell your product to that audience. Sometimes it helps to look into what the real, more broad reasons for why people are buying your product of using your service. People don’t just buy jewlery because they want jewlery - they buy jewlery to make them feel good about themselves. You need to look into what you’re really selling people, and that can be really helpful when trying to communicate with your customers.

Giving your self a time frame

When you’re first starting out, it can be useful to designate yourself a certain amount of time to test out how you’ll run your business and build a portfolio before you actually properly launch your business. You can use this time just as a learning stage to find out what you need to change about your business or how much you’re going to charge or how many hours a week you’re going to spend on your business. It doesn’t really matter what you do in this time because you can always go back and fix things. Remember that what you do in this time is ‘not a tattoo’ and isn’t going to define your business forever and can always be changed.

Starting right now with a simple marketing strategy

One of the best ways to begin creating an online presence for your business is to just start a simple blog or website where you can talk about your ideas and hopefully gain followers. Another great thing you can do is start keeping a list of emails of people who are interested in what you do or interested in your product or service. So if you want to notify people about a new idea or a new product, you already have a list of people who are interested in what you have to say. This is great for when you are in your portfolio building stage and you want to try things out before launching your product or service.

The most important thing when starting a business is to just start right now. Leave a comment bellow and tell us what you can do today to help you towards starting your own business.

Word of mouth marketing harkens back to the days when friends told friends about businesses that they liked. People share information, and it can either hurt you or help you. Here are some tips from my interview with Dr. Martin Russell on the Web Marketing Adelaide podcast. 
 

Referrals are Warm Lead 

When developing your business through word of mouth marketing one of the biggest positives is that you have a warm lead. Trust in any business is huge. You want your client to feel that you do have the right product and the right information. When the client has been referred to you by someone that they trust, they are more likely to trust you, the first time. 

Asking for Referrals is NOT Begging 

Businesses are built by good word of mouth. Encouraging your clients to refer their friends and family is not the same as begging them. Chances are you have a service that many people need. When you get your happy clients to tell their friends, who are also looking for the service you provide, this is part of your marketing. Much of your business can come from referrals, so, how are you generating them?

One positive strategy to get people talking about you is to put it into your marketing. Talk about a time when someone was referred to you and then that same person referred someone else. Show people that there is a chain reaction of happy clients. They will trust you, and be encouraged to spread the word.

Networking on a Business Scale 

Word of mouth marketing is customers talking to customers. Anytime you have a connection that can lead to business; that is your network. Do you work with other vendors that can refer you? Do you work with vendors that you can refer? The more people that are connected the more opportunities will arise.

You Can’t Prevent Everything

Positive word of mouth marketing is wonderful. However, there will always be the other side of that. As a business owner you need to know what people are saying about your business. What negative aspects are popping up? This is why it is important to follow up. After someone has worked with you, how do they feel, are they happy? Search the internet to see if there are complaints about your business.

If there is negative word of mouth about you, you may not be able to remove it. However, how you handle it can make all the difference. Contact those who have had an issue. How can you rise to the challenge and turn them into a happy customer? Remember, if people like something they may tell three people. Alternatively, if people hate something they may tell everyone who will listen.

Follow Your Demographic

Talk to the customers who you want to refer people for you. What social media do they use? If you find they are on Facebook all the time but you have spent your marketing budget on Twitter then you will want to change your focus. You are relying on the people who rely on you and this is why you want your budget to fit their styles. If you end up saving money, great, funnel that back into your product.

Listen to the whole discussion in Episode #6 of the WMA Podcast.

Image credit

This article is going to give advice on how to make your website easier for it’s visitors to navigate and use. We will be covering the topics of:

• URLs
• Breadcrumb links
• Sitemaps
• Custom 404 pages
• Website Navigation
• Linking Out 
  

URLs

URLs will often contain a bunch of indecipherable codes and numbers. To make it easier for users to remember the URL to a particular page, make it so the URL is short, simple and uses words that relate to its page (eg. www.example.com/blog/2008/jan/how_to_mow_cat ).  It is also useful to make it so parts of the URL can be deleted and the URL will still work. For istance, if you deleted everything after the ‘2008’ in the example above, www.example.com/blog/2008 would lead to a page containing all the blog posts from 2008.  It is good practice to only have one URL leading to a particular page.

Breadcrumbs

Breadcrumb links are a really useful way to help people better navigate your website.  Breadcrumbs are usually located near the top of the page and look like this:

Home > Shoes > Kids > Sandals > Kosh Leather Sandals  

Visitors can use this to find their way back to pages they viewed previously.

Sitemaps

To help users find their way around, include an HTML sitemap with links to all the important pages.  If there are a lot of pages, they should be organised on the sitemap by subject. To make it easier for search engines to navigate pages on your website, create an XML sitemap file for your site using a sitemap generator.
 

 

Custom 404 Page

There will be times when visitors will try and open a page that doesn’t exist. This is often because of misspelling a URL. Setting up a custom 404 page that guides users back to a page that works (typically the home page) can make peoples visit to your site easier and more enjoyable. Google has a useful 404 widget you can embed in your 404 error page.
 

Website Navigation

Most sites have navigation links near or at the top of each page. These usually include the home page, about, contact and any other important pages such as products or a blog. These are good for helping visitors find their way around your site.

Linking Out

The last bit of advice is about linking to other pages or websites. It is better to use text links rather than pictures, because people don’t always know to click on a picture to go to another page. It is always good to make links words or phrases (known as 'anchor text') that describe the place you’re being linked to rather than just a URL. This is especially important in the case of websites like Youtube that have a bunch of seemingly random letters and numbers in their video URLs.  If you just provide a raw Youtube link, people might not know what is on the other side. That is why it is important to use words as links.
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This article is a guest post by Sam, a year 10 student at Heathfield High School who has been doing work experience with us at Wicked Cow Marketing recently. Sam and I discuss all of the tips given here in Episode 12 of the Web Marketing Adelaide Podcast.

Networking is one of those buzzwords that everyone talks about doing but don't seam to have a clear idea of why.

When I started my SEO business I found myself doing a lot of networking without having a clear idea of what exactly the value was and how it was going to help my business.

I regularly attend the Flying Solo small business meetup which is held monthly in different places around Adelaide (next one coming up on September 5th). In the lead up to the meetup, I always see people umming and ahhing over whether they can fit it in to their busy schedule which seems to point to the fact that most people think there's some value there but that its far from the most productive thing they could be doing with their time.

Good things that can come from networking;

• New clients/customers (either those that you meet or by referral from someone you meet) 
• Increased reputation, personal branding and awareness
• Business/joint venture partners
• Business advice and tips
• An opportunity to make friends, get support and vent with like minded people

My Networking Tips

1) Figure out what your networking objectives are. If you want to meet small business owners, then maybe attending a networking event for professionals is not the best use of your time.

2) Arrive early. Its harder to enter existing conversations than it is to start them. If you get there early, you can strike up a conversation with people as they arrive.

3) Try and meet everybody. You never know what you could be missing out on so a good strategy is to try and meet everyone then go back to the people who are most interesting to you if you have time. This is not a hard and fast rule. If you're engaged in conversation with someone interesting and relevant then you don't want to just kick them to the curb but if there's a break in the conversation, use the opportunity to move onto someone new rather than returning to the same person.

4) Focus on others, not yourself. I think you can get far more value by listening, asking questions and helping other people out than you can by talking about yourself and your business. If you can provide value to someone, they're much more likely hire you, refer you work and talk about you in a positive light to others. Further, by listening and asking questions you can learn more about the problems people are having and how you can help them solve those problems.

5) Collect business cards. While your instinct might be to try and give out as many of your business cards as possible, don't forget to collect the business cards of those that you meet so you can connect with them later. I also like to group business cards by the event so if I'm going back next time I can have a look at the cards of those I met so I remember their names and what they do when I see them again.

6) Follow up and follow up some more. In the first few days after the event, try and follow up with those that you met. Add onto the conversation that you had with another thought or a link to something they might find useful or interesting. Try and keep in contact with people by connecting with them every now and then via email, social media, commenting on their blog or even a phone call.

For some more ideas and pro tips, check out this networking article.


Adelaide Networking Events

• Flying Solo Meetup - Small business owners, held monthly, usually 5-10 people 
• Adelaide Open Networkers - Some small business owners but mostly professionals, held every 2 months or so, 20-40 people (last time I was there) 
• The Startup Club Adelaide - They haven't had any events for a while but I think they are starting them again soon? I've not been to any events so don't know much about them but I've heard they're good 
• Young Leaders at the Office - Young IT professionals, every 1-2 months, small cost for non ACA members, 15-30 people 
• Silicon Beach Adelaide Meetup - Tech based entrepreneurs, geeks and businesses, held monthly, 10-30 people
• Adelaide Word of Mouth - Business owners & professionals, a few events each month, free, I've not been to any events yet but I hear they are quite popular.

Got some networking tips of your own? Put them in the comments below.

This is a guest post by Urszula Richards from online iq. I discussed these topics with Urszula in a recent interview for our new Web Marketing Adelaide podcast (Episode 2) and this post summarises and expands upon that interview. You can find out more about Urszula's business; online iq, in their company profile in our internet marketing directory. - Nick, Editor

What are some things people should consider before having a website designed?

There are two primary things a website must do. It must solve the needs or problems of the website visitor, and it needs to help the business owner achieve its goals.Its true to say that the best websites are designed for the end users - as they will vote with their actions about whether there is anything of value or interest to them. This is one reason why it is good to have an objective person to help with developing your site.

The second thing is that it must align with the business goals. For established businesses, these can be quite clear, but for a young business, these could be quite formative and it can be difficult getting to the bottom of what a business offers (especially if it is a service business). So my advice would be to take the time to get very clear about this.

Other things important to consider:

• budget - contrary to what most people do, telling your developer what your budget is will help them help you be realistic about what can be achieved, and appropriate options suggested.
• online shopping websites - these can be built *fairly* cheaply BUT will they work? Be sure to factor into your budget photography (main expense if you have lots of items; but photographs sell), your fulfillment plan (who will be handling orders), shipping and payment methods. Then, you need to allocate funds to some serious marketing. Just because you build it does not mean they will come. If you don't budget for these items, your 'budget' shopping cart may well become a white elephant.
• ongoing relationship with your web firm - a website is a little like a car. You get the car, but you may need driving lessons, maintenance and fuel to get the most out of it. Work with someone you trust - they will be your first port of call for making your website work for you.

Are mobile websites important?

Awareness of mobile is really important, but what does this mean?

It means that you need to be aware that your website will be viewed on any number of devices, including phones, tablets, huge screens and tiny portable PC's. There is no way a website can look exactly the same across all these devices.

However at the very least -

• make sure your graphics do not include Flash (as it can't be viewed on many mobiles); or at the very least that those pages redirect to an alternative mobile friendly page when accessed from a mobile device.
• do view your site on a range of mobile devices and see if there are simple changes you can make to improve it
• consider having a *micro* mobile site version - which would show up on mobile phones, for local business - ie. phone number, google map, possibly faqs; just the basic information 'on the go'

On the other hand if your target market and/or your offering is very 'mobile-centric' you may want to consider an entire website version completely optimised for mobile.

What are 5 ways business owners can market their website once it has been created?

First a note about marketing in general. It should be seen as a form of genuine, long term, relationship building. I also see no distinction between online and offline marketing - "online" is just a medium.

1. Make sure you are listed in all the local directories. If you are in a particular niche and there is a directory for that niche, make sure you are listed there. (eg if you are a restaurant, make sure you are listed in Urban Spoon). Take control of these listings - so you have up-to-date and interesting information / photos.
2. Blog. You have probably heard about blogging 'ad nauseum' but there is no better way to prove you are current, knowledgeable and interested in your domain. The added bonus of this is that once this has been created, you will actually have something of substance to distribute via your social networks.
3. Do use social media - but make it interesting, relevant or delightful (ok, you might not be able to delight every time!) to your audience. Don't simply have social links on your site going to a very empty Facebook or Twitter page.
4. Capitalise on your web address. Add it to your signature (make sure it is clickable, and not an image), use it in your print advertising, and distribute it on your business cards wherever you can.
5. Understand the importance of your database. Not just names and emails, but who they are. Segment it as much as possible, so that when you do communicate with people, it is a communication which is of value and relevance to them. This is one of the key reasons why I use Business Catalyst to build my websites in. It has a Customer Database and the ability to segment and communicate with your customers. I only wish my clients used it more!! In fact my interview on Web Marketing Adelaide with Nick was a direct result of ongoing, relevant occasional communication via my segmented database.

About onlineiq.

We are a small boutique web design and development agency offering both the creation of websites and the necessary training, support and maintenance to keep them meeting business goals. You can find us @ www.onlineiq.biz or call 1300 970 730

Company Name: onlineiq
Founded: 2008
Key Personnel: Urszula Richards (business development)
Products/ Services: Websites and marketing solutions for business & community organisations
Specialty: Providing integrated online solutions - providing solutions you may not know were possible beyond just having a website

Information Sources:

• http://www.onlineiq.biz/_blog/onlineiq_blog
• http://www.linkedin.com/in/urszularichards
• https://twitter.com/onlineiq
• https://plus.google.com/u/0/b/103217118701629463762/
• http://www.facebook.com/onlineiq

Contact Details

Address: 14 Company Street, Semaphore 5019
Website: www.onlineiq.biz
Email: ursh@onlineiq.biz
Phone: 0413 606 463

I've created this infographic with 8 tips to help improve your search engine rankings in Adelaide. If you head to the page on my website; Adelaide SEO Tips, you'll find more information about each tip and a video explaining each tip as well. Enjoy!

As you know, I haven't been posting much here lately - there are several reasons, mostly because I've been really busy, but also because I've been writing articles for my Online Marketing business website: Wicked Cow Marketing. I've already built up a pretty good collection of resources, here are some of the most recent:

• On-Page Optimisation - A comprehensive guide to on-site SEO, that is search engine optimisation done on the page
• Page Title Optimisation - A follow up to the on-page optimisation article above that focuses on just the optimisation of your page's titles
• How to Get More Facebook Fans - A structured approach to getting more Facebook fans
• How to Get More Twitter Followers - A structured approach to getting more Twitter followers
• Ultimate SEO Checklist - A huge checklist of SEO techniques and ideas that you can use to improve your site
  

I have been thinking about where I'd like to take this blog now that I have other projects to work on and perhaps not as much time to spend here.

The key areas I'd like the blog to focus on include:

• Interviews - With Adelaide based experts in the internet marketing field and the occasional non-Adelaidian when useful or interesting.
• Guest Posts - From Adelaide based exerts in the internet marketing field, more details here.
• Jobs - Continue to posts to and promote our job board.
• Education - Information about internet marketing education and courses in Adelaide and online.
• Events - Covering the various networking and internet marketing events in Adelaide and maybe organising some events of our own.
• News - Covering internet marketing news in Adelaide.

I have made several posts in the past with my own opinions about SEO strategy and ideas. I will continue these, when I have the time, but they will be posted to my personal site nickmorris.me.

I'm toying with the idea of doing future interviews as recorded audio and putting them together in a kind of podcast. They would also be transcribed and posted to the blog.

Some of the event ideas I've had include networking events for internet marketing professionals in Adelaide, SEO round table discussions, small business networking events and free lectures/workshops from internet marketing professionals for small business owners.

Overall the site has two main focuses - information, news and networking within the internet marketing community in Adelaide and packaging some of the community's knowledge and bringing it to small business owners and managers who can benefit.

If you have any ideas or comments about the direction of the site, please add them below.

There are several different things you can do with an article to aid your SEO and online marketing, including:

• Posting it on your main website
• Posting it on another website you own with a link back to your main website
• Syndicating the article to a large number of relatively low quality article marketing networks
• Syndicating the article to fewer higher quality websites
• Using the article as a guest post (one location)

This post seeks to explore which use is the most effective way to leverage an article for maximum benefit.

Article Use	Pros	Cons
Main website	The article can rank and attract traffic to your website	There are no guaranteed links generated from the article
Another website you own	Guaranteed link back to your main website and the article can attract traffic to your other website	Have to divide your content over two websites
Low quality syndication	Potentially large number of links from low-medium quality websites and some exposure	Many links are low quality and will produce little traffic
High quality syndication	A small number of medium-high quality links, exposure to a new audience and likely to send some relevant traffic	Limited number of links generated
Guest post	Guaranteed link from a potentially high quality site, exposure to a new audience and likely to send some relevant traffic	Only one link generated

The traditional use would be to post the article straight onto your main website where it can rank in the search engines and attract visitors for years to come. The article can also be shared on social media and linked to from elsewhere to give your website traffic and an SEO boost to lead to better rankings overall. However, there is no guarantee that you will get links, unlike the other article uses mentioned. Earning links simply by writing good quality content is getting harder and harder so perhaps leveraging your article to obtain value exchange links is a better use of your content.

Value Exchange Links
These are links that are gained by giving something of value in exchange for a link back to your website. Money is a common form of value that is exchanged for links but in this case, the 'value' is the right to use a piece of content on a website. The three uses in the diagram above are value exchange links where you grant another website owner the right to use your content on their website in exchange for a link pointing back to your website. These techniques produce guaranteed links which reduces risk and increases the efficiency of your SEO efforts.

The lower quality method at the bottom of the pyramid has the potential to deliver tens - hundreds of links from low-medium quality websites. The links are likely to have a lower life time value so this technique has less long term value but the sheer number of links, with desired anchor text can still have a good effect on your rankings in the short term.

The higher quality techniques will produce much fewer links but they will have a greater long term value, greater authority and link value and have other benefits such as increasing your reputation and gaining exposure from a relevant audience.

For more information about the SEO value of 'value exchange links' see my recent post discussing whether article syndication is white hat.

I've been rather busy lately with work and haven't been able to give this blog the attention it deserves. However, this post will continue to make sure that I've posted at least once a month, every month since its inception in early December 2010.

Here are the top 10 posts for this year:

1. Move, Eat, Learn Interview with STA Travel's Adam Fyfe
2. Tom Williamson Interview
3. Local Keyword Competition Analysis
4. Broad, Phrase & Exact Match Data
5. Local Search in Adelaide, South Australia
6. Julia George on Social Media Marketing
7. Adelaide Zombie Walk Organiser Ann on Social Media
8. Engaging your Audience on Social Media
9. Interview with Karen Zaskolny on Copywriting
10. Interview with Chris Schwarz on PPC

It's been a fun and interesting year and I've got a number of plans for this blog to keep the content coming.

See you in 2012.

Article Marketing or Syndication is the process of trying to get your content republished on other websites for the purpose of getting exposure and building links.

I've been meaning to write this article ever since the article marketing product 'Article Samurai,' from the same company that makes Market Samurai, came out. More recently, I've been involved in an extensive discussion, in the comments of an article on SEO myths, about whether article syndication is a good way to build links.

There's a range of article marketing techniques that span from the very low quality to the higher quality. A point that was raised in the article and discussion mentioned above is that article syndication on quality sites is a good way to get your content distributed to targeted readers, which I don't dispute.

The focus of this article is with using article syndication as a link building technique for SEO.

There's actually two questions here;

1. Is article syndication/marketing white hat?
2. Is article syndication/marketing effective?

While the second question is certainly important, I'm actually more concerned with the first question as I'm looking for long term value and techniques that are not white hat will decrease in value over time as the Search Engines improve their algorithms.

Editorial Links
My main problem with article syndication is that it doesn't produce truly editorial links but rather value exchange links. Those re-publishing the articles are doing so, at least partly, because they benefit from having the content on their site, not because they think its great content.

However, it's not as straightforward as this. Some low quality sites will publish syndicated articles to their own sites with very little editorial scrutiny - these are certainly at the low quality/spammy end of the spectrum. But what about sites that only pick the very best articles to re-publish? It would seem that this is certainly an editorial process and therefore the links back should be given value by the search engines.

It seems like a difficult issue to make a decision on but I think that while the links produced are editorial to some degree, they are still value exchange links and therefore shouldn't be given as much link value as a true editorial link which makes the technique not entirely white hat. That's not to say that its black hat... I would categorise it as a grey hat technique.

In the following video, Matt Cutts talks about article marketing and syndication and he doesn't come right out and say that its a black hat technique. I think this is because he also recognises that if there's an editorial process and the articles are being published on good quality sites then the links do have some value as an indicator that the original content is authoritative.



He concludes the video by saying that the trend is that article syndication is a bad technique and that the resulting links should be devalued. There's also a great video by Rand from SEOmoz on this subject. Rand's video deals more with the lower quality end of the spectrum, but I think he agrees overall that no article syndication is entirely white hat and he then brings up the subject of opportunity cost.

Opportunity Cost
I think there's no doubt that article syndication can be an effective link building technique, especially if done in a higher quality way. But, if you're spending time on a technique that's not white hat then you know that the effectiveness of that technique is probably doing to decrease over time. You could be spending that time on white hat techniques which will have more of a long term value.

Many of the tools in the SEO's arsenal are not strictly white hat. The reason we use them is because they do have some value now so they'll produce positive results in the short term and because they're easier, quicker and cheaper to do than truly white hat techniques.

Do you do Article Syndication? Do you think its white hat?

James Whitrow is the director of Get Seen Online, a business providing SEO and corporate and creative videos. I was lucky enough to sit down with him to discuss his business, their services and a recent viral video that he produced called 'Herbert Wilkes, a Hungry Life.' If you haven't already, read the Herbert Wilkes article and watch the video, it's great stuff. I found James to by an interesting guy with lots of passion for his business and for getting results for their clients.

What is your role in the business? What is your background? How did you come to be doing what you do?

• I am the owner of Get Seen Online, we have three employees. I’m responsible for marketing & sales, some of the tech work, research and development, managing accounts, content writing and optimisation. The other two in the business are primarily tech and SEO consultants.
• I’ve always run my own business since the age of ten, in San Diego, when I folded papers for other kids in the street who were old enough to have their own paper route.
• I’ve been in the IT space for about 15 years. Previously I had a full service network management business and our clients started asking for websites and SEO. Initially we outsourced the work but were not happy with the results and we realised we could do better. We started offering SEO as a service and eventually it became a separate business, and that’s how Get Seen Online was born.

What does Get Seen Online do?

• We do what it takes to get you on page one of Google using SEO, Online Video, Social Media and other methods.

What are your core services?

• SEO, Website development, Online Video

Where does video production fit into those services?

• Video adds a great extra element for users. We can show footage of clients’ work, how to's, what its like to experience doing business with them; anything information and story driven.
• The videos are mostly made for the client’s website then linked through Youtube and social networks.

How can videos be used for online marketing? What are the advantages of video over text?

• People are lazy. Some people don't like reading a screen, videos are much easier on the eyes.
• On the down side, written content gets more mileage for SEO than video, so it’s good to have a blend of both.

How does video marketing complement other online marketing techniques?

• Adding video to your content provides a more complete package, giving information in many formats for different people's preferences

What should the videos be about?

• Think about what people would want to watch
• Do research - use Google's keyword research tool, for example type in 'how to ,’ to see if people are searching for ‘how to’ guides on that subject
• Try and expose in an engaging way what is unique about your business

Is there a specific formula to make a video go viral? What are the biggest factors?

• There's definitely something to having an X factor
• Marketing is also important
• It has push boundaries and there’s got to be something that makes you want to share
• Short - around 1 to 3 minutes
• Video and audio quality are important, people need to see and hear clearly what’s going on. Sound extremely obvious, but overlooked by so many videos. For some videos the music can make or break the video.

Are there any Youtube specific tips your can share?

• Youtube wants people to be active. Logging into your account, friending, subscribing, commenting and voting are all things that Google/Youtbe likes, so do them.
• Getting involved in the community will also help get your videos featured. Featured videos go on the home page and get lots of views.

How do the costs and returns of online video marketing compare to TV advertising?

• The ratio of costs of TV ads to cost of online videos is anything up to 10 : 1 for production.
• You can use a basic video camera that only costs $300 and both Macs and PC’s come with free editing software (imovie and windows movie maker) or you up the quality and hire a local company to use professional gear and do something slick, either way, the main requirement is to have a good story to tell
• On the distribution side, for TV ads you need to pay for each showine
• Online videos stay up forever so there's no limit to their potential
• Many people, especially the younger generations, already watch more online video than TV.
  

Can business owners have success by creating videos themselves?

• Yes, simple videos can be really easy to create provided you have content that will engage the viewer.

What are five things that small business owners can do to leverage online video for marketing?

• The most important thing is to get good quality content. Think about what content might interest your customers, what do you see everyday that they might find interesting?
• Steer away from blatant self promotion
• Do research. See what kind of videos are popular on Youtube in your niche and use Google’s keyword tool to see what people are searching for
• If you don't have much editing skill or software, plan your shot carefully to try and shoot everything in sequence so there's not much editing required.
• Ask around, there’s plenty of people involved in film in some way who can help and advise.

How would you describe your SEO philosophy?

• Focus on providing great content with the belief that Google will appreciate informative, entertaining and useful website content.
• We do lots of research and monitoring of results.

How do you differentiate yourselves from other online marketing businesses?

• We work face to face with customers as well as through the net.
• We aim to find out what's unique about our clients and portray their uniqueness and reason for existence as a common thread throughout all the marketing material and content on their website

Why is website structure important for SEO?

• It enables search engines to easily crawl all the relevant content
• Coding is also important, for example you should use CSS for page layout rather than tables nested in tables
• Title tags, descriptions, headings (h1,h2,h3 tags) are all important places to put keywords- they should all be matching and consistent and accurately represent and summarise the content.

What are some common mistakes you see in small business website design?

• Keyword stuffing, by people who don’t understand keyword density
• Using lots of meta keywords- Google have stated they no longer use them in their algorithms
• Content that doesn’t relate to the page titles

Thanks again to James for giving his time for this interview. You can learn more about Get Seen Online and the services they offer at their company profile in our Internet Marketing Directory.

I recently caught up with James Whitrow of Get Seen Online to discuss their creative and promotional video, 'Herbert Wilkes - A Hungry Life.' Watch the video below and see my interview following that.



What were the objectives of the video?

To entertain. I’ve been a hobby film maker, and actor, for a few years and I wanted to make something for the business.
Steve wrote the script with purely commercial intentions. Then we thought about it and decided to modify it to be purely entertaining. We analysed each part as asked ‘is this entertaining enough?’ and then it was altered to make it more entertaining
• It was originally written with the main character as a person, only later did we decide that a rat would be more entertaining.

• Not goals exactly, just ideas, nothing specific. We kept to the main goal of entertaining.

• I was hoping for 100,000 views, but there’s still more promotion to be done.
We have seen an increase in business, some of which can be directly attributed to the video, some not.
More clients have been gained than I expected.

• Yes, definitely!

• Initially yes, but once we got to know each other it got easier.
• It’s a matter of limiting the space he has to move within and putting the reward in the right position to get him to do the right thing.
• In the art gallery scene, which was filmed without Herbert then green screened in later, Herbert was put on the table and left to improvise, he did exactly what I had in mind for him to do on his own and it worked perfectly with the actions of the human actor on set.

• We shopped at several different stationery and craft shops to acquire the materials to make the sets. The majority of the furniture and props were bought on eBay.

I particularly liked the little toilet plunger, did that come from EBay too?

• The toilet plunger is actually a little device for propping up/holding a mobile phone which was given to me a couple years ago. The scene was originally written with Herbert standing next to a regular sized plunger, then I realised the phone holder would make an ideal rat-sized prop.

We did lots of research. We looked at the top videos on Youtube and realised many of them featured animals.
• I wanted to do something quirky and out of the box and rats are nice to work with, which helped make the choice. We went to lots of pet shops to audition rats. We wanted to stay away from black, hooded rats as they have that typical ‘evil’ look about them, and white rats are bad as white can be hard to work with on camera. Daisy is a nice apricot colour which was perfect for the role.

I sent lots of emails out to friends and colleagues, everyone I know really, and encouraged them to send it on to their friends.
We also posted it to Youtube and Facebook
• We also posted it on various 'hot video' and 'trending video' websites as well as social sharing websites like Reddit.

1. Writing
2. Pre-production- casting (most of the actors were people I had worked with in the industry), costumes, locations, props and sets
Production- filming
Editing- The editing took 3 solid weeks, this included high quality video, colour corrections, pulling and pushing focus, fixing the blurry bits.
Release and promotion

• The video took 8-9 months. We estimate that about 250 hours were contributed to the film when you count everyone involved.
• There was a hold up on the music. I couldn't find anything that fitted the video the way I wanted. We eventually had it composed by a very talented composer in London.

• I wouldn't ever recommend this kind of thing to a client as it is high risk; a lot of effort goes into it and there’s a low certainty of results. But I would happily make creative videos like this for clients if they wish to show themselves to be out of the box... I will definitely be making more for ourselves.

Company Name: Soul Stone Group Pty Ltd / trading as Get Seen Online
Founded: February, 2007
Key Personnel: James Whitrow (director)
Products/ Services: SEO, Corporate & Creative Videos
Specialty: Corporate & Creative Videos


Contact Details

Address: PO Box 3003, Norwood SA 5067
Website: www.getseenonline.com.au
Email: info@getseenonline.com.au
Phone: 08 8463 1112

I recently caught up with Andrew Webber of SEO Maverick to talk about PPC Advertising. Andrew has some great insights into how PPC (pay per click) works and how to maximise the benefits for your business.

What is PPC advertising?

PPC stands for “pay per click” and is the pricing model that most search engine marketing ads are sold through. Advertisers who promote their products and services using pay per click ads are only charged if a potential customer clicks on one of their advertisements.

How is PPC different from other forms of advertising?

Pay per click advertising is one of the most targeted and measurable forms of advertising. There are not many forms of advertising that allow you to put your ads in front of potential customers at the exact time they are actively doing research or looking to make a purchase.

What are it's advantages and disadvantages?

Advantages: Highly targeted and extremely measurable. Easily see return on investment, overall ad spend, and which ads are performing the best.

Disadvantages: Can be time consuming to set up correctly

Is Adwords the only PPC provider you need to worry about?

If I was just starting out I would absolutely focus just on Google Adwords first as Google has around 90% market share in Australia for search engines. The return on investment for setting up a campaign on the Bing/Yahoo platform wouldn’t be there so I would focus all of my efforts on the Adwords platform to begin with.

Obviously once you start seeing some success in your Adwords campaign, then you can start to look at the Bing/Yahoo platform and see whether you can make some inroads in that market.

Facebook also offers PPC advertising and can be a very useful platform.

Who else offers PPC? How do they differ from Adwords?

Bing/Yahoo are the other major provider in the search marketing space with their AdCenter platform. Their interface and tools are not as user friendly as Adwords at this stage.

The Facebook PPC platform differs as it allows you to segment your ads based on some really detailed demographic, age and interests information. This means you can target your ads directly to very niche markets based on things you know they are interested in.

Can every business benefit from PPC advertising?

I think so. Whether it be for lead generation, selling a product or service, or general branding I think most businesses can use it as a low cost solution to marketing and customer acquisition.

Which types of businesses does it suit most?

Pay per click suits the big markets like insurance, banking, finance and real estate as it is easy to measure costs vs return on investment.

But there is definitely a large scope for smaller local businesses to put together PPC campaigns such as dentists, physios or other health products that have a long average customer life cycle.

Is it difficult to manage an Adwords account? Could the average small business owner do it successfully?

No it isn’t particularly difficult. It takes a bit of forward planning but most businesses know their markets very well and intuitively know what types of things their customers would be searching for.

The first thing they should do is take a look at their analytics and see what keywords are currently driving traffic to their website, and then plug some of these into the Google keyword tool to discover some other variations.

I think most business owners can easily create their own campaign. I would recommend opening up a spreadsheet and writing down all the different product and services and organise them into common themes or clusters of related products and keywords.

Start small – but keep adding to this list as you go along and you have some seriously good segmentation and data in no time.

What aspect of managing an account takes the most time?

The initial keyword research and segmenting these keywords into small ad groups is definitely the most time consuming part. From there, making sure you test different bid prices, match types, negative keywords and ad copy is what takes time.

Once an account and campaigns are set up, can they be left to run on their own or do they have to be maintained?

Generally it is advisable to keep an eye on your bid prices to make sure you’re not paying too much for your clicks. Also testing new ad copy variations can have a significant impact on click through rate and conversions.

How much should a business expect to pay to have their account managed by someone else?

Percentage of ad spend or a flat management fee are the most common forms of account management fees. It really depends on the scale and complexity of the campaign and the value to the client.

What benefits can an Adwords professional deliver that a regular business owner can't?

Setting the campaign up in a structured way using the correct match types, ad variations and tight keyword groups. Having the knowledge on how to structure a campaign and use different targeting parameters can give a much higher ROI than if a business owner set it up themselves.

I’ve seen several businesses set up campaigns with one ad group, one ad copy and 500 keywords. We separated this into much tighter ad groups around keyword themes and were able to increase click through rates, lower cost per clicks and increase conversions within the first day of running the ads.

Is there a minimum ad spend recommended?

A few hundred dollars to test the market is usually a good place to start for smaller businesses. There are plenty of free adwords coupons out there that can give you $50, $75 or even $100 to start off your campaigns.

I find its usually a good idea to use a few hundred dollars just to test the market to see what the general competitiveness is and what the most popular keywords are going to be.

What is 'Quality Score?' What is it used for?

Quality score measures the relevance of the landing page to the keyword and ad copy. In general, the higher your Quality Score, the lower your costs and the better your ad position.

The quality score is calculated every time your keyword triggers one of your ads and is determined by several factors. These are just a few:

• Landing page quality
• Historical click through rates
• Keyword relevance to ad copy and landing page

Google has a great resource on quality score and how it impacts your campaigns
performance.

How can you improve your Quality Score?

Having smaller and more specific ad groups with less keywords that match closely with the ad copy. Creating specific landing pages for each keyword group can dramatically improve quality score which in turn will lower your cost per click and increase your ad position.

What's the difference between Google's display network and their regular search results ads?

This page outlines extremely well the differences in Google’s different advertising options. Here is my take:

Display network as defined by Google: “Text, image, video, or rich media ads are targeted based on themes in your keyword list, rather than specific keywords”

The regular search network results are the sponsored links you see on a Google search results page and are ads targeted based on what search terms users type in.

Do the two mediums require a different strategy?

It’s always advisable to run separate campaigns - one for just search, and the other for the content network. The content network allows for interactive ads such as videos and images that are not offered on the search network.

Obviously the ads that you will use will be quite different depending on what you are trying to achieve.

What kind of businesses/ads are best targeted to internet devices?

Local businesses such as restaurants or cafes as many local searches on mobile devices are done when looking specifically for a local service

Is location an important targeting factor to consider? How canlocation targeting be used to improve a campaign?

Absolutely. Having the ads only displayed for your particular area is vital. You can do this by city, suburb, state or GPS region. This way you can create broader themed campaigns around a keyword that are only displayed to people who are searching from a given location.

This means you don’t need to rely as much on keyword location modifiers such as “adelaide cafe, melbourne cafe” to have your ads displayed. Instead you can buy “cafe” and have it geotargeted to anybody searching for that who is located in Adelaide.

Is it easy to track PPC performance?

Extremely easy. In Google Adwords automatically ads a tracking string which makes it easy to see the data in Google analytics. The Google URL builder is something you can use to track your campaigns as well – a very useful little tool.

In competitive markets, which aspects of PPC advertising become more difficult to manage successfully?

Managing bid prices and working out the optimum amount to pay clicks based on your conversion rate and return on investment as opposed to the click through rates.

Are landing pages important for improving PPC performance?

Extremely important. A lot of PPC campaigns drive visitors just to the homepage with no real clear call to action for that specific search.

Having specific landing pages tailored to particular keyword groups that heavily promote the call to action can improve conversion and ROI dramatically.

How should your website be set up to maximise performance?

As mentioned above I think having specific ad groups for related keyword groups with several different versions of ad copy can have a huge impact. Custom landing pages for different groups of products or services is extremely important in maximising performance as well.

What can you do to reduce competition?

More specific ads, geotargeting and use negative keywords.

What are five things small business owners can do to best take advantage of PPC advertising?

1. Use one of the free advertising vouchers from Google
2. Set up a small campaign based on a couple of local keywords and use to determine market size, competitive and potential – then use this to power your SEO efforts
3. Use it to drive customers to your site and sign them up to your mailing list
4. Use in conjunction with your Google places page to dominate your local area
5. Start right away!

How does PPC relate to SEO?

PPC can be excellent for researching volume, competitiveness and cost of a particular market or keyword. You can use this real data to determine which keywords you should target in your SEO campaign.

How do PPC and SEO costs and returns compare?

PPC gives immediate returns and can show exact ROI numbers - very quickly and easily. The returns are definite but you are limited to the markets you are currently competing and buying ads in.

SEO returns are harder to quantify, longer term and more closely tied with your branding and strategy. However, it is a more defensible strategy as if you have strong organic traffic not just from Google but from other websites, this can improve brand value, increase customer retention and allow you to charge higher prices.

I don’t think one is better than the other – they are both different ways to market your business!

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Thanks very much to Andrew Webber for agreeing to be interviewed. You can learn more about Andrew's company; SEO Maverick at their Company Profile in our Internet Marketing Directory.