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Google Maps - Get on it!

22 Jul 2008 09:00:22 am GMT +0

[b]Google Maps [/b] Checkout [url]http://www.mklink.com/training/[/url] for more internet marketing tips What's Google Maps? Basically, if your company offers products and services on a local basis then you really need to pay attention to this. From what I can work out, Google are basically taking Yellow Pages(Yell.com on the web) head on. Did you know that if you have a mobile phone with google maps installed, you can see where you are and what local amenities and attractions are available to you? And businesses too - like yours for example. You don't even need GPS! It's like being able to look at the top of your own head. To download Google maps onto your web enabled phone, visit http://mobile.google.co.uk I'm not the world's best navigator and so this facility to see where I am just by pressing a button on my phone is great. It helps me find the right pub for example - what finer use of technology could there be? Now the serious bit - get your website registered with Google Maps ASAP! You don't want to appear number 20 down the listings, when you can sign up now for free. You'll kick yourself if you leave it too late. The sooner you get on, the sooner you'll be seen on Google Maps and the higher up the listing you'll stay. To get started go to http://www.google.com/mobile/ on your pc. The business listings on Google Maps are only going to get more prevalent and more important. There is a customer review facility so you can have lots of positive feedback to show the world what a wonderful company you run. (Currently this is open to abuse so expect to see some headlines here!) But you can add your images, video, operating hours, payments accepted, qualifications and all this will only get bigger because after all, Google gets paid via advertising. I strongly suggest that you don't just think it's a gimmick. Google maps is being linked in with YouTube and loads of other technologies. So, if you're an accountant. Get on it. If you sell pizza, get on it. If you run a web design company - get on it. In fact whatever you do, just get on it before a hundred people get on it and listed before you do, in your area. Definitely, definitely get on it if you run a pub ;-) Tip: Make sure that you add loads of keyphrase rich text in the 'description' field and add as much information & multimedia as you can to try and stand out. Would you like more Internet Marketing Tips? - Checkout http://www.mklink.com/training/ today. 'till next time, Mike Knight. [url=http://www.mklink.com]MKLINK Internet Marketing Tips[/url]...

Dynamic Landing Page Titles - from Search Phrases

08 Jul 2008 06:30:24 am GMT +0

Checkout http://www.mklink.com/training/ for more internet marketing tips [b]What do I mean?[/b] As you hopefully know by now, it is almost always a very good idea to have your keyword in the title of your pay per click ad, assuming you're running pay per click. This is because people are expecting to see what they've typed into google to appear in front of them and so they are actively looking for that key phrase to appear. However, the same is true when they have clicked on your ad and arrive at your landing page. You'll appreciate that the conversion on your landing page is the bit that pays the bills - so it pays to optimise this. Now of course you can have lots of landing pages, all with different page titles and track everything that way. Nothing wrong with that. It's simply a case of setting your PPC campaigns up and having related keywords in each ad group so that you can track the search phrases either individually or in related groups. For example, if you're selling fishing tackle and have loads of different key phrases to cover all the different items, you group them into almost the same phrases and then add a tracking parameter on the destination URL. So, for example, let say you have half a dozen words covering carp rods "carp rods" "carp fishing rods" "rods for carp" "rods for carp fishing" So in the destination url, you'd have http://fishingtacklesupplies.co.uk/index.php?campaign=gaw&keywords=carp+fishing You can see from this that you can use the tracking information to populate the landing page title, and then start to track variations. However, sometimes that can get a bit unwieldy and so a quick 'cheat' is to dynamically insert the title of your ad campaign straight into the title of the landing page. It's certainly something I do and I believe it to be quite effective. You can also do it with your NATURAL traffic as well! In much the same way that your stats program can tell which key phrases people are using to find you within the search engines, your web page can be instructed to add the referring search engines' keywords directly into the headline of your landing page. You might also want to pepper the keyword phrase(either natural search or PPC) throughout the main body of your website. No doubt you'll have seen sites already that have highlighted text containing your search phrases. This illustrates what I mean. And of your you can track all this as well. As with all these things, my suggestion os that you run a split test. In my case, I simply serve 2 versions of the page randomly in equal measure and after 100 or so visits for a certain search phrase, I can see which of the headings has converted more visitors into signups. I write the code for this myself as it's easy but there are loads of bits of software that can do this for you - just ask your web designer. (Or join my internet marketing club...) As a footnote, my suggestion is that at the head of the landing page, you include a strong benefit that relates directly to whatever the search phrase is. (in PHP for example, just use an INCLUDE function) If this is of interest or even it it's complete Japanese to you, why not let us help you? Just go to http://www.mklink.com/training/ today and register for a month's trial! 'till next time, Mike Knight. [url=http://www.mklink.com/]MKLINK Internet Marketing Tips[/url]...

How to Spy on your competitors PPC Campaigns

17 Jun 2008 09:38:30 pm GMT +0

[b]A Couple of Great Keyword Tools[/b] Checkout http://www.mklink.com/training/ for more internet marketing tips As you may already have heard me say, half the battle of being found in the search engines is targetting the right key words and key phrases. The smart thing to do is to find lots of niche phrases. And I mean lots of them. Rather than fighting everyone else 'head on' with expensive generic key phrases, you might consider getting as many different (cheap) key phrases as you can either as paid for key phrases or simply within your website content, thus attracting natural search engine traffic. You can investigate common mis-spellings, local search, plurals, synonyms and many other ways of getting great key phrases. And you can 'cheat'...I'm going to brazenly 'plug' a couple of affiliated software programs here. Looking at other people's source code is one way but a far more powerful method is to use the kind of software that we use at MKLINK. Checkout http://our.affiliatetracking.net/wordtracker/a/15196 which is my affiliate link for Wordtracker. It's a great tool for looking at popularity of key phrases and has a great keyword suggestion tool as well. I've been using it for ages and it's well known and respected within my industry. This means you can see how many people are searching for your key phrase and see of there is a 'market' for it. However, another tool I've been using a lot more recently is a real corker and it enables you to instantly check your competitors' key phrases bother natural and PAID for as well! Yes - it actually checks out their Google PPC ads and let you know which keywords are being used and how much people are paying for them...! As I'm an affiliate for both these software products, here's the other link for Keyword Spy. http://www.keywordspy.com?aid=mklink This second product is a great spy tool but is more expensive so if you're paying a lot for PPC then you might want to consider it as a way to get a competitive edge. That said, both software providers have a f-r-e-e trial so my suggestion is that you have a play and see what you think. Why not get loads more Internet Marketing Tips? Just go to http://www.mklink.com/training/ today and register for a month's trial. 'till next time, Mike Knight. MKLINK [url=http://www.mklink.com]Internet Marketing Tips[/url]...

Your MKLINK Tips - for your Contact Form

10 Jun 2008 07:55:35 am GMT +0

[b]Maximise your Contact Form Signups[/b] Checkout http://www.mklink.com/training/ for more internet marketing tips What do I mean? I mentioned this briefly last time but a few people asked me to clarify this point so I'll give you more details about what I mean. Having an email address on your website may seem like a good idea but unfortunately nefarious software 'spiders' trawl your website looking for just such email addresses, in order that they can then sell these email addresses to spam lists suppliers. Consequently, if you've had your email address in the public domain for any period of time you'll know what I mean and possibly be receiving lots of junk. I know there are javascript 'tricks' around it but in my humble opinion, it's far better to have a contact form instead, and there are some good reasons for this: [b]1 - [/b]It is much easier to track inbound contacts(i.e. leads) from a contact form because they all have the same subject line and/or from address. This way you can be sure that legitimate enquiries are don't get lost or eaten by a spam filter or into a black hole. (Especially if it's linked Up to an online database like the ones we provide for our customers) As you know, monitoring leads and tracking your conversion rate is essential if you're taking your online marketing seriously and so it's far easier to count(and track) enquiry forms than just a load of emails with different headings & content! [b]2 - [/b]You can ensure people answer the right questions and/or ensure they provide the details that you need - .e.g. age, name, gender, phone number etc. A contact form helps you format the responses you get, saving you time in having to re-ask for vital pieces of information. Of course, all this can be fed directly into your database for better management and easier automation. [b]3 - [/b]You can direct people to a 'thank-you' page, which can offer extra information to the client as a 'reward' for giving their email address or simply to verify their details etc. [b]4 [/b]- It looks more professional. [b]5 [/b]- You'll get less spam as mentioned just now! [b]A couple more notes here.[/b] I personally suggest you don't bother with the RESET field. All they do is encourage people to click these buttons thinking that they're sending you their information(i.e. thinking they're the SUBMIT button) and then they lose the lot - how annoying!(and potentially expensive in terms of lost customers) Have a field that tracks where the visitor came from(via your web analytics software) and store it as an 'invisible' field rather than asking people directly with a text input field as people invariably give the wrong information anyway and it just serves to put them off. Getting MORE people to complete the contact form is another challenge, which I briefly alluded to here with your 'thank you' page. In a nutshell, offer people a taste of what you provide. Offer a bigger 'freebie' the longer the contact form is, as they'll have had to be more incentivised to complete it - depending on what you're site's about. Getting people to complete the contact form is what it's all about. And I can help! Why not get loads more Internet Marketing Tips? Just go to [b]http://www.mklink.com/training/[/b] today and register for a month's trial. 'till next time, Mike Knight. [url=http://www.mklink.com]MKLINK Internet Marketing Tips[/url]...

Google Business Directory

27 May 2008 08:52:14 am GMT +0

[b]Google Business Directory[/b] In their quest to take over the universe, it seems that Google are increasingly encroaching on the territory that was reserved for Yell.com and other business directories. Given that such a huge percentage of people search for businesses on a local basis, my suggestion is that you have 2 Google Pay Per Click campaigns running simultaneously : [b]Firstly[/b], just setup a campaign as normal but then make the advert only appear in the area that you want to cover. So, if you're a florist in Cheltenham for example, you'd simply use the keyphrase "florist" (or something like that) and then limit the radius of the advert to being displayed to within say 20 miles from the postcode that you allocate. From geographical IP-Mapping, Google will(theoretically) only display your advert to people that are using the internet in that area. This way, you don't have to compete with the rest of the country for that key phrase and so your campaign will cost less. [b]Secondly[/b], you might want people outside your area to find you as well. There are loads of reasons why people outside your area want to find businesses within your area. Anyone in the relocating business will confirm this! For a specific example, let's say you live in Scotland. You may have a colleague in Cheltenham that you'd like to buy some flowers for. You don't want to get ripped off so you've decided to use a florist local to your friend to deliver the flowers. In this case, you'd use the keyphrase "florist in cheltenham" or "Cheltenham florist" or some such, even though you're outside the area. Thus it's still a local search, effectively. So, run your second Google campaign nationally but ensure your keyphrases actually contain the location that you want to be found for, as in the last example. This way, you've covered both bases. Now, here's a real killer Tip - get your website listed on Google Maps as well. It's easy, quick and f-r-e-e and can give you the edge over your competition because most people aren't doing it. It seems (to me anyway) that the search results which are returned that have a link on Goolge maps always seem to be displyed preferentially as well. To get your site listed - just visit http://maps.google.co.uk You'll notice that the Google directory is offering reviews and all sorts of things so my advice is to start getting listed with Google Local straight away and watch this space! I personally think Google are going to have a lot more instore when it comes to offering information about businesses both locally and nationally. (After all, it's businesses like yours and mine that provide their revenue...) If you'd like to know more about Google and how to get the most from it, why not checkout my training system? (I'm offering a f-r-e-e month's trial) - Checkout http://www.mklink.com/freetrial/ to get More Tips & Advice. 'till next time, Mike Knight. MKLINK [url=http://www.mklink.com]Internet Marketing Tips[/url]...