OnlineTao Internet Marketing

It is the detail that gets you with internet marketing.  The opportunity is huge but the winners are the ones that are able to automate and optimise their processes.  And it is this which is the most difficult thing to do.  First of all establishing a consistent process in the first place that works can be a real pain just because it is easy to get lost.  Then its about automating as much as you can and then putting quality time aside to monitor and adjust what is going on.

Google adwords and their counterparts all offer free budget when you initially sign up.  This is really useful because if you are wise you can use this spend to give you a reasonable indication of which sets of keywords seem to be performing best for you on the various engines.  This means that when you start spending your own cash after that initial budget runs out you are in a much better position to know what is likely to work.  This is very important because you hear of many stories of businesses throwing money at paid search without any noticable return.  This puts them off and they head off in different marketing directions instead.  Paid search can be though a really effective tool to drive relevant cost effective traffic if used wisely.  So sign up and make best use of the free clicks that are handed on a plate.

Given a long list of urls in an excel spreadsheet this macro will automatically insert their related images into adject cells.

Sub imageExport()

Dim i
i = 1

Dim bContinue
bContinue = True

While bContinue
snapshot = Cells(i, 1).Value
If snapshot = “” Then
bContinue = False
Else
Cells(i, 2).Select
ActiveSheet.Pictures.Insert(snapshot).Select
i = i + 1
End If
Wend

End Sub

Sub ExportMyPicture()

Dim MyChart As String, MyPicture As String
Dim PicWidth As Long, PicHeight As Long

Application.ScreenUpdating = False
On Error GoTo Finish

MyPicture = Selection.Name
With Selection
PicHeight = .ShapeRange.Height + 8
PicWidth = .ShapeRange.Width + 8
End With

Charts.Add
ActiveChart.Location Where:=xlLocationAsObject, Name:=”Sheet1″
Selection.Border.LineStyle = 0
MyChart = Selection.Name & ” ” & Split(ActiveChart.Name, ” “)(2)

With ActiveSheet
With .Shapes(MyChart)
.Width = PicWidth
.Height = PicHeight
End With

.Shapes(MyPicture).Copy

With ActiveChart
.ChartArea.Select
.Paste
End With

.ChartObjects(1).Chart.Export Filename:=”MyPic.jpg”, FilterName:=”jpg”
.Shapes(MyChart).Cut
End With

Application.ScreenUpdating = True
Exit Sub

Finish:
MsgBox “You must select a picture”
End Sub

Slowly, slowly catch the monkey. The bottom line is that Rome was not built in a day and the moral is if you keep on going you will get there.
The internet is a changing miriad of technologies, services and audiences and it can all seem quite daunting to a small business trying to make its way online. But although things on the Internet are changing all the time, much of the time core principles do still apply. So if you understand how to apply one technology or service, when they evolve it is likely that you will not find it as hard to grips with the later versions. In other words it does get easier.
The key is to pull together some high level plan with some overall direction and take one step at a time. If you find a particular step too much or too confusing just break it down to smaller steps. But try not to lose focus and remember what you are trying to achieve. So whether you start by employing consultants or agencies in the hope that they will help set you on the right track, or you do it all yourself which is more time consuming but you will learn more, you need to just try to keep pushing ahead. Day by day, your internet marketing will become focused and effective and you will be able to achieve the online goals you strive for.

IMRG Research produced the results of consumer research today. Whereas offline the economy is suffering, good internet marketing is going to reap huge rewards for businesses. IMRG note that 86% of shoppers surveyed will research their shopping options for christmas online before buying on the highstreet. They also noted that 59% intend to research possible gifts in the shops before buying on the web. IMRG also note that their research indicates that shopping will start shopping for christmas much earlier this year to spread their spend over the months to help their cashflow through the recession.

These are some of the search engines that focus on the UK. If you are a business targeting the uk, then you want to make sure that your SEM strategy gets your site listed in the ones relevant for your audience.

EZILON
WEBSITE DIRECTORY THISISOURYEAR
UK KEY - UK START PAGE
UNITED KINGDOM CRAWLER
2GOGO
ABACHO
A BIZ DIRECTORY
ABREXA UK
ALL THE UK
ASK? DIRECTORY
BLUE DAFFODIL
CELEBHOO
CLICK 4 CHOICE
ENGLAND CRAWLER
EXALEAD
GASTA
GIMPSY
GLOBALSEARCHDIRECTORY
GOOGLE
GREAT BRITISH PAGES
HUTSY UK
INDEX PLEX
N-IRELAND CONNECTED
NORTHERN IRELAND CRAWLER
NORWICH PORTAL
ODP
OOBDOO
PUT MY FINGER
QANGO
RED HOT CHILLI
SCOTLAND CRAWLER
SCOTLINKS DIRECTORY
SCOT SEARCH
SCOTSMART
SEARCH AND GO
SEARCH CORNWALL
SGT SEARCH
SPLUT
THE ARENA
THE GLOUCESTERSHIRE PORTAL
THE SEARCH SITE
UJIKO
UK WIZZ
WALES CRAWLER
WALES INDEX
WEB WOBOT
WOTBOX
YAHOO!
YEANDI

Authoring articles as part of your internet marketing program can be a very effective way of raising your profile on the web and indirectly driving more traffic through to your site.
Find out where the other main players in your sector are authoring articles and distributing them. What are they writing about, are they missing something, do they tell a good story. By analysing your competitors article generation strategies in this way you can quickly find angles that are not being covered or not being covered very well.
As long as the article is relevant and unique in some way it will build up readership and it will become another way to create unthreatening dialogue with your target audience.

Should the same messaging be employed across all your internet marketing channels e.g. paid search, email, display ad, mobile etc.. Although many businesses have given little thought to their messaging strategy anyway, many businesses have and believe that to put the best foot forward is to deliver common messaging across the different marketing channels that they employ. Initial thoughts are that this must make sense as it will help build and instil the brand and what it is all about. Further consideration though suggests that a blanket approach to messaging might not necessarily deliver max value. The reason is that the customer is likely to react to and employ each channel differently. Therefore although it probably makes sense to maintain the top level messaging across the channels, the lower level messaging should be altered to reflect how maximum value for that particular channel can be achieved.

Seo must be core to any online strategy in order to maximise the benefits you are trying to achieve. However to many seo is a bad word and something to beware of. Most realise that it can bring you benefits but are also wary of anyone offering seo services as they are not sure whether that person is going to employ black hat techniques to achieve results whereby they risk being slammed by google at a later date. Interesting for those consultants that do employ reputable seo techniques to deliver value. You see the difficulty they face is that they’d like to talk about benefits such as increasing search engine visibility etc. but they know that their prospects will be searching for the term seo and so must optimise their content around terms related to that.