HowToHustle.info

An analysis for The Times over a 3 month period in 2007 saw Google exceeding ITV1 by ?10m in advertising revenue, representing a UK annual growth for Google of approximately 43.5 per cent.Bournemouth headquartered Digital Marketing experts, Refreshed Media (http://www.refreshedmedia.com), who specialise in online marketing, warn that without expert advice and guidance, businesses could lose thousands in their efforts to utilise this medium.

Sarah Baker, Sales and Marketing Director of Refreshed Media said, “As a digital marketing agency we are delighted the web is coming into its own and being used as the effective marketing tool it is. However, as a specialist agency we would urge people to seek advice before parting with their cash. We are passionate about online marketing, and as a full service agency, we can help any business make the most of this powerful tool. If you don’t know your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) from your PPC (Pay Per Click), then talk to someone who speaks your language and that of the digital world to get the best from your marketing budget.”

Top tips from the experts at Refreshed (http://www.refreshedmedia.com) to help maximise this medium include:

- Make sure your website can be used

Design your site with the end user in mind. What is obvious to you may not be obvious to someone visiting your site for the first time. Simplicity is the key to usability.

- Use your website as a business tool

Your website is not there to just look pretty. It must achieve a discernable business objective. ‘Call to actions’ on every page is the key to this.

- Track what people are doing and improve your site.

The magic of marketing on the internet is that you can track everything your visitors do. By using your tracking statistics you can ensure your website stays relevant, is easy for customers to use and achieves your business objectives.

- Make sure people can find you

If there is one thing you must never forget, then that is to ensure that your site can be easily found in the leading search engines. Although SEO isn’t an exact science there are some basic tips; Make sure your content is relevant, of high quality and frequently updated; Make sure people are talking about your website; Make sure your site is coded to a high standard; And if you still find your site struggling, talk to some experts for advice!

- Use a variety of marketing tools

With the wide range of media available now, audiences are increasingly fragmented. To ensure you reach your target audience it is vital that your marketing campaign uses a variety of media and concepts. By integrating your campaign across a wide variety of media your message has a greater chance of reaching your target audience.

Working for national clients such as Boots, McCarthy and Stone, Gleeson Homes and Redrow Homes Bournemouth based Refreshed Media also has offices in Reigate, Manchester and Edinburgh, Refreshed can be contacted on 01202 414101. Alternatively visit www.refreshedmedia.com.

Rand at SEOmoz published some great information based on questions he asked Matt Cutts. There were several interesting questions answered, but I think the biggest nugget was the suggestion that you can freely use NoFollow within your own site to control PageRank flow, including on your own internal links, without fear of it being seen as a poor quality signal by Google. The quote from Matt was as follows:

The nofollow attribute is just a mechanism that gives webmasters the ability to modify PageRank flow at link-level granularity. Plenty of other mechanisms would also work (e.g. a link through a page that is robot.txt’ed out), but nofollow on individual links is simpler for some folks to use. There’s no stigma to using nofollow, even on your own internal links; for Google, nofollow’ed links are dropped out of our link graph; we don’t even use such links for discovery. By the way, the nofollow meta tag does that same thing, but at a page level.

This opens up some really interesting advanced SEO techniques. For example, do you really want to have PageRank flowing to that “Contact Us” page? Or that “About Us” page? Or a page that simply lists your clients? Now you can keep the page there for users, but tell Google that you don’t want to spend any PageRank on them.

For that matter, you can do some research on your site using web analytics, and find out what pages are not providing any traffic any way, or which pages are not providing any conversions. Then you can take these pages and cut back on the PageRank flow to them, and increase the PageRank flow to the pages that matter the most.

If you have a large and complex site, this opens up some great dynamics. I suspect that this statement by Matt launched a few thousand experiments in understanding how to leverage this aspect of NoFollow.

Today we are putting the spotlight on our forum members and the issues some are facing — from questions about boosting site traffic and upping Google PageRank, to choosing an e-commerce package and how to show potential Web visitors that you are a trustworthy vendor. If you haven’t had much time to read and participate in our forums, we highlight several recent threads that provide insight for small online businesses. Of course, you are free to add your own comments by following the links provided to each discussion below.Web site Management, Hosting and Design: Increase Traffic and Page Rank
You have a Web site, but after it’s online you need to start working on two key Issues: increasing traffic and bumping up the page rank of the site itself. Forum member vinz, who runs a site called “Positive parenting Through Divorce Class” asks others to weigh in with advice on these issues.

vinz asks, “Guys what can I do to increase my traffic and page rank to my site? Please give me some ideas or techniques to improve my site.”

JEccles says, “You’ve got a very well designed site with lots of good keywords. What you need to do now is get links back to it. Maybe divorce lawyers or family lawyers. Talk it up. Submit articles, write blogs — just get the site name out there so the spiders can find it. I’m sure there are a lot more detailed things you can do, but this is still a learning experience for me also. Good luck.”

Forum Moderator roban tells vinz that Google Page Rank is way over-valued by many Webmasters.

“It is not unusual for a Web site with a Page Rank of 2 to outrank a Web site with a Page Rank of 5. The reason is that Page Rank is only an indicator of one of many factors, and Page Rank is not even a reliable indicator, at that. So don’t be concerned about PR. What you want is targeted visitors who will use your service. (more…)

Blogs are the current rage, and many webmasters have blogs but fail to use their blog to it’s full potential. Blogs provide a steady stream of fresh content, and if this content is written and managed properly, blogs have the ability to increase a website’s ranking in the search engines.

1. Host Your Own Blog

In order to prosper from a blog, be sure to host it on your own domain. Hosting the blog on your own server will maximize the links to your website. (more…)

RSS feeds are a great addition to your overall SEO strategy, say the experts at the Search Engine Strategies Conference in San Jose. In addition to keeping your content fresh, they also increase the amount of optimized on-site content while helping the publisher reach new and niche markets.

“RSS is one of the simplest and most effective ways to add value to your site,” said panelist Doug Hay, CEO of Expansion Plus Inc. “Implementing RSS took one of our clients from not being ranked in the top 1000 results in Google to multiple top ten results.”

Speaking of top-ten lists, here’s our 10 Tips For Optimizing RSS (more…)