welcome to my humble home...

As someone who works with the web, predominantly Search, it might appear that I am biased in my assumption that businesses would consider search engine marketing as a good strategy.

Well when considering the credit crunch has hit many businesses hard, especially in the UK, search is perhaps a real alternative to mainstream advertising. Yes mainstream advertising and media are great brand builders, but often the costs are high and returns are very low, or not even known.

Taking an average newspaper advert, I am guessing any decent publication would charge at least $500 for a quarter page advert. Now right away you are limited to the amount of content you can place in that advert. You are also limited in terms of time. Most publications are released daily or weekly, so the shelf life of that advert is very poor. The adverts are often not contextually placed, i.e. if the content discusses bmx bikes, the advert very rarely relates to the content. So getting people to convert to adverts through mainstream newspaper publications is almost a hit and miss process. In fact I would even question how much people take notice to printed advertising.

There is a tonne of evidence to suggest that online advertising is often ignored, and I wouldn’t be surprised if similar results were found with printed media. I ignore adverts due to time, in fact I actively seek out content due to time constraints. So why am I making the case for switching to search engine optimisation/marketing?

There a few reasons:

1. Accountability; You can see where your advertising dollars are going. If we used the same $500 for adwords, instead of a newspaper advert, there is every chance I could send at least 500 qualified leads to your business. These leads could be tracked from the moment they hit your site, right up until the point of conversion. Giving you real time statistics, and real return on investment information.
2. Highly targeted; Are you sick and tired of seeing your marketing budget wasted on areas you don’t target? Search Engine Marketing can help you target the smallest geographic niche. Helping you minimize marketing wastage by only targeting the audience in your key geographic area.
3. Cost; Search Engine Marketing doesn’t take a massive investment. In fact you can probably enter the market for less than $10/day or $300/month, certainly less than our $500 newspaper investment and helps lead me onto the next point…
4. Time; You can advertise as little or as often as you like. You can give yourself full control over your adverts, helping you to find specific times when conversions are more likely, or by limiting adverts during hours/days of poor activity. Also remember the newspaper shelf life? Well your search engine shelf life can be as long or as tight as you like.
5. Qualified leads; This point is quite possibly the most important. At the end of the day all businesses only want to market to individuals/customers who are actively looking for their products. Good keyword research will help you identify the keywords potential customers are searching for. Because customers are already searching for your products/brand etc, there is a higher propensity to buy.

Search Engine Marketing delivers qualified leads direct to your website, compare this to your $500 newspaper advert where you hope someone will firstly take note of your advert, and then secondly hope they are intested in your product enough to contact you. This also puts another barrier between the customer and the sale. At least with reacting to search engine results, the customer can go straight to the buying centre with little or not effort.

Imagine if you read the advert in a newspaper in a doctors surgery. Yes you liked the product, but then you were called in to see your GP, your mind goes blank, and later that day (if you can still remember the advert) you resort to the only method you can think to research the product – Google! By which point you find a similar product, for less and convert to one of the companies main competitors! (this might be an extreme example )

So with the credit crunch hitting hard, isn’t about time you considered moving your marketing budget to a more accountable option?

Filed under: SEO, PPC, Design by Moley
No Comments »

I am the sort of person who occasionally checks back on previous employers, hoping that the continue to grow and succeed even after my departure. I have had good and bad departures from companies over the years, as is probably true of most of us. However it is often rare that someone can move to a company and get a lot of direct control over the way it is run or doing business.

When I arrived in Australia I saw an editorial in the Mandurah Life Magazine regarding the importance of the web, it was written by Gareth Lane of Concise Services. The article was speaking my language, but upon further research I noticed they could benefit from my experience. There was no job advertised, but just thought I would enquire as to any possibilities that may be present. After a great informal chat, I was offered a position and took it up!

When I first arrived I think it was fair to say that the company was going ok, it wasn’t really setting the world alight, but it was managing – however the biggest thing I noticed is that it needed guidance. I was fortunate in that Gareth had faith in my knowledge and experience, so much so that I was able to implement a re-brand whilst improve a lot of business practices. One big area was the redesign and build of the website, which, whilst development is still ongoing (I am told) is actually generating a lot of enquiries. I helped to identify key ways to promote the business, both to new and existing customers. I know during my time there the quality of client improved 10 fold.

So when I heard the news that this fantastic little web design company from Mandurah had won a small business award I was as pleased and proud as the current employees. Business awards are ways of adding real authority behind your business, and it was good to see the seeds I had sown, through implementing better business practices, new branding and improved internal marketing had been continued and enhanced further since I left.

Whilst I was only at Concise for about 5 months, it was and may forever be a career highlight. For the first time in my career I was allowed to push real creative elements, I was given creative control, and through using my experience and applying my knowledge I helped this company grow. In just over a weeks time they are due to open a new office. A lot can be achieved by employers listening to their staff, and it is fair to say that it is the new recruits, paired with Gareth’s enthusiasm who continue to drive the company forward. Click here for more information about the award they have won.

Filed under: SEO, PPC, Design by Moley
No Comments »

I was just reading a great post about daydreaming from the Boston Globe, a subject close to my heart – ironically I cam currently reading the book evolve your brain which is a great book focusing on similar content.

What was interesting about the article was that it touched upon children turning to television to cure boredom. My concern is that perhaps, on a greater level we are all turning to other means to cure boredom. Whether those means are the internet, blogs, televisions, computer games and beer (not in that order).

By creating new ways to stop boredom, are we actually creating new ways to stop creativity? If Day dreaming is the link between theoretical thinking and creativity, then surely we need to create more ways to expand ways to allow our minds to wander, instead of actually squeezing our creative element.

I suppose if we look back through history, creativity, or creative thinking has been both good and bad. For instance, had Hitler had access to a PS3, then it is possible he may never have found the time to daydream, and obviously form the Nazi party, which murdered millions of people. If Hitler had never helped to start World War 2, then there is every chance that perhaps the Atomic Bomb may never have been developed.

Additionally without the development of the Atomic and then Nucleur Bombs, then it is possible the Cold War may not have occured. Cuba would not have the restrictions placed on it, the West might have a higher regard for Russia, and vice versa. Perhaps day dreaming is a dangerous thing? Too much time to ponder about certain things can drastically alter our environment.

However by the same token, without daydreaming, it is possible Albert Einstein might have been watching Baywatch, instead of working out the formula E=Mc2. Hundreds of scientists wouldn’t have considered novel ways of treating illness or disease if they were stuck in modern day chatrooms, discussing celebs or the latest tunes.

There is no doubt, day dreaming, the forming of ideas independant of influence, has truly effected the world and the human race historically, both for good and bad. For most of us, we probably have used day dreams as a release from our lives, or to deal with things, I often use it to try and be creative. It almost seems ironic, that fantastic products like TVs, the net, and computer game consoles, all the product of day dreaming, may actually now blunt true creativity, by stopping independant thinking.

Is this good or bad? Has mankind progressed so much that we are hitting a brickwall. We have day dreamed so much, historically, that now we are restricting the ability of many to day dream, thus restricting ideas and creativity.

Boredom is, well, boring! However I will continue to take my 30mins of boredom on the train each morning to work, and float off into my own little world, hoping to find the next big idea. It might not happen, but at least I am allowing myself to try and be creative. Lets hope, the people who want to do good in the world can also exercise that mindset, whilst those obsessed with death and destruction, keep boredom at bay with the lastest offerings from satellite TV or computer games!

Filed under: Ramblings by Moley
No Comments »

For those of you who use Adwords, please feel free to view my recent article on www.SEOmoz.org regarding reducing keyword costs by using Adwords editor.

The article is short, and lacks a lot of substance, but I have found this technique quite interesting and it has helped to reduce some of the costs per click associated with running paid search campaigns. On a side note, anyone looking for more information about search engine optimisation would do well to pay SEOmoz.org a regular visit, as both the blog posts from site staff, and contributors (like myself ) regularly post extremely useful information offering good advice.

Hope the article is of some use!

Filed under: SEO, PPC, Design by Moley
No Comments »

I quite often like to take a look at Web Pages That Suck, it reminds me that I can design decent websites, and that there is a lot of word still to be done! What amazes me though is the massive amount of websites which either do not have a clue, try to be too clever or perhaps just make me want to use words which would be innappropriate on such a public website.

Whilst there is a lot of drivel out there, there is always the odd site, which goes that much further, I know I know, it is hard to imagine just how bad some websites can be, but let me introduce for your entertainment only http://www.havenworks.com/ - without doubt, one of the worse websites I have ever had the displeasure of seeing!

In fact the website is so bad, I just don’t know where to begin! It is information overload on a massive scale, yet the information has no hierachy, and the colours only detract from what the content of the site is actually about. So rather than me comment, I will let you be the judge, if ever there was a lesson on how NOT to design your website, then this site would be lesson 1-25.

Filed under: Bad website design by Moley
1 Comment »