Now Get Your Online Marketing Course Live!

Here's how to get access to our online marketing expertise ive and in person without paying us a consultancy fee!

Join us at our first Challenge Workshop in the week commencing 16 August, and you'll get three hours' worth of priceless online marketing training in exchange for a modest donation to St Nicholas Hospice Care.

It's all part of our contribution to the Towergate Accumulator Challenge, and you'll get more details right now on the Fifty Quid Challenge blog.

Roy

PS More details about The Fifty Quid Challenge are at http://www.thefiftyquidchallenge.co.uk

Online Marketing Part 12

So far we've talked mainly about your website in our online marketing course. That makes sense - after all, websites are probably the first thing you think of when someone mentions 'online' or the Internet.

But there are other ways to get your business online and onto page one. Rather than talk about that here, we've brought you a video to show you.

As you can see, there are countless ways to get your business onto page one of Google (and push your competitors off at the same time).

Use a few of these methods, optimised for your keywords as we've already discussed, and you could be all over page one, too.

Roy

Online Marketing 5 - Optimised Listings

In our experiment for online marketing in Bury St Edmunds we spent a lot of time researching directories and building links as we went. It paid off, as you probably know.

We found that there are probably hundreds of directories and similar sites where you can list your company or service, so obviously I can't go into detail about exactly what to put in each field on every one of them!

What I can do here is give you some general advice and a few tips on the finer points of using directories to build backlinks to your site.

First of all, a directory that doesn't let you include backlinks is probably a waste of your time. A few of them might have enough traffic to justify listing your company with them, because they might bring some customers to your site, but generally, if you can't include a backlink, move on.

Secondly, a 'deep link' to the optimised page on your site is worth more than a link to your index page, unless they are one and the same. That should really only happen if you have a one-page site (or maybe one content page and some about us info on another page). So if you can add a deep link, always do so. Some directories even allow you several links, and you should definitely take full advantage of those.

Where you can include embedded links in your company description, use anchor text (the actual words highlighted as a link) that includes your target key phrase. Where you can add tags or labels, use your key phrase there as well. Use the key phrase in the rest of your description and heading if there is one.

Link building should be a continuing process. Adding loads of links very quickly is probably worse than adding the same number over a week or two. Worse still is adding plenty of links and then just stopping as though your work is done. This gives the wrong kind of signal to the search engines. In fact it's a sure sign you were trying to work the system, so you need to be consistent and keep adding or getting links to make your list-building look as natural and 'organic' as possible.

There are plenty of sites you can link from, so there's no reason to stop, even if you just add one link a week from now on. Keep at it and you should be able to keep your website where it belongs!

Incidentally, there's some new research just out that shows the relative importance of various factors in optimisation, especially in relation to Google. There are a few surprises and maybe a bit of controversy, too, and I'll look at that next time.

Roy

Online Marketing Step Three

We've already looked at choosing your target key phrase (search term) and optimising your website for that phrase, in parts one and two.

Now for the next stage in search engine optimisation, or SEO, which is off-site SEO. This is where you begin to build backlinks to your website. The important thing here is to use your key phrase, and variations of it, for the anchor text of your backlinks.

The anchor text is the words people actually see, but which are a clickable link to your website. For example, we concentrated on the phrase 'online marketing Bury St Edmunds' for our test, which ended with us bagging eleven spots on page one of google for that term. If you click on that link you'll see it goes to the page on our site optimised for that phrase.

Now, the easiest place to put a backlink is on a site you control, like a blog. If you don't have a blog yet, go to Blogger.com, open a Google account if you don't have one already, and create a blog. Ideally, name that blog after your key phrase, but certainly use that phrase for the blog name and for the title of your first post.

Creating a blog takes seconds and costs nothing and it's live straight away.

Add a permanent link to your site (in the links you'll see in the sidebar - just copy the format of one of the existing links) using that phrase as well, and include a text link in your first blog post that uses the same term. Your first post can just be a welcome message and an explanation of what you do, with your key phrase and related words sprinkled in it.

This Marketing Manual blog has been established for some time, but we also have another that uses the phrase 'Online Marketing in Bury St Edmunds' in the title. Naturally, we post keyword rich content on that one, too, with backlinks to our website.

That's it - by starting a blog you've started your link-building strategy. Next time we'll look at where else you can easily add free backlinks and how to start building a brand online.

Roy

PS. I've tried to keep this mini-course simple, but for more help or more detail, just email me roy@cinnamonedge.co.uk or contact me via Twitter http://www.twitter.com/Roy_Everitt

Online Marketing Bury St Edmunds - Latest:

Our online marketing project is going even better than we could reasonably have hoped.

Now the Cinnamon Edge website has been updated and Google's faithful spiders have found it, it's jumped straight onto page one.

So we once again have five of the top six places. And even this blog, which is about much more than just our online marketing for Bury St Edmunds, appears on page two.

UPDATE: While this blog slipped to page four, our main website leapfrogged to number one. That means we now have seven of the top eight places on Google. Plus, we're on pages two, three and four.

As I said a few days ago, our updated version of the Complete Marketing Manual will include a lot of updated information about online marketing for local businesses and it's pretty clear by now we know a few things about the subject.

Meanwhile you can watch and learn - from this project and from the many articles that you'll find appearing on the Cinnamon Edge website over the next couple of months.

And you can always ask for our advice and help.

Roy

Is This a Record?

Hello again.

Can you get a new website indexed and on page one of Google in under a day?

Yes, you can.

How about less than an hour? How about a minute?

Amazingly, yes - when you know how. And it doesn't have to be a particularly special site, either, although visitors' responses to any website will be better if it is attractive and well-designed.

But yesterday, as a test and because I needed some genuine screen shots, I bought a domain name, pointed it at a new website, performed a bit of top secret hocus-pocus and grabbed positions between 2 and 8, depending on the precise search term used, within a minute.

Now, that test was for my benefit (to get the screenshots), although I think Ron at the excellent Must Go Couriers and Light Haulage will be happy, too.

What I need next are just five small businesses to nominate themselves as case studies, at half the usual price, to get their web presence up there on page one of Google. You could be local to Bury St Edmunds, but it doesn't really matter if you're not. You may have a website already, or I can build a simple site for you.

The point is, top ten of Google is the only place to be for a small to medium sized local business. That kind of exposure is priceless. The good news is, it's almost always possible, and now it's affordable, too.

I can't guarantee you'll be there in under a minute, though!

Roy

Bury St Edmunds Builder Joins BSE Online

Another Bury St Edmunds company, Murray Building Services and Maintenance, has joined Bury St Edmunds Online.

This general builder is based in Beck Row, just outside Bury St Edmunds and supplies all building services, from minor repairs to new builds.

Gary Murray, company owner, offers his skills as a general builder in the Bury St Edmunds and Suffolk area.

Gary focuses first of all on customer satisfaction and from his testimonials, it looks like Gary is one the best builders in Suffolk.

Roy

First Businesses Sign Up For BSE Online

The first business on the new Bury St Edmunds portal, Bury St Edmunds Online is 'Must Go', a courier firm based in Rougham, just outside the town.

Must Go Couriers operate in Suffolk and the whole of the UK.

With a range of vehicles available for loads of all sizes from single packages to pallets, Must Go are especially proud of their promise to deliver individual packets with great care, and if necessary your package will be allocated its own dedicated vehicle and driver for end to end security and safety.

With service like that, we're very proud to have Must Go Couriers as Bury St Edmunds Online's first client.

Roy