July 2nd, 2009
Running an Internet business can be very demanding and some jobs can get pushed to one side or left of the “to-do” list.
But there is one job you should really make a top priority. Just consider for a moment how your business would operate if you had a problem with your PC or you lost all of the data on your hard drive. How long could your business operate without your PC?
Have you got a disaster recovery strategy?
You may ask, what is that? Well I’m not going to go into great detail; I have created disaster recovery documents for some of my clients which run to over 50 pages!
What you should do is ask yourself 3 questions.
- How would I recover if my PC crashed or had a hardware fault?
- How would I recover if I lost my hard drive data?
- How would I recover if all my on site PC equipment was lost, (ie fire, flood, theft)
Once you have the answers to these questions you will be able to survive a PC disaster.
A solution for question 3 is to have an off site backup strategy. This can work out expensive. Taking regular backups and arranging off site storage.
An easy and affordable solution is to use an online backup system. This will backup all of your data online over the Internet as a background process. Find out more at Online Data Backup
Tags: disaster recovery, online data backups
Posted in General, backups | No Comments »
May 27th, 2009
Have you ever thought about adding audio to your website? By adding audio to your website, (not those horrible tinny background music tracks) you can captivate your visitors attention, show them you are passionate about your product and direct them on what to do next.
Studies have proved that adding audio to your website can increase your conversion rates. So what if you could have a real person on your site describing your product? Sounds expensive I hear you say.
Hiring a studio and creating a video can be both costly and time consuming but you can now get a professional model to be your spokesperson and create a video effect for less than £160 ($260).
Click on the link below to hop over to my web audio blog and meet Rachael who will tell you more about this exciting idea.
Website Video Spokesperson
Tags: audio visual effect, online spokesperson, transparent video, virtual spokesperson, website spokesperson
Posted in web audio | No Comments »
May 23rd, 2009
In my last post I mentioned that being in a “bad neighbourhood” could affect your search engine rankings. Your neighbourhood is not only the websites you share links with but can also mean the websites you share hosting or an IP address with.
Dedicated hosting can be expensive so many of us use shared hosting, but who are you sharing with? If another website on your server has been banned by Google this can affect your site’s rankings or could even get your site banned. Sharing with websites that sell questionable products may also affect your site.
Shared hosting may also affect your website speed, if another site on the server is very busy it could use up your bandwidth and slow down your website.
Check who is sharing your server
If your website is sharing an IP address with hundreds of other sites than ask your hosting company to provide you with a dedicated IP address, there will probably be a small fee but it is well worth it.
Tags: Reverse IP check, shared hosting
Posted in Hosting, seo | No Comments »
May 18th, 2009
I have just spent the past few hours going through some of the hundreds of links requests I have received over the past few weeks. I would say I reject around 85% as they do not meet my criteria. Even though my requirements are posted on the my websites people still fill in the form with the hopes I might add their link. This is a waste of time for me and the person requesting the link.
So please, if you are requesting a link on someone’s website, read their requirements first. If you can’t meet there requirements move onto the next site. You could always send an email explaining you don’t quite meet the requirements but you still think a link on your site would be advantageous to them.
Link exchanges should be benifical to both parties. When you exchnage links the page your link is add to is critical,
1. It must be relevant.
2. It must be visible to the search engines
3. It must not have hundreds of out going links.
4. Having your keyword in the anchor text is a big advantage
If these conditions are not meet then there is little point exchanging links.
So, some link exchanges can work, but be careful, if you start exchanging links with just anyone you could get your site into a “bad neigbourhood” which will have a negative effect on your website ranking.
Link exchanges can improve your search engine rankings but only if they provide your website with quality incoming links.
Tags: link exchanges, off page optimisation, seo
Posted in link exchange, seo | No Comments »
May 11th, 2009
Everyone wants more traffic, more traffic means means more sales and more profits. But traffic comes at a price, wheather it be pay per click or investing time and/or money in search engine optimisation, more traffic costs.
Q. How can you increase your profits without increasing your traffic?
A. Improve your conversion rate.
The average website conversion rate is between 1% - 3% simply by increasing your conversion rate from 1% to 2% you have doubled your sales and doubled your profits.
There are many ways to increase your conversion rates but here are the main points.
- Make your website easy to navigate.
- Direct ppc traffic to the relevant page and not just your home page.
- Make it easy for visitors to contact you
- Give your visitors different ways to contact you.
- Make it easy for your visitors to buy from your website.
- Give your visitors different ways to buy from you.
- Make your checkput procedure quick and easy.
One of the most important things you must do to improve your conversions it to test and track everything. Make small changes to your website and monitor the results, then make more small changes and monitor. You will soon see your conversion rates increase.
I hope this has given you something to think about. I will be posting more about conversion opimisation soon.
Tags: conversion optimisation, improve conversions, Increase sales
Posted in Coversion Optimisation, web design | No Comments »
February 24th, 2009
Some years ago, it was enough to get many inbound links to get high rankings on Google. It didn’t matter from where these links came as long as there were many links that pointed to your website.
As Google and other search engines continually improve the way they rank web pages, getting the right links is crucial if you want to be listed on the first search result page.
Unnatural links can be bad for your Google rankings
Read More…
Tags: Top Search Engine Rankings
Posted in seo | No Comments »
December 10th, 2008
Yes that’s £1.50 per day. What can you buy for £1.50 these days? Half a pint of beer, a loaf of bread, not much. But for £1.50 you could be pulling in enquiries and sales from your website.
With our new entry level package you will get…
Read More…
Tags: Low cost SEO
Posted in seo | No Comments »
November 4th, 2008
I have been using SpamArrest for over 2 years now and it must of saved me hours if not days sorting through unwanted emails. Its patented challenge/response technology blocks 100% of automated spam. Unlike other spam filters that work on keywords and can block emails you do want and let through some you don’t.
SpamArrest has blocked over 134,000 spam emails for me over 2 years which is 87% of emails sent to me, that’s near 5,000 spams in the last 30 days. Take a look at the Widget at the bottom of the left hand margin for a live update on my spam stats. Why not click on the widget and take SpamArrest for a free test drive?
Tags: anti spam software, spam filter
Posted in anti-spam | No Comments »
September 28th, 2008
How long is it before you can buy a domain name that has expired?
Not so long ago I found out that a domain name I really wanted had expired so I thought great I’ll buy it. Well, it wasn’t so easy, you can’t buy a domain name as soon as it expires, you will have to wait 75 days, and then compete with anyone else who wants the domain.
There are plenty of companies that monitor expired domains and have software that snaps them up immediately they become available. Then of course they try and sell them to someone who really wants the domain name. So if you think there might be some competition when buying an expired domain you may want to hire the services of a professional.
Recently I decided to find out exactly how this all works. It seems that on the expiry date the domain will go into an ‘expired state’ for 40 days, all services are stopped and the original owner can buy back the domain for the standard price. After the 40 days the domain goes into a ‘redemption state’ for 30 days where the original owner can still renew the domain but for an increased fee which depends on the registrar. After the redemption period there is an additional 5 day pending delete phase. Making a total of 75 days.
One of my expired domains was purchased exactly 12 weeks after it expired so it is possible.
My recommendation is to renew your domains before they expire to avoid any extra costs and more importantly to stop anyone else snatching them.
Tags: exipred domains
Posted in domains | No Comments »
August 5th, 2008
According to Google, if you search for “Kent SEO Specialists” Sytec’s marketing page has the No: 1 slot. So if you are looking for an SEO Specialist to do your search engine promotion you know where to look. Our case studies list many top 10 rankings we have acheived for our clients and all for a reasonable price.
Sytec is still offering a Free Keyword Analysis report so why not find out which keywords would work for you and how Sytec can get you top 10 rankings. Click on the link below and complete our no obligastion form.
Free Keyword Analysis Report
Tags: Internet marketing, Kent SEO, search engine marketing, search engine optimisation
Posted in seo | No Comments »