March 9th, 2010
We’ve been stressing the great potential benefits of blogging to clients for some time now. We’ve put together a list of some great reasons to have a regularly updated blog on your business site as a part of the business’s online marketing strategy.
Search engines love content – blogs are built for content
You’ve heard the term before – Content is King. Having great search engine rankings requires having great, useful content on your website. Google’s job is to present searchers with the most useful, relevant content in response to their search queries and Google is good at its job. At its very core, a blog is a tool that’s built to be regularly updated with fresh content and search engines recognize this. Google, using various on-page elements and frequency of posts, can recognise and distinguish a blog from a regular website.
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Tags: blog seo, blogs, business blogs, Online Marketing Perth, seo for blogs, SEO Perth
Posted in Online Blog Marketing | No Comments »
March 5th, 2010
Google is always evolving in order to ensure a positive user experience. As part of their latest enhancement, Google have started to roll out a new feature called Ad Extensions. This feature involves being able to include 4 additional links within your ad copy to enhance your ad as seen below.
Google Ad Extensions
This feature is currently in Beta testing and is in limited release across Australia. A while ago Bang! Online Marketing got the opportunity to be one of the first online marketing companies in Australia to trial this new feature.
The Ad Extensions will only appear in your ad if it is in position 1 and has a ‘very high’ quality score. Perhaps Google’s aim was to entice advertisers to increase Cost Per Clicks (CPCs) and ensure position 1 for top keywords. I, however, see it as a great way to enhance ads already in position 1 and decreasing the amount of brand traffic lost to competitors appearing on your brand term (for which you should already be in first position and have a ‘very high’ quality score).
Australia is often behind the rest of the world in many ways, including search engine features. You may or may not be aware that Google functionality in UK and the US is more advanced than what we see in Australia.
For example, Google is currently trialling two exciting features in the US involving images appearing i the sponsored links and a plus box functionality. As you can see in the screenshot below, images appear on the right-hand side. There is also a plus box next to the top 3 listings which expands to show multiple images of related products within the advertiser’s shop when clicked.
Images in Google Adwords Ads
It may be a while before we see these features hit Australian shores. Nevertheless, Google’s constant work on rolling out new features like Ad Extensions goes to show its dedication to improving the Google Adwords experience for both searchers and advertisers.
Tags: ad extensions, adwords, google adwords, google extensions, pay per click, PPC
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February 23rd, 2010
During the economic downturn we’ve been beating the drum about how the online channel can really help business. In fact, it’s the time when online can take centre stage.
BRW’s 2010 Fast Starters’ list confirms this:
“Businesses with online strategies have an advantage over their competitors, and companies on the Fast Starters list are excelling in this area.
Almost all have a website and more than 26 per cent have facility for online selling. More than half (56 per cent) use social networking on websites such as Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin. And most use their customer databases to distribute electronic newsletters.”
Online marketing still provides very cost effective marketing that can save a business in the down periods and take it to new heights in the good times. Many companies might have some form of presence online (usually a website), but are not yet realizing the full advantages of what the online channel can do for their business. To achieve this a business owner should contact an experienced Digital/Online Marketing strategist to map out a plan.
Tags: 2010, brw, fast starters, online marketing, online presence
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February 8th, 2010
For years, businesses have been paying thousands of dollars to be listed in the Yellow Pages – the printed version, that is. Did you know that you can get listed in the online version of the Yellow Pages for free? How much benefit does paying for a listing in the printed Yellow Pages really bring to businesses?
Over 1000 Australians were surveyed in May 2009 and one third of people under 29 years of age claimed that they never used the printed version of the Yellow Pages. In addition, 78% of those who took the survey stated that they want to be asked if they even want the Yellow Pages delivered and 58% of Australians said that they would stop having the printed Yellow Pages delivered if they had the choice. Not only have many people simply stopped using the book, but the majority of respondents believe that having the printed Yellow Pages delivered has a negative impact on the environment.
Craig Phillips, the head of market intelligence at CoreData, said the survey showed that two million Yellow Pages were thrown into the recycling bin each year.
Whether or not being listed in the printed Yellow Pages is still worth it depends on the benefit you’re actually seeing your business get from the printed listing. If a business is getting regular customers through the printed Yellow Pages, no survey is going to justify pulling the plug.
However, the new-found data shows that the printed version of the Yellow Pages is not being used by as many consumers as potentially previously thought. Whether you choose to keep investing in printed Yellow Pages ads or not, consider listing your business in the Yellow Pages online directory for free. Businesses and online marketers have been seeing a trend toward using the internet to find local businesses and an online Yellow Pages listing could only help to increase a business’s visibility to potential customers. The number of people using the internet in Australia each year is growing exponentially. In 2000, internet users accounted for 33.8% of the population. In 2009, this number was 79.6% 1.
In addition to listing your business on the Yellow Pages online, consider asking your online marketing company about other reputable business directories in which you can list your business details. The more exposure your business can get online through business listings, SEO, and/or Google AdWords, the more opportunity you have to attract new leads and customers.
1 Internet World Stats – Usage and Population Statistics
Tags: adwords, online marketing, PPC, SEO, yellow pages
Posted in online marketing | 3 Comments »
January 28th, 2010
Online marketers around the world are predicting that 2010 is going to be the year of mobile search. Over recent years we have seen the mobile phone technology advance exponentially to product handsets that can carry out almost any task. New products such as the iPhone, Blackberry and various handsets running Google’s Android operating system, are all vying for top spot in 2010 - the year of mobile search!
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Tags: google adwords, mobile search, online marketing, PPC
Posted in PPC | 3 Comments »
December 8th, 2009
Google Adwords Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising is one of the most measurable advertising mediums. As we approach the festive season retailers brace themselves for their busiest trading period. Effective PPC advertising in Australia is showing increasing potential to provide a lucrative return on investment and help support overall sales by directing high quality leads to your online store.
It is important to have an effective PPC advertising campaign in order to provide enticing advertisements that separate your company from the competition. An integral part of this is correctly evaluating the market and creating a PPC strategy to most effectively target your campaign during the festive period. With increasing understanding of your target market and their search behaviour you can intelligently refine your PPC campaigns to target geographic, demographic and time strategies. All of which help to ensure your ads are reaching your target market, maximising your Return on Investment (ROI).
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Tags: advertising, adwords, adwords advertising, effective ppc advertising, pcc, pcc campaigns
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November 30th, 2009
Writing Email Marketing Copy
Writing effective email marketing copy can be tricky; grammatical errors, misspellings, the wrong tone and more can derail your e-mail campaign before it has a chance to get off the ground. We’ve put together the following guidelines to help you write successful email marketing copy:
The Subject is the headline
The subject line is the first thing a reader will see of your email, so it needs to communicate your email’s message precisely and grab your audience’s attention. It’s marketing copy, you need to make sure it’s compelling and encourages readers to open your email – if there is an offer include the offer
Remember, don’t use repetition of punctuation while writing email marketing copy (eg. ‘!!!!’) or words like ‘FREE’ in your subject line, these are red flags for SPAM filters.
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Tags: copy, copywriting, email, email copy, Email Marketing, email marketing copy, writing email marketing copy
Posted in Email Marketing | 1 Comment »
September 10th, 2009
Google Caffeine Update
Google is getting ready to roll out its biggest update since the “Big Daddy” update which happened back in 2006. They’re calling it the Google Caffeine update and are claiming that this new under-the-hood infrastructure will improve the speed and accuracy with which Google will index web pages.
“For the last several months, a large team of Googlers has been working on a secret project: a next-generation architecture for Google’s web search. It’s the first step in a process that will let us push the envelope on size, indexing speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness and other dimensions.”
- Google Webmaster Central Blog
Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s web spam team, calls the Google Caffine update “A rewrite of our indexing system”.
A rewrite is a big thing; it’s important to take a look at what exactly this means for businesses running search engine optimisation (SEO) campaigns.
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Tags: caffeine, caffeine update, google, google caffeine, google caffeine seo, google caffeine update, search engine update
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We’ve spoken about Bing’s contract with Twitter in our previous post about 
