Archive for October, 2008

Australian Website Design Professionals

1. Give your website visitors a free subscription to your e-zine or newsletter. Please remember to give something extra with the free subscription. You could offer a free gift, download or advertising when they subscribe. It’s the extra bonus that your website visitors will appreciate.

2. Provide your visitors with free relevant content. Your content will be more attractive to your visitors if it’s up-to-date and original and talks about your companies latest product and or service. You could also offer people the option to reprint the content in their e-zine or web site.

3. Offer a free online directory. The directory could be full of information, e-zines, web sites etc. If people find your directory to be a valuable resource they will return often. Read the rest of this entry »

Australian Website Design Professionals

Video blogging or VLOGS has a lot of distinct advantages over text-based blogging, and it is little wonder that this new technology is catching on all over the internet. Video blogs or VLOGS very effectively grab the attention of your website visitors, and people are much more likely to become excited about the dynamic content of a video blog than they are likely to find a written posting very thrilling. The more enthusiastic viewers are about a site, the quicker the word of mouth spreads, and in a perfect world, this then equates to more traffic. Additionally, with Video Blogs or VLOGS, you are personalising your brand as well and if your website visitor can relate to you and your image, you have then created trust with your potential customer. They then have a perception of you, your company and your product, based purely on your VLOG.

In our situation, we were unable to secure Brad Pitt for the role, so you are stuck with me and my droning voice, but that is not the point. The point is that the information that we are presenting is for the benefit of our website visitors and we trust that they find the information of assistance. Please follow this link.

http://www.hostingimpact.com/blog/2008/10/on-the-couch-with-hosting-impact/ 

Each week we will be presenting “On The Couch” with Hosting Impact in an endeavour to raise the awareness of our website visitors and also to answer viewer questions. Please feel free to email us with questions you would like answered. Anything ranging from, SEO Techniques, Web Design to Hosting. Send all requests to live@hostingimpact.com 

Hosting Impact - Support Desk

Of course, on the other side of the coin, there are plenty of disadvantages to video blogging as well. Hosting a v-blog can require quite a bit of server space, which can make it difficult to get started. It takes more time to process and upload a video file than it does to dash off a quick bit of text, which means that running and updating a video blog may take some work. In addition, web surfers sometimes grow frustrated with the slow loading times of the files on many video blogs. Whether you opt for a video blog or not depends on what kind of subject matter you want to cover, and how much time you can devote to video blogging. Before you decide to pursue a video blog, consider if there is an easier way for you to get your message across. 

We trust you have found this information of benefit and we look forward to answering your questions.

Until Next Time …
Happy Blogging

SEO Steve
Hosting Impact – Australian Search Engine Optimisation Specialists

Australian Website Design Professionals

Who’s To Blame … It aint me, it aint my dog … then it must be the internet. It must be the Marketers. It’s got to be somebody, cause it aint me. 

I have just literally hung up the phone from a potential customer, sorry potential SEO Customer and thank goodness I gave up smoking 12 months ago, drinking 3 days ago and sex, yea right … anyway … otherwise, I would be a chain smoking, bourbon drinking $%^& rat.

Where do potential customers get the idea that if they or somebody else build a $19.99 website and put pretty little pictures inside it and place one or two “keywords” throughout it, then asks, why can I not be number 1 in Google for the “Keyword” hosting.

Probaly because there is approximately 440,000,000 search results, yes that’s right, 440,000,000 results. Nothing wrong with being optimistic and positive and all the other adjectives I can think of, however, the thing that amuses and frustrates me at the same time is that they want to achieve this with a set budget of $400.00

To top it off, they would like to know what references We have, what past results We have and wait for it, can we do it a bit cheaper than the allocated $400.00, because they just spent $7 000.00 in a phone book advertisement. Do we offer a gurantee, that if there website is not Number 1 within 10 days, can they get there money back.

Damm, I suppose so, yea hell why not and while you are there, why not just bend me over and #$%^&* me. Oh by the way, I asked this potential SEO Customer, if he placed the same demands onto the Phone book company, ie: if he doesn’t receive an inquiry every day from the phone book, will they get their money back. I don’t believe he appreciated that, I don’ know why, I was smiling when I said it.

If it was as easy as that, don’t you believe that we, Hosting Impact, would at least have a look at doing that for us, but noooooo, we wouldn’t even consider it, because we know the market is far too competitive and we don’t believe our targeted customers would type in that word.  We know the advantages in long tail keywords and that they can produce good sound results. These results allows us to build a foundation to at least start with.

I am missing an important component, yes, yes, apart from the “Keyword” Hosting and the Budget of $400.00, they would like it achieved in about 7 to 10 days, because that is when they will be starting their business. I remember now, they are still working for somebody else and want their Hosting business to be up an running and getting new customers every day, so they can pay for their new offices and wages.

Give me a break people, I know a lot of us receive emails saying that you will be Number 1 for blah blah blah in 1 week and it will cost you $19.99… GO FOR IT … EMBRACE IT … BUT LEAVE ME ALONE.

Search Engine Optimisation is a legitimate business and we do enjoy the challenges that we face everyday. Challenges with our customers websites, challenges with our own websites, but we do enjoy it and when we have positioned our clients website, within the search engines, where we said they would be within a reasonable time frame, that is pure joy. No Cheap Tricks, no sneaky black ops, just quality workmanship, time and effort.

So to all of the snake oil salesman out there claiming they can do this and this and this for only $19.99 and within a week you will be number 1, I say, GO $%&^* yourself.

I can not really blame the customer, because the interent does look simple and in many ways it is, however, common sense applies people. The business that has invested time, effort and money into marketing and search engine optimisation techniques, will really give up their number 1 position for their selected keywords…just because you have built a brand new website. No, I don’ think so either.

Until Next Time…
Happy Blogging

SEO Steve
Hosting Impact

A Business Blog is considered a must have tool for online marketing, that can not only save you thousands of dollars but also can provide great business opportunities. Blogs are user-friendly, easy to customise and have numerous plugins available, all designed to get your marketing message out to your potential customers.  

Companies engaging in business blogging have a definite edge over their competitors, who are not blogging.  

1.  Word-of-Mouth. In a survey, there are approximately 14 million blogs with 80,000 new blogs being added each day. It is believed that about 30 percent of the 50 million internet users are blog readers.  The Internet is able to spread information quickly and effectively and 1 person passes your blog to 2 people and they in turn pass it to 2 people each, well it doesn’t take long for your blog or post to have been seen and read by literally 1000’s of potential new customers. This can then create …

2.  Awareness and loyalty. Communication, especially open and honest communication with your customers creates trust and loyalty among them. If you can offer true customer support and service and respond quickly and promptly to their questions and comments, this will then allow them to give you positive …

3.  Feedback. With positive feedback, this also helps to build trust with potential customers.  Blogs are also good for product reviews and research. Imagine having at your fingertips, valuable information, feedback and ideas from your customers, that would allow you to make improvements or correct some minor flaw or policy, to make their shopping experience with you easier.

A Blog could be viewed as a booth in the biggest trade show on earth everyday.  You need to positively promote, update, maintain and market it everyday. Gone are the days of if you build it they will come, it just doesn’t happen.  

The Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds are important too in conjunction with your blogs in receiving the best benefits. Use effective keyword relevant phrases, in an endeavour to attempt to generate high ranking status within the search engines.  

RSS for news update feeds which can be read via RSS reader applications are a very handy tool for business and internet marketers and should be used and promoted accordingly.  

We trust that you have found the above information useful and please feel free to contact Hosting Imapct for additional assistance.

Until Net Time
Happy Blogging

SEO Steve
Hosting Impact – Australian Search Engine Optimisation Specialists 

Australian Website Design Professionals

After you have your website designed and developed, one of the next most important considerations should be, “Who Will Host Your Website ?”

There are numerous points to consider when selecting a suitably qualified web host to host your website.

In no particualr order are a number to consider:

The Company 
Their background
Check their references
How many customers do they serve?
What is their uptime or Uptime percentage ?
What are there charges ?
Do they charge set up fees ?
Do they offer Customer Support ? 
Can you upgrade free of charge?

Web hosting services and prices can vary and when choosing your web host, please ensure that you are receiving exactly what you paid for.  All to often, Hosting Impact hears horror stories from new customers, about this host and that host. Bottom line, cheap hosting can, not always, but can cost you more. 

Additional things to consider:

 Use your own domain name (www.yourname.com) – not a sub domain 
 Your own POP email account – name@yourdomain.com 
 Ability to access and upload your website. 
 Offer daily server backup
 Easy access to your log files
 Statistics on visits to your website

Hosting Impact is an Australian Based Professional Web Hosting Company and offers various packages for personal, Business or Commercial websites.

Australian Website Design Professionals

Website designs these days can be created by anyone with a computer, from a 13 year old to a 80 year old with little or no experience. The difference is that not all webdesigners are the same nor are their web designs. 

While some designs are excellent and work quite well, all to often we hear of problems associated with websites created by someone not necessarily involved full time within the industry nor is it their first point of business. From not being able to contact the person to updating the website, to not having access to the website at all, to being totally dependent on that person who will update, change or alter your website when it suits them be it today, next week or never, just to name a few.

Some types of website designs work better than others, so remember while you might want an all singing all dancing website, with all the bells and whistles, and while it may look great for your potential clients, all will be lost if the search engines don’t rank your website highly, or indeed a potential customer can’t view your site because they don’t have the latest computer or plugin, or fast internet access and it takes forever to load.

The design of your website does and will reflect your business image, just as your premises of your business reflects your business and or the way the telephone is answered.  First impressions are important!

Your website needs to be designed in such a manner that it is easier for the search engines to spider and decide where in the search engines (such as Google) your website will appear for certain keywords. While your website will not just appear no 1 in google and requires much more than good webdesign to achieve this, it all goes towards the goal of good traffic and enquires and or sales for your business. 

Please feel free to visit Hosting Impact’s Web Design Portfolio page

Our Search Engine and Web Traffic Categories provides more information and tips to help you achieve this or alternatively contact our team here.

When a potential client lands on your website, you have approximately 22 seconds to impress them….not much time, granted ….. however, with a well laid out design, good navigation, loads fast and has relevant content, 22 seconds is more than enough.

Until Next Time …
Happy Blogging

Design Team
Hosting Impact – Australian Web Site Design Professionals

Creating Your Website Presence

One of the biggest bugbears and time consuming aspects of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) back in the old days, was the time required to alter, add and or change the content. This change of content allowed the search engines to identify numerous aspects of your website and more importantly being able to find and subsequently rank it. However, it was at times a long, drawn out process and at times not enjoyable.

With the advent and development of Blogs, the ability to change and or alter the website content with relevant and fresh content have moved the goalposts significantly so that it is no longer necessarily the case!

The website owner now has the ability to create fresh, new relevant keyword rich content at any time of the day or night.  

Now, that is not to say that SEO is a tactic that you no longer need to consider. Indeed, with ever increasing competition in online market places, Search Engine Optimisation is  something that needs greater thought and consideration with every passing day.

Hosting Impact has made another giant leap in technology with the introduction to Video Blogs. Please view our brief Welcome message.

Unfortunately, we were unable to get Brad Pitt for this starring role, so you are stuck with me.

httpv://au.youtube.com/watch?v=CoPlFOA84RM 

Over the coming weeks, we will be presenting tips and techniques on all aspects of SEO. No gimmicks, no cheapshots, just honest, tried, tested and proven Search Engine Optimisation methods.

Until Next Time …
Happy Blogging

SEO Steve
Hosting Impact – Australian Search Engine Optimisation

Creating Your Website Presence

There is no doubt whatsoever that a Wordpress blog, hosted on your own domain and web hosting account should be the way that you go when you create your business blog, in our humble opinion.

As you will read throughout this blog, the interactive element of Web 2.0 does present a massive range of new and exciting opportunities for promoting your site or blog. 

But, that being so, you must have a blog site that can take full advantage of those opportunities.

In other words, if you are generating traffic from what we might call Web 2.0 activities, then you must send that traffic to a site that the visitors will feel comfortable with, and will hopefully like enough to add to their bookmarks folder.

If website visitors find your content through a Web 2.0 related resource, and then end up on a dull and somewhat lifeless hosted blog then your credibility and their stay on your website or blog are both going to be extremely short lived!

You must appreciate that you do not only want people to visit your blog or site but you also want them to visit, stay and return often, You need them to interact with your site in some way, with the aim of them returning time after time.

Eventually, of course, you want them to become your customer as well, but they will not do any of these things if they land on a boring, lifeless blog or website the very first time that they visit.

We believe that using Wordpress on your own hosted domain is the simplest and quickest way of getting a superbly interactive blog set up that is fully in-tune with the requirements of all the traffic (both Webs 2.0 and 1.0 ‘styles’) that this blog will teach you to generate.

The Wordpress that you have just installed on your domain name is a superbly flexible system, but it is far from perfect.

There are a 1001 things that Wordprss cannot or does not do ‘straight out of the box’, but what Wordpress does have is immense flexibility and malleability.

So, Wordpress users all over the world have created hundreds of plug-ins and widgets for Wordpress that you can install into the admin area of your blog (usually free) to add a huge amount of additional usability to your blog.

Wordpress has plugged itself into the open source communities’ ability to create any number of widgets or plug-ins that can massively enhance all of your marketing and conversion efforts, and there is simply no other system around with this level of increased functionality.

In other words, everything that you could ever want to change, alter or enhance about your blog site can be done by installing the correct plug-in or widget.

That is not to say that that you would ever use or utilise all of them, because you wouldnt, however, you can certainly use the ones that would benefit your goals or objectives.

In the event that you would like to install Wordpress on your Domain and require assistance, please contact Hosting Impact Blog Installation.

Long Live Open Source.
 
We trust you have enjoyed this update and please feel free to contact us for additional information.

 
Until Next Time…

Happy Blogging

SEO Steve
Hosting Impact – Australian Search Engine Optimization Specialists

Search Engine Optimisation Specialists

So, let’s extend the idea of creating a blog, to creating one about your business.

It really does not matter what your business, the same ‘rules’ apply – you create your blog, and begin to make ‘postings’, which is a very grandiose way of describing the ability that a blog gives you to basically write whatever you want to.

Let’s imagine a couple of different scenarios.

Situation one is that you own a ‘real world’ business that sells widgets. You have a customer list of people who have bought your widgets before, so you can use your blog as a regular newsletter to which you publish all of your latest special offers, discount deals, news and so on.

It is a fantastic way of keeping in touch with your existing customers and, by publishing regular news bulletins through the company blog site, it offers a way to invite potential new customers to have a look inside your organization too, before they decide whether or not they want to work with you.

Of course, the limitation of using a blog for a real world business selling tangible physical products is that no blog or website can actually deliver the product for you.

However, in situation two, where you are using a blog to promote an online or Internet marketing business, even that can be achieved through your blog site to a certain extent.

Let’s imagine that your business is selling a website traffic generation service to other businesses on the net who want to increase the people that see their own sites. 

You can write about all of the latest traffic ideas that you have and promote your services through the blog.  You would also most probably have a ‘buy now’ button featured somewhere very prominently on the front page. You might also review traffic generation products from other companies, and carry links on your blog that would take the reader directly to the sales page for the product in question, if they have an interest in finding out more.

Although (as Wikipedia points out) blogging was initially a text based publishing medium, it is now increasingly becoming linked to other media, such as video, as well.  So, not only can you write reviews but you can even create short movies to do the same as well, and publish them to your blog (and other places, as we shall see later).

You can create video presentations about your business, your products or basically whatever else you want, and have it out there in front of a potential audience of over 1 billion people in a matter of minutes.

It has been said that there are ‘three cornerstones’ to online success and that they are visitor traffic, visibility and perceived credibility.  This is a critical concept to grasp, and one to which we will return time and again.

A blog site is such a powerful marketing tool because it allows you to address all three of these requirements through the one simple site, as you are about to discover. To take it one step further, a Blog site that is updated consistently and regularly with relevant content is such a powerful marketing tool.

We trust you have found the information useful and please feel free to contact Hosting Impact for assistance in creating your Blog.

Until Next Time
Happy Blogging

SEO Steve
Hosting Impact – Australian Search Engine Optimisation Specialists