The last 2 months at IC247

It's been busy here at IC247 the last couple of months. We've had many new customers, lots of new internet experiences and, as always, have learned a hell of a lot of new and really helpful things. We are going to tell you all about these innovations in the next few Blogs but first let's have a look at two of the newest clients to have come into the fold:

Portfolio Bodykitsuk.com

After initial consultation, IC247 had the job of coming up with some designs for a website with a Paypal shop to sell a large range of car body styling products.

The website is a content management system (Webrender CMS) that has a special dynamic search function and is also easy for Bodykitsuk to add their own, new content, news and different products. Each page within the website is perfectly optimised with header tags, Meta tags, canonical URL’s and the customer is very happy with both the look and performance, as currently (and the website is very new) they are receiving around 2-300 hundred new visitors everyday and this is a growing number.

Google Analytics are installed so that Bodykitsuk can easily see where each visitor comes from, where they go and what marketing exercises they do on the internet and elsewhere work. The SEM has begun in earnest with the site currently linked from in excess of 100 websites, all within the auto industry genre, forum participation and regular updated Blog posts.

To come are Google products, where every single product in the shop is uploaded onto Google’s shopping search program and also an area on the website for reciprocal link directories.

Click here to view the website

Portfolio Aiecquest.com

One of our international customers from Turkey who organise English courses for Turkish and other foreign students in schools around the world wanted a re-design of their website and integration with our content management system (Webrender CMS). Our designers came up with the new look and we incorporated all the pages upon pages of lovely text content into the new website. The language is Turkish, which is just one of the many different language capabilities we have at IC247.

They have the news module, top search dynamic module and Google has really indexed the website well over the last few weeks, with currently over 16000 pages currently indexed. Aiecquest receive large numbers of visitors to their website due to the really informative text content that they have posted and this is updated on a regular basis – well worth remembering if you are looking to improve your own websites performance. New text content on a regular is king for the search engines!

Click here to view the website.

Search Engine wars

Search Engine Wars:

Microsoft + Yahoo versus Google - or are there yet more others out there?????

We’ve all heard the news and have seen how Microsoft have put in an offer to forge some sort of new partnership with Yahoo in a bid to bite into Google’s hold in the online marketing business world but what will it mean for all those whose businesses rely on the world wide web for some or all of their revenue?

Well, IC247 have always maintained that it’s important to try to get a presence on all of the search engines and this is an integral part of any form of internet marketing strategy that we initiate with any contact. It stands to reason that one should look to milk all opportunities to promote and gain more custom right across the board – no matter what your industry or your genre/needs!

As things stand Google is the ultimate leader in most aspects of internet search marketing; their range of tools is outstanding. Whether it’s pay per click with Adwords, advertising your shops products for free on Google Product Search or if you want to Blog and post videos or photos for the world to see, Google really have taken the reigns and led internet searching into a whole new dimension.

Microsoft/MSN have always been there and they always will because the guys there have the cash and the presence to really get it on. We all know about the need and then the arguments for and against Windows and this proves conclusively that one must never discount the power of Microsoft.

Yahoo were once the big boys: They ruled the world with regards to the internet and everyone had an account with them and everyone strived to climb their rankings but.... they let it go and why was this? Well, a new upstart came on the scene (Google) and started to kick butt with their innovative and economically sound ideas regarding our views and habits with internet searching, surfing and marketing.

The outsider was Ask (or Ask Jeeves, as they once were known) and they slid in on the peripheral boundaries of search engine marketing providing us all with results that were....hmm, OK. They have themselves embarked on a recent promotional campaign featuring their version of a new and enhanced search experience and it’s a nice idea but is it enough to carve a slice into the search engine industry? Maybe it is but hell, they sure must have spent some money making all those UK TV adverts for someone to search online... Enough said!

OK, let’s not forget about our beautiful friend Wikipedia; the provider of factual information for you, me, our kids with their homework and also another powerful internet big boy flexing their muscles recently with their Wikia search. Google’s Matt Cutts recently wished them well with their foray into the internet search engine industry and this, we feel, is where the buck stops – the reason for so much volcanic movement amongst the big players.

It’s widely known that Wikipedia are the encyclopaedic Bible for factual information with their better than 98% truth rate on factual information. If those guys want to start a search engine then it makes us happy here at IC247 as they are one of the forerunners in the future of the internet. Call it Web 2.0, call it us using the machine or call it what you want – factual information rules.

With the emergence of the Mobile internet industry there is a new battlefield for all of these search engines but it’s all about the content shown on any website, on any search engine, which brings me to my most important point:

ANY search engine will always look for relevant information, topical, well presented and text that is in tandem with your genre and as long as you can provide this then you have a fantastic starting point. If you couple this together with a well compiled web page that has its coding optimised so that all these different search engines can access it and index it properly then you will be winning before you know it!

Once you have got to grips with the above then IC247 recommend looking at all the different tools available from Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask and Wikia to help you to further promote your well written content and increase visitors and clicks on your informative web pages – no matter what happens with search engines coming together, fighting or starting new ideas!

Contact IC247 for an informal chat about how we can help you improve your internet commerce.

Internet Promotion January Newsletter

IC247
IC247 Inter Communication – One World, more information to share with one another
IC247’s services include



Free website evaluation with a concise breakdown of what your website needs for better presence on organic search engine results

SEM (search engine marketing) including:


* Back link sourcing campaigns
* Internet advert campaigns
* Directory listing
* Web 2.0 social networking campaigns (Youtube, Picasa, Wordpress, Blogger etc)
* Press release, E-zine and online articles
* Google tools (Base, Product Search, Local Business etc)


Keyword rich text copy-write including:


* Blogs
* Internet articles
* Website content
* Adverts and PR

Website design and build including:


* E-commerce websites
* Informative websites
* Database driven websites
* XML based CMS (content management system) websites


PPC (pay per click) campaign management:

* Complete pay per click management
* Optimised and efficient campaigns with streamlined budgets and keyword analysis


Hosting, Network and server management:

* Small Business Server installation
* Windows Server 2003
* ISA Server
* Gigabit Network installation and management
* Website hosting with sharepoint and SQL databases

Direct marketing including:

* Data supply (company information targeted for geographic area and industry)
* Telesales and telemarketing (national or international multi-lingual)
* Newsletter emails and “snail mail” outs


Why not take advantage of our New Year special offer:

* 50 internet directory listings (website URL, contact information and company description where applicable)
* 50 internet adverts on highly ranked classified advert sites (website URL, description of product or service, contact details and logo where applicable)

ALL for the introductory offer of £150.00
A great way to kick-start your internet promotion for 2008!

Feel free to contact one of the IC247 team here for an informal discussion about how we can assist you in increasing your internet presence, generate potential clients and improve your search engine positioning.

SEO simple tips

Here are a few simple and helpful tips to get you on your way to having a perfect website, with some information about standard steps from IC247

• Meta tags need to change to suit individual pages. Meta tags provide information for search engine spiders and robots re indexing and the crawl of your website. See http://www.seocentro.com/tools/search-engines/metatag-analyzer.html and input each of your individual website URL’s as per the instructions to see performance and recommendations.

• H tags (title, sub-titles etc) are missing completely from all pages. Google spiders follow information presented within H tags, therefore enabling easier indexing. Recommendation to add H tags for highlighted, bold and as paragraph explanations text within your website. It's good to use the Firefox add on Firebug to help you inspect your website.
  

• Back links: After keyword rich text content and coding, back links are an intrinsically important part of page ranking from Google and other search engines. add your site to relevent highly ranked directories and begin a link sourcing campaign

• Keyword rich text content: Your website looks great, with lovely photos and it gives a potential client a good idea of what they get for their money . You do have SOME text but ideally you should look to add more text where possible. Blogs are indexed brilliantly within search engines because of the new text content that is posted on a regular basis and also forums will always be found high in Google search results, per genre, because you have a large number of people posting different articles and questions. Obviously, a smaller website won’t be able to have this degree of text content BUT our recommendations are that you look to write more descriptive text about the your area in general and post it on your website and try to add more descriptive text on each page (coded correctly). Also look to try to post regular Blogs and helpful information associated with your industry/genre and add a “revisit” Meta tag to this work so that the spiders can crawl and index all the new information.

Contact us for more advice about how you can optimise your website!

Global Cargo Solutions Campaign

Global Cargo Solutions

Increased internet presence and data supply

Leicestershire based freight forwarder, Global Cargo Solutions contacted us and asked us to put together a plan for them to increase their internet presence and to help them expand their current client base.

After meeting up with them to discuss their needs, plans and ideas IC247 put together a campaign which included:

• Website design and build including corporate design of logo and website look and layout
• Blog template design and build
• Newsletter design build and newsletter tool supply
• Internet advert campaign
• Directory listings and back link sourcing
• Google tools including; Google Maps (local business listing, Google Base service listing, Google analytics to monitor website visitor trends, Webmaster tools and a Google Page mini website)
• Data supply
• Telesales (calling above to introduce Global Cargo Solutions)

Campaign description

After going live with the website we compiled a database of 500 company names with decision maker contact details for businesses that had shown a previous interest in freight and shipping services or UK businesses that exported their wares internationally. This database includes a wide variety of different industries, based all over the UK and Northern Ireland.

IC247 then initiated an online advert campaign describing Global Cargo Solutions services, with text provided by them and posted these adverts on different highly ranked classified advert websites. We then added their services to Google Base, built the mini site, Blog and sourced well ranked business to business websites for back link partners and also other top listed website directories for the freight forwarding industry.

The enquiries from the adverts and website have been forthcoming and the sales calls have been a hit. IC247 make approximately 20-30 calls per day and these calls have led to at least 2-3 new quote requests every day.

Organic Internet And Modern Marketing

Strategic Marketing Campaigns

Nowadays the first port of call for business information is the internet and everyone is aware of the importance placed on achieving high volumes of traffic to a well built website. Most campaigns are based upon the long term organic aspects of getting these results via Google, Yahoo, MSN Live and other search engines and this will always be the ultimate aim; to have an ever evolving website with as much relevant information available as possible with good quality, highly ranked back links that is managed regularly.

The major search engines take some amount of time to index new information but pay per click (PPC) services are available (Google Adwords is the best example) which can send you visitors depending on the amount of money you spend per click and the keywords you choose to use within your targeted adverts.

Depending on your budget, such pay per click campaigns can be expensive and over a longer period of time are economical burdens on most marketing budgets. One must look to utilise other tools and arenas that are both already available on the internet and reachable by as large a target audience as possible (Newsletters, E-zines, Social Networking websites, online forums, Wikis and directories) as well as older and more traditional marketing practices (Telesales and marketing, personal appointments and to a degree other media advertising like TV or radio) to market or sell your service or products.

Gaining back links and a presence on other highly ranked websites are really important. Not only do you get seen by their own visitors but you also get recognised by the major search engines by having a link from the given website to your own.

The telesales and newsletters (per email or normal post - although normal post is les important due to environmental issues etc) tools are also great assistance when one is building ones marketing range and increasing ones audience as long as you have obtained the correct and up to date data. You need decision makers contact details of your target customer and you also need to have the ability to decipher and recognise the type of character at the end of your telephone immediately. Politeness and also in depth knowledge of your product or service are major requirements of any sort of telesales campaign and a thick skin is needed!

Strategic marketing and tactical nous go well together. Each campaign or project must be aligned correctly so that the best results are garnered in the easiest and quickest way. Your search engine optimization (SEO) project needs to be well thought out and implimented by knowledgeable team members or agencies who study all aspects of the website optimization, from code, back links and keywords to how your competition perform and then this SEO work needs to be complimented by your designs that catch the eye of the potential customer, your sales staff politely approaching clients on the telephone with follow up newsletter emails from the contact information you have because of the time taken to source the perfect lead and once you have this well oiled machine up and running then the foundations for success are lodged firmly so that you can simply add content to your website that becomes optimized and freely available to new and existing customers generated by your free flowing marketing campaigns.

Contact IC247 here for a friendly chat with one of our team about best practice, modern day, one stop, strategic marketing

Case Study: Target Displays

Case Study: In partnership with Target Displays.

Website SEO and Online shop

One of our newer customers - Target Displays (based in Crawley, UK) have recently undertaken quite a change in the way they work with their internet presence. After intensive discussion and planning the decision makers at Target Displays wanted their website to be a more effective business tool rather than just as an advertising feature for their company.

Target Displays design and supply exhibition and point of sale display systems (roller banner stands, pop up display stands etc) and also provide a printing service for some of the larger corporate companies including: Virgin sports, Canons, Esporta. They have had a website for a number of years to help promote their company but it was never really optimised for search engine indexing and worked only as an addition to the companies advertising and marketing.

We at IC247 sat down with Target Displays and after in depth discussions with them about their future plans, what the competition were doing and what plans they had for the website, we put forward some proposals which included:
SEO of the main website (meta tags, correct coding etc)
More keyword rich text content correctly set out
Online store with buy online functions for their stands
The above products added to Google Product search
A Blog with regular postings by Target Displays and their customers
Extra pages added to aid any website visitors

It was decided that the website would need a lot more interactivity once a visitor clicked onto it and also that the website must be better optimised so that potential customers could find it easier by using search strings in Google, MSN and Yahoo associated with the display stand genre.

The original website design looked great; it was clear, defined and sent out a precise and simple message to visitors. Sometimes this isn't enough for a good fully functional website. It is important that the website is findable by a potential targeted visitor and therefore any website must have the correct ingredients to come up in a search engines results. These ingredients are correct coding (Meta tags), correct set out of descriptions and keywords, keyword rich text and back links.

We went right into how the website for Target Displays was built and optimised it codewise. We also added the Google Analytics tool so that Target Displays could monitor website visitors and utilise the tool for other future campaigns. We wanted to add some extra main pages to the menu bar and rebuilt this so that we could include a Helpful Links and FAQ page as well as an online shop for the top 130 products with buy online functions. These new pages were also optimised correctly but followed the main original visual design of the website.

We work very closely with Target Displays to compile their regular Blog postings and add keyword rich text for their FAQ page and also for the What We Do page and the Homepage. The homepage now has the special offers and a lot more text content and the website itself now is steadily climbing further up the search engine listings for relevant search strings and terms.

We also added all the products to Google Base (Google Product Search) and made some additional postings to Gogle Base Services and sourced some cool links about the display stand and advertising/marketing arena (Wikipedia, Technorati etc).

Every month (minimally) we post a Blog about what the new speial offers will be, what has been happening in the Target Display world and any other news and we have been in discussion with Target Displays about online videos, embedded in their website with feeds to Youtube etc for visual instructions on how to set their display stands up and introductions to the team. We have also just initiated a pay per click campaign using the Google Adwords tool to create more short term interest in Target Displays Special offers.

Target Displays also have a mini website for more information. This website is hosted via the Google Page Creator Tool and has lots more text and pictures and informative help for potential customers.

There are also proposals for an online interactive brochure that shows all of Target Displays products with links to the online shop, videos and more special offers. This type of brochure is one used by some of our other customers and can be emailed out to a customer, printed as a normal catalogue, adds interactivity via links and can also be embedded into a website.

All in all click rates are improving dramatically on Target Displays website and the website is refreshing and a lot more interactive. As with any good website one must plan, improve and look to add functionality and Target Displays now dedicate more time to their internet presence with monthly advert campaigns, directory listings and also more plans underfoot for Intranet systems for them and their customers and three more domains!

Here are the links for you to see some of the Target Displays work completed by IC247:

Target Displays Main Site
Google Products
Google Base
Google Pages
Special offer internet advert example
Target Displays Blog

Contact us here for further information