Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Monday, January 22, 2007

How to market your website? Part three - Email Campaign

Email marketing is crucial in getting your client database updated with the happenings of your website. An active and well written newsletter will keep the traffic flowing through your website.

What makes a successful email marketing campaign? Email's shouldn't be only about exposing your subscribers to your new products/services. We are all exposed to media every where we go, be it the radio, newspaper, television or the side of the road... Advertising is everywhere! So why do people surf the net? No it's not to find an advert but rather to find informative information. An email should capture your client's attention because of the valuable content that you are providing them.

Each company needs a vision, you as the webowner need to find a way to captivate your audience with your vision. Once they believe in your vision they'll purchase from you. It's no use sending emails out about your product and how much it costs... People are tired of this and send these type of emails straight to the rubbish bin.

Here are a few examples of successful internet companies that have got great visions which keep their customers coming back for more: Google's vision is to be a "simple free search engine," Amazon is the "biggest online book seller," Digg is an "excellent book marking site," Technorati is all about "blog search," Snap is a "cool behavioral search engine," and eBay is an "anything goes auction site." What's your vision?

So what do you write in your newsletters? The best way to start is to collect all your most frequently asked questions by clients/customers. You could also write about personal experiences that will help your subscribers, remember that people love stories and if the stories are informative they will be clicking on the link to your site to find out more in no time. These clicks will turn into sales.

Your emails should also convey a message to your subscribers, this is an excellent way to build trust. I go back to the old story of trying to sell via your emails, no one is going to trust you if you keep trying to sell them something... If you provide great informative content you will have customers for life!

WebGrowth

Monday, January 15, 2007

Five steps to starting a business

1) Choose an industry, preferably one you can enjoy and one that is not already saturated or oversupplied.

2) Seek advice and possibly a partner. There are always things that you may have overlooked however intelligent or thorough you are.

3) Research and plan. Make sure all possibilities are planned for in advance so that any potential investors have faith in you and so that you will not be overwhelmed by unforeseen events.

4) Raise funds. Pitch your well constructed plan to potential investors and maybe raise your own funds.

5) Start small, think big. Test your plan in the real world on a small scale. Once you are confident that you have a well thought out plan implement the full operation.

Thursday, January 11, 2007

How to market your website? Part Two - Web Design

Part Two of 'How to market your website' will explain the pros and cons of web design. The thought process while designing and programming a website should always be: simple design for the human eye, quality content for the search engine spiders.

I'm going to keep my points short and to the point:

1) Don't have lengthy pages. Visitors hate scrolling down, this is not interesting enough for them. Human nature tends towards discovery and excitement, it would be more beneficial for you to insert links to new pages. The text links must create interest, try using adjective text to entice the visitor.
2) New topic for each web page. Each page should be about one topic with content rich keywords. If not then the pages will be to generalized and will not be optimized correctly. The content should correspond with the meta keywords creating a high keyword density without looking to 'spammy'. This will help the site's SEO.
3) Images. Images should be in .gif format or very small .jpeg files i.e. 30kb. Just the other day I was asked to optimize a site, the site was filled with .jpeg images that were very large which slowed the downloading process even with broadband. Web spiders are also able to read images providing they have alternate text (hidden text that describes the image).

WebGrowth

Tuesday, January 9, 2007

How to market your website? Part One - Forum Links

For most people starting an online business is exciting, lured by the possible profits that they could make. The internet business model is great, minimal expenses and your clients can be anywhere in the world so the possibilities are endless! What most people don't realize is that there are millions of web owners who are trying to do same business you're doing... The competition is fierce and only the webmasters with a good marketing strategy eventually succeed.

From personal experience adding your website to various directories to increase traffic does not work, especially if they are for free, however one still needs to use these directories as they provide backlinks to your website (One of Google's ranking algorithms is to rank a site on the amount of backlinks to a site).

So where does one market a website? Webmasters need to be 'in tune' with their target market and to do that you need to get inside their heads... What questions are they asking, what services are they looking for? Myspace has exploded the social community, this and other similar websites are where your future clients all are. Become active in Myspace, forums which have topics about your service/product. Always remember to offer quality advice on these forums as this will be a reflection on your service. Number one priority when answering or posting in a forum is to leave a link to your website so those who are interested have direct access to your website, the links also provide good backlinks for the search engines.

WebGrowth

Find your passion

Why is it that so many people follow entrepreneurs who are already successful in their marketing ideas? These successful entrepreneurs then preach to others what they should do because this is how they made their money. The problem lies when 'wannabe' entrepreneurs get to the show too late... They've already missed the boat and wonder why they can't do it but the already successful people can?

All the very successful people throughout the world are trend setters, they follow their hearts and are fueled by their passion to succeed. Richard Branson is a very good example, he doesn't follow the money but rather does what he is passionate about and doesn't stop until he has made a success out of it... The money comes later.

For the year of 2007, I'd like to see more people make a living from their passion and not chase the money... The money will come to them, this way it's more sustainable and most of all, more enjoyable!

Web Design with no programming knowledge

I have included a link in this blog entry which I think is the best Web Building software around. It's simplicity to use is great, especially for those who don't have any programming experience.



Why develop your own website?

The world is evolving into a digital playground with faster and inexpensive communication becoming ever more popular. Our friends are not only our neighbors but also people who are living 1000's of miles away. Staying connected with each other has become easier thanks to the internet.

The number of online shoppers is also increasing, especially the DVD, book and computer software markets. eBay has revolutionized our shopping and selling habits, we can now virtually purchase anything we want online and it arrives safely on our doorstep.

Businesses use websites in various ways, most brick and mortar businesses use their website as a brochure which briefly explains the business operations and what you can expect when dealing with the company.

Many people are under the impression that websites entail a lot of programming which is better left for the professional programmers and IT specialists. Well, this is not the case anymore. Software is being developed every month which is getting easier and easier to use. If you have basic computer skills then building a website for a business is not impossible anymore… Programmers are building CMS (Content Management Systems) and selling the software at very competitive prices for the end user, who has no programming experience. Software that WebGrowth uses is developed by Moonfruit. The WebGrowth Team has searched the internet for better applications but none have come close to the functionalities that Moonfruit offer.

Moonfruit's CMS software gives you the versatility needed to express yourself not having too many restrictions on design. You will be able to build a high quality website which users will enjoy and will be search engine friendly which will help increase the rankings of the website.

Article Submission

Here are links to article websites in which you can submit your articles. Writing articles is crucial to building backlinks which will help your Page Rank. When writing articles always remember to keep the reader entertained. Web 'surfers' have a short attention span because they're on the constant lookout for more information. The second they find your article uninteresting they have already clicked on the search button....

http://sbinformation.about.com/library/blsubmission.htm
http://www.ezinearticles.com/members/index.php
http://www.scriptmenu.com/browse-magazine_articles-88-1.html
http://www.goarticles.com/ulogin.html
http://www.goarticles.com/ulogin.html
http://www.articlecity.com/article_submission.shtml
http://www.contentdesk.com/
http://www.webpronews.com/submit.html
http://www.allbusiness.com/article_submit/submit.asp
http://www.webreference.com/new/open_pub_form.html
http://www.site-reference.com/submit.php
http://www.addme.com/contact.htm
http://www.ideamarketers.com/writers/addarticles.cfm?wherefrom=LOGIN
http://www.isnare.com/login.php
http://www.chiff.com/contact.htm
http://www.uncoverthenet.com/articles/add/12700/1.php
http://www.thewebmasterblog.5gigs.com/main/modules/AMS/submit.php
http://www.articledashboard.com
http://www.thewhir.com/find/articlecentral/suggest.asp
http://www.selfgrowth.com/artman/exec/admin.cgi
http://www.internetbasedmoms.com/submission-guidelines/
http://www.businessknowhow.com/newsletter/articleguidelines.htm
http://www.selfstartersweeklytips.com/forum/posting.php
http://www.searchguild.com/addarticle.php
http://www.articlealley.com/submit_article.php
http://www.articlesfactory.com/submit.html
http://www.allthewebsites.org/articles/article_editor.php
http://www.marketing-seek.com/p.php/artsubmit
http://www.ecomallbiz.com/marketingworld/informationform12/
http://www.businessnation.com/cgi-bin/library/articles/add.cgi
http://www.biz-whiz.com/Submit_News.html
http://www.freesticky.com/stickyweb/contact.asp

http://www.im4newbies.com/forum/posting.php?mode=newtopic&f=39
http://www.valuablecontent.com/admin/index.php?ToDo=createArticle
http://www.constant-content.com/?area=authsubmitash
http://www.advertisingknowhow.com/members/articlesubmit.php
http://www.thriftyfun.com/
http://www.article-emporium.com/submit-article.cfm
http://www.storebuilder.co.uk/submitcontent.html
http://www.workoninternet.com/Submit_Article.html
http://www.ezau.com/latest/articles/0127.shtml
http://www.amazines.com/articles.cfm?ezineid=051054055051
http://www.ebooksdeal.com/cgi-bin/articles/articles.cgi?action=add
http://www.content-articles.com/Submit.aspx
http://www.articlesubmissions.com/articles/submitarticle
http://www.marketingsource.com/articles/submit
http://www.netterweb.com/artcls/articlesubmit2.htm
http://www.womans-net.com/forums/
http://www.articlehub.com/add.html
http://www.learningfolder.com/submitarticle.aspx
http://www.theezine.net/archive/add.html
http://www.articledepot.co.uk/newarticle.php
http://www.articlepros.com/
http://www.certificate.net/wwio/ideas.shtml
http://www.allfreelancework.com/submitarticles.php
http://www.advisor.com/wtips.nsf/submitarticle
http://www.SubmitYourNewArticle.com
http://www.TheArticleZone.com
http://www.freezinesite.com/articles.cgi?action=add
http://www.boconline.com/sub-art.shtml
http://www.internet-search-engines-faq.com/includes/article-submission.shtml
http://www.homebiztools.com/contact.htm
http://www.articlesphere.com/submitarticles.php
http://www.articlesubmitterpro.com/board/index.php?action=login2&user=&passwrd=&action=post
http://www.linkgrinder.com/submit_article.cfm
http://www.articles.simplysearch4it.com/addart.php
http://members.article99.com/submit-article.php
http://www.ultimatearticledirectory.com/index.php?page=submitarticle
http://www.selfseo.com/submitstory.php
http://www.articlefever.com/modules/AMS/submit.php
http://www.jogena.com/articles/articleform.htm
http://www.stickyarticle.com/
http://www.articlewarehouse.com/SubmitArticleWriter.aspx
http://www.alumbo.com/cgi-bin/submitcontent.pl
https://www.huginc.com/ecom/frmauthrequest.asp?Dest=frmarticle_submission.asp
http://www.howtoadvice.com/Submit/
http://www.digital-women.com/submitarticle.htm
http://www.impactarticles.com/artman/exec/admin.cgi?id=impact&pw=prohawaii&login=1
http://www.smartads.info/articles/submit/
http://www.webarticles.com/home.php?c=submit
http://www.articlebeach.com/index.php?page=submitarticle
http://www.ebooksnbytes.com/articles/submit.shtml
http://www.reprintarticles.com/articlesubmit.php
http://www.free-articles-zone.com/Submit_article
http://www.onelasvegas.com/directory/Submit_Article.html
http://www.articlestop.com/articles/articlemanager.php?a=1
http://www.bullmarketer.com/article_submit.php
http://www.linksnoop.com/art_submit.php
http://www.allmerchants.com/submit-article.php
http://www.cyberindian.com/post-article.php
http://www.linkgeneral.com/logon.asp
http://www.cumuli.com/ezines/post.html
http://www.webmastertraffictools.com/articledirectory/add.html
http://www.accessify.com/contact-us/submit-an-article.asp
http://www.a1articles.com/submit_article.php
http://www.businesstoolchest.com/articles/submit.shtml
http://www.sierratimes.com/submit/
http://www.article-directory.net/Submit
http://www.home-based-business-opportunities.com/submit-article.shtml
http://www.clickforcontent.com/index.php?action=member_create_article
http://www.work-at-home-jobs-iowa.com/article/newarticle.php
http://www.click-partners.com/postnuke/modules.php?op=modload&name=submit_news&file=index
http://www.articlefinders.com/submit.html
http://www.website-promotion-ranking-services.com/article.htm
http://www.fresh-articles.com/cgi-bin/artman/exec/admin.cgi?id=writers&pw=submit&login=1
http://www.articleshelf.com/submit.php
http://www.ezine-writer.com.au/base-list/submit-article.aspx
http://www.newfreearticles.com
http://www.dime-co.com/articlesub.html
http://www.business-opportunity.biz/addarticle.php
http://www.connectionteam.com/submit.html
http://www.theselfimprovementsite.com/submit.php?type=story
http://www.writingcareer.com/freearticles-submit.php?txtUsername=articles&txtPassword=articles
http://www.bigarticles.com/cgi-bin/add.cgi?d=1
http://www.bpubs.com/cgi/add.cgi
http://www.articles411.com
http://www.boazepublishing.biz/articledir/admin/index.php?act=login
http://www.uniterra.com/submit-article.htm
http://www.cashflowseller.com/ArticleSubmit.html
http://www.articlesmagazine.com/submitstory.php
http://www.webpromotionguru.com/contact.htm
http://www.articletime.com/submit.php
http://www.articlebar.com/submit
http://www.patsula.com/smallbizportal/articles/post.php
http://www.themanager.org/Content1/Submit_article.htm
http://www.theallineed.com/submit-articles.htm
http://www.bharatbhasha.com/submit_article.php
http://www.articles4business.com
http://www.internethomebusinessarticles.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=new§ionid=1&Itemid=0
http://www.article-dir.com/contact.php
http://www.articlenexus.com/articles/submitarticle
http://www.homebusiness-websites.com/articles/submitarticles.php
http://www.articlepeak.com
http://www.awomaninbusiness.com/submit_article.html
http://www.business.afreepress.com/rw/rw.cfm
http://www.xongoo.com/submit.html
http://www.biz-ewomen.com/cgi-local/links/add.cgi
http://www.articlepoint.com/submit-article.php
http://www.smallbizarticles.com/cgi-bin/articles/add.cgi
http://www.businessclique.com/
http://www.articleshaven.com/newarticle.php
http://www.articlesbase.com/publish-articles.php
http://www.businessknowledgesource.com/submitarticle.html
http://www.businesshighlight.org/user-submit-article
http://www.articlesubmission.com/cgi-bin/articles/articles.cgi?action=add
http://www.womensarticles.com/submit_article.php
http://www.rapidarticle.com/submitarticles.php
http://www.workathomearticles.net/index.php?option=content&task=new&sectionid=1&Itemid=0
http://www.webmasterslibrary.com/submit.jsp
http://www.morganarticlearchive.com/cgi-bin/submit.pl
http://www.articlewiz.com/submitarticles.php
http://mailbiz.com/cgi-bin/mailbiz/magcat/dbm_db.cgi?db=dbm_db&add_form=1
http://www.purplepages.ie/site/content/addlink.asp
http://www.articles-submit.com
http://www.weeno.com/Pages/submit_user.shtml
http://www.content-edge.com
http://www.upromote.com/newsletter/submit.html
http://www.allwomencentral.com/?r=sub
http://www.365articles.com/modules.php?name=Your_Account
http://www.Niche-Content-Articles.com
http://www.home-business-directory.com/addarticle.htm
http://www.blogwidow.com/submit_article.shtml
http://www.zonebot.com/article_submit.php
http://www.promotiondata.com/submit.php
http://www.traffic-advisor.com/postnuke/modules.php?op=modload&name=Submit_News&file=index
http://www.sales-masters-world.com/addarticle.php
http://www.williammcdermott.com/
http://www.newarticlesonline.com/submitarticles.php
http://www.thewebcontent.com/wp-login.php
http://www.add-article.com/newarticle.php
http://www.ezinecrow.com/submitarticles.php
http://www.articleToGo.com/
http://www.articlebliss.com/submitarticles.php
http://www.superpublisher.com/submit.php
http://upublish.info/submitarticles.php
http://www.clearviewpublications.com/small-business-newsletter-entrepreneur/business-articles/submit-form.htm
http://www.miniguides.info
http://www.more4you.ws/articles/submit.php
http://www.ezinearticles.biz/article_form.php
http://www.articlefarm.com/cgi-bin/artman/exec/admin.cgi?id=writer&pw=writer&login=writer
http://www.Article-Warehouse.com
http://www.e-calc.net/submit_article.php
http://www.marketingpitbull.com/contentsynd/index.php?op=article
http://www.commonconnections.com/membership/articlesubmissionform.htm
http://www.getyourarticles.com/submit.php
http://www.articlejackpot.com/submit-articles.html
http://www.howitworks.net/submit-article.html
http://www.articleinn.com/submitarticles.php
http://www.maxebook.com
http://www.article-highway.com/submit-article.htm
http://www.tigrafix.com/articlesubmission.htm
http://www.webhosting-articles.com/submit_article.php
http://www.bigbusinessweb.com/
http://www.marketingtroll.co.uk/submitarticle.php
http://www.organic-rankings.com/
http://www.eBusiness-articles.com/default.aspx
http://www.onlineinternetcoach.com/newsletters/
http://www.reprintedarticles.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Submit_News&file=index
http://www.submit-your-articles.com/submitarticles.php

I hope that's enough to keep you going for a while!

Welcome to WebGrowth!

This blog is for all webmasters and internet marketers. I will be giving advice, tips and links which will help you get the very best out of your website.

With the world being so 'small' in the 21st century being able to connect and do business throughout the world has become very easy. This is why having your own website has become imperative, be it for a small home based business or a large corporate business. Both of these types of businesses need internet exposure to compete against their competitors. WebGrowth will be giving you the competitive edge against your competitors within cyberspace.

WebGrowth