Posted At : October 10, 2007 9:43 AM
Related Categories: Online Strategy

There are many reasons for implementing server side redirects both temporary and permanent but whatever the reason caution should be exercised. A 301 redirect tells the search engines that a page or site has been permanently redirected and a 302 tell them that the move is temporary.

Imagine a company is re branding. As part of the re brand there may be a more appropriate domain name that is now available and would better reflect the image of the business online. But, the company already ranks well in the search engines for its main key phrases, so does it keep the existing domain which won't reflect the re brand and make product pages more appropriate or does it go the whole hog and shift to the new domain? Now, if you're just changing page names on the same domain, cleaning things up and pointing one page on your site to a new page, there's no problem. All of the off page work that's been done will retain its value with no long term negative impact on the SERPs.

Theoretically you should be able to implement the 301 from the old domain to the new domain, again retaining the value of the valuable off page work that's been done, but having tested the theory, there's a problem. By pointing the website at a new domain you're opening it up to the 'new site filters' (or dare I say sandbox effect in Google's case) and it will be filtered in the same way. There's no time frame to this and it really depends on how competitive the search terms are you are trying to target before you may or may not see a return to previous positions. Effectively you've started from scratch - Ouch!

If you're considering implementing a 301 to a new domain, you know the work that's been involved in getting your original rankings so I'm not going to go into what needs to be done here but it seems very strange that there's no way of differentiating between a completely new site and one that's been previously well established but simply undergone a name change or re brand.

Posted At : June 14, 2007 4:11 PM
Related Categories: Online Strategy

Since the advent of Google, online advertising has become synonymous in many minds with pay-per-click adverts, but there's far more to online advertising than Google Adwords and Adsense. In fact, contextual advertising is just one of many different kinds of advertising available to today's web marketer. Some of the most effective types of advertising don't even look like advertising. We can introduce you to the ever-evolving tools that make advertising online such an effective way of doing business.

Banner Ads

One of the oldest forms of online advertising, banner ads are still a very effective method of generating web site visibility. Today's banner ads employ all sorts of attention grabbing effects to get your message across and entice viewers to click through to your web site. Choosing where to place your ads is one of the biggest factors in how successful they are in attracting the right visitors to your web site. There are two major types of banner ads - paid inclusion and pay per click.

Contextual Adverts

Google pioneered the serving of contextual adverts on web sites and opened a whole new business with Google Adsense and Adwords. Creating text ads that command attention and invite clicks is an art form, and choosing the right words to aim for in context can be the difference between a campaign that flies and one that stumbles. Like banner ads, you may use paid inclusion or pay per click ads to generate sales.

Article Marketing

Content is still king on the web. Article marketing is a form of online advertising that attracts customers to your web site by increasing your visibility as an expert in your business. By making short articles with links to your web site freely available for use on others' web sites, you can build  those all-important incoming links and generate relevant traffic.

Blogs and Social Bookmarking Sites

One of the newest wrinkles in online advertising is writng pieces for publication on blogs, social networking and bookmarking sites. One article or advert in a widely read blog can bring you thousands of hits and page views.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a way of creating an entire network of sales people who sell your product or service strictly on commission. A well designed affiliate marketing programme can really boost your sales and you only pay for real results. We'll show you how to design a programme that attracts the best affiliate marketers in the field.

Posted At : June 5, 2007 2:09 PM
Related Categories: Online Strategy

Online marketing has become a vital aspect of business and advertising. The growing popularity of the Internet as an information and entertainment tool has exponentially increased the effectiveness of online marketing as a way of generating sales and improving business development.

Why is online marketing such a potent way to generate business?

In a nutshell, online marketing offers low cost alternatives to traditional advertising in other media, with tracking tools that make it easy to keep an eye on your ROI (return on investment). With a full suite of online marketing methods and tools, you can:

• Determine and develop your best markets for sales and leads
• Communicate with your potential customers directly
• Track the trends of your online visitors to analyse the most effective marketing strategies
• Tailor your online marketing solutions to take advantage of your customer's needs
• Manage your costs and expenses with a variety of tools

And you can do it all at a fraction of the cost of a single television or radio advert. In fact, you can run a dozen different online marketing campaigns for less than the cost of postage in a single direct mail marketing campaign.

What online marketing tools are available to today’s web site owner?

Online marketing is developing at a rate faster than any other marketing medium. In less than a decade, the world of online advertising and marketing has grown from static banner ads on web sites to entire suites of marketing and public relations tools. Today’s successful online marketing strategy combines advertising, community building, interactivity and entertainment to create something that no other medium can even approach. Among the tools that are available to online marketers today are:

• Contextual advertising
• Search engine marketing
• Email marketing
• Blogs
• Social networking sites
• Newsletters
• Viral marketing techniques
• Article submissions
• Link generation
• Content generation
• RSS feeds
• Tracking software
• Web site analytics

We’ll help you choose which online marketing tools are right for your business and track the results of any campaign so that you’ll always be one step ahead of your competition.