Monday 29 September 2008

Mailshot marketing – does it work?

Any mailshots to your clients can be very beneficial. You have to have the hook and some sort of action that you require them to take, and with these, you need to ensure that the expenditure on the mailshot justifies the action.

So what can be done to minimise the costs and how do you research an effective mailshot?

A case study in recent times was for a recruitment agency wanting to drum up new business in both new geographical areas and also in existing areas but with new clients.

The first thing the agency did was to build its database, and it ended up with 6000 new and potential clients to send the mail shot to.

The next action was to write a newsletter to these firms that contained advertorials explaining the services of the company but also providing the clients with good advice.

These two activities on their own took some time, but the actual production of the newsletters required trips to the printers to get all the type set in the right place and then for the newsletters to be stuffed and sent.

At Chester Web Marketing, we are able to do mailshots for you as part of our service. We have an envelope stuffing machine that can save you considerable time and cost. We are able to plan your mailshot and identify potential customers, including the creation of a database for you and send the mailshot out at a lower postal price than you would otherwise pay.

It is partly the flexibility of our company that enables us to be able to offer such a wide service.

All of these tasks are time consuming, but if the price is a reasonable one, it is possible for you to send out a mail shot and expect a good response without needing to undertake considerable amounts of work yourself.

For further details of our services, please contact us at www.chesterwebmarketing.co.uk

Wednesday 24 September 2008

Getting your site noticed at low cost

A simple guide to search engine optimisation (also known as getting up the ranking in search engines).

There are lots and lots of books, articles, blog entries, scientific studies, PhD theses and commission papers all written about this subject which is currently becoming quite a science. At this date, nobody knows what the Google ranking method is, but there are clearly lots of indicators as to what improvements can be made to a website in order to affect the ranking of the website.

This article looks at simple and cheap ways of ensuring that your website receives a reasonably good ranking from the Google search engine.

1. Update your website frequently. Even if this is just to save the pages on a different day and publish them, it may have an effect on your ranking as it will indicate to Google that your site is being regularly updated.

2. Write new entries for your website as often as you can. Again, even if this is just to add a comment to a page or to alter a couple of words which is worth doing because it will again show Google that your site is being regularly maintained and updated.

3. Write articles and get them published on the internet. Websites such as articledashboard.com will take your article and it will get published and noticed across the internet. The article can be on anything you like, but the main thing is to ensure that you include details of your website as a link to the page.

4. Check your meta tags. Although these no longer have the relevance they once did, a lot of search engines apparently still use them to read the content of your page. In fact, David Viney in his well known guide gives a specific example where meta tags have actually been used by Google and other search engines for ranking purposes. It is very important to have these on every page of your website, and thoroughly recommended that you go through and pack them in if they are not already there. If you do not know what a meta tag looks like, you can do a search on Google and get a guide to them.

5. Contact lots of other websites of a similar sort or of a directory nature linked to your industry, make sure you get a link from them to your website. This can be quite time consuming, and you may rarely see a result or reward for it, but when you look back at your website in a few months or few years and see the links that you have created, the result will be worthwhile. Furthermore, there is a lot of evidence that Google place heavy weighting on links from well ranked websites.

6. Try to avoid anything that involves spending a lot of money, as most search engine optimisation techniques can be done via an SEO and web marketing consultant with quite interesting results. Whilst there are lots of companies out there spending thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of pounds to get onto the first page of Google for certain topics, there is nothing to stop a small company or individual having a go as well, which is partly why the internet is such a wonderful place.

If you want to read more on the subject, do a search on Google for search engine optimisation techniques or similar, and you will find there is lots of information on the subject, including extensive research papers carried out to see what are the best techniques to use.

If you would like a free website MOT and marketing report, please visit www.chesterwebmarketing.co.uk

Monday 22 September 2008

Chester Web Marketing

How many people have their website on the first page of Google for their top key word? How many people have their website on the first page of Google or the second page of Google for any key words? How many people can type their name or the name of their company into Google and get results on the first and second pages with links that people would want to click as opposed to telephone directory entries?

The answer is very few. Without a clear idea on how to use the internet, most companies simply put a website together and ignore it.

The internet market is worth billions and it is increasing at a very rapid speed all the time across the world. It is possible to set up a website in a back bedroom in Denby and be selling to the Chinese in Shanghai within a few weeks. Such is the power of the internet.

Here at Chester Web Marketing we have been running internet operations for over eight years and have been involved with the internet since it started. We know what works and what doesn’t, and how to get websites into key positions to attract business.

One of our owners has a website that generates almost all its work directly through the internet and very little from direct or traditional marketing. Our other owner generates almost all his work off the internet, and spends almost nothing on traditional or direct marketing.

So how do you take advantage of our experience? The answer is simple. You sign up to one of our monthly packages and we devote our efforts at getting your website noticed by the audience that you want and deserve.

When we say deserve, this is with a reflection of the investment that you put into your website. If you put no time and investment into your website, you deserve no traffic. If you devote resources and investment into your website, then clearly you should be picking up traffic to go with it.

We are not an agency who simply set a computer to submit your website to 300 search engines and directories. We are not an agency who bombard you with technical statements in the hope of confusing you to the extent that you give us more money. What we offer is plain speaking, no nonsense, manual hard work on improving the presence of your website.

At the same time, we are also able to assist with your traditional marketing, particularly if we can tie it in to your website and online campaigns. Examples of this would include a holiday accommodation business. These days, a lot of business is undertaken over the internet and people make bookings all the time for holiday cottages, hotels and bed and breakfasts. It may be that you would benefit from advertising in newspapers or certain journals, for example, if you are near to a golf course. We would tie the hard advertising in with the online advertising.

We can also improve your website. Obviously working to enhance your online presence does not exclude some redesign of your website if it requires it. Our developers are able to look at your website and suggest improvements or revamp it. To achieve this end, we offer a website MOT, which not only enhances the value and standing of your internet presence, it also gives you an idea of where your website needs to be improved or altered in order to make it more user friendly.

The key to any internet presence is interactivity, so for example, the ability to make an online booking, purchase of product or to search for information. We work with you to search out ways of making your website stand out.

Of course, none of this is free, and requires investment from you. However, by using Chester Web Marketing, you free yourself up to do the things you really need to do, which are to service your current clients and make money. Let us help you with a new or improved line of business, and enhance your presence online whether it is for the local, national or international market.

Interested? Contact www.chesterwebmarketing.co.uk for further details.

Friday 19 September 2008

Free Web Marketing Reports for the North West, North Wales and Chester.

We aim to provide you with a full report on your website telling you its plus points, its negative points and how to improve it. Simply fill out the form below and we will complete your report within 7 working days and one of our consultants will visit you to go through it with you and explain the content. After that you are free to keep the report and use it how you please, and if you take heed of any of the contents of it, it is sure to improve your presence on the internet.

The report will cover the current status of your site, its listing and ranking levels, your presence on the internet and your company’s exposure, other sites that link to you, the location of your server and your ISP, and an explanation of suggested improvements to your site and your presence on the internet.

There will be no technical information in the report and its aim is not to overwhelm you with the technical side of things, but to provide you with clear advice to enable you to formulate the strategies to increase your presence on the internet.

After all, there is nowhere else you can go for such a massive audience where you will not have to pay anything for them to see your company. It is the beauty of the internet that so much business can be carried out at such little ongoing cost. This is where our service can help.

Contact www.chesterwebmarketing.co.uk for further details. You can email enquiries@chesterwebmarketing.co.uk and book a free meeting with one of our consultants and receive a full report on your website