We're pleased to announce the launch of a new free guide for businesses looking for a web marketing service provider. 

Our industry is littered with one-man operations, fly-by-nights, and companies that give our industry a bad name.  This guide has been developed by our team to assist you in filtering out the wheat from the chaff.  Best of all it's 100% free, and could save you thousands in fees and lost business!

Click the icon below to download your free copy now!

"When Kat & Kaboodle launched, we needed to create a slick website that would rank well in Google. The professional organising industry in Australia is still a relatively young one, so people are not yet instinctively searching for ‘professional organiser’ when they want to get organised.

Looking around at other websites in the industry, I found the sites to be quite cluttered and hard to navigate – which obviously isn’t a good thing when you are promoting an organising and de-cluttering business! PositionMEonline got straight to work on implementing a template for our website which was clean, easy to navigate and fully functioning. 

Your team immediately understood my business and how I wanted to communicate with my potential customers. Best of all, you were honest and up-front with their advice, and were genuinely passionate about providing me with the best possible website for my business.

I credit your business with building the best professional organising website in Australia (if I do say so myself!) which continues to display on the first page of Google! You designed a fantastic blog which is so easy for me to update, and a homepage which not only looks amazing but is easy to follow. 

You took the time to train me in sending an e-newsletter to my database and how to update pages, which I have found to be easier than editing a document in Microsoft Word! Nearly every day, I receive emails from people asking about my wonderful website and I always send them along to PositionMEonline.

I know they will receive honest, value-for-money, friendly service that us amateurs rarely find when dealing with website developers."
- Katherine Tate, Kat & Kaboodle - www.katandkaboodle.com.au

We have listened to our clients, and being determined to provide a superior level of service and a positive client experience every time, we have invested significantly in Traffic, a world class system developed in the UK in recent years.

Traffic is an award-winning work-flow system that enables us to combine project management, scheduling and job costing in a single structure that will –

• Provide you with secure online access to the real-time status of all projects/jobs/work being performed, on your behalf.
• Enable you to view a job summary, the stages of the job and the brief/specifications being worked to.
• Let you view the proposed start and end dates for each job or service, and sign off dates for various client actions and approvals.
• Facilitate your submission of work requests via a user friendly interface that will enable the monitoring of progress of all client work within their Traffic account.

We evaluated 10 systems, some of which had outstanding features, but in the end we decided on Traffic the most functionally rich, fully integrated and yes, the most expensive (you get what you pay for!) of all the 10 systems. Traffic was also the only system we evaluated that was not online based, rather it runs in-house on a dedicated server (providing excellent security of client data) yet provides online access to our clients!  

Overhaul of all our processes and procedures!
To ensure we provide a highly efficient, quality level of service we spent the last six months re-vamping and refining our processes and procedures company wide. Only then did we configure Traffic to accommodate our “new “way of operating and to support each of our business departments – Sales & Marketing, Client Services, and Administration.

End to end systems integration
Traffic is a highly flexible system that fully integrates Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Estimating and Quoting, Project Management and Dynamic Job/staff Scheduling, Invoicing and Purchasing , and provides seamless Workflow Management. The system synchronises with our QuickBooks accounting system, and also with Outlook for email management. The benefits to our clients, our business partners, much less our business overall, are considerable.   

Our 10th year in business!
It is hard to believe that within the next six months PositionMEonline will be in its 10th year in business! Thanks to the tremendous support of so many loyal clients and business partners, we look forward to the next decade of helping businesses be successful online.

Our recent investment in Traffic, the re-engineering of our business and associated staff training, has been made with confidence in the future of our industry and the growing need of businesses to have a marked presence online.

Our thanks go especially to all those who have supported us over the years, some of whom have provided constructive feedback that we have, or are, acting on to ensure our service and services are the very best we can provide. Stephen CEO

How Much Money is Google Making?

Any business who has ever run a Google AdWords campaign to drive traffic to their website for a minimum of 3-6 months will have experienced a rise in the cost of traffic at a rate greater than inflation.

We have experienced this first hand - in June 2009 some of our Google Ads were costing around $5.25 per click. Nine months later these same keywords are bordering on $18 per click - not per enquiry, but per click! However, in this article we share with you some useful strategies for keeping your click costs to a minimum with Google's powerful advertising tool.

Why such a sharp increase in click costs?

With Google AdWords being a real-time bidding machine the click costs are largely driven by supply and demand. There is a limited supply of top or first page positions on Google, therefore those that want to be there have to pay a premium.

Click costs in certain industries have plateaued due to profit margins being eroded - e.g. the average cost per click in the florist industry is unlikely to go beyond $5 because if it takes an average of 10 clicks to get a sale, it is costing $50 to obtain the customer - on tight margins this is prohibitively expensive.

Does this mean my website is correspondingly more valuable?
Yes! If you have a website that generates organic/free search engine traffic, this traffic has a worth that can be equated to what you would otherwise have to pay Google in click costs.

Example:
If your website was generating just 20 'free' visitors a day as a result of its organic search engine rankings and your industry average cost per click is say $3, your website could be valued at - 20 visits x $3 per click x 365 days = $21,900 per year!

This is what a competitor new to the industry might have to pay direct to Google to generate the same amount of traffic. With this in mind you can see that apart from the business a website can generate, the potential worth of a well optimised website in considerable for any business.

How does Google establish the cost per click?

Interestingly, the bid or click price is not necessarily the most important factor in Google's AdWords ranking algorithm.

Other factors aside from 'price' which can have a major effect on the click costs include -

1. Age of your Google AdWords Account - Google gives preference to businesses that have been advertising for a longer period of time. Like most businesses, they look after their long term customers and are wary of doing business with new customers with whom they have no trading history. We have seen some click costs drop by 50% in the 2nd and 3rd month of being active yet top positions were maintained.
2. Your Keyword Quality Score - in every AdWords account next to each keyword is a tool that provides an arbitrary 'quality score' out of 10. This is measured by calculating the correlation between the chosen keyword, the ad that gets displayed when a searcher looks for that keyword, and the landing page of the website the visitor is taken to. If there is a good correlation (e.g. the keyword, the ad and the landing page all mention 'discount widgets') Google will assign that keyword a higher quality score and give it a corresponding increase in its ranking position.
3. Click Thru Rate (CTR) - this is a measure of the percentage of searchers that click on the ad when the given keyword is searched for. E.g. a CTR of 3% means 3 in every 100 searchers click on your ad. A high click through rate is good news - searchers like clicking on your ad. Correspondingly, Google gives your ad a boost in the rankings because it may be making more money from your ad than your competitors because it is worded more attractively.

How do I combat rising click costs?

Many businesses lack the knowledge of Google's ranking algorithm for AdWords and as a result continuously increase their keyword bids in order to maintain their top positions. This is great for Google, but not for your hip pocket.

Here are 5 quick and easy ways to ensure you aren't paying a premium for your clicks:

1. Link to the most relevant page on your website - this will improve your Quality Score for the given keyword
2. Split your keywords into logical campaign groupings rather than one large campaign - this will also improve your Quality Score due to increased relevancy
3. Ensure your ad is attractively worded - use digits in your ad, give pricing indications, and even include your telephone number - the digits will attract searchers eyes and result in more clicks
4. Create ad variations that include the keywords you are targeting - if 'eco rainforest tours' is a keyword ensure 'eco rainforest tours' is mentioned in your ad
5. Build a website specific to the campaign you have created - we did this for our websites that target specific strategic locations and noticed a 20-40% reduction in click costs!

PositionMEonline is a Google AdWords Qualified Company and has managed millions of dollars worth of spend with Google. We have an intricate understanding of how to get the best out of pay-per-click advertising based on our own experience and that of our clients.

For a free 30 minute analysis of your Google AdWords campaign contact our office on (08) 9313 2699 and we will schedule a video/web conference to review your account in more detail - obligation free.

For the past 2 years or so Google has been displaying map listings of businesses relevant to local search phrases.  For example a search for 'mechanic perth' will display a list of 10 mechanics in the Perth metropolitan area in the organic (i.e. the free) search results.

The Google Map section displays businesses that are listed with the Google Local Business Centre, a creation of Google's that makes it one of the most powerful local search tools available.

The benefits of listing a business in the Google Local Business Centre are considerable -

• Search results can contain detailed information about your business, moreso than Yellow Pages, and it's free (click here to see the PositionMEonline listing for 'web design perth'
• Searches conducted on iPhones and other mobile phones with internet browsing technology often display Google Map listings at the very top of the page (on small screens this prominant view makes clicking on the listings quite compelling)
• Google often displays a Google Map in the organic search results when a searcher looks for a product or service by location - i.e. we have some clients who have obtained #1 rankings on Google within 24 hours!
• Searchers using Google Earth have the ability to zoom into the local region and view businesses relevant to their topic of interest

Our client website statistics are showing that Google now has close to 90% market share in Australia.  Obtaining as much visibility on this major search engine is crucial in your online marketing strategy.  PositionMEonline can assist your business with listing on the Google Local Business Centre - call us on (08) 9313 2699 today to find out how.

Despite the financial crisis over the past 18 months many web-related companies have enjoyed strong growth as businesses become more savvy and cost-conscious about their marketing.  With traditional forms of advertising becoming less cost-effective businesses are turning to the internet as a reliable source of low-cost leads.

One particular recent situation stands out, highlighting the major differences in return achieved from traditional advertising when compared with website marketing -

A long-term client shared with us a full page press advertisement that their competitor had run in The West Australian (WA's leading local paper).  The advertisement was on page 48 of the newspaper, just before the stock prices. 

At $7,500 one might think twice about placing such an ad, but the value of this businesses services is such that around 4 new clients would need to be obtained in order to make it a worthwhile venture.

72 hours after running the ad we were told that the business had received 3 phone call enquiries and zero appointments - i.e. the return on investment was practically nil.  It was $7,500 wasted on something that had a shelf life of around 24-48 hours before the next edition of the newspaper was produced.

One might argue that there are other less tangible benefits (such as branding) and that further potential customers may have booked an appointment at a later stage, however the business was not of a substantial enough size to warrant a branding focus.  Hence, the purpose of the ad was to generate appointments, which it clearly failed to do.

What is different about web marketing?
A business that goes about its web strategy correctly will benefit from an asset that continues to generate a good source of leads or sales with minimal ongoing expenditure.

Using the example above, a $7,500 investment in a website that is professionally designed and marketed to be found on the major search engines will continue to reap rewards for many years.

Newspaper advertising, radio advertising, TV advertising and Yellow Pages all require an ongoing investment in order to be given "air time".  By comparison, a websites ongoing costs are generally hosting and domain registration fees (which are easily <$1000 per year).

Think outside the square
Before you invest in your next traditional form of advertising, consider whether that money would be better invested in a website designed specifically to market a particular product. 

Investing in more "salesmen whilst you sleep" will help generate a strong source of leads and sales - why have 1 salesman, when you can have say 3.  Likewise, why have one website trying to capture everything your business is about, when you could have 3 highly specialised websites targeting different divisions/products/services/angles of your business.

To discuss some creative ideas on how you can add more "salesmen whilst you sleep" to your team, call us on (08) 9313 2699 and we can demonstrate how other Australian small-medium businesses are benefiting from our innovative online marketing strategies.

Google has announced they have made a deal with Twitter and will be delivering Tweet feeds in the SERPs.

This is exciting and interesting and it confirms that SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and Social Media are partners in your success.  You shouldn't neglect either!

The search engines favour web pages with history, quality and volumes of information, much the same as the way they treat Social Media posts.  This means having an account with Facebook and Twitter is a must if you want to ride this wave.  

Get as much history in as you can and remember that accounts that have been around longer with more tweet history may fare better. 

Tweet often but keep it natural - and tweet quality.  Tweet when you have something to ask, share or teach. 

Use keywords - but don't stuff your posts full of keywords.  If the tweets are about your industry, you should be using keywords naturally anyway.

Use links in your tweets back to your site (to relevant content on your site) and share the link love - link to other quality sites out there.

Make sure you use your keyword in your bio and if you are just setting up your username, maybe in your username too?  This may or not help.  Again, I must say - do not stuff keywords anywhere - not in tweets, not in your bio, not in your username.

This is a good thing, but if people abuse it and bring the overall quality of Twitter down, we will all be sorry.

If you have a feed that sends your tweets to Facebook, or your Facebook status to Twitter, you may want to consider turning it off.  If you have the same message in both places you are missing an opportunity for Bing to pick up both.  If they are unique, you have 2 chances to get in there!

Swan Valley Tours (www.svtours.com.au), a PositionMEonline client of 5+ years, has won the 'Website and Online Services Award 2009'. 

They were viewed as being at the forefront of their region in utilising contemporary and emerging technologies to support their business, customers, partners and the community.

The criteria used to judge the award included:

• Search Engine Optimisation – the ability to find the site from a search engine
• Intuitiveness of design
• Usability of website layout
• Ease of which an untrained person can access information
• The minimisation  of clicks required to find relevant information – having the right “call to actions” at the right place
• The flow from communication from website to business owner – did the website capture the right information
• The response time from website enquiry to contact with the client
• Links – if they functioned and where relevant  
• Customer feedback  - the site was mystery shopped and points given for the meeting the above criteria

The Swan Valley Tours website is built on the MySuperWeb platform which enables Gregg and his team to manage the website themselves. 

They also take photos of each trip and add them to the website to give their customers a reason to re-visit the website after their tour.  Prior to using MySuperWeb the process of adding photos was time-consuming, particularly given the number of tours and resulting photos.  With MySuperWeb however, this process has been made easier using the Photo Gallery module, which positions and links in the photos in an attractive slide-show-like manner.

The Swan Valley Tours website also ranks #1 on Google for 'wine tour swan valley' and a variety of other relevant, high traffic keywords.

Congratulations to Swan Valley Tours and the team within PositionMEonline who helped build their website.

The majority of mainstream industries are saturated online with an overwhelming number of websites, blogs, portals and online shops. New businesses entering the online world can find it tough to compete against older, more established websites that have greater repour with customers and a longer history with search engines, something the engines now consider relevant when determining a website’s rankings.

Some of the most successful internet-based business are those that identify a niche market based on market or ‘keyword’ research. Businesses in a niche can find it easier to compete because of less competition, and at the same time customers searching for a niche product may be more ready to buy.

For example, a large portion of searchers looking for ‘promotional products’ could be unsure of what to buy and may be looking for ideas. There will be less people searching for a keyword like ‘promotional ball point pens’, but searchers are more likely to be buyers.

Applying this logic to a web-based business means that you should consider identifying a small market niche before attempting to tackle established players in the industry. There are various keyword research tools available online that can identify niche markets. A search for ‘keyword research tool’ on Google will reveal a whole range of useful tools to help with your decision criteria.

Choosing and SEO or Search Engine Marketing company can be difficult.  You may obtain 3 vastly different quotations both in content and in price, and be no wiser as to which company is better than the next.

Fortunately earlier this year the Australian Web Industry Association (AWIA) released a document designed to help website owners decipher the companies that are legit, and the companies that are solely in the industry to trick unsuspecting customers.

The guide is available to download here and is well worth a read should you be looking to engage a SEO or search engine marketing company.

The principles mentioned in the guide are adhered to by PositionMEonline, as our business success is largely defined by the success of our clients.  The more clients we can obtain excellent results for and have lasting relationships with, the better our business becomes, and in turn the better we can serve our clients with new technologies and more 'outside the box' thinking.

To speak with one of our SEO consultants about how you can obtain more customers from the internet call (08) 9313 2699 today!