Small Business Blog

I had a major problem getting the Epson Styles sx100 working on Ubuntu, the documentation online at epson was pityfull. after exporing an itailian support forum, I finaly found the corect drivers at http://www.avasys.jp/lx-bin2/linux_e/spc/DL1.do

As 2008 is fast drawing to an end I find myself wondering what the new year holds for all of us involved in search engine optimisation. With Google now providing individualised search results via Searchwiki what will it mean for the search industry as a whole.

Firstly I don’t think Searchwiki will effect the general rankings to much unless Google uses the data gathered as a straw pole on how popular a particular website is, adjusting its ranking accordingly in the main index (I believe this would be a dangerous road as it could be open to heavy manipulation by the black hats among us)

Advanced SEO Segmentation

As Google analytics has started allowing advanced market segmentation in the analytical data I believe that we may, in the future have the information available to micro target our SEO efforts by age sex and even by race. It stands to reason that the language we use at different stages of our life changes at age 18 we would organise a query differently to how we would structure that same query later in life. With masses of analytical data available we would be able to pick out patterns in the language construction to micro target particular demographics, this could be very exiting imagine being able to target your perfect customer.

Moving away from PPC

In this time of economic downturn, If we check the trends data for the English speaking world we are seeing a move away from PPC advertising and seeing a rise in people searching for SEO traditionally pay per click was the more popular quick fix but now we see that SEO is on the rise and PPC is on the decline. With click-through rates for organic search results much hire then for PPC, businesses are realising that SEO is the best cost effective long term investment they can make.

World wide trends for SEO and PPC Searches

UK trends for SEO and PPC Searches

A change in SEO skill sets

Traditional SEO was to find a phrase people were searching for and get a page ranked on the first page for that phrase. I believe those days will soon be behind us with Web 2.0 we are seeing a shift to relationship building with customers rather then the quick sale to use an analogy we are changing from hunters to farmers.

There will be a lot more social networking to be done with customers via channels like Facebook, Twitter and Myspace (Myspace may be a bit juvenile heavy at the moment for it to be useful ) the only concern I have is that we are seeing a devaluation in Web 2.0 property’s with some running at a loss so we may see them monetising there offerings to stay alive or going to the wall.

All in all I see a few changes happening but not to many to be worried about. For the organic SEO this could be a good time to be in the business with the demand for these skills on the rise.

What’s your prediction for the future of SEO

Although adobe has not in its infinite wisdom decided to port ether Photoshop or Fireworks over to Linux, there are alternatives that offer some most of the functionality of both Photoshop and Fireworks on the Linux system.

My predicament was that although I loved using the adobe suite for design I was finding the cost prohibitively expensive and had wanted to move lock stock and barrel over to Ubuntu as my main operating system, leaving windows in my dark and distant past , but the only thing stopping me was the lack of Adobe Photoshop or Fireworks on the Linux system. Now I must admit that I use Photoshop on rare occasions but have developed what can only be described as a love affair with Fireworks, I just love how it works and the pre-set styles that make designing websites a joy

Alternative Solutions

I trawled the internet looking for alternative and the most common suggestion were Gimp and Inkscape (both Free) The Gimp was OK but found the interface just a little hard to get used to and abandoned that direction quite quickly There are some people that swear to the power of the Gimp, I may revisit and try again when I have more time.

Inkscape was looking pretty basic when I first launched it. Over time I have developed a huge respect for this powerful tool, the basic look was just a misconception underneath this plain Jane exterior laid a seething powerhouse of graphic passion. Before long I was creating designs just like in Fireworks, granted It lacked some of the time saving effects but this made the transition more fun as I had to find workarounds to accomplish things that in Fireworks could be done at the push of a button, this I believe has made me a better designer.

Now for the cream of a Photoshop alternative

Photoshop has developed what can only be called a cult following it is without doubt the top of the food chain when it comes to photo editing and graphic design. It has even injected itself into our language with terms like “the image has been photoshoped”

I believe I have stumbled across the best alternative to Photoshop on a Linux system, Pixel. Pixel has been written by one lone person Pavel Kanzelsberger the more I use this software the more impressed I am at this moment in time it is in beta 7 and although not free, represents great value for money at only $50 or 33 Euro’s this is not far off of the quality of Photoshop once it reaches version one the price will rise so for a great bargain go check it out

When you pay for any sort of marketing you need to track the return of your investment. Spending money on marketing without any way to track the costings and profit from such an endeavour is a fools errand.

The question arises as to the best way to measure this return, is it with sales or enquiries or is there another way you measure success with a marketing campaign. Marketing by definition is there to make money not loose it, so many company’s chuck money at advertising and marketing with the only measure being a rough idea that they are making a profit (sometimes)

What are the benefits of monitoring your return of investment

The benefits are many, the main one being that you can work out what’s making you money and what’s loosing you money and adjust your approach accordingly. If marketing method one cost you £500 and you make ten sales as a direct result of that particular marketing spend. Each sale is worth £100 you would make a profit of £500. If all things remain constant it would be fair to say that if you then went on and invested £1000 you should make twenty sales with the profit to match.

If you do not measure your marketing return you could end up in the following situation. Your company spend on marketing is £25,000 per year. This covers several marketing methods including newspaper radio and internet you only know that your turnover is 175k a year.

If you had been monitoring closely you would know that the newspaper and radio advertising is costing you 75% of your marketing budget but only contributing to 30% of your turnover. The other 70% is coming from the internet. So £17,500 spent on radio and newspaper advertising is accounting for £52500 in turnover where as £7500 spent on the internet is accounting for £122500 in turnover.

This is a very simplistic example but the moral of the example is you need to know where your income is coming from and how much it is costing you

Return on Investment Calculation

to calculate the return on investment we are going to use a few simple algebra equations

Number of sales = N
Profit From Sale = S
Total Profit form sales = P
Advertising spend = A
Profit Ratio = R (anything below one means a loss ie)
Cost Per Sale = C
Profit/Loss Per Sale =X

A/(N x S) = R
A/N =C
C-S = X

Advertising Spend / (number of sales x Profit from sale) = Profit Ratio

It Sounds a little complicated but when you break it down calculating your marketing return on investment is not that complicated.

Usb drives and Flash memory have had a little bit of bad  reputation as not being safe to store your data on . but how about a bulletproof usb drive ( well almost )

I was watching the gadget show on channel five and they had a section on indestructible data storage device’s, one was basically a hard drive caddie encased in concrete and metal ,the other was the 4GB i-Disk Bulletproof USB Flash Drive by Pretec. Both devices performed really well under tough data conditions ,including being blown up by explosives and submerged in water while being blown up by explosives. This little USB drive was amazing.

The reason this little drive has grabbed my attention is that I have been transferring all my home and work PC’s to run Linux and the particular flavor Ive just changed to is Ubuntu 8.10 which has a USB start up disc creator

My thinking is that I can have a desktop system, that works on almost any machine always with me. So if I need to check email while out and about I can pop into a cyber cafe or borrow someones laptop. My data will be safe as these thing’s are sooo shockproof. I will be going along to Amazon to pick up a Bulletproof flash drive The USB i-disk drives are available in 1GB, 2GB , 4GB and 8GB versions.

The link below is to the Video of the testing of the USB Bulletproof disk and the tough hard drive caddie.

http://fwd.five.tv/videos/challenge-blow-up

Current work in progress for SubZero refrigerated van hire

The rubber stamp tool in adobe firework’s is sometimes a little difficult to master this nice little tutorial give you a brief rundown on how to use the tool effectively

With a small business there is nothing more important then customers, without them you just do not have a business, period. However, getting to those customers can be difficult, so how can you overcome obstacles and press on with getting to those consumers who want to buy your product or service.

Effective Marketing Is the Key

First let us define effective, you could be advertising in this magazine and that publication and getting many customers but if the amount of profit you make does not cover your advertising costs and manpower expenses then it is not effective.

To be effective, expenditure needs to generate profit or have a good chance of generating profit. Any advertising is a gamble but you need to do a few things to swing the odds in your favour.

Know your customer

Like the hunter, you need to know your target. Define who your average customer is. You need to get as much information as you can, age, sex, and economic status is a good start. Anything that is applicable to why they would buy your product or service.

Once you have all this information you can then devise where to advertise and market yourself. Try to make this list of traits of your average consumer as detailed as possible, the more detailed the more targeted you can make your advertising

Highly Targeted Advertising

Targeted marketing will convert more customers at a lower cost per sale. If you were selling accounting software then an accounting trade publication would be an ideal place to advertise with a higher chance of conversion then say a fishing magazine.

Marketing online

Online marketing is unique because it is the only form of advertising where the customer is actively looking for your product or services; this by definition makes every enquiry a qualified lead. This in my opinion is one of the best forms of marketing for some industries and can take a failing company and inject new customers quite rapidly. However, you do need a good SEO company to help you. As with offline marketing targeting is key, pick the wrong phrase to optimise your website for and it can be a big waste of time and money. A good Search engine optimisation company such as WebMoJo can do keyword research and discover the phrases that pay for you.

Keyword research is a tricky business if a key phrase is to broad then you will get lots of traffic but very few will convert. To specific and you may not get a lot of traffic but the ones you do get will be highly targeted and more likely to convert.

Pay Per Click Marketing

Pay per click is a quick but costly fix; you can have targeted visitors to your website within a very short space of time. How it works is you will bid on keywords or phrases that appear at the side panel of the main search engines such as Google and Yahoo. The more you bid the higher up the list of sponsored results you will be. This can work for some businesses quite well but you need to do your keyword research

Marketing for the small business means targeting

As you can probably see one thing that runs through most marketing on a budget is targeting. The more targeted a marketing campaign is, then the more chance of gaining new customers.

If you take a look at lot of web design companies, you will undoubtedly see a section saying SEO or Search engine optimisation it seems like this art has found its way into the main stream web design community. However, without a little knowledge, you could be throwing money away on an ineffective service, a lot of web design companies will tell you that they can optimise your site, but getting to the top of the search engines with the phrase that pays is not a five-minute job

SEO It is time consuming

A SEO campaign is time consuming and very intense, a fine balance of words and weights. With no closer way of turning the written language into pure math, but with the exception that part of the equation is hidden from you and changing on a regular basis. This is where true skill is demonstrated from the search engine optimiser to bring your site from zero to hero.

Control your SEO expectations

In my opinion, planning a successful website should begin as early as possible, months if not in some cases years ahead. A new site will find it very difficult to rank for competitive terms until, like a fine wine it has matured. In the early days of a website going live try to aim for search terms that, as I call it; are low hanging fruit. For example, the term “web design” is highly competitive and the chances of a young site ranking anywhere near the top 10 for this is quite small. However, if you add some level of localisation to the mix like “web design Yorkshire” this “keyword phrase” would be easier to rank in the top position but still quite a lot of competition from other web sites. We can take this even further by adding a less common qualifier, “Web design Doncaster” Doncaster is a smaller graphical area then Yorkshire so it should be less competitive for this term. You would need to, or get your search engine optimisation company to research this more in depth.

Do your keyword research

Keyword research is so important, as targeting the wrong words or phrases can mean a great expensive site getting next to no quality traffic from the web. Not all traffic is created equal. If you sell nothing but “green umbrellas”, but you are targeting the keyword umbrellas, sure, you may get a lot of traffic but most of it won’t convert to a sale because some want a white umbrella some want a yellow.

Calculating the Return on investment

The return on investment need’s to be considered before you undertake any sort of outsourced search engine optimisation. It is always a good idea to get your SEO company to perform a feasibility study before you undertake spending out on the full project. A search engine optimisation feasibility study involves finding out the amount of searches taking place per month for a selection of key words or phrases related to your product or service. Then you will need to discover how many sites are competing for the same terms. Factor in the amount of profit you would get from selling your product or service. There will be some form of estimation on the figures from this you will get a better idea of the amount of work needed to get to the top of the search engines such as Google and Yahoo and whether getting to the top ten will turn a profit or not. Its better to spend a little then to waste a lot

I hope this short guide has been helpful to preparing to take on a SEO company with some of the things you need to know as a client

Google has just done a complete u-turn on dynamic URLs, in the past URLs had been rewritten so they were more “search engine friendly” now it seems that dynamic URLs are now back in favor.

Back in October 2006, the guys over at seoroundtable told us that , Dynamic URLs? Google Is Officially ‘OK’ With Them. But even then, Google still recommended, “rewriting dynamic URLs into user-friendly versions” as good practice.

John Mu Explains

One of the reasons for that is that we can use the information provided through the parameters to better understand what your site is doing with those parameters. For instance,the URL http://www.mysite.com/search.php?q=keyword can give us information about what is happening, it could even allow us to recognize that this is a search form and perhaps let us attempt other keywords that might lead us to content that we haven’t seen for your site. On the other hand, a URL like http://www.mysite.com/search/keyword does not give us any information at all about what the “file name” is used for.

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