Unleash the Power of the Internet

Academy Group 16, chief executive mentoring and experiential learning group (with members from the Cumbrian area) recently heard SEO and internet marketing expert, Guy Levine (see Guy’s website at www.webmarketingadvisor.com ) give a very interactive session on “unleashing the power of the internet”.

He explained how internet marketing is evolving and how understanding the way in which search engines work makes the difference between zero visibility and high visibility of a web site. Achieving the latter can put a commercial website at the top of a search engine’s list.

Guy gave Academy members valuable tips on their own company websites, and provided ideas as to how they could be developed to make them a more effective internet marketing tool.

The three main take-aways members gained were:

• Decide what you want the website to do for you. Once you have decided the business result which you would most require, make sure every word and picture on the page drives people to take that action;
• Take the sales process which works in your real business and apply it to you website. A website is not a place to just let visitors stroll around, they need to be taken through a series of steps;
• Once you have your website converting, use the search engines to drive as much traffic as possible to the website; the key to this being the choice of keywords you use. Choose the words which are most likely to generate new business, not just impressive rankings!

Guy’s expertise and track record in internet marketing via effective websites is remarkable and he increased our understanding of this important topic.

Nick Jackson, Chairman Academy Group 16

The Academy for Chief Executives, a leading provider of experiential business learning® facilitates peer groups of CEOs and Managing Directors who meet together every month to network and take full advantage of experiential learning. To hear great speakers like this every month and engage in The Board You Could Never Afford®, to find out more about the Cumbrian Group, or to find a local group near you, visit www.chiefexecutive.com.

 

Google has changed – have you?

A brand new website selling plumbing equipment does sales of over £100,000 in the first month (www.plumbnation.co.uk), another one selling used photocopiers (www.copiersforsale.co.uk) recoups it website investment in six days.

These are reasonably typical stories about the success that can be achieved through websites nowadays. What’s surprising is not the success stories but the number of companies still not using the power of Google to generate sales.

Both these companies harness the power of ‘Google Base’, here’s an example (note the ‘shopping bag’ icon next to the snippet)…

This is a free service from Google and is immediate. (see http://base.google.co.uk/) and terribly effective given the way the item stands out at the top of the list.

You’ve always been able to use this service – the big difference is that now through ‘Google Universal Search’ (GUS) these results are shown on the main Google Page.

‘Google Base’ is only relevant if you have something to sell. But you can take advantage of GUS even if you don’t. For example Google News, Videos and Images are all items you can get to appear at the top of the Google listing now. Probably the most well known is appearing on the map…

This is not just relevant to hotels and other ‘local’ services, its relevant to most businesses because over 40% of searches now include local variables (eg data cabling Liverpool, search marketing company Cheshire, business mentoring Leicester)

The point is Google has changed, there are now opportunities to appear on the list in more relevant and striking ways than the conventional list of blue search engine links. Google has changed, and we need to change to harness its huge sales delivery potential.

Jan Klin is Managing Partner of Jan Klin & Associates, a Cheshire based Internet Marketing company. www.janklin.com ; 01928 788100; jan@janklin.com.
Jan is a speaker through experiential business learning® specialist, The Academy for Chief Executives and more information and free lessons can be found on the above topics at his blog (http://janaklin.blogspot.com)

 

Social Networks Aren’t Just For Kids

Presidents Forum 532, chief executive mentoring and experiential learning group recently had internet marketing expert Phil Calvert talk to them on how the new trends of social networking and “tweeting” are becoming relevant to business. Phil explains why ‘Social Networks aren’t just for kids’ – with a wealth of simple, practical, easy-to-implement tips, tricks and new media techniques for businesses of all sizes to build sales, credibility and trust in their Brand online.

I’d like to share with you some of his key messages:

• Marketing via the Internet is becoming increasingly personal (read Roderick Ioerger’s blog on “Successful Social Media Marketing Requires Personal Involvement” on this subject too)
• Put up lots of fresh content on your site to attract Google to get better rankings (Great content that is insightful and authentic. Corporate brochure-speak is not enough.)
• We should all be “Twittering” (see Twitter.com – or if you’re not ready to ‘twitter’ yourself yet, read what The Guardian has to say about it here: “We Twitter. How About You“)

Peter Pritchett
Chairman, Academy Groups 5 & 32, Leaders Forum 2 and PF532

The Academy for Chief Executives, a leading provider of experiential business learning® facilitates peer groups of CEOs and Managing Directors who meet together every month to network and take full advantage of experiential learning. To hear great speakers like Phil Calvert every month and engage in The Board You Could Never Afford®, visit www.chiefexecutive.com

 

Make Your Website More Effective

Leaders Forum 9, chief executive mentoring and experiential learning group (with members from NW London, Herts, Beds and Bucks) recently had web/internet expert Graham Jones talk to them about ‘why they should scrap their corporate website’

The key points about making your website more effective were…

• Your website is not your brochure – your website will be more effective if it provides information to allow people to solve their problems/answer their questions

• People will spend a few seconds looking at your website before making the decision to go elsewhere – make your website more effective by grabbing attention and ensuring it is easy to navigate

• Make your website more effective by ensuring a large percentage of content is not only about your audience, but also written by them

• There is a growing feeling that everything on the web/internet should be free. Providing free content will help to ensure your website is more effective.

The Academy for Chief Executives, a leading provider of experiential business learning facilitates peer groups of CEOs and Managing Directors who meet together every month to network and take full advantage of experiential learning. To hear great speakers like this every month and engage in the Board You Could Never Afford you can find out more about the NW London, Herts, Beds and Bucks group, or to find a local group near you, visit www.chiefexecutive.com