I love this ad not just because of how Google search has been responsble for the ‘democratisation’ of the internet (so even the little guys can win)…

But also because of the way that the ad gets to the very heart of what they do: SEARCH.  And what makes them the masters of the universe.

Getting your message out so that visitors to your website immediately understand what it is that you do is overlooked more than you might think!  Check out the video below.

Google and Your Internet Marketing Strategy

We know that Google search is king the number one most visited website in New Zealand.  According to Hitwise, 7.75% of all internet traffic heads to Google.

We also know that Google is becoming an interwoven part of people’s lives.  Like in the video it can influence what we do and how we do it…in very profound ways.

But What Does That Mean if You’re A Business Owner?

If you’re a business owner then it’s easy to just imagine that getting to the top of Google will solve all your problems.  We face this all the time with our clients.  High Google rankings aint the goal!  The goal is an increase in enquiries that leads to an increase in sales – right?

So to achieve that it takes what most web designers can’t provide…Online Strategy.

What is Online Strategy?

Online or Internet Marketing Strategy is the online battleplan or blueprint that takes into account how you will compete with and win against your competitors.

There are a lot of factors that need to be thought about when it comes to internet marketing strategy.  They include:

• What are your overall business goals?
• What are your potential customers looking for online and in what numbers?
• What are your competitors doing online and how can we defeat them?
• How can we improve traffic (visitors) and not just rankings?
• How can we improve ‘conversion’ on the website so that we can measure the return on investment?
• How can we achieve your goals in the best way without wasting time and money?

Plus more.

Winning online is not about SEO, it’s about strategy.  It’s about planning the right things and executing that plan in the right way to achieve your goals so that you can SELL MORE STUFF.

I hope this makes sense.  If you would like to know more about how we can develop an internet marketing strategy for you so you can get your business in front of hungry customers who are using Google and looking for what you can sell, please contact us for a confidential discussion.

Thank you for reading this.

Regards,

Rhys Coffin
Internet Marketing Strategist
CEO, Internet New Zealand Ltd

E: rhys@internetnewzealand.com
M: 021 024 86566

Internet Marketing

Thank your visiting and reading this.

The fact that you have found this article is probably due to one of the tactics that we use when it comes to Online Reputation Management:  search engine optimistion (SEO).

This article explains a little about why there is a growing demaind for Online Reputation Management services for both individuals and companies alike. It also talks about some of the methods we use to influence search engines using search engine optimisation (SEO).

If it’s true that you found this article through a search engine like Google or Yahoo, then you’ll also see why using search engine optimisation forms a critical part (both on and offline) of managing your online reputation.

A New Age

The days when news was spread by only by TV, radio and newspapers is a long gone. Today there is no faster (or better) way of disseminating information than the internet.  Malicious, negative or incorrect information published online by critics can spread quickly and damage your company’s reputation if left uncorrected or un-refuted.

Even if you have operated a business ethically and cleanly for years,  all it can take is one negative event to blemish your public brand image.  This event may affect your business and it can be ongoing…costing you customers, business and money.

Simple things like a negative product review in a blog or forum can have negative effects to your brand or you personally, and can be especially damaging if you operate in a environment where competitors are ready top act against you.

Online Reputation Management is Becoming Important

Google it.  It’s what we do.  If I want to buy a new car, I’ll Google it.  Same thing for plumbers, health insurance and even for researching the best internet market companies to use in New Zealand.

As consumers we also research company brands (as well as individuals), with search engines giving fast and convenient access for performing due diligence.

As broadband internet increases in New Zealand, as more and more people start using search engines to research, the demand for online reputation management will increase.

Social Networking

At the time of writing, Facebook has displaced Trade Me as the number one accessed site in NZ (after Google).  Social networking  then, is becoming a more important internet medium.

While some smart businesses see social networking as a long-term strategy to strengthen their business and interact with their customers, most businesses struggle with it.  But regardless of how business comes to term with social networking, one thing is certain…

Consumers (and competitors) now have a voice for which to share ideas information and contacts.  And that includes negative or even malicious information about any brand and any person.

Reactive and Procative Reputation Management

There are two ways that companies can act when it comes to online reputation management.

• First is the proactive management of your name or brand.  This involves the ongoing monitoring of news, social networks, customer feedback, forums etc.  Often, damage to your reputation may be happening without your knowledge.

   

  Proative reputation management involves the monitoring of customer and market perceptions online from blogs, social networking, forums etc., as well as the creation of blogs, sub-domain websites, websites and other online ‘assets’ that present truthful and positive information.  The setting up of these assets effectively ensures that any damaging information can be relegated further down the search engines…often to page 3 or 4.

• Reactive reputation mangement involves the relegation of harmful information in search engines (using the same methods), once it appears as well as publishing information that refutes negative, malicious or damaging information.

So how do we do this?

There are a number of ways we achieve this.  One way is to use effective keyword analysis and the effective creation of these online assets which contain factual and positive information.  Next we use link-building and other ‘off-page’ SEO techniques to elevate the rankings of these sites.

Online Reputation Services

If you or your organisation would like more information about online reputation management, please go ahead and contact us.  We’ll set up a confidential meeting by phone or skype to discuss your situation.

We’ll also provide you with our ORM Brand Audit at no charge.  It will give you a ’snapshot’ glance at the state of your online reputation including some concepts ideas and strategy to deal with negative information (if any).

Regards,

Rhys Coffin
Online Reputation Management Specialist
CEO, Internet New Zealand Ltd

E: rhys@internetnewzealand.com
M: 021 024 86566

Online Reputation Management – ORM

And no-one else.

My name is Rhys Coffin.  I’ve been involved successfully in internet marketing strategy and lead generation for nearly a decade.

I know,…big deal.

But what you should know is that I’m not a geek or an IT Guru [although we employ some of the best!].   Rather, I am regarded as a street-smart entrepreneur and internet marketing strategy specialist. I’m a business owner and have been since I was 12 years old when my Mum used to wait in the car while I sold kiwifruit door-to-door.

I have a passion for Internet Marketing strategy that borders on the unhealthy.  Just like how some alcoholics dribble on about how red wine is good for you because it has heaps of anti-oxidoodads (or whatever), and then in the next 30 minutes proceed to get sh**-faced; I’m a bit like that with the ’net.

I find new developments in Internet Marketing trends fascinating and compelling.  Yes, I know it’s all a bit sad really.  In 2007, I stopped ’sharing’ these incredibly compelling internet developments with my wife, after doing so resulted in a stint in the spare room.

While you may not share my passion either,  it is a fact that I understand the utter joy and puke-inducing pain of growing a company from scratch, because I’ve done it numerous times.

You should also know that some of these enterprises (two of them) have ended up losing me many hundreds of thousands of my own dollars.  Don’t worry, I’m OK.  I don’t need a hug anymore.  But I do like telling people at parties that both of these businesses were not-for-profit organisations…That wasn’t the intention when we started out, but that’s what happened in the end!

And so you might be asking why I would want to share this morsel of information about these ‘failures’ when the thought of sharing it would scare the bejesus out of most people if it were them?

Good question, Here’s why:

I share it because as a business owner who regularly seeks guidance from other successful business owners, I will always try to listen to those who have made mistakes, and who have moved on to greater achievements.  Kudos to them I reckon.

And perhaps by reading on, you may feel the same way.

While my internet background may not qualify me to be an analyst or a software developer, what it does qualify me for is to help.  All you need to do is get in touch.

Geek-free, strategic and holistic help to be successful online is what’s missing today for business owners.

Of course, that’s what we do…But more about that later.

My Web Designer Will Look After Me

Is it me, or does it seem that every web designer who gets spat out of Polytech with a Diploma these days is setting themselves up to be an Internet Marketing or SEO Expert?

Paah-leese. Give me a break.

You’ve probably already got a ‘web guy’ or a web-design company who built your site .  They’ve possibly done a good job of  ‘looking after you’ for I don’t know how long.

If you’re serious about ramping up your business growth, you will already know this:  That the internet – especially search,  social networking and online reputation management – will be an increasingly important part of your success…or failure if you chose to ignore it.  If you agree with this then trying to win without getting strategic help (no, not from your geek) is like trying to fish for marlin at the viaduct without leaving the jetty.  It’s doomed before you start, no matter how many blogs you read or how cool you think Twitter is!

Look, I have nothing against web designers or web developers.  How does that saying go? …Every home should have one, and some of my best friends are web designers (LOL).

While some of them have nice hair and are great executors of strategy, I wouldn’t get one to tell me HOW TO MAKE MONEY.  That would be like getting Michael Laws to  do a Power Point presentation explaining the benefits of Tino Rangatiratanga to the Business Round Table or the Sensible Sentencing Trust.  Even if it happened, it just wouldn’t work.

Yet that’s what we business owners do, eh?  Anything to do with the internet and we immediately get onto the web guy!  Yep, that probably worked OK 5 or 10 years ago.  Back then, lots of business owners thought the interweb thing was a bloody waste of time anyway and besides the whole bloody thing would blow over any bloody minute…

But it bloody didn’t.

Instead, it took off faster than it takes to admit that you slept with Tiger Woods.

Success online is not just about IT.  It’s about strategy, technology, marketing, communication and old fashioned selling skills.

Mainly though, success is about strategy and the execution of that strategy.  It’s not about shortcuts or the latest WordPress Plugin or CMS Platform or whatever…

What is Internet Marketing Strategy?

To me, strategy is about the holistic analysis and examination of important success factors that when executed, will result in business objectives being met.  It’s about principles that were true B.G. (Before Google) and are still true today.  And they’ll be just as relevant into the future, too.

Sadly, I see too many fellow business owners being romanced by (mostly) well-intentioned web designers, web developers and SEO consultants who make dumb recommendations without any application of important strategic principles.

I like this definition of strategy… In their book Exploring Corporate Strategy, Johnson and Scholes define strategy as follows:

“Strategy is the direction and scope of an organisation over the long-term: which achieves advantage for the organisation through its configuration of resources within a challenging environment, to meet the needs of markets and to fulfil stakeholder expectations.”

I’ll keep it brief because sometimes this stuff can make even my eyes glaze over; but in a nutshell, strategy (including Internet Marketing Strategy)  is about these six things:

• Where is your business trying to get to in the long-term (direction) and what part does the internet play in that?
• Which markets - both online and offline - should a business compete in, and what kind of activities are involved in such markets? (markets, online analysis & scope)
• Online, how can the business perform better than the competition in those markets? (analysis & advantage)?
• What resources (skills, assets, finance, relationships, technical competence, facilities) are required in order to be able to compete online? (resources).  And what methodologies and technologies need to be applied (e-commerce, seo, lead generation, online convesion, web platforms)
• What external, environmental factors affect the businesses’ ability to compete? (environment)?
• What are the values and expectations of those who have power in and around the business? (stakeholders, owners)

I could go on about Internet Marketing Strategy, but I won’t.  You will find lots of other articles on this site if you want to want to learn more about this subject.

But Here’s My Point…

Who do you have on your team who has built businesses online and offfline, who understands and lives for the net, who isn’t a ‘technician’ or a Geek, who can prove the claims they make (and not just regurgitate buzz-words or popular thinking)?

If you have no-one, or the person you have isn’t driving a constantly growing stream of funds into your operating account…then call me.

Planning your online strategy is just as important as planning your offline strategy.  It may be even more important depending on your business.

Your online success requires serious online strategic thinking.

While your IT guy or web designer play critical roles in the execution of strategy, there could be serious risks and implications if you don’t treat your internet marketing strategy in a holistic way, and with the importance it deserves.

Some of these implications might be:

• Engaging an SEO consultant to get you ranked higher in search engines only to find that the extra visitors to your site don’t translate into extra turnover or adequate ROI
• Going along with your web company or advertising agency who build you an overpriced website that has all the bells and whistles that you’ll never need,  that looks pretty but makes no money…and then having to pay the price of a new Aston Martin every time you want to make a tweak
• Entering into an arrangement where you are locked into your web company’s proprietary CMS or CRM system that you have to pay for every month…without the perceived extra value

And others…

These implications lead to one thing.  Wasted time and wasted money.

Free Online Strategy Meeting

We have limited resources (my time) to make the following offer, but for now anyway, I’d like to offer you a Free Strategy Meeting.  It’s up to 1 hr of my time and includes some research, ideas and concepts that will give you valueable options for business growth.

Go ahead and click the button below or else call or txt me directly on (021) 024 86566. My promise: no hard-sell, just information you can use.

Thank you for reading this.

Rhys Coffin
Internet Marketing  Specialist
CEO, Internet New Zealand Ltd

E: rhys@internetnewzealand.com
M: 021 024 86566

P.S.  My special offer is valid only while time-resources permit, and I reserve the right to end it at any time.

Internet Marketing Strategy

What the…!

You’ve had you “IT Guy” or your web company build your new website or upgrade your old one but since then, there have been no extra enquiries coming in…

What’s going on?

Well, it could be anything.  But usually it’s to do with not having the right plan or strategy in place at the start.

I’m sorry, but the philosophy of – “If you build it, they will come” – might work fine and dandy for Kevin Costner, but for most businesses this just won’t work when it comes to getting more leads or sales from your website.  Boo hoo.

While success online isn’t ‘rocket surgery’, it still requires careful research, planning, and execution.

Strategic Planning

Strategic Online Planning requires asking some pretty basic but important questions such as:

• How is your website performing now?
• What current traffic are you receiving?
• Who are the customers you are targeting?
• Who are your competitors online?
• What is your curent conversion of site visitors to action?
• What search engine rankings are you achieving now?
• What do you want visitors to do when they land on your website?
• What keywords are your target market using when they search for your products or services in Google?

Plus lots, lots more…

And while these questions sound simple enough, many business owners simply don’t ask them.

Why?

Because learning about how to succeed online takes effort (time) that many businesses don’t perceive to be worthy of investment.  It’s not necessarily their fault…after all, you don’t know what you don’t know, eh?

So, instead of doing things the right way, what do they do? In an effort to at least do something, they end up doing the wrong things by default:

Many just ask their web designer to ‘take care of it’.

Beyond Web Design

Well designed and executed web design is an important part of success online.  But it’s not everything.  Having a beautiful website that works really well…with no visitors,  is like a one legged man in a bottom-kicking contest.  Pointless.

It takes more than looking pretty.  It also takes tactics to rank well, use the right words, increase traffic, and convert those visitors into taking some action.  And all of that needs to be wrapped around a strategy that aligns with what your company objectives are.

If it sounds hard and expensive…it’s not!

Let Us Help You

If you’re still reading this, then we can assume you are part of a business or organisation that wants to grow.  You could be a retailer (offline or online), looking for qualified leads, a professional services company, or an ambitious company wanting to dominate your industry online.

Either way, go ahead and take the first step and request a free interview.

Dear Business Owner or Manager,

You might have seen the following formula floating around this website:  Online Success = R + (T x C).

It’s not meant to be rocket surgery.  It’s easy to understand and makes complete sense once you understand it.  It’s short for: Online Success = Rankings + (Traffic x Conversion)

Let me explain what it means:

For a website to achieve high Rankings in search engines in your chosen category or niche must have the right architecture.  It needs to be built in a certain way that sends a clear message to the web crawlers about exactly what your site is about.  We call this concept ‘relevance’ and it’s one of the most important aspects of achieving good SEO rankings.

As well as this there are other important factors like back-linking (getting other sites to link to you) and other off and on-page SEO factors, but we know now that relevance and what we call ‘theming’ are critical factors that are affected by how your site is built.

Traffic is simply the volume of visitors that come to your website over a peiod of time.  Good SEO rankings affect traffic because there is a link between your top 10 ranking and the number of clicks to your site.  But good SEO rankings are not the only way to increase traffic.  There are other strategies like dealing with returning visitors, permission (email) marketing, microsites, integration of  social networks (like twitter) and lots more.

The measurement of how many site visitors actually take some action that you desire is called Conversion.  Success with conversion is dependent on many factors.  Some of the main ones include site aesthetics (how pretty the site is), the use of compelling words and copy, the proper placement of the site’s key features like calls-to-action, newsletter sign up, the inclusion of list-building tactics such as whitepapers or mini email courses, the placement of different elements and lots more.

How Well Do You Stack Up?

How well is your website performing right now?  If you could double or triple the number of qualified enquiries you get over a month, and it continued without rest way into the future, would that be worth contacting us for a free strategy meeting to learn more?

Remember to achieve online success, there are a number of important factors involved, and each one needs to be handled correctly, and handled well.  That’s what we do.

If you’d like to get a written report outlining some genuinely practical ideas (assuming you have a site) that you can implement immediately, as well as some strategy and options for the future, please click on the button below.

We’ll send you a short questionairre to complete and within a day or two we’ll email our findings and suggestions – without any hard-sell or obligation.

I hope this information has been useful, and look forward to hearing from you.

Thank you for reading this.

Rhys Coffin
Director
Strategic SEO Specialist
Internet New Zealand Ltd

E: rhys@internetnewzealand.com

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via “natural” (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results.

If you’re a business owner or responsible for increasing customer numbers, and you don’t know much about  search engine optimisation (SEO), then you will love this article.

Here’s why:

You’ll learn about the basics of SEO (without your eyes glazing over) and get the chance to turn that undertanding into extra enquiries and extra business for you.

The internet, and particularly internet search engines like Google, now dominate the way that people interact with businesses. Just think how often you use a search engine now when you’re researching online.

SEO invoves a number of activities to do with improving the rankings of a website so that it appears as close to the top of a search engine for particular ‘keywords’. In New Zealand (as in the rest of the world, Google and Yahoo are the most popular search engines used.

There has been so much written about SEO that the mind boggles.  Since 2005 when we first started out in the SEO business things have changed so fast it’s incredible.

The Principles

But what hasn’t changed are the basic rules and philosophy of Google, Yahoo, Bing and other search engines.  And that is, that the goal of search engines is to HELP searchers to find what they want, fast.

I’m summarising here, but according to search engines, sites with the highest quality content that can deliver the most value and be the most relevant…will generally be seen to be the most trusted.  And being trusted wins when it comes to rankings or SERPS (Search Engine Ranking Positions).

My goal here is not to give you a run-down of everything that we’ve learned, experimented with and proven since 2005.  That would be nuts as well as an awesome cure for insomnia. If you really want to learn the ins and outs then just Google “SEO” and knock yourself out.

For the bulk of you still reading, my goal here is simply to help you understand what SEO is and why it is becoming so important .  Next, I want  to give you a peek into what’s involved in transforming an ‘invisible’ website in SERPS  (search engine ranking pages) into a google-leading, industry-dominating, traffic-magnet that turns clicks on your website… into dollars!

And when you do start to develop your understanding, not only will you be able to sound more ‘on to it’ at your next party, but you might actually start to get excited about how you can use SEO to help you reach your goals.

Search Engines:  How Do They Work? [In Plain English]

Why is SEO Important?

When we want to find more information about something, hear about something interesting from our friends, see a compelling television commercial, or need a local mechanic, the chances are the first place we turn is the Google search box.

These days, your search strategy is your business strategy, whether you realise it or not.  Why?, because search engines are how your potential customers are trying to find you.

Search is the new Yellow Pages, Finda, 0800 number, NZ Herald, Trade Me and cash register. No matter what kind of web site you have -whether it’s a media property like a blog, an ecommerce site, or the online arm of multinational corporation, you goal is to connect with as many of your potential audience as possible.  Would you agree?

Organic search can make that happen.

And being ‘optimised’ to attract and help searchers looking for you (especially if they have never heard of your brand) is where businesses can win…assuming you engage right the knowledge and strategy.

Search Engine Friendly Websites:  Some Basics

So, let’s assume that together (your company and ours) we set out to dominate your industry online for consumers shopping for what you sell.  Our objective (after extensive market, customer and competior research) would be develop a strategy that ticked all the search engine boxes:

• A site that is highly relevant
• A site with high quality SEO copywriting content and;
• A site that delivers real value so that people naturally want to share it with others

Next, we would build from scratch or makeover your site so that it can be easily discovered by search engines so the pages can be added to the list the ‘web crawlers’ use to traverse the web.  We make sure that the right keyphrases and keywords are represented on your site.

Then we use site architecture that doesn’t introduce obstacles that make the pages inaccessible to the crawlers.  This allows all content to be presented in a way that’s extractable for search engines to index.

And finally (speaking of content), we organise and write content based on relevance in a way that allows the search engines to understand our sites theme.  “Theming” a website is critical for achieving website relevance.

Of course there are a lot more mini-steps involved and we haven’t even started to talk about ‘online conversion’ yet!

What Are Your Business Goals?

What are your business goals?  Are any of the items below relevant to you?

• Get more clients?
• Beat your competitors?
• Start other businesses or projects?
• Sell more stuff online or get more leads?
• Expand nationally or internationally?
• Get on to the NBR rich list (or back on it)?
• Set your business up so you can spend more time doing cool things with the people you love?
• End the war in the Middle East (ok, I made that on up)?

Seriously, if you have a business that provides products or services that add true value to consumers, and you want to serve as many of them as you can, then we would like to show you how we can use SEO as part of the solution to achieve this.

Thank you for reading this.

Rhys Coffin
Director
Strategic SEO Specialist
Internet New Zealand Ltd

P.S. When you request a free interview you’ll receive strategic insight into your website and company’s performance online… as well as cost-effective ideas to grow sales using SEO.

SEO Search Engine Optimisation