Clubnet Search Marketing RSS Feed

Link Building Due-Diligence: The Guest Blogging Checklist

Tue, 01 May 2012 17:39:29 +0100

The Penguin update landed and the SERPs got flipped upside down - I’ve not got all the answers yet (nobody has) and this post certainly isn’t going to be a “how to recover from Penguin” - it is simply a best-practice checklist for ensuring you only acquire links which are going to be worthwhile for you now and long into the future.

Guest blogging is really easy to get wrong, as with all SEO techniques, the secret sauce is the execution. It is very easy to destroy your rankings with some craptastic “guest posts” on low-quality splogs.

With this in mind, and taking into account the opinion (my opinion!) that bad links can harm your rankings, today I will cover a few of the things we look for when we are assessing a site’s suitability:

We look at a website from three perspectives

Link strength
Website...

Bringing Your E-Commerce Site to International Markets

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 17:14:45 +0100

Breaking into international marketing as an e-commerce vendor might seem intimidating, but in reality it’s a wonderful marketing opportunity for anyone willing to engage in regionalization and quality translation. Don’t let timidity keep you locked into your domestic market. Let’s take a look at some solid advice for would-be international marketers.

Being Aware of Fraud

Internationally, fraud is a much more common occurrence than it is in most domestic markets. Dealing with fraud and fraudulent orders should be a top concern for anyone looking to expand into the international market. Payment processing services and software that check consumer information like security codes, shipping addresses, etc, are a good start, but ultimately a little foot-and-phonework can be your best friend in this area.

If an order looks fishy, don’t wait around to get bitten. Check things out. Call banks, verify addresses to credit card holders, and be...

Social Media Optimization Tracking Tool – QuickTagger

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 16:23:22 +0100

Ever wanted to track your traffic from your social media websites? Social media is probably the source of a large percentage of your website's traffic. Oddly enough, there aren't many tools you can use to track this traffic. To try and curb spam, most of the large social media websites will obscure your outbound links, effectively removing any embedded coding, such as one necessary for tracking. Luckily, QuickTagger has found a way to embed your codes without the risk of being stripped by your social media. This makes QuickTagger a tool that will allow you to quickly categorize and therefore track the effectiveness of where you post links to your own website.

In social media, time is precious. So, optimize your time by using QuickTagger. It takes only a few seconds to get links that...

How You Can Dominate Your Local Market with Local SEO

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 15:31:04 +0100

Every business — from the local florist shop to the best divorce lawyers in New York — need to practice local SEO in order to stay competitive online.

Why Local SEO is Ideal

For instance, say you are a New York City-based attorney. Would you aim to optimize a general keyword like “lawyer”? In theory it sounds good, but it would take a lot of time and energy to optimize “lawyer” to get a first page rank in the SERPs for such a general word.

Focus on optimizing keywords for your local market. For instance “New York City divorce lawyer” would be easier to rank for than just “divorce lawyer.”

You can add your city to your optimized words and receive a first page rank sooner and with less effort since you’re not competing on a global scale. With local SEO you attract highly targeted traffic because these visitors are going to be in the area that you serve. If they are searching for...

The Changes to Google Analytics

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 14:01:33 +0100

Protecting user privacy is at the heart of many businesses on the internet. As of February, Google is taking steps to protect the privacy of users by splitting search queries into two camps. The change is coming to the users that have a Google universal login so that their searches are not directly attributed to their user identification. The keyword level data from users that are logged in will be returned as "not provided" or "not set". All other search data will be reported as normal.

Money vs. Privacy

Privacy may not be the only motivating factor for Google’s welcomed change. Speculation from professionals cites that the difference will push Google’s new paid analytics further apart from the free tools. It may help to drive more users to take advantage of Google AdWords or purchase the new set of tools. Other changs may include easier processing requirements for the servers to handle all this information or even a change in some SEO...

How to Protect Your Reputation Online

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 17:28:54 +0100

Working hard to develop a decent and credible reputation has always been at the top of our list of priorities, right? Displaying a strong and powerful online identity is a key objective when laying out our initial plans for an internet marketing scheme. But in this new era of business that has gone digital, we must rethink how to best go about protecting our good reputation on the internet. Anyone, anywhere in the world can publish whatever content they want on the internet. This includes those of disgruntled employees and unhappy customers as well as a nasty competitor. An excellent corporate reputation or personal name recognition that has been gained by years of hard work and trustworthy service can instantly be brought into question by articles, photographs, statements or slight insinuations as well as vicious comments made by anyone on the web. That is something that must be taken into consideration, but with a little forethought and planning you can not only minimise those...

Why You Should Avoid "Create Your Own Website" Services

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 15:50:15 +0100

There are plenty of businesses that offer free tools or low cost services that allow you to create your own website. However, using these services to create a site for your business is rarely a good idea. Despite their slick advertising campaigns and promises to publish your website in just a few clicks, the end result can be very generic and disappointing.

The attraction of creating a website yourself is easy to understand. Most businesses recognise that a web presence is necessary to attract customers and get their marketing message across. But sometimes there is a perception that getting a site built is expensive. In tough economic times, any opportunity to save money is attractive.

The reality however is a poor website can cost your business far more than you save. 'Create Your Own Site' services have been around for years but they have not replaced the need for professional web designers for many good reasons.

Low cost, low value

All...

Crucial Tips To Design An E-Commerce Website

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 12:03:50 +0000

A website for e-commerce can be either asymmetrical or symmetrical but the important point is that it should be strong in promoting its product and services. The website should 'shout out' the core purpose of its existence.

Various elements like a shopping cart, its simplicity, the advanced search options and relevant product pages should be easily available and well designed.

Preferably, an ecommerce site should focus on what it wants to sell, and hence, should be easy to navigate through with a simply, symmetrical layout that is easy for the consumer to understand. Your website layout must include:-

About Page
Home Page
Services
Individual Product Pages

Besides this, especially in e-commerce sites, the above the fold regions should contain the most important information like those for log-in, sales, discounts and such offers. This is because, as per human psychology,...

Open Source Shopping Carts – What to Look Out For

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 14:44:36 +0000

Though open source software has been mostly associated with web applications, operating systems and multimedia functions, it is also being increasingly used in e-commerce. This post offers some insight into open source shopping carts.

Open source software is a great option for anyone who wants to add a shopping cart to their site. Open source offers several advantages. First, it is very cost-effective, and in many cases absolutely free. Secondly, it is very flexible. Open source will enable you to create your shopping cart according to your specific requirements. There are find numerous modules and templates which you can use to design your cart according to your business needs.

Before choosing open source software, you need to carry out some research. You need to make sure that the open source shopping cart fulfills all your needs. The following are some things to look out for.

Compatibility with payment gateway

Your...

Blogging Etiquette Rules To Improve Bounce Rate

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 16:16:06 +0000

Internet users are notorious for their short attention spans, so as a blog owner, you need to grab their attention within the first few seconds. Blog readers are not very forgiving when a site owner breaks some unwritten, important rules of blogging. If you unintentionally break these rules, you'll lose your reader in mere seconds. Your readers have a choice of hundreds, or even thousands, of blogs within a certain niche. You don't want to lose a potential reader by turning them off in the first few seconds of landing on your site, so follow these straightforward blog etiquette rules.

If you use statistics or Google Analytics to analyse traffic data, pay attention to your bounce rate. This tells you how long readers stay on your site. If your bounce rate shows that readers are leaving your site soon after arriving, you will need to make some changes. Take an objective look at your site to get an...