It’s fair to say that the internet has provided a vast number of opportunities to market your business, and often far more affordable than some of the more traditional marketing mediums such as TV and Radio.

The internet has to some extent leveled the playing field allowing small businesses to compete with larger corporates as everyone is able to get their marketing message across at relatively low cost.

However it’s important to remember that internet marketing is just one part of an overall marketing strategy, albeit a large part, but there are lots of offline activities that can be really effective and generating business and increasing the profile of your brand.

For example direct mail can be a very effective and relatively low cost offline activity, ironically some people feel this is more effective than email marketing now, because less people do it, therefore those that do stand out more.

Networking is another key area, this gives you the opportunity to meet with other like minded businesses on a regular basis, and to talk about what you do. Most networking events are held outside of core business hours and therefore offer a perfect opportunity to market yourself and your business without having a drain on your or your sales teams productivity.

Telemarketing can also be very effective, although it’s important to understand that this can often have a lower conversion rate than other marketing methods, and therefore the service or product should be of a high enough value to justify the cost and ensure a return on investment. Lower conversion rate does not mean it should be discounted as part of your marketing mix as long as it is profitable.

So whilst we are firm believers in the power of internet marketing, we would always encourage people to remember that a marketing strategy should contain a number of methods online and offline.

David Vallance is Managing Director at Kit Happens Ltd, an internet marketing business providing web design, SEO services,social media marketing, email marketing and graphic design, in Milton Keynes, Northampton, Luton, Bedford and the Midlands.

No doubt many of you will have already heard about one of their latest updates known as  Penguin, designed to target webspam and over optimised websites.

We are often asked about Google updates and what impact they have had on our clients, and we always have the same answer. 99% of the time google updates are not a surprise, they are simply trying to enforce the same policies they’ve always tried to encourage. Therefore if people have followed the existing quality guidelines generally webmasters should have very little to worry about.

It’s helpful to understand that google does consider search engine optimisation (SEO) to be positive when done properly and when it helps to improve the user experience and ensure that the site is relevant with quality content.

Again something we often highlight to our clients is that websites are designed to be viewed by human visitors, so whilst optimisation is important it should never be at the expense of the user experience and should actually improve the accessibility and ensure that users can find the content most relevant to them as easily as possible.

So what does Google consider to be webspam?

Two key areas google have targeted with this update are keyword stuffing, and linking schemes from low quality sites or content and sites that have no relevance.

Keyword stuffing is the practice of including lots of keywords within a website in order to try and manipulate rankings. A common way of achieving this is to have keywords listed in the same colour as the background of the site, therefore not visible to visitors, but search engines can see them. Alternatively people also include an excessive number of keywords within title tags or alt attributes.

Linking schemes that breach search engine guidelines are quite common on article based sites, where you can see hyperlinked keywords that have no relevance to the content on the page.

So in summary as long as you follow the search engine guidelines, then algorithm updates should not have a negative affect on your rankings, in fact they are designed to improve them and reward people that focus on building quality sites and content.

David Vallance is Managing Director at Kit Happens Ltd, an internet marketing business providing web design, SEO services,social media marketing, email marketing and graphic design, in Milton Keynes, Northampton, Luton, Bedford and the Midlands.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) gave companies 1 year in order to become compliant, however as the 1 year anniversary of this law and the compliance deadline approaches there still seems to be so much confusion.

This confusion is due to that fact that whilst the law was passed, there has been no real guidance or solutions offered as to how companies can be compliant, however in simple terms if your website uses cookie’s in order to be 100% compliant you need to be asking for consent before these are installed on a users machine.

Many people argue that this is a ridiculous law and that by effectively making 90% of all websites illegal it will be un-enforceable.  Also generally speaking cookies are actually a positive thing, they help to speed up and improve the user experience online.

It is important however to realize that whilst many of us may not agree with the approach, the purpose of the law was to protect users privacy online which is of course a positive thing. Arguably however this could have been achieved far more easily and at much less cost by educating users and making browser features to disable cookies more obvious.

So what is a Cookie?

A cookie is a small file, downloaded on to a device when the user accesses certain websites. Cookies are then sent back to originating website on each subsequent visit. Cookies are useful because they allow a website to recognise a user’s device.

An example of a positive use for Cookies might be an e-commerce site, if you add something to an online basket and then don’t complete the purchase, often you will find the next time you return that item is still within your basket.

Also tools such as Google Analytics use Cookies, this enables website owners to monitor traffic across their website, using this data they can improve the user experience and ensure they are providing relevant content.

What is kithappens approach?

Currently there is still much confusion and in our opinion better guidance is needed from the ICO, therefore we are not recommending any single approach to compliance, however we are closely monitoring developments and have a number of solutions available already.

If you are concerned about the Cookie Law and how this might affect you, please Contact Us and we’ll be happy to discuss this with you and provide you with a number of different options.

It may be pervasive, but is it persuasive?

There is a lot of drivel that finds its way into our in boxes and online social groups and ‘expert’s appear to be growing exponentially.

Platforms and networks are proliferating like rabbits in a field.

Linked In; Face Book; Twitter ; Saga Zone ; Google +; You Tube; Hoot suite; Tweet Deck..To name a few…….

We must NOT throw away good marketing basics in order to ‘get in’ on the latest  i-Fad.  Putting an ill-thought-out corporate profile into the public domain, without giving it the same rigorous thought that you would  to a corporate brochure, for example, could be counter-productive.

There is no substitute for preparation and SMM is no replacement for personal contact and communication.

People need to feel valued and important. No-one likes to be sold to, but most people do like to buy.

Thoughts to Ponder

1: SMM Magnifies and Amplifies what is there already.

This means that if the business or product has flaws, it will not ‘paper over’ these cracks, but will simply expose them to a wider audience. Best to get our ethos and offering right before we launch it into ‘ether’ space.

2: People still like the human touch.

These media do give the opportunity to showcase personality and product, but when it comes down to it, ( and there will always be exceptions),most people like people contact. This is why frustration grows when we are forced to navigate from one telephone menu of options to another.

Social media is NOT an e-commerce web site where people expect to buy on line, it is an interface designed to give a personal face to an otherwise amorphous business.

Consider what you write, be informative, be generous, be approachable and avoid the hard sell.

3: Know what your Corporate Message is

Branding is very important and takes mastery to achieve. We all stand in awe at the genius behind simple strap lines that have the ability to recall entire branding messages.

We must know what our core message is. SMM can only amplify what already exists.

4: Use Complimenting Strategies

A clearly defined business strategy and goal can be supported by a clear social media presence.

It can endorse your work and establish you as an expert in your field and should be a fundamental ‘part’ of you marketing plan.

There are right and wrong ways of doing this and we will be shedding some light on this in future bulletins.

David Vallance is Managing Director at Kit Happens Ltd, an internet marketing business providing web design, SEO services,social media marketing, email marketing and graphic design, in Milton Keynes, Northampton, Luton, Bedford and the Midlands.

Search Engine Submission

Before we explain more about site maps we’ll address a few mis-conceptions around search engine submission.

Firstly it is free, very quick and easy for anyone to do. Secondly re-submitting your site over and over again will not improve your rankings and if anything will have the opposite effect and be viewed as spamming (unfortunately there are lots of companies out there misleading people when it comes to submission services). Once your site is indexed, in order to improve your rankings you need to look at implementing on-site SEO and then off-site SEO as well depending on the amount of competition in your market. Remember re-submitting your site is not going to improve your rankings.

So what is the advantage of submitting a sitemap?

A sitemap generated for search engines is different to the type of site map you may have on your website itself which is a simplified way for users to navigate your site, although the concept is the same.

A site map in this case is an XML document which effectively tells them all the pages that your site contains and where to find them.

Now if you simply submit your site to search engines you are only submitting the overall domain, which means when they index your site they are less likely to index internal pages, so submitting a site map increases the chances of internal pages being indexed more quickly as well, which can increase your chances of ranking higher.

How do I submit a sitemap?

Well firstly you need to generate an XML sitemap ready for submission. To do this if you simply google the phrase XML sitemap you should find a number of free tools that will allow you to do this. You simply enter your domain name and then it will look at your entire site and produce an XML sitemap. Note these free tools usually have a limit on the number of pages a sitemap can contain before they charge you, so if you have a larger site you will need to pay a small amount for the service.

Once you have your sitemap then you need to sign in to webmaster tools in google and Bing or site explorer in yahoo. Once signed in you will be able to find the site map submission area and upload your XML sitemap from your local machine.

We’re not suggesting that you don’t submit your website to search engines separately, but only do this if your site is not already indexed.

David Vallance is Managing Director at Kit Happens Ltd, an internet marketing business providing web design, SEO services,social media marketing, email marketing and graphic design, in Milton Keynes, Northampton, Luton, Bedford and the Midlands.

Gilly has performed live in front of 35,000 people at the annual Milton Keynes Fireworks spectacular. The CD will make a great gift, with all net proceeds going straight to Willen Hospice.

The song was originally performed at the 2011 Summer Concert at Olney Parish Church, near Milton Keynes, and created for the Megalith TV charity film “Always There to Care”.

John Hawkes, the songwriter, was touched by Willen Hospice over a decade ago and kindly gifted the song so that the Hospice could raise vital funds.

The song has special meaning for Gilly because her father, Fred Mitchell, was cared for at Willen Hospice in 2010. This is how Gilly describes her experience:

“Willen Hospice was a place that said to me let’s embrace life, let’s celebrate it, let’s focus on the good we can do here. Willen Hospice gave my Dad his life back during his stay — it was the most comfortable he had been in a long time. Willen Hospice is a truly wonderful and inspiring place and I will never, ever forget its support and kindness through the most difficult of times”.

The CD is a real collaboration of local talent with not only John’s writing and Gilly’s vocal skills, but Alan Haughton, a local accomplished composer who orchestrated the music and Phil English, a recording engineer based in Willen village, who provided his skills to produce the track. Marshall Amplification has kindly helped in sponsoring the CD to ensure that all net proceeds go directly to Willen Hospice and Igloo Creative donated their fantastic creative and design skills for the supporting materials.

For more information please visit www.willen-hospice.org.uk or contact Helen Green, Marketing & Communications Manager on 01908 306983 or email: greenh@willen-hospice.org.uk

Here are some key reasons why you might want to consider outsourcing your telemarketing activities:

When you use current staff members to perform your telemarketing, you are usually placing an inexperienced individual into a stressful and demoralising position. Those emotions of stress and dispiritedness soon transfer to the call’s recipient who unconsciously sense’s their distress and rather than feeling confident about your product or service, they want to terminate the call quickly. Inexperienced staff, often working without a script or well-written guide, quickly becomes ineffective and even counterproductive.

Your office environment may not be the best place to conduct a successful telemarketing campaign. With other staff around, your telemarketer feels self-conscious and censors themselves. By focusing on limiting social embarrassment, your telemarketer stops listening to the call recipient and successfully responding to their signals.

One of the most compelling reasons to outsource your telemarketing requirements is the cost associated with setting up your own telemarketing. Cost comes in two forms, time and money. Consider the cost of training your staff in telemarketing techniques, in advertising for new staff, over time costs, the cost of equipment, diallers, software, scripts, the morale costs on staff working unsociable hours and finally the cost of the calls. Good telemarketers don’t want to be constrained by limited talk time limits. These costs are all included in the provision provided by your professional telemarketing service.

To find out how we can help you to generate more sales opportunities Contact Us Today

YouTube has made it very simple for users to upload video content.  First, a new user must visit the YouTube website and register http://www.youtube.com/.  A person or organisation that does not register with YouTube will not be able to submit a YouTube video.  Non-users can watch YouTube videos but they are not able to provide (upload) any content.  This is because YouTube wants to have a record of all people that submit a video.  As an aside, when a new user registers for YouTube they are registering with Google, as YouTube is owned by Google.

Once the simple registration is completed, the actual steps to uploading a video are very simple.  You must select ‘upload’ from the navigation at the top, then they will be taken to a screen where they will have the following options; Select files from your computer, Upload multiple files, Record from webcam. It is also now possible to drag and drop files onto the page in order to start the upload.

Whilst the video is uploading you must then enter a title to the video, the title should be relevant to the content within the video.  Next, you will have to create a description of what the video is about, enter tags for the video, as well as selecting a category. As you might expect from YouTube since it is owned by Google a major part of the functionality is the quality search feature, having tags for the uploaded material makes this possible. This is where it’s important to refer back to SEO, in other words use keywords that are relevant, but also that receive traffic. If you have not already completed keyword research then this would be a good idea before completing any of this data. Remember YouTube videos now appear in normal search results so this can be a great way of gaining additional exposure if done correctly.

Once the category and tags are in place it’s necessary to select privacy settings, you have the option to select public, which means anyone on the internet can view your content, unlisted which means anyone you provide the link to can view the video, or private which means only people you choose can view the video. Typically if the video is for promotional purposes then you would select ‘public’ here.

Finally you then need to choose your license type, the options here are: ‘Standard YouTube License’ and ‘Creative Commons Attribution License’, the latter essentially means you will permit others to re-use your content as long as they give you credit. You can read a full explanation as to what these mean on the YouTube site of course.

Once this last step is complete all that remains is to wait for the video to upload. Once complete you will have the option to watch the video, email a link to share the video or even get code to embed the video elsewhere on the internet.

David Vallance is Managing Director at Kit Happens Ltd, an internet marketing business providing web design, SEO services, social media marketing, email marketing and graphic design, in Milton Keynes, Northampton, Luton, Bedford and the Midlands.

Friday 23rd December: 8.30am – 12.30pm
Monday 26th December: Closed
Tuesday 27th December: Closed
Wednesday 28th December: Closed
Thursday 29th December: Closed
Friday 30th December: Closed
Monday 2nd January: Closed
Tuesday 3rd January: 8.30am – 5.30pm

Should you need to contact someone in the event of an emergency whilst we are closed, please call either 07900 912248 or 07717 886793.

We would like to take this opportunity to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year.

Since the majority of people just skim the top of their email in a preview pane the best email marketing tip is to put your best offer in the top of the email or in the subject line. Make sure that there is something to catch their attention so they want to open the email completely. Tell them the deal right off; don’t make them go searching to the bottom of the email to find out who you are and what you can offer them. The email is meant to give them your companies name and the deal that you can offer them; the boring legal parts don’t need to be at the top.

To make sure that they see the emphasis on certain keywords make sure that these are easily readable. If you’ve got a promotion for 50% off, make sure that it’s seen. Use colour, bold and larger font sizes to catch the eye. The human eye naturally goes to anything that is different and stands out, use this to your advantage. This also stands for any links to your site in the email, make sure they can easily find it so they go to your site or your email marketing won’t work. No one wants to have to open up a search engine and try to find your site, give it to them in the email in large, bold print so they can’t miss it.

One of the best email marketing tips is to make it personalized. Email users are more likely to read an email that is addressed to them than a general one that they can tell is sent to hundreds of others, we all want to feel unique and special. In the beginning of the email place their name, the human eye catches familiar words and our names are the most familiar to us. By personalizing the email you make your client feel special and not just a number. Any client will tell you that they go back to the places that treat them like individuals rather than just a statistic.

Email marketing can be one of the least costly and most effective marketing methods when used properly. Of course the use may vary for different companies, for example service based companies often may use email marketing as a way to demonstrate their expertise, building expert status and trust with their target audience. This approach helps to build profile so that when people are in need of these services your company is the first one that comes to mind and is already perceived as a reputable and proven expert.

David Vallance is Managing Director at Kit Happens Ltd, an internet marketing business providing web design, SEO services, social media marketing, email marketing and graphic design, in Milton Keynes, Northampton, Luton, Bedford and the Midlands.

To find out more about how we can help your business achieve more online Contact Us Today.