Welcome to some useful Tips and Tricks about your Web site and the pages you display for your customers.

Search Engine Optimization or SEO is an ongoing work in progress and to keep your pages and site active you will be required to keep your site up to date with current and useful information.

Analyzing Your site and traffic

Making the Most of Google Places

7 reasons why having more than one domain name can help your online business

When deciding to get your company an online presence many business owners make the mistake of purchasing just a single domain name. Over time this can proof costly for a number of reasons. Instead business owners should obtain a variety of domain names for their company.

The main reason for registering more domain names is to enhance your online identity. By registering abbreviations and variations of your company name you will get the advantage of creating many different doorways for customers to walk in to your on-line business. Furthermore you will also protect your company from competitor hijackings that can restrict your online activity.

So what are the key benefits for registering more than one domain name?

Expansion: Should your company go global and branch into international markets then it is important to have country specific domains. It is a well known fact that .com domains rank lower than country specific domains such as .au.com or.co.uk.
Misspellings: It is important that users can find your site. Allowing for mis-spellings of the name will mean you can direct users who misspell your business name to the right destination instead of sending visitors to an error page.
Competition: Acquiring more than one domain name for your business will mean avoiding pesky competition from registering a similar domain name and restricting your marketing reach.
Offers: Registering variants can enable you to market and promote different products and services and even run successful competitions with an offer specific URL.
Search: A website which has many of domain names attached to it is a lot easier to find. Customers much prefer having more than one way of finding you when searching the internet.
Brand: Protect your brand and online identity is essential for any online business. Securing a variety of names will inevitably boost your brand presence and prevent other companies hijacking your company’s essence.
Traffic: Purchasing keyword rich domains will play a valuable part in your search engine optimistation (SEO) plan and will no doubt increase traffic and search engine discoverability

Analyzing Your site and traffic

Here are two ways you can monitor your site and how it is performing, remember though that if you are not updating or improving your site regularly then these statistics are not likely to change too much from month to month.

Remember Google is not the only search engine in use on the web you also have Yahoo, Microsoft Bing and many more smaller ones. Google may be the dominant one but if you write content solely for Google how much more business are you missing from those that do NOT use Google?

Google Webmaster tools

- these tools are accessible by anyone with a website NOT just the webmaster or the website creators

- As an interested business owner I suggest you look at these on a regular basis for ideas on how your site is performing and to maybe get some ideas on how to improve the performance. www.google.com/webmasters

- You will need to make some changes or add a file to your site for this to happen and we can do this for you, at a nominal charge, if you wish.

AW STATS

AW STATS is accessed from your cPanel provided with all Hosting services on Cloud9 Marketing Solutions

- Access is from www.yourdamain.com.au/cpanel

- you will need the user name and password provided to you at the time of hosting, if you do not have these details then please go to our contact page to request them

- Documentation is available here to help you understand these statistics awstats.sourceforge.net/docs/awstats_what.html or maybe confuse you but each term is explained

Webalizer

Webalizer is accessed from your cPanel provided with all Hosting services on Cloud9 Marketing Solutions and will give a graphical view of your site

- Access is from www.yourdamain.com.au/cpanel

- you will need the user name and password provided to you at the time of hosting, if you do not have these details then please go to our contact page to request them

Making the most of Google Places

Geo-location marketing is the current darling of social media and Google Places is at the forefront of this trend. If you haven’t yet claimed a Google Places page for your business, then you should. It’s free, easy-to-use and highly beneficial to both your search and brand image.

What is it?

A Google Places page is a free service for businesses which can display information relating to your business, such as hours of operation, address, phone number, email address, website URL, photos and videos. It can also describe your products and services and allows customers to add reviews to your page.

Why is it useful?

The biggest reason for getting a Google Place page is search. Both on computers and on mobile browsers Google puts emphasis on Places pages in its localised search results. By not having a Google Places page, you're hurting your chances of being on the first page of search results. Google Places adds particular value to businesses that serve local customers.

What’s more, a red pin that shows the business’s location on a corresponding map also accompanies all Google Places pages that are shown in search results. Having a geographical presence on search engines is proving increasingly popular and beneficial for both sales and traffic alike.

Top Tips to create a great Google Places Page

Add keywords to your description
You have up to 200 characters to describe your business. Make sure you use your key search words and write a compelling description that will appeal to users.
Add images and videos to your page
Photos and videos can add brand value to your page and will make your business stand out from others. You can add up to 10 photos and up to five videos for free.
Add a URL to your Google Page
This may sound obvious, however many still forget to do this. Having your URL on your Places page will increase traffic and offer users a chance to find out more.
Be precise with your location
Adding a precise address for your business will enable users to see your exact location on Google Maps in relation to theirs or other nearby landmarks.
Encourage customers to add reviews
Reviews can be the difference between someone choosing your business over another. Reviews add authenticity to your page and also flesh out your listing.
Create a Places Page for each location
If your business has a number of different locations, create individual pages for each of them. This will help with search and will enable you to list contact details for each venue.
Get listed in relevant online business directories
Do not create your own categories or directories, instead stick to the ones already used by Google Places, that way should somebody search a directory your business will be found.
Claim your page
Even if you haven’t created a Places page yet, your business may in fact have one. This is because Google has the ability to automatically create a Places page or listing for your business based on social networks, maps and other information. If this happens ensure that you claim ownership of the page immediately so that you can then manage the information it contains.
Promote your promotions
Although the page’s primary purpose is to offer information, there is no reason for you not to mention any running campaigns or promotions on it. Featuring special deals and discounts can enhance the appeal of your page.
Track you page’s analytics
Monitoring your Google Places page with analytics can teach you a number of things about the people who are searching and discovering your business or service. Google Places is equipped with an analytics dashboard that can automatically email you findings.