Google Page Rank Update – Well for this, my online business blog, it seems that I managed to maintain a nice solid 3! Which I’m happy with for the time being.

It seems that Google is updating it’s Page Ranks in cycles of roughly 2 – 3 month intervals, so start working on your content now, you may get a nice boost in the next update…

Strangely, my Restaurant Directory lost page rank on the home page (down to PR1 from PR2) but the traffic took a surge upwards as can be seen in the screenshot below. Note that the google PR update was roughly the same time as the surge (plus or minus a few days).

The blog section of the website, http://feedmelah.com/blog also maintained a PR of 3. Which means that potentially, some more of the inner pages of the site managed to get PR increases, perhaps from a 0 to a 1?

Hence forcing them up the search engines a precious place or two and bringing in the extra readers.

Google, oh what a Mystery you are.

-William Lee

When choosing the title of your post, it’s important to keep a few things in mind. These being a) are you approaching it from an SEO point of view or b) are you writing it as a title to ‘catch’ your audience?

Of course a combination of both would be the best, although it will be alot harder to write one of these.

For example, from an SEO point of view, you’d want to write: “How To Drive Traffic Using Articles”, this would give the best long term SEO value for your post as it is exactly what someone might type into Google searching for that information.

From a ‘catchy’ point of view, you may write instead: “Articles Articles, Read All About It!”, ok that wasn’t the best example but you can see what I mean.

SEO works if you’ve already got a good Google Page rank, as posts you write will appear higher up in the Search Ranking on the 1st page.

Writing catchy post titles works if you drive traffic by other means, such as through Twitter, which benefits alot more from short interesting info bytes, such as a catchy title.

If you’ve got tonnes of direct traffic, then it doesn’t really matter, you can lable post titles whatever you want.

For the rest of us, spare a thought about how you phrase your title, SEO or short and snappy, it can make a big difference.

Till next time,

-William Lee

Getting content for your blog, website or even for your email marketing campaigns can be quite a time consuming task and extremely expensive if you hire a writer to create articles for you.

One useful alternative is the use of Private Label Rights (PLR) articles which can be used to generate content. Please note I used the word ‘generate’ not populate. There’s quite a difference.

If you take the PLR articles and make NO changes to them for your blog or website you probably will, over time, be penalized by Google, Yahoo and MSN and your search engine placement will take a hit because of it.

Basically, they are penalizing you for plagiarizing.

The best way to use PLR articles is to take the content, copy and paste it (for email campaigns – since the search engines don’t track that) and for blogs and websites, rewrite the articles in your own point of view.

You can also use related articles to create e-books or special reports that you can give away as an incentive to joining your site, or even sell off to generate revenue.

So give PLR articles a try, they’ll simplify the content generation process.

-William Lee

p.s. I have a PLR Mega-Pack containing 100,000+ PLR articles that I’m selling at an Ultra-Low price of USD$5.99 for ALL 100,000+ articles, or just USD$1 for each category.

If you’re interested, contact me and I’ll send you a FREE sample of the categories that you’re interested in.

The available categories are listed below:

Arts and Entertainment

· Celebrities

· Humanities

· Humor

· Movies

· Music

· Photography

· Poetry

Business

· Advertising

· Careers

· Customer Service

· Entrepreneurs

· Ethics

· Home Based Business

· Management

· Marketing

· Networking

· Public Relations

· Sales

· Small Business

Computers and Technology

· Communications

· Computer Certification

· Data Recovery

· Games

· Hardware

· Home Entertainment

· Mobile A/V

· Networks

· Software

· Web Development

Fashion

· Clothing

· Jewelry

· Shoes

Finance

· Credit

· Currency Trading

· Debt

· Debt Consolidation

· Fundraising

· Insurance

· Investing

· Leasing

· Loans

· Mortgage

· Mutual Funds

· Personal Finance

· Real Estate

· Stock Market

· Taxes

· Wealth Building

Food and Beverage

· Coffee

· Cooking

· Gourmet

· Recipes

· Wine

Health and Fitness

· Acne

· Alternative Medicine

· Beauty

· Cardio

· Depression

· Diabetes

· Disease and Illness

· Exercise

· Fitness Equipment

· Hair Loss

· Medicine

· Meditation

· Men’s Issues

· Muscle Building

· Nutrition

· Supplements

· Weight Loss

· Women’s Issues

· Yoga

Home and Family

· Babies

· Crafts

· Elderly Care

· Gardening

· Hobbies

· Holidays

· Home Improvement

· Home Security

· Interior Design

· Landscaping

· Parenting

· Pets

· Pregnancy

Internet Business

· Affiliate Programs

· Article Marketing

· Auctions

· Audio-Video Streaming

· Blogging

· Domains

· Ebooks

· Ecommerce

· Email Marketing

· Ezine Marketing

· Ezine Publishing

· Forums

· Internet Marketing

· Podcasts

· PPC Advertising

· RSS

· Security

· SEO

· Site Promotion

· Spam

· Traffic Generation

· Web Design

· Web Hosting

Product Reviews

· Book Reviews

· Consumer Electronics

· Digital Products

· Movie Reviews

· Music Reviews

Recreation and Sports

· Biking

· Extreme

· Fishing

· Gambling and Casinos

· Golf

· Hunting

· Martial Arts

· Running

· Tennis

Reference and Education

· College

· Environmental

· Homeschooling

· K-12 Education

· Language

· Legal

· Philosophy

· Psychology

· Science

· Sociology

· Weather

Self Improvement

· Attraction

· Coaching

· Creativity

· Goal Setting

· Grief

· Happiness

· Innovation

· Inspirational

· Leadership

· Motivation

· Organizing

· Spirituality

· Stress Management

· Success

· Time Management

Society

· Dating

· Divorce

· Marriage

· Politics

· Relationships

· Religion

· Weddings

Travel and Leisure

· Aviation

· Boating

· Cruises

· Destinations

· Outdoors

· Travel Tips

· Vacations

Vehicles

· Boats

· Cars

· Motorcycles

· RVs

· Trucks/ SUVs

Writing and Speaking

· Article Writing

· Book Marketing

· Copywriting

· Public Speaking

· Writing

If you’re interested, contact me and I’ll send you a FREE sample of the categories that you’re interested in.

(Click for larger image)

Being a small business, your marketing budget is probably one of the last things on your mind, with your operational costs and managing your bottom line the first thing on your mind when you get in to work each day.

Many business owners discount the fact that Marketing is what brings in the leads, which if converted, turns into sales. Increasing the total number of sales is by far the best way to increase your profits and get you back into the black, but it usually sits on the shelf.

Why? Because many businesses don’t have much of a budget to maintain their current operations, what more to advertise with online or offline methods? But marketing CAN be done on a shoestring budget you just have to know where to look.

[Nett Magazine] gives these great cost saving tips for marketing your product or service if you’re on a small budget:

1. Email newsletters. The business owners in our survey rated this as their most effective marketing tool. It’s generally easier and less expensive to win more sales from your existing clients than to go out and find new ones, and a newsletter is a great way to build a community of interest and make clients feel engaged. The key is to provide genuinely useful information, then build an offer around it.

2. Networking. The cheapest marketing method of all, networking is essential for service-based businesses, especially those who sell to other businesses. But effective networking is an art in itself. Start by writing and memorising an effective 20-second elevator pitch that explains what your business is, who it services and how it benefits your clients. Then use it at every opportunity. Your eventual aim is to secure a meeting where you can gather information about a potential client’s needs and explain how you can help.

3. Referral programs. Nothing is more powerful than a personal recommendation and nothing generates recommendations more effectively than a referral program. It can be as simple as giving customers a couple of specially designed cards to pass on to their friends, perhaps with an incentive to do so. Referral partnerships with complementary businesses are also a great idea.

4. Frequent buyer programs. From the coffee shop that gives you every 10th latte free, to the fashion retailer who offers a sneak preview of next season’s styles, frequent buyer programs help businesses retain their best customers while encouraging them to buy more.

5. Free trials. Nudie juice famously built a following by hiring bright young people to hand out their product to wilting commuters. A similar approach can work for a huge range of products and services, provided you use it in the right way. For example, let’s say you’re an IT support business. Imagine how powerful it would be if you could earn an online Bernard Tanner is the Chief Operating Officer of Commonwealth Bank Local Business Banking, a specialist division dedicated to the needs of small business clients. Bernard has more than 20 years experience in the financial services industry, including roles in financial and management accounting, banking and stockbroking. recommendation from five top bloggers who used a free trial of your service.

6. Public relations. If you don’t have the budget for press and TV advertising, there may be a less expensive way to get your name in the media. It costs nothing to send out a press release and, with the right story to tell, you could generate coverage with substantially more credibility than paid advertising!

7. Search engine optimisation (SEO ). For any business with an online presence, SEO should be a very high priority. While it takes time, it doesn’t need a huge investment. Start by using a tool like Google Analytics to target the right keywords, then build active content on your site with blogs, forums, photos and video. Genuinely useful content will encourage others to link to your site and give your customers a reason to come back.

8. Online ads. Online advertising is typically much cheaper than traditional advertising, and it comes with the added benefit that it’s easy to track and analyse.

9. Invoice mailings. Why not include a product promotion with your next invoice or statement? After all, you’ve already paid for the stamp…

10. Letterboxing. Sometimes the oldest methods work best. For local businesses, a well-designed flyer dropped in neighbourhood letterboxes can offer a good return on investment, even though the number of leads per thousand flyers may be small. That’s because it’s so cheap to do.

[Web Design for Small Businesses]

Talking to as many business owners as I have been doing over the past couple of months, you get to see just how little is understood about the importance of having a website for your business.

Your Website Is Your Brand

As a ‘marketing expense’ money would rather be spent on getting brochures, leaflets and other things which we are more familiar with here. I mean, who hasn’t had a brochure or two stuck on the windscreen of your car recently?

But a Website is not just a typical marketing expense, it can’t be put together in the same league as a brochure or a leaflet. A website is part of your brand.

Your logo, your mission statement/ aim (probably placed somewhere on your ‘about us’ page), your contact details, your team members are ALL on your company’s website.

When people search for a business, they typically look for their company website on Google, Yahoo or MSN and see what the business is all about.

You may be actually quite a good business, but if your website gives a bad first impression, that can be all it takes for a prospect to never walk into your door.

Control What People Think About You

With a website, you can typically (but not always) control what people see/ read about you.

It’s a known statistic that when searching for information, browsers rarely go any further than 3 links down the first page of the search results.

Without a website, who would be these first 3 links for your business? They could be completely unrelated, or worse, they could be a website saying negative things about your business.

Let’s take this website as an example. When you search ‘OnlineBusinessMalaysia.com’ on Google.com, almost every single link on the first page belongs to either this site or a 3rd party site with content I have put there linking back to this site.

So essentially I have controlled what people think about this site and how they perceive my brand. Can you say the same about your website?

It Only Takes One Lead To Make Money

For my Web Design business, it only takes a single lead to make a sale, as web design is a relatively high ticket item. For some of you who sell products or services with higher profit margins, this may be the case.

One lead, one prospect coming to your site may cause you to break even that month, or make a record profit?

And the beauty of the Internet is that there are things you can do to drive more and more traffic to your site, hence increasing the number of leads you have and possibly boosting your business.

Facebook, Twitter, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) are just a few of the methods that people use to get more ‘eyeballs’ on their websites, products or services.

A Website Works 24/7 All Over The World

Unlike magazines, brochures, leaflets or many other typical points of contact with your audience, your website can work for your 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

No matter what time of the night people may be searching for your business or service, they can get access to that information.

If your clients are overseas and need to get some information from your website they can do that, regardless of time zone. Better still, if you’ve always wanted to do business overseas but never knew how, a website can open up that channel.

Building a website, even here in Malaysia, means that it’s online, all over the World, for all to see.

I remember asking one of my friends what happened when he had a website made for his family business, he said:

“I’m surprised where some of the leads are coming from, not just in Malaysia but sometimes overseas as well”

If you’re considering getting a website made, you’re opening doors you may never knew could be opened.

If you’re still not sure if a website is for you, I hope the above information goes someway in convincing you otherwise.

Now what are you waiting for? Get a website created today!

Your Internet advocate,

-William Lee

This is just to let you know that in the coming months (and when I have time), I will be doing some pretty major changes to this site.

The first thing I’m going to do is skew the topic to ‘Getting Malaysian Businesses Online’ which is what my web URL promises but sometimes I get abit off track.

I’m going to write new posts on why businesses should get online, how to get it done, what are the benefits etc.

Basically, I’m going to focus my branding efforts for this site, rather than how I am doing it now, it’s going to be really targeted, which is what you want for your niche.

As for traffic generation tips, Internet Marketing and SEO posts, I’ll be creating a new site to handle all those, so don’t worry!

Thanks for your time,

-William Lee

For those of you who are following me and not being automatically followed back, I’m really sorry, I’ve reached a limit (for now).

Basically what Twitter does is that they impose a limit to how many people you can follow (2000 people) and they will not lift that limit until your total number of followers equals 2000 as well.

I’m currently a couple hundred short, so till I get those followers, I apologise for not following you back!

Thanks,

-William Lee

Ok I’ve stopped by the blog of former Malaysian Prime Minister, Dr. Mahatir Mohamad and I’ve noticed that some of his pages have very high page rank.

Also, if you do a simple trackback, a link to your blog will be displayed under the respective post.

I will trackback to his post and see if it leaves a do-follow link right back here…

A little sneaky, but that’s Internet Marketing right?

If you came from his blog to here, please don’t be angry

And let me know if it worked..

Thanks,

-William

http://chedet.co.cc/cgi-bin/mt4/mt-tb.cgi/1