SEO Part 1 - Phrases That Pay

Search Engine Optimisation is like cooking a meal. Your should think of Keywords & Keyphrases are your ingredients. Discovering phrases that pay is all about finding the right keyphrases for you business proposition and product offering. The once you have your chosen keyphrases deploying them for the best effect in your site and campaign.

1. Proposition Development is about working out who your customers or audience are; what you can sell or promote to them online and how they will find your site. Then decide what will convince them to do business with you.
2. Keyword Discovery is the first of three steps in a D-A-D key word analysis technique. In discovery, you generate the longest list of possible search words and phrases your customers might use, with your competitors as a guide.
3. Keyword Attractiveness is the second D-A-D step and involves balancing keyword popularity and keyword comptetiveness to determine the overall opportunity attached to each keyword or phrase.
4. Keyword Deployment is the third and final D-A-D step, where you use the principles of prominence, proximity and density to work out how to chain, split and slice togther keywords into phrases that pay!

Our next blog 1.1 will explain the Proposion  Development process.

The APL Team
Website Design, Online Marketing & Public Relations In Norwich, Norfolk

Norfolk's Leading Design & Marketing Agency

Wood Farm, Deopham Road, Attleborough, Norfolk, NR17 1AJ

For more information visit our website at:
www.apondlife.com

What Is Search Engine Optimisation & Why Does My Business Need It?

Over the past few years search engine optimisation has become a buzz term but what does it mean and why do businesses need it. Here is a quick explination and statistics to help you:

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the art of getting your website to the top of search engine rankings. Why would you want to get to the top on Google? Well, here is why SEO is so important for todays modern businesses:

1. Search Engines are the way 90% of people locate resources on the internet and Google has a 75% share in Europe and North America. The Google brand is now rated as the most powerful brand in the world and, within three years, the company is expected to be the largest advertiser in the world.
2. 84% of searchers never make it past the bottom of page two on Google and 65% of people never click on paid (or sponsored) results. Being at the top of non paid (organic) search results is a make or break mission for the modern business.
3. Around 15% of all sales in the british economy are now completed online, and price comparison site Uswitch predicts that internet sales will make 40% of all purchases by the year 2020.

Search Engine Optimisation is essentially a way of making it easy for search engines to find your website and boost your possition in their rankings.

Look for tomorrows blog where we will be discussing how to plan your Search Engine Optimisation Campaign.

The APL Team
Website Design, Online Marketing & Public Relations In Norwich, Norfolk

Norfolk's Leading Design & Marketing Agency

Wood Farm, Deopham Road, Attleborough, Norfolk, NR17 1AJ

For more information visit our website at:
www.apondlife.com

Why Have A Pub Website? Will It Help My Pub Business Grow?

Having a website for any business or company has become a necessary part of marketing and why not when you take into account that you are marketing your business at a local, national and of course worldwide market, but where can it benefit the pub and leisure industries?

Over the years we have had the opportunity to work with many of the countries leading pub groups including, Punch Taverns and London Town PLC who have all invested heavily into web and online marketing. So where can pubs benefit from online marketing and having a website?

This is a question many pub group CEO's have asked me and my answer is simple. By having a professional website, pubs are able to provide menus, mailing lists, promote upcoming events such as quiz and live music nights as well as showing potential customers pictures and even video of the pubs.

As a form of communications the pubs website can become a powerful tool and managed correctly the pubs mailing list can be the difference between a sell out gig night and a flop!

The Website Design Centre is an ideal choice for pubs who regularly need to be able to update food and wine men's, upcoming events and even managers details. The Website Design Centre provides a full content management system allowing users to update their website from an easy to use online portal. Pub website design visit the Website Design Centre

The APL Team
Website Design, Online Marketing & Public Relations In Norwich, Norfolk

Norfolk's Leading Design & Marketing Agency

Wood Farm, Deopham Road, Attleborough, Norfolk, NR17 1AJ

For more information visit our website at:
www.apondlife.com

Follow Us On Twitter

Visit Our Facebook Page 

Search Engine Optimisation Quick Do's & Dont's

Many SEO newbies, or new businesses starting out online, come to SEO blogs such as this looking for some quick and easy solution that will vault them to the top in the results.

Unfortunately, there are very few hard and fast rules in SEO, and no step by step solutions that, if implemented, guarantees you top search engine rankings. If there were, then it would quickly become obsolete because everybody would be doing it.

Instead, SEO is more of a set of guidelines that can be implemented in a way that allows for individual site customization. Most of it is fluid based on each site's needs for their audience. However within that there are also some basic dos and don'ts that need to be adhered to.

SEO Dos:

• Customize your title tags. Each page should have a title unique to that page alone.
• Research your keywords thoroughly. You really cannot start optimizing until you have researched out your keywords and know how the optimization will play out.
• Use keyword relevant filenames for each web page. If the page is about women's brown boots then your file name should be womens-brown-boots.xxx. Such as: yourdoman.com/womens-brown-boots.html.
• Organize your directory structure. Don't throw all your pages into the root folder and don't use too many directories/sub directories. Keep it simple yet organized.
• Plan out your internal links. Develop your navigation effectively, implement no follows sparingly, link content to other pages liberally and use absolute links.
• Use content effectively. Make sure your content does the job of selling to your visitors but is also keyword rich. Don't go overboard on keyword usage, but only as it functions best for the visitors.

SEO Don'ts:

• Don't junk up your code. Get rid of junk code such as on-page styles, JavaScripts and excessive tables. Keep your code lean and clean and validate if at all possible.
• Don't add a bunch of junk links to the bottom of your pages. Footer links are great, but don't just add junk links to pages that serve no value to your visitors strictly for the SEO benefit.
• Don't settle for stock content. Take the time to develop custom content for your site. Don't use manufacture descriptions unless you add your own descriptive content as well.
• Don't junk up your URLs. Keep your URLs clean and tidy without a lot of excess variables or session IDs.

These are just a few decent starting points for beginners in what they should and should not do with their site pages. Implementing these few tips won't suddenly shoot your site to the top of the search results, but it can begin the process of making your site much more search engine friendly and in a better place to be noticed by the engines.

The APL Team
Website Design, Online Marketing & Public Relations In Norwich, Norfolk

Norfolk's Leading Design & Marketing Agency

Wood Farm, Deopham Road, Attleborough, Norfolk, NR17 1AJ

For more information visit our website at:
www.apondlife.com

Microsoft Issue's A Quick Fix For Internet Explorer

Microsoft has announced the issue of an emergency patch to fix a security flaw believed to have affected as many as 10,000 websites.

Internet Explorer users were being urged by experts to switch to a rival browser such as Firefox or Safari until the problem, which could allow criminals to take control of people's computers and steal passwords, was fixed. Microsoft urged people to be vigilant while it investigated and prepared the emergency patch to resolve the issue.

Upon the discovery of the vulnerability, senior security advisor at Trend Micro, Rick Ferguson commented to the BBC: "What we've seen from the exploit so far is it stealing game passwords, but it's inevitable that it will adapted by criminals." He added, "It's just a question of modifying the payload the trojan installs."

Richard Cox, chief information officer of anti-spam body The Spamhaus Project echoed Trend Micro's warning to the BBC.

"It won't be long before someone reverse engineers this exploit for more fraudulent purposes. Trend Micro's advice (of switching to an alternative web browser) is very sensible," he said.

Microsoft assured users of Internet Explorer that switching browsers would not be necessary, stating that the vulnerability would only affect 0.02% of internet sites and that a solution to the problem was forthcoming.

Some experts are reading the decision by Microsoft to issue the emergency patch as quickly as possible as evidence of the potential danger of the flaw, also noting that it is relatively unusual for Microsoft to issue what is being called an "out of band" security bulletin. With other browsers such as Firefox, Opera, Chrome and Apple's Safari system are not vulnerable to the current flaw, experts have reinforced the opinion that Explorer users should switch browsers until the problem is fixed.

But Graham Cluley, senior consultant with security firm Sophos, said no browser is exempt from problems.

"Firefox has issued patches and Apple has too. Whichever browser you are using you have to keep it up to date," he told the BBC.

"People have to be prepared and willing to install security updates. That nagging screen asking if you want to update should not be ignored," he said.

Microsoft is due to make the emergency patch available from 1800 GMT on December 17th.

A Pondlife Limited and the Website Design Centre have not had any reports of secruity issues during this time.

The APL Team
Website Design, Online Marketing & Public Relations In Norwich, Norfolk

Norfolk's Leading Design & Marketing Agency

Wood Farm, Deopham Road, Attleborough, Norfolk, NR17 1AJ

For more information visit our website at:
www.apondlife.com

Serious Security Flaw Found In Microsoft IE7

Users of Microsoft's Internet Explorer are being urged by experts to switch to a rival until a serious security flaw has been fixed.

The flaw in Microsoft's Internet Explorer could allow criminals to take control of people's computers and steal their passwords, internet experts say.

Microsoft urged people to be vigilant while it investigated and prepared an emergency patch to resolve it.

Internet Explorer is used by the vast majority of the world's computer users.

"Microsoft is continuing its investigation of public reports of attacks against a new vulnerability in Internet Explorer," said the firm in a security advisory alert about the flaw.
Microsoft says it has detected attacks against IE 7.0 but said the "underlying vulnerability" was present in all versions of the browser.

Other browsers, such as Firefox, Opera, Chrome, Safari, are not vulnerable to the flaw Microsoft has identified.

As many as 10,000 websites have been compromised since last week to take advantage of the security flaw, said antivirus software maker Trend Micro.

The websites have been mostly serving up programs that steal computer game passwords, but the flaw could be "adopted by more financially motivated criminals", a Trend Micro security researcher said on Monday.

Richard Cox, chief information officer of anti-spam body The Spamhaus Project and an expert on privacy and cyber security, echoed Trend Micro's warning.

"It won't be long before someone reverse engineers this exploit for more fraudulent purposes. Trend Mico's advice [of switching to an alternative web browser] is very sensible," he said.
PC Pro magazine's security editor, Darien Graham-Smith, said that there was a virtual arms race going on, with hackers always on the look out for new vulnerabilities.

"The message needs to get out that this malicious code can be planted on any web site, so simple careful browsing isn't enough."

"It's a shame Microsoft have not been able to fix this more quickly, but letting people know about this flaw was the right thing to do. If you keep flaws like this quiet, people are put at risk without knowing it."

"Every browser is susceptible to vulnerabilities from time to time. It's fine to say 'don't use Internet Explorer' for now, but other browsers may well find themselves in a similar situation," he added.

The APL Team
Website Design, Online Marketing & Public Relations In Norwich, Norfolk

Norfolk's Leading Design & Marketing Agency

Wood Farm, Deopham Road, Attleborough, Norfolk, NR17 1AJ

For more information visit our website at:
www.apondlife.com

Chris Brown Appointed Sales Director At APL

The APL Group are pleased to announce the appointment of Mr Chris Brown as Sales Director today. Chris joins the APL Group from Ryan & Brown Limited where at which he brought leading hair care product MUK to the UK establishing a healthy distribution network.

Daniel Arpels, CEO & Chairman of the APL Group said, 'I am delighted to welcome Chris to the team. We have worked closely with Chris during his time at Ryan & Brown and have been impressed with what he has achieved. We look forward to working with him to expand our distribution for the Website Design Centre.'

Chris will join Daniel Arpels, Peter Thatcher, Richard Friend & Daniel Arpels Snr on the board of directors and will be responsible for the sales and strategic planning for the Website Design Centre which launched across the UK in October 2008. The Website Design Centre provides website design packages for small business at affordable fixed costs and is sold through a network of introducers across the UK.

Chris Brown said, “Every once in a while you come across a product so useful that it changes the fundamentals of how you view business. Recently, I had the opportunity of being introduced to The Website Design Centre and was so impressed by the concept; I jumped to be a part of it. Within sales, one has to truly believe in a product to promote it. The Website Design Centre offers the instant believe and confidence in itself that is so rare to find in today’s competitive market place”.


For more details contact press@apondlife.com

Content Management Systems - What Is It

At the risk of stating the obvious, it could be said that a content management system is quite simply - a system that manages content.

However, it is precisely the obviousness of what a CMS is and does, that has created a degree of confusion amongst 'would be' purchases of such a system. Wrapped up in a seemingly harmless statement is enough ambiguity to enable all kinds of products to masquerade as content management solutions.

To fully understand what it is a CMS does, we have to first define a) what it is we are referring to when we talk about content b) what it is we understand under its management and c) what do we mean by a system. At the risk of sounding 'obvious', only when you know what content it is you want to manage can you 'filter' (and I mean filter) through the myriad of options that are available - and not be 'bamboozled' by sales speak into taking the wrong product.

What is Content?

Content is in essence, any type or 'unit' of digital information. It can be text, images, graphics, video, sound, documents, records etc - or in other words - anything that is likely to be managed in an electronic format.

What is Content Management?

Content Management is effectively the management of the content described above, by combining rules, process and/or workflows in such a way that its electronic storage is deemed to be 'managed' rather than 'un-managed'.

What is the CM System?

The system itself is definable as a tool or combination or tools that facilitate the efficient and effective production of the desired 'output' using the managed content.

To combine all three, we can say;

A CMS is a tool that enables a variety of (centralised) technical and (de-centralised) non technical staff to create, edit, manage and finally publish (in a number of formats) a variety of content (such as text, graphics, video, documents etc), whilst being constrained by a centralised set of rules, process and workflows that ensure coherent, validated electronic content.

Why are there so many types of Content Management System?

Many new website design products offer a content management system as part of their website developments. Many of these products only offer a part CMS system however the Website Design Centre give customers a FULL CMS from as low cost as £65.

The APL Team
Website Design, Online Marketing & Public Relations In Norwich, Norfolk

Norfolk's Leading Design & Marketing Agency

Wood Farm, Deopham Road, Attleborough, Norfolk, NR17 1AJ

For more information visit our website at:
www.apondlife.com

New Search Engines, Whats It Mean To Google

Earlier this year, A Pondlife Limited took a look at some new search engines that were making waves for various reasons. Powerset, Wikia, Project Quaero, Blekko and Cuill were the five upstarts looking to change the search landscape for the better. Six months on, how are the search start-up getting on in their preparations to take on Googoliath?

Competing with Google is never going to be easy. Baidu manages it in China, Yandex leads in Russia and in other countries throughout the world, certain search engines have reasonable enough market shares that they can still be said to be competing with Google. In North America and Europe on the other hand, MSN and Yahoo! still have a slippery foothold in most places but Google is becoming increasingly dominant and for many people (especially in the SEO industry) a new challenger would be more than welcome - just to make things more interesting.

Powerset

Powerset launched itself as new way to search Wikipedia but it was immediately obvious to many people in the industry that the technology could be put to use on the whole web if only the resources were available. The company was quickly snapped up by Microsoft for around $100 million dollars. The suggestion from Microsoft at the time was that they wanted to utilise the intellect of Powerset's employees but the price tag suggests they wanted the technology too. All has gone quiet on that front but it seems likely that MSN will, at some point in the future, launch a product or search option based on Powerset technology.

Wikia

After a fairly disastrous launch, Jimmy Wales' Wikia has gradually launched some of the functionality that should really have been there from the start. Interestingly, Google this week launched SearchWiki, a feature that appears to be in direct competition to Wikia. Google's product is easier and nicer to look at and, due to sheer size and influence of the company, it's already taken the lead over Wikia in the customisable search stakes. But don't write off Wikia yet - it'll be a slow burner. The product is much improved since launch and is likely to build up a loyal user base.

Project Quaero

This French state sponsored project has produced little of note as yet, despite its "EuroGoogle" tag. Quaero is a long term project and may produce some useful technology at some point, but don't hold your breath. If any search engine deserves to be named the new "EuroGoogle", it's Europeana. A project sponsored by the EU, it will supposedly "create a one-stop-shop to access history, art, literature, cinema and music from across the continent" but there's no word yet on whether Europeana will also index Lolcats.

Blekko

Maverick Rich Skrenta's Blekko site is still showing an image of a paper mask with socks for ears. All has gone quiet on this front, which could be good or bad - Skrenta's last blog post was in April.

Cuill

Since the much hyped launch and inevitable backlash, nothing too obvious has happened to Cuill. The results have improved although it mixes up images with the wrong results. There haven't been any strong rumours about any potential take-overs that were predicted at the launch. It would seem for now that Cuill is down and wounded. Expect a re-launch, hopefully one that's better thought out than the last one.

Of all these search engines, it seems that Powerset is the big winner and Cuill the big loser since our last analysis. Wikia still shows signs of promise and all is quiet with Blekko and Quaero. Sadly, it doesn't seem that any of the above is going to change the world of search any time soon.

The APL Team
Website Design, Online Marketing & Public Relations In Norwich, Norfolk

Norfolk's Leading Design & Marketing Agency

Wood Farm, Deopham Road, Attleborough, Norfolk, NR17 1AJ

For more information visit our website at:
www.apondlife.com

Remember Social Media is a PERSONAL Communications Tool

Plenty of companies and small businesses are curious now to learn how they can use social media to grow their businesses. Unfortunately, far fewer businesses are willing to invest the time to understand what these tools are, and why people are so excited about using them.

A few nights ago, Amber Naslund put a one-word tweet on Twitter that perhaps encapsulated how she was feeling at that particular moment;

"Frustrated".

And she explains what happened next:
Within seconds, I received 24 (yes, 24, on a Friday night no less) replies from people asking what the matter was. I got another half dozen direct messages, some of which were from people I'd barely corresponded with but whose names and little 1″ faces I'd come to recognize. Everyone expressing concern and a desire to help.

And if you're a company that wants to start blogging, or start using Twitter, you need to understand why this happened. It happened because people aren't on Twitter and aren't blogging so they will be in a position to receive your marketing messages. They are using social media to connect with other people.

If you aren't willing to connect with your customers via social media as real people, then you are wasting everyone's time.

The APL Team
Website Design, Online Marketing & Public Relations In Norwich, Norfolk

Norfolk's Leading Design & Marketing Agency

Wood Farm, Deopham Road, Attleborough, Norfolk, NR17 1AJ

For more information visit our website at:
www.apondlife.com

Facebook - Are they really your customers

Back in October there was an article in the New York Times called "Facebook in a Crowd" by Hal Niedzviecki. In the article he describes how he reached out to his almost 700 friends to invite them to a Facebook party. After tabulating the responses Hal had 15 people who said they were attending, 60 that said maybe, a few hundred that said no and no responses from the rest. On the evening of the Facebook party one person (a friend of a friend) showed up to meet him.

The moral of this writer's particular story: When people on Facebook say yes, they really mean maybe. And when they say maybe, they really mean probably not. But ultimately the potential moral is that "friends" might have time for you on-line, but not off.

What does this have to do with business? Well, it was a business that shared this article with me...almost as an example of how social media and/or Web 2.0 applications aren't really reliable for generating business. If you relied on this example alone, that would be understandable.

Here's the thing, being involved in social media isn't just about collecting friends or followers and, voila!, your work is done. Social media takes time and roll-up your sleeves work to develop and nurture conversations. And it's these conversations that can ultimately lead to relationships (i.e. customers).

Facebook is just a tool and having a lot of friends or the ability to start a group doesn't necessarily mean that you will be successful in really connecting people to your company.

If you're considering Facebook as part of your social media strategy, consider Hal's experience one more time. Perhaps take pause and reach out to your customers (or prospects) instead and ask them where they'd like to connect with you. By doing so you might just save yourself that embarrassing situation of your "friends" not showing up to the party.

The APL Team
Website Design, Online Marketing & Public Relations In Norwich, Norfolk

Norfolk's Leading Design & Marketing Agency

Wood Farm, Deopham Road, Attleborough, Norfolk, NR17 1AJ

For more information visit our website at:
www.apondlife.com

Twitter For Small Businesses

our twitter account is www.twitter.com/apondlife

If you have yet to hear about Twitter, I might ask you if you have been living in a cave and for how long. The micro-blogging platform that few knew about a year ago has now gone mainstream with over 6 million users - a number that is growing daily. Even major news outlets such as Fox News, CNN and others are using Twitter on a daily basis to get viewer reaction and create discussion around breaking stories and issues.

This leads me to question whether Twitter can be useful for business or is it simply an outlet to waste time and be counter-productive?

As a small business owner, I have found Twitter to be extremely beneficial for business. Sure there are times I have found it to be an incredible time-waster (depending on what it is keeping you from accomplishing such as actual work, spending time with family, etc.). However, in this post, I'd like to focus on how Twitter can be useful to businesses and will cover five functions it can serve. I will then invite comments from others on additional ways they have used Twitter for business.
1. Puts a Human Face On the Company

We already know that blogs are very useful tools to put a face or name to the company - in other words allow the company to become more personable. The problem with blogs is that they require one to actually write.

Twitter on the other hand is like blogging but has a 140 character limit for each entry you make. You can therefore "say" something without having to write up a lengthy post.

Furthermore you do not always have to say something that is important or of any real value. You can tweet (term used for adding entires to Twitter) things like, "currently at airport awaiting flight," or "enjoying a fine bottle of wine right now," or any other random aspect from your personal life. While tweets such as these may seem trivial, they show that you are a real person behind the corporate entity.

2. Community Outreach

Twitter is a great tool for reaching out to a community of people. I have seen it used to broadcast Amber alerts, bring attention to charitable causes (when Twitter users turned their avatars pink for Breast Cancer Awareness month), connect with people at specific events (i.e., conferences, parties, local gatherings, etc.), and discuss breaking news to name a few examples.

How can this be useful for business? Keeping in mind that you should work to build a community around your products and/or services anyway, Twitter is a great tool to help in this process. By setting up a Twitter profile for your company and then making sure you invite your active customers and prospects to follow you, you now have a direct connection to them.

And while newsletters, e-newsletters, and even blogs are effective ways to reach out to your community, Twitter offers a way to reach out by saying very little. Let's face facts - not every client is going to read through a lengthy newsletter or visit every blog post you put out. Short tweets on the other hand are very easy to read and can even call for more action such as inviting clients to read a post or bringing attention to a new product.
3. Product/Service Promotion

Once you have a decent amount of followers, announcing new products and/or services, upgrades or even promotionals becomes a breeze. Also consider that many Twitter users will use specific search queries to locate topics that interest them. Therefore by associating the right keywords along with your tweets, you can attract those that aren't even following you.

While product/service promotion can be an attractive use of Twitter, I caution you to make sure it is not the only thing you contribute. Just as in any web forum, blog commenting system or chat environment, if all you ever do is to "toot" your own horn, you may find yourself doing more harm than good.

Companies such as Southwest Air, M&Ms, and Comcast are just a few examples that are well-balanced in their use of Twitter for a variety of purposes, including product/service promotion.

4. Brand Management

With so many people using Twitter, there are bound to be occurrences where your company and/or products will be discussed. Twitter's search function can be an excellent resource for monitoring brand names - when and how they are being discussed.

Simply enter various search terms related to your company brand and product names and see results in real time. Better yet, save each search as an RSS feed and add to your reader. That way anytime someone begins talking about your company on Twitter, you will be notified via your RSS reader.

5. Polls/Surveys

This is one of the most useful functions of Twitter - the ability to gather feedback via polls, surveys or even by asking a simple question. As a small business owner I have utilized this function many times to locate tools used in my business, find a solution to a web site issue or even learning business sense from those more seasoned than myself.

Using polls and surveys on Twitter can also help you to gather useful intelligence on your products and services. Just be ready for criticism which if you make good use of, can be utilized to improve your product and/or service offerings.

=============================

These are just a few ways businesses are using Twitter. I'm sure there are many other uses and would love to hear from other business owners either on how they are using Twitter for business or possibilities they have yet to explore. Please use the comments system below to share your ideas. Oh and finally if you would like to follow me on Twitter, I'm right here.

The APL Team
Website Design, Online Marketing & Public Relations In Norwich, Norfolk

Norfolk's Leading Design & Marketing Agency

Wood Farm, Deopham Road, Attleborough, Norfolk, NR17 1AJ

For more information visit our website at:
www.apondlife.com

Why Search Is So Important For Small Business

I often talk to small business people who lament at how the marketing deck is stacked against them. The big guys have the connections, the money, and the brand name. "How can I compete?" I hear them asking. I always have the same answer--Internet marketing, especially organic search marketing. But when I tell them this, often I get disbelief. These small business owners have painfully learned over the years that marketing is for big companies, not for them. They're wrong.

A few weeks ago, I ran across a report on SearchEngineLand about a report from Conductor, saying that Fortune 500 companies are "woefully unrepresented in natural search." Just 8% of those companies got high grades for their search rankings.

So, if the big companies aren't there, guess who is? That's right--small-to-medium size companies. Paid search still goes (mainly) to companies with deep pockets, but organic search goes to the relevant. If your business has the relevant answer for the searcher, you can get that high ranking, too.

I've seen it over and over again--big companies getting outranked by their own, distributors, partners, and affiliates for their branded keywords. This shouldn't happen, because clearly the manufacturer should have the best answer for that product's search. It happens because the smaller companies do a better job on their information.

And because large companies find search far more difficult than small ones. For organic search success, every piece of the equation must be in place. If you fail to do any one piece, you organic search results suffer. Because large companies have so many more people to coordinate, organic search becomes far harder for large companies than for small ones. So, small companies take note: for organic search, more resources makes the job harder, leaving an opportunity for you.

Sure big companies always have some kind of edge in anything. But big companies have far less of an edge in earned media than they do in traditional marketing channels. If you've been making excuses about how you're doing in search marketing, maybe it's time to realize that any small business that wants to succeed in search has the opportunity.

APL offer many services to help small businesses archive great search results and allows these small companies to increase revenues. For more details why not give us a call on 01603 850 230 and speak to a member of our team.

The APL Team
Website Design, Online Marketing & Public Relations In Norwich, Norfolk

Norfolk's Leading Design & Marketing Agency

Wood Farm, Deopham Road, Attleborough, Norfolk, NR17 1AJ

For more information visit our website at:
www.apondlife.com

Credit Crunch! How It Affecting You?

There's been lots of talk of impending global doom and recession following the financial crisis in the developed world, but what does it all mean for you? I think as consumers we're starting to 'feel' the impact a bit more with sales decline, job losses etc., starting to affect more people.

In the UK the Federation of Small Businesses has suggested we "use the internet to increase sales during the downturn", which we're seeing in our results as more and more people are buying sites with Website Design Centre to start trading online.
The Website Design Centre was born from a concept that small business need to be on the web but dont have the finances to pay £1000's so they normally have a poor website which doesnot attract new business. The Website Design Centre allows small businesses to have a professional designed website, which they can update themselves from and easy to use online portal and be found on all major search engines like Google, Yahoo & MSN.

We're also grateful that the kinds of products we offer are actually a benefit during difficult times. We've found that as companies cut back on costs, they don't cut the channels that generate sales, e.g. websites. Especially the low cost options. We're also seeing evidence that as people look for ways of earning a bit of extra cash, setting up a website to start selling things, or generating advertising income and creating a low cost/low risk start. These factors mean we are seeing sales 50% higher than the same period last year, which means we can continue to invest in our business to provide you with improved features and better services.

If we have any advice to give, its to look at things early and take action before it's too late. By moving early you give yourself room to manoeuvre later down the line. I've read lots of inspiring stories about businesses who know they need to take action, offering staff the option to work fewer days or take pay cuts, rather than having to sack everyone. It means everyone tightens their belts a bit and shares the pain, rather than one person being the unlucky one to lose their job.

So, how are things affecting you?

The APL Team
Website Design, Online Marketing & Public Relations In Norwich, Norfolk

Norfolk's Leading Design & Marketing Agency

Wood Farm, Deopham Road, Attleborough, Norfolk, NR17 1AJ

For more information visit our website at:
www.apondlife.com

Funding For Business Website Design

Did you know that your council will help towards the cost of having a website for your business? Well Breckland council have several grants avaliable to new and existing buisness which could provide the finance to get you started online. The councils 'start up' grant and 'innovation grants' both help businesses with the initial start up costs of having a professional website. 

For more information regarding funding avaliable to your business in your area, contact your local council. 

The APL Team
Website Design, Online Marketing & Public Relations In Norwich, Norfolk

Norfolk's Leading Design & Marketing Agency

Wood Farm, Deopham Road, Attleborough, Norfolk, NR17 1AJ

For more information visit our website at:
www.apondlife.com

How To Use The Web In An Economic Downturn

So we are all aware now that the world is in an economic downturn and with the demise of companies like Woolworth & MFI, who is next? Well even Woolworths have announced that a big playing factor in their problems was the emergence of ecommerce and online retailers like play.com and amazon.

So if you are in retail why not use the internet to your advantage? Many website design companies offer ecommerce solutions at very competitive rate, give you the ability to sell products online. The great advantage of have an online store is that it never closes, has very little overheads and requires minimal staff.

In short many high street retailers have found that a bigger profit is found in selling online and business models like Amazon only go to show that the internet has become and will continue to change the way shoppers purchase products.

The APL Team
Website Design, Online Marketing & Public Relations In Norwich, Norfolk

Norfolk's Leading Design & Marketing Agency

Wood Farm, Deopham Road, Attleborough, Norfolk, NR17 1AJ

For more information visit our website at:
www.apondlife.com

Bluetooth Marketing For Small Business

Bluetooth Advertising & Bluetooth Marketing is a new and exciting way of bluetooth message advertising that is cost effective, eye-catching, eco-friendly, compact and portable.

Your Bluetooth adverts and bluetooth messages can be received by anyone, in your chosen location, who wish to receive them and possess the required Bluetooth enabled equipment.

• Bluetooth enabled Mobile Phone
• Bluetooth enabled Laptop
• Bluetooth enabled PDA

Bluetooth Advertising & Bluetooth Marketing is not only eco-friendly but ethically sound.

The Bluetooth Advertising & Bluetooth Marketing messages we send out are in line with the anti spam laws – they all ask for user permission and no viruses can be transmitted.

However it is estimated that up to 85% of people who receive a message will read it.

• Places your Bluetooth Advertising campaign advert or message directly into your customer’s hand.
• Can be programmed to be sent out at certain times and dates.
• There are an estimated 16 million Bluetooth enabled mobile phone users in the UK.

Why not go environmentally friendly and change over to the Bluetooth Advertising & Bluetooth Marketing with no printing or paper costs, no waste or rubbish.

The APL Team
Website Design, Online Marketing & Public Relations In Norwich, Norfolk

Norfolk's Leading Design & Marketing Agency

Wood Farm, Deopham Road, Attleborough, Norfolk, NR17 1AJ

For more information visit our website at:
www.apondlife.com

Federation of Small Businesses Proves Websites Grow Your Revenue

A new report from the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) has revealed that nearly half of small businesses that use the internet to advertise their firm increase their turnover by one fifth!

John Walker, FSB National Policy Chairman, said: "The number of small businesses who have their own website has grown over the past two years, which indicates that small firms are becoming increasingly internet-savvy. Despite the onset of an economic downturn, all small firms should look to the internet to maximise their sales and increase efficiency."

The APL Team
Website Design, Online Marketing & Public Relations In Norwich, Norfolk

Norfolk's Leading Design & Marketing Agency

Wood Farm, Deopham Road, Attleborough, Norfolk, NR17 1AJ

For more information visit our website at:
www.apondlife.com