Many websites and companies who joined the dotcom gold rush of the late nineties ended up like this

I recently read a book called “Boo Hoo” about the failed ecommerce venture boo.com. This famous .com failure company broke all the rules of internet business, overvaluing their company, blowing their budget and holding after-work parties that suggested a vibrant profitable company but belied the truth. In fact their whole company was based on unproven technology that was not yet ready for the web. Read more about boo.com here.

Social media is the new buzz word, but like the early website gold rush in the late nineties there are a set of rules that should be followed in order to be successful. Some of my clients have heard that they should use social media websites to promote their business and they are right. I ensure that their hand is held and the don’t commit the common errors that will make them social (media) outcasts.

Gerard & Noelette of Nenagh based financial services company Unique Financial Services Ltd buck the trend in their understanding of the social media market. They know that a strong presence on Facebook, Twitter and Linked In will announce their existence not only to their friends and associates but the wider circle in social media – friends of friends.

It is important to act in an acceptable manner on these social media sites. Business should approach social media in the same manner in which they would network with people they meet in public.

1. introduce yourself and make friends
2. generate discussion and interest, and then
3. let others know about your business

Many people start aggressively with number 3. This is the social media equivalent of handing out business cards and talking about your products and services the minute you are introduced to someone at a party. You need to engage people, offer them something of interest or value and mention your business, product of service in passing, so that when the need arises they will know where to find the solution.

If you have any questions about social media and wish to email me or contact me on this site please do so, I will be happy to answer them.

Talk soon,

Mark

The main concern for our clients is a fear about the difficulty in updating their website and whether they have the technical ability to do this. I usually respond along the lines of “Anyone who can use Microsoft Word can do this”.

This is now literally true. This blog post has been updated using Microsoft Word and appears automatically on my website.

1. From the Settings menu choose Writing submenu (WordPress 2.9.x)
2. Ensure that the checkboxes Atom Publishing Protocol and XML-RPC are checked
3. Open MS Word
4. Write your blog post
5. From the File menu select Save As and choose other

For more info about our web design and blogging service contact us on our website.

Forget about copy & paste, just syndicate and all new blog content will be displayed on your site.

Blogging can also have many business applications. Notifying clients of new product updates, keeping in touch with market news and information/reviews of products are ways in which blogs may be used for business purposes.

We can set up your business blog to drive traffic to your website.

“If a SPAM message does get into your inbox, the best thing to do is to simply delete it. Most of us will have other external mail, which will have varying degrees of filtering in place. So the following advice should be taken for all email accounts:
· ALWAYS make sure your machine has had windows updates applied and your Anti Virus is up to date.

· NEVER open an attachment or click on a link.

· NEVER reply to a SPAM, even if it is to unsubscribe. Never forward the SPAM to the service desk, it increases the effectiveness, in that it now hits.

· NEVER forward on a Virus Warning. By and large they are hoaxes, designed to gather email addresses, which SPAMMERS use in creating better SPAM.

· ALWAYS treat unsolicited email suspiciously. Also, one word subjects, emails with poor English, anyone offering you money, anything looking for a password or bank details etc,

· DON’T PANIC. IF SPAM does get thru, and IF you do click an attachment or link, and IF it is a virus, then our desktop AV software should kick in (you should make sure it’s up to date). At this point, you should probably let us know, as your machine may need to be scanned. Again, IF it was a particularly effective VIRUS, it still would be very unlikely to kill your data. It could however mean your machine needs to be reinstalled and cost you time.

One final point, SPAM is in the eye of the beholder. Internal SPAM is one of the biggest issues facing email systems. Forwarding an email message to the global mailing lists will hit over 1000 inboxes. How many of those people will consider your message important?

Regards
Mike

Michael Cox
Technology Services Manager
Tipperary Institute

Always read the small print

Online car sales sites such as cbg.ie and carzone.ie have also been hit by a common scam.  The perp advertisers cars for much less that the average rate in order to generate interest, they then ask you to come to the UK or another country to pick up the car. Here’s the catch, they want you to send them the money in advance with Western Union, and guess what happens when you go to your pick-up point? No car, no one to meet you, mobile number not in use and cash gone.

Coming in at number three in the “obvious but people still fall for it” category of scams is the domain/website scam. This has two forms, each arriving through your letterbox on official looking headed paper warning you to take action before it’s too late. The first is for domain renewal and warns you that unless you renew your domain registration immediately with this company your domain may be lost. Of course you assume that this is the company that you initially registered your domain with and that the cost will be the same… it isn’t and it wont. This company takes a chance that you will fill the form, send them your credit card details and renew with them at an exorbitant rate.

Don't get Scammed. Be as cautious online as you are in everyday life

The second version in circulation at the moment is sent by “Internet Register Ireland” which is actually a German company. They want you to fill in the form to ensure that you remain on their internet directory. The usual scare tactics apply: “check if your details are complete and correct”, “This is the only way to ensure that the register contains only the very latest information”. At the bottom of page two in the samll print you are notified that your advertisement is chargeable at 958 euros . Yes you heard me right, 958 euros to advertise in some crummy internet directory, of which there are thousands of better free options.

The letter is contradictory on page one stating “The entry and any corrections to your basic details are free of charge” and on the very next line: “Your current data are stated on the attached form. Please use it to place a chargeable order with us”.

The sad fact is that many people are caught out by simply not reading the letter in full and are being threatened with debt collectors by the company. More information on this scam here.

Avoiding Scams Online

To avoid scams online, act as if you are offline. If you met someone in person who gave you a piece of paper to sign, surely you would read it thoroughly and find out what you were singing before doing so.

Here are some simple tips for avoiding internet scams:

1. If it seems to good to be true, it is.
2. You are not customer 1,000,000
3. Dont give your credit card or bank account details to anyone you don’t know. No one should ever ask you for this information. In any situation where you need to use your bank account or credit card you should be the one to initiate the transaction. For example, search online for a book, find a reputable website with the book you want and secure credit card payment and then enter your details.
4. Never disclose your debit or credit card pin numbers. Your bank will never ask you for these.
5. Be wary of deals that involve using unorthodox means of payment.
6. Bin random emails with amazing offers that you didn’t enquire about.
7. If you are in any way suspicious of  an offer or request do a simple online search for the company or key terms. If you can’t find any information about them beware. You may also find information about scams that the company is involved in. Try a Google search for “Internet Register Ireland“.

Finally remember that people will always try to scam you and make a quick buck. Keep your wits about you and always beware.

If your company name doesn’t immediately tell the customer what business you’re in then you shouldn’t use it as your website address. Let’s imagine a fictional web design company called J. Smith & Co. The obvious domain name for this company would be jsmithandco.com or smithandco.ie, but what does this domain tell the customer about the market the company operates in? Nothing. Just as importantly the search engines wont know that jsmithandco.com is a web design company and the domain will do nothing to help them get better search engine results.

So what name should they use? Well, as always the first thing to determine is the keywords that they want to target in the search engines. What search terms will potential customers use on Google and Yahoo to find website designers? The obvious ones that spring to mind are web design, website design, web designer, website designer, web development… you get the idea. So Smith & Co should incorporate at least some of these keywords in their domain name.

Armed with this knowledge Smith & Co would probably look for a domain name like webdesign.com. Unfortunately many domains like this are gone. How about smithwebdesign.com or websitedesignco.com. Either of these terms immediately informs the user of the services offered by the domain owners. It also gives the search engines a helping hand in categorising the website. Now when users search for web design Smith & Co will have a leg up on the competition.

It’s important to remember that getting a good search engine rating is a marathon, not a sprint. Each step you take in optimising your website will help a little (blogging will help a lot).

How about your domain name, is it working for you in the search engines? Do you need to change it to something more suitable. I’d love to, you’re thinking, but what about my email addresses at the current domain? No problem, simply setup a 301 redirect from your current domain to your new keyword rich domain and retain your old domain for email addresses.

As always, Irish Web HQ are here to help, and we can do it for you. Send us an email using our online form or meet us on the social networks (Twitter, Facebook) by clicking the icons below. Maybe you simply have a question about your domain. Feel free to comment using the form below or contact us online and we will try to help you.

Domains & Hosting

We supply domains, hosting and emails to Irish companies.
Search for a Domain

.ie .com .net .org .biz .co.uk

There are three types of links:

• Inbound links
• Internal links
• Outbound links

Inbound Links

Inbound links are links from other websites to yours. Inbound links are the best way to get customers to visit your website.  They are important for a number of reasons.

Firstly and most obviously they can be clicked on, bringing visitors directly to your site. This has always been the case.

The second reason that its important to have inbound links is that the search engines view inbound links as a vote for your site. The more votes for your site the more significance given to your site by the search engines. Google assigns a page rank to each website page. A page rank is a ranking by Google of the significance of a web page on your website. The more links to your website, the higher the page rank. Some other factors are also considered.

Inbound links drive traffic to your website and boost your page rank

For example a link from an important site is more important that an obscure site that no-one uses. If a website with a large number of visitors and a good page rank links to your website that help your page rank and search engine placement.

Links from websites in your market area or sites with related content are also more important than unrelated sites. Inbound links are also called backlinks. You can check inbound links to your website with this backlink checker.

Some websites can use JavaScript or re-directs to link to your website. Watch out for this. They should use the simple <a href=”"></a> format for a direct link to your website.

To summarise: Try to get inbound links from important, highly ranking websites in your sector.

Internal links

Internal links are also important in the search engine game. An internal link is a link from one page on your website to another page on your site. Internal links help search engines find and index all of the pages on your website and search engines appreciate this. A good descriptive navigation menu is important. Never use words like “click here” as link text. Try to be more descriptive and use keywords in your links. For example, if your site is about search engine optimisation, you could create a link with link text Seach Engine Optimisation.

Use plenty of cross-linking from page to page and especially from blog posts to other posts and pages. You should also create a sitemap linking to the pages in your website. You have control over internal links and should use them effectively.

Outbound Links

Outbound links are links from your websites to external websites. You also have control over these links. You may want to link to a supplier website or link to a client or partner site. Outbound links shouldn’t negatively affect your ranking or search engine position. Just be careful not to overdo it and that your outbound links are to reputable websites. If you link to disreputable websites or sites blacklisted by the search engines you are seen as promoting these sites and your reputation and ranking will take a hit.

How to get inbound links

Remember, try to get links from important websites in your sector. You probably already have a number of contacts in your network and you can offer link exchanges with these people. This can be mutually beneficial. It would be even better if you gave them the HTML code to link to your website. In this way you can ensure that important keywords or key-phrases are used in the link text, rather than generic words such as “click here”.

Here is some sample html code that you can tailor for your own needs:

<a href="http://www.irishwebhq.com">Web Design Ireland - Irish Web HQ</a>

You should have these code snippets close to hand for use when you need them. Create a few different ones using different keywords.

Don’t sign up for mass link exchanges or link networks. This may have worked in the early days of the web, and may even give an initial boost to your website, but the search engines are clever and will quickly drop you down the ratings. The end result is a loss of money.

Get on the social network. Social networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn are great for getting an online profile. You can link back to your website from these networks. They are also great for building contacts that may eventually become customers. If you have friends or family on these social networks they may also be willing to link to your website.

• Facebook is a network used by members of all types and ages
• Bebo tends to be used by younger users, great if these are your target customer
• LinkedIn is a professional network and great for professional contacts
• Twitter is good for quick messages and alerts to tell others what you are doing

Finally, there are a number of directories and free advertising websites that will allow you to add your site to them. Be careful with the ones you choose to use. Try to find ones in your market area. Where possible use keywords in your link text.

Building inbound links is an important way to promote your website but takes time. Be diligent and build your back-links slowly and carefully, concentrating on quality rather than quantity.

Search engines such as Google and Yahoo love text. It is the easiest way for them to determine the content of a web page or website.  The text on your web pages, in your blog or news post and even in blog comments can determine your ranking in Search engine results pages.

Web Design Customers in Ireland: Our content management system allows you to control your website content and add blog posts whenever you want, all from a simple web interface.

Everyone wants their site on top of Google and Yahoo, but how do we get there? The process is not simple and not quick but with a number of simple and quick techniques carried out regularly you can improve your rating significantly.

My main tip for ranking highly in the search engines: Ensure good website content.

Is your text good enough? Changing website copy can boost your search engine ranking

It is important to understand how the search engines work. It is obviously in the interests of the search engines to return good results to web users. The web user goes to a search engine such as Google, types in a search word or phrase (called keywords) and clicks the search button. Google tries to find the most relevant web pages based on the users search terms.

Google has a stored database of references to websites it has visited or crawled. If it hasn’t visited your website you won’t be in their database. Google ranks each web page in its database based on its relevance to the keyword search. The most relevant results are then displayed to the user, with results becoming less relevant as you go down the list.

Web Design Customers in Ireland:We submit your site to Google and other major search engines so that they know about your website fron the start.

Your challenge is to ensure that:

Search engines consider you relevant.

How do you do this? The simplest way is to add useful content to your site in the form of headings, text, blogs and links so that Google can read this content and mark you as relevant.

Closely analyse your website copy. Is it to concise and the point. Does it offer valuable information to the user? Is it keyword rich?

Keyword Rich Content

Keyword rich content is vital for successful website marketing. What doe keyword rich content mean? It means that your main keywords should occupy 6-7% of the text on your page. Firstly you should select a keyword or keyphrase that you think your target customers might enter into the search engines. Then ensure that this keyword or keyphrase appears around 7% of the time on your web page.

Heres a great tool to analyse the keywords on your page and give you their percentage occurrence. Enter your website address to see which words occur most often on your page.

Results may be surprising. If your keywords appear too few or too many times change the page content to reflect what you have learned.

Where should you put keywords?

Keywords in plain text helps but adding them in the following places is even better:

• Headings, eg H1, H2
• Links
• Page names eg keyword.html
• Bold and emphasised text
• Near the top of the page
• In the page title

So remember, relevant text content is very important for the  search engines. Now might be a good time to analyse your page and make the necessary changes.

Today, thousands of new websites and blogs are created daily. The competition for online sales is intense. In such crowded waters it is hard to stand out. Like a good salesman, your website should reach out to potential clients rather than sitting back and waiting for the customers to stroll in the door.

These days it’s not enough to build a functional site that looks good. You must market it, and it must be marketed correctly. Millions are thrown at marketing that will never achieve any return on investment, simply because companies have a marketing budget that must be spent. However, having someone who knows how to spend it wisely is a treasure indeed.

Search engine  optimisation and  marketing and social media marketing offer a large return on investment. When we market your site online we promise not only to drive customers to your website, but also to drive customers to your site who are interested in your product. Misguided customers are unwanted and may event harm your search engine rating by increasing your bounce rate (the number of visitors who hit the front page of your website and leave without viewing other pages).

Why not contact Irish Web HQ to find out how we can improve your search engine ranking. We offer a free website analysis and quote. Make your website work for you, drive traffic to your site and increase your sales. Contact us now.