If you have any unused domain names, set up a 1 page website weebly.com & link back to your site


Look at your list of dormant or unused domain names, if you have few that out of a moment of madness you thought elbowlickers.com was the next big money maker, but you never got round to working out how and the domain is sat there doing nothing, then put it to work.

A good place to start is weebly.com, build a one or two page website for free, attach your unused domain to it and add relevant content that relates to your main sites activities, then backlink away to your hearts content (only one link per subject, don't backlink the same thing 100 times, it wont work)

You never know, all those elbow lickers may also creep out of the woodwork visit your new weebly site and your big idea could still be a reality.  If not at least you've got yourself a backlink
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Google local or Google Places, as its now known, is a great way to get every location you occupy, listed and in the top results on searches. 

If you're not listed yet then get yourself on there, if you are listed already, have you made the most of the listing? 

Just like normal SEO, the more unique content, photo's, video links and information you add, the better the listing. 

So, if you haven't done it yet, then now is a good time to start.


It's amazing just how many businesses aren't harnessing this free and simple tool

Also once you're there, add information, photos, opening hours, product overviews or service deliverables, as I promise you most of your competitors on there wont bother.
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For everyone who attended (or couldn't make it), here are the notes from Jonathan Hughes presentation on free web marketing click here>>>>
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Have a look under the mattress, in old shoe boxes and in the admin panel of the place you buy domains from.

Do you have any unused domain names you registered and have not done anything with?

Maybe that old idea of having Foogle or Facebrook listed and you were going to make your fortune from, didn't quite come to fruition. Don't ignore these domains, they could still be useful to your existing business.

There's lots of places to build free websites, with simple drag n drop, none technical, template driven site builds. They tend to rank pretty well and as long as your content on these sites is unique and relevant to the links you send back to your main/favoured site, they will only serve as a good quality back-link that the search engines will pick up on and give your main site another little leg up.

It's just another small plus to add to the collective push on your profile on the search engines and it's pretty much for free.
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The question I am asked the most is "what does your business do?"

And as simple as the concept is, it is the most difficult thing to convey at times.

So to put it in a "real world" context instead of a virtual world, it would go something like this:

We build and open a shop, our shop, our name above the door We stock the shop with your products (or services)We install our partners tills, so the partner gets the money, not usWe sell the goodsThe partner gets the money and ships the goodsWe get a commission back at the end of the month for the products/services we've sold

We take all the risk and you get a new sales channel, but online.

I couldn't be easier
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You always see low rates per click advertised on the search engines and social media sites, but when it gets down to your product and the search terms you want to get clicks for, somehow the reality is nothing like the advertised, from x pence or x cents per click and the costs can spiral out of control.

So what's the answer?

Get yourself a "long tail" search term.

e.g. if you sponsored the search term "loans" you'd most likely clear your bank account very quickly, its a highly competitive, high volume search term, that probably should be left to the banks and their deep (heavily rescued) pockets.

If your business offers loans for people with bad credit who want to buy cars, then make that your sponsored search term, it'll cost you a lot less and will target your customer more directly too.

There's also lots of tools that will help you see search trends that you may want to tap into that show some surprising results, even go for misspelt search terms or words.

In short, play around with the cheaper PPC searches, rather than paying a premium to run with the crowd.

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I know some of you will have heard of an "Irresistible offer", well this can seriously impact your conversion ratio in a good way.

You have very limited time to capture and capitalise on visitors, hit them between the eyes with an offer that sets you above and beyond the competition, discount vouchers for life, fabulous warranties, anything that keeps them coming back to you for more.

What's the best, online or offline, irresistible offer you've seen or been given?

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that its becoming less and less relevant to search results

Everything that comes before the natural listing result we all covet and hold so dearly e.g:

PPC
Places
Products

Are pushing natural listings further down the page.

For a lot of search terms natural listings don't even make page 1, are the non technical marketing skills overtaking technical search optimization as the best place to put your time and investment?
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One of the questions that comes up when we talk to prospective partners is the sector and products/services we look to partner up on.

The simple answer is that until we recognise, or are approached by, a prospective partner, we don't know how effective that partnership will be.

Our current partnerships cover: Tool Hire, Taxi Booking, Construction equipment sales, Telecoms, Paint, Safety equipment and we're working on some significant retail partnerships; so its a fairly broad portfolio.

We have target sectors in mind, but are open to discussing an opportunity with any company with a desire to get greater online exposure, in any country in the world.

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One of our big success stories is our tool hire partnership, it gives us access to 90+ UK stores, 1.5m sqft of storage and 1500 staff, all working on our behalf to fulfill the enquiries we generate.

Starting out with mammoth-hire.co.uk, adding nationaltoolhireshops.co.uk, then bighire.co.uk, we didn't know which would capture the most traffic and convert the most business.

As it happens it's nationaltoolhireshops.co.uk, partly, we think, because of design, partly because of the marketing we put behind it, partly because people just like the brand.

However, the beauty of it is, the other 2 sites still generate income for us and our hire partners and occupy competitor page space on search results, thus generating valuable extra income.

So in the age old "watch the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves" or the more recent and well advertised term "every little helps" how could multiple new outlets improve your bottom line?
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