27/10/2008 by admin.

I’ve been using 1and1 for my websites and e-shops for some time now and am very happy with the service. However, although they offer the facility for sending out e-newsletters as part of the service, it wasn’t quite what I wanted and I started to look around for what else was on offer.

I decided to sign up with Aweber because the reviews for its service have been constantly glowing for the year that I’ve been reading about them. My only concern was that they are an American company and would I get a good standard of customer care?

Then Aweber did something I never expected. They sent me a letter and phoned me. It wasn’t a pre-recorded message - it was an actual human being (with an American accent!).

I know part of it falls into the grey area of marketing and customer retention, but it was a very nice touch.

I’m sticking with 1and1 for the websites, but Aweber is certainly a welcome addition for my e-newsletters.

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30/05/2008 by admin.

A web designer from Wrexham featured in this weeks ‘Biz Bureau’ in the Daily Mirror. Jane Redfern Jones who owns www.wrexhamwebdesign.com offers businesses the chance to subscribe to a service offering a professional website design service for a monthly subscription fee. WrexhamWebDesign.com is part of the Wrexham Media network of websites which includes the Wrexham Business Blog and Wrexham Business Directory.

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20/04/2008 by admin.

A new online networking group has been formed on Facebook. It is a place for Wrexham businesses to join together, network and share ideas. Find it at www.wrexhambusinessnetwork.com. If you haven’t already got a Facebook account you will need to create one to view the information. See below for details on why Facebook is good for business. It’s also completely free.

It’s like a regular Business Network, but free and online and covers the whole County of Wrexham. Using Web 2.0 technology is a fantasic way to promote businesses online.

Advertise your business - make friends, make referrals, do business and make money. It will be a great place to exchange ideas for promoting local businesses online. Join us today!

For more information on promoting your business on Facebook read this article.

Posted in Networking, Internet | No Comments »

05/08/2007 by admin.

Advertising can either make or break your business. There are various forms of advertising such as magazine advertising, newspaper advertising, internet advertising, direct mail. How do you choose the right one?

Advertising in magazines or newspapers is effective but very costly. It is obvious that companies are willing to spend large amounts on advertising if the advertising that they are paying for makes them a profit, but how do you find the best method of advertising for your business without risking losing a fortune? Obviously you need to find the form of advertising that brings profits to the business in the form of sales to balance out the cost of your advertising campaign.

The amount of people buying online is constantly expanding and advertising online has grown to be one of the most cost effective forms of advertising. Stats show that the amount of users on the internet is growing at such a rapid rate that it is predicted that in five years time eighty percent of the population in the UK will have a computer in their home that is connected to the internet. Bearing this in mind one can only imagine how crucial it is to prepare yourself now for that period when the web will be the number one place to get people buying from your business. Advertising online is already easily the most cost effective form of advertising. The world is evolving where the consumer does not have to leave their home to buy anything - groceries, books, clothes…

These days it is crucial to have an online presence for your business, but what is the best way to get it? There are a number of ways. If you already have your own website you can work at getting it high in the rankings of the search engines or you can take out an advert on a website such as Wrexham Today which already ranks highly, and will drive more traffic to your website. Alternatively you can pay for your website to rank high in sponsored listings through a service such as Google’s Pay Per Click but this can prove expensive.

There have been some recent studies that have shown that natural Search Engine Optimisation SEO advertising has several distinct advantages over the pay-per-click advertising. Some studies have shown that the level of trust is higher in natural SEO than with the pay-per-click. For example look up art and craft equipment wrexham in Google. Which would you be most likely to click on - the natural organic search result or the one on the right that the advertiser has paid to place there?

The cost of Pay-Per-Click advertising is high and rising. Click fraud (estimated by some to be as high as 35%) just makes things worse and increases click costs. And now, more and more people are saying they do not click on sponsored ads. Why you ask? Simple, they do not trust they will get relevant information when they click on a sponsored ad versus an organic link. Web surfers now understand through personal experience that PPC ads simply go to the highest bidder pretty much without regard for relevancy. In the early days (i.e. - 3 to 5 years ago); this was not the case. Back then, relevancy mattered (Overture, now Yahoo, was a leader in this area).

This is why at Wrexham Today we work hard on natural search engine results instead of costly pay-per-click. Not only is it far more effective, it also means that we can keep our costs down and offer advertisers an advert at a lower price and with better results. A listing needs to appear within the first three pages of Google to be effective. As another example, one of our most recent advertisers French Flavour (mentioned below), is listed under delicatessens. Try typing Wrexham delicatessens into Google. Delicatessens on Wrexham Today already rank in the top ten on the first page. Click on some of the other ads and see which one is most likely to tempt you to buy from French Flavour or take you to their website…

If you haven’t got your own website then an advert on Wrexham Today will give you that vital online presence. And, if you haven’t already got a domain name for your business, we will even give you a .co.uk domain that points to your webpage completely free of charge. For some examples of businesses with domain names pointing to their webpages on Wrexham Today take a look at www.balloonery.co.uk or www.revsdrivingtuition.co.uk.

Of course we don’t rely totally on search engine results to bring customers to our website. We aim to make Wrexham Today as interesting as possible to visitors - to get them coming back again and again - with free classified ads, events, news, community directory, forums etc, as well as our business directory.

Posted in Articles, Internet, News | 1 Comment »

30/05/2007 by admin.

There are currently more than 66 million ‘weblogs’ or online diaries on the internet, with an estimated 175,000 more created every day. For small businesses a blog is a largely untapped resource that could provide your company with a competitive edge.

Why start a blog?

This is a key question and one that you need to be very clear about before starting your blog.

Some key reasons for starting a business blog:

It will display your expertise in your field and build your reputation and credibility. A blog can help position an organisation as a leader within its particular field and directly drive traffic to its website. One of the greatest challenges facing a small business is how to stand out from the crowd and a blog is a great way of achieving this.

A blog helps to open dialogue with potential customers and also strengthens relationships with current clients. They are designed to enable an open, honest, two way conversation between the blogger and his or her readers. The opportunity for the business owner to openly communicate their personality in their blog provides a great platform for old-style customer service to be achieved online.

A business blog also enables you to capture customer data more easily by encouraging your readers to register their details for more information.

A blog can integrate perfectly as part of your current website or stands alone. Of course if you haven’t got a website then it may be appropriate to use the blog as your website, rather than pay for one that you may have to get someone else to update for you.

Some tips for a successful business blog:

1. Identify the site’s goals – before you start, consider the following questions: What do you want to achieve? How will you achieve it? Who is your target audience? Is your subject area broad enough to allow you to post regularly?

2. Keep the tone informative and interesting. If your blog is well written, existing and potential customers will return to keep updated. Consider whether the tone of your writing should be conversational , news-led or humorous.

3. Choose your domain name carefully. Try and think of something memorable that reflects the topic of your blog. Alternatively if it is going to be an integral part of your business wbsite consider using the same domain name eg www. Blog. Yourbusinessname.co.uk

4. Keep your posts short – the typical web reader has a short attention span when reading content online. Keep it at a level that is quickly readable.

5. Update your blog regularly. Blogs are popular because they’re immediate, and readers expect them to be updated regularly.

Some useful links:

1and1. For instant websites and blogs.
www.blogger.com
www.wordpress.org
www.typepad.com
Blog Marketing - Jeremy Wright

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22/05/2007 by admin.

These days the public expect most businesses to have a website. They are a convenient way for people to find information on your business quickly and easily.

If you go to a web designer to set up a website for you, you may well be quoted several hundred pounds, which may be a large dent in the finances of a smaller business. So why not set up your own? If you have never attempted to set up your own website before you may find yourself on a steep learning curve. But, as the internet develops things that were once the sole domain of a technical expert, are becoming easier to use.

It is now possible to create a website quickly and easily, hosted for as little as £1.99/Month including a domain name.

You should not assume that a search engine will automatically list your site first when the user submits search words. Try and get a link to your site from another larger site, then the ‘Googlebot’ will be more likely to visit your site and include you in the listings.
Another way to get online is to take out a webpage advert on a specialist or community website such as www.wrexhamtoday.com. It costs as little as £2 a month for a full webpage with a free domain name pointing to your page.

Remember to use every opportunity you can to advertise your site – put the address on letters, leaflets, notepaper and emails.

Once you are up and running, you will wonder why it took you so long for you to get your business online.

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