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When most people think about marketing their website they think about “How can we get more traffic online” and yet they seem to totally disregard the Offline Website Marketing Tools already available free and in most cases they should be using.

I want to set about in this article to give you 10 Offline Website Marketing Tools that are guaranteed to give you traffic. However, one point to note, it will not be easy to track how many people are using these offline website marketing tools unless you ask them. So on your contact page on your website make sure you have a drop down box with these options for your customers to select from. To often website owners only include online website marketing tools in their “How You Heard About Us” drop down boxes on their contact pages.

So let us get started …

Offline Tool #1 – Put Your Website Address on Your Business Signs

If you are like my company we have spent thousands of dollars on advertising signage on our business headquarters in Townsville Australia but it still amazes me as I visit other towns and cities, even countries, that businesses with really effective websites still do not advertise their web address on their traditional bricks and mortar signage.

Let me throw a few things at you … How would you like 37,000 people per day to see you! I am quite sure you would do anything to get that sort of traffic wouldn’t you? Course you would. Well there are 200 – 300 business on the street where we are located and in our street we have 37,000 vehicles going past each day which we will call free traffic. Then why wouldn’t you as a business owner have your website address plastered all over your business signs. Do you realise that of the 200-300 businesses that are on our street less than 10 actually have their website address on their business? That’s right, less than ten.

How crazy is that! Going past your business is free traffic. Never underestimate drive by traffic, and if you do not believe me then ask yourself a question, “Why do companies like Walmart, Harvey Norman, Coles Myer etc put their stores on main roads?” For the drive by traffic! It doesn’t matter whether you only get 100 cars a day or 1 million cars a day, having your website address on your signage is a mandatory action. If you do what you will find is that as people go to work and see your website address, they will be more likely to have a look at your website as soon as they get to work than any other time. If a person has a particular need for your products, studies have shown, they are more likely to first check out your website, than actually come into your store.

Offline Tool #2 – Put Your Website Address On Your Vehicle

Just like the previous offline website marketing tool, this is a no brainer. If you have sign writing on your car for your business, you must also put your website address on it. Would you forget to put your phone number on the car? Course Not (Mind you I have seen a few cars that have even forgot that) then why would you forget to put your website address on your car. If your business sells products and services via the internet, then you need to tell your customers where to find you.

30% of our car detailing traffic that I own actually comes from our vehicles and within that 30% over 60% of our business is derived from people seeing our cars on the road, then visiting our web address to see our prices and services and then booking their cars in. So, rule number 2, never forget your website address on your vehicle.

Offline Tool #3 – Put Your Website Address in Your Yellow Pages Advertisement and White Pages Advertisement

The world seems to be obsessed with the Yellow Pages. It is truly a phenomenon. We pay thousands of dollars a year to be in the Yellow Pages and the three things we check to make sure are in our advertisements are our Address, Telephone number and web address. Most people before they ring you will in fact check out your website first. If the website address tells them nothing, then they will simply move on to the one that has a website address that tells them what they need to know.

Offline Tool #4 – Put Your Website Address on Your Business Cards

Look this one is another one of those no brainers. Everybody in business should have an email address and website address and they should both appear on your business cards prominently. Since a large proportion of business these days is done through email then not having just your email address is costing you business. I know of some businesses that will not communicate with you through anything but email and the phone. They simply refuse to deal with people who have a fax because they want to save money and faxing costs money.

Get your website address on your business cards. If you have only just gone and got brand new business cards printed then go down to your local stationary supply company and buy some small stickers and stick them on the back. Might look tacky but at least your customers will know how to contact you.

Offline Tool #5 – Put Your Website Address on all Media Advertising

When ever you do any advertising at all, whether it is a leaflet drop or billboard advertising in Time Square (Nice if you can afford it) make sure that your website address is on the advertising. When people see your website address they are more likely to visit your site first before coming into your store. Many many important sales are won or lost long before you ever see the customer and in many cases your website could be that deciding factor.

Offline Tool #6 – If you are sponsoring a Charity or Sports Group Demand your Website Address be included next to your Company Name

If you have decided to sponsor a Charity or Charity Day or even a sports group then make sure that the Charity or Sporting group includes your Name and Your Website on their printed material. The human race is really quite bizarre as they are more likely to remember your website address than your telephone number. Just like before, if they see your details at a Charity or Sports function, then they are more likely to go to you then your competitors because you are actively supporting your community. To finish this off make sure that the Charity or sporting group gives the customers a way to find you.

Remember to have your website address on all of their printed material and signage if possible.

Offline Tool #7 – Put Your Website Address on your Uniforms

One of the core reasons we give our staff uniforms is so that they are easily identifiable when they are out and about but more so, the uniforms make my staff walking billboards for my company. Most companies when developing their uniforms will only include their logos. My recommendation to everyone is to include your website address as well.

Many people have told me they have seen my staff at the shopping centre and seen our web address on their uniforms and that is how they have found us. Some of our biggest customers have come from the website address on my staff uniforms. This is one of the cheapest and free offline website marketing tools.

Offline Tool #8 – Put Your Website Address on all of your Business Merchandise

If you are creating merchandise to give to your customers, make sure you include your website address on the merchandise. In fact, it is less intrusive to include your website address on your merchandise than it is to include your telephone number. Let me give you an example. I am sitting in our business headquarters writing this article and I looked over at a Stainless steel mug that my brother gave me from Canada (He lives in Canada). The mug is a merchandise item from Prince George Savings Credit Union. I tried to look up their site and put in the usual but all I got was spam sites. Finding their website was simply to hard for me and so I gave up.

I should note that this stainless steel mug takes pride and place on my desk in my office and I use it all the time. If they had their website address on this stainless steel mug then I could have easily looked up their website and maybe set up a bank account or invested some money with them but they have made it too difficult to do so.

If your merchandise is designed to push your name or market you in the workplace, then make sure you make it easy for your customers to find you. Remember, most people will go to your website rather then to call or visit your store first, simply to avoid the heavy sell.

Offline Tool #9 – Incorporate Your Website Address Into Your Logo

When I work with our SEO clients and their business coaches one of the things we look at is their logo. When I first setup our training and car detailing business, one of the things I did was to incorporate our website address in the logo. The core advantage to this is that where ever our logo is our website address is and it allows people to find an easy way for people to contact us.

Often when you are sponsoring teams at football games, the only information about you they allow to be shown is your logo. If you are one of those companies that does not have a prominent office then people may find it to difficult to find you but if you include your website address in your logo, your customers will always have a sure fire way to find you. Remember the human credo, “We Are Lazy!”

Offline Tool #10 – Put Your Website Address On Your Press Releases

When ever you release a press release ensure that you put your website address on it. Many a time, media companies will actually include your website address in their news stories, in particular when they post information about your press release on their websites. I have noticed a trend at MSNBC, Ninemsn and CNN to do this. The advantage to you as the website owner is that the link they include in the text will be treated as a high quality link over others, because most of these three media sites have PR rankings of 8 or more which means this will help you in your webpage rankings in the search engines.

The other point to this is that you may find a traffic peak whilst your news story is actually visible or being played. For example, as a proud Australian I was heartbroken to hear about the death of Steven Irwin an Australian Icon and Legend and also a proud Queenslander like me but when his family did the press release about his death and what he stood for they included the Wild Life Warriors website address on the press release. Virtually every single media outlet around the world has posted the website address on their websites which means this website is doing outstandingly well. Which I am very ecstatic about … as at least in this tragic circumstance there will be some good come out of it.

To finish off, I want to reiterate the 10 Offline Website Marketing Tools you should be utilising -

Offline Tool #1 – Put Your Website Address on Your Business Signs

Offline Tool #2 – Put Your Website Address On Your Vehicle

Offline Tool #3 – Put Your Website Address in Your Yellow Pages Advertisement and White Pages Advertisement

Offline Tool #4 – Put Your Website Address on Your Business Cards

Offline Tool #5 – Put Your Website Address on all Media Advertising

Offline Tool #6 – If you are sponsoring a Charity or Sports Group Demand your Website Address be included next to your Company Name

Offline Tool #7 – Put Your Website Address on your Uniforms

Offline Tool #8 – Put Your Website Address on all of your Business Merchandise

Offline Tool #9 – Incorporate Your Website Address Into Your Logo

Offline Tool #10 – Put Your Website Address On Your Press Releases

If you are looking for more information on Marketing an Online Business [http://www.youronlinemarketingbusinessopportunity.com/MarketingAnOnlineBusiness.asp] or if you are looking for quality material to help you with copywriting – Free Example of Sales Letters [http://www.youronlinemarketingbusinessopportunity.com/FreeExamplesOfSalesLetters.asp] or you just want more info visit Your Online Marketing Business Opportunity [http://www.youronlinemarketingbusinessopportunity.com]

Author: Chris Le Roy
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Electric pressure cooker

First of all, you need to think hard about what you want to achieve with your website. Do you just want to have one because everybody seems to have one nowadays or have you thought about it for a while and how it can benefit your business?

• What do you expect from your website visitors?
• Do you want them to buy products online?
• Do you want them to phone you and arrange a meeting?
• Do you want them to simply know about your business?
• Do you want them to fill in a contact form, or do you prefer them to phone you?
• Do you want to generate business with your website?
• What do you want to tell your website visitors?
• Do you want to tell them who you are?
• Do you want to tell them what you do?
• Do you want to tell them what you sell?
• Do you want to tell them what you specialise in?
• How do you want your business to come across? Progressive? Laid-back? Professional? Crazy?

You need to think about your business first before you start any design process. If you don’t know where you are going, how can you ever arrive?

So let’s set the scene (examples):

Let’s set the goals first… (the website goals of this particular business are highlighted in Italics.)

What do I want to achieve with my website:

I have started a new Marketing Consultancy business and I want to raise awareness about my business in the local area and the services it offers. I am hoping to build a client base and want to encourage website visitors to contact me online by using a contact form or to phone me. Potential clients should find useful information about Marketing Services and reasons why they should make use of my services.

What people will most likely visit my website?

Professional people from small to medium-size organisations who are looking for marketing services because they want to increase their exposure and prefer to work with a local contact they can meet on a face-to-face basis.

What look and feel of my website will these people expect?

My website visitors will expect a professional and progressive look to my website. They will expect a logical navigation and lots of information (and images / examples if possible) about the services I offer. They will not expect playful things like music, movies etc. They want information served quickly.

What colour should I design my website in?

Have a look at websites that offer colour charts with complementary colours. This will help you decide on colours you can use for your website.

What structure should my website have?

This is the time when you start thinking about the services your business offers. In our marketing example, you will probably offer things like copy writing, preparation of sales literature, product marketing, advertising and PR. If these things are your core services, have links or buttons to them on your homepage. Don’t hide them under “Services” – this is already one click too many. Your website visitors don’t have time. What do they look for on your website? Information Information Information. Give them the information fast – with the least number of clicks you can.

From a website structure point of view, try to visibly separate additional company and legal stuff from your services. For example, have all your services (copy writing, preparation of sales literature, product marketing, advertising and PR etc.) as links on the left, and have company information (about us), contact form, sitemap and such like at the top of your homepage. Your website is not about YOU, but about your clients – how can you help them, what solutions can you offer to solver THEIR problems.

Horizontal Navigation vs Vertical Navigation

If you separate company information from products / services, you can have two types of navigation on your website: horizontal for links to company pages (about us, contact, legal etc.), and vertical for all your main services. If you expand on your services, it is always easier to add to the vertical navigation. You will have trouble adding to a horizontal navigation because it is limited in space. Try not to have the width of your website exceed 760 pixels – this is the width of 800×600 resolution screens minus scroll bars.

If you prefer horizontal navigation, then you should think of the navigation options as categories, such as “products”, “services”, “company”, “downloads”. By doing that, you have the chance to split these categories into sub pages later on.

Header – Logo – Strap Line

Think up a strapline for your business, such as “Photography and Art Online”, or “Web Design for Small Businesses”. The strapline summarises your core business activities in a few words. Your logo can include the strapline or the logo AND the strapline can form the header of your website.

Footer – Required?

The footer should really be displayed for all web pages because it finishes off the website and does not leave the content hang in “limbo”. The footer should contain a copyright note together with the first year when your website appeared online and the current year. The footer should also include a link to the website Sitemap and maybe a link to your website’s terms & conditions. It may also include an additional link to the contact page if you want. Website visitors are now used to a certain layout of a website and expect certain parts to appear in certain places on a website. By adhering to the common expectations, you are “spoon-feeding” your website visitors and don’t make them search for the pages they are after.

Summary

Each website consists of header, navigation, content, footer. Each of these parts consists of different kinds of information. Think about your business goals first before you start implementing an all bells-and-whistles flash website with music playing and blinking images. The website you design will be the first online impression for your website visitors. Don’t turn them away by an unsuitable website design. Do some research first – including your competitors – what works, what doesn’t work and try to structure your goals before you start designing your website.

Nadin Dunnigan Web Developer of Marketing Agency in Scotland West Lothian.

Author: Nadin Roth
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Low Cost Prototype PCB

So you want to get your website higher on the search engines?

Doesn’t everybody? Unfortunately for you and me, that means that you are competing against a lot of people for that high spot in the search engine rankings. By reading this guide though, it gives you the upper hand in the fight for the high rankings. I cannot promise to get you top, or even on the first page, but it can give you a start at least. Remember SEO is not just a one time thing, and a lot of effort has to be put in on your part to get your website higher in the rankings. That said, most things are quite simple.Firstly, your website’s history…

Search engines like to see that your websites have a history connected with them. The longer your website has been around, the better, right? Well, its obvious. If your web design site (for instance) has been a web design site for 2 years, obviously you must be doing something right. If you can upkeep a website for 2 years you must be getting enough traffic for you to bother. Search Engines know this, and will favour your site over a new(ish) site that is not as easy to analyse due to its age. Connected with this is…Changes

As you have just read, search engines like a website with history. Whats even better that that, is a website with lots of history. Search engines only bother with content, so changing the design of the website doesn’t really matter to search engines, but changing the content regularly can really help. Firstly, a website with regularly changing content will get visited more often by spiders and secondly a search engine likes fresh content. If your website’s content hasn’t changed for a while then a search engine dictates that its content is probably old and irrelevant now. There is a way round this though, because you don’t want to have to go back every day and change the content. RSS feeds provide new content almost every day, and you don’t have to upkeep them. Unfortunately spiders don’t read javascript, so you will have to parse the RSS feed in a Server Side Script such as PHP before outputting it as HTML.The more pages the better

The more pages your website has the better. A one page website is not as good as a multipage website. Search Engines want to direct their users to high content websites that will be better for them and will have more information. Link density is also key with websites. If your website has only a few pages, you don’t want hundreds of link out of your website, or search engines will view it as more of a “portal” (as in a thouroughfare, rather than phpNuke or something) and its value will be less. Again, search engines don’t want to send their users to websites where they have to click through again, they will just index all the websites you have links to and send their visitors straight to those.

Links to your website

This is a tricky area. You want links to your website, as search engines like more links to your site, and therefore more popularity, but then again if a search engine thinks that you are “link farming” then it may go as far a completely removing your website from their index. What you have to remember when getting links to your site is:

• Does the site linking to you have the same/similar content as your website?

  If the content is different then you obviously aren’t looking to get traffic through that link, or at least not targeted traffic, and therefore search engines will come to the conclusion that you are merely using the link to get placed higher in their rankings. This is bad, and will in fact bring you down in their lists. Link farming is having your link on multiple unrelated websites, and this could get you removed from their listings.

• Do you have a link back?
  Although not really that bad, a reciprocal link is less valuable than a link to your website on its own. A sole link to your website shows popularity and that people are actively thinking about your website, whereas a reciprocal link tells the search engine that you, or the other party instigated the link, and therefore it makes it less valuable. It is the same with links on link directories.

A personal reccomendation is that you get links with your main keywords in the link text. So instead of having just “Six Search” you would be better off with “Search the Web with Six Search”, the keywords being “Search” and “Web” (or “Search the Web”).

Links throughout your website

Your homepage is the most important page on the website. You should always have the most links (to other pages of your website) on there. The more links spiders have to follow to get to content the worse it is for your website. You want clear and quick navigation throughout your website. On most articles websites, you will almost always find links to every other article on each page. Another important point is to always have a link back to your homepage on every page.

Lastly… site map

Having a site map = easy and concise navigation. Link to your site map from every page. This is less important if you link to every page on every other page, such as HouseHuntUk above. However, if your navigation is complicated or spread throughout a lot of pages, eg: if you have on the homepage categories, such as “Articles” or “User Testimonials” which then have links to their own content. That is fine, but a site map just keeps all the links in one place.

Visit Taz Martin’s Blog [http://tazmartin.com] for more information on promoting and marketing your website online!

Author: Taz Martin
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
PCB Manufacturer

Week in Review: Google spent $951 million on data centers in the fourth quarter, upgrading a landmark NYC data hub, Facebook dealing with tax issues in Oregon, NTT buys NetMagic to enter India market.