Review of Caphyon Web Ranking System for SEO

Advanced Web Ranking is a search engine ranking software application that helps check the position of a website in search engines. The web ranking systems allows users to pick region specific search engines making managing international sites easier than ever before.  To begin users need to enter a list of keywords or phrases they  wish to track.  Caphyon offers various built in keyword suggestion tools to help users with keyword choices.  Entering keywords proved to be an easy task, from there users enter the URLs of the sites that you wish to track.  After keywords and the URLs are entered for a specific project all that is left is to run the report.  Every time a keyword report is run Caphyon will compare the new page rank with the results from previous page ranks.  MintTwist found the “top sites’ and “overview” tabs especially useful due to the fact that they are useful when tracking a large amounts of keywords and for measuring overall success of a project.  Reports are easily exported to different formats including HTML, PDF, EXCEL and CSV complete with logos, headers and footers.  Users can schedule project updates to run whenever they want as many times as they want.  MintTwist is able to manage multiple large international projects with ease using advanced web ranking software.  Advanced web ranking system provides accurate ranking even when there is a large amount of keywords in the project.  Advanced web ranking system is able to run on multiple platforms which has made it easy for MintTwist to access the ranking system interface when meeting with customers outside of our home office.  Another useful tool offered by Caphyon web ranking system was the local search ability.  It allows users to make their own search engine in a way to find results in your interface using google maps and Yahoo local search.

When first using Caphyon’s ranking system users must be patient because the possibilities of the software can be overwhelming at times.  MintTwist users had to take some time to read the user manual and play around with the software for while in order to gain a full understanding of the possibilities.

The one complaint that we had with the software was it was not entirely easy to figure out how to effectively see how our competition was doing, but after some time spent reading the user’s manual we figured out the process.

The Link manager is also a very useful tool for anyone looking to build link campaigns.  Link Manger does exactly what it suggest in that it enables users of all abilities to efficiently and effectively organize their link campaigns to their specific needs.  Features of Link Manger include, but are not limited to: Finds links relative to the users site, keeps track of link partners, finds broken links that can negatively affect your page rank, monitor competitors, track your back links, and produce highly customized reports.  Link manager automatically eliminates manual searches to reduce the bandwidth burdens of other programs.

Overall Caphyon’s web ranking system has been an essential to MintTwist’s success and we highly recommend Caphyon over all other web ranking systems.  The level of competence and possibilities make it a dream to work with.

SEO Success Needs Backup from Blog and Social Network Marketing

It is necessary to support search engine marketing techniques across different aspects of a website.

This is the according to Kevin Gibbons who, in a post on the Econsultancy blog, observed that using methods such as pay per click marketing once is valuable as the chances of conversions are high, but “you don’t want to pay to attract that customer a second or third time”.

Maintaining brand awareness for consumers can be important and blogs were highlighted as being a good way of doing this, as they can create user habits through “regular, engaging [and] relevant posts” that encourage surfers to save pages in their favourites.

Email marketing was also recommended by Mr Gibbons, although he did add that sending regular messages was “pretty useless” and risked angering the customer.

Aude Lesur of Credau, an Anglo-French firm that create eco-friendly fashion wear for men said “SEO alone, did not help us to effectively portray the benefits of our products to our potential customers. We wanted to reach men with style and an eye for classy clothing with a difference. By engaging with our audience through Blogs and Social Networks we have been able to reach more of our target customers groups.”

Elliott King of MintTwist, the web marketing agency recently likened search engine optimisation to politics, saying that it drives debate because many people do not know what it is, have had negative experiences or believe it to be overly complicated.

New Goal Group Website

MintTwist is proud to announce the launch of the redesigned goalgroup.com website.

The company provides specialist legal services relating to class actions and security class actions that can protect clients against investment losses incurred through management failure that result in class action lawsuits.

4 Key SEO Tips For Website Redesigning!

by Kabir Bedi

The world wide web is constantly changing and to make sure your business keeps pace, it is important to be up to date with the latest trends and technologies. And this is why companies decide to redesign their website. Of course, there are other reasons too like re-branding the business, updating the website to reflect the present status of the company in the market, deleting old pages and uploading new information, better marketing fluff and so on.

However, search engine considerations are the most forgotten part in the website redesigning process. Website owners are so involved with creating a new look and feel for the website that they often fail to evaluate the SEO implications of their actions. They realize it only when the website is done and ready and there are fluctuations in the rankings of the website. But that is only when precious revenue is lost in terms of traffic, leads and sales.

Here are 4 SEO tips that you should adhere to while redesigning your website.

Strengthen the Information Architecture

Usability should be the key concern while designing the information architecture of the website. However, you should also consider including some SEO objectives for the usability process. Search engine optimization should not come after the website has been launched. Rather, it should be a key consideration throughout the design and development of the project.

Draft a set of relevant keywords that encompasses the essence of your company and business. Then make sure your website has pages that are devoted to those keywords so that search engine have relevant content when their crawlers come to index your website.

Make sure you add new pages to your website, especially if you are deleting certain pages. This is because you don’t want the search engines to think that your website is shrinking. Rather you should tell them that its growing. The deleted pages would obviously take with them their search engine credibility so you would need something to compensate the loss.

Don’t Change the URLs

When you change the URLs of your web pages, the new URLs would be treated as completely new pages by the search engines. All the search engine credibility of the previous pages would be lost along with the URLs.

Therefore, focus on creating search engine friendly web pages with search engine friendly URLs and light code with WordPress and other such CMS platforms. Make sure all the pages of your website are able to rank well in the search results and not just your homepage.

Update the Website Content

Search engine crawlers are always on the look out for new and fresh content. And there is no better opportunity than the redesigning process to upload new content on your website. Unlike blogs, it is not possible to change the contents of the website, especially on the homepage etc. on regular basis. So, make sure you upload useful and updated content on such pages. Ideally, focus on constructing more content on the homepage of the website followed by lesser supporting content on the internal pages.

Launch the website Carefully

don’t forget to run down the last minute check list before launching the new redesigned website. The search engine ranking of your website depends on a variety of factors including the website structure, the design and layout and the content. It is not just about the number of links pointing to your website that decides the ranking but how popular the website actually is among the users.

MintTwist Web Design understands the importance of  SEO in web marketing, MintTwist work with clients to significantly increase the number of targeted sales leads achieved by clients.

Good intentions won’t sell Windows 7

by Dave Rosenberg

Microsoft’s launch party videos have proven to be entertaining to viewers even if not for the reasons for the marketing department had hoped for. There were a great many comments on my post that provided context to their release, but generally speaking most industry-watchers have been confused as to the goals behind the program, questioning the target audience not just for the videos, but for the launch parties as well.

I reached out to Microsoft for comment but they withheld at this time as the videos are apparently just one step in a much larger integrated marketing campaign.

I personally found the most recent video weird, but after thinking through things a bit I think this is a case of a good idea hampered by poor execution. The videos are well-done and professional and try to connect with consumers in a humanistic tone. The fact that it feels like you stumbled into a shiny-happy Windows world filled with sit-com throwaways is the problem. Even if this is a training video to show others how to throw a launch party, it’s hard to connect with the vapid characterizations of party guests.

This is the crux of Microsoft’s marketing problems. It’s not that they aren’t good at technical marketing issues, it’s that the brand itself is so voluminous, it’s very hard for people to connect to specific products like Windows. And the efforts to persuade consumers isolate the tech media and confuse IT shops.

One of the biggest issues Windows Vista faced was consumer confusion as to why they should buy an upgrade at all. Microsoft did a very poor job of communicating why anyone should care and added such a complicated set of offerings that people simply couldn’t figure out what to buy. (Note that Windows 7 also has a very complicated pricing scheme.)

Right now, the Windows brand doesn’t have a huge amount of momentum behind it, even if Microsoft itself and Bing do. Getting momentum behind Windows 7, regardless of the methodology should be Microsoft’s main goal right now. And the company is pulling out all the stops, from commercials to launch parties to getting the OS out into the channel sooner than retail, it is trying to gain back the lost mind-share.

The challenge is that companies like Apple, with a significantly smaller share of the operating system market, have developed such sophisticated and stylized marketing, that Microsoft has a very hard time competing with the overall effect. So, Microsoft has instead gone after the mythical “every-man” (or every-man, woman and racial/gender/ethnically diverse party in the world), which falls way short for we Valley media types that will mock anything and everything.

But the target customer for Windows 7 may actually like the experience of a launch party simply because it humanizes the operating system and allows them to ask silly questions like how to burn a CD. These were not made for sophisticated tech buyers and that may not be a bad thing.

The point is that PC manufacturers need people to buy more computers and really only Microsoft can make that happen until vendors (and consumers) embrace Linux or switch to Macs.

Do not make the same marketing mistakes as Microsoft, Minttwist provides all our clients with effective and targeted  web marketing campaigns to propel your business to the next level.

5 Things to Consider When Starting a Website or Web Project

There are many ways to fail when launching a new website. Just as anything else in life, the Internet is a massive place and you are just a tiny speck on one of billions of radars.

The trouble starts when you, being so close to your own project, see your website as much more than it actually is. And I’m not only talking about finding a niche and all that fun stuff, but you have to take yourself and your project with a pinch of salt because that is exactly how the rest of the world will be taking it, too.

If salt is not your thing then you may just have to substitute it with a dash of failure because, perhaps unfortunately, the Internet is very salty indeed.

Being close to your project is not a bad thing – indeed you can be the driving force behind it and thrust it upon the bleary-eyed and unyielding world. But the measure of success comes from afar. You simply cannot march head-first into a new web venture with guns blazing and developers flanking your left and investors flanking your right; for a start, success comes, ninety-nine per cent of the time, over a long period of that thing we call time, after many sleepless nights.

However, a project often falls into disarray when certain procedures aren’t adhered to. I’m going to list five things here that I think are of such great importance that it could form part of a check-list by which to measure the success of many an online venture. I list them in no particular order and the list is by no means complete.

1. There’s no rush
   Really, there isn’t. If you’ve come up with a brilliant idea, a true light-bulb-ping moment, get it all noted down, research it and talk about it (a lot) with people in the know. They can advise you of what is out of scope, what might be better and what is so good or bad about your idea. Don’t rush to a cheap freelance developer and hope to get it done and be reaping the rewards by Friday.
2. Do a “soft launch” if you have to
   If you really want to get your project out there ASAP, there’s usually no problem with doing what the industry dubs a “soft launch”. That is, launch your project warts-and-all and hope to gather a decent enough following to continue after you update to full-launch mode. A soft launch doesn’t just mean slapping a ‘beta’ tag next to your logo, it means carefully informing users what’s going on and what might change. It is also a great opportunity to gather feedback from Joe Public. Remember that openness is so sacred on the Internet that if you don’t inform people that you intend to start charging, you may face a backlash as soon as you flip that big ol’ switch.
3. Don’t hope for an instant crop from a single seed
   As I’ve already alluded to above, it’s so important to be careful not to hope for too much from your project. I’m really not trying to put a downer on any project, I completely believe that more Facebooks and more Googles are hidden in the back of peoples’ minds in random exotic places around the world. I just think that keeping a cool and level head, working really hard and speaking a lot with people who know what they are talking about is much more successful than blind hope. They don’t talk about crops with regard to success for nothing; a crop takes time to grow and, often, people can only afford the time, money and effort to start that crop with one tiny-weeny seed.
4. Don’t panic when something goes wrong
   Things do go wrong, FACT. It’s not always one person’s fault and it can, almost always, be fixed. But the most important part, before fixing what’s broken, is to not panic. Remember, you are close to the project so it’s difficult to see it from a more reasonable, and indeed a more real perspective. Seek help, calm down and have a tête à tête with your developers, designers and anybody else involved. Not only are you more likely to get the problem fixed, but you will probably get it done a lot more quickly than if you ran around like a headless chicken first. If a project completely falls over, you don’t need to follow it like a sack of potatoes; cool it to the extent that you could shock an ice cube, roast your chicken and potatoes with your pinch of salt, then get things sorted. It’s also worth noting that, if you use an agency, they will have factored-in (I hate that phrase) some contingency time in case of such an event.
5. Enjoy the process!
   It’s one thing to be good at it. It’s a completely different thing to enjoy it, too! If you enjoy the whole process, you will find that you are able to handle a lot more problems head on, with fingernails intact. Things run so much more seamlessly if you choose people who you like working with to help build your project into something important. Gifted with the choice between a person/people/agency who are very good at what they do, but are lacking in the personality department, and another person/agency who aren’t as good but can get the job done and are fun, engaging, interactive and proactive with you then, hands down, the latter is the better choice.

I’ve tried not to be too negative in my five points up there. I think that the Internet would be such a cleaner and more successful place if people just stop falling over each other trying to find the next big thing and just relax, sit back and take things one step at a time! And if things don’t go according to plan, pick up the pieces and keep going with your head stuck firmly on your rigid shoulders.

My boss told me something today that resonates well with this article. He said, “don’t worry if there’s something that really can’t be done, or that goes wrong; there’s always a work-around”.

Indeed.

Website Theft – Pitfalls and Opportunities

Are you concerned that competitors can steal your website?

What are the pitfalls for an offender, what are the legal comebacks and can you turn the situation to your favour?

Maybe, take the real world example below…

A case of website and web copyright theft

MintTwist and N.I.D-lab both create websites. N.I.D-lab stole MintTwist’s website with a cut-and-paste job.

The Original MintTwist Website

Stolen MintTwist Website with MintTwist clients still listed

This provides MintTwist with an opportunity to demonstrate an important selling point

Indulge us…

Ok, Clients of MintTwist, the multi-national web design and web marketing company are a smart bunch. They know that for a business website to be successful at winning more new sales leads it must get the right messages across to the right audience groups in a fast and effective manner. In a nutshell this is the secret of website success and the true value of a web design service.

It follows then, that one design does not fit all…

For example, target customers of MintTwist are medium sized businesses that target customers in the UK, Europe, USA and across the Middle East. MintTwist returns value to its clients by helping them to increase their revenue by significantly growing the number of sales leads they achieve from their web strategy through improved web design and web marketing services. The design that MintTwist created for their website gets this message across.

Conversely, N.I.D-lab, is a cheap web design company that offers cheap website services to anyone. The design that they have chosen for their website is a cut-and-paste copy of the MintTwist site. This was an error of judgement for several reasons ….

Pitfalls for the offender and their clients

As well as risking a lawsuit for themselves and any of their clients, who will be liable if they have performed the same ’service’ for them, they have also failed at the first fundamental step of web design. The MintTwist website design is aimed at well-informed professionals with a vision of how to extract a significant return from their website purchase. These are not the kind of customers who will buy from N.I.D-lab and therefore should not be N.I.D-labs targets.

The next time N.I.D-lab decide to ‘re-design’ their site, to make it more effective they would be well advised to focus and optimise for their own (somewhat unique) selling point and target customer group – “cheap copies for people who like getting sued”.

What to do if your website is stolen?

If you are a website owner who have had your website stolen you should consider legal action. Google can also help to prevent damage by black-listing offenders using the power of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The Google page dealing with offenders of website theft will provide more information on this.

More Opportunities

After a successful launch into the Abu Dhabi Web Design and Dubai Web Design Markets MintTwist is seeking to further diversify its markets in order to increase the level of service it can provide to its clients. For more information on attractive partnership opportunities with MintTwist, contact Elliott King. N.I.D-lab management need not apply.

Project Launch: Paul Rodgers, Journalist

MintTwist is proud to announce the launch of paukrodgersjournalist.co.uk. The new website is for UK-based journalist Paul Rodgers, who writes regularly for the Independent, The Observer and the Economist, amongst others.

Mr. Rodgers required an online portfolio of his writing and MintTwist delivered a slick, modern website, powered by WordPress. The style is clean and current, with a nod to the print press in its use of typefaces and structure.

http://paulrodgersjournalist.co.uk
http://minttwist.com

Is a second wave of world Browser Wars heading our way?…

… Maybe. Although this time it will be more complex.

IE and FireFox are the dominant incumbents and Google’s Chrome is the rising super-power. However, dig a little deeper and you’ll see there are more potential players in the battle for world domination.

Are we heading for a second wave of browser wars?

“The issue that lies ahead is whether browsers will remain a relatively simple window on to the internet or become intelligent agents that shape online experiences. If they go down the latter route this would have potentially disruptive effects for others who do business on the internet”, said Elliott King of MintTwist web design.

For the internet’s booming social networking industry in particular, the prospect that some of the capabilities associated with social networking will be embedded into browsers, making them more aware of users’ interests and social relationships, could force difficult strategic decisions.

Google’s main contribution to the browser skirmishes we’ve seen thus far has been an obsession with speed. With a new, faster engine for executing Javascript – the code that makes it possible for a browser to imitate applications that run on a PC – Google galvanised the rest of the industry and forced rivals to focus harder on their own core technology.

Google’s goal, as it takes on Microsoft, is clear – to accelerate the advances in the internet platform in ways that eventually make it unnecessary to run “native” software applications that rely on a PC’s underlying operating system. That, ultimately, should benefit the web-based services on which its success depends.

Others, however, see deeper potential in the browser and are out to push its capabilities further. As a piece of software that all users have to use – it clearly has a strong strategic position.

For instance, Mozilla, the maker of the Firefox browser, says it is looking into arming its browser with a number of extra munitions – such as ‘knowing who you are and handling authentication on the websites you visit, keeping a record of your social network so that you can interact with friends; and, making it easier for you to share content with your network.

Given that these are all territories that social networks like Facebook currently view as their own, that could create new fronts opening up between browser makers and the internet services that rely on them.

If it makes life easier for internet users, bringing more capabilities into the browser will be hard to resist and populations of internet users may start to migrate away from using artificial silos [like Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn].

This has attracted a flurry of interest and investment in browsers from the social networking big guns. The potential for “social browsers” is a currently a hot topic in Silicon Valley.

The internet industry has long nurtuerd a feeling of mutual growth and co-operation; but there’s a growing evidence that the time may be coming for players to choose sides, ready themselves and prepare for war!

MintTwist help medium sized product and service based businesses to increase revenue and sales leads by defeating their enemies on the battlefields of the internet with better web design and web marketing services. Contact Elliott King for more information.

Twitter sets to roost in London

London is becoming the Twitter capital of the world, in terms of number of users and number of businesses developing add-on tools for the communications network.

While Twitter is the toast of its native Silicon Valley in California, London boasts more users than any other city in the world.

Even though Twitter itself is yet to generate any revenue, early-stage investors are pouring millions of pounds into small companies in the Twitter “ecosystem” in the London area.

London web designers have produced many of the most popular of the many third-party tools used to post to Twitter, called Tweetdeck. Reading’s Tweetmeme, which tracks the most popular news stories discussed on Twitter, is attracting millions of visitors a month while Twitterfeed, based in Tooting, is used by thousands of publishers to post their latest headlines on to the site.

Twitter was launched in 2006 but really took off in the UK at the beginning of this year, thanks to support from celebrities such as Stephen Fry and Jonathan Ross. But many see Twitter’s potential as far greater than documenting the lunching habits of the stars.

“Twitter has huge potential as a marketing and communications platform”, says Elliott King, Director at MintTwist Ltd.

As Twitter has broken out of the early-adopter niche, it has attracted more mainstream users and uses… Jobseekers are using Twitter to find new employment. Many businesses push marketing messages and even run customer support services through their Twitter profiles. Millions of users flock to the site for the biggest news stories of the hour, as defined by the Twitter community rather than newspaper editors.

MintTwist help medium sized product and service based businesses to increase revenue and sales leads with the smart application of web design and web marketing services. Contact Elliott King for more information.

A bad website harms your business

If you are going to have a bad website, you are probably better off having no website at all. It’s true. While a bad website at least gets your name in the search engines, it can also ruin your credibility. A hard to use website, for example, may push your potential customers over to the competition, while an amateurish website can convince potential customers that your business is simply not a serious one.

So how can you avoid these marketing gaffes online? Quite simply, by:

1) Making sure that you get your website when you are ready. You should only invest in a company website when you are ready to spend time and money on the project. Only develop a website when you are ready to hire professionals to design it for you and you are ready to promote and update your website regularly.

2) By entrusting your website to professionals. You may know someone who understands basic HTML or WYSIWYG programs, but you need professionals with a discerning eye to develop your professional website for you. You need a professional team – like the one at Ciplex – to get professional results. While amateur results may be OK for a personal webpage, any minor glitches or design errors on a company website make you look less credible. Unfortunately, with so many scams online today, customers may see any lack of credibility on your part as a red flag sign. Don’t give customers an excuse to not do business with you. If you cannot afford professionals, wait until you can or work out a financing plan.

3) By making your website part of an overall business plan. Your website is not stand-alone. It should work with your overall business plan, marketing strategy, and branding plan. If you are not sure what you want your website to accomplish, you should determine this before setting a site up. Nothing is worse than the business website with no discernable goal.

4) By ensuring that your website looks its best. Your website should be professional, clean, and attractive. It should err on the side of simplicity and work well with no delays or glitches. It should work well on different computers and with different browsers, so that all your potential customers can read your marketing message. Check and re-check your website to ensure that it looks as good as it possibly can.

MintTwist help medium sized product and service based businesses to increase revenue and sales leads by defeating their enemies on the battlefields of the internet with better web design and web marketing services. Contact Elliott King for more information.

Internet users quick to judge

Internet users can take just one-twentieth of a second to decide whether they like the look of a website, researchers say.

Dr Gitte Lindgaard and colleagues from Carleton University in Ottawa flashed up websites for 50 milliseconds and asked participants to rate them for visual appeal.

When they repeated the exercise after a longer viewing period, the participants’ ratings were consistent.

“Visual appeal can be assessed within 50 milliseconds, suggesting that web designers have about 50 milliseconds to make a good impression,” the Canadians report in the journal Behaviour & Information Technology.

Associate Professor of psychology Bill von Hippel, from the University of New South Wales, says it takes about 50 milliseconds to read one word, making this a “stunningly remarkable” timeframe in which to process the complex stimuli on a website.

“It’s quite remarkable that people do it that fast and that it holds up in their later judgement,” he said.

“This may be because we have an affective or emotional system that [works] independently of our cognitive system.”

He says that in evolutionary terms, this ability helped us respond rapidly to dangerous situations.

Halo effect

Professor von Hippel says the study also reflects the so-called halo effect, where an initial bias towards something drives subsequent judgements.

“This suggests that we make very quick judgements based on some sort of emotional reaction and our more considered judgements still reflect that first impression,” he said.

Australian researcher Sue Burgess, who evaluates website useability and is a senior lecturer in information management at the University of Technology Sydney, says the finding comes as bad news to anyone hoping to convey information.

“There’s no doubt that people do respond very quickly to websites and decide very quickly whether to stay on them,” she said.

She says the appeal of a website is usually tied to colour, movement and interactivity, with the way the information is structured coming second.

Ms Burgess says it is unclear whether the Internet is changing our ability to concentrate for long periods or if we are adapting to the medium.

“There’s so much information and … there’s always going to be a lot of clicking around just to see what’s there,” she said.

MintTwist help medium sized product and service based businesses to increase revenue and sales leads with the smart application of web design and web marketing services. Contact Elliott King for more information.

What is the value of trust and friendship in business?

Has the recession changed the way you approach business?

Many of the business people in my network have answered an emphatic YES to this question…

Jurga Zilinskiene who runs established language translation services company Today Translations said, “During the recession we realised the value of our local suppliers. Trust and pulling together has been the key to the success that we’ve enjoyed through these lean times. By working in close proximity with our partners we have been able to focus on delivering a high quality service and a fast turnaround for our clients which has really made a difference to our bottom line.”

Jurga Zilinskiene who runs established language translation services company Today Translations.

Doing business with people trust and meeting people face-to-face are coming back into fashion. The perception amongst my ad-hoc sample appeared to be that by working with people (suppliers) that you’ve met and with whom you have developed some level of trust – and by trust I mean an intuitive feel for the person, as well as an understanding of the services their business can offer – you will achieve a greater level of customer service and ultimately an increased ROI.

Aude Lesur of Credau an Eco Menswear label specialising in eco clothing for men all made in Britain said “From conception to packaging, Credau has always believed in using local industry. All of our clothes are made in Britain, East London. Our care labels are woven in Pembrokeshire, and environmentally sustainable. We keep our carbon footprint to the minimum. We do not use plastic and we send out goods using a biodegradable polybag. We started out doing this because we care about the environment and it’s a core business value of Credau – however, we have been amazed at the resilience this policy has given our business during this downturn. We have experienced increased levels of service from our suppliers – all of them know the value of raising quality and because we are in it together they are also personally motivated to deliver even more value.”

Another client of ours who is reaping the rewards of the increased value that is being placed on “trust in business” is Mike Lacorte, Director of the Private Investigator agency Conflict International. Mike said, “We are seeing an increasing number of corporate businesses come to us, who want to find out more about potential employees they are thinking of taking on for key positions. They want to know if the person is drinking too much or doing drugs before they take them onto a very lucrative package. For them it’s a smart business decision and everything we do is within the law and entirely confidential.”

My conclusion; meeting with and trusting in your suppliers, partners and employees is crucial if you are to create sustainable business relationships. The benefits are a strong ROI, increased profit and (dare I say it) ‘friends’ who will be amongst the first to provide real help in challenging times.

WPP chief: Industry rebound will focus on web marketing

The world economy is improving, but that has not translated into increased demand for expensive, elaborate advertising campaigns, according to WPP Group chief Martin Sorrell. However, the industry has the potential to rebound, and when it does, it will focus on digital, Sorrell said.

Sorrell told reporters Wednesday that the ad industry will look very different when it fully recovers from the effects of the recession, with the focus moving away from traditional, The Wall Street Journal reports.

“It’s not going to be in 30-second TV ads; it’s not going to be in newspaper or magazine ads; it’s going to be digital, it’s going to be viral and organic” Sorrell said.

One particular reason the industry won’t rebound as quickly as the economy is that marketers have grown accustomed to paying less for campaigns as agencies have been forced to slash rates in an effort to retain clients. Even Dublin-based WPP, the world’s largest agency by revenue, reported a 48 percent drop in net profit (to $177.3 million) for the first half of the year.

MintTwist help businesses increase sales in the UK, Europe, the Middle East and Worldwide markets. With a Managed Web Marketing service, MintTwist make sure their clients have the right setup before commencing an all-encompassing web marketing stratgey that dramatically increases sales leads, visibility and improves the reputation of our client’s businesss in target markets.

For more information contact Elliott King on +44 20 8349 8213 or elliott@minttwist.com.

Online PR and Web Marketing

Remember all that time and effort you spent coming up with the right name for your business? You wanted the right name because your name is a large part of your brand. You want to create a brand that will conjur positive images about your business and stick in people’s minds; you wanted something that will last, something you could build around, and grow.

Brand building is just the start of bigger things to come. How people perceive your business matters – it can increase sales and reinforce your reputation. Negative perceptions, on the other hand, can do great harm to your business.

These days the extension of your online brand and reputation management is as crucial as it is in the real world.

Whether we like it or not, with the advent of social media people will be talking about us online. And two, the possibilities this word of mouth online presents – are endless.

Online PR is therefore about building and managing your brand and reputation online by creating relationships with the right people and linking up to them. Where possible, engaging in convesrations that are taking place about your business (because they will take place whether you like it or not) can potentially provide huge benefit to your brand, and increase your sales.

So just why is online PR so important?

It’s quite simple really. If you care about your business – then you should care about creating and maintaining a good reputation online. The web has changed the way we live, the way we communicate and the way we do business.

Once driven by the offline world, now we need to go where our customers are and the fact is, most of them are online. However with trust being as important an issue as its ever been, a good reputation plays a big part in closing the deal. And social media gives you the ability to create a seal of approval and build a reputation that can last forever to counteract this issue. A blinkered view of the online world could have the opposite effect.

An even bigger advantage in building that reputation because by getting other reputable people to talk about and link back to you, you increase your visibility. Think of it as networking with your niche.

Getting relevant links back from websites and other internet channels also increases your search engine ranking!

Tradespacer, Antonia Chitty (AC PR) who has used online PR extensively for her business recommends it, “I use online promotion for my business and it gets great results. The wonderful thing is that you can post a call to action with a link that takes people straight to your site: this can lead to much better response rates than in print media. I’m writing this while in the middle of an online campaign to promote www.themumpreneurguide.co.uk and it is really gratifying to see how many people are responding by visiting the site within minutes of receiving an email, and going on to make a purchase too.”

Spelling out some of the benefits of online PR. Here’s what’s in it for you ….

• You become aware of what’s being said about you and by whom.
• Millions of consumers are turning to the web first for news – if you have news, it should be online as well as offline.
• When news sites and bloggers talk about or reference you, it not only increases credibility, it gives you a link back to your website which helps your search engine optimisation and ultimately your ranking.
• By being part of the conversations taking place online, you lead the conversation rather than being the butt of it.
• By building relationships with online bloggers and influencers, you are helping build your own reputation.
• A reputation built online has a longer lifespan. An offline press release for example, has a limit to its lifespan it only lasts as long as that issue of the newspaper lasts (if you get featured). This is not so online, once you get a link from a valuable source, it’s there till someone manually takes it down.

I’m convinced! How do I build my reputation and traffic? Online PR takes a bit of skill to get it right, so here are a few things to consider when drawing up an action plan.

• Do an audit of how you are currently perceived. Google yourself, and take note of what Google suggests people are searching for with your brand.
• Research your audience online and how you can reach them. Spend some time researching where your online audience hangs out – forums, blogs they read, communities they participate in.
• Find out who the stakeholders/influencers are within your space.// Identify who sets and challenges the trends within the scope of your own business and then prepare to build relationships with those people. Tip: bloggers and influencers need to be approached on a one to one level – not with a press release.
• Setting yourself up as an expert is key – so brush up and make sure you blog often and that your blog works (so people will want to reference it or link to it)
• The search optimisation bit works when you get a link from a reputable site back to your own – so aim to build these up.
• Learn how to write an effective online press release that you can distribute online to PR websites.
• Add a place for press releases, coverage etc…. have a look at ours for ideas.
• Finally don’t forget to use those all important and relevant keywords when submitting an online press release to get the maximum benefit of tying in your reputation and your search engine ranking!

MintTwist help businesses to improve their reputations and increase sales every day. With a Managed Web Marketing service, MintTwist make sure their clients have all the right things in place before commencing an all-encompassing web marketing stratgey that dramatically increases sales leads, visibility and improves the reputation of our client’s businesss. Contact Elliott King for more information.

Copywriting with a nod to SEO

Copywriting and SEO are getting closer and closer. Here are some key points to note when writing copy (that is SEO friendly) for a website …

1. Keywords are cool when it comes to writing copy for search

Many websites that guess their keywords and are spreading themselves too thinly (this included us at one stage). So getting your keyword strategy right is crucial . Also, we talk about keywords but phrases or key phrases is more accurate. How many of us have typed in just one word into Google? SEO experts should be able to provide a list of target key phrases based on SEO analaysis.

2. Highlight your keywords on the page

Keywords essentially tell search engines like Google what your website or that page is about. So for your page to increase its search engine ranking, your keywords need to be reflected in your copy as well as within the code (this bit is for the SEO people).

Within the actual copy itself, it is important to ‘highlight’ your keywords in prominent areas of the page, so insert your target keyword naturally into the main heading and body copy. Also, if your paragraph headings and subheadings contain your keywords (or related terms), it all helps summarise what this page is about so work them in!

3. Write good copy that’s keyword rich (note: it’s not the same as spamming)

Imagine you arrive on a website that’s a Fairtrade business and here’s what you see.

“Welcome our website, we’re an ethical & green business. Buy our ethical & green baby wear, plus we also specialise in ethical & green girls tops ….”

Two words: Not nice.

There’s always the temptation to just splatter your keywords or phrases all over your Tradespace or website to get to that all important page one of search results but a word of advice – this is not a good strategy.

Spamming your content will only drive your customers away. In fact, it will turn the search engines away because the focus now is on having authoritative content, well placed keywords and forward planning. In short, your content needs to work for your customers. If it works for your customers and gives them what they are searching for, it will increase your ranking naturally.

4. Build your content up

One of the best ways you can help your search engine ranking is to update your website regularly. The most successful blogs in terms of search are ones that constantly updated with good highly relevant content.

Updating regularly not only gives your customers and the search engines something to come back for it presents more opportunities to use your keywords and set yourself up as an authority in what you do!

5. Links work when writing copy for search

It’s no secret that getting links from authority sources and linking out to them is a great way to increase your rank. But equally important is how these links are named and how you’re naming/using other links on your page.

If you’re still using the old ‘click here’ to describe your links, ditch it now. One good reason to do so is the fact that that link makes no sense to a screen reader or a search engine. To give search engines a flavour of your content, insert links that are contextual, and reflect your keywords and try to get your network that links back to you to do the same.

Contextual linking is one way of improving your search engine ranking but to increase your links, you’ve got to consider every element of your page as an opportunity. So using keyword or key phrase rich titles and descriptions when linking your video files, your images and yes, even your navigation can all give your search ranking a boost!

MintTwist help businesses to improve their reputations and increase sales every day. With a Managed Web Marketing service, MintTwist make sure their clients have all the right things in place before commencing an all-encompassing web marketing stratgey that dramatically increases sales leads, visibility and improves the reputation of our client’s businesss. Contact Elliott King for more information.

What kind of ‘Twit’ are you?

This article was first posted a few months ago. Since then, amongst others, we’ve had one or two politicians start to follow our tweets. Whilst they might not be allowed to talk about their tweeting motives in public, we thought they may find this an interesting (and educational) read …

What kind of Twit are you?

1. The link pirate
Spend the majority of your tweets dropping links to other people’s stuff. Combine this with a retweet, and you are off to a good start. i.e. Retweet someone else’s link. Continually. This results in exposure to the original tweeter (who will thank you for exposing them) – and has the additional bonus of exposing you to the owner of the link. Best of all – you’ve spent absolutely shit all time composing the content, and your followers give you a great big slap on the back for “finding” such a great link. Go you.

Commonly found browsing Digg / Delicious / Reddit home pages for juicy tit bits, in the hope that someone cares that they found it.

2. The retweeter
Spend the majority of your tweets, retweeting other people’s opinion. This can indicate that you a). Share the opinion or b). You want to get on their radar (because they are big blogger in niche X, Y or Z), or c) you retweet them in the hope that one day they retweet you. The cynic in me says that 80-90% of retweets are just that. Just take a look at Retweetist – you can easily see who the top dogs getting retweeted are. But are they top dogs because they have an audience already? Some are. Mashable for example. Other’s are just Internet Marketers with potentially huge reach – who are being coat tailed. In fact such is the power of the RT that Twitter has a spam cloud to deal with automated RT’s. Plenty of Twitter users want completely rid of RT’s and are creating filters to lose them. Combine the Retweeter with the link pirate and you find another monster. The retweet thief.

Commonly found browsing your most recent tweets, will have a high following count

3. The discoverer
These are the people whom I value most. Along with conversationalist, they are the people that REALLY find stuff. Not just the fluff that floats to the top of the delicious list, or does the rounds virally. The people who actively browse and read blogs, and discover the great content before the rest of the community turns it viral. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve been on the receiving end of viral traffic before. It’s a warm feeling inside to know you are loved. But somehow, it loses it’s charm. It’s no longer a shiny needle in a haystack. Once it gets passed around the gem loses a bit of its lustre.

Commonly found reading blogs, keeps themselves to themselves until the treasure is found. Selfish – Sometimes doesn’t even share, and keeps the treasure for themselves.

4. The conversationalist
Uses twitter as an extension of MSN / Skype, often has to use twitter minimising tools or multiple tweets to get their point across. Doesn’t quite understand why it’s limited to just 140 characters. Conversationalists can be argumentative / keen debaters. Sometimes uses links to substantiate claims / points of view. They are most likely to be owners of low traffic, personal sites, or not have website’s at all. If they tweet a link, it more often than not will be to help someone, or as a reference – normally not out for personal gain.

Commonly found on Facebook, Bebo, Friends Reunited, MSN messenger or Skype. Sometimes all at once.

5. The twitter expert
Give me a break. Go read the UN-guide to Twitter. There’s more Zen tips in there than you can shake a stick at. And no we don’t need a freakin’ book to mould us into champion tweeters.

Commonly found giving advice, or trying to make a quick buck from an E-book.

6. The Narcissistic
The ego has landed. Oh yes. This piss artist commonly ignores tweets from the retweeter or the link pirate, mostly ignores the conversationalist – mainly because there is some gains to be had from the first two. Generally one way conversation, (with bottom feeders) – either listen or go away. If they tweet a URL, it will 9 times out of 10 be their own, and they may also have a web application which adds noise (from their own site) to their stream. Only interested in driving traffic, and promoting themselves.

Commonly found hob knobbing with social media experts or other narcissistics. May also be busy reading a “how to tweet” Ebook on Twitter.

7. The scam artist
What’s the best way to gain money from Twitter? That’s right, setup a pyramid scheme that puts you at the top of the most followed list, and then use that to spam other people’s twitter streams with ways of making money. If you are going to get sucked in by this crap, at least acknowledge that it won’t be long before the currency of followers gets cashed in. And you become the sucker getting sold, or spammed.

Commonly found concoting a brilliant internet marketing scam somewhere.

8. The webbot
Half man half machine – Like the Terminator and similar to Fembots in Austin powers, this user will lure you in with their charm, and then proceed to integrate regular tweets with one’s coming from an automated service running on their website. They have one goal, to drive traffic to their site. Problem is though – you can only communicate with one half.

Commonly found double checking their Google Analytics.

SEO – Linking Strategies

Links to your site from other sites drive additional traffic. But since Google and other major search engines consider the number of incoming links to your website (“link popularity”) as an important indicator of relevance, more links will help you rank higher in the search engines. Google has a measure called PageRank that reflects the quantity and quality of incoming links. All links aren’t all equal. Links from trusted, popular sites help your site rank higher than links from lower traffic sites.

Submit Your Site to Key Directories, since a link from a directory will help your ranking — and get you traffic. A directory is not a search engine. Rather, it is a hierarchical listing of sites sorted according to category and subcategory. Be sure to list your site in the free Open Directory Project, overseen by overworked volunteer editors. But if you don’t get listed right away, don’t be impatient and resubmit, or you’ll go to the end of the queue. A link in this directory will help you a lot.

Yahoo! Directory is another important directory. Real humans read submission, so be careful to follow the instruction given. Hint: Use somewhat less than the maximum number of characters allowable, so you don’t have wordy text that will tempt the Yahoo! editor to begin chopping. Yahoo! Directory Submit requires a $299 annual recurring fee to have your site considered for inclusion within seven business days. Other paid business directories that might help are About.com and Business.com.

Submit Your Site to Trade Organization Sites and Specialized Directories. Some directories focused on particular industries, such as education or finance. You probably belong to various trade associations that feature member directories. Ask for a link. Even if you have to pay something for a link from the organization, it may help boost your PageRank.

Marginal directories, however, come and go very quickly, making it hard to keep up, so don’t try to be exhaustive here. Beware of directories that solicit you for “upgraded listings.” Unless a directory is widely used in your field, a premium ad is a waste of money — but the (free) link itself will help boost your PageRank and hence your search engine ranking.

SubmitWolf is a directory submission tool I’ve used with good success . You complete a listing form in the software interface. Then they submit your listing to all the appropriate directories they know of, plus links to sites that require manual submission. It’s a timesaver and works well. Just be careful to submit only to actual directories, not “linking sites.”

Request Reciprocal Links. Find websites in your general niche and request a reciprocal link to your site. Develop an out-of-the way page where you put links to other sites — so you don’t send people out the back door as fast as you bring them in the front door. Your best results will be from sites that generate a similar amount of traffic as your own site. High-traffic site webmasters are too busy to answer your requests for a link and don’t have anything to gain. Look for smaller sites that may have linking pages.

Check out Ken Evoy’s free SiteSell Value Exchange. It (1) registers your site as willing to exchange links with other sites that have a similar theme/topic content and (2) searches for sites with similar topical content. Additionally, two automated link building software programs stand out — Zeus and IBP Link Builder. Both of these search the web for complementary sites, help you maintain a link directory, and manage reciprocal links. However, use these programs to identify the complementary sites, not to send impersonal automated e-mail spam to site owners.

When you locate sites, send a personal e-mail using the contact e-mail on the site or to the administrative contact listed in a Whois Directory. If e-mail doesn’t get a response, try a phone call. Warning: Only link to complementary sites, no matter how often you are bombarded with requests to exchange links with a mortgage site that has nothing to do with your teddy bear store. One way Google determines what your site is about is who you link to and who links to you. It’s not just links, but quality links you seek. Reciprocal linking as hard, tedious work, but it doesn’t cost you a dime out of pocket! Keep working at this continuously, a little bit at a time. Patience and persistence will get you some good links, so keep at it.

Write Articles for Others to Use in Websites and Newsletters. You can dramatically increase your visibility when you write articles in your area of expertise and distribute them to editors as free content for their e-mail newsletters or their websites. Just ask that a link to your website and a one-line description of what you offer be included with the article. This is an effective “viral” approach that can produce hundreds of links to your site over time. You’ll find lots of information on how to do this from the most popular article marketing site, EzineArticles.com. When you create a free membership account, they begin sending you instructions and ideas each week.

Issue News Releases. Find newsworthy events and send news releases to print and Web periodicals in your industry. The links to your site in online news databases may remain for several months and will temporarily improve traffic to your site and increase link popularity. Use a online news release service such as PR Web. Placing your website URL in online copies of your press release may increase link popularity temporarily.

MintTwist help businesses to increase revenues and increase sales leads every day. With a Managed Web Marketing service, MintTwist make sure their clients have all the right things in place before commencing an all-encompassing web marketing stratgey that dramatically increases sales leads, visibility and improves the reputation of our client’s businesss. Contact Elliott King for more

SEO – Harness Traditional Strategies

Just because “old media” strategies aren’t on the Internet doesn’t mean they aren’t effective. A mixed media approach can be very effective.

Include Your URL on Stationery, Cards, and Literature. Make sure that all business cards, stationery, brochures, and literature contain your company’s URL and see that your printer gets the URL syntax correct! In print, I recommend leaving off the http:// part and including only the www.yourwebsite.com portion.

Promote using traditional media. Don’t discontinue print advertising that you’ve found effective but always be sure to include your URL in any display or classified ads you purchase in trade journals, newspapers, yellow pages etc.  Use a two-step approach: (1) capture readers’ attention with the ad, (2) then refer them to a URL where they can obtain more information and perhaps place an order. Look carefully at small display or classified ads in the back of narrowly-targeted magazines or trade periodicals. Sometimes these ads are more targeted, more effective, and less expensive than online advertising. Consider other traditional media to drive people to your site, such as direct mail, classifieds, post cards, etc. TV can be used to promote websites, especially in a local market.

Develop a Free Service. It’s boring to invite people, “Come to our site and learn about our business.” It’s quite another to say “Use the free kitchen remodeling calculator available exclusively on our site.” Make no mistake, it’s expensive in time and energy to develop free resources but it is very rewarding in increased traffic to your site — and a motivation to link to the site!  Make sure that your free service is closely related to what you are selling so the visitors you attract will be good prospects for your business. Give visitors multiple opportunities and links to cross over to the sales portion of your site.

SEO: ALS (Advanced Labelling Systems)

ALS have contracted MintTwist to help boost their natural SEO rankings for keywords which they are make currently spending large amounts of money on in AdWords.  ALS produce industrial labelling machines and systems for applying self-adhesive labels, security elements, tags and RFID inlets, to just about anything!

SEO: Credau

This week we embarked on an initial 3 month long SEO campaign for Credau – a new contemporary menswear label which is 100% original, natural and recycled. Based in East London, the brand is dedicated to style and to supporting local industry with an entirely made-in-the-UK collection.

The primary focus will be to drive targeted traffic to the website for their key business phrases. We will be utilising all forms of social networking as well as traditional natural ranking SEO.

New Project: WildDay

WildDay have asked MintTwist to make some important amendments to the existing WildDay website.  These will be both visual front end changes as well as core back end database amendments helping to streamline the business processes.

New Project: QuickSilverCash

Affiniti Digital Media have hired MintTwist to revamp the exisiting QuickSilverCash website, a tradign style of the parent company.  QuickSilverCash Payday loans or cash advances give you money and peace of mind with instant online decisions.

SEO: Today Translations

This week we are embaking on a full 12 month Web Marketing campaign for Today Translations – a translation company offering language translation services in over 160 languages including specialist technical translations for the legal, financial and medical sectors.

Project Launch: FFRUK

MintTwist is proud to announce the re-launch of the FFRUK website.  FFRUKiT! is based in the UK and supports the punk music scene and its people, bringing you news, gossip, views and music from all walks of punk-attituded life — anything goes!