Generate Success

At Buzzin Fly, one of our mottos is ‘let the designer design and the developers develop.’

It might sound simple, but so many badly designed business websites are so obviously designed by a programmer.  And so many poorly developed websites have been cobbled together by a graphic designer with limited expertise in programming.

The truth is, for a successful business website, you need a professional looking design for a great first impression, a clear and visible menu structure that allows your visitors to find what they are looking for, quickly; and a user-friendly website with accessibility and inclusion for all in mind.

The development of the site is as equally important to the success of your online business.  A good looking website must also deliver the required functionality and offer great user experience.

You have 46 seconds to comply!

A recent survey stated that a visitor will spend an average of just 46 seconds on your website before moving on to the next site. (Source: Clickz.com)

The next website they visit could be one of your competitors, and they could have been your next client.

The current UK economy makes it difficult enough for small businesses to compete and survive, but the competition you will face online is going to be tenfold and so it is imperative that you consider the following advice & tips to guide you towards better online business success for you and your company.

The total number of registered domain names now stands at a staggering 60 million. Some of these domain names are owned by your business competitors. Only a fraction of these sites will have considered the following tips. This is your advantage.

The following series of advice will substantially increase your chances of achieving better eCommerce business success.

Know what your target audience want

Research your target audience, and then understand and consider their requirements. Be careful not to allow your idea of what is right to interfere and overshadow the wishes of your target audience. This may be your business but they are your customers. When people trot out the old saying, customers are always right I say, the customer is NOT always right but as long as the customer pays me, they can think what they want!

The internet is full of good ideas, but like the offline business world, it’s not always the original ideas that make good businesses. It’s the businesses that get the plan right!

Consider the global success of eBay. I remember being contacted by eBay wanting to place adverts on a music website in 1997, when they first opened a UK office eBay. At that time eBay was one of a few websites offering the peer-to-peer trading place concept. Ultimately eBay grew and quashed its competitors because it was easier to use and adapted to its targeted audience.

eCommerce helped eBay create the marketplace website but it was their adaptability, flexibility and end-user focus that ultimately led to their success.

Buzzin’ Fly is a successful website development and internet marketing company based in the UK. WE specialise in eCommerce solutions for small businesses and SME’s in the UK.

I am proud of the work that we do and the testimonials from satisfied customers that we receive.

To find out more go to Buzzin’ Fly.

The growing trend of using mobiles and PDA’s for internet business mobile services means that UK businesses need to reconsider any internet marketing services or campaigns they currently manage or are provided by internet marketing specialists.

To compete with Google & Yahoo, Microsoft have recently launched DeepFish, their own mobile browser which allows users with Windows Mobile phones to use sites that are more like those seen on PCs and laptops.

With more advanced mobile web browsers, offering better rich content viewing, the door for rich content mobile online marketing has been firmly kicked open.

Be sure to consider whether your internet marketing service providers are aware of the possibilities on mobile internet marketing.

Depending which business you are in, your online marketing budget may be best spent promoting your products and services via mobile phones and PDA’s.

BT have upgraded email security for their BT Yahoo! Mail accounts. The security upgrade is to help in their continued fight to prevent fraud and spam.

Anyone who uses a BT Yahoo! Mail account should have received an email from BT explaining that, as an account holder you will need to make some changes to continue sending emails from alternate addresses.

BT are asking that all customers verify the mail accounts so that they can be passed as safe email addresses. If you don’t verify the mail addresses your outgoing emails may be blocked and you might get an Error 553 message.

For more information visit www.btyahoo.com/verify.

What keywords should my business website or blog target?

You’d be surprised how many business websites, including household names, have been online for years without any consideration or understanding of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation).

Over the past 11 years I have worked with businesses of all sizes, from self-employed sole traders, SME’s and large multi-national corporations who have had less online success with their businesses because they were either unaware of SEO, didn’t think it necessary or have been stung by a company who haven’t actually been managing any SEO even when they’ve been paying for it!

Blogs are no different to websites when it comes to choosing what keywords to target.  But it is easier because with a blog post you can be much more specific in the keywords & audience you are targeting.

So how do you know what key phrases & keywords are going to work for you & your business?

Well, all your keywords and key phrases need to be relevant to your website pages & blog posts.  The more relevant, the better results you will receive.  Here I am judging ‘results’ on search engine ranking and Google PR.

Furthermore, if you are running any paid inclusion advertisements (Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing etc) then using the same keywords in your adverts as are visible to the search engines on your landing pages will be rewarded in much the same way. This will also result in higher quality leads.

If you choose to target popular keywords, it stands to reason you will receive more traffic.  But only once you have broken into the market & your website or blog has become visible.  As a rule, high levels of traffic are usually followed by competitive markets.

You will gain more immediate success if you are to target less popular keywords, especially if your market is saturated or your competitors have much deeper pockets!

It is best to brain storm a list of keywords & then research their popularity.  Relevant but less popular keywords will reap less traffic, it’s true.  But with less competition, you will get a bigger slice of the cake!

Why UK Businesses Should Be Blogging?

There are plenty of reasons why your business should have a corporate blog as well as a website.

The most important point, in these days where companies are aware they are fighting their compeitors to be ranked highest on Google and receive the best Google Page Ranking, is that because of the way blogs are created they work very well with the search engines.

For optimum results, I always recommend that companies create an external blog, as this allows them to promote the blog separately from their main website.

By creating an external blog you can:

Promote your business on your blog & your website
Have two windows to show your products & services
Target different customers
Create a larger footprint in the search engines
Submit your blog to blog directories

Blogs are created with optimised site architecture in mind, and by using Wordpress to develop and manage your blog you can add extra SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) to your blog using one of many available Wordpress plug-ins.

Blogs are set up to include an accessible & simple navigation and every page is set up to link back to the main pages.

Furthermore, by using a ‘blogroll’, they have the potential to create reciprocal links with other blogs.

Search engines like Google can show your blog posts (published articles) within minutes.  That can be very useful if your products & services are time sensitive.

We have had many posts on the first page of Google within 10 minutes of publishing them.

As well as submitting your external blog to all the major search engines, if you create an external blog you will be able to submit it to blog dorectories such as Technorati and Blog Catalog.  These are directories specifically for blogs.

There are plenty of UK businesses that are still not using blogs to successful promote their business.  If you are not getting leads from your blog then I recommend you start before your competitors gain the advantage.

If you would like to know more about business blogging or corporate blog management services, please contact me on terry@BuzzinFly.co.uk

Generating online business success isn’t simple. Don’t think you can pick up a copy of a Dummies Guide to Online Business Success & within 1-2-3 steps you will start reaping the rewards, it really isn’t as simple as that. After all, if it were that easy then every online adventure would be successful!

However, whether you want your success to be online because you would like the freedom to work from home, be your own boss or work the hours you want, when you want, the simple truth of the matter is that online business success is attainable, as long as you have a solid business plan and start your online business venture for the right reasons, using the right people and tools, and being dedicated and committed to the cause.

If you start by thinking it will be easy then it will probably end in tears. But if you have a plan, seek the right advice from the right source, use the right tools and people for the job and push yourself to keep on top of everything, then the possibility of succeeding and generating a successful online business is relatively greater, quicker and cheaper than if you were to start an offline business.

Firstly, consider your business plan thoroughly before putting thoughts into action. If you start with the confidence that you are sure your idea is water tight then you will have 100% commitment to your business. This confidence and commitment will show when you discuss the business with others.

Secondly, I have come across so many companies, big and small, over the past 11 years that have a great business idea but their website is awful. Whether the design is poor quality or the website is difficult to use, don’t attempt to cut corners with cheap website design and development. To me a cheap looking website is a bad advert for your company’s products or services.

It’s strange but a company will always have a professional graphic designer to create an advert or brochure, so why do they not use professional web developers?

Finally, once you have a professionally -designed and developed website, you must undertake and manage an online marketing program. Whether it consists of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) or Paid Inclusion for SEM (Search Engine Marketing) such as Google’s AdWords, you must monitor your traffic and website stats.

So, in conclusion, follow these steps to generate online business success:

• Make sure your business plan is solid before stepping out into the WWW (World Wide Web)

• Employ the services of a professional website development agency

• Setup & Manage a SEO/SEM program

• Monitor the results with website and traffic stats software

And finally, Act on the results!

For Website Development & Internet Marketing contact www.BuzzinFly.co.uk

Million Impossible operates a business and entrepreneur networking and support sites has announced that their website now offers free membership to entrepreneurs as businesses.

Million Impossible Plc gives access to funding, access to advice, access to business discounts to save on purchasing costs along with offering advertising at ‘No Cost and No Catch’ therefore giving the businesses and entrepreneurs of tomorrow a greater chance of success today.

Million Impossible’s goal is to provide help and support through strength in numbers. No one person can know everything and to be faced with new challenges can be daunting at times. To have the support of others who have faced the same problems and dilemmas is reassuring even for the most successful of entrepreneurs.

Whether starting your own business, facing changes in your existing industry, or even just facing the usual daily challenges that emerge in business Million Impossible’s goal is to help by giving access to one arena that offers the best support to business minds.

Your goal, when you started in business, was probably either to; make your fortune, become your own boss or even to give something back to the community or the people around you. Your enthusiasm will help you tackle most challenges that emerge however through sharing information, our members know that they will gain further knowledge in return and potentially gain business

Visit www.millionimpossible.com for more information.

The Institute of Directors (IoD) has announced it has setup in partnership with Microsoft to offer its members in the UK a subscription-based version of Microsoft’s CRM (Customer Relationship Management).

The IoD has 52,000 members in the UK, many of them small to medium businesses who will be able to use this service at a reduced rate. The Microsoft Dynamics CRM offer will cost IoD members £35 per user, per month while non-members can subscribe for £45 per user, per month. There is an additional offer of one month’s service free if they sign up before June 2008.

For more information see IoD Hosted IT Services

“As the business environment becomes ever more competitive, our members need the tools and support to attract new customers while retaining their existing ones,” said Andrew Main Wilson, chief operating officer at the IoD.

The service will be hosted by Microsoft partner Rackspace.

In the past week or so, some of my clients have been contacting me with problems sending outgoing emails. The problem has been caused by BT Yahoo!

BT are now preventing their broadband users, both personal and business, from sending emails using some non-BT email accounts. This, BT say, is for adding protection to their customers, though it appears to be more a move for security to their servers.

My frustration was not so much with this new step, but the fact that as a long time BT customer I did not receive written warning or information about the change; which resulted in too much of my own time trying to understand the problem and then getting the correct information from BT.

BT stated that, for security reasons, they were now preventing their customers from sending emails from email client software such as Microsoft Outlook and Thunderbird, when the SMTP or ‘from’ email address is not a BT Yahoo! email address or a “validated alternative email address”. Last month, Sky stopped the use of their SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) servers to send emails.

Both of these changes have meant that many Sky and BT Yahoo! broadband users have been unable to send email until they change their SMTP settings, or in the case of BT Yahoo! customers, go through a process of validating their email address.

For anyone using BT broadband as their ISP (Internet Service Provider) and are currently using or about to set up non-BT email accounts you can still do this, but instructions on how to set up your non-BT email account has changed. See the BT website for more information and help.