Internet Marketing Strategy Advice

Did you know that if your business is based in the UK, or the
majority of your targeted customers are in the UK, then your
website hosting should be in the UK?

I’ve experimented with many website hosting services over the past
few years - and here’s my pick for UK-based website hosting:
www.purpleinternetmarketing.com/recommends/ukhost

So why am I recommending this host?

I’ve hosted a number of websites with this service for over 6
months now and it’s never let me down.

Here’s why I recommend the service:

1) The servers have a very fast response time, meaning that your
website loads quickly

2) They don’t guarantee silly levels of bandwidth. This means that
you don’t share your website hosting with spammers.

3) I’ve never experienced any website down-time

4) They offer cPanel and Fantastico - meaning it’s really easy to
install and update WordPress and other great free software

5) The servers are based in the UK - that helps with UK-targeted
search engine optimisation

6) The shared hosting services start at only £22.99 per year -
although I’d recommend that you go with the £69.99 package which
gives most businesses enough bandwidth

As I say, I’ve been using this service for over 6 months now and I
highly recommend it. Here’s the link again:
www.purpleinternetmarketing.com/recommends/ukhost

I’m really excited to be able to announce 3 Internet marketing course dates for London (4th & 5th June), Edinburgh (21st & 22nd May) and Manchester (28th & 29th May).

Here are the links for full information & bookings…

London:
http://www.purpleinternetmarketing.com/seminars/june/london/

Edinburgh:
http://www.purpleinternetmarketing.com/seminars/may/edinburgh/

Manchester:
http://www.purpleinternetmarketing.com/seminars/may/manchester/

I’ve been hard at work producing our most comprehensive course ever. This 2-day ‘26-week Plan’ course for marketing managers and business leaders provides everything that you need to understand and implement a highly successful Internet marketing campaign.

Starting off with getting your online business model and website structure right to begin with, the course leaves you with an extensive yet easy-to-follow Internet marketing plan applicable for any industry.

We’ll also give you a set of DVDs, CDs and workbooks to take away with you to ensure that you can easily implement all the information learned.

Simply visit one of the links above for more information and to book your seat online.

Following the recent launch of the 26-week Internet Marketing Plan, it may have got you thinking about how you can drive sales of your product or service through an online launch.

Don’t put the cart before the horse

For many businesses the conventional way of releasing a new product is to send out a sales team once the product is available.

However, this doesn’t take advantage of the subtle, desire-building product launch process. If you decide to launch your new product without following a product launch schedule then you’ve got things the wrong way round - you’re putting the cart before the horse.

The Product Launch Guru

If you’ve taken the time to read about what’s included with the 26-week Plan, you’ll know that one of the bonus interview CDs is with Jeff Walker, the mastermind behind Product Launch Formula.

For many years now Jeff has honed his product launch formula program to provide a step-by-step process for businesses to follow, enabling them to maximise the impact of a new product release.

The Product Launch Process

So what are the basics behind an effective product launch?

1) Find out what your target market wants, tailoring your product towards your target market

2) Determine the optimum pricing point for your product by conducting surveys and offering an extremely limited pre-release version

3) Build enthusiasm and desire for your product prior to launch, ensuring that your target market knows when your product is launching and why it’s right for them

4) Launch your product, offering an additional, relevant, valuable incentive for people to make a purchase decision sooner rather than later

More tips on launching your own product

If you’re thinking of launching or relaunching a product of service in the coming few months then I’d highly recommend that you take a look at Jeff Walker’s Product Launch Formula.

At the time of writing Jeff is offering a free product launch blueprint which shows you how to perform your own launch.

If you’ve started to research a little bit into the wierd world of search engine optimization you’ll be aware of the use of strange terminology.

A lot of this terminology will often be reported as fact - such as ‘White Hat’, ‘Black Hat’ and ‘Grey Hat’ SEO. But what exactly are these ‘hats’ and how fluid are their descriptions?

About The 3 Hats

The 3 hats of search engine optimization refer to 3 different methodologies or mindsets when it comes to conducting an SEO campaign.

Each search engine optimization methodology relates to a different level of risk in relation to reward. Or if you prefer, a different level of ethics.

As you may imagine, White Hat search engine optimization gives you the lowest degree of risk but is more likely to take longer and deliver mediocre results. Black Hat SEO on the other hand can drive significant volumes of traffic to your site - but you also may get your domain de-ranked or banned in certain places. Grey Hat is somewhere in-between.

White Hat SEO

‘White Hat SEO’ essentially describes a search engine optimization campaign which is merely trying to guide search engines. This style of SEO will ensure that site architecture is logical, relative and easy to read for search engines. It will also focus on adding valued contributions to industry-specific communities.

White Hat Search engine optimization always focuses on bringing relevant visitors to your website - and an increased search engine ranking is a by-product to a White Hat campaign as opposed to a primary focus.

Black Hat SEO

Black Hat search engine optimization has only one aim - to make your website as big a success as quickly as possible, not matter who you step on on the way up.

The Black Hat technique will try to build thousands of links to a website quickly and the primary focus is to skew search engine results. Black Hat search engine optimization involves as much automation as possible.

According to Matt Cutts, in 2008 many black hatters will attempt to illegally hack other websites to include their links. This is a good reason for continually monitoring both your incoming and outgoing links.

The most common use of Black Hat SEO is for websites that generate a passive income from advertising that don’t have a long-term business model. If these type of websites are banned by Google or other search engines then it doesn’t matter to the website owner, becuase they’ve probably got hundreds of other similar websites.

Grey Hat SEO

Grey Hat search engine optimization tries to apply principles learned from Black Hat SEO in a White Hat manner.

This is where the majority of search engine optimization firms sit. They understand how to quickly drag a website to the top of search engine results for relevant keyword searches while automating as much as the process as possible, but targeting visitors as well as search engines.

The tricky thing with Grey Hat search engine optimization is there isn’t a distinctive line between Black, Grey and White.

If you get things wrong with Grey Hat then you may be OK with search engines now, but you may also find your website being penalised by search engines in the future.

Which Hat to Choose?

The colour of hat that you wear depends on two things…

1) Your business model

2) You level of search engine optimization knowledge

If your business is advertising driven, you don’t want to create a long-term respectable brand and you don’t mind if your website is suddenly banned, then Black Hat may be for you.

However, if like most people reading this blog you have a long-term business model, then white or grey’s where you want to be.

Interestingly, Diane Aull says in her article on Black and White Hat SEO that both white and black hat can deliver high quality results and that the main difference is the level of agression.

I would tend to disagree. I think it’s more like the following:

White Hats - Non-aggressive - Low Risk - Mediocre results

Black Hats - Aggressive - High Risk - Good Short-term results

Grey Hats - Pushy but not aggressive - Low to Medium Risk - Good short, medium and long-term results if managed correctly

I’m happy to announce that with every purchase of the 26-week Internet Marketing Plan in the near future I’m going to include a 45-minute telephone consultancy session.

This offer is limited simply because I only have so much time in the day!

Congratulations to Nigel Eccles from Hubdub who’s the winner of the free copy of the 26 Week Internet Marketing Plan! A fellow Edinburgh resident too!

Nigel, we’ll be contacting you over the next couple of days to arrange for you to get your complimentary copy.

For those of you not fortunate enough to win this time remember that the 26 Week Plan is scheduled to launch on Thursday at 12.00pm GMT.

Many thanks to all who entered.