You’ll now by know that your contact list is an invaluable part of your business but do you know how to manage it properly? A greatly managed contact list is the architectural equivalent of a castle; it is respected, it has stood the test of time and you have loyal visitors. Whereas a badly managed contact list amounts to no more than a shed; it’s weak, often forgotten about and left out in the cold. So if you want a concrete contact list and let’s admit it, who wouldn’t? Then there are several things you must have in place.

First of all, you need to build yourself a database of meaningful information about your contacts. You don’t just want to know names and addressees, find out what it is that they are most interested in. What do they like to buy? Where do they shop? Do they like attending events? Whatever it is, make it your personal mission to take the time to get to really know your contacts.

From then on make sure you tailor your emails to everything you've learnt and know about your contacts. This information should be used to target specific campaigns to the specific people who you know will be interested. By increasing your level of personalisation in your communications, you'll build loyal contacts who return to buy from you time and time again.

Luckily, many of today’s email marketing software provides the tools you need to create smaller segments within a large contact list based on specific client’s interests, making your job easier and your emails more effective.

The right software will also allow you to send something out that is much more personal than just another email advert. Remember that your contacts don’t just need more information; the Internet provides them with plenty of that! What they need and want is solid, practical, timely, profit-making advice from respected, expert sources.

It doesn't matter how big your contact list, what's important is the quality of your contacts. You could build an email contact list of 5,000 but if 4,000 of them aren't interested in your service, you’re wasting your time when you could just be focussing on the people who do care. So it's important to keep your contact list clean in order to keep your delivery rate high.

If you do manage to build yourself a solid contact list which is successfully managed then you can look forward to growing your contacts. The most important thing to remember is when you build a loyal relationship with your contacts, you stand a better chance of conversion. So start working on your contact list now and it won’t be long before you will be celebrating your landmark success
 

When it comes to researching products or services locally, 97% of consumers now use online media. The new report from BIA/Kelsey and ConStat, found that among consumers surveyed, 90% use search engines, 48% use Internet Yellow Pages, 24% use vertical sites, and 42% use comparison shopping sites.

The findings prove that the Internet has indeed become an integral part of consumers' local commercial activity. However the data also suggests that we're at a point where the balance of power in local shopping is shifting to online.

The study found that on average, consumers are using 7.9 different media sources when shopping for products or services locally, up from 6.5 sources in 2009 and 5.8 in 2008, demonstrating an increase in audience division.

This division presents a challenge to advertisers who are trying to connect with local consumers but also makes targeting opportunities available with tools like coupon promotions and appointment scheduling because you’ll know where to find people.

Other findings from the survey include:

• 58% of respondents report using an online coupon when shopping for products or services in their local area in the past year.
• 19% of respondents made an appointment online in the past six months for a service besides a restaurant reservation (e.g. business appointment, health-care appointment, auto service or personal service.)

Most online businesses would probably consider their domain name to be quite important and with good reason. Before searching a specific term i.e. ‘clothes shop,’ customers may simply type in the URL; ‘clothesshop.com,’ because it makes sense. Now, if that URL is already taken especially for start-ups, then that's something to consider in itself.

It's a good idea to make sure the domain name is available when coming up with a name for your brand, or at least make sure that you’ll be able to acquire it. You can’t forget that products have their own brands, so think about how you can apply this to domain names. For example, you would expect Apple to own iPad.com, considering the huge announcement about the device the company made this year, but someone else has that domain.

You need to make sure you cover every variation of your brand in terms of domain names. This means getting all variations possible; get typos, different extensions, country codes and use 301 redirects on misspells of key brands (including singular/plural versions).

When it comes to domain names for different products, it's best to build sub-sites around these with their own content, which can help drive links and improves SEO value and traffic.

It’s more difficult to get the .com on the end of your company name and you have to face the fact it just isn’t possible. As an alternative; try to find a different aspect of your brand to centre your domain around. Think about unique key phrases within your company's slogan - you may find an opportunity there.

Finally, domains should be easy to remember, not too long, easy to spell, relevant to your brand, and avoid complicating characters such as hyphens. The key rule to a successful domain name is simplicity, although there are always exceptions to the rule.

Let me just say from the outset; I have no problem with my search results being personalised. To me, it makes sense for search engines to want to deliver the best user experience because users will keep using them. And if I get results that are personalised, it only makes my life easier. So why then are some users not so thrilled at the evolution of search results pages, particularly the personalisation?

The inundation of negative comments on news articles/blogs/etc. has led us to ask: Is Google trying too hard to improve? To answer this with a yes would indicate that Google's results were already perfect and whilst Google does deliver quality results, I don't know if anyone would go so far as to call them perfect, including Google themselves.

There is always room for improvement. Things can always get better. Some ideas work, and others don't. Sometimes you don't know until you try, and if certain concepts don't go over well with the majority, sometimes they are scrapped.

As for personalised search, I wouldn't count on it going away anytime soon and why would you want it to? If your results are tailored to you specifically, does that not increase their chances of being more relevant to you? Does this not provide you with a better quality of traffic and increase your conversion rate?

Google has just announced the launch of a new feature that lets users start their search results for ones they like. This will lead to the starred results appearing at the top of the SERP in future searches, when appropriate. The feature is still rolling out, so if you don't see it yet, you should see it soon.

Has it ever occurred to you that you may have keywords on your site that mislead search engines? Have you ever thought about the different meanings of the keywords you are trying to rank for?

Now that Google is delivering more personalisation in search results, there is much more to understanding search behaviour, intent-based search, and how that should affect keyword research. You need to be taking into consideration things like how prior queries influence future queries.  

If you sell telephones, you have to actively go out of your way to ensure you don’t have certain things appearing in your site otherwise the search engines could get confused about what you’re talking about.

One of the most important things is work out is how to do keyword research without knowing the behavioural aspects of people actually looking for your product. The focus needs to be on these personas - what kinds of things are they likely to search on, in sequence - before they type in telephone. If you understand that behaviour in sequence, then the better you can do your keyword research and determine how you’re going to put the words on your page.

Personalised search is nothing new as Google has been personalising search results for some time. It just now appears that Google is looking for more ways to deliver users a personalised experience.

Web analytics provider, Omniture has further secured their partnership with Facebook by announcing today that customers can now purchase, automate and more thoroughly track their Facebook ad buys.

The announcement is targeted towards marketers who are looking to get a better understanding of the performance of their Facebook media buys. The custom report options will offer a complete look at the analytics, effectiveness and customer engagement generated by campaigns.

In the past year, the Adobe-owned company has supported Twitter analytics and the Facebook application measurement, making the addition of Facebook ad measurement the next logical step.

With the majority of Facebook’s projected revenue for 2010 coming from ad buys, it’s clear to see why both Omniture and Facebook would want to help marketers better analyse, optimise and spend more on their campaigns.

Today’s news also included the addition of display ad optimisation, more mobile analytics and an expansion to the company’s partnership with Experian.

As social networking becomes the ‘in’ thing, people are beginning to question where that leaves the use of email. You’ve heard the saying, ‘video killed the radio star,’ so is this a case of history repeating itself? Is email about to fall victim to social networking?

Well, no we don’t think so. From a Ph. point of view, we just don’t buy this theory that “email is dead,” and there are plenty of reasons why:

• People still send hand-written letters
• Nearly all websites that require registration request an email address
• Email notifies you of updates from your social networks
• Email is universal, social networks are not
• Many people have no interest in joining social networks but will use email
• Email is still improving
• Even social networks recognise the importance of email
• More social media use means more email use
• As far as marketing is concerned, email is doing pretty well

Businesses should be merging social aspects with their email programs to not only expand the reach of their offers, but to maintain customer loyalty and ultimately grow their database. So if you’ve been questioning the life expectancy of email, stop now. Keep in mind that about 50% of content is shared through email and social media is a great way to get subscribers.

In case you’re STILL not convinced, here are some final thoughts for you;

• Mobile apps will continue to keep email relevant in the mobile world.
• Google recently released its own social media product, Buzz, which the company decided would fit best with Gmail.
• Microsoft Outlook only recently started integrating social networks into the inbox.
• The social networks themselves are creating email services - Facebook is said to be working on its own...and we know how popular Facebook is.
  

The first thing you’re probably wondering is; what is web credibility? Well, web credibility is about making your website come across as trustworthy and knowledgeable.  

A credible website can reap huge benefits on to you and your business. Here’s a few statistics to prove it: 52.8% of web users believe online information to be credible (source: UCLA.) Four in five users say that being able to trust the information on a site is very important to them in deciding to visit a website (source: Princeton Survey Research Associates.)

Second thing you’re probably now thinking; wow so web credibility's pretty important then. That’s right, so now how do you implement it on to your website?

Here are our five guidelines for making a credible website:

1. Prove there's a real organisation behind your website

Anyone can put up a website promising to deliver the 'best service at the lowest prices' and web users know this. Therefore you must prove that there’s a real organisation behind all the talk. There are several ways you can do this: make it easy and clear how to contact you, link to external websites that reference you, include staff biographies, show photos of the office, staff, products, etc - which makes your ‘contact us’ and ‘about us’ pages very important.

Never underestimate the importance of your ‘about us’ section, it’s your chance to show who you are and talk a bit about your organisation. Whilst this section won’t be the first thing people read when they come to your website, it could be the last thing they read before deciding to business with you… or not.

2. Provide 'sensitive' information

As much as you try, your website copy is pretty much a one-way conversation which means if your user doubts your credibility then you'll be unable to defend yourself. Therefore you must try and make sure you answer any questions your site visitors may have, for example: What is the purpose of your organisation? How much does your product cost? What happens if I'm not happy with your service? What will you do with my email address once I give it to you? Remember, if you can't persuade Internet users to be loyal to your website then someone else will.

3. Back up your statements with third-party evidence

If your website includes statements such as, "we helped our clients achieve an average of 90% growth last year," then make sure you can prove it. In fact make sure every single point you make on your website can, without fail, be backed up with hard evidence. How else can a reader know if you're telling the truth?

That’s why client testimonials are so good and they're even better if the testimonial links to the client's website. Also, if you've won any awards or belong to any industry bodies, then proudly display these emblems too and link to the external website.

4. Prove that you have clients

You probably think this sounds a bit bizarre but really, make sure somewhere on your website you do mention names of clients. When you prove you have clients, you’ll instantly achieve credibility. It shows that you’ve offered your services plenty of times before and your organisation will come across as being firmly established within your industry. You can do thus by including case studies, testimonials or a latest news section.

5. Make sure your website is professional and confident

Your website is your organisation's online representation therefore it's essential that it matches the quality of the rest of your marketing materials. Potential clients will be making judgments about your organisation based on your website.

Studies consistently prove that the most important criteria of web credibility is the way the website looks so make sure that you create a great first impression by having a crisp, professional layout with sharp graphics.

Everyone knows how important it is to make a good first impression, you’ve no doubt spent time trying on outfits, practising poses and checking you’ve got nothing in your teeth. First impressions are everything, for you and for your landing pages.

Even if you’re doing everything right in terms of SEO and PPC, if your landing page makes a bad first impression then it could prevent you from making a sale. Take a look at your bounce rate and you’ll see how good an impression you’re making; anything more than 50% is poor.

Your landing pages are crucial pieces of online real estate. Instead of a brochure that you hand out and hope people react to, a landing page can easily be measured so that you can use it as a really strong sales tool. A bit of changes in wording, in colour or font, and in the length of the page can make a big difference in terms of your conversion rate - you’ve just got to find your winning formula.

If you’re looking to boost your landing page conversion rate then you need to be thinking about the following things:

• Is Your Landing Page Appealing?

Look at your landing page from the eyes of your customer. Is it aesthetically pleasing? Do you feel a sense of familiarity or confusion? Take a look at your competitor’s site and see what their page looks like. What are they doing well? Try out a few of their ideas on your landing page and test, test, test.

• How Does It Read?
  

Are you throwing a mountain of sales copy into your visitors’ face? Are you offering anything valuable? You’ve managed to attract someone to your landing page and now you have a chance to really wow them. Our advice: avoid the hard sell and offer them a solution to their problem. Get your web copy right and see your conversion rate soar.

• What Do People Think?
  

Make sure you ask people for their opinion. If you have email marketing software, then why not send out a feedback for – how do you find our site? If you sit down with a client, casually ask them the question, ‘How did you find our website?’ Take feedback onboard and test the necessary changes.

• What Do Your Statistics Say?
  

Google Analytics will be able to tell you where your landing page traffic comes from and what they do once they’re on the page. You’ll be able to see what sorts of keywords bring people to your page and look to see what percentage of your traffic clicks off your page.

Tracking offline conversions has been challenging businesses for years. The Internet is a powerful tool in driving business but how can you track your online marketing efforts to an offline purchase?

For the majority of bricks and mortar businesses, a large percentage of conversions take place offline, despite a strong online presence and rigorous online marketing. Measuring offline conversions and proving on paper that the online marketing triggered the offline conversion is difficult, because you can’t often directly measure the process from start to conversion.

As local search continues to become more innovative, we can only assume that the web will continue to drive more offline purchases. With some consumers more likely to use their iPhone for online shopping research, businesses are going to see more mobile customers who may be more inclined to visit a physical location whilst they're on the go.

Google and comScore once conducted a study, which showed that 63% of consumers who search products online go on to buy the same items offline. No doubt that since this study took place, the numbers will have changed slightly but what hasn't changed is the fact that people are still finding products online and buying them offline.

So what’s the solution? Well, we recommend trying in-store surveys as a way to find out how people are arriving to their purchases. In addition, online coupons and offer codes can be tracked offline.

When it comes down to it, without a way to track an offline sale, it's going to be difficult to tell how effective your online marketing efforts are.