This is a question that was brought up at a business meeting last week as I was talking to a new business in Wexford and the person involved was newly hired. They were eager to prove their worth in the company. Having listening to his experience and his interest in technology I explained that the Internet is an area that many owners of businesses often don’t understand or have the time too. If he could help them then he would be of move value to the company.

I had my old bosses voice ringing in my ears as I was saying phrases like, “bring me solutions to problems, don’t bring me problems” etc. An old adage but true to every era.

Understanding the Internet.

I would like to suggest that you put together a suggestion for them along the lines of using the web to increase the profile of the buinsess, reduce running costs and hey why not go for increase sales by selling online or even accepting payments online if you are a service business.

Here is s short list of some suggestions to use in your proposal.

• Use a VOIP phone system, such as Skype or the Irish voip service called MyDivert.com
  • This will give you free skype to skype calls, cheaper call rates especially if you sell internationally and remember with broadband improvement the call quality is perfect and you don’t even need a pc anymore. You can plug a voip phone straight into your broadband.
• Using Emails instead of letters. Sending your correspondence by email with dramatically reduce your turn around in waiting for the post to be delivered and returning answers to you. Example: instead of sending out a printed customer survey, lets say costing €1.50 for letter, envelope and return envelope, stamps, why not set one up on www.surveymonkey.com and the results get emailed to you!
• Using PDF invoice to email invoices. Why not email your invoiced directly to your clients, are you still printing them out and posting them in the hope they get there sometime soon. Email them!
• Cutting down on stamps. We use only 1 box of stamps per month and in the next few weeks we will be cutting that down to 1 box per quarter.
• Using open source such as Open Office instead of Microsoft Office. Open Office will do everthing that MS Office will except it’s free and better!
• Start a company blog. Starting a company blog helps the business get in touch with its clients and potential customers by giving them an easy access, less formal method of asking questions before they buy or hire you. It allows you to explain your products in detail. Its what is expected these day. We dont just sell on price, we sell on quality and expertise, so demonstrate that on your company blog and be able to discuss your products and services
• Use Micro Blogging sites like twitter to get your point across in 160 characters or less!, basically this allow people to be able to follow everything you write including special offers and news.
• Create a business Facebook page where your customers can see more about you and you can push them towards your website.  Example: Berney Saddlery Equestrian Shops in Arklow and Enniscorthy started a fFacebook campaign recently to help promote themselves online and to go to where people are hanging out these day, “Facebook” with nearly 1,000,000 registered users in Ireland, it is the place to be. With in a few months they have over 4,000 fans. That means when they update their profile with news of a clothing line being 25% off till lunchtime and that message get emailed to 4,000 people,  Now are stamps starting to look expensive? They are to me.
• Remember the Internet is not just on computers, with more and more mobile devices now being used to access the Internet such as the Vodafone 360 and iphones it’s becoming the norm to carry the internet around in your pocked disguised as a phone!
• Sell online or if you just want to get paid faster starting accepting payment over the phone via a Virtual Terminal from WorldNET TPS This system can cost from as little as €30 a month and accepts Laser/Visa/Master cards. All you need is a broadband connection and a pc, so it suits companies in offices etc. They even have an App for the iphone!

If you can go to your boss with some of these points in a format of a plan to save the company money and promote them cheaper than they could image. . . they should be impresses or nervious, nervious of their future in business.

Help grow your business in a recession, call Dave Jordan of Cada Media Ltd

We had a good talk with a client yesterday about registering a domain name for their business. They have registered one domain and were under the impression that they had reached the amount they were allowed to register.

A company can register as many domains as they wish, as long as they have the documentation to back up the claim to the domains.

Products that you sell could be registered or services that you provide can be registered too. We have registered domains for companies who have multiply products

Protecting your business name.

Often companies will wonder about which domain extension to go for the .ie or the .com The answer is buy both. If you don’t, then expect another business to buy your name and redirect it to their own site or they just just sit on and and no allow it to go anywhere. They can hide who registered it and simply let it rot away doing nothing.

This happens more than is publicized. We have astute clients that have protected their brands and business names by registering all the variations of their company and products and services. They have bought the .com, .net, .eu and .ie versions of their names.

Buying the Plural version of the products.

We often come across companies who have registered one version of their products only to be up the wall later when then see a very similar domain as their sitting above them in Google Adword Campaigns but that version has a “s” at the end instead of

Example:

www.StoneWall.ie

www.StoneWalls.ie

Both good names for a stone mason but they are to completely different domain names. If it was our client we would have got them both and closed the door to others grabbing the domain.

Another important one people usually for get about is putting “ing” at the end of the domain too!

www.fish.ie = online fishing and hunting shop in Galway

www.fishing.ie = Available to register to their competitors immediately!

See what I mean.

Expiring domains, are they any good?

With the recession in Ireland it is interesting to see the effect on the internet as many great domains are actually coming back on the market. Names that have been advertised on Tv and are house hold names. These domains would also carry with them a good page rank and listing in search engines.

We have registered a number of great domains for clients that are related to the construction/property market in Ireland that is struggling at the moment and we have grabbed the expired domains from their competitors and put up a page explaining that they are gone bust and maybe to contact the new owner of the domains with their query instead.

It has been a very successful way of gaining new inquiries and sales leads generation for our clients.

To grow your business in a recession, talk to Cada Media today.  053 9430748

Carolyn Ruth of Interior Design Concepts Starts Blogging

Local Interior Design Specialist Carolyn Ruth of www.interiordesignconcepts.ie recently approached Cada Media Ltd with a request to Increase her Website Visitors.

One way of doing this was to design a blog for Carolyn based loosely on her original website design, which, whilst visually attractive did not allow her to update it with fresh content as she wished.

Thus she now has a new Content Managed area which she can log into whenever she wants and can upload images, pdfs, graphs etc and talk about all things interior and related to the Interior Design Business be it Commercial or Residential.

Carolyn has worked on major projects  including the total refurbishement of locally known watering hole Toss Byrnes in Inch  plus she has worked on many hotels including the Riverside Park Hotel in Cork and The Anner Hotel in Thurles.

Carolyn however, also loves to work with Domestic clients and can help advise you on how to make the most of your home or recreation space.

Follow her blog to get tips and advice information on the do’s and dont’s of interior design.

We look forward to reading her posts !

www.interiordesignconcepts.ie/blog

Understanding the internet

One remark that comes up again and again is how “confusing the internet is”...

Indeed the world wide web is such a vast virtual organism that its hardly suprising that many folks are stumped when it comes to applying the latest web technology such as blogs, you tube videos, flickr photos , forums and google tools to their business.

For example a restaurant owner or blind manufacturer may be suprised at how the web can work for his /her business promoting their brand and ethos not justy locally in Gorey or Wicklow but internationally.

A few points about the web include:

• size doesnt matter,
• you get out what you put in ,
• believe in it and it will reward you
• and of course, content is king.

So don’t give up , why not call into us here at John Street Gorey and find out from our google guru Dave Jordan – no seriously, he has been called this by clients ..(in fact recent clients have  described a conversation with him as full of ‘new york energy’ ( I dont think he’s been to new york yet?) and how he ‘has basically explained the web to me“)…exactly how google and the web can promote and help your business grow…

The Web IS everywhere..Be part of it!

Rosa

It’s our first you tube video so here it goes . . . .

Why use a Newsletter for your business?

This another one of the frequently asked questions we get asked about how to use the Internet for business.  A email newsletter is a fast, efficient, cheap method of communicating with your clients.

You don’t even need a website!

There are many types of newsletter systems available both as hosted (on your own website) or as stand alone applications hosted on someone else’s website. Here are a few links to get you started.

• www.newsweaver.ie
• www.toddle.com
• www.constantcontact.com

We offer our own hosted versions on our clients website that have no monthly bills, you simply type up the newsletter and send. The system takes care of the legal issues like having an unsubscribe option etc. Note our systems wont charge you a monthly fee or won’t charge you per email.

Remember these types of systems will give you great stats, they will let you know who looked at the newletter, what part of it they clicked on to return to your website and much more.

To find out how a newsletter email system can help your business, call Dave or Roz on 053 9430748

Well are friends in Koo Restaurant are really showing us how running a marketing campaign really can be taken to many levels. Passing by the restaurant the other day on the way to work i now see they have another billboard and they have to only 100 yards away from the restaurant itself

Great Idea, having display advertising close to where your premises has always been of great benefit to businesses as people often make quick decisions and call in

Well Done Koo Restaurant, Keep up the good work.

So there I was working late in the office when the at around 8pm the phone rings . . . a mans voice asking for “Gorey Link” and something about a bus for Saturday night? I was confused as he said he was calling from a Koo restaurant. I politly said that in fact this number was “Cada Media, website designers in Gorey“. We said our good byes.

The phone rings again and It was the same voice looking for a bus. I repeated who we were and the call ended!

It then “clicked” to what was happening, so I dialed the number and the same voice answered. I said who I was and asked had he searched online for something and found us. He said he had looked for “Gorey Link”. I explained that we have operated an online business directory for Gorey Town called GoreyLinks.com for the past 3 years and that Google might have brought us up first. He had got our telephone number from there.

Again we said our good byes.

So whats the moral of the story. . . . . . we are great fans of Irony and seeing a business who used the internet as a last option on the “marketing plan list” turning around and using the Internet to find another business.

Classic !

GoreyLinks.com

This is our own business directory for Gorey Town, It was established in 2005 to help new arrivals to the area to find the main businesses in the town. We have around 600 business listed with a more still to be listed. The chamber of commernce in Gorey also have a site thats lists businesses but they they list members, we are a member and are one of the 100 or so businesses that are listed.

There are many new website out there these days like MyTown.ie or YourLocal.ie and these are larger sites covering the entire country. We only list businesses in each town and its surroundings. This has kept the Gods (Google) happy and we are usually listed in the top three for a key search phrase for the town.

We also have directories for other towns in Wexford, Carlow and Wicklow. Some of the main ones are

www.GoreyLinks.com

www.EnniscorthyLinks.com

www.NewRossLinks.com

www.Wexford-Links.com

If you would like to be listed on any of our directories please give me a call on 053-9430748 ( many businesses use our directories as their home page.)

We’ve started on a new campaign for one of our clients in Galway. The college of hairdressing has approached us and asked us to develop a strategy for them to improve their online presence and go after their target audience online.

We have started working on this project this week and will be keeping an eye on its progress over the coming weeks, we will let you know how it performs and what we have devised.

I was reminded this morning of how common this question is . Many of our inquiries always say they “want to be No 1 in Google” but don’t have an idea how to get there. I talk about search engine optimisation SEO (this goes over 99% of peoples heads) but really i am talking about getting a natural listing in Google listings.

I have to remind people that this is 2 tasks, 1 getting a website and 2 getting it top of the search engines.  It doesnt automatically happen (sorry!)

There are many search engines that are in use, Google, Yahoo, MSN and there are also directories such as browse.ie and of course GoreyLinks.com our baby ! Each search engine has it’s own formula to read a website and categorise its content into relevance for search terms people use when searching the net.

So what is SEO?

SEO is where you configure / program a website so that you are giving a better chance of coming up for a particular search phrase.

Why is SEO important?

It’s important because getting and retaining customers is important. If your website is not optimized to be read better by search engines you will not be on the first page of google let alone on the top. Remember being on the top of Google is google’s way of saying this is the best website we can recommend for your search term. So don’t expect a one-page for a chipper to be listed No 1 for “Restaurants in Ireland“.

This is actually a very common fact, that people who have a “One page website” often think that their job is done. Just put it up there and people will find it. With about 20 billion pages up on the net that theirs will pop up. You might as well nail a flyer to a tree in the amazon and hope that passers by will read it.

The internet is not “Field of Dreams“, Build it and they will come.

You must work at it, read up about what search engines want, get rid of :

• Frames
• large images
• large flash animation

And Make sure to insert:

• Meta tags
• Keywords tag
• Description tag
• Title tag

These may sound basic, but basic means to have the foundations correct before you build further on your site. Also a quick hit, make each page unique with titles, meta and content.

What is link Building?

This is the process of getting relevant website to point to your. It’s no good having a website but no ones knows about it. You don’t get a business telephone line and then keep your number our of the phone book, so don’t do it online.

Get your website listed on directories and portals that are important to your industry. Links are the Internet version of sign posts, Get “links” or signposts from good sites. The more signposts/links you have pointing to your site the more footfall you will get.

Note: don’t get links from crap sites, sites that are just one long page of links for every industry in the world, This is a link farm of 000’s or links and does nothing of benefit for you site. In fact some think it may have a negative effect on your site. Like putting a link in the local dump to your hotel, Its guilt by association.

Time for lunch…..

I decided to pop down to Wexford town to attend a presentation put on by the Irish Internet Association and Wexford County Enterprise Board. These type of event are run all the time in every county around Ireland and it a great opportunity for business owners and managers to take a day off !!

No. No. Many people think this, but in fact to see the response and the questions from the floor, these type of events are seriously needed. I was surprised by the questions, things that I was taking for granted about search engines, the internet and blogging were not understood by the people there.

There were 4 great speakers to give a talk about how to use social media as a marketing tool for your business or brand. They were:

• Mr. Philip Macartney (Head of Sales Ireland) Bebo
• Mr Donald Douglas (Managing Director) Return2Sender
• Mr. Brian Greene (Director) doop
• Ms. Joy Redmond (Director) Flexitimers.com

Philip from Bebo was not sellign Bebo but rather selling the idea of branding and pushing your brand through a busy social networking site to reach a large audience. Interesting to see him again give us a few examples of how large companies use bebo to reach their target audience. Even more interesting to see that none of them are Irish examples, It was as if this is too high brow or beyond Irish marketeers. I’ve seen a few presentations by Bebo in Ireland and still nothing with an Irish flavour to it.

Donald educated us on how the use of mobile advertising is growing in Ireland, but that it must have a purpose. Assigning it a real task is important. Just putting up your website in a mobile format is great but it really has a getting chance of getting found and used if you use it for a competition to engage your customer base. Guinness are one of their clients and again not sure if your average business in Ireland would get involved but definately worth noting. “Rewards are for the early adopters”

Brian is a Digital Media Consultant with Doop.ie , a business involved with the postcast media and audio industry. He loves his job, it’s great to see someone really understand their topic and passing on the knowledge is a well presented manor. He showed us the growth in podcasting in Ireland and how it has gained in popularity of the past few years. RTE for example are the largest podcasting company with 1/2 a million listeners per month. He mentioned to take note about copyright issues with music and to use bought music from sites such as podshow.com

His point were , Engage your Clients, Expand your customer Channels, Enable internal dialogue, Enhance comapny profile, Enforce your message.

Having a podcast is great but how do you get it noticed, “Every good podcast deserves a blog” thiswill drive search engines towards your podcasts. He concluded by telling us to lookout for “Social Radio” as this is on the horizon.

Joy is a Director of Flexitimers.com, a newly launched business (and our office neighbour by chance) Joy gave us a bit of her background in the Web design industry and that she was at the forefront of website design in Ireland back in the 90’s.  She has great experience in software development and also was a lecturer for 4 years teaching website design etc. During those years she also was thinking about working on a part time basis, with a 1 year old at home, she wanted to be there but still keep her position in the work place. Years later she and her ex boss decided to set up Flexitimers.com to help other professionals looks for part time work. Also of course to allow employers who are looking for people for part time work.

A new step away from recruitment agencies who charge anywhere from 8% to 10% of the salary of a client. Agencies are supposed to trim down the long lists of people looking for jobs and send you the top 3, but often they are commission based and only want to get the top position with the top salleries as then they can get a higher commission. Grr!

Flexitimers.com are looking to get into this recruitment industry in a new and different way.

They are asking employers for a “fixed fee” to list their positions on the site. The site then matches the two like a dating style site.

Great Idea and and having a background in the software and Web industries really puts Flexitimers.com at a huge advantage as many businesses are set up on an idea, but the people running the site often don’t really have a grip of the technology. This marriage of both will be a winner in my opinion.

Joy was easy to listen to and got her point across very well, people scribbling notes left right and center. That’s always a good sign.

Search engines are all about new fresh content, we are saying this on a daily basis to our clients and prospective customers. Search engines was to see who’s say what and how mush are you saying about your field of expertise. Thus I’m writing this !

I would suggest uploading new content each day, but at least each week. Websites are looked upon like newspapers, you don’t read them twice. so if you have a content managed site get stuck in and edit your site, if not get someone to do it, even better get us to do it!

When writing your content write for real people, think about the keyword and key phrases alright but really write to your audience in a personal manner and it will be reflected back in your hits. People don’t search the website short phases like “hotels ireland”, they search for “family run hotels in wexford” much more specific. Wrire for those people not just the googlbot robot scanning your content in the middle of the night.

Get good quality links to your site. Don’t get crap links from any old site thats handing out free links left right and centre, Google pagerank for example looks for quality links from relevent sites. Think of them like sign posts, you would not follow a signpost to a hotel from the middle of a dump, but you would from the main street in a town. Website Links are the same. Get good links.

If you can’t get links, buy them with Google Adwords, If you dont know how call us.

Make sure while all this is going on to be keeping an eye on your site stats that it actually making a difference, see what pages are being view, what time, what search phrases people are using.

It’s friday 5.15, long day, im heading home!

We have noticed that a number a small business are starting to feel the the pinch as the recession in Ireland hits home to smaller businesses. We are actually seeing smaller business close and some are just closing their website down.

Why?

The trend is that sites that are not doing well are the ones that have very little content and therefore were not doing well in search engines and not doing well as a marketing tool to draw in potential clients.

As this recession kicks in further you will see the smaller players in every business finding it harder and harder.

Another trend that we have noticed is that bigger business who have been in business for say 20 plus years are starting to get online, believe it or not many still only use eircom email accounts in thier offices.

Moral of my rant, get a website for your business in the good times so you wont be last on the list in the bad times.

Duplicate Content is getting it’s serious tie on these days as many websites are falling down in respect to “Duplicate Content Copyright Infringement”. We supply web sites that our users can update, upload text and images themselves, but where are they getting the content ? Where are they getting the images from?

We have been advising our clients for a number of years now to make sure they write good web content for their sites to attract visitors. If they use content from other sites/books then they will attract visitors such as solicitors and american lawyers!

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Sample letter received

Pursuant to US Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the Ireland Copyright Act

To Whom It May Concern:

I represent X Company (client), the exclusive publisher of the XXX book, which is a secure test instrument restricted to purchase by qualified individuals. The book is an original work of authorship registered with the United States Copyright Office.

It has recently come to the clients attention that you have a web site that contains an unauthorized reproduction of the Book. The reproduction, display, and distribution of the material at the online location infringes our clients copyright in the book because the test items are reproduced and displayed on the online location without our clients’s permission. As such, the web page you are hosting clearly infringes both U.S. Copyright law. See 17 U.S.C. 512(d) and New Zealand Copyright
law .

LOCATION OF INFRINGEMENT

The location of the infringement is:
http://www.yoursite-name-here-.ie

NOTICE OF TAKE DOWN

The purpose of this letter is to advise you of our clients’s rights and to seek your agreement to (1) remove and destroy the copyrighted material; and (2) disable or remove any hyperlink(s). Please note that the disabling or removing of Pearson’s copyrighted material from this site should include destroying the usefulness of any textual directory or pointer information contained therein.

Please confirm in writing that you have complied with the above request.

RESERVATION OF RIGHTS

Clients name reserves its position insofar as costs and damages caused by the unauthorized reproduction and/or display of the book and any information locating tools with respect to online locations engaged in infringing activity. Pearson also reserves its right to seek injunctive relief to prevent further unauthorized activity, particularly any information locating tools, pending your response to this letter. We suggest you contact your legal advisors to obtain legal advice as to
your position.

VERIFICATION

The information contained in this notification is accurate as of the time of compilation and, under penalty of perjury, I certify that I am authorized to act on behalf of our clients, xxx client name has a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.

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