A little less than two years ago, I left a secure job to pursue my dream of opening a small software design company dedicated to providing small businesses with CRM solutions. A business associate asked if I had selected a marketing company. At the time, I laughed him off. After twenty years as a respected professional in my industry, I knew my customers and I knew my product. I was confident my skill set would bring me more sales than any Manchester design agency.

I worked for a year testing and perfecting my software package. I leased and furnished a small office. I even hired a university student as a part time assistant. The only thing left was to throw together a web page and a brochure. How difficult could that be?

Two weeks of negotiating with printers, dealing with web design software that was decidedly not intuitive, and taxing my tiny right brain with decisions about colours and logos, I had my answer. I might know software, but I certainly don’t know marketing. I needed expert help.

When it comes to money, I’m more than a little tight fisted. When I do spend money, I expect the best. So, I went searching for the best Manchester design agency I could find. As it turns out, there is no shortage of Manchester design agencies. It was a lot to slog through. One company that ended up on my “top three” list and that eventually won my business was Lethal Marketing. I was impressed with them beginning with their timely response to my initial inquiry up to the present, as they continually help me build my customer base.

After a few conversations about my goals for my company, the professionals at Lethal Marketing and I both agreed that the first step would be designing a website. With my previous failed attempt on my mind, I was nervous about the process to say the least. Turns out, it was wasted emotion. The design process went smoothly. The creative staff balanced capable professionalism with an ability to “mine” my expertise. The result is a web site that is both elegant and functional.

Elegance and functionality aside, Lethal Marketing understands more than other Manchester design agencies that a web site alone will not build a brand or a business. I needed to aggressively announce my presence. The CRM software industry doesn’t lend itself to passing out leaflets on street corners, nor does it lend itself to traditional print media advertising. It was decided that the best way to make my debut was via a direct mailing campaign.

The mailer created by Lethal Marketing succinctly communicated the service my business provides and was also a perfect complement to my website. Of course the proof is in the results, and I can say without hesitation that I am completely satisfied. The business contacts I made within the first month of the mailing and the resulting contracts resulted in revenue that far exceeded the estimates I’d laid out in my business plan. I can think of no better endorsement than that.

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In general search ranking factors are tweaked continually but every now and again something more interesting happens like Google introducing “Panda”.  The implications of Panda being rolled out by Google has caused some web based technology sites to see their rankings drop.  Many people in the search engine market have voiced their thoughts that Google puts too much emphasis on backlinks to the cost of high quality content.  We believe that the new Panda update seems to be an attempt to redress this balance.  Indeed there are a vast majority of technical companies that rely on certain keywords within their website being on page 1 and ensuring that these keywords draw large volumes of Google traffic.  So to find out that Panda has demoted some sites for certain keywords to pages 3 and beyond has certainly has left some companies with a bitter taste in the mouth.  Companies, which have been demoted, are the ones, which scrape content from others and as such sites such as airfairesflights and hotfrog have taken a hit. Other web platforms such as voucher sites have also been hit hard.  On the other hand websites such as ebay and the national lottery where users spend a long time reading pages have actually benefited from Pandas launch.

So you might well be asking yourself … what is good content all about? While there are many possible answers, we believe it’s all about ‘page view duration’ and that this is now a critical factor for Google. We believe that content is now more important than hypothetical keyword density or similar on page factors. Also sites with duplicate content will also suffer and so if you want decent rankings then it’s important to produce good quality, literate copy.  Focus your website copy on selling to customers as opposed to writing for search engines.  Make your copy witty and interesting in order to entice your audience to stay on the site and read its content for longer.

You might also be asking yourself… what about backlinks then?  Well our opinion on this is that it has always been important to obtain multiple back links from a diverse range of sources i.e. article sites, social media sites, directories, classifieds etc so its important to keep up this good work. Don’t worry either if your links are from some websites which have a “no follow” attributable to them like YouTube because the theory now is that Google could now count that link.

Also activity on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter almost certainly appear to be favored by Bing and Google, specifically “shares” on Facebook are just as important,  as is links to your site from your fans/friends walls.

Another key ranking tool is Googles +1 button (the equivalent to facebook “likes”), which is shorthand for “this is pretty cool” or “you should check this out” which will soon be affecting SERPS (Search Engine Results Page)

But the +1 button isn’t just for search results as Google is working on a +1 button that you can put on your web pages too, making it easy for people to recommend your content on Google search.

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When building your own website it is vital to consider a number of salient points which will help produce a user friendly well optimised website.  Below is a 16 point list:-

Content

• Headings are extremely important more especially as search engines pick up pieces of headline snippets for web searches.  So ensure that all your headings are concise and relate specifically to the topic.
• Ensure that all font is the same size and is easy to read.
• Any styles, font, colors used throughout the site are consistent on each page. Also remember that choosing the right color theme will be a deciding factor as to whether or not users stay on your site and browse or leave quickly.
• Use bold text sparingly and only where essential.
• Ensure that the content is literate, knowledgeable and easy to read.
• Try to avoid pop-ups, which can be invasive to a user.

Navigation

• Ensure each of your URL’s are meaningful and that a user can immediately identify with what will be displayed on the page.  This also helps with SEO performance.
• Ensure your navigation is user friendly and easy to navigate around and try not to create too many sub directories / navigation systems as this only confuses a user and they soon loose interest.
• Ensure any internal links are consistent throughout the site and make them stand out by putting them in a different color or underlining them.
• Any search box available to a user should be easy to access (usually on the right hand side) and work properly. There’s nothing worse than a search box not turning up any results.

Accessibility

• Ensure that your site loads quickly to avoid losing valuable customers and SEO performance.
• All images within the site should have appropriate ALT tags more especially to help those users with visual impairment so the functionality isn’t lost.  Also remember search engines don’t read pictures so they need telling what the image is all about.
• Ensure that flash and any add-ons are used sparingly and also that they don’t interfere with your SEO performance.  CSS & HTML 5 will greatly help if you want to include these features within your website.

Identity

• Ensure that your company logo is consistent & prominent throughout the site and that your tag line sums up what your business / brand is all about.
• Ensure your home page is clear, concise and sums up everything about your business quickly.
• Ensure that the site layout, colors used & font sizes are all consistent with your brand identity.

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Webmasters always find it difficult to decide on the budget for their PPC campaigns and search engine optimization. It is important to take a balanced approach so that you get the best of both worlds. PPC campaigns will help you get immediate traffic to your website but the problem here is that if you rely just on paid traffic, you will end up depleting all your budget on your PPC campaigns. This will affect your profit levels very badly.
SEO or search engine optimization will help you get organic traffic to your website. It is important to increase your organic traffic to your website. Driving organic traffic is the long term solution to all your website traffic generation needs. You will be able to drive more targeted traffic to your website by optimizing your website for the right set of keywords. Though this may take a considerable amount of time and efforts to implement SEO, it is worth taking the trouble. You just need to invest once initially and after that you will have to just incur minimal expenses on ongoing maintenance.
You can always supplement your traffic level with paid traffic after implementing SEO for your website. You can use PPC traffic during special seasons such as holiday seasons and other shopping seasons based on the nature of the products and services you have for sale.
It is always helpful to hire a professional search engine marketing company that takes care of both PPC needs of your website and your SEO needs so that your service provider will be able to take a strategic approach and know what exactly has been done in terms of SEO and where your website needs support. It will take a considerable amount of time to get to the top of the search results for keywords that have very high competition. You can use PPC to drive traffic to your website for such keywords as you are still waiting for your SEO efforts to produce the desired results.
Choose a dependable SEO company to take care of your SEO needs and your PPC needs. Experience of your SEO or search engine marketing company is vital here. Time your campaigns carefully so that you get the best value for your money. It is best not to take one or the other approach to your online marketing efforts. An Holistic approach always pays the best results.
As your SEO efforts start bearing results, you can gradually reduce your PPC spending. You can revisit your PPC budget in times of special seasons. If you have a brand new website, then you may have to depend heavily on paid traffic initially. You will have to however take ongoing efforts to drive traffic to your website. It is very important that you take your SEO efforts fast and drive organic traffic to your website. In case your SEO efforts fail to produce the desired results as fast as you desire, you can augment your SEO efforts with PPC.

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Is your website not performing well despite having the best web design layout and highest visual appeal? Are you wondering about the under performance of your site and not attracting enough visitors? One of the main reasons why your website could be under performing is that it might not be copy written well enough in order to sell itself to both your customers and to the search engines. It is not enough to have a graphically appealing website, but it is equally important to have convincing content in your site.  Perhaps you want to talk to an expert right away? Look no further and contact us at http://www.lethalmarketing.co.uk/services/web-design-agency-manchester

Website copywriting is highly crucial for any site’s successful performance. It is your website’s copy that has to convince your site visitors about the quality of the products or services that you are selling. Your content should instill trust in your customers. Added to that, your website content has also another important role of achieving good results with search engine ranking. Search engines love fresh and original content with good keyword density. One of the factors that determine the relevance of your website for a particular keyword search is your website content. Not every website owner understands the importance of copywriting for their website.

You too should not commit the same mistake. The next time when you are getting your website content ready, make sure that you look at the following factors:

Your website content should be highly focused. Each page should have unique content that will tell your website visitors very clearly what they can get from that particular page. Each page should have a specific goal and the copywriting should prompt the visitors to move towards that goal. Your website content should be highly succinct in nature because internet users are always impatient. They should find what they want in just a single glance. You should present the information in a striking way whereby your website visitors will get what they want quickly. Copywriting presented in bulleted form has high impact on visitors than when presented in huge chunks of text.

Besides that, you should make sure that your website content is also keyword rich. Your website copy writing should target 4 to 5 keywords per page. This will boost your ranking in the search engines for those keywords. However, you should make sure that your website copy does not lose its readability for complying with keyword density requirements. The keywords should not look artificially inserted into the text because this will affect the quality of the text which in turn will irritate the visitors. Your website content should be well balanced so that you will be able to get the best conversion rates from your visitors. You should also work with copy writing companies with a good SEO background as they will have clear understanding of the latest search engine requirements and integrate these into their copywriting for the best search engine performance.

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Aspects of Successful Online Presence

Today everyone understands the importance of online presence to market their products and services. There are millions of websites on the World Wide Web selling various products and services but not all of them are equally successful. People spend a lot of money in building expensive websites with powerful programming features assuming that their website will automatically start selling. Spending lot of money in building your website need not guarantee the required success online. There are number of factors that go into the making of successful online presence of your website but if you want real results right now then contact www.lethalmarketing.co.uk/services/web-design-chester

First of all, you need to understand that today the online community has become highly discerning. In the infancy stage of the internet, people were impressed just with the stunning graphics and the aesthetic appeal of websites. Those superficial elements were good enough to sell one’s products but today, that is not the case anymore. People have become very mature online buyers. They have become very critical about the way they look at a business website. Unless you put in enough thinking and effort in coming up with sound web design strategy and copywriting, you cannot expect to achieve the required success.

Your web design strategy & copywriting should be based on acute competitor analysis and not merely on the selection of nice looking pictures. Your web design company should be capable of understanding your business model and come up with a web design strategy that will help you convey your USP effectively to the world. It must also involve intuitive layout providing users with the needed information in your website where they will expect them to be. Your website layout and navigation will have to be carefully designed to make it easy for your visitors to use your website. Each web page should have a definitive goal and hence it should not involve some random design.

Effective copywriting is yet another factor that adds value to your website. Professional website design and quality website copy make a powerful blend. You will be able to win the trust of your website visitors with your website copy. Careless efforts in this area will cost you dearly.

Yet another component of successful online presence is your online visibility. There is no good having a well-designed website with excellent website copy without having any visitors. If you want to get good traffic to your website then you need to ensure that you have good search engine rankings. Good search engine ranking comes through effective search engine optimization.

In a nutshell, successful online presence comprises of well thought out web design strategy & copywriting and effective search engine optimization. You can find hundreds of companies online claiming that they offer the best web design solutions and SEO solutions but not all of them really try to understand their customer’s business model before they get to their drawing board. At Lethalmarketing.co.uk, we are very particular in developing highly customised web designs based on your business model and USP. We also offer highly effective SEO services that will get your website good search engine ranking.

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When you are planning to launch a website for your business, you must choose your web design company very carefully. There are many factors involved in gaining online success. It is not enough just to have a graphically rich website; your website will be useful only when your website drives traffic. You may fail to get the desired traffic despite spending hundreds of pounds on your website. Today the internet is flood with websites from all sorts of niches and within each niche there are thousands of websites. All these websites try to secure their place in the search engine results page therefore, there is a huge competition in the industry.  However, if you require real results right now then contact www.lethalmarketing.co.uk/services/seo-manchester [...]

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Online Web Promotion with Lethal Marketing UK

Web Design & Online Promotion (http://www.lethalmarketing.co.uk) According to economists the outlook for Europe and the UK is particularly grim for the next few years. Business confidence has been rapidly declining, principally fuelled by borrowings being restricted, banks having to be bailed out by Government and large corporations going bust virtually overnight.

In previous recessions businesses could adapt their marketing strategies and focus on other moving economies, however, this is now virtually impossible as we are all in the midst of a Global downturn.

Put quite simply who knows when we will come out of this recession, when in fact we have never experienced anything like it before. Questions therefore arise: As a business owner myself, how are we meant to survive this catastrophic effect? If large corporations are drowning in this tidal wave, how can we ensure we don’t go down to? It seems that we have no alternative but to adapt, change and reach out far and wide in order to capitalise on what sales opportunities there are in the world, as only the fittest will survive.

We must ensure that we connect and network continually with world-wide business communities and form links which will enable us to chance on global opportunities. Thankfully, the World Wide Web gives us the portal in which to do this. Below are 6 tips on how to try to work through this recession and preserve both your business and personal sanity:- Business Survival Tips

I. Make your website work harder. Invest in the best online marketing partner (link www.lethalmarketing.co.uk) so that it leaves you free to concentrate on what you do best which is running and growing your business.

II. Try to invest in just one all round specialist marketing partner, (link www.lethalmarketing.co.uk) as opposed to hiring numerous people such as designers, developers, PPC managers, SEO specialists etc as this will save you money, time and effort. More importantly having just one partner will ensure that you will have effective, streamlined and results orientated marketing activities. Click here (link www.lethalmarketing.co.uk/contact.asp ) to ask for your free website review.

III. Ensure that your online marketing partner (link www.lethalmarketing.co.uk) is able to put together an online marketing strategy which fulfils your total business needs. Having a solid robust marketing strategy is absolutely essential, more especially in this current economic recession. Any marketing, web design, PPC, SEO or online promotions will perform badly unless they are backed by a concrete marketing strategy. Click here Link (www.lethalmarketing.co.uk/contact.asp) to ask for a free marketing review.

IV. Ask your online marketing partner (www.lethalmarketing.co.uk) to manage on your behalf a Google pay per click (PPC) marketing campaign. Focused and properly managed PPC campaigns can bring massive sales revenues to your business. Click here Link (www.lethalmarketing.co.uk/contact.asp) to ask for your free PPC review.

V. Ask your online marketing partner (link www.lethalmarketing.co.uk) to review your current website and invest in a search engine optimisation (SEO) programme in order to generate further business growth. Click here Link (www.lethalmarketing.co.uk/contact.asp) to ask for your free SEO review.

VI. Ask your online marketing partner (link www.lethalmarketing.co.uk) to write link baiting news worthy web articles which will generate further traffic and interest to you website. Articles should be creative and interesting and more importantly attract the type of business or interest that you want.

Personal Survival Tips :

I. Preserve your own optimism by not watching the news too much as it only serves to dampen ones soul. Surround yourself with people who are dynamic, optimistic and self assured despite recessional events.

II. Successful people work with and surround themselves with likeminded successful role models. Do you attract winners?

III. The wheel of fortune is not a game of chance; it is a game of choice. The choices you make today and tomorrow will affect you throughout your entire life, so make them wisely.

IV. What the mind harbours the body manifests in some way. So continually strive to create positive thoughts which will act as a catalyst and drive you forward.

V. Spend one day of the week ON YOU. There will never be another YOU. VI. Despite this current recession and the impacts that it may be having on you, and your business, remain positive and optimistic about the future.

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Every business owner should consider having a powerful website as part of his or her brand promotion strategy. Today you cannot think of running a successful business without having a website. Gone are the days whereby people flipped their phone books to identify a service provider. Whether it is a B2B or B2C products and services the first thing people do to find out about the products and the services they need is to go online. Making an online search is far easier than flipping through the bulky phone books or searching through a business directory. If at all you are serious about your brand name promotion, you must know to make yourself where people are looking for your products and services. As of today world wide web is one sure place that people search for the services they need. [...]

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Unlike selecting your other service providers such as your web design company or your web programming company, selecting your search engine optimisation company is not that easy. The nature of SEO industry is such that you cannot see tangible results as fast as you would like to see. Quantifying or measuring the success of your SEO efforts is also not that easy. All these make the entire selection process complicated. Here are few points that you need to take into consideration while selecting your search engine optimisation company.

One of the most important factors that should be taken into consideration is the overall experience of the company in providing SEO services. You cannot afford to entrust your website’s SEO to inexperienced companies and allow them to test their skills on your website. The SEO company that you choose should have sound knowledge about all the latest SEO strategies and should be capable of employing those strategies to your website optimisation.

Secondly, your SEO company should make reasonable promises. They should be capable of delivering on their promises. Anyone can promise to get your website #1 position in Google and other top search engines, but not all companies can actually achieve such results. Your SEO company should review your niche industry, competition level and the nature of the keywords before they make their promises. They should not give you false hope but to set realistic SEO goals that are achievable.

They should be straightforward and transparent in their approaches so that as a customer, you know how they are sending traffic to your website. There are so many unapproved methods used in the SEO industry by unscrupulous companies to drive traffic to their customers’ websites. But this will get you into trouble and it can even get your website banned. Your SEO company should use only white hat SEO strategies or approved SEO strategies so that you are safe.

Reputation of your SEO company is yet another factor to take into consideration because if they do not offer reliable SEO services, they would ruin their own reputation in the industry. So you must try to do your homework well before choosing your SEO company. Make a thorough online research using the name of your SEO company. If there were any foul plays in the past, it will certainly come to light.

Field specific SEO experience is certainly a plus. Your SEO company should understand your business model as well as your industry fully before they can start sending any traffic to your website through their SEO efforts. If they should have already worked in your industry, they will be able to get the desired results faster.

The next factor is the cost involved in hiring an SEO company. Every business has its own budget constrictions. Therefore, you must find SEO solutions that fit within your budget. The SEO services offered by your SEO company should be competitively priced.

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