It amazes me the amount of functionality Google provides freely to the world. Over the years it keeps increasing and a lot of their services are simply superb. Below I have put together Five Google Tools that I find helpful and useful and maybe you will too!! This is certainly not everything Google offer, just my favourites!

Google One - Google Analytics - Analyze website traffic

When you sign up for this you will be given a small snippet of code that your web developer needs to paste into all the pages on your website. By doing this Google Analytics can then provide you with easy access to your own personal easy-to-understand reports that track visitors to your website as well as visitor origin, length of stay and many other statistics. This can help you to know what is going on to make measurable improvements to marketing campaigns and websites over time.

Google Two - Google Maps - Get listed

Your business can appear in Google Maps, providing another opportunity for potential clients to find you. Visit the Google Business Centre to get listed, and when adding or editing your listing you can add hours, photos, coupons and more.

Google Three - Google Alerts - Be informed

Receive an email alert when your name or business name is mentioned in any online news. Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic. Some handy uses of Google Alerts include:

• monitoring a developing news story
• keeping current on a competitor or industry
• getting the latest on a celebrity or event
• keeping tabs on your favorite sports teams

Go to http://www.google.com/alerts?hl=en to set up your alerts.

Google Four - Website Status report - Check your Listing

Simply go to https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/sitestatus and enter your URL to check if your website has been indexed by Google.

If you have a new website, or your website is not yet listed you can submit it at http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl

Google Five - Some fun and helpful tools

Here are some things you can do just with the Google search functionality.

Word definitions: To see a definition for a word or phrase, simply type the word “define” then a space, then the word(s) you want defined. To see a list of different definitions from various online sources, you can type “define:” followed by a word or phrase. Note that the results will define the entire phrase.

Currency Converter: To use Google’s built-in currency converter, simply enter the conversion you’d like done into the Google search box and the answer will display directly on the results page. eg type in 100 AUD in USD to get the conversion of $100 Aussie dollars into US currency.

Looking for a map? Type in the suburb name and the word “map” and Google will return a map of that location. Note that on testing this I found it doesnt bring results for a lot of suburbs, but still handy to know. Clicking on the map will take you to a larger version on Google Maps.

Calculator: To use Google’s built-in calculator function, simply enter the calculation you’d like done into the search box.

Check out all the other cool things you can do simply with Google - http://www.google.com/intl/en/help/features.html

Article by Belinda Jackson

© 2008. Web Chameleon Pty Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

I just wanted to let you know about a great opportunity to become a co-author alongside some big names in internet marketing!

The team at Wonderful Web Women are offering all current Gold members the chance to contribute to the Gold Book 2009.

What is the Gold Book, I hear you ask? Well, it’s a collaborative project with people from all walks of life who would like to increase their exposure by contributing an article. The finished ebook will be available for ALL members of Wonderful Web Women to give away for free. Last year’s Gold Book has been downloaded many, many times!

The benefits of being a contributor include:

- Gaining instant credibility
- Generating leads to your web site
- Contributing to the success of other people all over the world
- Raising your profile with people you’d never have reached before by leveraging off the contact lists of every other member
- This may well be your first product - a reason to congratulate yourself and apply the skills you learn to your own product!

The deadline for submitting contributions is December 15th, 2008.

You’ll be able to participate in this exciting project if you’re a Gold member of Wonderful Web Women. At the moment, it’s only $9.97 to join. All new members get a bonus CD including a pre-made website, audio/video coaching and a personal mentor call. You’ll be amazed at the wealth of resources you’ll find to help get you started on your
Wonderful Web journey.

I’ll be contributing an article on Blogging, I’m just working on it now!

Pop over to and find out more - Wonderful Web Women.

I recently returned from attending Ali Brown’s Online Success Blueprint Workshop in LA (which was fantastic to say the least!) and whilst there we also heard from Mari Smith who is a leading expert in Facebook marketing. Below you will find some of the facts and tips I gathered from Mari’s presentation. I also highly recommend you visit this link to get Mari’s Facebook Tips Report which goes into even more depth!

Here are a few of the facts about Facebook;

• 125 million active members (Wow!!!)
• It is estimated there will be 500 million members by 2011 (this is massive growth!!)
• Facebook is the 4th most trafficked website in the world
• Facebook is the most used photo-sharing platform online, it is even beating Flickr
• 30 million photos every day!!!
• Members on Facebook have an average age of 35
• There are more members with degrees, they are more mature and have more money (compared to other sites like MySpace)

 Four Tips to get more attention on Facebook

1. Connect with leaders in your industry. Search them out on Facebook and send a friend request with a personal note. A personal note gets you more attention and shows you are not just sending friend requests to everyone possible!
2. Get your photo taken with famous people and/or experts in your industry and tag them in your photos. This will then show up on their profile and in the activities feed (list of recent activities in your network). Mari calls this ‘Viral Visibility’.
3. Add a Facebook page to your profile - go to the ‘Advertising’ link at the bottom the screen when logged in to Facebook and click on ‘Advertising’.
4. Join relevant groups that cover your topic and/or industry and make regular comments and post content. Great for visibility.

by Belinda Jackson

© 2008. Web Chameleon Pty Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

Want to use this article on your website or include it in your email newsletter? No problem! But you also MUST include the following:

Belinda Jackson, Online Marketing Mentor, is founder of Web Chameleon, Chameleon Mail and The Business Blogging Program.  To learn how to attract and retain your perfect clients using Online Marketing, and increase sales & income then sign up for your free Online Marketing Report and Marketing Newsletter by visiting www.WebChameleon.com.au/.

Getting your website found on the Search Engines is a great way to bring targeted prospective clients directly to your website!

Google continues to have the biggest slice in the search engine market, with over 4.8 billion searches (yes that’s 4,800,000,000!) in September 2008.

In terms of market share, Google held almost 60 per cent of the market, while Yahoo! had 18.1 per cent Microsoft saw 11.8 per cent.

These are the figures from Nielson Online’s September research. Other search engines that appeared in the top ten included AOL, Ask.com, My Web, Comcast and AT&T Worldnet.

So how to get found on Google? The all important question!

Google’s intention is sound - they wish to provide searchers with the very best results for whatever it is that they are searching for. It’s as simple as that (well almost!). You need to make your website a worthy result for the keywords that your prospective visitors are searching for.

There are two ways of generating traffic (visitors to your website) from Google and these are organically and through paid advertising. Today I focus on Organic (or natural) listing result which are the main listings on the left side of results when you conduct a search on Google. It is impossible to buy or bribe your way to a position here.

So how do you get there? Well the only way is for Google to think that your website is a relevant result for the keywords that are being searched.

You will need to “optimise” your website for Search Engines to find and index it - also known as Search Engine Optimisation (or Optimization).

Increasing your chances of “Organic Listings” through Search Engine Optimisation is really not as complicated as it may appear. Here are my Top 3 Tips, kept short and simple (you may have read these before but they ARE important so I repeat them from time to time):

Tip 1) Keywords: Make sure the keywords that your prospects may search for when they are looking for your products and/or services are included on your website, on as many pages across your website and often as possible.

Tip 2) Incoming Links: These are important because Google give every website a page rank which effects your placement in results for searches. Page Rank is effectively a ranking of how important Google considers your web page to be. This is based on a number of factors, with one major contributing factor being how many websites link to your website.

In Google’s interpretation, if you have lots of incoming links, then you must be popular, and therefore important. The quality of the incoming links does also factor in, so if the links to your website are from high ranking and relevant sites (with a high Page Rank) they have more effect.

Tip 3) More Content: The more written content you have on your website the more there is for Google to find, rank and return in their results.

This is why blogs are proving to be so effective, as they generally contain lots of content that is always being updated. Search engines love blogs. (Interested in blogging… visit www.businessbloggingprogram.com)  

Writing articles is another fantastic way to build your online presence, optimise your website and create multiple incoming links to your website. I would suggest that you begin writing creative, interesting articles relating to your target market. Once you’ve written an article, you can submit it to article directories and gain valuable links back to your website for free.

by Belinda Jackson

© 2008. Web Chameleon Pty Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

Want to use this article on your website or include it in your email newsletter? No problem! But you also MUST include the following:

Belinda Jackson, Online Marketing Mentor, is founder of Web Chameleon, Chameleon Mail and The Business Blogging Program.  To learn how to attract and retain your perfect clients using Online Marketing, and increase sales & income then sign up for your free Online Marketing Report and Marketing Newsletter by visiting www.WebChameleon.com.au/.

Email Marketing is a highly effective and very cost effective way of marketing your products or services. However, as all of our inboxes get fuller and fuller it becomes even more critical to get the formula right so that you are welcomed into your recipients inbox. You really don’t want to be a quickly deleted pest!

Often it is just a case of ensuring that the content you are sending is valuable and worthwhile to the recipients and that you have their consent. Think about your own inbox for a moment. If you receive an email from a business or a name that you are not familiar with and have no recollection of having met or subscribed to, what is the first thing you do? Assuming of course that the email did not go straight into your spam filter you would likely delete it or mark it as spam. Right?

So how to get through the clutter and get results. Ensure you don’t commit the following email marketing sins;

Forgetting WIIFM
Don’t send ‘Advertising’. You wouldn’t want to recieve it and neither do your recipients. Your emails must contain valuable content and/or a great offer. When I receive emails that are sent with the sole purpose of trying to sell and there is nothing contained within that is valuable or even helpful to me I will delete and so will most of your recipients. Don’t forget the WIIFM (Whats In It For Me) formula.

Don’t CC for bulk sends
If you only CC your contact list when sending your email marketing, everyone else on the list sees the entire list that you have sent the email to. This is a poor email practise and a breach of privacy for your contacts. If you must use Outlook (& I recommend against it) then at least ensure you use the BCC field so that contacts are blind copied instead of visibly copied into the list.

Opt-In Only
To abide by spam laws you must have consent to send your commercial email marketing messages. So it’s not only law but it is also best practise. The more targetted and consenting your list the better your results will be. When launching your email marketing for the first time ensure you acknowledge the launch and give your recipients the chance to unsubscribe.

Include Unsubscribe Functionality
An unsubscribe is much better than someone simply deleting or marking your emails as spam. If there is no unsubscribe link or instructions in your email you are breaching spam compliance laws. You must include functional unsubscribe, which can simply be a sentence telling the recipient to reply to the email with ‘Unubscribe’ in the Subject line or use an Email Service Provider (like Chameleon Mail) to automate this. Making it impossible for recipients to unsubscribe also means increasing chances of getting reported as spam to ISPs and authorities.

Sending Attachments
Expecting your recipients to open a PDF newsletter is going to substantially decrease your chances of having your newsletter or campaign seen. Most people are cautious of attachments and will not open them unless 100% sure of the sender, because they are afraid the attachment may contain something nasty like a virus. Also, a PDF requires an additional step to be taken by the recipient, a bit much to ask in our time poor society.

by Belinda Jackson

© 2008. Web Chameleon Pty Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

Want to use this article on your website or include it in your email newsletter? No problem! But you also MUST include the following:

Belinda Jackson, Online Marketing Mentor, is founder of Web Chameleon, Chameleon Mail and The Business Blogging Program.  To learn how to attract and retain your perfect clients using Online Marketing, and increase sales & income then sign up for your free Online Marketing Report and Marketing Newsletter by visiting www.WebChameleon.com.au/.

Measure your website marketing!

I’m often surprised that the majority of business owners and managers don’t know how many visitors they are getting to their website. How about you? Do you know how many visitors are visiting your website each month?

To be able to track trends and to assess the success of your website it’s essential to have access to some statistical information about visitors to your website. If you don’t already have this information or know how to access this information then I suggest asking your web designer or hosting company as they should be able to give you instructions to access this information.

If you have your website hosted with a company that offers CPANEL (as all of my clients do), then you can see instructions here.

So once you get this information what do you need to look at? Below is an outline of the more important metrics you can access through most website host statistics packages and what they mean;

Visitor Information

The number of unique visitors will help you to determine how many visitors you receive each month and you can track the trend over time to see whether numbers are increasing, decreasing or staying the same.

An important distinction is the difference between “visitors” versus “hits”. Each person who visits your site is considered a “visitor”. Each time a visitor looks at a page, that page and its contents are accessed, including the graphics on the page and these are counted as ‘hits’.

An example is 1 unique visitor comes to your home page, and on your home page you have text and 3 graphics, totaling 4 elements on your page, and thus being counted as 4 ‘hits’ on your website. When a visitor visits that page once, your statistics will show ONE visitor and FOUR hits. So for most of us, the unique ‘visitors’ is the more accurate statistic to take note of.

Visitor Location

The location tells you what country visitors are coming from. This is important if you’re concerned about your global reach to other countries.

Time of Day Activity

This area of your statistics helps you to determine which days of the week have the most activity, and which time of day is the most active.

Referrals

This section of your statistics will tell you who is sending people to your web site. It lists which search engines people use, as well as which keywords or key phrases people use to find your site. This section will list what other sites are linking from their site to your site.

This is a great information to track any online marketing you are doing. For example if you paying to list on a website then you would want to ensure that you are actually getting visitors from this website to know that your spend is worthwhile.

Pages

This section of your statistics will help you to determine which pages are visited most often, how long people stay on a page (hopefully reading it), and which page people exit your site from.

As mentioned above it really is important to keep an eye on this information if you are serious about marketing your business through your website. What I do and what I would suggest you do, is keep a record of these statistics (perhaps in excel) so that you can easily see the trends over time.

by Belinda Jackson

© 2008. Web Chameleon Pty Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

Want to use this article on your website or include it in your email newsletter? No problem! But you also MUST include the following:

Belinda Jackson, Online Marketing Mentor, is founder of Web Chameleon, Chameleon Mail and The Business Blogging Program.  To learn how to attract and retain your perfect clients using Online Marketing, and increase sales & income then sign up for your free Online Marketing Report and Marketing Newsletter by visiting www.WebChameleon.com.au/.

The following is a very thought provoking short story I came across several years ago, I keep a copy on the wall in my office and try to remember to read it from time to time. It helps remind me to look at the true purpose behind what I do, and I hope it makes you think too. - Belinda

Gone Fishing….

A US businessman was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican fishing village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the boat were several large yellow-fin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.

The Mexican replied, ‘Only a little while, Señor.’

The American asked why he didn’t stay out longer and catch more fish. The Mexican said that he had enough to supply his family’s immediate needs.

The American then asked, ‘But what do you do with the rest of your time?’

The fisherman said, ‘I play with my children, take siesta with my wife Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life, Señor.’

The American smiled, ‘I am a Harvard MBA - that’s a degree in business studies - I could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds buy a bigger boat, with the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet. Then instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor eventually opening you own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution.

‘You would, of course, need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then Los Angeles, and eventually New York City where you would run your expanding enterprise.’

The Mexican fisherman asked, ‘But, Señor, how long will all this take?’

The American replied, ‘Fifteen to twenty years.’

‘But what then, Señor?’

The American laughed, ‘That’s the best part. When the time is right you sell your stock to the public and become very rich. You would make millions.’

‘Millions, Señor? But then what?’

‘Then you would retire, move to a small coastal fishing village, where you could sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, Maria, and stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play guitar with your amigos.’

With just a hint of a twinkle in his eye, the fisherman said, ‘Señor - are these business degrees hard to get?’

–
Rob Parsons, The Heart of Success

These Online Publicity methods are all non traditional forms of generating publicity and interest in both you and your business. All are free and highly effective, so why not give them a try….

1. ARTICLE MARKETING
Article marketing refers to writing articles on your area of expertise or industry and then publishing those articles wherever possible as a way of promoting you and your business. Online this means submitting your articles at sites such as www.ezinearticles.com and relevant websites that accept articles for publication.

Don’t forget this can also be used offline, in fact the same articles can often be used with perhaps some minor editing to submit to magazines, papers and other offline media. For example I recently slightly tweaked one of my popular Email Marketing articles for a Real Estate publication.

2. BLOGGING
Blogging is a way to gain ongoing exposure online for you and your business. Ideally this is in the form of you publishing articles (which can also be used in Publicity option 1 above), news, events, press releases and industry updates on your blog which allows your readers (both prospects and clients) to learn more about you, as well as provide another way for media to find you. It is becoming more and more common for media channels such as TV, magazines and radios to source information and opinions from Bloggers and to contact Blog authors for interviews and further comments on their area of expertise.

3. SOCIAL NETWORKING
You may have read my article recently about Facebook (if not you can read it here), where I mentioned how popular this online social networking community has become. Facebook is a great way to get free publicity, although how far your message reaches may depend on how many friends you have! Simply by updating your status on Facebook you can let your network know about new projects that you are working on and generate interest.

You can also do this with Twitter which is a service that allows you to keep others up to date on what you are doing at any time. To learn more about using Twitter for marketing and exposure I suggest reading this great article at http://www.toprankblog.com/2007/11/twitter-guide/

by Belinda Jackson

© 2008. Web Chameleon Pty Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

Want to use this article on your website or include it in your email newsletter? No problem! But you also MUST include the following:

Belinda Jackson, Online Marketing Mentor, is founder of Web Chameleon, Chameleon Mail and The Business Blogging Program.  To learn how to attract and retain your perfect clients using Online Marketing, and increase sales & income then sign up for your free Online Marketing Report and Marketing Newsletter by visiting www.WebChameleon.com.au/.

Business & Innovation Expo 2008 Central Coast, NSW. This annual event is on next week at Mingara Recreation Club, Tumbi Umbi - Wednesday 13th & Thursday 14th August.

I will be giving two presentations at this year’s Central Coast Business Expo;

10.00am to 10.30am - Wednesday 13th
Blogging your way to online success
Belinda Jackson, Web Chameleon

3.00pm to 3.30pm - Wednesday 13th
Growing your business using an email newsletter
Belinda Jackson, Web Chameleon

 Here’s a quick snapshot of the Central Coast Business Expo;

The Expo brings together the local business community for two days of product & service display and promotion, seminars, networking - and most importantly - conversation.

* 40 - 50 businesses and business organisations on show
* Business & Industry Briefing: Panel Presentation
* AusIndustry Innovation Forum
* Central Coast Tourism Forum
* One-on-One Coaching Sessions
* Edgar Adams interviews local successful businesses.
* Workshops & Masterclasses
* 10 business development seminars
* Over 30 local presenters

Learn more and register for these and many more FREE seminars…go to www.thebrew.com.au

Robert Gerrish of Flying Solo will be presenting on the Central Coast next Tuesday 12th August. This will be a networking evening with guest speaker for WIN Group. 

Starting a referral virus to explode your business…

This presentation looks at the importance of referrals and how to generate more. Talking powerfully about your work and using networking as an effective tool in your marketing activity is a key to success. This presentation will help delegates to develop these skills and open doors to added opportunities.

Other specific areas covered include:
- The value of a statement that talks powerfully about what you do
- The importance of recognising who you should really do business with
- How to create a referral virus that will lead to potentially endless new business leads

The presentation concludes with a tool that each person can apply to their business and an action plan to start the ball rolling.

About Robert

Robert is a coach, author & professional speaker whose particular niche is the independent professional and small business owner.

In 2000, he started ‘Flying Solo’ - Australia’s online community for solo business owners. The website has more than thirty five thousand visitors a month and their email newsletter goes to over fourteen thousand Australian business owners every Tuesday.

Robert has been a business commentator on ABC Four Corners, A Current Affair, Sky Business, Fairfax Digital, 2UE and ABC Radio and writes a regular column for News Ltd. In mid-2005 he released his first book Flying Solo: How to go it alone in business, co-authored with Sam leader and published by Allen & Unwin. The book is an Australian business bestseller.

Best selling author of the E-myth, Michael Gerber said of the book: “If you’re on your own, and not sure what’s up next, read this book and wake up to the possibilities it presents.”

Visit Flying Solo at: www.flyingsolo.com.au and find out more about Robert at www.robertgerrish.com

This event is open to any business person, to book go here.

Date: Tuesday 12th August, 6.30pm
Venue: Terrigal Memorial Country Club, 64 Dover Road, Wamberal.
Investment: $20.00