Introducing Authority Labs

Rank checking can be one of the most time consuming, tedious tasks there is – if of course you don’t know how to do it quickly that is. The first time I did a rank check I counted everything manually, it took literally hours – very boring!

Then I learned how to use Advanced Web Ranking, which was a great solution, but sadly it has become increasingly problematic. So last month I set out to find a solution to my problem, and I’m happy to say I’ve found it!

I discovered Authority Labs through a client at work, who had found that they supplied Raven Tools with their rank checking service. So I checked out their plans and prices and I’ve found that they have plans for as little as $24 per month (around £15), but if you don’t need as much as that you can simply sign up for the 30 day trial and then if you don’t pay to use the service they simply let you use a free plan which is limited to 1 website and 10 keywords – perfect for my needs.

Here are the rankings I’m tracking at the moment:

It is however a great solution if you’re an SEO and you want to track keywords for multiple clients, or alternatively if you are an in house SEO or a business owner and you have perhaps a lot of website or keywords you wish to track.

The thing that I think makes Authority Labs so unique is that they allow you to tag keywords – so say you sell bedroom furniture and you have two sets of keywords, one for beds (say the keywords are: bed, divan bed, double bed) and one for wardrobes (say the keywords are: pine wardrobe, oak wardrobe, shabby chic wardrobe) you can then tag these keywords with beds and wardrobes respectively and see a visibility chart for them. In my example I’ve tagged my brand (for my name), marketing (for keywords containing “marketing”) and seo (for keywords containing “seo”):

So for $24 (£15) per month to track 100 keywords over 10 domains, you can’t really go wrong. So head on over to Authority Labs and signup!

(Disclaimer: I DO get commission if you signup through these affiliate links, however I think its a product worth using otherwise I wouldn’t have recommended it).

Rank Checking Your Google Ranking is a post from: David Whitehouse a digital marketing consultant from the UK, based in North Yorkshire.

I’ve been having a play around lately and managed to come up with a quick way for me to give you some simple advice on your website.  I’ve created an easy to use tool called Optimal.

It’s still in the early stages of development, so if you notice a bug or an improvement that can be made, or if there is anything you don’t understand, please let me know.  I’ll be making additions to it overtime, I hope to assess sites speed and also link out to various resources where you can find out how to fix each problem.

For now, please check it out and let me know what you think.

Thanks,

David

Announcing My First FREE Tool: Optimal – Get A Report On Your Website is a post from: David Whitehouse a digital marketing consultant from the UK, based in North Yorkshire.

Hi all, this is just a quick blog post to let blog followers know that I have successfully passed my course in direct and digital marketing with the Institute of Digital and Direct marketing.

I’m extremely proud

I’m hoping to be accepted as a full member (as soon as my wife lets me pay £185 – the annual membership fee)!

What this essentially means is that I can competently create a full strategic marketing plan – I have little experience, but I’m willing to drop my asking price for my early clients. So if you feel your business needs a bit more direction, you have a budget of at least £500 per month available for marketing, you are passionate about what you do and also have great ambitions for your business – then please get in touch.

Passed With Flying Colours! is a post from: David Whitehouse a digital marketing consultant from the UK, based in North Yorkshire.

Duedil is a great free new web service that allows you free access to the entire companies house database, any time of day. It’s great for researching companies, whether that be for a job interview, to check up on your employer or what I am going to show you how to do, identifying potential prospects.

Step 1

The first step in this process is to have a look at your existing customers, identify the more valuable ones – the ones that take less work and earn you more money. There is actually a number of statistical techniques for doing this, but these are very complex and would require much more than a blog post.

Step 2

You look up these customers using Duedil, you make a note of their SIC code (the type of business they run), their employee count, their turnover, location, the legal status (ltd, partnership, sole trader etc.), and how long the business has been established. Now look at these and see if you can find some common patterns between your most valuable customers, such as high turnover or number of employees for example.

Step 3

You can now do a search for companies using the Duedil search facility, putting in your search filters such as turnover. This should then produce a list of potential prospects, you can then go through and if you have logged in with LinkedIn it will show you people that are in your network that work for the company or are in your 2nd, 3rd degree network. This gives you a contact to get your foot in the door. Simply record these people and you have your list!

Using Duedil To Identify Potential Prospects is a post from: David Whitehouse a digital marketing consultant from the UK, based in North Yorkshire.

After spending sometime using Capsule CRM (which became to clunky to use) and Highrise (which is to simplistic and doesn’t have nearly enough advanced features for sales) I have finally found Base by Future Simple. Funnily enough if you look for it on Google, you can’t find it! There is in fact another CRM called Base, which looks like it was designed in the 90′s – do not confuse the two!!! You’re looking for the one at FutureSimple.com.

I discovered Base CRM whilst looking for a CRM app that worked on my Android – Base had the best reviews and after I signed up I could see why. It has an Android app as well as an iPhone app – for all those Anroid users out there I can’t tell you how much of a relief this is, I’m sick of tired of online software with just an iPhone version, letting the Android users put up with a mobile version of their web page.

The Sales Funnel

First up it already has a well thought out sales funnel process which you can customise if you wish (you probably won’t). It’s simple to customise and the actual reporting system is also simple, but at the same time extremely useful. Here’s a few screenshots from my account:

This is a great way to estimate the value of leads – we can see here that of the leads I get, 20% are unqualified – that means I don’t want them. We can work out what percentage of leads actually result in a deal – in this case 4/10 (or 40%). If we apply this to the average value of these leads (£437.50) we can estimate the value of the lead, in this case 40% of £437.50, which is £175. So now I know that each lead I get is worth £175.

I can now use this as a goal in Google Analytics (or other web analytics tool) and from this have a basis to calculate my ROI for my advertising campaigns. Anyways, onto the rest of Base’s cool features…

Reasons For Lost Deals Report

This report is great, when you lose a deal you have to enter a reason – this is some brilliant customer insight that you can feed back into your business when trying to improve your sales process, your marketing or even your product. Anyways, here’s mine (actually I’ve not lost any yet so I had to make some up – but you get the point):

There are a load of other reports, but these are my two favourite – on top of that I think we’ll see some more useful ones coming out as they improve, they have a great user based feedback system using User Voice – so any features suggested get voted on and if they get enough votes they get implemented – great huh?

Other Features

So what else has it got?

Well you can integrate it with your website for starters – I didn’t fancy this because I’m obsessed with my Google Analytics and they won’t let me redirect to a thank you page, but naturally I’ve requested the change so hopefully they’ll be making that improvement shortly. But still, if you don’t pay much attention to Google Analytics, then the web form integration is ideal.

Again they’ve got a very intuitive system for adding contacts (companies or individuals) and you can check back over past sales. All data can be exported (or imported) if needed, and they have a special import facility for those using Highrise, Basecamp or Salesforce – so switching to Base CRM Is Easy.

Check It Out – It’s Free!

Anyways, I suggest you check it out, because after all it is free and it’s a shed load better than all the other CRM systems out there.

Disclaimer: I originally wrote this blog post when I was trialling Base CRM, since then I have referred enough people to earn myself a free account, so any further referrals may end up earning me commission if they end up subscribing to Base CRM. I just thought it was best I cleared that up

Base CRM – CRM Software For The Small Business by Future Simple is a post from: David Whitehouse a digital marketing consultant from the UK, based in North Yorkshire.

So it’s mid January and there is already a lot to consider in this coming year. Here are some of the key things I think businesses need to concentrate on in 2012.

Get Your SEO Sorted

This is a no brainer – I don’t mean link building, I mean just get your site SEO friendly, 9/10 websites I look at on the net have serious SEO issues – this includes large companies and also some other SEO “experts”! If you think SEO is all about link building, you’re wrong and if you haven’t sorted out your onsite issues you are shooting yourself in the foot.

Get Your Website A Responsive Design

This is important – because this year you’re going to have a good mix of people visiting your website from laptops, desktop pcs, tablets, smartphones, normal phones and televisions – this year will see the introduction of the Google TV and it’ll probably be quite popular. A responsive website design is the same website but it shows different versions depending on the size of the screen – this is a great way of ensuring that all your communication is working together, it’ll also save time because you’ll only need to update stuff in one place. By not having a website usable on all devices you are literally throwing money away. If you want a cheap one, you can probably buy one on ThemeForest for around $35.

Embrace Web Analytics

There is no excuse this year, you need to know how much your website makes you and where that money is coming from, without it you’re in big trouble. You can use Google Analytics for free, but you need to make sure it is setup properly and that you are making best use of it. I’d recommend hiring someone to set it up for you and if you don’t like logging in and playing with it, get them to schedule a monthly report which details everything you need to know.

Start Using Freelancers

With a freelancer you can pay them much less and on an ad hoc basis – so you can have really cheap labour. Alternatively you can hire the best freelancers for top dollar but only pay when you need them – both these give great value. There are a number of freelance websites, if you’re in the UK I suggest PeoplePerHour.com as it is in pounds sterling and if you’re in the US I suggest Elance or Odesk.

Consider Advertising Elsewhere Than Google

There is more to the Internet than just Google, here is a list of the top 20 websites by traffic volume in the UK(for the week ending 07/01/2012). Out of the 20 listed you can advertise on 19 of them (including Google):

• Facebook Advertising
• YouTube Advertising
• Ebay Advertising
• Advertise on Windows Live Mail, Yahoo, Bing & MSN UK through Microsoft Advertising
• Advertise with Amazon.co.uk
• The BBC! (I found this quite shocking all things considered)
• Advertise on the online version of the Daily Mail, the Mail Online
• Get seen on the Sky Sports website
• Promote yourself on Twitter (starts at $5000 per month)

As well as these, if you look at the top social networks you will see LinkedIn and Gumtree, who also both offer advertising (Gumtree Media and LinkedIn Advertising).

But you don’t necessarily have to pay out any money to get promoting yourself on these sites, you can consider other forms of promotion – such as answering questions on Yahoo, creating viral content for Facebook and Twitter or even connected on LinkedIn through various networking groups.

Digital Marketing In 2012 – Time To Pull Your Socks Up is a post from: David Whitehouse a digital marketing consultant from the UK, based in North Yorkshire.

This is just a quick post for all my subscribers to summarise a few changes in the Internet marketing arena recently.

First up, there have been a lot of changes with Google Analytics, with a new version coming out with a host of new features including dashboards, multi channel funnels, real time analytics and visitor flow.  I suggest you check it out and familiarise yourself.

Secondly any keyword data from Google organic SSL will no longer be passed on, so you may well see “(not defined)” as one of your top performing keywords, expect it to affect around 10% of organic traffic from Google.

Google Adwords has released a bid per call offering, where a phone number sits in the ad, if you get called you get charged a did fee of £1 minimum – definitely worth using in my opinion.

Mailchimp has released a new service called “goooals” where you can segment email subscribers based on what they do on your website.

I’ll try and do a better job of keeping you all up to date! I’ve been busy preparing for my exams next week, wish me luck!

Quick Catch Up is a post from: David Whitehouse a digital marketing consultant from the UK, based in North Yorkshire.

If you’re not familiar with the ‘a4uexpo Bavarian Beer and Sausage on stand 50’ SEO competition, then let me enlighten you!

Occassionally in the SEO community someone announces a competition with a prize, in this case tickets to a conference in London with a hotel stay lumped in.

This is a great way to build a buzz and get some links for your website or client website – offer a prize, say that the page has to link to you with containing a phrase/keyword as a requirement and that the highest ranking for a specific keyword phrase will win on such and such a date – don’t forget to specify which search engine though! Google.co.uk or Google.com (or Google.fr if you are in France etc.).

Hundreds of SEO’s across the nation are likely to be trying to rank for this keyword, so me trying to rank for ‘a4uexpo Bavarian Beer and Sausage on stand 50’ is like a drop in the ocean. But at least I can get one of my colleagues some Bavarian beer and sausages from the a4uexpo.

This Blog Ranking for ‘a4uexpo Bavarian Beer and Sausage on stand 50’ is Like a Drop in the Ocean is a post from: David Whitehouse a digital marketing consultant from the UK, based in North Yorkshire.

This WordPress Theme Cost Me Just $35

Finding a good design for your website isn’t easy for most people – but if you are running your website on WordPress you are missing a trick if you are paying more than £50! The theme you see this site running on (at time of writing) was bought for only $35 (that’s around £22.50 according to today’s exchange rate) from ThemeForest, and on the whole it is a lot better than sites you can pay £1,000 or more for from a local designer.

What to Consider?

So what do you need to consider when buying a premium WordPress theme for your business?

[shortcodes]

Well firstly, you want to ensure it is flexible enough to meet your needs, look out for a thing called a shortcode, it’s a simple piece of code you can type in order to create a different effect.

[blockquote author="David Whitehouse"]For example, this is a shortcode called “blockquote”[/blockquote]
As you can see shortcodes are pretty handy, especially when you want to the designer to do the general layout, look and feel and you would prefer to write the copy and style it the way you want.

Customisation

If you are well versed with PHP, HTML, CSS & WordPress, you may want a lot more customisation options by being able to change the code. If, however, you just want something that works and you don’t want something too technical then make sure it has the features you want, such as a logo upload facility.

I highly recommend ThemeForest, go take a look at their WordPress themes, you’ll be pleasantly surprised!

Find The Best Premium WordPress Themes / Templates For Your Business is a post from: David Whitehouse a digital marketing consultant from the UK, based in North Yorkshire.

Hello all, I’ve been busy lately and I’ve manage to pick up some good domains at a low price – there aren’t many 3 letter domain names left, so these are quite rare. I’ve also got a couple of high value keyword domains at the bottom which would be ideal for an adsense site. If you want to buy any of these domains, please contact me or simply use the buy it now button and I’ll sort everything out.

Popular Keyword Domains

wordpresstheme.org.uk – Contact Anthony Shapley
makemoneyathome.org.uk – Contact Anthony Shapley
romeflights.org.uk SOLD
jessicachastain.co.uk SOLD
jobs-in-kent.org.uk SOLD
officeshoes.org.uk SOLD

Brandable Domains

pokerrewards.co.uk SOLD
pokerdaddy.co.uk £50 SOLD
sitejuicer.co.uk SOLD
sitejuicer.com SOLD
weapon.org.uk SOLD
disruptor.co.uk SOLD

Websites

crmsoftwaresystems.net $100 SOLD
modernwarfare.net $500 SOLD
cockatielcare.co.uk $480 SOLD

3 Letter Domain Names

I’ve got the following 3 letter domains for sale:
anj.org.uk SOLD
anw.org.uk SOLD
auz.org.uk SOLD
fcb.org.uk SOLD
hup.org.uk SOLD
hww.org.uk SOLD
nhu.org.uk SOLD
nmf.org.uk SOLD
pmq.org.uk SOLD
tup.org.uk SOLD
xeo.org.uk SOLD
zx4.co.uk SOLD
6t9.co.uk SOLD

4 Letter Domain Names

llol.co.uk £49 SOLD

You can find some of my Domain Names on a site run by Gary Taylor called Keyword Domains

Premium Domains For Sale is a post from: David Whitehouse a digital marketing consultant from the UK, based in North Yorkshire.