SEO Consultancy Services - SEO Consultant to Dominate Search Engines

If you are really desperate for higher search engine rankings then the expert SEO consultation is always a boon to your business. Many business firms spend a lot of money behind marketing and advertisement of their products. All serious firms are aware that search engine optimization is the brightest future of online business. As SEO is comparatively new marketing concept to the others, business owners are always in search of good SEO consultation from the experts. And they are no more wrong as it can improve your business not dramatically but drastically.

As there are millions of people searching for the services and products from the search-engines, it is always necessary to be ranked high in search engine results. To get top rankings in search-engines, you must optimize your website according with the search-engine algorithm. SEO consultants are the expert in the field of search engine optimization and they better know better about the search engine algorithm than the others.

Most of the businesses avoid hiring search engine marketing consultant seeing their higher costs. But they are not aware of their ability to boom their business significantly soaring in online market. You just need to give some attention before hiring SEO consultation.

Calculate the Right Consultancy Fees:

One of the most frequent questions comes into the mind of consulting services hirer is consultancy fees. They are always wondering that how and what do the SEO consultancy services charge to the clients.

There are numerous ways that consultancy services charge when they are billing to their clients. They can charge hourly bases, monthly bases, fixed rate contracts, extra overheads and travelling charges. Some SEO consultancy services providers also charges on performance bases which is the best and frequent choices among the clients mostly.

Knowledge and Portfolio of SEO Consultant:

Reputable and expert search engine optimisation service consultant will always have a sound knowledge of the SEO techniques and latest trends. He always keeps his client advised of new and useful industry trends. Expert SEO consultant is able to provide significant analysis and discover new possibilities and resources to boost your online business.

The SEO consultant can work with your existing staff and produce the efficient results within given timeline. Search engine giants like Google, Yahoo and Bing always keep their very secret algorithms changing. So the expert SEO consultant can be able to find the latest changes in search engine algorithms. Nowadays, social media sites like Facebook, and Twitter are also producing great results so the need of SEO consultant is becoming more and more necessary.

Gaining high search-engine rankings gives you a very high return on investment. The right SEO consultancy services can give your business a great exposure and take it to the next level. Your website is your online identity and search-engines are the great tool to make it more powerful and prominent.

SEO Consulting For Big Brand Websites - 20 Tips on Dealing With Different Levels of Administrators

SEO consultation for large brand websites challenges the SEO consultants with unique situations. Dealing with the different levels of executives and managers is one of these unique problems.

In reality the actual SEO techniques used for small sites and large sites do not necessarily change. However, the problems which SEO consultants have to overcome can be far apart. One factor is of course the size of the web site. Small sites may contain a few hundred pages whereas large corporate sites contain thousands of pages that continue to grow with time. The other major factor is the number of people who are involved in managing and maintaining these large websites. In a small website, it is usually the business owner who will take all the decisions, but with a large website ten persons or more could be involved in the process.

The following tips will help SEO consultants survive the experience of providing SEO consulting to big brand companies:

1 - The vital element in providing SEO consulting to these big sites is to start an educative training program to inform all involved levels and departments of the importance of applying sound search engine optimization techniques as well as how, when and where to apply these techniques.

2 - The top administrative levels are more important to convince of the essential need for effective SEO practices. They are the decision makers and the survival of the whole SEO project depends on them.

3 - The staff of different departments must be involved in the process, from the web development team to the marketing team, sales representatives and even financial officers and controllers who determine budgets. SEO is a team effort so anyone who is involved with the web site development, from designers up to the CEO must be included.

4 - All levels need education and training to have a common language and realistic expectations. Based on his or her initial evaluation of the company's website, an SEO consultant should prepare a comprehensive educational and training seminar or workshop for the staff.

5 - An SEO consultant must try to arrange a weekly or monthly seminar to all staff and executives involved in the SEO project to explain to them the process and set realistic expectations to avoid failure.

6 - SEO consultants must avoid any personality conflicts or issues at all costs; they may cause failure of the whole project. Many SEO companies charge more for the difficulty to work with administrators.

7 - As an SEO consultant you must be able to teach and train the executives and staff. In the mean time, an SEO consultant must be capable and ready to learn and acquire new expertise from each member in the team mainly through different questions and challenges that will arise during the long process of SEO.

An SEO consultant, executives and other staff members must be able to work together as a productive team, share experience and learn from each other.

8 - Be realistic. Every body must know that SEO is a team work and it takes a lot of time and hard work to show results.

9 - Be motivational and keep the enthusiasm of all the team high.

10 - Evaluate and update knowledge and the information of the executives. A lot of their information is obtained from forums and blogs which are at most times outdated and wrong.

11 - Make it clear to all the SEO team that for each hour of SEO consultant's work, there is 6 - 8 hours needed by the company staff to implement and do the recommended changes.

12 - SEO Consultants must be able to explain and justify every recommendation or change they ask for.

13- Select areas where SEO will be successful or easy to show quick results first.

14 - Explain to the SEO team that all recommendations must be followed, not only part of them. To get to the first page is like competing in the Olympics: every effort must be done to get the gold medal. It is very competitive out there.

15 - Company executives usually ask for a Traffic estimate, so you must have a goal.

To estimate the expected increase in the search engine traffic, you need to find out the monthly search volume for all the long tail keyword phrases that you are optimizing for. Usually you will get 10% of these searches if you managed to get your long tail keyword phrases to the first page of Google.

In reality, SEO is not about ranking, it is about traffic. Every body must start to understand this important fact.

16 - Prepare a set of tools to allow you to monitor and track different sources of traffic and every possible change in your progress.

17 - Define your base line before you start, so you can evaluate your progress and measure of success. Decide where you are in ranking and traffic and what your goals are.

18 - Every executive is eager to see results and success. Explain to everybody that it takes as long as it takes; it is not like PPC. We have no control on Google spiders. Traffic will reach its goal, but how long it will take is not an easy question to answer. Many factors can cause delays. Google changes its algorithm more than 400 times a year. Search engines take time to consider these links, some times up to several months and the competition is optimizing and affecting our results every day.

A stable search engine ranking for a competitive keyword can take anywhere from 4-12 months, but you have to remain focused on the ranking objective over time

19 -Weekly or monthly prepare reports to show continuous improvement once the SEO strategy is in place.

20 - Carefully analyze and interpret the results from different tools, and publish to executives these regular reports about the progress in ranking, traffic and link popularity.

By following these recommendations, SEO consultants can ensure a smooth productive relationship with different levels of executives of big brand companies and all other staff members involved in the long exhaustive process of search engine optimization.

How an SEO Consultant Can Grow Your Business

Once you step inside the world of internet marketing, there is so much ground you have to cover. For a fact, going online and marketing your products and services globally is a big step towards the growth of your business. However, not every businessman who goes online achieves what every businessman desires for: to be #1. For this reason, the inauguration of SEO Consulting took place and started to change the most ordinary and typical means of internet marketing.

I have done some research myself and found a superb way to learn more about how an SEO Consultant can help online businesses grow and how SEO Consulting can improve sales and returns on investments (ROI). By directly contacting several SEO Consultants and hearing their stories myself, I was able to know why SEO Consulting is a proven way to boost sales and gain exposure globally.

Before I let you know where to find a knowledgeable SEO Consultant who can help you market your products and services online, let me first give you a quick overview about SEO Consulting and how a consultant can actually convert website traffic into sales.

There is so much to learn about Search Engine Optimization and a single article is not enough to explain to you how everything works. However, I will try and make it a point to make this article your one-stop resource to finding the best SEO adviser online so you can achieve your dreams of growing your business and entering the global market.

SEO Consulting: How Is It Done?

SEO Consulting is basically the act of setting up of plans on how to improve your ranking on popular search engines like Google or Yahoo. For example, if your company is selling cheap glucometers online, you will want to come up on the first page of Google or Yahoo when someone types in "cheap glucometer" on the search bar. You will not be able to achieve this if you have no understanding about how Google ranks pages or how Yahoo counts clicks. For this reason, a thorough but understandable briefing from an SEO Consultant should be done first before you immediately give up when you find out that your site is not on the first page of search engine results.

To get outstanding SEO Consulting that is effective in terms of gaining traffic and turning clicks into sales, you need to know how to look for the best SEO Adviser online. To do this, you have to be aware of the qualities you have to look out for when choosing one:

Top 3 Characteristics of a Good SEO Consultant

1. The SEO Consultant is Eager To Learn About Your Business.

It is believed that before a consultant can begin detailing the strategies for successfully becoming #1, the SEO Consultant must first "have an understanding of the clients' business and marketing goals to develop the strategy and approach for a winning SEO campaign."

If the consultant is interested in what you are marketing and is knowledgeable about what it is that you want to achieve, then for sure, doing business with this SEO Consultant will be a breeze.

2. The SEO Consultant is Knowledgeable in the Different Fields of SEO.

"Ideally, the SEO Consultant should understand things like: Business Objectives, Marketing Strategies, Demographics of Target Audience, Media Mix & Flight Dates, Creative considerations, Messaging, Success Metrics, Dependencies, and Methods of Measurement".

SEO Consulting requires the consultant to not only just have a variety of skills but also hold a wide array of knowledge on the different aspects of SEO. Working with a consultant who knows how concepts work will definitely be beneficial as you already know that the consultant knows what he is doing.

3. The SEO Consultant Communicates Effectively.

Ongoing reporting and monitoring should definitely be performed by an SEO Consultant so that the client has an idea if there has been any progress with the strategies taken to achieve business goals.

An SEO Consultant who is able to make suggestions as to how to improve traffic after a month's report is proof enough that he is knowledgeable and fit to do the job well. Constant communication, whether relaying good or bad reports, is always the key to effective SEO Consulting.

If you're looking for a good way to improve your sales, venturing into internet marketing is ultimately the best idea. However, dipping your feet into unknown waters is not advisable so be sure to seek help from a knowledgeable SEO Consultant who can give you the best advice on how to grow your business.

Twelve Points to Consider Before Hiring an In-House Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Consultant

When a Small, medium or big sized business needs a competent search engine optimization (SEO) consultant, there are four options available:

1 - Assemble a team of in-house webmasters, programmers and marketers to do the job.

2 - Contract the job to a specialized SEO company.

3 - Post an advertisement to hire an SEO consultant to work as an employee in the company.

4 - Get an in-house SEO consultant from a specialized company to work with their staff without being an employee.

So, what is the best option for your company? There are many points to consider before taking your decision.

1 - Assembling your in-house team of webmasters and marketers will never work: From my long experience, assembling a team of in-house webmasters, programmers and marketers to do the job will never succeed as none of them has enough experience in optimization. Moreover, they do not realize what are the challenges that they are up against or the hidden problems from which their website is suffering.

2 - Applying the best SEO practices: When starting any online project, the in-house SEO consultant will work with your managers to ensure that the Best SEO Practices are applied to every project, which will make it much faster to get your new web pages and other internet promotional advertisement to the first pages of Google and other major search engines.

3 - SEO training seminars and workshops: An in-house SEO consultant will be able to organize SEO training seminars and workshops for different departments and different levels of employees on how to apply and include the Best SEO Practices in every online project.

4 - Getting more profitable and productive ideas: The daily discussions and the direct communications between an in-house SEO consultant and the company administrators, managers, directors, programmers and webmasters will spark many new ideas on both sides. A simple idea or a suggestion in such an atmosphere can make a huge difference in starting a new campaign or modifying and existing one to be more profitable.

5 - Creating the most SEO friendly websites: An in-house SEO consultant will be able to work more easily with your managers to apply any necessary modifications or redesigns to your websites in order to convert them into the most SEO friendly websites in the shortest possible time and with the least efforts. This will ensure that your websites will rank in the first pages of Google, Yahoo, Bing and other major search engines in the shortest time.

6 - Detailed SEO audit: working with your webmasters and programmers, an in-house SEO consultant can more easily perform a detailed SEO audit to list all the points that need correction or modification in your website and in your different online advertising campaigns.

7 - Selecting the most effective and profitable keywords to use for optimization: Having a direct contact with your staff in different departments will enable the in-house SEO consultant to finish the process of selecting the most effective and profitable keywords in no time, so the whole process of optimization can start quickly and become more effective and productive.

8 - Adding social media marketing as an integral part of your internet marketing strategies: The in-house SEO consultant will have a direct relationship with a few selected employees in different departments to train them on how to establish a solid presence in different Social Media platforms. Maintaining a healthy presence on different Social Media platforms is a costly and time-consuming process. Having the in-house SEO consultant start and only supervise the selected company employees doing the daily Social Media Marketing activities will significantly reduce the cost involved in the process.

9 - Publishing press releases: Being in direct contact with different levels of administration, it is much easier for an in-house SEO consultant to find dozens of ideas for new press releases every week. He can coordinate and publish many press releases every month to promote the products and services of the company, enhance branding and create hundreds of high quality back links which will post the positions of many keywords to rank in the first pages of Google, Yahoo, Bing and other major search engines.

10 - Blogging: An in-house Consultant will have better chances to get many blog posts from different departments to post in the company blogs every week. An outside SEO company will not be in a similar position to contact different experts in the company to write blog posts. Every well written and optimized blog post is an asset and a testimony for the company. Blog posts will create hundreds of high quality back links in addition to promoting the products and services of the company.

11 - Saving your time and money wasted on interviewing and hiring: Hiring an experienced SEO consultant is not an easy task. Hours are wasted in evaluating and interviewing many candidates. The interviewers usually do not have enough knowledge to enable them to pick up the most qualified candidates. On the other hand, getting an In-House SEO Consultant from a specialized SEO company will ensure having an experienced consultant without wasting any time in the hiring process.

12 - Full-time or part-time: An In-House SEO Consultant from a specialized company can work one or two days per week, one or two days per month or five days a week. Depending or you needs and the turnover of your online projects, the in-house consultant can work one or two days in one week, five days the next week and one day in the following week. This provides you with flexibility which is not always possible when you hire an employee and save your business a lot of money when there is not much work for an SEO consultant.

In Conclusion:

Hiring a competent SEO consultant is never easy especially if the hiring managers are not proficient enough in SEO to identify and pick the best candidate.

An in-house SEO consultant will work wonders for any business website by establishing clear standards for the Best SEO Practices in all company departments involved in the process of launching, modifying, improving and maintaining the many websites of your company.

Getting an in-house SEO consultant from a specialized SEO company is the most productive and cost-effective option. Many companies have realized the value and the cost savings involved in getting an In-House SEO Consultant. These companies have achieved their goals in getting higher returns on their investments in web optimization and internet marketing.

SEO as part of internet marketing and search engine marketing

Online advertising, also called online marketing, Internet advertising or web advertising, is a form of marketing and advertising which uses the Internet to deliver promotional marketing messages to consumers.This type of marketing includes email marketing, search engine marketing (SEM), social media marketing, many types of display advertising (including web banner advertising), and mobile advertising.

Search engine marketing (SEM) is a form of Internet marketing that involves the promotion of websites by increasing their visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs). Search engine optimization (SEO) is big part of search engine marketing. It is the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results. Search engines like Google, Yahoo! or any other have a crawler that goes out and gathers information about all the content they can find on the Internet. All results then go through an algorithm that tries to match the best possible ones to the inputted query. There are a lot of factors that affect ranking of the results such as, domain-level, link authority features, page-level link features, page-level keyword and content features, user, usage and traffic or query data, social metrics and many more. Optimization of a website can be in different forms, from doing keyword research to working on HTML, title tags and meta description. On the internet there are a lot of free SEO courses that give insight into SEO and explain the basics, but also there are companies that provide SEO services. These courses are provided by reputable SEO companies or big educational websites.

SEO can be divided onto on-site SEO and off-site SEO. On-site or on-page SEO is the practice of optimizing elements on a website so it ranks higher in search engine results. It incorporates optimization of both the content on the website and its complete HTML source code. When doing on-site SEO, goal is to make it as easy as possible for both search engines and users to identify that page as relevant to a search query, find that page useful and worthy of ranking well on a search engine results page (SERP) and fully understand what a webpage is about. Keywords and keyword services play the biggest role in on-page SEO. On the other side off-site SEO represents actions done outside of website which also affect ranking within search engine results pages (SERPs). 

Usually, this optimization includes improving search engine and user perception of a site's popularity, relevance, trustworthiness, and authority. This is done by linking or promoting the website. For example, websites trustworthiness improves by getting links from other sites that are quite reputable and trustworthy. Another part of off-site SEO is social media marketing, influencer marketing and guest blogging. There are quite a few ways to link and types of links, so it is important to understand them and their roles. A lot of SEO courses deal actually put this together with keyword research as main focuses of course itself. 

Nightowl’s 5 Key Areas of SEO Execution

Nightowl is a smaller, but specialized, SEO services provider from Singapore. Team behind Nightowl has been in SEO industry for more than 10 years, helping SMEs breakthrough million dollars in annual revenue via SEO. They mainly do SEO, but with client’s bigger budget they can go beyond just pure SEO rankings, helping the business strategies and set up its lead generation funnel.

SEO services Nightowl really puts focus on is keyword research. 

They do deep keyword research on business’sindustry, products and services, and its competitors to unearth potential keywords that could rank. By doing this research they can filter down to effective and qualified keywords that portray a buyer’s intention which will result in significantly increase of overall monthly traffic. Nightowl does keyword research for their own website, looking to stay in high rankings for keywords SEO Singapore, search engine optimization Singapore, SEO services Singapore and so on. Another part of their SEO services is optimizing web conversion rates. Team of SEO specialists will work on barriers that create friction for people to convert, perform certain web design revamp, or creating Call-To-Actions, that will help entice your visitors to convert. Results of SEO plan is constantly measured and Nighowl keeps track of the whole progress.

Nightowl has something called 5 Key Areas of SEO Execution. In an away, it explains how SEO works and what are they main focuses of their strategies. First one is 1-hour Pre-Project Consultation. Here they review business, the industry it’s in, business goals and where SEO fits into the picture, making the most suitable overall marketing and optimization strategy. 

Questions battled at consultation are existing marketing channels, how SEO helps your business bottomline and how SEO brings ROI to your business. Next key area is Keyword and Search Volume Analysis. They wan to know what keywords are potential customers putting in query and how to incorporate them. Keywords need to be relevant for business, services or products they offer. As third key area, Nightowl puts SEO Competition Analysis. For SEO Competition Analysis, working team looks at how many competitors there are and how tough a competition is. Based on that they compare and push the website in the direction which will lead to top results in search engine ranking.

On-site Optimization is next key area and what Nightowl works on is WordPress Yoast SEO Setup, On-site SEO & Site Speed Audit, On-site Content Optimization, Keywords in Title Tags, Content Body and Meta-Data, Google Webmaster Tools Setup + Sitemap Submission, Google Analytics Setup and Google My Business Setup & Integration. On-site Optimization plays very important role for the whole process of optimization. 

Another big part of SEO and last key factor is External Link Building or Off-site Optimization. Link Building needs to be done the right way, following Google guidelines or guidelines of other search engines, so penalties are avoided. Nightowl includes Local Business Listings, High Authority Guest Posts, Diversified Link Building, Press Releases, Social Signals, Content Marketing and Immunization Against Negative SEO. 

Online Business – The Necessity

Since the technology has progressed so much over the past couple of years, the need for online storefronts has increased on a large scale as well. Therefore, more and more individuals can be seen to be going for such businesses as they help them acquire a large amount of profits in one way or the other, later on. It is necessary to understand how an online business helps people in the process of achieving so many things in a short period of time. Another important reason for having such a business is that it tends to give people a lot of liberties that they can use for the purpose of using these online stores to their advantage.

High End Financial Gains

A prominent benefit of an online business is that it enables business owners to acquire huge sums of profits in the short and the long run. The main motive of any business, whether online or not, is to make profit. This goal has to be fulfilled in one way or the other, so all business take necessary steps in order to achieve this. Such a kind of business can be exceptionally lucrative as it allows a massive amount of online prospects and customers on a daily basis, that is if the internet traffic of the company website is high, which can be easily done.

Wide Variety of Options

People these days also love online stores due to the fact that they also them with a lot of choice. Online stores have high end stock ready to dispatch for the convenience of customers and when given a lot of items to choose from, individuals can surely indulge in shopping in the best way possible. Therefore, an online business is suggested to all those who wish to provide this comfort and luxury to many customers out there.  One of the best parts about this business is also the fact that it does not need a lot of initial capital.

Low Initial Expenses

Online stores have become a necessity in the present times, which is precisely why people need them on a day to day basis for the purpose of being able to purchase a wide range of different products. They can also achieve many services through these stores. This is why an internet business is definitely the best thing for a person who wishes to make a lot of profit in the near future. For those who are not aware, starting up a new business online is really not as difficult as one may think in the first place.

Enhanced Sales Volume

Achieving increased sales is really not possible without having high end sales first. This can be easily acquired as more and more people can be seen to be shopping from online storefronts these days, which eventually tends to increase the sales of a business by a long shot. Hence, all those who wish to have successful businesses have been highly recommended to go for an online business as it really does help them in a lot of ways and also is the best when it comes to international growth as well as success.

Always Open

An online business is best due to the fact that it is open at all times. This means that customers can visit an online storefront and shop at any time they want or prefer. There is no restriction of time and one can always indulge in endless shopping during the day and the night, or other times for that matter. With shopping available at all times during the day, it surely gives these businesses an edge over the ones who cannot take customers at all hours of the day. Therefore, it undoubtedly gives all the more reason to people for starting up their online businesses in the long run.

An article by Dougles Chan, Digital Marketing Singapore Guru. His address is 1 Rochor Canal Rd, Sim Lim Square , Singapore 188504, Sim Lim Square, commonly referred to as SLS, is a large retail complex that sells electronic goods and services ranging from cameras, phones, video cameras, iphone repairs, mobile phone repair, tablets repair and laptop servicing.

Main Advantages of Social Media Marketing

Over the past couple of years, social media marketing has become exceptionally important for the growth of countless business in different parts of the world. Whether it is small, medium and even large, every other business needs to begin with this particular type of marketing as it holds a lot of significance in the short and the long run, too. This is why more and more businesses can be seen to be using this to their benefit by indulging in this kind of marketing at various social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ and many more which are highly famous all over the globe. 

Brand Recognition & Goodwill

One of the most important reasons for indulging in social media marketing is the fact that it enables businesses to have an authentic brand which is recognized by everyone out there. While there are many other businesses that indulge in frauds as well as other unethical practices, social media networks are great for the purpose of creating goodwill with the customers. It also allows businesses to maintain an exclusive image of their brand without having to struggle too much in the matter. The more people trust a brand, the more their sales are likely to increase in the short as well as the long run.

Enhanced Brand Awareness

Moreover, social media marketing is also important for businesses in the process of increasing awareness about their brand. Many high end brands can be seen to be offering quality products as well as services to customers from all over the world but in a lot of cases, a massive amount of individuals may not be aware of the brand at all. Therefore, this kind of marketing reaches out to a wide amount of people out there since everyone has joined social media networks these days. Hence, this sort of marketing is how businesses can create brand awareness by acquiring high end coverage through social media platforms on the internet these days.

Exceptional Customer Service

On the other hand, businesses tend to interact better with customers through social media marketing. This is due to the fact that more and more customers tend to follow brands with a strong social media presence. Most of the times, the businesses can directly interact with customers in order to receive direct complaints as well as feedback, for that matter. This enables businesses to not only achieve a great relationship with their customers, but it also allows them to develop trust as well as loyalty, which in the long run results in brand loyalty.

Increase in Sales

Social media marketing is also responsible for helping businesses in the process of enhancing sales in a short period of time. The main motive of every business out there is to maximize profit and that can be only done after acquiring high end sales in the first place. As more and more customers come across top notch brands and businesses on social media, the more they are inclined to purchase these products in the short or the long run. All in all, this most definitely results in increased sales for all sorts of businesses. Hence, businesses who wish to improve their sales in a short period of time have been highly recommended to go for this particular type of marketing as it really does work.

Increase in Customers

Through this kind of marketing, businesses can also increase the number of their customers in the near future. As said before, a huge amount of individuals these days have joined social media networks as the presence of any high end brand is likely to tempt them into following it in one way or the other. Therefore, this is likely to increase the customers of a business by a long shot later on. 

An article by Dougles Chan, Digital Marketing Singapore Guru. He writes articles on recruitment agency, recruitment business, digital marketing, advanced SEO tips, AWS consulting partner,  AWS cloud partners, Microsoft reseller & Microsoft partner Singapore. He specialised in SEO services in Singapore, digital marketing consulting and adwords marketing. His shop located at 1 Rochor Canal Rd, Sim Lim Square , Singapore 188504, Sim Lim Square, commonly referred to as SLS, is a large retail complex that offers a wide variety of electronic goods and services ranging from DVDs, cameras, phones, video cameras, and computer parts and laptop repair servicing.           

The Need for Implementing a Marketing Plan

A marketing plan which is properly implemented tends to help a business in achieving many goals and objectives later on. Such plans are different from each other and all of them are unique in their own way. Hence, it is highly essential for businesses to consider them before actually making them work in the long run. With more and more plans such as these, not only can businesses move in the right direction but they can also achieve the high end growth as well as many other benefits in the near future. There are many things which must be taken into through consideration before implementing this plan in order to uplift a marketing campaign. 

High Level of Customers

A marketing plan also comes in handy in the process of increasing the amount of customers in a short period of time. Prospects are not likely to be interested in a business that does not offer content offline as well as online. By implementing a powerful plan which highlights all that the business has to offer in both the short as well as the long run, businesses can actually end up acquiring a massive level of current and future prospects who will be tempted in invest in the products as well as the services the business has to offer in the first place. Due to the high end power of these plans, it is why they are so fully used by each and every business organization out there in the present times.

Product Branding

A successful marketing campaign is ensured through proper branding. However, if such a plan does not work then a new plan should be implemented immediately since the product is likely to lose its charm as well as credibility and importance otherwise. All in all, these plans come in handy for business organizations all over the world these days, which is why they have been highly recommended.

Marketing Campaigns

Similarly, a marketing plan has a lot of impact on the branding. The branding is what allows a business to flourish as it provides the customers with an increased amount of awareness, which is what makes them interested in purchasing products or acquiring services in the near future. The plan used for any product or service should always be efficient and effective in order for the product to be successful.

Removal of Market Competition

One of the most prominent reasons for implementing a marketing plan is to overcome all the other rival businesses in the near future. These plans are likely to involve the overall product, service and it even includes terms such as prices, sales, promotion and many other things for that matter. Choosing a plan carefully is something which all businesses need to do as it should always fulfill a purpose in one way or the other. Breaking competition can become an exceptionally arduous process and may take a lot of time but by the implementation of the right plan, it is quite easily possible. Therefore, such plans can be fully used in order to overcome business competitors without facing a wide amount of issues in the near future.

Undivided Attention

A marketing plan is implemented for a couple of reasons and one of these involves enhancing the overall attention of a business. Businesses often tend to stray away from their objectives as well as goals but in order to achieve success in those in the long run, such plans need to be implemented for the purpose of increasing focus by a long shot. This means that businesses will not be going for bad decisions or something that is completely different, but they are likely to stick to whichever objectives as well as goals they wish to fulfill within a short period of time by having the perfect amount of attention towards the overall matter. 

An article by Dougles Chan, Digital Marketing Singapore Guru, He specialised in SEO services in Singapore, digital marketing consulting and adwords marketing. Check out his office at 1 Rochor Canal Rd, Sim Lim Square , Singapore 188504, Sim Lim Square, commonly referred to as SLS, is a large retail complex that offers a wide variety of electronic goods and services ranging from DVDs, cameras, phones, video cameras, computer parts, SEO Services and laptop repair servicing.

Purposes of Implementing a Marketing Strategy

Every business is aware of the important of a marketing strategy which is rightfully implemented. Such strategies are different from each other and all of them are unique in their own way. Hence, it is highly essential for businesses to consider them before actually making them work in the long run. With more and more strategies such as these, not only can businesses move in the right direction but they can also achieve the high end growth as well as many other benefits in the near future. There are many things which must be taken into through consideration before implementing a strategy for good.

High End Focus

A marketing strategy is implemented for a couple of reasons and one of these involves enhancing the overall focus within a business. Businesses often tend to stray away from their objectives as well as goals but in order to achieve success in those in the long run, such strategies need to be implemented for the purpose of increasing focus by a long shot. This means that businesses will not be going for bad decisions or something that is completely off-track, but they are likely to stick to whichever objectives as well as goals they wish to fulfill within a short period of time by having great focus in the matter.

Eliminating Competition

One of the most prominent reasons for implementing a marketing strategy is to overcome all the other rival businesses in the near future. These strategies are likely to involve the overall product, service and it even includes terms such as prices, sales, promotion and many other things for that matter. Choosing a strategy carefully is something which all businesses need to do as it should always fulfill a purpose in one way or the other. Breaking competition can become an exceptionally arduous process and may take a lot of time but by the implementation of the right strategy, it is quite easily possible. Therefore, these strategies can be fully used in order to overcome business competitors without facing many obstacles in the matter and that too, in a short time period.

Increased Customers

A marketing strategy also comes in handy in the process of increasing the customer base in a short period of time. Prospects are not likely to be interested in a business that does not offer content offline as well as online. By implementing a powerful strategy which highlights all that the business has to offer in both the short as well as the long run, businesses can actually end up acquiring a massive level of current and future prospects who will be tempted in invest in the products as well as the services the business has to offer in the first place. Such is the power of these strategies, which is precisely why they are so fully used by each and every business organization out there these days.

Product Marketing Strategy

Similarly, a marketing strategy has a lot of impact on the branding. The branding is what allows a business to flourish as it provides the customers with an increased amount of awareness, which is what makes them interested in purchasing products or acquiring services in the near future. The strategy used for any product or service should always be efficient and effective in order for the product to be successful.

This ensures a successful branding process as well but if it is does not work then a new strategy should be implemented immediately since the product is likely to lose its charm as well as credibility otherwise. All in all, these strategies come in handy for business organizations all over the world these days, which is why they have been highly recommended to all.

An article by Dougles Chan, Digital Marketing Singapore Guru. He specialised in SEO services, digital marketing services and adwords marketing, he writes articles on recruitment agency, recruitment business, digital marketing, advanced SEO tips, AWS consulting partner& AWS cloud partners. You can contact him at his office at 1 Rochor Canal Rd, Sim Lim Square , Singapore 188504, Sim Lim Square, commonly referred to as SLS, is a large retail complex that offers a wide variety of electronic goods and services ranging from DVDs, cameras, phones, video cameras, computer parts SEO Services Singapore and laptop repair servicing.

How to Close Your Client with Absolute Certainty

Most salesperson closing ratio is usually quite low and many of them if they were to have 10-20% closure rate, they are pretty much very satisfied with the results.

The challenges are that if you have the mindset of using 10-20% closure rate as a benchmark, most of the time your closing rate will be not more than that level and once you reach the 20% mark, you will have the thinking that you had reached your maximum level.

The good news is that you are able to set the standard to ANY level that you want, you can set at 30%, 40%, 50% or even up to 100%, there are strategies to do so. Read on…

The best way is to mentally program you to absolute certainty. When I mean absolute certainty, it is a situation where you have absolute confidence where you will DEFINITELY able to close the sales when you see the client. To do this you will need to work on the following:

1)      Ensure you know EVERYTHING and ANYTHING about the product or service you are going to sell. Including the competitors offering and packages.

2)      Ask yourself what make you so special that they must buy from you, list out 50 reasons for it, yes, squeeze out 50 valid reasons why the clients must really buy from you.

If you cannot even list out 5 of them, I strongly believe the product you are selling is nothing really special.

People don’t buy things which have nothing special, you will need to add that extra spice to me it worth going for it.

3)      Filter, filter and filter, ensure that the potential prospects you are meeting are the one you believe that is able to buy the product and services. In term of statues, needs and ability to afford the product.

4)      60 minutes before meeting the client, condition yourself mentally that you are able to win this deal, rehearses it mentally for at least 30 minutes so that your brain tells you that you have the absolute certainty to get this deal done.

5)      When you are talking to the client, talk to them with absolute confidence, chest up, look straight to their eyes, with good body language and posture. 

Remember that in communication, body language plays a very important part of the entire process.

6)      Practice, practice and practice your communication and presentation skill, do it at least a few times per day, talk to as many people as possible. To become a master in communication you will need to practice is at least 10,000 hours. Keep on doing it and never gives up.

Wish you success in everything that you do. Cheers.

An article by Dougles Chan, SEO Singapore Master | Digital Marketing Singapore Guru

Strategies to Generate More Business - Recruitment Business

Business in Recruitment – Strategies to Generate More Business.

Many recruitment companies, regardless of whether in Singapore or anywhere in the world, face the same problem: they are not able to generate enough business and sales to break-even or even make money. As such, many of these recruitment companies are not able to survive and eventually have to close down and either work for another company or switch to another industry.

To generate more business for your recruitment company, you will need to follow the steps:

1)      Have a powerful website – When you meet someone, most of the time, you will judge how he dresses and how well he communicates. It is the same way online—you need to dress well on your website, which means your website must be quality work done by a professional designer.

Do not just DIY and save money; an expert will usually create something better than you can—and you WILL be judged by your website. The content of the website must be great; don’t just copy and paste from another website. The reader will know, if they are smart enough. In short, make an effort to put aside some funds for your website. It will be worthwhile.

2)      Have a corporate email address- Do not use the free email services such as Gmail, Yahoo, or Hotmail. If you have corporate business, you need to project a corporate image. Having a FREE email account will never give a great impression. This is a very basic requirement, and it is quite surprising that there are still many people using a FREE email account for their corporate business.

3)      Engage in Search Engine Optimization – Do ensure your website is optimized. You see, a website without relevant traffic is like opening a shop without any customers. Your presence in search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, and others will bring many visitors to your website.

On my website www.dougleschan.com, which is branded as SEO Master Shifu, also known as the SEO Master, I have over 53.24% of my visitors coming directly from the search engine itself.

This is just a snapshot of how search engines can really bring your business to another level. However, be very cautious—if you are new to search engines, I would suggest that you read plenty of books in this area. If you are not careful, you can be seriously burned in this business when you are not totally familiar with it.

4) Engage in social media – You will need to be visible to the public. This is part of branding and marketing. The cost is very cheap, and it will have a positive effect on your business.

Some of the social media platforms you can engage in are Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and many more…if you are still not into this, make an effort to do so….

5) Use technology to the maximum – In this Internet era, if you are still using fax machines, (I assume you are NOT!) please throw them away and move yourself to a different generation. In this era, we are using email marketing, harvesting software,SEO, SEM, SMO, Stumbleupon, Pinterest, etc.

You see, it’s all about technology, and with technology, it is like having 20-50 full time people working for you at once….It is simply amazing—you just need to know how and what to use.

Strategies to Recruit Good Quality Candidates

Recruiters continually navigate the debate between quality versus quantity of candidates.  No recruiter wants to send unqualified or less-than-stellar candidates to an assignment.  However, certain positions are considered high-frequency needs, have a greater turnover rate, are seasonal, or require mass hiring (e.g. call centers).  In those instances, it makes sense to have a pool of qualified candidates available to fill positions rapidly.

Is it possible to maintain a pool of highly-qualified candidates?

The answer is a resounding…maybe.  That’s because the answer centers on the answers to some other essential questions.  First, who is your customer? It’s easier to maintain a pool of candidates if your customer is only filling five positions a year instead of five positions per week.  Although, in today’s highly competitive market, it’s also harder to keep quality candidates in a pool because they can find other opportunities faster.  The second essential question is, what is your market?  Maintaining a pool of qualified software developers might be easier in larger cities than in rural communities.  Regardless of how you answered those two essential questions, the bottom line is that you have to have a good 360 recruitment process in place just to attract and retain quality people. It should, at a minimum, include the following elements.

Accurate job descriptions – No matter what position needs to be filled, the first step in any effective recruiting strategy will be to create a job description that clearly outlines the purpose, primary tasks, key responsibilities, and required qualifications.  Detailed job descriptions can help you eliminate unqualified candidates from the start and save you, your customer, and your candidate a lot of time.

Effective Employee Profiles – In addition to the tasks and responsibilities required of the job, it’s equally important to identify behavioral characteristics of those who succeed in the role.  If twenty percent of your team are top producers, it’s worth uncovering what traits those individuals possess and narrowing your search to candidates with similar characteristics.  These traits might not appear in the job description itself, but could be the basis for your pre-screening questions.

Advertise jobs in the right places – Once you identify the required hard- and soft skills for a successful candidate, it’s time to decide where to post your job.  There are countless options available, but some are more successful than others.

Referrals are the most impactful candidate source around.  Employees hired by referral are more likely to be regarded as quality employees and tend to stay on the job longer than those from other sources.  Ensure your current employees are aware of opportunities—both present and future—and ask them to send referrals.  Also, encourage your employees to the network through social media, professional organizations, and community associations. When your employees have a large network, you increase the number of potential referrals.

Social media sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest have made a huge impact on the recruiting process.  However, your recruiting strategy can become bogged down by posting, reposting, updating and removing posts from multiple sites.  It’s imperative to know which social media sites will target the candidates you’re seeking and the capabilities of each site.

Job boards have not lost their place in the recruiting industry.  This year, Indeed topped the list as the top online recruiting source and CareerBuilder is still growing.   Niche job boards are also a nice place to seek candidates for certain industries.

Trade and professional publications are still read by industry professionals. Unfortunately, it’s an often forgotten avenue for recruiting.  Advertising jobs in these publications might be beneficial, especially if your ad is one of 20 instead of one of the thousands on social media or job boards.

Your company website should be a primary source for recruiting.  Make sure you’re getting the most bang for your buck out of your website by ensuring it’s branded; it expresses your values, mission, and vision statements; it’s mobile-optimized, and it calls job seekers to action.  To attract candidates for high-frequency needs, maintain posts with generic position descriptions.

Pre-screen through phone or video – Once applicants begin to respond, use your employee profiles to develop pre-screening questions. Make use of the telephone or video interviews to pre-screen candidates before bringing them in for interviews.

Develop Relationships – Your most important task once you develop a candidate pool is to keep in touch.  Make sure your candidates don’t think they’ve been forgotten.  Send them frequent updates on company news.  Ask them to subscribe to the company newsletter, blog, email.  Offer valuable services, like coaching or training.

Measure Success –Track important sourcing and hiring data to determine areas of your recruiting strategy that could be strengthened.  Here are some metrics that are important for recruiters.

Where did your successful candidates come from?
How long did it take to present a candidate to your customer after the job request came through?
How long did it take to make an offer?
What was the cost of the hire?

Overall, recruitment of good quality candidates are very possible, if you know HOW, WHEN and WHAT to do.

The Market Tumours In Recruitment Business

What is a Market Tumour In the Recruitment Industry?

It is a deadly process in the recruitment and head-hunting agencies, and clients and candidates exploit the process so much so that the agents are usually at their mercy. With this market tumour, the agent will spend plenty of time working on the job orders, but eventually, it will not be fruitful and will be a total waste of time.

Let us explore specific examples and see how they can affect ALL recruitment agencies and head-hunters.

Client XYZ Pte Ltd gave you the assignment after meeting them and after several conversations and emails. You worked on it, placing many advertisements on the Internet, placing some paid ads in the newspapers, etc.

You managed to get some positive responses, and you filtered the resumes/CVs you received. After hours of filtering, you interviewed a couple of candidates and decided that two of the candidates we revery suitable.

You sent the candidates’ CVsto Client XYZ.

One day has gone, and no reply from the client. Three days are gone, no reply. You decided to call the company.

“Good Morning, Mr XYZ. I sent you the CVs for two potential candidates; did you get them?

Mr XYZ: “Oh yes indeed, I received them. Thank you so much. I am so busy that I have not had the chance to go through them. Give me a few more days, and I will get back to you.”

A few days later, you received an email from XYZ saying that, with regards to the position above, they would like to inform you that the position has already been filled, but thank you for your time in assisting the search…

OH MY!!!!!
You spent many days posting 100s of advertisements…

Spent hundreds of dollars on the newspaper ads…

Spent hours filtering CVs.

Spent your time interviewing candidates….

The Result = “thank you for your time in assisting the search…”
Do you really know what is happening behind the scenes that cause such results? YOU WILL BE SURPRISED by what really happens….

THE FACT: Company XYZ has “delegated” the job assignment to 20 or even 50 recruitment agencies, (Psst…don’t tell other people)and you are ONE OF THEM! They have also advertised themselves, and they don’t have to give you the exclusive deal.

They may have also hired someone from within the same company. Well, the list goes on and on. Are you getting the basics of the Market Tumour? Hang on—this is NOT the real Market Tumour. We are only touching the tip of the iceberg! There are three levels in this Tumour, and we are only touching on the 1st level.

The Market Tumour has 3 levels: one is from the clients, the 2nd is from the candidates, and the 3rd is based on the computation of both the 1st and 2nd Tumour.

With the tabulation, it actually makes it almost impossible for any recruiter or recruitment consultant to close more sales, let alone hit their KPIs. They would need to work even harder and may be able to close only2-3 cases per month.

The math is not favorable to the recruiters or consultants in the recruitment industry. Even people who have many years of experience in the industry still fall into the trap of the Tumour itself.

Once a recruiter understands the basics of the Market Tumour, what he or she can do is to change the ratio of the clients to candidates. Once they have lowered the ratio from the normal 1:20 or even 1:50 and have moved it to 1:3 or even 1:5, the possibility of closing more cases will be very high.

Once they change the ratio of the client and candidate Tumour, the 3rdTumour will automatically become less. Hence, the ratio will not be so daunting and then it is more possible to easily hit and even exceed the KPI set by the company.

It is extremely important that any consultants or recruiters realize the existence of the Market Tumour.

Many do not know, and even those who do know fail to change the environment so the “problem” will continue to be there. No matter how hard a recruitment consultant or recruiter works, they will never win the MarketTumour.

The rule is simple – Know the rules of the game, and find a way to overcome them or even change them. Then you will have a better chance to survive or even excel in the industry.

The Market Tumour always goes against what the players are doing, regardless of what happens. Understand them, be friends with them, and eventually turn the tables around.

Good luck!

Why most smaller recruitment agencies will struggle to survive in their business

Many smaller size recruitment agencies that have fewer than 10-15 people will feel not so comfortable reading what I am going to write.

However, if you are one of them, do read what follows below with an open mind and perhaps you will be able to get something good out of it.

The reasons why recruitment agencies struggle in their business are as follows:

1) Lack of positioning – Not able to stand out from the rest of the competitors. Well, it is a very easy decision from the client’s point of view. If you are considered to be one of them, you will be treated like one of them; and what happens is that they do not get the business. Period. Sorry, but this is how it works.

2) Compete based on pricing – you may think that by having a lower price, more people will give you the business. Yes, it is true to a certain extent that if you draw the line in the demand and supply curve where you change your pricing, you will have some additional business. However, the truth is that you might have more sales numbers, but your overall sales figures might not be great. In addition, your costs could go up too. Hence, giving a price reduction might not be a great idea. Somehow it actually lowers your “GRADE.”

3) Pay no attention to branding – Well, even if you are a small player in the market, you will need to have a GREAT logo, a GREAT website, a GREAT tagline, a GREAT business card, and GREAT salesmen. If you are not putting money into these areas, you will, perhaps, be able to make some money; but those who make the extra effort will make the most money. Trust me on this. This is how the world perceives you–you are what you wear: your logo, tagline, website, business card, and salesmen represent who you are and determine whether the client would want to do business with you. It is not expensive to have the entire list above if you know how to do it.

4) Lack of a certain skill-set – Let us face the facts, when you open up a business, you do believe that you will have good sales because you take reference from someone or some experience that you have chosen a good industry to work in. But all hell breaks loose when you start the business; suddenly you need to manage the operation, sales, marketing, recruiting, HR, payroll, accounts, etc. My point is this: are you being trained to do all the things above? Most likely not. The question is that if one does not have sufficient skill, can they do things efficiently? It is a straight NO. Hence, what you need to do is to delegate the work to people who are good at it, handle the job you are best in, and focus all your time on something that you are very good at.

5) Unsure about the Market Tumor – I explained about the Market Tumor in a previous article and touched base on the potency of the tumor from three groups. The basic idea is that clients do not give you exclusivity, and you might have to work very hard on many assignments and still not be able to close.

Many agencies, including top headhunting companies, are also facing the same problem. (Just to name a few are Robert Walters, Hays, and other HUGE players) How do I know about it? Simple. By using a simple tracking method, I am able to see who are the agencies that are working on the assignments and I can also see who the client is. That’s how deadly my techniques can be. Anyhow if you still do not know what the Market Tumor is.

There are solutions to the problems above and if you were to put some effort into solving these problems, you will definitely stand out from the rest and make it in the recruitment agency industry. Cheers, and good luck.

Why the secret of the recruitment industry was revealed

Many people have asked me why I am sharing the “Secrets” in my manual Financial Success in Recruitment Industry since they are so powerful? My answer to them is very simple: for the last 20 years, the recruiting business industry profitability has gone downhill. Everyone is copying from everyone and duplicating the “methods” that are “traditional” and are not working, which eventually leads to financial failure. Nobody is WILLING to share success strategies!

I want to be the one saying: Excuse me, this is not working. You need to take a look and see why it is not working and what the better available options are. There is definitely a better way to do it!

With this direction, I am able to bring the smaller players into a better position compared to if they were doing it alone. I just have to say that it’s a HELL out there. If you are just a beginner, you will be eaten alive! Don’t believe me? Time will prove what I am saying is right.

Honestly speaking, when I wrote the manual Financial Success in Recruitment Industry some years back, I had only one objective in mind: transferring all my knowledge that I had learned and used into this book in the simplest form so that any layman could understand and apply the secrets.

I really do not know how long this special manual will be available to the public because of the nature of the content. Certain industry players in the market who are financially strong and powerful may try to stop this from being released it to the public, and especially to the smaller players. They may even use the media or any other methods to discredit this book or me whenever possible. The day will come because I know how EVIL the business world is in the real world.

Every day I receive emails and phone calls asking about this manual and the price that was intentionally positioned to encourage only serious people to own it. It is not for those library collectors who have plenty of eBooks and no success in life. It is only for those who have the guts and really want to be successful.

My reminder to those who want to are going to own this manual or who have already bought it: If you really desire to be financially successful in the recruiting industry, you will need to follow the steps very carefully and diligently. Many “smart” people will try to skip a few steps, but I do not encourage this because I was the “Smart” ass before…haha. I hit the wall many times and was financially ruined just because I thought I was “smart.”

Lastly, you need to take massive and positive action to ensure that the secret strategies are applied consistently without fail.

How to create a successful marketing plan in 4 simple steps

Most small business owners do not think they can afford big marketing plans. To them, marketing is advertising, and everyone knows that advertising is expensive. Of course, advertising is an important element of marketing strategy.  But, there are numerous low-cost tools and tactics that a small business can use to increase their visibility and attractiveness to potential customers.  And, all that is required to access these tools and tactics is research, planning, preparation, and execution.

Make no mistake; you need to include marketing in your budget. Without marketing, your business could easily become the best kept secret in the world and go bankrupt. Customers are bombarded with thousands of marketing messages and images on a daily basis and their memories are short. You must establish a big enough budget to create and maintain enough visibility for your company, products, and services so customers won’t forget you.

A word of caution is in order. While it is tempting to copy the competition, what works for them may not work for you. Effective marketing must differentiate your business from the competition so you can attract and retain profitable customers. It includes everything from your company name, logo, tag lines, advertisements, public relations, presence at trade shows, community involvement, reputation, and brand.

Rather than going into depth on each and every aspect of marketing, I am going to outline four main steps that any small business owner can follow to obtain big results.

Step One: Identify Your Ideal Customer
Your marketing strategies must be designed specifically for your business and target customers. The first step is to create a detailed profile of your ideal customer.

Identify as many demographic characteristics as you can about your ideal customer. How old are they? What gender are they? Are they married or single? What nationality are they? What kind of work do they do? How much money do they make? How do they spend their money? What products or services do they buy that compete with yours?

What are their values?

The more specifically you define your ideal customer, the easier it will be to create your marketing messages so they speak to their needs, desires, and concerns. Your messages must also clearly communicate the benefits your customers will receive. Be certain your marketing messages reveal the uniqueness of your products/services and what differentiates you from the competition.

Aim your marketing efforts to the location of your primary market. If your primary market is local, then broadly focused newspaper or radio advertising might not work. Instead, consider marketing neighborhood-by-neighborhood.

Step Two: Create Your Brand Identity
In today’s world of short attention spans, a great product or service is rarely enough to secure and maintain customers.  A branding strategy includes your company’s name, logo, symbols, website, and social media tools. Your brand can position your small business with customers as one they trust enough to purchase the types of products and services they desire.  Your brand can also differentiate your company from others providing the same products or services in your target market.

A strong brand is the foundation of an effective marketing program. However, branding is complex; involving the customer’s total experience with you, your product or your service. The internet, with its powerful new Social Media tools including LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and countless others, offer tremendous opportunities to promote your brand. There are also myriad ways to utilize low-cost search engine ads or interactive features on your website.

The best brands appeal to basic human emotions.  Don’t be afraid to be original in identifying your brand identity. It is what sets your small business apart from all the others. If you are having trouble developing your branding message, ask your new customers why they bought from you and ask your repeat customers why they continue to buy from you. The answers you get provide excellent guidance on developing brand messages.

You want your brand to endure, so avoid language that is tied to trends which are likely to disappear or become outdated. Keep your banding message simple. Buyers are overwhelmed by information today. Too much information confuses your brand message.

Step Three: Develop Your Pricing Strategy

One of the first questions asked by most small business owners is “How much should I charge for my products or services?”  This is not an easy question to answer. It depends on many factors including the quality of the product or service, the cost to provide it, customer location, the market rate for the industry, expected profit, and many others.

You can begin by researching your industry including price ranges in other parts of the country if you sell nationwide. Be sure to use timely and accurate information to calculate labor costs, supplies, and direct and indirect overhead for every product or service you offer. You should take into account seasonal fluctuations that might cause short-term increases.  A word of caution here. Guessing at costs can end up costing far more than it will to invest an hour or two in research.

Pricing is as much of an art as it is a science. If you price too low it cuts into profits. Pricing too high can limit sales. A common mistake new business owners make is lowering their prices to attract customers. While low prices can attract customers, it may not always be the best strategy. Customers who buy based on price alone are the most likely to leave the minute they find a lower price.

A low price strategy is even more risky for service businesses. A service business is limited by the time it takes to deliver the service. It is difficult for a service business to make up losses from low pricing by increasing volume like retailers.

Pricing has a psychological component. Your pricing should reflect your product or service “brand.”  If you want your brand to be “premium”, then your pricing should reflect that. That being said, for certain products or industries, there may be established price points.  Make sure you know what these are.

Establishing pricing will be an ongoing and dynamic process. You will need to adapt to changing conditions. Factors such as competitor prices, costs, customer perceptions and profit expectations can have a dramatic impact on your pricing. And, you may want to test different pricing models to see what works best for your business.

Step Four: Relate to Your Prospects and Customers

While relating to your customers has always been important, it is becoming absolutely critical. Why? We are in the midst of one of the most remarkable evolutions in business since the industrial revolution. With the internet, traditional marketing vehicles including radio, television, direct mail, and telemarketing, expanded into email marketing, website banner ads and pop ups. Overwhelmed with the constant onslaught of advertising, consumers have  become more and more irritated. In response, new products have been developed to give consumers the ability to skip television commercials and laws have been passed limiting Spam and telemarketing.

While many marketers are still trying to find a way to breakdown this resistance to advertising, consumer participation on social media sites is growing at a phenomenal rate in virtually every demographic category. What are consumers doing on these social media sites? They are having conversations with each other and company representatives about topics that are important to them. They are discussing, and sometimes, recommending products and services to each other. They are relating to each other.

What is happening is an evolution of old fashioned networking using new technology. So, whether it’s communicating with your customers through a visit, a phone call, a professional association, a local business group, a conference, a blog, a newsletter, a webcast, LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter, the most powerful marketing strategy you can employ is to relate to your prospects and customers.

When you focus on relating to your customers it gives you an opportunity to obtain valuable information you need to make sure you are offering the right products and services at the right price. You will also have an opportunity to obtain information you need about how customers perceive your brand and what changes you may need to make.

I can’t promise that these four steps will guarantee your small business will succeed. What I can guarantee is that these four steps will put you on the right path to success.

Dougles Chan - SEO Master in Singapore, also known as the Digital Marketing Guru in Singapore. Started digital marketing career since 1998 in the dot-com era.

What Sellers MUST Do Before Selling Products on Amazon - Amazon Seller Secrets Revealed

Before You Ever Start Thinking About Selling Products on Amazon, Here Are Some Things You Need to Think About and Consider to Get Started! AMAZON SELLER SECRETS REVEALED See more episodes... For aws certified partner or aws cloud partners, do click url given.

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SEO Tips - How to Get Started With SEO If You Are a Beginner

Search engine is the biggest source of traffic for most websites. The 2 main exposures that you can get from search engines are organic and sponsored listings. For sponsored listings, you must pay for each click to your website. On the other hand, if your website is listed under the natural listings, you do not need to pay for the clicks. The only way to get your website listed under the natural listings is to optimize your website. The process to optimize your website is known as SEO.

With SEO, you can increase the traffic from search engines to your website via natural search result listings. The traffic is highly targeted and you stand a higher chance to convert them into customers.

A search engine marketing agency has the expertise to optimize your website. But if you have a tight budget and lots of time, you actually do not need to hire one. You can learn about SEO online and implement the techniques on your own.

Let me share with you a few tips to get started with SEO if you are a beginner:

1. Choose the right keywords and keyword theme to optimize. You must conduct a thorough research and identify the keywords that will bring you sales. To achieve success with SEO, you must target relevant keywords. Study the websites of your competitors and see what keywords they target. Go to Google AdWords keyword tool and generate a list of keywords that are related to your business.

2. Place important keywords on the Title, Meta and Header tags of your website. Your Title, H1, Meta Description tags need to have the most important keywords related to your business. Search engines look at these places and rank your website accordingly.

3. Build links. Link building is an essential process in SEO. Types of link building methods are: article marketing, online press release, directory submission, link exchange with other webmasters, blog commenting, social book marking and more. Try to get as many links as possible to point back to your website.

SEO is a continuous process - there is no stopping point. Always continue to learn and build links. Only by doing this, you can achieve success with SEO.

If you do not have the time to do SEO on your own, you can consider outsourcing the work to a search marketing agency. Before you decide to hire one, shortlist a few candidates and compare the quotes first.

How to Explain SEO to a Layman

So what is SEO? SEO or search engine optimization is the process of increasing the volume of traffic from search engines to a website via search engine organic result listings. Do you think a layman will understand the above sentence?

SEO is an important process and many business owners should implement it to their websites. However, many business owners do not have any prior knowledge about SEO. Therefore, it is important to explain SEO in a simpler way.

1. Search engines like Google sends out web crawlers, also known as GoogleBots that go through all the web pages on the Internet.

2. These robots surf the web much like how people do it. But, the difference is that they are much faster and can surf up to millions of pages every day. To make sure that they have the most current websites, these robots are working all the time, 24/7.

3. How often your site is crawled depends on how often quickly you change its content. A site that is updated frequently will be crawled more often than a static website that never changes its content for years. Robots love fresh content.

4. The robots also detect the number of links that are pointing back to your website. These links are important in deciding the search ranking of your site. Also, robots will read the content of your website. It should have content that is relevant to the keywords that you want to rank high for. Search engines value relevancy.

5. Then, copies of these pages are stored in the index database of search engines. The index works like the content of a book and contains all the possible search term. The factor that determines where your site will rank in the index is correlated to the content of your website.

6. When a user types in a search query in search engines, the robot will match the query with all the web pages in the index. Then, it will return the most relevant web pages to the user. Meanwhile, a short description of the pages will be generated for the search results page. The description can be taken out from your content or Meta Description.

7. Web pages are ranked in terms of relevance before they are displayed on the results page of search engines. Search engine like Google considers more than 200 factors when ranking sites. One of the factors is PageRank (PR), which takes into consideration how many sites are linked to your webpage. With higher PR, it is easier for you to get your site to rank high on search result page. That is why getting links to point back to your site is so important when it comes to SEO.

Hope that with this explanation, you are now able to explain what SEO is about easily.

Five Questions to Ask When Choosing an IT Support Provider

Choosing an IT company to look after your Small Business IT Infrastructure can feel like a tough job. There's no shortage of IT companies out there that will offer to help you, from the "one man band" all the way to high-street names. So how do you choose the right partner that is not only going to be able to keep your IT systems running, but that you can trust both with your sensitive business data and to give you advice that in your best interests?

Since the beginning of this year I've been asked to act as an independent advisor to a number of businesses who want impartial advice on their IT strategy, and guidance on the questions to ask when trying to choose an IT partner to work with. Whilst the questions you ask may vary from company to company, industry to industry, here are an overview of the five basic questions I think you should always be asking of a potential IT Support provider.

How do you charge for your services?

Traditionally IT Support companies worked from a model best known in the Plumber or Electricians world, the "Break/Fix" model. Something goes wrong with your IT systems, and you pay the IT company to resolve that problem.

This model "feels" comfortable for many small businesses who look upon IT as a necessary cost to their business, rather than looking on IT as something that can be leveraged to help their business grow. Many businesses also resent paying someone to fix something that in their eyes "should just work".

The reality of IT is that just like a modern Motor Car, it needs maintenance to keep working. A lack of maintenance means things will go wrong.

The challenge with the traditional break/fix model is that really, there is no motivation for the IT company to fix the problem permanently. If they fix the problem permanently, they are no longer going to get called out and paid for their time.

Don't misunderstand me here. I'm not suggesting for a moment that an IT company would purposely leave something to break again in the future, but if they are being pressured by the client to keep the cost of their visit down - that often means putting a sticking plaster over the problem rather than spending the time required to fix it properly.

A better approach is to agree a monthly flat-fee with an IT provider, who will then monitor and maintain your systems as a "Managed Service", fixing any problems as and when they occur.

Think about this scenario. It's in the IT companies best interests to seek out and fix problems properly so those problems don't return - the less time they as an IT provider spend fixing things, the more profit they make from their agreement with you. It's also in your best interests as a client, as you want your IT systems to run smoothly without any problems, but when (not if!) problems do occur - you don't want to be worried about a large bill for time spent remedying that problem.

A flat fee arrangement allows you as a small business to financially budget for IT Support on an on-going basis, and just as importantly builds an on-going relationship and trusted partnership with an IT company. You're then in it together - working towards the best relationship for both parties.

Can you show us an example of the Health-Check Report you send us?

So if a flat-fee "Managed Service" model is the way forward, and an IT Support company says they will both manage and monitor your infrastructure, pro-actively seeking out issues to help keep your business running smoothly - how do you know that your IT company is actually working away behind the scenes to keep things ticking over?

An IT company worth its salt will have no problem in sharing with you an example of the report they send to clients to demonstrate the checks they undertake on your systems to make sure they are running, and to highlight any underlying problems they've found and resolved.

This report should not be hugely technical in nature. It should be simple for you to read and understand as a business owner who is interested in one thing - are you looking after my business?

Many IT companies provide a Daily Health Check report to the Office Manager, and a Weekly or Monthly Summary Report to Decision Makers or Business Owners.

Either way, a regular, easy to read report demonstrates the effort the work the IT provider is putting in to monitoring and maintaining your systems.

What Qualifications do your engineers have?

Trying to gauge an IT Providers credentials and qualifications can be a challenge.

Ask an IT company if they are a Microsoft Partner, and you'll find virtually none who say they aren't. At its simplest level, becoming a Registered Microsoft Partner is not much harder than signing up to receive the regular Microsoft Partner newsletters.

There are Silver and Gold Microsoft Partners too. This means they've achieved certain levels of competency, and invested both time and money into their relationship with Microsoft.

Furthermore, there are Microsoft Small Business Specialists - individuals and companies who have passed an exam to demonstrate they understand the SMB market and in particular, the popular Microsoft Small Business Server product. If your business is running Small Business Server, then look for the Microsoft Small Business Specialist "blue badge". Many engineers think they know SBS, but only those with the "blue badge" have proved they do.

But company wide qualifications aside, as a general rule of thumb, ask how many engineers are within the IT providers business, and the qualifications they each have individually.

If your IT infrastructure mostly consists of Windows XP and Windows 7 PC's, then it would make sense that the engineers supporting them would have qualifications in Windows XP and Windows 7, that they have passed an exam and actively demonstrated they know what they are doing.

If you're told an engineer is "working towards" a qualification - ask when they expect to have passed this qualification. IT is constantly changing and evolving, so an engineer who achieves the latest qualifications demonstrates that he is keeping up with change. The engineer who is still only qualified in Windows 2000 demonstrates he's most likely too busy to keep up with the changing landscape.

And if an engineer says he doesn't need a qualification to demonstrate his knowledge in a certain area, then consider what other standards the engineer might not feel he needs to adhere to within his industry.

Tell me about your relationships with other IT companies?

The best IT companies will focus on one or two core competencies. For the majority, this will be the maintenance and support of IT Infrastructures.

These IT companies will know what they are good at, and stick to it. To ensure you, the client, receive the best support - they will take time to forge professional and trusted relationships with other IT companies who also specialise in their fields. This might be a Data Cabling company, a Telecoms company, a Web Design company, a Software Development company. They aren't afraid to sub-contract or refer you to a trusted 3rd party who can deliver the best in their field.

What's more, most good IT companies will manage your relationship with your existing providers. This means you no longer need to telephone BT to spend time in a queue working out why your Broadband isn't working - your IT provider should manage that job for you.

Question the experience of those IT companies who say they can do everything for you themselves without external help. IT is a specialised field, and in the same way you wouldn't hire a Plumber to design, specify, build, wire and insulate your house - you will probably need more than one IT specialist to achieve all your business requirements.

How often do you perform Business Reviews?

IT isn't just about fixing things. The days of the "IT Guy", who comes in to fix stuff when they go wrong are dying out. In bringing on board an IT Provider, you also want to bring on board a Trusted Business Advisor.

As well as monitor and maintain your network, as well as fix problems as they arise, as well as manage your other IT suppliers for you, an IT Provider should be your go-to guys for advice or pointers on Technology trends, on Social Media, on how to use IT to grow your business.

It's easy to forget this part due to the busy nature of business. Therefore most forward thinking IT Providers schedule regular appointments with their clients, perhaps on a Quarterly basis, where they sit down and talk about your business. Based on that conversation, they can make recommendations and suggestions over how Technology may help you achieve your business goals - and plan for how that might look.

Conclusion

IT has evolved, and the service that IT providers give to their clients has evolved too. Using IT within Small Business does have a cost involved - but whether this cost is seen as wasted money or an investment, and the amount of value you, as a small business owner, realise from it can heavily depend on the IT Provider you work with.