E-commerce – Expat Emporium

Posted on Jan 22, 2011 in E-Commerce | 0 comments

Expat Emporium – British Food Online

We have just completed an e-commerce project for Expat Emporium. This company delivers British food and drink to British Expats the world over. The site owner wanted to manage all aspects of the site including updating projects, managing the loyalty scheme and creating newsletters. We were able to develop a solution that satisfied all of the clients needs and more.

At the time of writing the site owner was working on updating the extensive catalog and we are continuing to work with Expat Emporium to develop an Internet Marketing plan to get the site found worldwide.

Expat Emporium - British Food Online

List your installed software

Posted on Nov 27, 2010 in Software | 0 comments

If your computer was to die today would you be able to name every single program you had installed on it? Probably not so this is where the Belarc Advisor comes in. This is a free download for personal use and it builds a comprehensive list of all your installed software and even lists the license keys for all Microsoft products.

Visit www.belarc.com/free_download.html to download the program. Simply install the software and wait while the programe creates a profile of your computer. You can then print the list or save it to a disk.

The Belarc Advisor builds a detailed profile of your installed software and hardware, missing Microsoft hotfixes, anti-virus status, CIS (Center for Internet Security) benchmarks, and displays the results in your Web browser. All of your PC profile information is kept private on your PC and is not sent to any web server.

Wind Turbines by RevolutionNRG

Posted on Oct 15, 2010 in Client Blogs | 0 comments

Security and WordPress

Posted on Aug 14, 2010 in Blogging, WordPress | 0 comments

Oh what a week it has been. The Russian hackers have been busy these past two weeks and have managed to breach security in a lot of WordPress Blogs, not least two of the many that I manage, and many more in the Western World.

This latest malware attack is targeting blogs that have not yet taken extra security steps to avoid the vulnerabilities in WordPress.

It is not possible to cover the whole thing in one post, but if there are a few suggestions to keep you on the safe side, it would be:

• Increase your awareness. Subscribe to WordPress Development Blog. It should be on your list of feed so you are updated about recent development, including security issues.
• Update. WordPress takes only a few minutes to update, so spend some time at the end of the day to do so. With update, I don’t mean just the core WordPress code, but also the plugins.
• Use supported themes. If you are not a theme designer, make sure you use a theme that is well supported so if there are problems you know who to run to for a solution.
• Backup often. There is no reason not to do so because you can easily schedule backups of your WordPress database and files. Be safe rather than sorry.

Even with these approaches, there is no guarantee you will never experience security breach related to your WordPress blog because there are always possibilities in finding new exploits. Hopefully, crackers who find your site more updated than other blogs will choose not to spend their time on your blog.

But if you have a fresh backup off-site, you can always update and restore your data.

Of course if you need further help please do not hesitate to contact Steve at McKenzie-Thorpe .

Select a Domain Name that Boosts SEO

Posted on Jul 28, 2010 in SEO | 0 comments

Selecting a Domain Name.

A lot of established organisations prefer to retain their brand name in their URL, e.g. www.mckenzie-thorpe.com

Before the Internet, company names did not have to fit into an address line in a browser and be SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) friendly. Nowadays many start up companies select their URL first and then name their company. Mostly the reason for that is the perfect URL has probably already been registered.

Your website URL is your online identity that is visible to millions of internet users. It impacts on your company name, SEO and future business potential. All these factors should be taken into account when selecting a URL.

You can Boost Your Website SEO and Rankings by following a few simple rules:

1. Choose a Keyword Rich Domain Name:

A keyword rich URL is a bonus for any website. It helps boost ranking in the search engine results pages. If the desired keyword rich URL is not available, you can add a prefix or a suffix to the keyword. A URL which contains a combination of keywords helps in drawing more traffic to the website. An example of this is www.harboroughclassifieds.co.uk which is an advertising site where people buy and sell items in and around Market Harborough. Many people are familiar with the Classified Ads section in the newspapers so the name sits comfortably with the customer base.

2. Use Hyphens in the Domain Name:

Search engines can easily distinguish between hyphenated keywords. This all helps in achieving better ranking results in search pages. Hyphenated URLs are a good choice if the desired keyword rich URL is not available.

The only downside in using hyphens is that a website visitor may land on the competitor website if they forget to add the hyphens. So use hyphens but only as a last resort to obtain the best domain name.

3. Select A Top Level Domain Name:

A website URL should be selected based on the geographical location of the customers. If your website caters to the customers at a global level, a dot-com domain is suitable for you. If the dot-com domain is not available, you can opt between dot-net and dot-org. If your company is based in United Kingdom, your top level domain should be dot-co-dot-uk. A non-profit organisation should opt for dot-org as their top level domain.

4. Purchase a New Domain Name:

A domain name should be researched well before purchasing. It is an important to get a URL related to your niche.

Tips for purchasing a new URL:

a. The name should be easy to spell and remember.

b. URL’s are inexpensive. You can register multiple keywords rich URL and redirect them to the main domain. As a result, a lot of traffic will be directed to the main site.

c. Make sure that you are not infringing another organisations brand name.

d. If your organisation belongs to a particular region, Purchase a geo specific URL. This helps in capturing the target audience.

5. Purchase an Aged Domain Name:

Always check the background of an aged domain before purchasing it. Aged domains can give your website SEO a good boost. To check how old a domain name is visit this site: http://www.webconfs.com/domain-age.php

Tips for purchasing an aged URL:

a. Check the domain age. This will give you an idea of how old the domain is. Google gives a lot of importance to aged domains in search results pages. Your chances of ranking well improve with the age of the domain name.

b. Note the page rank of the aged domain. As the page rank increases, the importance of the domain increases.

c. Calculate the number of backlinks of the aged domain. An aged domain should have a few hundred backlinks. If the backlinks are not sufficient or are of poor quality, move on to purchasing another aged domain. This site will help you check your backlinks http://www.online-utility.org/webmaster/backlink_domain_analyzer.jsp

A good domain name should not exceed 67 characters. Look for a reputed service provider to host your URL. Register your URL for a few years instead of one year. Your website will leave a good and lasting impression on Google.

This article has been adapted from Debbie A. Everson, CEO SearchMar.com, experienced SEO Consultants and Search Engine Optimization Agency to over 2,000 small businesses. Learn about search engine marketing, pay-per-click, social bookmarking, and email marketing at our SEO Blog. Follow us on Twitter @searchmar or call 866.885.6263 to speak to an SEO Consultant.

7 Habits of Highly Effective Internet Marketers

Posted on Jul 20, 2010 in Internet Marketing | 0 comments

There is no exact formula for internet marketing success, but there are some general guidelines that virtually all successful people follow.

Here are the 7 habits of highly effective internet marketers:

Habit 1: Doing something every day

Let’s start off our list with the one thing that will positively make or break an internet marketer: keeping your butt in the chair! It is so easy to keep working hard day after day when the results are flowing, but often in this industry, they take time to show up. It is not hard to get discouraged and take weeks off, but that will destroy your business and any chances you had for success.

You do not need to kill yourself every day, but just do a little bit. Lay one brick of your wall and in a few years you will have your own mini Great Wall of China.

Habit 2: Setting the right goals

As the old adage goes: failing to plan is planning to fail. You must, must, must set the right goals. What constitutes a "right" goal? Anything that:
1) is reasonable for you to achieve in the near future

2) is focused in the right direction, something that will lead to even greater things and

3) is something you desire and is worth your effort to achieve. Follow those steps and set your goals.

Habit 3: Doing in-depth research

There is a time and place for gut feelings, but this business is very logical. Of course you need to do what your are interested in doing, and you need to have fun. But it is also important to do research on any new idea or technique that you have in mind.

9 times out of 10 you will fail if you just "see what happens." Chances are, someone else has already done it and written about the results. You will save yourself a great deal of effort (and heartache) if you simply research any new thing you plan on doing, whether this is a new site idea, a new niche, a marketing technique, etc. Research before acting.

Habit 4: Networking with others

There are thousands of VERY skilled internet marketers that have much more experience than the both of us combined, and make far more money than us, too.
Why not find these people and ride their coattails? Go to forums or blogs and start interacting with others. At worst you find like-minded people that will encourage you, at best you will find an awesome mentor that can show you exactly what you need to learn.

Habit 5: Outsourcing

If you have been in this business for any length of time, you know that it is impossible to do everything yourself. The world is now far too specialized and there is simply not enough time to learn and keep up with it all yourself.

Find a pro. In fact, always have a team of pros just one email or IM away. A web designer, xhtml coder, php developer, content writer, and whatever else you might need. Build a good team and keep them happy, because they will keep you happy (and sane).

Habit 6: Building upon success

Many times in this business we get bored with success. Then, what happens is you start looking for new avenues to conquer. Don’t do this. Instead, if you have one success repeat that again and again. Use your momentum to propel you even farther.

Take one victory and turn it into 10 victories. Maybe you built one successful content site, now do the same thing 10 more times. Or if you have a successful local site, expand nationally. This is how you build an empire that is incredibly valuable.

Habit 7: Keeping Focus!

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, keep your focus!

There seems to be a virus that infects internet marketers. As soon as we get knee-deep into one awesome idea, something shiny in the distance catches our attention. We are then tempted to give up all our progress and start chasing this new object. Or worse, we think we can do both at once, but that just ends up in failure on all levels.
When you make a decision to start something new, refuse any other ideas, no matter how awesome they seem. Create a folder with good ideas for later, but for now you are committed.

Following the above tips will not guarantee you everlasting success online, but breaking them will most certainly lead to failure. Begin to implement these ideas and you will be preparing the way for internet marketing success!

About the Author: Andrew Olson – ZZZ Profits is a Free Internet Marketing Course.

Hits Vs Visits on your website

Posted on Jun 21, 2010 in Web Traffic | 0 comments

We often get asked what is the difference between hits and visits when using web statistics.

Don’t be misled by hits when gauging the success of a website. Hits are a fairly useless statistic and used by many to promote advertising on web sites. A hit is counted every time one file gets accessed on your server. This could be a page, an image, js file, css file etc. Which means that highly visual sites with lots of images could get 40 hits for a page with say a css, 3 js’s and 30+ images. A page without any scripts of images would get 1 hit.

The statistics you view depends on the logging program you use. Most give good help files but general definitions are poor because there is little or no agreement over how to define things like unique visitors, visits, etc. If you use more than one tracking program you will clearly see the difference in site statistics.

A visit depends on how your web logging program interprets it. Ideally it should refer to one IP that visits your site. Whether they visit 1 page or many they should just be counted as 1 visit.

The most useful index is ‘page view’ where you can identify how many times people visited an actual page.

Another useful way to measure your stats is the ‘unique visitors’ information. It does depend to some extent on your software but it should count a visitor only once even if they visit many times. Some popular software defines a unique visitor as an IP that visits more than say 30 minutes apart. They are assumed to be different because an IP visit may be a different person accessing from the same IP.

Don’t rely too heavily on your logs. Remember that logs only know when a computer has visited your site – not a person! Some Internet Service Providers allocate a different IP every time a dial up user connects to the world wide web.

There are better ways to measure web site performance such as number of subscriptions to your newsletter, number of signs up, number of sales, number of bookmarks, number of emails you get from the site, number of guest book sign ups etc. etc. etc. These are what we call "outcome variables" rather than "process variables" which your log represents.

Also don’t forget that not every page view is an actual read by a human being. Most of our page hits are from search engine spiders, email harvesters, page change checkers, and heaps of automated services where the page is not actually "read" by a human. Yet another reason why you should ignore boasts of "hits" that websites claim in their advertising spiels.

A sophisticated and FREE web traffic analyser is Google Analytics but there are plenty of them out there.

E-Commerce

Posted on Jun 18, 2010 in E-Commerce | 0 comments

Selling products and services online can have major advantages for businesses, leading to increased profitability and lower costs. If you are considering taking your products/services to the online market contact McKenzie-Thorpe now for a FREE in depth discussion on how to set up an effective online store.

There are many advantages to setting up an online store but a major barrier to success is a lack of planning to succeed. Mistakes at the planning stage of an e-commerce project can seriously affect your chances of success.  

McKenzie-Thorpe will design your online store using the very latest software and Web Technology to put you in control of all the back office work necessary to be successful.

We have recently created a simple and effective store to promote Magic Bullet merchandise and products. Click here to see store in action.

How to use Live-Writer to post to your Blog

Posted on Jun 10, 2010 in Blogging | 0 comments

If you are a Windows user there is a free product that you can use to get your content online with one click.

If you have windows vista or later then the product may already be installed have a look for Windows Live in your program list, if it is not there then Download it Here:

Like many other programs it will suggest other products, just take a look and de-select any you do not want to install.

When you run Live Writer you need to setup your blogging account, you can setup as many as you want once you have installed the first blog, that means you can manage several blogs at the same time, and give other users a way to publish their work without logging onto the blobs admin area.

On the first screen choose the last option for Blogger or WordPress .

Next: enter the website address of your blog, username and password, if you are not on a shared computer you can select to save the logon details.

That is it Live Writer will try to logon to your blog and setup the blog account in Live Writer.

If you would like a what you see is what you get look in Live Writer, you can let the software create a temporary post in your blog, so it can retrieve the style.

Next Live Writer will download the theme, this will not work on all themes but it would not stop you using Live Writer for posting.

Give your Blog a friendly name and select finish.

That is it you are ready to review a post by selecting the Open > More folder on the right and downloading a post for editing, you can create a new page or Post from the main menu, when you insert an image you can choose margins, size, style etc: and save these settings as default.

There are a number of different options for inserting components into your post on the right hand panel.

When you have finished your content, Create or select the Categories and tags, you can also set the publish date, then hit the publish option on the main menu.

Will using Google Analytics have a negative effect on my ranking?

Posted on Jun 8, 2010 in Analytics | 0 comments