Marketing By Numbers

The “quality” of a website can be measured in two main ways, the quality of actual content as determined by both search engine algorithms and human reviewers and the popularity of the website as measured by the number of other websites linking to yours.

Remember that your site has to appeal to your human visitors once they find you, as well as to the search engines they use to find you!

The most important measure of quality as far as the search engines are concerned is the quality, relevance and importance of the sites that link to yours. Their quality is assessed by their page rank, their relevance relates their content topic to yours - in other words they need to be on the same or closely related theme. Their importance is judged by factors such as “authority” e.g. University sites, professional organisations, media etc are the kinds of sites that are considered authoritative, as a websites run by people with acknowledged expertise in their field. The quantity of visitor traffic to a given site also has a bearing on its importance in this respect. Read the rest of this entry »

Here I am again with the promised continuation of the “Earn It!” section of web marketing basics. I’ve been in sunny Spain since I wrote the last piece and, somehow, things don’t seem to get done quite as quickly over here!!

As previously mentioned, the theory of good website optimisation is simply to provide the search engines, especially Google, with what they say they want - namely relevant, quality, up to date content. You also need to ensure the search spiders (robots) know what your webpages are all about so they can index and rank them effectively. Let’s take these three areas one at a time…. Read the rest of this entry »

 In theory you earn traffic as a result of a good ranking in search engines.

This is the way most people think they know how to get visitor traffic to their website. They know that they need to get in the search engines & they know that they need to get to the top of the search engines. But they don’t know how!

Once upon a time all you had to do was get a few pages of half decent information, tweak a few meta tags, put in a good title and headline and submit your website and wait. Sooner or later you would end up listed in Alta Vista, or Yahoo or the “newcomer”, Google. With very little competition your website would soon float up the charts.

But that was way back then, and this is right here and now - and things are just a little bit different! Read the rest of this entry »

Now that most businesses have realised that a website has become an essential part of their marketing armoury, there is a growing realisation that a website alone is about as visible as a speck of dandruff in a snowstorm.

Web Marketing is not about building a website, it is about bringing visitors to that website and then giving them something worth having when they get there!

It is about making your offer as irresistable as possible, and making it as easy as possible to find and to buy.

It is about standing out from the millions of other websites out there in a very crowded market place. Read the rest of this entry »

There is a well known saying in advertising that has been variously attributed to Lord Leverhulme, Henry Ford, John Paul Getty and countless other marketers. I guess most of us have said something like it at one time or another:

“50% of my advertising budget is wasted - I just don’t know which half!”

In fact some recent research has indicated that, especially amongst smaller businesses, the waste factor may even be nearer to 90% than 50%! That’s a frightening statistic, particularly when you consider just how expensive advertising can be these days. So what can be done about it? Read the rest of this entry »

There has been a lot of controversy and mis-information in the press in recent months about 0870 numbers. Much of this has focussed on the cost of calling these numbers. The perception seems to be that they are expensive to call and have been compared to premium rate numbers and even referred to as “Rip Off” numbers.

The truth is that they were originally set up as a National Rate number. They would cost the same to call as a standard BT national rate number but would have all the customer service benefits of the local rate 0845 numbers. The cost today of calling an 0870 number from a BT line is around 7.6p per minute (including vat).

However, there is now a problem in 3 specific areas with regard to call pricing: Read the rest of this entry »

0845 numbers differ from freephone in that the caller pays for the call. Calls are charged by BT at standard local rate though charges may differ if calls are made from a mobile phone or using an alternative service provider.

The benefit to the caller has traditionally been that a local rather than a national rate charge is made regardless of the location of the caller within UK.

There is a further benefit to the caller which is not widely known. Most 0845 numbers are linked to a call management system which can handle multiple simultaneous calls. This means that there is a much greater chance of your call being answered at busy times rather than just getting a busy tone. Read the rest of this entry »

Many UK business owners are unaware that the UK Telecoms industry provides a huge range of tools to help them to market their goods and services. This series is designed to educate businesses and consumers to the benefits of Marketing By Numbers.

Let’s start with the basics. Most people know about Freephone numbers (known as toll free in other parts of the world). Customers know that a call to a freephone number is free of charge, hence the name! Because of that, they are more likely to call an advertiser with a freephone number, if they have the opportunity. Similarly, many businesses know how well customers respond to freephone numbers, so they use these numbers to attract more business. Simple really! Read the rest of this entry »

Marketing Numbers in UK consist of the telephone number range beginning with 08…

The primary ones are:

0800 Freephone

0845 Local Rate

0870 National Rate

In addition you will sometimes come across:

0844 - primarily used by ISPs (internet service providers) or to route calls abroad

0871 - often used as a charging method for recorded information.  More expensive than 0870 but cheaper than premium rate numbers (09….)

I shall deal with each in turn in separate articles

Welcome to Marketing By Numbers Articles. We hope you find them interesting, informative and above all, helpful in growing your business.

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