Unlike many other car garages in the Harrogate area, I felt like I trusted them and that I was getting a good deal with the added bonus of great after sales service. The garage deals mainly in the buying and selling of second hand prestige and exotic car marques such as Porsche, Ferrari, Aston Martin, Lamborghini, BMW and Bentley. I actually bought an Audi A3 with the 3.2 litre V6 engine. It is extremely quick! Probably more importantly, I feel comfortable with my purchase.

This post is one of my rare recommedations! So if you are looking for a new car for 2013, just give them a ring!

Here is a guide to what’s what in online marketing

You may be surprised!

Why should you use the available media to be social? The same reason as in the past, present or future, you should always consider your audience, customer or market and try your best to understand their needs. Don’t ever fall for this being something new, however it is packaged or sold to you. Your focus should be people and not technology, as they will always stay where technology generally changes.

The world is full of people ready to give you stats on why social media is going to save your life.  It won’t save your life, only enhance it, if you’re clear about what you want to do with your life.  You can see what’s happening online with social media at Mashable [http://www.mashable.com/], an amazing resource of what’s simply happening.

Start by knowing who you are personally and as a business, not by registering for everything online. Then consider who you want as part of your connected community and with that sorted, you will just need to know which platforms are going to be effective and relevant for you. Locating people and businesses online is easy, spending time listening will make engaging more effective.

There will always be those who are negative and predict the end of social media platforms like Twitter for instance. What are they expecting from Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinterest, You Tube, Google+, App X, App Y and App Z? More than likely they are expecting it all for nothing! After all someone told them social media is free. It’s not.

Did someone also tell them research and development was free too. Your time isn’t free whatever anyone tells you although there is a lesser cost than say previous ways of developing relationships with people and businesses. The thing they suggest is failing is actually only just getting going, a social Internet where we are able to communicate effectively and easily across the world will never stand still.

How can anyone write this off? Endless amounts of time are spent trying to justify ways to make money from the Internet, forget that let someone else do that. If you are trying to make the next big thing you missed the boat a long time ago. What you can do is embrace the fact that technology is available for you to interact, participate and respond to the people important to you and your business. Canadian based Danny Brown [http://www.dannybrown.me/] blogs sensibly and regularly about online human interaction and is definitely worth reading.

It is important not to try and get them all to talk to you, that wouldn’t be relevant.  Simply use what’s available to locate, listen and engage with the people that are relevant to you. Be friendly, informative and authentic but don’t broadcast or sell; instead inform and share, become a resource that people want to return to engage with and then build a long term relationship with them.

Never look for sales, only friends. We’re loyal to our friends and trust their judgement.  So when they share information with their connected community we know people will listen to them. Word of mouth hasn’t changed it’s just become more probable than possible.  It shouldn’t be a chore, it can take time but done well, it will save time.

It’s you, your work and your business be personable but don’t create a personality. People need to believe in you and be able to see you enjoying yourself being social. To see people enjoying what they do and sharing it with the world visit www.ted.com , not solely about passion but emotion too.

There is only one call to action… Use the available relevant technology effectively!

Mark Longbottom
mark@design58.com
www.design58.com
www.twitter.com/design58
www.facebook.com/design58
www.linkedin.com/in/design58

Your copy needs to address the concerns and interests of your readers. It is not about “we do this and we do that.” Using the “we” word too much makes your copy about as interesting as looking at someone else’s holiday photos. Don’t do it.

Your online copy needs to be 25% – 30% shorter than brochure copy. We tend to scan rather than read online. Use bullet points and shorter sentences. Include a “call to action” in the copy such as “To find out more, Call John Smith on xxxx xxxxx.” Eye tracking and other usability studies (Jakob Nielsen) reveal that the eyes work less well when the head is in the up position. Eloquent prose online does not work!

Use pictures and graphics to illustrate significant points. Certainly men appreciate graphics as the majority of men are “visuals.” Most women know how difficult it is to speak with a man if the TV is on at the same time. All graphics should be low resolution and not the huge file sizes used in print.

Online copy and the website where it sits are often the first point of contact for a new client or customer. Keep it short and simple. Websites are not salesmen or corporate brochures so give them just a taste of your company and encourage them to make contact to find out more.

The most significant factor in the Google SEO algorithm is on page copy and its supporting metatags. SEO is nothing to do with technical or code “tricks” and forget about the keyword metatag. Google have not picked it up for over 5 years.

Be open and honest and use pictures of the staff. We all like to see who we are dealing with.

And remember, copy sells, not graphics. Use a professional online copy writer.

What we do for you:
1. Make money for you with your online activities (new customers) We show you how, why and what to do to have a successful online result!
How? By doing everything correctly. We build bespoke websites (no templates) we do email marketing, blogs, on and off page SEO, Social Media. Specialist online copy writing includes company positioning, seo, brand values, and more. Unless you know why web copy is so different to other types of copy, don’t write your own website copy.
2. You get to clearly understand online and how it works. We work together with companies and not for them. Project costs? £2K – £20K. Largest project 45K! (2009)
3. Sign an NDA and speak directly with all of our very happy clients!

What we don’t do:
1. Fix broken websites for less money than you originally paid.
2. Carry out SEO on broken websites. There are 2 parts to SEO. On page and off page SEO. If the on-page is wrong we often don’t take on the project without re-writing the copy and metatags that your web design company already got wrong…yet more expense for you.
3. Carry out instructions that are incorrect. You tell us what you want and we implement it correctly. We prefer not to take on projects where the company has no financial/ROI  targets.

We also:
1. Have a great team of 4 people, all specialists. Thanks for even thinking that I do it all!
2. Expose SEO crooks and help to reclaim money for fraudulent SEO activity.
3. Provide authoritative website reviews.

You can also do nothing and let an ugly looking wind farm appear on the hills outside Harrogate. This will permanently spoil the views of the beautiful countryside around Harrogate. Only YOU can do something about it.

To do something to help, visit www.savethedales.co.uk and register your disapproval

You can also find out more and ask for info here..  contact@savethedales.co.uk

Happy with ugly wind farms? Just do nothing, let them appear on the horizon and make some local person profit financially from your inactivity! Sorry but that’s how it is!

As some of you will already know, having received a flyer through the post, the mystery company Tapar (PF), who wish to construct four out of the 28 new turbines in our area, have just given notification that they intend to hold a ‘consultation exhibition’ at Norwood Social Hall, Bland Hill, Norwood, HG3 1TB, on Thursday 14th June between 14.30 & 19.30.

The four turbines are to be sited adjacent to Kelda’s first 7 at a site on Penny Pot Lane. Tapar have given this proposed development the name of “High Boar Wind Farm.”

Such events are the normal mandatory requirement to ‘consult with and inform’ the local community before submitting a planning application.

We are well aware that the Kelda consultations in February somehow conjured up the great claim that 55% of those living locally to the proposed wind farms actually supported and wanted them – as of yet they have failed to respond to written requests to prove how these assertions were achieved.

As has been stated before, this is going to be a very long battle, with our opponents attempting to wear us down over time. If at all possible, please take the time to attend this ‘consultation exhibition’, even for just a few minutes, to make your feelings felt and recorded.

We know that Tapar are a Harrogate registered company with apparently no assets and no cash at the bank. The two founding directors are Shane Tate and Kamlesh Parmar and the company name comes from their surnames TAte & PARmar. Mr Tate is a local man whereas Mr Parmar has taken offices locally and also sits on the board of 3 Legs Resources Plc a company involved in the extraction of shale gas, mainly in Poland, through the process known as “fraccing”.

I am sure that a few difficult questions are appropriate, for example: is their development in any way connected to Kelda’s? How can a company without any apparent assets can afford such a project? What is their reason for wanting to put turbines up in this area?

I do hope you are able to go along and rattle their cage.

I had never heard of storage radiators that could be “topped up” during the day or even switched on during the day. I thought they just came on at night between 12 and 7 am. And unlike other storage radiators, these ones come in 60 different sizes and over 200 different colours.

We finished it under 3 weeks which is very fast as we usually have to wait for a long time to get pictures and copy for a new website. Working with a good friend, Peter Nunn, who understands “the whole online thing” does make life easier!

So if you need new storage radiators or just less expensive home heating costs, have a look at www.brightheating.com

Bright Heating are based in Harrogate , North Yorkshire but work nearly all over the UK.

We think it looks very nice and it will work very well for their enquiry and new business generation levels!

Keywords and Metatags aren’t the answer
Keyword and description metatags died over 3 years ago…they have no value in “search”
Your website is probably missing out on the most important metatag
There are NO code tricks whatsoever

Don’t be anonymous
Pictures of staff on your website help people to trust you
No staff pictures means that you look unapproachable and unfriendly
Encourage contact

SEO is a scientific and measurable process
SEO is not a secret or dark art
You can see how you match up against competitors, statistically
Without any financial or performance targets, you may get ripped off
SEO should never be a “bolt on” solution afterwards. It’s the first job
We expose SEO crooks!

You must have performance targets otherwise you will waste your money
“You cannot justify any investment in an online project without the promise of a financial return”
Most web design companies flatter client egos, but don’t inflate their bank balance
Enquiries and new business generation is a skill. It doesn’t just happen
Social Media is certainly not free and it’s mainly for networking, not lead generation

Work with professionals
“Having a go” yourself is not an option
Call Charles Clayton on 01943 465022 when you are ready

The actual website for this course is a WordPress platform, similar to this blog, and not a website as such. They are cheaper to build and run. To run the Web Fuelled Business website, they are also using an SEO plug in from Yoast that will be of little use to them. They have filled in the blanks incorrectly on it, demonstrating that they have very little knowledge of on page SEO.

Spending just one day to learn all that is like teaching lawyers how to be a lawyer in one day….impossible.

I noticed that even Duncan Ballantyne has a similar online offering to the Doug Richards Web Fuelled Business Events and that’s another online effort that was also truly lacking in any kind of real knowledge, the last time I looked.

When will people learn that there are no code tricks or easy ways to success online? Cetainly any web fuelled business event might help a complete novice but then they will think they are an expert and waste all their money with their online project.

If you have an online project, speak with someone that has made a lot of money for a lot of clients, not a web design company looking like it is owned or fronted by Doug Richards, an ex IP investor if I remember correctly. 

Call me, Charles Clayton, on 01943 465022 to find out more…

Offenders are :

SK, Leeds area.
OT, Halifax area

The lies include:

Fake Likes on Facebook, No Backlinks, No On page SEO, Fake PPC accounts.

How do website owners get conned? Looking at your own website frequently via Google SERPS will always lead to a false impression. You might be looking at “preferential results” because Google recognise your IP address and will serve up what seems to be one of your favourite websites.

Beware online vanity! Ask for an expert view!