10 Steps to Getting Your Website Ready For Xmas
It’s not often I’ll post up here someone else’s 10 Steps list, but this one on preparing your site for Christmas is well worth your attention. If you own an e-commerce site and want to take advantage of the looming festive period you should make sure your site is ready. The list covers everything from spring cleaning to making your site sticky.
You only have to read some of the headlines in the papers to see how much money the analysts expect to be spent online this Christmas. The Times reports that Forrester Research predicts
UK surfers are predicted to spend £13.6 billion in the run-up to Christmas, a 40% rise on last year
If you want to see some reports from last year , head to IT Week. It reports that over £7.5 billion pounds (roughly $15 billion dollars) was spent in the run up to Christmas last year!
Anyway without wanting to steal the ideas of Mario Thomas (from a UK digital agency called Chapter Eight) get yourself over there and read the article.
Get your website ready now, before it’s too late.
How to add a host to your blog
I was delighted this morning to come across a traffic generation video on YouTube that was different to all the rest i.e. some ‘guru’ banging on about SEO techniques that everyone already knows about. Admittedly it was an advert for a product, but it was something totally new to me and with the impressive figures included in the sales video, I couldn’t help but to give it a go.
So, courtesy of SitePal I’ve added a host to my blog - you’ve probably already heard him talking in a classic ‘English accent’. He’s fully customisable and I tried to get him looking like me - see my avatar at the top right of the blog. I’m hoping he will help to bring in some traffic or some comments, but I’m really keen also to hear from anyone else who has tried SitePal before. Is there any value in it for bloggers, or even bigger businesses?
This literally took a couple of minutes to setup, once I’d registered of course.
I only have a 15 day free trial after which time my character host will stop working - that is unless I sign up for the monthly subscription, which I may if he proves useful. I can’t help loving this product and I’ve had some fun setting it up. Do you think if I ask nicely SitePal will let me keep him for free…?
Tag:blogging EMarketingHow good’s your host?
If you read my last post you’ll know I had a great experience with my web host recently, helping me out of a technical mud bath I was drowning in. I got a comment from Mark over at Mark Unemployed who’s heard of some horror stories with iPower. I also got a couple mails sharing my joy with EUKHost.
But how do you know whether you’ve got a good host or not when you sign-up? In reality, it’s very difficult to know, but the old adage you get what you pay for seems to make sense. If you pay peanuts you’ll certainly get monkeys.
So I want to try something out here. If you would like to name and shame a hosting company that’s wronged you, feel free to add a comment here, or send me an email and I’ll post it up. The only requirement is that you can substantiate your grumbles, otherwise it’s just plain old slander.
Alternatively, if you want to wax lyrical about your host, as I did about EUKHost, then again add a comment or send me an email. Any claims of greatness need to be proven though. As a bonus to the host and to you, I’ll happily add in any affiliate links as well.
So, go on, name and shame, or wax lyrical. Do something for the blogosphere and internet marketing community! Act now or forever hold your peace.
Tag:blogging EMarketing Internet Marketing web 2.0Getting started with WordPress
I started blogging in September 06 using the free blog platform my host provided. At first I thought it was great: simple posting, easy editing, adsense, no problem.
After a couple of months, I started to realise something wasn’t quite working. I had zero comments, very little traffic and no new customer enquiries - although a few sales guys had been in touch. Strange as I kept reading how blogs and other Web 2.0 stuff are so great for business growth. All I can say is after 5 months I’d achieved very little, except some fairly original content on shoestring marketing tactics.
So I decided it was time to try something different and to upgrade my blog software. After all, I was enjoying writing the blog. So I did a little research and decided on WordPress, rather than Typepad and others - mostly because it’s all open source and free. Of course, I didn’t want to make the same mistake twice, so I started looking for some guidance and stumbled across Gobala Krishnan - The WordPress Guy - and his internet home business blog.
I’ve got to say this guy is great. I bought his Easy WordPress System and it got me up and running in no time. I think I paid about $47 (so around 25 quid) which is a snip. I grabbed the Marketing Blagger domain name, bought some UK based hosting and got started. Of course, there were a few stumbling blocks to get over, but Gobala’s support desk, albeit a little slow, has always risen to the challenge and helped me to over come these.
So where am I at now. I’m hitting 50 unique visitors every day which is nice, Adsense is bringing in a trickle of money, I have two blogs and I’m on the verge of launching some internet marketing and affiliate campaigns to start generating an income - alongside my regular marketing consultancy work.
I suggest anyone looking at blogging as a way to make money online would do well to read some of Gobala’s blog. Especially his advice on WordPress, plugins and more. His latest idea is to get other bloggers to review his blog to get more traffic - well he’s actually taken the idea from John Chow - another big name internet marketer, but that’s all good. Check out his review me page here.
Tag:blogging EMarketing Internet Marketing web 2.0-
Recent Conversations
-
- Alchemist: I wasn’t impressed. This isn’t a matter of subliminal messaging at all....
- Jez Hunt: Segmentation is SUCH an important part of marketing today… and it’s...
- Commercial Real Estate Florida: Awesome video and very inspiring. Thanks for sharing!
- Rabbit Pearl: Great tip! Its very very interesting when you learn about that you can choose your...
- car insurance by state prices: Yes its very important to have up to date knowledge of your...
- Tereza: I heard some time ago about this book and most interesting part for me was his...
- Hosted PBX: Smartphones are the way to go. Offices using Blackberries have flexibility and...
- funny tshirts: thanks for this.. great opener to me about crowdsourcing. thanks again
-
Loading ...
-
Subscribe to this Blog
