SpeedieConsulting

Use Forums
Post useful and helpful posts on forums relevant to your market. After between 5 – 20 “useful” posts you will be able to add a signature file which you can use to add links back to your main website. If you have made useful posts you will find you will get traffic directly too!

When you sign up to the forums you have some options to subscribe to certain topics or threads. Find the ones relevant to you and subscribe to receive a daily email, in this way you will find relevant stuff straight a way that you can answer or help with. This means you don’t have to trawl through the whole forum.

5 minutes a day could have a big impact on your web traffic, links and enquiries

Search Google, Yahoo and MSN to find 3 to 5 forums relevant to your business and signup. Lurk for a few days and see what people are posting, then jump in and be helpful. The key with forums is not to sell but to educate.

Classified Ads
Using some classified ads site can get you traffic direct from search engines as lots of them rank well on their own. We have clients now submitting their ads and get page one listings in a few days.
Write 2 or 3 ads and only post one per week to the following list.

• www.google.com/base
• www.gumtree.com
• www.adzooks.com
• www.craigslist.org

Make sure you select the right location.

If you want to rank for a local search term then make sure these words are in the title of the advert and within the main text of the ad too.

Google Local Business Centre
Google allows you to list your business directly in their small business directory for free.
http://www.google.com/local/add/businessCenter?hl=en-US&gl=GB
This means that if a user searches for a local business in Google, you will tend to see a map appear first with up to 10 businesses on it. Having listings in the Local Business Centre means your business could appear.

Article Marketing
Writing content and articles are a great way to improve your website rankings, traffic and boost your profile as an expert. Write 400 – 500 word articles and submit them to a range of article directories and find other relevant sites that you can send your articles too directly.

At the bottom of each article you can add an “About the Author” section and in this section you can add links to your website. In this way as more and more sites use your articles they will provide you with links back to your website.

Just a quickie to remind you we have a range of freebies that could be useful for you and your business in 2010

Free 52 Week Internet Marketing Course aimed at Insurance and Finance Brokers

http:/www.insurance-marketing.co.uk

Just visit the site above to sign up

10 Free Wordpress Finance and Insurance Calculator tools.

http://www.speedieconsulting.co.uk/wp-calculators/

Visit the link above to find out more about the various tools and sign up to receive them directly via email.

I have been meaning to write this post for a while.  It always amazes us how clients focus on getting one page one ranking for a chosen keyword then move on.  They fail to realise that they could dominate a page of results.  What would two results do for your web traffic, or three or even four results on page one of Google?  Utilising different techniques, you can really clean up.  Here is a screenshot of one of our campaigns for our own Holiday Property Insurance website,  which is a testing ground for different methods.

On this page we have 4 listings showing:

Number 1 is the Site Itself

Number 4 is a Press Release

Number 6 is a Blog Post

Number 7 is a Press Release

Just out of interest and out of shot,  Number 10 is an Article submission of ours too!

So really we have 50% of the listings on Page one of Google for this keyword.

As you can see, this is not rocket science either, it is just using simple promotional tools you should be using as part of your online marketing -  Press Releases, Blog posts and Article Submissions, you can be adding a whole other level to your marketing.

If you need help with your marketing or want more exposure for your website, drop us a line using the contact form.

Taxback.com provides global tax refund services for people and businesses all over the world. We can organise income tax refunds refunds for your customers in both their home country and anywhere else they may be working in the world.

We offer our partners a full range of content & creative tools including-

• An online Partner-Plus account to track your referrals in real time
• A full range of creative to suit your own website’s needs
• Banners available in multiple languages, including French, German, Spanish & Portuguese.
• Interactive design available, including online tax refund calculators
• Email creative
• Custom content and co-branded banners also available

Payments & commission:
Revenue share commission (paid monthly or quarterly – you decide)

For more information, visit http://www.taxback.com/Partners.asp or email dganly@taxback.com

We have finally opened the doors on our new Wordpress theme site for Insurance and Finance brokers. Aimed at DIY Insurance or Finance brokers who see the power of Wordpress to build their own websites, our themes are perfect to give then a slightly out of the ordinary template.

Our templates come with all the help needed to get a site up and running very quickly and then once live, our complimentary marketing guide will help you attract visitors and potential clients to your new website.

We currently have 3 designs available, with more on their way. They come in two flavours a single licence for use on a single website and developer license which means you can use them over and over.

We also give you a static html version so you can use the same design to develop HTML emails or if you are going to use PPC marketing, these can be used to develop landing pages for your campaigns.

To find out more or to snap up one of these themes please visit:

www.brokerthemes.com

The site is also packed with useful articles and tips to help you get the best out of Wordpress.

If you are thinking about running an affiliate programme as part of your online marketing strategy, there are a few things you need to think about before you start.

Commissions
What are you going to pay and for what? There are 3 main commission structures

• CPA – Cost per Acquisition
• CPL – Cost per Lead
• CPC – Cost per Click

Each one has a varying degree of risk to your business but you need to think about what works for you. For example, you maybe want to run a CPA deal but your online system can’t transact online so you may need to look at a CPL deal.

How much are you going to pay?

You really need to think about this one carefully. Once you have set a price make sure you leave enough room to move it upwards if you need to. Affiliates like price increases but they will hate price reductions so take the time to crunch the numbers to make sure the price you are offering is sustainable.

In-house programme or Network?
Are you going to run the affiliate programme yourself or are you going to join an affiliate network? There are advantages and disadvantages of both, so think carefully. Of course, there is nothing stopping you running both an in-house programme and a network based programme.

But we would suggest starting with one first. Here are some pros and cons.

These are just a few things you will need to think about before embarking on an affiliate programme. While it may appear daunting, an affiliate programme can be used by any size business and can add a great deal to your marketing efforts. Setup in the right way can also remove any risk as you only pay for completed business.