SpeedieConsulting

The fact that the global economy has reached a somewhat stagnant state of late shouldn’t mean that businesses’ growth initiatives should stutter to a standstill too.

The need to proactively seek out new opportunities is as important as ever – if not more so – as companies must react to the economic conditions and find fresh ways of targeting new customers.

One way of doing this is through extending your scope beyond the English-speaking markets and targeting the 75% of the world that speak no English at all. This may seem like a daunting prospect, but tapping into new or emerging markets isn’t as tricky as it first seems…all that’s needed in the first instance is a foreign language website and a little online marketing savvy.

Online marketing is probably one of the most effective tools available to modern day business. It connects company with customer and facilitates the building of mutually beneficial relationships between the retailers and consumers of the world.

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is now among the fastest growing marketing strategies, with 64% of European marketers indicating that they planned to increase their SEO spend in 2009. However, optimising a company’s domestic English-language website is one thing – launching a fully-optimised foreign language website is quite another.

A myriad of cultural and linguistic intricacies face those seeking to grow abroad. In the European Union (EU) there are 23 official languages spoken in the 27 member states. Although English is the most widely spoken, German has the most native speakers in the EU with almost 20%, followed closely by English, Italian and French.

Understanding the nuances within languages is crucial to the translation/localisation process. For example, the differences between French and German are obvious. But the differences between French in France and French in Switzerland or Belgium aren’t that obvious.

In France, déjeuner means ‘lunch’, but in Switzerland and Belgium it means ‘breakfast’. Additionally, dîner is ‘evening meal’ in France, but in Swiss and Belgian French the word is souper.

There are many such differences between the French dialects in France, Canada, Switzerland and Belgium which help to highlight the importance of properly localising your services for each specific target market. The same can also be said for German (Germany)/Swiss German, Portuguese (Portugal)/Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish (Spain)/Latin American Spanish and, closer to home, US/UK English.

Assuming you intend to adopt a fully localised marketing strategy, what are the practicalities involved in setting up a foreign language website?

First of all, you must establish a need for your service in a particular country. A good way of doing this is to check out the local competition. If there are similar organisations there already, that’s a good sign, as it demonstrates a genuine demand. However, be wary of too much competition, as a saturated marketplace can be difficult to penetrate.

SEO is central to any domestic online marketing campaign, and international markets are no different. You may already rank highly on Google for certain key search terms on Google UK, such as ‘Home loans’ or ‘accounting services’. However, when you have your website translated for your target market, it’s important NOT to translate the keywords directly: the correct dictionary translation may not be what people use to search for their product or service locally…they might use abbreviations, colloquialisms or a different word that means the same thing.

So in the same way as you identify your industry’s highest ranking keywords for the English market, such as via Google’s free keyword finder, you have to research the keywords for each target country, to ensure your foreign language website is properly optimised. Google has country-specific versions of its keyword tool and is an invaluable means of identifying the correct key search terms in your desired market.

These key phrases should then be incorporated into a professionally translated website to organically optimise its position in search engines.

Another point worth mentioning is that it’s actually possible to rise quicker in foreign search engine rankings, simply because the competition for key search terms is much less than on the English language internet.

And there you have it. A multilingual marketing and localisation strategy should underpin any attempt to enter new or emerging markets, with SEO playing a central role.

About Lingo24
Lingo24 is a global translation services provider that specialises in website localisation. It has over 100 employees based in the UK, Panama, Romania, China and New Zealand, and a network of 4,000 translators. Its projected turnover for 2009 is £3.7m.

Speedie Notes.

This was not a paid for article but one we felt worthy of inclusion.  As well as foreign language markets overseas, there are other smaller pockets of foreign language opportunities within the UK.  Do you need finance or insurance content translated into Polish or German, or Japanese?

There could be a new affiliate network on the horizon for insurance and finance companies.  It is under wraps right now but if you are a small to medium sized firm, and you have been looking at affiliate marketing as a way to drive more internet business, but were scared off by high setup and management fees. Then we could have the right low cost opportunity for you.

Contact us for more info using the contact form.

ActiveQuote, the UK’s first true price comparison website for private health insurance, has officially launched today. The site is expected to transform the way health cover is bought in the UK by making it much easier for consumers to shop around and for people who have never considered health insurance before to buy it for the first time.

The new, completely independent website, www.activequote.com, quotes all the leading UK health policies and allows consumers to buy instantly.

Richard Theo, Director of ActiveQuote, says: “For the first time ever, we’re offering people the chance to view the entire private health insurance market from the comfort of their own home and receive instant cover – all in a process that takes less than two minutes.”

After asking just a few quick and simple questions, ActiveQuote.com presents up to 75 health insurance quotes drawn from all the leading UK health policy providers. Unlike the usual price comparison sites which start with the cheapest option, ActiveQuote.com asks what you want to spend and starts by showing the best available options around that price.

Richard says: “The cheapest policy isn’t always the best – yet most comparison sites direct you to the cheapest. We don’t do this as we feel it is more responsible to show people the best available options within their budget, especially when dealing with something as critical as health insurance.”

People can tailor each quote according to their preference with an instant price update. For example they can adjust the excess, choose a different hospital list, select the most suitable discount scheme, add or remove dental cover and much more. Equally, they can refine their search by specifying which policy benefits are critical and, true to its ‘active’ name, the site automatically removes quotes that don’t match.

Richard adds: “ActiveQuote.com is for those people who want to get the best health insurance deal but simply haven’t the time to search the market by hand. It’s also perfect for those who aren‘t comfortable handing over large amounts of personal details to a stranger – you can get your quotes, compare and even purchase without ever needing to speak to anyone. On the other hand if you are the kind of person who appreciates personal advice on the phone, we have a team of advisors with more than 40 years experience of health insurance, ready to help.”

Unlike other health insurance comparison sites, www.activequote.com is an independent FSA Authorised Broker and is impartial.

Richard again: “We’re not biased towards any insurer, we have no vested interest, our only commitment is to the consumer.”

The launch of the site has come at the right time. ABI figures published earlier this year show that the number of people covered by private medical insurance continued to rise. In 2008, 6,224,000 people were covered by either personal or corporate PMI, an increase on 2007 of 3.7%. Also, a study in August by Lloyds Banking Group showed that 25% of directors are prepared to put an end to all forms of employee benefits.

Richard comments: “A large number of staff are losing the benefit of a company health insurance scheme and are faced with having to find their own policy. They need to protect their family and don’t want to get it wrong. ActiveQuote simplifies things, helping you quickly zone in on the option that’s right for you.”

ActiveQuote.com’s simplicity is also expected to open up the market for private medical insurance for people who were previously put off by its complexity. The site has many user-friendly features to make buying medical insurance easier. It offers a wealth of helpful information such as a database of medical conditions with advice about what to look for in a policy if you suffer from a particular condition.

Richard continues, “People simply don’t know enough about private healthcare. There’s lots of misinformation out there. For instance, many people who have a pre-existing condition wrongly assume that they won’t be able to get cover for it if they change insurer. They believe they are stuck with an often uncompetitive policy. Our site explodes these myths and makes private health insurance more accessible.”

Richard’s comments are supported by research undertaken earlier in the year by CS Healthcare. Its survey of 1,000 UK adults found that 40% worry about their health every day and when asked about private medical insurance, on average they believed it would cost around £50 per month; this compares with a starting price of just £7.50 per month on ActiveQuote.com

“Consumers tend to have a feel for other insurances; they know when a car insurance policy is right. But with medical insurance they often don’t know what they need. This inhibits them from looking for medical insurance in the first place. With our site, consumers can get quotes live from all leading UK insurers; immediately compare and tailor those quotes and buy one instantly online.”

You will have heard us talk about the power of mini sites to boost your web rankings and attract new business. If not, you can read about it here:

Increasing Virtual Real Estate
Standalone Sites to boost your Virtual Real Estate

We have taken our own advice and will be launching a range of Insurance related mini sites over the next few months. We have 3 live – which you can read about below:

American Classic Car Website Launched
Car Excess Insurance Website Launched
Holiday Property Insurance Website Launched

Lessons Learned

Having keyword rich domain names are a must. These help Google and the other search engines find out what the sites are about and index them quicker. Here is a great list of domain names for sale (http://www.alder.co.uk). There are some really good finance and insurance domains in there.

Using Wordpress allows the search engines to find out what the site is about and crawl it quickly. It also means that you can add a huge amount of content easily and drip feed it into the future so you do the work once then sit back and you only have to market the site not have to keep it up to date too!

We are finding that some of our clients are also now looking more seriously at mini sites and they are seeing the benefits of quickly indexed sites and the additional virtual real estate it is creating.

We are also finding some clients with multiple rankings.

If you are looking for american classic insurance then we may be able to help you with our new website. American Classic Car Insurance was launched this week to offer easy access to american classic car insurance at what, we hope, is what you consider a competitive price.

We all hear the bad news about the economy and the ‘credit crunch’, and how money is tight. But here is some good news! With our new american classic car insurance service, we aim to give you the insurance protection that is suitable for your classic car at a price that won’t send your Bank Manager in to shock!
Our new and easy to navigate website can provide cover for a range of US makes including Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, and Dodge, the aim being to meet this particular insurance need under one easy to access policy.

Getting the right cover for your American classic car is important and that is why we have teamed up with Adrian Flux to show you what we consider are some good deals on american classic car insurance.

Why not check out American Classic Car Insurance today and see if we can help?

Have you added your company profile to LinkedIn yet?  You can now add a whole profile around your company and attach your employees to it.  This gives LinkedIn users the new ability to search LinkedIn by company or more importantly for you, by keyword.

This gives you a great opportunity to receive more traffic from LinkedIn, not just based around your own profile page, but you can get a second bigger bite of the cherry from other companies searching for products and services.

One would think that LinkedIn users searching and finding your company profile and then getting in touch are more likely to convert into something profitable.

It will only take you around 10 minutes to put together your page, so why wait.

Find out more about adding your company profile here: http://www.linkedin.com/companies?didentcompy=&goback=.cps_1251103341029_1

You can see our company profile here: http://www.linkedin.com/companies/468358

Just a quick reminder to let you know you can still get a bunch of free useful stuff from us.

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.

If you have read this blog in the last 6 months you would have read me use the term virtual real estate. As I said then I did not coin the word but like it some much, I try and use it whenever I find an excuse.

I have been thinking about a post like this for a while and think it is a good time to write it. I have been speaking with a few clients or late about how they can increase their exposure online without spending lots of money.

A few conversations later I have come up with a few ideas and places that you can add unique content to, which very little cost that will give you more access to your target audience.

The main response I got from clients was that they have never thought of using the Internet much beyond a corporate website and maybe at a push a blog.

Your virtual real estate really is the various locations that you can add content too in order to attract your audience that might not come direct to your website.

So here is a list of 14 sources of expanding your virtual real estate:

1. A standalone blog
2. An industry or secondary website – For example, if you sell classic car insurance, when not run a classic car information website
3. Using Social Networks – Your profile pages are potential routes for clients to find you
4. Article Syndication – writing and submitting content to a range of websites again provides a secondary route to your website
5. Newsletters – Running a promoting a news letter can add some viral elements of sharing which can attract new visitors
6. Guest Blogs – you can write a guest blog post for a related blog in your industry
7. Guest Articles – submit a unique article to another related website
8. Digital Magazine – create a PDF and setup a flash based newsletter
9. Video Site – If you are creating video why not create a separate site just for your video channel
10. Facebook Pages- Setup relevant Facebook fan pages
11. Web Applications – Create a tool that can be given away and circulated. This could be a web tool, Wordpress template or plugin as three examples
12. Audio Site- Create a Audio site for your podcasts and set it up like a radio channel
13. Answers – Using LinkedIn Answers and Yahoo Answers is a great way to get added expert content out there
14. Forums / Comments – Taking part in the on-line conversation on forum and commenting on blogs can lead to increased exposure, plus some of the sites rank well in Google so they can drive you some traffic.

As you can see there are lots of ways of increasing your virtual real estate with little more than a bit of time dedicated to expanding your online real estate every week.

All you need to do is make sure that ALL of the web content you add online adds some kind of value to the potential customer.

Article marketing is one of the easiest, low cost ways to drive business, increase your exposure and increase your website traffic.

In essence, article marketing is simply a case of picking a topic and writing a 500 word or more article in a non salesy way. The idea is to provide the reader with information that they can use. If they like the way you write and like your style they can use you. This is the ultimate presell technique, give them something for nothing and let your article do the talking.

So, as an example you could write an article about saving money on your insurance premiums. Once written and spell checked (most important) you can then start the process of getting this article published. Online, you can simply visit loads of article sites that will list and publish your article for free.

But don’t fall into the trap of thinking more is better, there are services that will submit your article to 10,000 article sites. Now while this may seem like a good idea, it really is a waste of time and money. There is a list of the better article directories below and to be honest it is quick a small list.

Article directories offer you three main benefits:

1. They will attract direct traffic to them as the main ones are popular
2. They are used by other webmasters looking for site content and they could use one of your articles on their site and to do this they will have to give you a link back to your main website.
3. Some of these article sites are so popular they rank very highly in Google and your article could feature on search results page very quickly.

Article Directories

www.ezinearticles.com
www.articlealley.com
www.articledashboard.com
www.articlecity.com
www.goarticles.com

Here are a few more tips that we have used to really drive more people back to our website.

1. Write a useful article; don’t worry about making search engine friendly and worrying about number of keywords and all that. Make it useful and it will take of business for you.
2. You will be able to add a resource box on the article which is your chance to say who you are and what you do. A good way to drive traffic back to your site is if you have a long article, split it in two, post one part out the different places and tell people in your resource box that to get part two they have to visit your site.
3. Build your own Niche submission list. While we recommend the 5 site above, there could be other niche directories, websites or publications that accept article submissions. Try the publications that you receive each month. Do they accept submissions? Have a look in the news agents.
4. Be consistent – This is the tricky one as life and work usually kick in at some point. You need to try and establish a schedule to works. Will you send out one article per week, or one a month, whatever “your” schedule, try and stick with it.
5. Outsource – There are services which could prepare and submit articles on your behalf. You would just need to give them a list of topics each week or month and maybe even some quotes to drop into each one.

Article marketing is a good way for any business to drive leads, search rankings and traffic, mortgage and insurance brokers have a big advantage over the majority of current article writer in their space. They have experience, case studies and knowledge.

Look around the article marketing sites currently and most insurance articles are written by website owners, not brokers, looking to build leads and drive online sales to earn commissions. They use it, as it is low cost and works well for them.

Isn’t it about time you made the move to writing?  If you see the benefits of article marketing but just getting ther time to do it when why not drop us a line using our contact form.  We offer a wide range of web content and article marketing services.

Sometimes Internet Marketing can be frustrating. For most as soon as you have built your new website, you want it to appear in Google! After all this is where the money and traffic is supposed to be. But how come my site isn’t showing up and Google doesn’t know I exist?

It would be easy to go to Google, find the submit url link and then site back and wait. And wait you will.

It appears that directly telling Google your site is live doesn’t do you any favours and means that your site gets added to a list of sites for the Google spider to crawl.

But the Google spider is off crawling and spidering the web so who knows when it will be back to base to get a new set of orders.

So what do you do? If telling Google isn’t going to work quickly for me then what do I do?

The answer is to raise flags around the Web so the Google spider “stumbles” into your site and will then not need to wait until it returns to base. You can easily tell where the Google Spider is going to be on any given day. You know it will be at high traffic, high content sites crawling and indexing all the new content that gets uploaded every hour of every day, so raising your flags on those kinds of sites will help no end. Here are 5 ways you get Google to spider your site quickly.

Articles
Write a 300-500 word article about your sites major topic. Go to www.ezinearticles.com and register for a free author account, then submit your article. You will be presented with the option of adding a resource box. In this box, you can add a link to your website. This is the one of the best ways of alerting Google and the other search engines that your site exists.

Press Release
Write a press release promoting your new site or a new service and submit it for free to www.pressbox.co.uk (This is a free publicity site where you can submit your release too) This site gets visited by Google daily and it won’t take long for them to find your site if it is listed here.

Classified Ads
Write a small 25 – 50 word Classified Ad and add a link to your site then submit it to the relevant city / town on Gumtree.com, Craigslist.org, and Vivastreet.co.uk. These sites are visited by Google and the other engines two or three times a day. Your site will be listed within around 48 hours

Blogging
Pay a successful blogger to blog about you and your business. There are lots of good highly respected bloggers that pimp site reviews for cash! The benefits of this for you is two fold. One you get links from a normally high ranking website, and secondly you could get lots of traffic directly as people reading the review will visit your site. One of the more respected Bloggers in internet Marketing is John Chow and he has written site reviews. The other way would be to find a post on some of these sites and write a useful and informative post and include a link back to your site.

Web Profile
If you have an Facebook/LinkedIn/Ecademy account – make sure you have added a link to your website from your profile. If you have other profile pages in other websites use these too. Myspace, Yahoo!, Your eBay About Me Page, Linked In, FastPitch, or Business Scene profile to name a couple.