When to fire your Web Design company

A lot of people ask me what makes the business Freestyle Media different from other web design companies. I will tell you an analogy to explain this. Ask yourself right now and be brutally honest, Do you have a brochure website or is it a marketing tool? Have you just wacked up a site and hoped for the best. If you work with a web design company they will build you a website without a single regard for how you are going to get traffic.

"Web designers are builders NOT marketers."

Its like if you get an engineer to build you a house. They dont care what it looks like that is the architects job. The engineer if they had their way would make the whole thing 1 story and plonk all of the rooms together to make them as structurally sound as possible. With your website you dont want the most technically sound website you want one that brings in the most traffic and makes the most sales. Get an online marketing agency to build your site if you are a marketer not a web design company nor an advertising agency.

3 quick ways to tell if you are working with an Online Marketing Agency or a Web Design company

1. No keyword recommendations - If your company isnt providing you with keyword recommendations before you build your website fire them. That is like building a super market and not knowing where the people live. If your site isnt setup for attracting visitors to your website from the beginning you will be forking out for retrofittings from search engine optimisers to make it attract visitors.
2. None of their websites rank well in the search engines - Browse their portfolio and see where the sites rank in the search engines. No rankings... fire them.
3. They can't code in CSS and xHTML - If your agency cant code in CSS and xHTML fire them. There is no point coding in tables as opposed to CSS and xHTML as it will cost you the same amount. Choose the premium way to code and get the piece of mind that you won't be retrofitting your site with SEO addons.

How to improve your conversion rate from Google?

I try to improve all my clients website conversion rates all the time. I thought these Google articles might be of interest to you if you are trying to improve your conversion rate.

Google Conversion University

3 quick tips to improve conversion

1. Add security logos - Your SSL provider will normally provide a logo you can use to show that you are using their SSL certificate. If you use Verisign then you can use their logo.
2. Provide a telephone number - Providing the phone number is good but making sure it is answered within the first 3 rings is even better!
3. Keep your website up to date - Add something fresh and new to your website all the time because you never know when that one client you have been looking for is browsing your website.

What has been your best tactic to improve conversion?

Catch me at the City of Randwick Combined Chamber of Commerce talk

Online Marketing Secrets Revealed!

Just a quick one!

You can catch me at the BEC in Randwick tomorrow morning. I will be revealing 5 of my online marketing secrets! More Information about the event tomorrow morning.

How to use Video in Your Online Marketing

I gave a talk at the AIMIA event "The Future of Video Online". My talk was on "How to use Video in Your Online Marketing". For everyone who attended I have posted my slides up on the link below.

Download my slides
How to use Video in Your Online Marketing

I had a number of examples I showed in my presentation which are all accessible on YouTube or other websites. Here are some:

Pronto Condoms - A great example of using video for product demonstrations
Chevy Tahoe Paradoy video - An example of putting your brand out there and getting bitten
Tyson Ibeles Sony Ad - An example of putting your brand out there and it being loved
Telecome NZ Ad - Emotion packed into video

Search Engine Summit Conference

Listen to me at The Search Engine Summit Conference

As you can probably tell, I’m really ramping up my speaking engagements this year.

In March I will be presenting at the Search Summit – the Australian search marketing conference.

Personally I’m excited to be part of a line-up which includes guys from Google, SEO, 24x7 Real Media and News Limited’s Digital Media arm. We’ll be exploring all nooks and crannies on how to get the most from your search engine strategies.

Unlike past Australian search Events this one is focused on delivering content not just to novices but is also offering high level strategies to media savvy pros who already have their toes in the water.

As you know, I believe your search engine position is one of the most highly valuable online marketing tools in your arsenal. We industry bods are getting together to ensure we are making the most of the offerings in our market. Hope to see you there.

For more details or to register for the seminar, visit http://www.searchsummit.com.au/

How to Choose an Internet Marketing Consultant

If you are in the process of recruiting a new internet marketing consultant I have always found it tough to hire any particular consultant although I have broken down some ways to figure a good one from a bad one.

Practice what they preach - Whenever someone comes for an interview at Freestyle Media for say an account management position I always ask to see what their skills are like using the internet. If they cant use a computer very well nor browse through the internet, how in the world would they be able to help our clients market themselves better on the internet. I do the same with consultants. If I am hiring a PR consultancy I look at their PR and their online marketing, If I am hiring an accountant I would love to see their books (not always possible) or if I was hiring an internet marketing consultant I would look at their internet marketing.

I like how they Think - With lots of consultants I find that you can't sample their work. It's almost like you need to take a leap and just hope they know what they are doing and that they can deliver what they promise. I always look at consultant's blogs and read some of their thoughts. I try and understand how they think and see if that fits in well with what I am doing.

Experience - I always like seeing what a consultant has done for someone else and then I always ask them, "What can you do for me?" I want to hear ideas. I want to hear comments and suggestions on what could be improved. I like hearing powerful questions that uncover the real issue. When I hear that I can tell this person gets to the heart of the problem and can diagnose the problem. It doesn't mean they can fix it, that is another story. Although they have ticked the first box of knowing what is the problem. Personally, I never trust logos on peoples resumes or websites because its too easy to get a small job from some random person and say it was all your work.

Fred Schebesta's Internet Marketing Consulting
I myself do a lot of internet marketing consulting to corporate companies like Qantas, Sanitarium, Thomson Education Direct and McDonalds. I prefer working in a workshop style for developing internet marketing strategies after I have provided a lot of research and insights from my internet marketing research.

If you are interested in working with me as an internet marketing consultant give me a call (or email) at Freestyle Media (61 2) 9818 7300 to discuss what you would like to achieve.

AdTech Sydney - My 2 cents

I had a great time at Ad-Tech in Sydney, although MAN ON MAN was there a lot of hype! People were FLOGGING there stuff. I was accosted by more people than ever before. I have a feeling AdTech made quite a pretty penny from the event! I sure hope those booth operators make their money back.

The Talks
I went to a few talks before I was on to get into the spirit. I liked it. I enjoyed the open and honest chat and discussions. The talks that killed me were the sales pitches. After I did my talk I sat through a few more although I had to leave after a while. It was just too much for me.

New learnings!
The best thing I learnt from the conference was that you can profile people on social networking sites like MySpace and point out who are the influencers. Who has the most number of connections and who effects a market. You would then target these people with communications and try to influence these people so that they influence their people positively. I also learnt that Bebo is number 2 to MySpace in Social networking sites. I met Jim Scheinman VP of sales there who promised that it will be number one over MySpace in Australia in 6 months time! Big promises!

I met Darren Rowse at the event and it was superb! We had some good chats and I was keen to hear about his insights into some of the things he was up to. Here is his take on the event. I was talking at the event with Des Walsh (Thinking Home business), Mark Jones (Financial Review) and Ross Dawson (Future Exploration). Ross was such a good man he gave me a copy of his book which I have been feverishly reading.