SEARCH CLINIC

This video explains how to maximise your Pay Per Click (PPC) ROI with examples of Google’s AdWords PPC matching requirements to target your budget effectively- broad, exact and negative keyword bidding phrases are the key to saving your wallet from taking a battering. I have saved one client 93% of his Adwords budget- and he’s still getting the same amount of traffic. The only loser is Google.

This is the seventh part of 11 videos on how to promote your website using the most cost effective elements of the marketing mix.

This video series was made from the lecture Simon Dye Dr Search the Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic’s made at the University of Gloucestershire on online marketing to to businesses, professionals including Members of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, Chartered Managers and the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and students at the 5th annual Gloucestershire Professionals conference in June 2009.

More than 300 people attended the conference with over 60 attending Dr Search’s lecture on Online Marketing Tips, Strategies and how to use the most cost effective tools for your online marketing business.

Of the 12 seminars during the day Dr Search received the top rating with 93% of the attendees saying that he was relevant to their needs and 86% of attendees rated the content as highly rated.

Please have a look at the other videos as they become live on the Search Clinic YouTube Channel

Please let me know what you think of the video. Have you found it useful? Was there anything else that you would like to learn about? Please contact Dr Search by clicking here now.

A football which generates enough electricity to charge a mobile phone or power a light from a brief kick about is undergoing trials in World Cup host country South Africa.
The sOccket power generating football has been designed by four female undergraduate students in their twenties from Harvard University.

The sOccket works on the same principal as the “shake to charge” torch, where a magnetic ball rolls through a coil to create an electric charge.

In just 15 minutes of being kicked around, it can generate enough electricity to power an LED light for three hours and charge virtually any type of mobile telephone.

The undergraduate students wanted to find a solution to the developing world’s chronic power shortages.

“Soccer is something you will find in every African country,” Jessica Lin, one of sOccket’s inventors, said. “People play for hours a day, so we thought, ‘Why not try to get a little more out of that energy?’”

She said the aim was to harness the passion for football particularly among children in Africa’s poorest communities to provide them with reading torches for when the light fades – at present around 5.30pm in South Africa.

Julia Silverman, 21, who also worked on the project has brought the ball to South Africa’s townships for trials to coincide with the World Cup.

“The kids call it ‘the magic ball’,” she said. “Whenever you see a child plug in their ball for the first time and see the torch light up from the energy they’ve created, their eyes light up too – it’s a wonderful feeling.”

“If you think that the energy generated by a 15-minute kick around provides three hours of light, you can read a lot of pages from a textbook in that time.”

The sOccket team hope to have their product available for sale online by the end of the year. They intend to sell them to people in developed countries in a buy-one-give-one scheme that will see the second ball sent to charities working in African townships.

“Obviously, this won’t be a regulation ball,” Miss Lin said. “But it’s a big improvement over some of the makeshift balls the kids create from things like old plastic bags.”

Apple says a fault on its new iPhone 4 is causing it to incorrectly display the phone’s signal- which itself is meeting criticism.
Users who gripped the phone – which went on sale on 24 June – on the lower left-hand side noticed the signal strength and reception fell away.

Apple says the problem relates to an error on how the signal bars are displayed, rather than the signal.

However, some industry experts say that there may be a deeper signal problem than a cosmetic design flaw.

Apple is promising a patch fix “within a few weeks”. Users may also choose to get a full refund within 30 days of purchase, the firm has said.

The theory now is that, once the patch update has been applied, iPhone’s bars will report signal strength “far more accurately” providing users a better indication of the reception in a given area.

“HTC makes metal phones, but they seem to work just fine. Changing the display may make some people feel better, but it doesn’t really fix the problem,” he added.

Apple said the new software to fix this would be released in a few weeks, claiming that as the problem also existed in the original iPhone, it would also be available for the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G.

However, there have been few – if any – complaints about older iPhones losing signal strength when held in a certain way.

Apple’s previous advice for iPhone 4 owners to overcome the problem of the device losing signal was to not place your hand on the lower left corner.

This latest approach is an unusual admission from the company, which has apologised for “any anxiety we may have caused”.

Many new owners reported that signal strength dropped when the phone was held. The casing of Apple’s latest phone is made of stainless steel, and also serves as its antenna.

The problem is thought to be particularly acute for left-handed owners who naturally touch the phone in the sensitive area.

The Times newspaper has begun charging readers to access its online content by introducing a paywall due to falling advertising income
From now on, access to the Times and Sunday Times website will cost £1 per day, or £2 a week if readers sign up to a subscription.

News International, which owns the papers, announced plans to impose charges earlier this year in response to falling advertising income.

Currently the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal are the only major papers to have similar paywalls.

All other national papers offer free access to their sites, but are likely to watch the launch of the Times paywall closely.

Falling readership numbers and advertising revenues have put significant pressure on newspapers in recent years, and devising the best way to make money from content is seen as a major challenge for the industry.
Continue reading the main story

Other papers including the Guardian have vowed to keep content free, pinning their hopes on a recovery in advertising revenues.

Although the Times risks losing readers as a result of the new charges, News International hopes the charge will be low enough to attract sufficient readers.

Robin Goad from Experian Hitwise, which monitors web traffic, told BBC Radio 5 live’s Wake Up To Money programme that traffic to the Times website had fallen “significantly”.

“Since the registration wall has gone live before the full paywall, we’ve seen about a 60% drop in traffic over the last couple of weeks,” he said.

However, “that is probably a little bit less of a drop than a lot of people expected… so this is quite a positive [figure],” he added.

Under an introductory offer, registered readers will be able to access the site for £1 for the first month.

The site has already been restricted to registered users for the last 30 days.

Given Rupert Murdoch’s determination to charge for his content, Dr Search expects that the new regime will continue until at least September or October.

Pay Per Click (PPC) marketing is often quick, lazy and expensive. This video shows you Google’s quality score requirements, explaining you how to maximise your online marketing budget and the importance of long term profits.

This is the sixth part of 11 videos on how to promote your website using the most cost effective elements of the marketing mix.

This video series was made from the lecture Simon Dye Dr Search the Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic’s made at the University of Gloucestershire on online marketing to to businesses, professionals including Members of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, Chartered Managers and the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and students at the 5th annual Gloucestershire Professionals conference in June 2009.

More than 300 people attended the conference with over 60 attending Dr Search’s lecture on Online Marketing Tips, Strategies and how to use the most cost effective tools for your online marketing business.

Of the 12 seminars during the day Dr Search received the top rating with 93% of the attendees saying that he was relevant to their needs and 86% of attendees rated the content as highly rated.

Please have a look at the other videos as they become live on the Search Clinic YouTube Channel

Please let me know what you think of the video. Have you found it useful? Was there anything else that you would like to learn about? Please contact Dr Search by clicking here now.

Not too long ago it was okay for the founding business person to hide behind their business brand and not be known to the public.This is because at that time the consumer didn’t care about you the owner or director, we didn’t expect you to care about the customer; we didn’t expect you to provide anything more than a product or service.

This was the old way of doing business and as sad as it is, some businesses are still operating under this cold shady theory.

However, today there is a new way to do business, one where the business owner of a company is in the front lines to find out what the customers want, interacting with them and providing something more than just a product or service.

This is the person that a customer wants to buy from, a real person who lets them know that they care, and they acknowledge us as more of a friend then just a number who puts money in their pocket every time they buy something!

This is why if you are the Owner, Director or Founder, etc… of your business you need to find a way to become the face of your business!

Here are three reasons why customers want you to become the face of the business.

1. The customer wants to buy from someone they know
It’s a fact that most consumers would rather buy for someone they know because it provides security of the purchase. So having real face to a business will help individuals trust you and your business. They will feel like they already know you and that they are dealing with a real person, that has the power to do something and someone who cares about them!

2. The customer wants to be able to hold someone accountable
Your customers want to be able to track you down if there is a problem. The customer wants to be able to communicate within multiple ways through the reach of email, twitter, Facebook, Skype so they can get what they want now.

3. The customer likes to deal with the boss
Since the customer wants answers now and is able to get them now, the person in charge better be using the social platforms to get the customers a response now, otherwise they will go somewhere else because I bet your competitor will be able to please your customer misfortunes to deliver answers they want and make themselves available.

Here is why you, the entrepreneur, needs to be so connected and interactive because you are the person a consumer wants the answer from because the answer you provide should be the right one.

Two simple ways to begin being the face of your business

• The power of images
Find a way to place your face anywhere you can that is business appropriate. Start with your website. Don’t just be on the about us page of your site, be on the home page. That is where viewers of your website want to be able to find you and know who is running the show.

Have pictures of your interactions with co-workers and customers from events than share the spotlight and use social media to tag and show those individuals in the pictures, this is a great way to connect.

• Use the power of video
Video is quickly becoming more and more popular for businesses to use because it shows the real you. Within a couple of seconds of watching a video of you, we can see if you are passionate, knowledgeable, and caring or if you are someone who is putting on a show and is not being genuine.

Please, if you are going to do video don’t fake who you are and if video is not your thing then don’t do it. Be the face of your business through pictures and image, do what best suits you!

This post was inspired by a post from Online Marketing Today- become the face of your business to succeed.