SEARCH CLINIC

Dr Search has long stressed that even small “local” business need an online presence.Now new research backs up my recommendations- even if you run a local retail business like a newsagents, book store or even a hardware shop.

The study shows that nearly one third of the 1500 online shoppers surveyed said the main reason they shopped from websites was to buy goods not available locally.

While 19% said they shopped online because it was cheaper- a similar number said they shopped online for a greater choice of products.

Paypal commissioned the research to determine the biggest areas of growth and opportunity for retailers.

“Our research paints a positive picture for domestic retailers,” said PayPal managing director Frerk-Malte Feller. Now local businesses just need to get their online strategy right, so they can begin competing with international rivals.

One of the biggest threats to online retailers is shopper trust. Only one third of those surveyed believe it is safe to shop online.

While the statistics might look daunting, they actually pose a great opportunity for retailers to get their business online.

Do you want to increase your sales by a third?

The first place to start is with your website. If you don’t have one, build one ASAP. If you do have one- is it making you money? If not then it is not then best review it pronto.

If you need any help, please just ask Dr Search to help my local online presence NOW!

New research has shown that websites with blogs get considerably more traffic, links and credibility than static business sites that don’t interact with social media- and potential customers.

If you have a blog, you know that it’s good for your business. But just how good– and how much?

To answer to those questions, HubSpot looked at data from 1,531 of their customers- mostly small- and medium-sized businesses. 795 of the businesses in their sample blogged and a roughly equal amount 736 didn’t.

The data was crystal clear- companies that blog have far better marketing results.

Specifically, the average company that blogs has:
* 55% more visitors
* 97% more inbound links
* 434% more indexed pages

Please, just take a look for yourself in the graphs below:
Why are website visitors important? Because more visitors mean more people to convert to leads and sales.
Why are inbound links important? Because they signal authority to search engines, thus increasing your chances of getting found in those search engines.

Why are indexed pages important? The more pages you have on your site, the more chances you have of getting found in search engines.

For more information on HubSpot’s blogs improve your business report please click here now.

Dr Search asks if you have a blog for your business? If not what are you waiting for- your competitors may well have one- how long do you want them to steal your potential customers and sales?

For a free chat why not contact the Search Clinic NOW?

Today being a Friday- Dr Search suggests that you focus on developing a positive behaviour by ignoring the easier negative option.
Conversely, does a failure set you on a path to more failure?

This question may seem philosophical or even paradoxical, but in fact I think it gets to the heart of why some people succeed and others don’t. We can choose to create cycles that move us up or endure cycles that drag us down.

A sales call is going poorly because the prospect doesn’t perceive the salesperson is confident. He or she responds by becoming even less confident. Ergo, No Sale.

A mistake is made. The stakes go up. Rattled, another mistake is made, and then again, and again- until complete failure occurs…

James Bond is a hero because the tougher the world got, the cooler he got. Sir Alex Ferguson doesn’t endure the pressure of his team’s performance, he thrives on it.

If being a little behind creates self pressure that leads to stress and then errors, it’s no wonder you frequently end up a lot behind.

If the way you manage your brand inevitably leads to a ceaseless race to the bottom, it’s no wonder that you are struggling.

A small bump gets magnified and repeated until it totally overwhelms.

Customer service falls apart when mutual escalation or non-understanding sets in. Management falls apart when power struggles or miscommunications escalate.

Someone who gets better whenever he or she fails will always outperform someone who responds to failure by getting worse.

This isn’t something in your DNA, it’s something you can learn or unlearn.

The appropriate response is not to try harder, to bear down and grind it out.

The response that works is to understand the nature of the cycle and to change it from the start.

You must not fight the cycle, you must transform it into a different cycle altogether.

It’s may be a lot of work, but less work than failing.

Dr Search hopes that this post has raised your mental attitude and wishes that you enjoy the rest of the week!

Hard on the heels of the row over the bombing threat to Robin Hood airport, now China has jailed a tweeter after she allegedly made a contentious joke on Twitter.Recently Search Clinic posted Twitter row over bomb threat joke when Tweeters joined forces to support Paul Chambers, the man convicted and fined for a Twitter message threatening to blow up an airport.

Tweeters had joined forces to support Paul Chambers, the man convicted and fined for a Twitter message threatening to blow up an airport.

Now a woman in China has been sentenced to a year in a labour camp after posting a message on Twitter.

The fiance of human rights activist Cheng Jianping she that had been accused of disrupting social order, but her message had been a joke.

She had repeated a Twitter comment urging nationalist protesters to smash Japan’s pavilion at the Shanghai Expo, adding the words “Charge, angry youth”.

Twitter is banned in China. However, many people use it by circumventing internet controls.

The offending online “tweet”, which has landed 46-year-old Cheng Jianping with a year of re-education through labour, was posted in the middle of last month.

At the time, China and Japan were embroiled in their worst diplomatic row in recent years over a group of uninhabited, but disputed, islands in the East China Sea.

Groups of young Chinese had been demonstrating against Japan, publicly smashing Japanese products.

Ten days later she was detained by police “for disrupting social order” and has now been sent to the Shibali River women’s labour camp in Zhengzhou city in Henan Province.

Mr Hua said his fiance had started a hunger strike and he was trying to get her released to undergo her re-education at home.

Another Twitter user has now tweeted that Ms Cheng should apply for a place in the Guinness Book of World Records, because the five words she added to the message had cost her a year of freedom.

Her detention is a sign of how closely China’s government scrutinises comment on the internet as the authorities are fearful of the power of the internet to stir up discontent.

They are also wary of the way nationalist demonstrations like those targeting Japan have the potential to run out of control.

Gamers around Europe have queued overnight to get their hands on the Xbox Kinect, a new hands free motion control system for the Xbox 360 console.Stores opened at midnight for fans to buy the £130 controller, which Microsoft claims is a revolutionary new approach to gaming.

It uses a camera, motion sensors and a microphone to allow users to control the Xbox 360 without holding a device.

Kinect faces a battle with Nintendo’s Wii Plus and Sony’s Playstation Move.

Nintendo is launching a 3D version of its popular handheld DS console but that is not scheduled for release until March 2011.

Microsoft hopes Kinect and its stable of family friendly games will win the company a dominant share of the lucrative Christmas market.

Stephen McGill, Microsoft’s director of Xbox for the UK and Ireland, said Kinect would “revolutionise” home entertainment and communications.

“It’s about technology getting out of the way, being incredibly invisible.  So you just stand in front of the TV, or sit down, however you want to play, and you just move your body, the game responds to you. It’s incredible.

Dr Search Prinicpal Consultant at the Search Clinic remembers Microsoft saying something similar in 1995 when they launched the Windows 95 operating system.

Kinect-compatible games available in time for Christmas include Dance Central, in which players try to match moves they see on screen, as well a number of other titles suitable for children.

Kinect, which launched in the US a week ago, is now on sale in 23 European countries.

Search Clinic on Blog Catalog

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More than two thirds of people have abandoned shopping because it was taking too long to be served, a survey by a bank has found.
Barclays found 68% of people, in a survey of 2,000, had abandoned a queue at one time or another.

The places most likely to upset their customers were supermarkets and stores selling food, drink or clothes.

The main dislikes included not enough staff at the till, followed by staff taking too long chatting to customers.

Shoppers taking too long to find their cash, cards or cheque books was also an irritation, and Barclays argues “contactless” payment technology would speed things up.

“By embracing technology and installing new payments systems, such as contactless, retailers will stay ahead of the curve and limit the amount of time that people are waiting in shop queues,” said Stuart Neal at Barclaycard.

The survey revealed that long queues had also put off most people entering shops or stores, with 29% of those surveyed saying this happens to them at least once a week.

Barclays claims that a third of retailers actually move their tills to hide the queues.

Businesses need to understand that this is a lousy way of influencing how we feel about the visit to their store.

In a way it’s good to learn that it was only physical businesses that were covered by this survey- but how confident are you that your online offering is any better?

In a physical shop you can easily see people dropping your products and walking out of the door empty handed.

But when did you last look at your website stats to see how many people have left your shopping cart and product pages? And what did you actually do about it?

It’s expensive to do nothing. Just cringing behind anonymity isn’t enough.

For help building your online business- please just ask the Search Clinic now!

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.

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.