Complete Online Marketing Course – Paul Sheals Rocketfish

I have been working hard for the past 14 months to put together a complete range of books and videos as part of an Online Marketing Course.  The original idea was to write a book and publish it (which still might happen) however I felt that as the subject matter was Online Marketing it seemed right to try and promote and deliver everything Online.  For the past 11 years I have created a successful Online Marketing Company and we currently look after over 1000 small business clients and during that period I have read hundreds of books, articles, white papers and blogs on the subject. One of the biggest frustration I had (particularly in the early days) was that they were always written as though I was a technical expert and most of the stuff was around the theory of SEO or the theory of Social Media with now real practical help and advice.  With this in mind I decided to write modules that are designed specifically for the small business owner or entrepreneur.  Each module is easy to follow has supporting videos and top quality hints and tips that will make a difference to the leads and sales you generate from your web site.  The books and videos come with supporting articles and ideas on my blog at Paul Sheals Rocketfish as well as a full supporting website.

Know About Opt in and Opt out Email Lists

The right way of going about e-mail marketing lies in seeking specific permission from the target audience or recipients. If the target recipient gives permission that the e-mail marketing message may be sent, then the corresponding message would lose the tag of ‘spam’ tied around it.

The real art of e-mail marketing lies in the action of sending e-mails to willing recipients. A list of such recipients has to be built prior to sending the e-mails. There are two kinds of e-mail list namely opt in list and opt out list.

E-mail marketing becomes opt in if the recipient specifically tells the marketer that has earlier sought the permission of the target recipient to send the specific e-mails. Only such e-mails have to be sent that are specifically given permission to be sent. Once the marketer deviates, then he would be dubbed as a spammer.

In the case of opt out email marketing, e-mails are sent blindly to the target recipients one time with the option of their removal from the list. The marketer should respect the recipients’ opt out requests and act accordingly. If he continues to send e-mails to opt out recipients, then he would be placed in the category of dreaded spammers.

A Guide to Writing E-books

A Guide to the Virtual World of E-books

E-books are online books, guides and resources that are sold online then downloaded by the buyer either from an email attachment, link or sometimes sent to them via a disc. A quick scan on the internet will reveal hundreds of topics such as wedding planning, DIY, gardening, holiday guides and even children’s coloring books. As the start up costs and overheads are virtually non existent Ebooks tend to be sold for a fraction of what those in an actual bookstore will be.

Why do people write E-books?

The answer is simple, E-books provide people the opportunity to work at home in their own time, by their own hours. They can write about pretty much anything they feel is both enjoyable to them and will appeal to potential customers.

To start an Ebook costs nothing but time and dedication. There are no financial investments needed, no stock lists and in most cases no shipping costs, simply thorough research into the proposed topic of the Ebook.

How do I start?

The first place to start is to determine an area of expertise, some thing that you are knowledgeable of and feel would appeal to others enough for them to buy it. Research your chosen topic thoroughly, this includes the actual content you will write, ensuring that what you are writing is accurate, ensuring it is interesting and it’s unique enough to stand out from other E-books that may be of a similar topic.

Once you have done this you can start to write your E-book. The amount of pages it contains depends of the subject some may have as little as 10 pages whereas others may have 100. Those that contain less however are typically sold for a lower price to those that contain a higher number of informative and relative pages. Regardless of the amount of pages your Ebook will contain it needs to be written well and not rushed. It is also beneficial to use images where needed, however you should ensure that you have permission to use these images, and the content included is not copied from another source.

Where can I sell E-books?

Many people tend to sell their E-books on online auction sites. Prices can be fixed or varied via auctions. If you do choose to sell your Ebook this way you should factor in fees that specific sites may have, this for example may be as little as 10p if you are selling your product for £1 so be sure to check these prior.

Additionally using Internet forums that are relevant to the topic of your Ebook are a great way to sell your product without any fees.

View one of my training videos on Understanding Long Tail Keywords

Paul Sheals Rocketfish – Nostalgia a thing of the past!!

The first commercial computer was sold in 1951 – called the UNIVAC 1 (which stands for Universal Automatic Computer) it was sold to the U.S. Census Bureau.  The computer was an incredible 8 feet high, 7.5 feet wide and 14.5 feet long.  It had a massive amount of tubes and it dimmed lights all over Washington when it cranked out information.  46 of these computers were ultimately built at a cost of $1 million each.

Having worked at the cutting edge of search engine marketing for over ten years we decided to rebrand our web site as part of our ten year anniversary.  We have always prided ourselves on pushing the boundaries and daring to be different and our new site site is no exception.  Unlike anything else in our industry our new branding is very retro and based on 1950’s style magazines.  With this in mind I will be posting more 1940’s and 1950’s snippets over the coming months.

Have a look we love it!!    Rocketfish Ltd

Paul Sheals

Paul Sheals – Long Tail Phrases

Keyword selection is essential when it comes to search engine marketing.  Most businesses tend to initially opt for the most generic within their industry i.e. “Cars Edinburgh” might be the first choice for any car dealer in Edinburgh.  On the face of it this is a perfect phrase, in the month of July 1.5 million people searched using this phrase in Google alone.  However for most car dealers this phrase would be useless.  As with all sales and marketing activity it is often the quality of the lead or enquiry as opposed to the quantity.  If we consider the potential customer who is searching using the phrase “Cars Edinburgh” they are probably at the very early stages of their research and decision making.  If they new exactly what they were looking for they would have searched for something like “BMW for sale Edinburgh” or “Cheap BMW 520 Edinburgh”.

Cars Edinburgh will bring lots of visitors to your web site but many will not be ready to buy now, many will be looking for something that you do not sell and so you will have to employ lots more people to handle lots of enquiries that will be useless.  More specific (Long Tail Phrases) will generate fewer enquiries but much more qualified, closer to the buying decision and often much more profitable.

However buyer beware Long Tail Phrases have often been used by less scrupulous entry level search engine optimisation companies as easy pickings when it comes to dealing with small businesses.

If you select the correct Long Tail Phrases they are often the most profitable for your business however consider the following phrases:

“Cars Edinburgh” – 1.5 million searches last month – generic phrase – very competitive

“Cars for Sale Edinburgh” – 3600 searches last month – Long Tail Phrase – moderately                                                        competitive

“Cheap Cars Edinburgh” – Zero searches last month – Long Tail Phrase – Non Competitive

Cars Edinburgh – good phrase with lots of volume however it will cost a lot of money to optimise their will be a lot of wastage and will take a lot of staff to manage and filter enquiries.

Cheap Cars Edinburgh – on the face of it a perfect phrase however no one searched for this at all last month and so it is very easy for a search engine optimisation company to sell to a small business takes little effort to put them on the top of the search engines but again it is useless as no one is searching for it and therefore will not deliver any enquiries.

Cars for Sale Edinburgh – This is an ideal phrase – good search volumes (3600 last month) Long Tail so more targeted still fairly competitive so will need some expertise and link building to get to the top of the search engines however it will be relatively inexpensive in comparison to the results generated.  If you select 15-20 phrases of this nature you will have significant volumes to your web site, the quality of the enquiry will be much better and closer to the buying decision and will be relatively inexpensive to optimise.

Employing a Search Engine Marketing Company is essential for most small businesses when it comes to implementing an effective SEO campaign but ensure they show you exactly how many people are searching for each phrase each month.  This information is available to all for free on Google and with software like Wordtracker.

Paul Sheals

Training in Japan – Paul Sheals Rocketfish

One of my ex-team mates pointed me to this video on You Tube. It shows a typical training session in Japan and in particular Yoshida preparing for a tournament and finally training with a young Inoue. Having trained in Japan many times and in particularly at this dojo it brought back many memories, mostly fond memories but also memories of how tough the Randori is out there. you will notice that Yoshida is wearing a blue (sometimes red) sash which means he cannot rest for the whole of the session. Sessions last for typically 2.5 to 3 hours with the first half hour being warm up and uchikomi and the rest being randori. The Japanese train like this every day and each university has a session like this which is mandatory for most students. The session carries typically 150 – 200 dan grades most of which are beatable however any travelling team tends to be given the blue or red sash so we would spend two hours fighting without rest and for the last half hour the national team would come onto the mat to give us a good hiding.It does however demonstrate why the Japanese produce great players, in the UK and Europe we tend to have 15-20 dan grades on a mat at best and that would be once or twice a week maximum. The Japanese have 200 dan grades every day to train with. In the UK and Europe we focus on fitness and strength training off the mat with weights, running, circuits etc Where as the Japanese get all the fitness and strength training they need whilst Judo training with live opponents.The competition for places and medals within Japan is much stronger than in most other countries and so the team that does get selected tends to be head and shoulders better than most other countries.

The world of course has now caught up with Japan but as a result of more sophisticated training methods rather than weight of practice partners, if the Japanese could learn from countries like Holland with their natural resource would once again become unbeatable.

Yoshida Video Paul Sheals Rocketfish

Paul Sheals Rocketfish – Judo World Circuit

It is fantastic to see Sky broadcasting  Judo on a regular basis.  It is even more fantastic to see the quality of the broadcast and the quality of the Judo.  They are clearly following the World Circuit and until now any Judo shown on television has been the European or World Championships and has been pretty poor quality.  The producers of these programmes historically almost seemed to making the programmes in the interest of diversity rather than trying to show Judo in its best light and producing a magnificent show for the viewer.  This time however they have teamed up with Fighting films and are now creating programmes for the sake of the programme itself.

Two weeks ago there was the Dusseldorf Grand Prix which was great, good Judo well put together and on Tuesday the 8th there was the Rio Grand Prix which was even better.

In recent years I have been critical of the quality of Judo at European and World level with Russian style wrestling seemingly overtaking pure Judo.  I have never knocked Russian style Judo for its excitement and skill but I am a purist when it comes to Judo and prefer traditional techniques and rules.  It also seemed that scoring had become really weak and techniques that would have scored a simple Yuko ten years ago were scoring Ippon now.

The Rio Grand Prix however had some of the best Judo I have seen for many, many years and perhaps surprisingly some of the finest Judo coming from Sobirov of Uzbekistan.  Not surprising that these guys can throw but some beautiful pure Judo and multiple right and left hand techniques.  The Japanese fighter at this weight was pretty spectacular, the Mongolian at 66kg and even through to Elco Van Der Geest at -100kg (fantastic Ippon in the final against the Japanese fighter).

The Brazilians look as strong as ever and they have clearly elevated Judo to a major sport in their country.  With the new coverage and a bit of time lets hope we can do the same for Judo in the UK.

Great job boys.

Paul Sheals Rocketfish

Paul Sheals – On Page Optimisation 1

There are two factors needed to get your web site to the top of the major search engines i.e. Google, Yahoo and Bing.  The first is “On Page Factors” the second is “Link Popularity” this being the most important factor as far as Google is concerned however both factors are essential.  In this post we are going to address some basic “On Page Factors” and in particular what Google see’s when it looks at your web site.  For the readers who are new to search engine optimisation Google (and all search engines) use software (spiders or robots) to read web pages.  They treat each web page within your web site as separate and stand alone and so it is important to optimise all your web pages and not simply your home page.  The best way to imagine the spiders judging your web site is like a credit score when you go for a loan from your bank.  You get so many points for having a mortgage, so many points for being a house owner for three and half years or more, so many points for having a credit card, so many points for paying it on time etc.  If you get enough points to hit the banks criteria you get your loan if you don’t its off to the loan shark!!

Search engines work in the same way, the spiders are programmed to look for certain criteria on your web page and if you get enough points you feature in the search engines results.  If you can imagine that there are 100 points available when the spider visits your web page the more competitive your industry the points you need to feature higher in the listings.  Therefore if you are in Finance, Travel, Insurance, Cars etc you need to get 90 plus to feature well however if you sell “Used Road Sweepers” you might only need 40 out of 100.

The same goes for key phrases so you could be in a competitive industry i.e. cars and if you want to be at the top of the search engines for “New Cars” you will need to get 90 out of 100 however if you were to pick the phrase “New Car for Sale in Birmingham” you might only need 60 out of 100.  This is a trick used by many “Entry Level Search Engine Optimisation Companies” and we will address this more in the section marked “Selecting your Keywords”.

First we need to see what the search engine spiders see.  If you go to Google and type your exact web site address in the search bar you will see that your home page and other pages relating to your web site should appear in the listings.

You will notice next to you home page listing it will say “cached” at the side of the description.  If you click on this you will see the snap shot of the page Google has stored in its index (you will see in the box at the top of the page it also tells you the last time Google looked at your page).

To the right and side of this box (at the top of the page) you will say it says “text only version” if you click on this you will see what google’s spiders see.  This page appears completely different than the actual home page for many web site owners because search engine spiders struggle to read graphics or images, flash, java script etc.

Once you have clicked on “Text only Version” take a good luck at what is left. The spiders pay attention to what you start the page off with, what you end the page with and how many times you mention relevant keywords in between.  If the spiders cannot make sense of the page you will struggle to feature in their search results.  Common mistakes are not mentioning relevant keywords at all i.e. too much talk about your business and history and too little about what you do.  Other mistakes include mentioning to many keywords i.e. confusing the spider by stuffing your page with everything you do.

You should try and optimise each page within your web site with three to four targeted and relevant key phrases or words and ensure the content on the page is relevant to the keywords you are using. Visit my instructional video Beginners SEO Guide

More posts will follow regarding “On Page Optimisation”

Visit some of my other blogs  http://www.aeonity.com/paulsheals

Paul Sheals – Web Site Overview

I have been helping small to medium sized businesses reach the top of the major search engines for over ten years now.  Initially clients simply look to be at the top of Google however my focus is always on how do we generate more leads, sales, bookings, memberships etc.  Of course being at the top of Google is important however for the vast majority of small businesses it is not enough.

It never ceases to amaze me how clients who are exceptional offline marketeers seem to think online marketing is different?  There are traditional, proven, tried and tested methods when it comes to offline marketing and these principles are exactly the same online.

Over the coming weeks and months I will be posting advice and help on reaching the top of Google but before I get into this you should have a good hard look at your web site.  My belief is that there are four basic stages to online success:

Traffic – Top of the search engines using natural optimisation would be the main source here

Functional Web Site – When a visitor lands on your web site do they get what they were looking for? Do they get to the right page quickly? Is your message or offer clear?  Can they navigate the site easily?  Where appropriate have you taken quality pictures of your products and or facilities?

Data Capture – Have you made it easy for your clients to buy?  If they don’t buy have you made it easy for them to leave their details?  Have you made it easy for them to ask for more information? (having a little contact us at the top or bottom of your site which opens a long web response form or even worse Outlook Express is no where near good enough).  Your data capture needs to be bold, varied, easy to use and if you have a telephone number on the site don’t hide it make it stand out.

Lead Management Software – Once you have gathered information from a potential client via your web site how do you handle this effectively?  It is essential you can respond to your opportunities by email or text, filter your leads for targeted campaigns, prospect system to diaries reminders and call backs.

Be completely brutal when it comes to looking at your site and imagine you were a new customer – would you want to buy? Is it easy for you to do so? Do you want to leave your details? Have you been given a reason to leave your details?  Are you giving too much information to your clients do they need to ask for anything else?

Web Designers are typically not marketeers and so their focus tends to be on the look of the site and the latest technology rather than focusing on whether the site actually does enough business.

Visit my instructional video Understanding Link Popularity

I will address each of the four factors over the coming posts and please remember if you find any of the advice I give useful please consider making a donation to the young Olympic Judo Athletes at Camberley.  I will post details of how to do this soon.

Visit my other blogs http://paulsheals.blogspot.com

Paul Sheals

I have recently started blogging which is surprising given that I have a Search Engine Marketing Business.  Over the past ten years I have been building a company that I can be proud of and as anyone who has built their own business knows it takes every ounce of your energy and so blogging hasn’t been a high priority.  My aim with this blog is to try something different.  I am a retired British Judo Team member and during my career had many highs and lows however it is a period of my life that I could never replace and the joy it brought me is something I wish every young person could experience.   Recently I was approached by a good friend who was looking to raise money for a group of extremely talented young Judo Players who are all trying to earn a place at the 2012 Olympics in London.  The players all train at Camberley which has been producing top quality Judo Players for the past two decades with little or no funding.  The current crop of players are exceptionally talented and some of the team are a certainty for 2012 (barring injury of course) and some still have some work to do.  Unlike some of the really high-profile sports Judo is truly amateur and embodies everything that is good about the Olympic ideal.  Some of the team do benefit from a small amount of lottery funding but the vast majority survive on the help of parents, friends and coaches who work for free and often use the salary to help support the youngsters.

Over the past ten years i have become an expert in Search Engine Marketing – particularly for small to medium sized businesses and I would like to try to use this knowledge to help the youngsters at Camberley.  It is my aim to give away Search Engine Marketing secrets (information that would normally cost small businesses thousands of pounds) all I ask in return is that if any business out there finds it useful and helps them they would consider helping the team at Camberley.  This help can be in the form of monetary support (even very small amounts will help) or practical help if money is tight.  Practical help could include free accommodation (Hotel Owners), help with transport (fix the mini bus, petrol, tyres etc), Equipment (training gear, tracksuits, running shoes, gym equipment etc), Medical (tape, vitamins / supplements, etc), Flights, Train Tickets and so on.

Any business that helps the team with money or equipment will appear on their web site, on their transport, tracksuits, Judo Kits, t-shirts and you can display on your web site the fact that you are assisting and sponsoring young Olympic athletes.

For any company that offers some significant help the Olympic players will be available to visit your company for talks, input their training diaries on your intranet and you will be invited to their annual dinners and have your own table.  Just think you could be a sponsor of an Olympic Gold Medalist!!

Keep coming back for useful help on search engine marketing or follow me on twitter and lets hope we can help each other and get some talented athletes to the Olympics.