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Charly Leetham Articles

Written by: Charly Leetham

Google Panda and Your Search Engine Rankings - Click To Read Article
It has been a long held belief of mine that if you want your site to rank well and consistently in the search engines, then you need to be providing good quality information (content) to your visitors and a great user experience.I’m also an advocate of using articles on other sites as part of your marketing strategy…. But lately I’ve been hearing a lot about Google’s Panda update and what that means to this style of strategy.

Facebook - Privacy - Images - And You - Click To Read Article
Facebook is great for connecting – but be careful how much you share! When you upload content to facebook, you may be giving others an unlimited license to use your content in any way they want.

Shopping Cart Independant Affiliate Programs - Click To Read Article
There are several ways to provide an affiliate program, that are independent to a shopping cart. Of course, there are some shopping carts that also provide Affiliate Programs – but it’s not always the case. Here are some ways that you can implement an Affiliate Program, almost regardless of the shopping cart you use!

Which Comes First - Website Design or Logo? - Click To Read Article
What is the best way forward – buy a WordPress Theme and then get your logo and website header designed to use in the theme or do this the other way around? Can most logos and headers be integrated into WordPress Themes or should they be specially created to “fit” a specific theme?

Business Continuity Planning - What Happens If Something Happens To You? - Click To Read Article
Many small business owners end up being the ‘centre’ of their business. All their passwords and accesses are locked away in their head or their personal password list and if something goes wrong, there is no-one who can step in and make sure the business remains operational. Have you considered how your processes will cope if you, as the ‘centre’ of your business, will operate if you are incommunicado or just incapable of ‘being there’? Seriously – this is a big thing. Recently, I was affected by the need to make a certain change to one of my systems and the ONLY person who could authorise the change was not available – and NO ONE knew when they would be available. My only option at that point was to transfer my business to another supplier that could allow the change to occur….

2 Ways To Create Fresh Content For Your Website - Click To Read Article
If you want your website to rank well in the Search Engines, the thing to remember is that content is king and Google likes fresh content, but it also looks for depth of content… How often do you add new content to site? Do you have a schedule for producing new content? If not, it’s now time to get that schedule in place and start improving your website rankings. Stuck on what to write to about? Here’s some headline ideas that might get the creative juices flowing:

The Power Is In The Follow Up - Click To Read Article
Many small businesses forget that, after a sale, their customers want to know that the sale is not the end of the relationship. Follow up and follow through will ensure that most a small business will retain customers and encourage ongoing purchasers. I remember reading somewhere, that keeping an existing customer costs 7 times less than gaining a new customer. I'm not certain about the metric, but the principle is correct. Follow up is more than just a promise on paper. If you sell a physical item that requires maintenance, your customers should have the confidence that your business will be there to provide it. If your business provides direct, or personal, service - take the opportunities presented when providing that service to ensure the customer is happy and whether they have other needs your business can fulfill.

Small Business: The Power Of Press Releases - Click To Read Article
A Press Release can really add a level of oomph to your marketing message. The idea of a Press Release is to provide media outlets with information regarding your business, a new product or service or changes within the business, in a succinct and engaging manner, so that the media outlet will ‘pick up' your story and profile your business or product. The main idea of the Press Release is to capture the attention of a journalist so that they will run your story - pure and simple. It is a device intended to create publicity for your business. One of the best things about Press Releases is that is a virtually free resource for promoting your business.

3 Top Tools For Online Businesses - Click To Read Article
Throughout 2010, I've spent a lot of time working on process, procedures and collaborating with a geographically diverse team. It goes without saying that there have been challenges along the way, but the challenges were simply opportunities to hone, review, improve or get rid of processes that didn't work. I thought I would share 3 Online Business tools that I've used this year to build my business and support team. These aren't in any particular order - I really couldn't rate one more highly than then other!

Using Awards For Better Publicity - Click To Read Article
Does your business strategy includes using awards for better publicity? Do you use the process of applying awards to check and refine your business strategy? In terms of publicity, being nominated for an award can be just as helpful as winning the award. Industry specific awards are a gauge of your company performance to your customers and the business community in general. Your business will benefit from finding the right awards and making an effort to include these in your plans for growth.

Small Business: Payment Processors and Shopping Carts - Click To Read Article
I'm often asked to provide advice on what type of shopping cart / payment processor a business should implement. The answer is not quite so simple and in this article, I've tried to outline the processes and technologies that go together to deliver a payment and affiliate solution and offer some choices. It can get very confusing trying to marry up and connect Payment Processors, Shopping Carts and payment buttons. This article is designed to clarify the difference between the three and what type of solution may best suit your business requirements.

Why Social Network Profiles Are Important - Click To Read Article
Social Network Marketing can be viewed as branding a business and associating it with keywords on Social networks. Blogs, forums, microblogging are all effective ways to share information with your clients or customers. Smart business owners will leverage these networks and efforts by using keywords and structuring their message appropriately so that search engines and search functions on other websites will direct traffic (and targeted prospects) to the business website without additional advertising expense. It is for this reason, that the profile you create on each of the social networking sites that your business interacts on becomes important. These profiles effectively become the internet version of a business card and should be created to be compact, informative and keyword rich.

Change The Product - Surviving The Change In Market - Click To Read Article
How many business owners often find themselves in a similar position - business isn't doing so well, staff costs are crippling and ‘turning down' the business seems to be the only viable solution. Many years ago, I was in a sales training course and one question we were asked was why the rail services lost market share to the airlines. The answer that was suggested was that the Rail Companies didn't understand the business they were in - they thought they were in rail transport, but really they were in people and cargo transport.... A simple shift in the thinking could make such a big difference.

Small Business: The Importance Of Lead Capture - Click To Read Article
If you're putting together your website, you've probably come across the term "lead capture page" and wondered what on earth it's all about. A Lead Capture Page is often called a squeeze page and it performs a vital function. This page grabs a visitor's attention and provides fast, easily-understood benefits to encourage that person to subscribe to your email marketing list. Over time your lead capture page will provide a prospect list that you can use to market your business. This page must be designed to attract and appeal to your Target Audience. This is not only includes the graphics and layout of the page, it also includes the words and language used... Your Lead Capture page is critical - if you don't hook the reader within a few seconds, they'll move on and they general won't come back.

Online Marketing Strategies: Bonuses, Discounts, Coupons & Special Orders - Click To Read Article
There are any number of marketing strategies that can help you improve your sell-through ratio - regardless of whether you are selling online or offline. These include using bonuses, discounts, coupons and/or special orders. Each of these approaches has an advantage, depending on the manner in which they're used. In fact, you can utilize a number of these in conjunction with each other... There are some schools of thought that say that providing your clients and potential buyers with bonuses is better than offering a discount. I certainly full into this camp - I believe that offering a bonus is preferable to offering a discount! Let's take a look at why. e A bonus is meant to attract people to complimentary (tie in) products or services, as well as encouraging the buy-through.

Small Business: Tracking, Measuring and Testing For Success - Click To Read Article
When engaging on a new campaign, (email marketing, social media, banner ad, pay per click), a business needs to track and measure your results to work out what works, what doesn't and what provides the best Return on Investment (ROI)? If a business isn't tracking and measuring its results, it is wasting time, energy and money. Many business owners are challenged by knowing how to track their marketing campaigns - let alone being able to evaluate them. There are a number of ways to track marketing campaigns online that will provide sufficient statistics to the business owner to make informed decisions and by combining the methods discussed below will provide the most effective tracking for a business.

Small Business: Launching Your Own Product.... - Click To Read Article
Launching a new product in any market (online or offline) can be daunting process and launching a new product online, can be even more daunting for a newcomer. However, if you apply the following tips, you will find that it is not impossible to do and will set you well on the way to success.

Small Business: Free Blogs For Better Traffic - Click To Read Article
Blogs are effective for traffic generation and profiling, simply because they get updated. When you add a post to a blog (an article, if you like) - most blogging engines will automatically tell the blogging directories about the new content (including Google). These automatic updates make it a lot easier (and eventually quicker) for your content to be indexed (appear in the Search Engines) and found by people searching for your keywords.

Small Business: 2 HOT Tips For Blogging On A Free Blog For Great Traffice - Click To Read Article
A question that is often asked is about posting articles and how do to avoid ‘duplicate content penalties'. In fact, the discussion was "I'm just exhausted by the number of different articles I have to write". There still appears to be a lot of conjecture and misunderstanding about when and where to use articles, so here are "2 HOT Tips For Blogging On A Free Blog".

User Experience: The Key To Good Online Business Design - Click To Read Article
Whenever I am asked to create a website for a client, I always start by asking - ‘What experience do you want your customers / visitors to have?' It's not unusual when you're beginning to plan your website to find yourself feeling uncertain what steps to take for success. By far the biggest task at hand is defining not only your business objectives for the site, but also defining the user experience. You need to figure out how to guide your reader from the opening page to the point where you can make a sale or some other decision action.

Virtual Teams: Success For Small Business - Click To Read Article
When you create a virtual team, it becomes incredibly important to have clearly defined deliverables and timeframes. It is equally as important to ensure that your communications are clear. It's hard enough when people are in the same office to get all of these things working toegether, let alone when staff are in different time zones. Add to this, that you may have clients half way around the world, the whole team dynamic becomes more complicated. Developing a Virtual Team means that YOU, as the business owner, will be the Team Leader. As the Team Leader, you will be responsible for providing the guidelines, specific deliverables, deadlines and work parameters.

Websites, Pop Ups & Visitor Response - Click To Read Article
There is definitive research that indicates that using a pop-up significantly increases your visitor responses to offers. This will allow you to build an on-going relationship with your visitor and turn them into a life long customer.

Solopreneurs: What Makes You A Solopreneur - Click To Read Article
Solopreneurs (solo-entrepreneurs) are highly motivated people who take an idea and create business opportunities from them. Without a doubt, it takes work and knowledge to make that personal commitment profitable and successful solopreneurs start by asking the right questions.

Small Business Success: Virtual Teams - Click To Read Article
Working with virtual teams for small business has both advantages and drawbacks. There's no question that the virtual world of workers has grown tremendously. As it grows, it opens up numerous opportunities for entrepreneurs to find uniquely qualified talent anywhere in the world. For the solopreneur or micro-business, having a virtual team can be most rewarding. You only have so many hours in the day and when your business grows, you need to have the ability to expand quickly to meet that demand and keep your clients happy. A virtual team can alleviate a lot of stress and actually help grow your business when it's put together and executed mindfully.

Small Business: Creating Life Long Customers - Click To Read Article
When sales and marketing people talk about the sales funnel, they are really talking about the number of prospects they have that MAY convert to sales. This is a pretty common term in these circles and there is a fairly well defined process of qualification that moves suspects to prospects to qualified buyers to lifelong customers. It's important for all business owners to understand this process - even if they aren't involved in the sales process directly - as they will be able to better support their sales professionals in acquiring new business.

Small Business: Building Your Coaching Business - Click To Read Article
When you first pictured starting a coaching program you probably thought it would be easy and you would quickly create an income however, it is highly like that you have discovered very quickly that coaching is a business and needs to be treated like a business. Just like any business, a coaching business is not a get-rich-quick scheme; it takes hard work to put together and keep together, and takes constant marketing attention. Perhaps you have some clients you are coaching right now and you are seeing a steady stream of income. However, you need to keep in mind that eventually these clients will move on and you will need new ones lined up and ready to go. It is absolutely essential that you continue to market your coaching business now, while you are busy with current customers, and not wait until they are done.

Online Suppliers: Contracts, Digital Signing and more - Click To Read Article
As a small business, working with Freelancers or a Virtual Team often means finding a way to contract with an online supplier, and setting up a way to ensure that you receive the contracted services. This protection potentially means setting up an escrow account, and requesting milestone payments. When you're new to the world of virtual business all of these concepts can make your head spin. How do you find suppliers you can trust, and even then how do you protect yourself, your clients and be fair to your suppliers contractually and financially?

Just What Is Online Business? - Click To Read Article
Just what is online business? The term itself conjures all sorts of thoughts for different people. For some, the term online business means a new venture that delivers business entirely online whilst for others, an online business is an extension of their current business with the Internet being another channel to market. Regardless of whether your online business is an extension of your existing business or a startup venture, you will require an understanding of the laws governing electronic commerce, exporting, taxes, digital rights and copyright, websites and online security.

Email Marketing: The Importance To Small Business - Click To Read Article
An offline business should consider email marketing as one of the key foundations for its marketing campaign. Many business owners are wary of using email to market to prospects due to the SPAM legislations that exist and the perception that email marketing may leave with prospects. These are, indeed, very valid concerns however, by approaching email marketing in the correct way, it is possible to increase business and improve customer retention. This article provides valuable tips on how an offline business can create an email distribution list to begin with and ensure that the email marketing campaign creates the right perception with the customers.

Building teams for Small Businesses and Solopreneurs - Click To Read Article
Building teams for Small Businesses and Solopreneurs can seem like a daunting task. Every businessperson wants that "winning" team of individuals, and each team member wants to feel important to the whole. Therefore, team building teams Small Businesses and Solopreneurs isn't just about finding great potential hires - it's about finding great hires that can also WORK together effectively. To build a successful and effective team, each person on the team must have a healthy level of commitment, an understanding and respect of / for your business culture and a grasp of your vision for your business. If your team is local, having face to face meetings where discussions can take place, helps make that three-fold foundation a reality.

Backlinking for Online Business Success - Click To Read Article
I'm sure you've heard about the importance of link building to your online business but if you're a little confused about it, that's o.k - you're not alone! In this article, I share my advice and experience with successful link building. If there is one thing that most Search Engine Optimization gurus agree on, it's the following: 1. Backlinks are a MUST to improve the rankings of your site in the Search Engine Results 2. You don't need hundreds, or even thousands, of backlinks to your site though 3. You need highly targetted, high quality, well placed links back to your site. Read on for some great tips on how you can link to your site and meet these objectives.

Affiliate Management Programs For Small Business - Click To Read Article
Have you often wondered which Affiliate Program you should choose? I'm often asked to help small business owners choose the most appropriate affiliate program to help others promote their products and services. Additionally, I'm often asked about which program integrates with Wishlist Member (membership plugin for Wordpress). To me, it comes down to functionality and price and there isn't one correct answer - it all depends.... Here are some thoughts to consider when choosing an affiliate program.

Top Tips For Creating An Online Presence - Click To Read Article
Marketing your business online will give your company a competitive edge and wider access to your target audience - without spending a ton of ineffective advertising dollars. Today, most people will search the Internet first, even when they want to find a nearby shop or restaurant - so it's important that local businesses increase their online marketing to reach these people.

Develop The Relationship With Your List - Be A Better Communicator - Click To Read Article
Communicating successfully with your list, no matter the size, is the key doing business online. Managing subscriptions and unsubscriptions, checking bounce rates, being able to monitor open and click through rates are also as important.

3 Great Reasons To Use RSS For Your Website Visitors - Click To Read Article
RSS is a great invention and with the evolution of technology most websites now have RSS as a means of delivering content to visitors. RSS stands for Real Simple Syndication. However, what it really does is to convert our beautifully formatted webpages to text so that the Search Engine robots (spiders) can index and list our websites. It is important to know that not all websites have a RSS feed (that's the terminology tech types like to use). Typically, static websites - those sites that have the content hard coded into the each page - don't have RSS enabled. Dynamic sites like WordPress do and, in general, the 'feed' is enabled automatically. If your not sure why you should provide a RSS Feed to your website visitors, here are three great Reasons why:

Things To Consider When Creating Your Online Presence - Click To Read Article
Creating your online presence is important in todays world of Internet connectivity. Web presence, or online presence, is a broad term that includes websites, networking sites and other mentions of your business where potential customers can find you easily. Most online searches are brief, so your online presence needs to take advantage of the short time a person might look at your information. It is extremely important to be precise and clear about the benefits of your business and what your business is capable of doing for a customer. In all online web presences you should include a link to your website and clear contact information in the form of email and phone. This will allow people who prefer different forms of communication to reach you quickly.

Why Choosing The Right Membership Model Is Critical To Business Success - Click To Read Article
When creating a membership website, choosing the right membership model is one of the keys to its success. If you don't choose the right model you could be creating a lot of extra work for yourself or, worse, you may not deliver what your members expect. Neither of these situations are desirable, and taking the time to decide exactly what you want to deliver with your membership site and how you want to deliver it, is essential.

Is There Really A Difference Between Advertising And Marketing? - Click To Read Article
Many business people often confuse advertising with marketing - however, advertising is only a small part of the activity called Marketing. Marketing encompasses the complete conceptualization of a product or service right from the research, the design, creation and refinement of the product, advertising, sales and delivery. Each of these phases operate independantly, but collectively, to achieve success in selling the product or service and enhancing the companys reputation. By understanding the difference between Marketing and Advertising, Business Owners will be able to create targetted, effective sales campaigns and save time and money as well...

Hosting Your Internet Presence - What Every Business Should Consider - Click To Read Article
Your online presence can be as effective as your bricks and mortar store front. If you don't have a bricks and mortar store front, then your online presence may be the best means for your customers to get in touch with you. A poor hosting provider may mean that your online presence is intermittent, slow or just not available for a percentage of the time. This would be like having a closed store front when your customers came to visit or not answering the phone - doesn't leave a good impression for the customer base. A good provider ensures that your online presence has high availability and great response times - leaving a much better impression for your customers. This article is designed to help business owners decipher some of the technical jargon and work out what questions should be asked when choosing a hosting provider.

Do You Know Your Target Audience? - Click To Read Article
Do You Know Your Target Audience? Who is it that your product or service can help today? So many business people fail to understand this concept and, as a result, they are not as successful as they could be - in fact many fail. If we aren't specific in the definition of our Target Audience, we will find that our advertising and the information we provide is broad and general - and rarely provides outstanding results. Visitors to our websites don't find the answers they are looking for and they don't request more information or make a purchase This article looks at how to define your Target Audience and why you really need to.

10 Easy Ways To Build A Qualified Prospect List Online - Click To Read Article
While you can certainly build a business on the Internet without having a list, a list will provide you with a lot more flexibility and options. There are benefits to having a list... This article shares the importance of list building to a business - and provides 10 easy ways to create and build a list of qualified prospects.

Sales: Tips for Cold Calling - Click To Read Article
Wwhen you Cold Call - whilst your goal is to create life-long customers, the purpose of a Cold Call is to take Suspects to Qualified Prospects. What I mean, is that when you Cold Call on someone, you SUSPECT they could use what you're selling, but you're not certain. After you've called on them and discussed what your product can do, you will know if the Suspect is really a fit for your product or not. Once you have a qualified prospect, you then focus on converting them to a customer, and then to a life long customer. How do you qualify a Suspect to a Prospect? You need to know who your target customer is - I discuss this in Finding Your Niche Part 1: Listen To Your Potential Clients - only when you know the clients who will best suit your business.

Just how does Analysis Paralysis or avoidance issues affect you in your business? - Click To Read Article
Just how does Analysis Paralysis or avoidance issues affect you in your business? These two issues are something that occur in many businesses - you can get so involved with analyzing everything, that you forget you are in business to achieve something - like making money and helping your clients. Of course, you could just be avoiding doing something - and that has the same impact as analysis paralysis.

Charlys' Top 3 Tips For Article Marketing - Click To Read Article
A question that I'm often asked is about posting articles and how do to avoid ‘duplicate content penalties'. In fact, the discussion was "I'm just exhausted by the number of different articles I have to write". There still appears to be a lot of conjecture and misunderstanding about when and where to use articles, so here are "Charlys 3 Top Tips For Article Marketing".

Can You Create A Business With Children Under Foot? - Click To Read Article
There is no doubt about it, starting a business is a daunting thing - but starting a business when you have toddlers in hand in even more daunting. The sheer idea of trying to break your time down into manageable chunks so that you can look after your little ones during the day and create a successful business is mind boggling for many - but without a doubt, Moms (and Dads) all over the world are doing it. There was also the challenge of having the kids ‘want’ attention when we were needed in the business - we had to learn to work together. Here are some of the things we learned.

3 Amazing Tips To Create A Great Sales Letter - Click To Read Article
Your sales letter or sales page is an important part of your marketing campaign. Your sales letter is really the words and images that combine to tell a story to your prospect or site visitor about what you are offering. In very rare cases, a poor or mediocre sales letter will suffice - but only if your product or service is so compelling that people just have to have it. Often, however, it is the sales letter that persuades your reader - this makes an excellent sales letter a must in the scheme of things. Writing a sales letter doesn't have to be hard or expensive - and when you follow these five tips, you will be amazed at how easy it really is.

Blogging: How To Ramp Up Your Content For Maximum Benefit - Click To Read Article
Content Is King - you've probably heard it said a million times and if content is king, are you constantly adding new content to your blog? If you aren't, maybe it's simply because you don't have a plan to follow or you're bored doing the same old thing. If you really want to generate targetted traffic to your site, it's time to kick your blog content up a notch, with more and different types of content. Have you considered the different types of content that can be added to your blog, and how you can use it to your benefit?

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