SEO report / website audit example report

Another nice template courtesy of the friendly people at StartShit HQ – a purpose-built SEO report template. Please check out the READ THIS at the end before you use this, and be cool. These things don’t create themselves.

So don’t be a lazy bastard; customise it a lil – make it your own, know what I’m sayin’? Hope the technical diagram parts didn’t get lost in translation. But then again, if you have any idea what you’re doing you should be able to figure it out:).

Download your free seo-report-example.

What you want to do, versus what you have to do

Via StopDoingNothing.com:

Does this resonate?

Let’s talk about this later..

Wiser online ad spending with Google Ad Planner (mini review)

DIY online media planning is getting easier, thanks to our favourite search giant. Google Ad Planner is a free media planning tools that  helps website owners identify suitable target audiences – by site or by demographic grouping.

Scaling your campaign’s reach whilst keeping it relevant to your target market or audience is a challenge media planners struggle with on a daily basis; this tool helps cut the daunt factor down to manageable proportions.

Let’s not reinvent the wheel .

I’m going to play with it and get back to you.

Legal risk – are you allowed to be doing what you’re doing?

This may be worth checking up on before you start marketing shit in the financial services space. There is something called the Financial Services Board (FSB), and as it turns out they regulate shit around here.

(And yah, you’re on it, I’m thinking Snoop and Nate Dawg as well.)

So either way. The gist of the matter is that only authorised (ergo “accredited”) financial services providers are allowed to dispense “financial advice”. If you’re not it, you need to be come it (lots of work), or investigate becoming a “representative” of an authorised financial services provider – that, or an employee.
I’ve not quite gotten to the bottom of this just yet, but more on this topic to follow…

Success: Right place, right time?

Being at the right place at the right time generally means either being fucking lucky, or spending a lot of time in the right place… but kind of like at the wrong time.

Good investment returns isn’t about timing the market well, but rather about how much time you’ve spent invested in the market. If you’re actively involved in any industry, chances are a hell of a lot better that you’ll be able to spot the opportunities when they arise than when you’re not.

I’ve got several “failed projects” to my name – either because I got into a particular game once the wave was already breaking, or because it was just a wee bit ill conceived, or it’s time’s just not arrived yet. Judging by the recent traffic growth figures my  most recent marketing project is going to be the exception to the rule.

Whatever the case may be, these less-than-outperforming projects served very well as schooling. The trick is to be doing something with a fair amount of consistency.

Instant Life Insurance launch campaign scheduled for December 2009

During a recent interview with Fred from Ideate Instant Life Insurance’s Jan Kotze announced that their revolutionary online startup company, Instant Life, will be kicking off their launch campaign in December 2009.

Featuring an innovative online platform, this direct insurer has managed to cut brokers, call centres and a host of adminstrative inefficiencies out of the loop to bring South Africans instant life cover at up to 50% less than that offered by traditional life insurers.

Everything – from sign-up to claim – happens online, and gauging by consumer comments the product has been very well received thus far. Although this instant life insurance product has been marketed primarily via direct e-marketing, they’ve also been promoting it via blogs and content partnerships.

Watch this space for more information, or sit back and watch this entrepreneurial business take the life cover market by storm.

 

Sample cold-mailing sales letter: How to sell a populated website

So I tested the waters with the following cold-call sales letter a while ago when I wanted to flog a top-ranking website I own. The site ranks for a wide range of monetisable keywords, and I figured that the industry gorillas would see the worth of dominating the online space. On the whole they did. (Pity I’ve not gotten my price though yet.)

Dear Big Dick and Fellow Head Honchos

[WEBSITE A] is the web presence of a [GENERIC CATEGORY - SERVICE PROVIDER] specialising in [X, Y and Z]. Although only a few months old, it is ranking very competitively for a broad range of generic industry keywords and phrases (please see attached ranking report). Although the site has not been in official operation for more than a few weeks,  it has already delivered one targeted business lead from a governmental entity. Since then, a number of optimisation steps have been implemented and the site’s rankings are climbing rapidly.

I am able to deliver on its value proposition by means of the writing, editing, consulting and translation services cited, and have been doing so in my private capacity since late [DATE]. I have been strategically partnered with a Cape Town based [BUSINESS] in delivering full-service  solutions to leading [INDUSTRY] groups and a broad range other clients for the past [TWO HUNDRED OR SO] years.

As my [300th] birthday looms I am faced with a decision either to pursue this full-time as an entrepreneur, or focus on growing my career. The latter decision would involve selling this website; the former stepping right into the space currently dominated by companies such as yourselves. I am aware that your organisation is presently far more capable of maximising revenue from this site than I am.

I would therefore like to offer you the opportunity to purchase the site domain, content, IP and brand rights.

By doing so, you will:

• Give your brand top online exposure and position it as the industry leader across all its service specialisations.
• Acquire a well distilled value proposition in terms of the [X and Y] sides of the business.
• Gain highly targeted and monetisable business leads online, both in South Africa and internationally.
• Muscle a potential competitor out of the online space.

Please feel to contact me should you be interested in discussing this. If I have not received a response from you in this regard by close of business tomorrow, however, I will be approaching other organisations with this proposal.

Sincerely

StartShit’s Author, bitches.

About StartShit

This contained some background on what I do, and why I rock at building sites that rank, and why I am a fucking ninja at everything else I do.

Feel free to tweak it to suit your selling designs!

Web affiliate marketing: Why the model makes sense

When it comes to growning your business, the scaleability of your business model will determine how fast you can grow, and how sustainable that growth curve will be.

For example: If you want to open a mini-movers business in Cape Town, the amount of business you can do will be limited by the number of vehicles you own and the amount of muscle tigers you’ve got on your books. Both these sets of infrastructure will be governed by how much capital you have, and if you’re like most start-up owners out there, capital will be a bit on the sparse side.

So before you can grow, you’ll have to drop serious cash on vehicles, and it should take you years to pay each off, by which time they start breaking and your plan for world dominion starts looking a lil anemic. If you’re greedy like me, you should be thinking “scaleability“. Your potential growth potential is directly proportionate to what you can spend on infrastructure and overheads.

How can you handle virtually limitless amounts of business on the same infrastructure? (Hint: This may not involve a bakkie). Now stay with me.

Web business models scale like mofos.

Seeing as business lead acquisition and referral can automatically happen at all hours and without your supervision, you effectively gain a hell of a lot more capacity to do business. Once you’ve completed the base investment – time, money and development costs – you should have a solid platform* for handling as much organic search traffic as you can raise and a hell of a lot more, in which case you simply upgrade your  hosting package.

Depending on the industry you’re targeting, the input-output ratio should now start looking  quite rosy. At that point, production and/or service replication should become a very secondary consideration. At that point, revenue becomes directly related to online visibility. And if you’re even mildly SEO-savvy, it’s like being the  80kg bully on a 40kg-average playground.

(*Your business conversion rate is a key consideration, and I’d suggest getting an expert to give you some pointers on click-through rate improvement, direct response objectives, call to arms, funneling, etc. )

Every saturated market has a niche opportunity

Think about service in Cape Town – in restaurants, specifically. And I say it with gentleness and compassion, but these bastards just. don’t. geddit.

And they don’t, because they don’t need to. If you’re running a cheap and cheerful joint on Long Street, for example, chances are that a large percentage of your clientele will be once-off, wide-eyed, Africa-struck occidental tourists. Who will always be threatening to come back to Africa and go to that restaurant again, once their insurers have settled all the theft-related claims after the trip.

But effectively, it doesn’t matter whether anyone ever returns.

Service Shmervis

So if your service is sterling or if it’s shit, it doesn’t matter; there’ll always be a tsunami of ignorant out-of-towners who’ll roll in and find the lack of customer orientation quaint. Well I have news for you, fuckers. There’s a factor called “local clientele”, and they’re gonna be out to end you if the service is kak. Aks me, I’m one of those people – yes, them kind.

What happened to training a waitron before putting him or her on a shop floor? What happened to product (read: “menu, ingredients and specials”) knowledge? What happened to meet, greet and seat? What happened to alert and aware, and the customer is always right?

I did not order a fucking bovine burglar

How in fuck’s name can two different Cuban-style restaurants in Cape Town  serve me beef burgers when I explicitly ordered the chicken varietal within the space of two weeks? How can their waiters just assume I wanted the beef option if they didn’t bother to listen when i said CHICKEN?!

How many send-backs do you need to get before you’ll make your waiters aware that they need to double-check?

Breathe. Now here’s the great news.When you’re selling something where the product and supporting service experience are virtually indistinguishable, average product quality and excellent service trumps brilliant quality and shite service.

If you want to, you can go open another Cuban restaurant in Cape Town. You’d put the competition straight out of business – provide that your fares are fair and you train your staff to be service oriented.

It’d be like taking candy from a baby.

Rant closed.

Online forex trading – another part-time revenue stream?

So until fairly recently yours truly didn’t know shit about the concept of online forex trading. As it turns out, it seems to be a fairly good option for generating passive income online.

Some light Google sleuthing revealed that it has become a fairly credible and established industry, with several companies providing web-based currency trading platforms and tools to help you maximise your earnings. Many forex (FX) trading tools also feature stop-loss measures to ensure that you don’t lose more than you’ve deposited.

What exactly is online forex trading?

Online forex trading tools allow you to take advantage of market fluctuations  in various currency rates.

Forex trading platforms such as Easy-Forex  allow you to gain instant access to the global financial markets and start generating with the push of a button. Their forex trading tools provide real-time  electronic access to the world markets via a purpose built and user-friendly online trading interface. This means that you can now trade at prices previously only available to professionals and institutions, effectively increasing your earnings potential beyond that offered by many currency based investment options. Opening an Easy-Forex account gives you instant access to the global currency trading market. There are many trading strategies, each taking advantage of different global market conditions. Easy-Forex helps you determine which currencies to trade, and which strategies to use.

How to choose an online forex trading platform

There are many vital considerations when deciding which online forex trading platform to use. Propert training is vital. Y0u will want to start small and trade bigger amounts as your level of skill increases – so low minimum deposit thresholds are useful. No-downloads-required FX platforms get you trading faster than software based ones.  Quick registration and hassle-free installation is a non-negotiable. The level of service and customer support is another key consideration.

But what about risk management?

Platform such as Easy-Forex feature customisable limits and stop-loss tools that help you maximise your profits whilst limiting your risks.

To find out more and sign up for a free account, click here.