Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Why Hoping In Search Traffic Can Doom Your Business

Most reports peg search traffic at about 10% of total internet traffic. However, most businesses spend 90% of their website efforts on search engine optimization and marketing. Below I outline why this disproportionate emphasis on search traffic can be spell disaster for an online business.

If only 10% of people are searching, what are the other 90% doing? The majority are returning visitors. They may have found a site initially by search but now they simply return to the site they found. If someone is comparison shopping, they'll usually bookmark five or six sites, comparing each one with the others. There's another small percentage that are simply typing in domains. Looking for lawn furniture? I'll just type in lawnfurniture dot com. Another even smaller proportion actually type the domain name into a search box, then click on the domain in the search results.

I think as webmasters we get search engine tunnel vision when we're marketing our businesses. When someone tells me they're having trouble getting top 10 search positions, I usually ask about the other types of online marketing strategies they're engaged with. The common response is, what else can I do?

There's a lot you can do! The great thing about online marketing is that we're only limited by our creativity. Social marketing is wide open for the creative and savvy marketer. What better way to get traffic than to create word of mouth referrals. How do most offline businesses get clients? Through word of mouth. It's no different online.

How people get to your site is important. But, what you do with a visitor after they come to your site is even more important.

I would argue that our existing clients are our top marketing agents. Do you offer great service and support? You'll get referrals. Are you hard to work with, arrogant, or stingy? You won't get referrals. A happy client will tell one other person. An unhappy client will tell at least four other people.

One of the few points I think professional internet marketers get right is traffic diversification. Yes, they focus on getting free, organic search traffic but they also spend a great deal of time on list building, customer service, and word of mouth.

If your only focus is search traffic, sooner or later you'll be disappointed. My business goal is to have as many traffic streams as I can develop. I'm getting to a point where, even if my search traffic went to zero, I'd still keep plugging along.

Search engine algorithms change all the time. Time spent surfing forums to find the best ways to beat search engines is time better spent on other marketing methods. Time spent tweaking a page for keyword density is time better spent handing out business cards with your website address.

For those of you stuck in a search engine rut, step back and look at your options. What else are you doing to drive traffic to your site? There are so many more options than we think if we would just look around.
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By: Jerret Turner

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The Anz Frequent Flyer Credit Card Is A Travel Card That Makes For Cheaper And More Effective Travel

There are several credit cards in Australia that offer travel rewards that exceed just the basics. Many credit cards offer benefits such as frequent flyer miles and point based systems but these cards are often difficult to redeem points with and they can often be quite confusing in terms of transferring points from your card to your frequent flyer program. However, there is a new breed of travel based credit cards that make Australian travel much easier and cheaper. The ANZ Frequent Flyer credit card is one of those cards and it is a piece of plastic that helps travelers travel more often and with less hassle.

The Frequent Flyer card stands out from the crowd because it has several benefits that other cards dont, including: automatic credits to your Qantas frequent flier account, bonus points for certain purchases, a long interest free purchase period, online banking and a low balance transfer rate for the entire first year. The Flyer card is among the new breed of credit cards in Australia that is geared more toward the consumer then the credit card company.

Since this travel rewards card is meant for the frequent flyer, it works great if you already belong to the Qantas frequent flyer program. The more you spend on your card the more points that you get in your account. As a matter of fact, all the money that you put onto your ANZ frequent flyer card will translate to bonus points on your account automatically. You do not have to jump through hoops like other credit card companies make you do. There are no phone calls to make or emails to send because your points automatically transfer over. Plus, just by using the frequent flyer card at certain places, any Bonus Partners Australia (including Qantas), you can earn even more bonus points. Often you will earn twice the rewards from using your card on Qantas purchases.

The ANZ frequent flyer credit card makes traveling all that much easier but it offers other rewards as well. The low interest rate on purchases is another big reason so many card holders love it. You start off with 44 days of interest free purchases. This means that you can make purchases your very first day with the card and not actually pay for them in full until 44 days down the road. After this intro period is over you still get a 2.9% APR for the rest of the year.

The ANZ frequent flyer credit card is among the newer Australian credit cards that can be used for a variety of travel related purposes. These travel cards are efficient in helping frequent flyers travel more effectively.
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By: creditwisdom

Credit-Wisdom.com Provides Expert opinions and reviews to help you au credit cards. Apply for australian credit cards at credit-wisdom.com. Apply for Anz Credit Cards

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