Ben Bradshaw, Owner, Internet Marketing Pioneer

Internet marketing pioneer, Ben Bradshaw, will share his secrets to generating the most income from internet marketing strategies such as Google AdWords and Search Engine Optimisation, including how to increase your quality leads that will actually buy from you. Ben will also show you how to boost your traffic using social media as a channel for advertising, and you will discover the 7 SEO mistakes small business owners continually make and how to avoid them.

About Ben Bradshaw:

Ben Bradshaw is one of Australia’s online marketing and Google Adwords pioneers. He is the Director of Australia’s largest Australian owned AdWords Management Company, and one of Australia’s most sought after speakers and trainers on the subject. Ben is no stranger to success – not only is he now a self-made millionaire, author, one of Smart Company’s Hot 30 Under 30 among other prestigious awards, but he also holds the Guinness World Record for the fastest escape from a straight jacket!

Ben’s entrepreneurial approach and knowledge on the subject has resulted in his business growing by a staggering 300% since its inception and it is now Australia’s largest Australian owned AdWords Management Company. Just after it started, SponsoredLinX was approached to become one of only a very select few authorised Google resellers. Ben is now regularly quoted on internet marketing on Sky Business, in business publications like Smart Company and Dynamic Business and in major metropolitan newspapers.

What you’ll learn:

• How you can achieve the best results from your Google advertising with a low budget.
• The right and wrong keywords to choose for your ad.
• How to get more quality clicks on your ad that will lead to sales.
• How to place higher in both the organic search results and also in Google AdWords – increasing search results.

How to Promote Yourself at This Event:

Brochure or Product Sample Distribution: WNA Members who bring a door prize to this event are entitled to place their promotional flyers or product samples onto the seats for all the guests in attendance. Read details about how to participate.

FREE Expo Tables: Whilst making an online booking WNA Members have the option of securing a Free Expo Table. If the option doesn’t appear it indicates all spaces have been secured. Read details about how to participate.

Menu:

On Arrival:Pre-luncheon drink followed by cash bar.

Main: Beef tenderloin (250g) marinated with fresh thyme, pinot noir, cracked pepper and juniper berries pan fried in light olive oil with potato gratin, roasted purple eggplant, red capsicum, green zucchini surrounded by pan juices.

Alternative Main (Vegetarian): Mediterranean vegetable ragout served with fresh basil tomatoes, braised silver beet, asparagus, fresh tomato and herb confit.

Dessert: Trio of petit fours – baked berry, passion fruit, and e’clair served with almond biscotti and dark chocolate mousse.

Note:Meal will be served with fresh dinner rolls and followed by coffee, tea and chocolates.

Special Diets:
Special dietary requirements are to be indicated in the comments section of your booking form. Due to venue policy we are required to give 3 working days notice prior to this event for final numbers attending and any special diets that are to be served on the day. Sorry, but any special diet bookings received after this time cannot be guaranteed. To discuss further contact us onT: 1800 052 476.

Tickets:

Members$75.00  |  Visitors$125.00

Read more:http://www.womensnetwork.com.au/networking-events.cfm?event_id=320&page_id=15#ixzz1kvG1CxAn

Siri, which is a new app on the iPhone 4S, is set to quickly gain momentum this year as users discover the convenience of an app that acts entirely on voice command.

The great thing about Siri is you talk to it just like you would a normal person. So, you might say ‘please phone John and tell him I am running late’, or ‘where is the nearest petrol station?’  The phone then answers the request the way a personal assistant would.

Because Siri searches the web using location services to give users information and the best options based on the request and location, I feel that an app like Siri rising in popularity has the potential to remould internet marketing and the way businesses use it today.

My instinct is that businesses will need to ensure they are correctly listed on location services and on review sites such as Yelp, as these are the sources that Siri will be searching for the responses to user commands.

Siri also utilises online ‘answer-engine’ Wolfram Alpha that answers factual queries directly by computing the answer from structured data, rather than providing a list of documents or web pages that might contain the answer as a search engine might.

This indicates to me that businesses who have been putting a lot of energy into SEO and Google AdWords over the past few years may need to look at these other sources that Siri uses so they don’t miss out on potential clients who may find them in this manner. 

 2012 is also likely to be the year that mobile websites become standard.

Most businesses don’t have one because they don’t realise that mobile websites may well be their most important marketing tool, due to their extremely high conversion rate. When people search for information on a business on their mobile, they are likely to be out of their home or office and in a position to do business immediately, rather than just browsing.

Mobile websites are simplified versions of a website that contain the necessary information in a format suitable for a mobile phone, eliminating the need for scrolling to get a complete page view.

This article explores exactly why all business owners need to make internet marketing an important and measureable component of their overall business strategy.

http://www.dynamicbusiness.com.au/sales-and-marketing/adding-online-marketing-to-your-business-plan-12012012.html

 If you ran a bakery that produced 50 different cakes, pastries and breads each day, how would you know which ones were in demand if you didn’t measure how many of each you produced each morning and how many of those you were left with at the end of the day? Let’s assume you wanted to introduce a new type of bun that you came across while holidaying overseas. How would you know how many to bake each day if you had no idea if it would meet with the approval of your regular customers or not? You could be wasting time and money baking a huge batch based only on the fact that you liked it when on holiday. The only way you would know is if you were to test the bun in your market place.

Testing and measuring is not just for products in the retail environment. You should use it for everything in your business; your business name, your positioning, your product line-up, your advertising, your keywords, your culture, your image … even your newsletters, blogs and websites.

 How would you then go about measuring the effectiveness of an Internet ad online? You’d track everything with Google Analytics. Now here’s the interesting thing. Many businesses get this far and then sit back. They do nothing with the information they have received regarding their ad campaign.

The important thing is not to HAVE the information but to TAKE ACTION on it. You have to do something with it. You must understand that if you do nothing, nothing is going to happen. It’s only by doing something that you are going to get closer to the results you are after. It’s only by taking action that is based on solid market intelligence, feedback and research that you will be able to zero in on the outcomes you aim for.

 It’s one thing to take action based on what you THINK your target market wants or what keywords they will be searching for; it’s quite another to base your actions on what you KNOW your target market wants and what keywords they actually respond to.

 These days it is remarkably easy to get all the statistics you need about your online marketing activities. Google Analytics is a powerful Web analytics tool that gives you all the information you are ever likely to need about how people find your site, how they navigate through it and how they become customers. Once you know this, you can then set about improving or fine tuning your content so that your results improve.

 You will receive many reports that will enable you to see whether you are getting better results to keywords in different cities or regions. Histograms tell you who your most loyal visitors are and who your least loyal ones are, the percentage of new visits as well as the percentage of visitors who bounce. I particularly like the tutorial called Conversion University, which details visitor loyalty, average page views, time on site and visitor recency.

 The other thing I like about Google Analytics is that it is free. All you need to do is to sign up and start collecting data.

 If you can keep this in mind, first and foremost, here are some good pointers when creating your web content.

I would suggest you first start by getting a feel for exactly what type of words users looking for your business use when they search.

For example, if you are a plumber, it would be useful to know if your potential customers search for, plumbing or plumber. You can do this by making use of a magnificent tool called Google Insights for Search. Log on to http://www.google.com/insights/search/#  and enter the first keyword you want to research (plumbing). You should select what to search (Web search), then choose your country, state and time period you want the search to cover. You can also choose which categories you want to search or you could select all categories. Hit enter and you’ll see a graph showing you exactly the number of times plumber has been requested as a key word in a search. Then do the same for the word plumber and compare the two.

 Apart from the obvious, you’ll be able to see industry trends. For instance, whether the industry you’re interested in increasing in search results or not. You’ll also be able to view predictions for the period ahead. This is all very powerful stuff that wasn’t available until recently.

 When writing content for your website, understand that it must be all about your keywords. Your content must be dense with keywords. But there is a skill to this as you also need to ensure that it isn’t overly complex, as this will put readers off and turn them away. It must remain useful, informative and interesting, without smacking of heavy-handed marketing. That’s not what most people want to see. They want useful or relevant information and not hype.

 One of the secrets to writing good web content is to keep it short and to the point. You must resist the temptation to write in essay style. Dot points work well, so too does lots of white space. Short and sharp is the name of the game because most people don’t want to spend hours looking at a Web page –  they want to dive in, get the information they want and then move on, ideally to another part of your website but possibly to another site altogether if they haven’t found what they are looking for.

Have you noticed that you tend to read in a different way online to other forms of media? If so, you’re not alone. Most people seem to have Attention Deficit Disorder on the Internet. They tend to scan more than read, and this is particularly more so with women. This is something you need to take into account when writing your content. You need to provide bite-sized pieces of information rather than every chapter and verse. Understand that at best you’ll only have around 5 seconds to impress your reader enough for them to arrive at a decision. It is during this 5 seconds that they are viewing your page that they’ll typically decide whether to click back or carry on looking at your site.  That’s really not a lot of time.

 You also need to factor into your understanding that approximately 50% of visitors to your site will bounce. This means they will check in, have a quick look around and bounce back out and onto the next page that their search turned up. We refer to this as the bounce rate.

 Once again, remember that the writing on your website needs to appeal to your readers, get your message across and keep them there long enough to buy from you.

Interestingly, many of these products were very popular with users, including Google Wave. Wave is a browser-base tool that mixes e-mail, with Instant Messaging and real-time online collaboration elements. At the time of its launch in 2009, Google Wave was described as ‘one of the most ambitious services that Google or anyone else has cooked up.’

I think the reasoning behind this particular product’s discontinuation is that Google Plus has provided a solution for many of Wave’s current user functionality demands.  And while the other products canned hadn’t really taken off as hoped or predicted, I am not sure that right now is the time to make this announcement, with facebook continuing to grow in popularity, despite Google Plus carving new ground within the Google framework.

However, overall I agree with Google’s reasoning for shutting down the other products – that users were searching for more integrated ways in which to work.  These days, people don’t have the time to manage their online presence across multiple platforms – they want their answers and tools in one convenient place for a more economical user experience.

Google are already leading the way in this regard with the development of Google Plus, and therefore eliminating the need for stand-alone products, such as the now discontinued Google Bookmarks List - a service which allowed users to share bookmarks with friends.

On the other hand, I feel some gaps existed for Google advertisers to find the most effective keywords for their business, and my company, SponsoredLinX, were days away from launching a tool, to be used in conjunction with Google, offering this functionality.

To conclude, while Google’s discontinuation of a number of its products may seem like a negative move for the company and industry, it is in fact a strategic move to bring a lot of its functionality under one operating platform. How this is perceived by users will all depend on how successfully Google manages to convey this message.

To give you a small taste of what is to come, here is an edited extract from the book.

By the way, feel free to leave a comment here if you would like to purchase one of the very first copies of the book, and I will make sure to put you on the list to receive a limited signed copy.

One of the most important business strategies is testing and measuring. It’s only by testing and measuring everything that you know what works and what doesn’t. But the sad thing is that it’s also one thing that so few businesses actually do. And it is even more disappointing when they neglect to do it for their online activity, since it is free and so easy to do.

 If you ran a bakery that produced 50 different cakes, pastries and breads each day, how would you know which ones were in demand if you didn’t measure how many of each you produced each morning and how many of those you were left with at the end of the day? Let’s assume you wanted to introduce a new type of bun that you came across while holidaying overseas. How would you know how many to bake each day if you had no idea if it would meet with the approval of your regular customers or not? You could be wasting time and money baking a huge batch based only on the fact that you liked it when on holiday. The only way you would know is if you were to test the bun in your market place.

Testing and measuring is not just for products in the retail environment. You should use it for everything in your business; your business name, your positioning, your product line-up, your advertising, your keywords, your culture, your image … even your newsletters, blogs and websites.

How would you then go about measuring the effectiveness of an Internet ad online? You’d track everything with Google Analytics. Now here’s the interesting thing. Many businesses get this far and then sit back. They do nothing with the information they have received regarding their ad campaign.

 The important thing is not to HAVE the information but to TAKE ACTION on it. You have to do something with it. You must understand that if you do nothing, nothing is going to happen. It’s only by doing something that you are going to get closer to the results you are after. It’s only by taking action that is based on solid market intelligence, feedback and research that you will be able to zero in on the outcomes you aim for.

 It’s one thing to take action based on what you THINK your target market wants or what keywords they will be searching for; it’s quite another to base your actions on what you KNOW your target market wants and what keywords they actually respond to.

 These days it is remarkably easy to get all the statistics you need about your online marketing activities. Google Analytics is a powerful Web analytics tool that gives you all the information you are ever likely to need about how people find your site, how they navigate through it and how they become customers. Once you know this, you can then set about improving or fine tuning your content so that your results improve.

 You will receive many reports that will enable you to see whether you are getting better results to keywords in different cities or regions. Histograms tell you who your most loyal visitors are and who your least loyal ones are, the percentage of new visits as well as the percentage of visitors who bounce. I particularly like the tutorial called Conversion University, which details visitor loyalty, average page views, time on site and visitor recency.

 The other thing I like about Google Analytics is that it is free. All you need to do is to sign up and start collecting data.

This is the newest generation of the Google Adwords Authorized Reseller Program (AAR), focused on bringing a suite of Google advertising solutions to small and medium-sized businesses through strategic partners, like SponsoredLinX.

As a premier partner, we are a member of an exclusive group that meets stringent qualification criteria, including a proven market track record and the ability to deliver exceptional end-to-end service to advertisers. 

We are honoured that Google values our strategic partnership, and that Google has committed to continue to expand their partnership support to enable our team to market, sell, set up, and manage high performing AdWords campaigns.

As a result of SponsoredLinX’s membership to this program, clients of the Brisbane-based business can expect enhanced service due to access to the latest Google technologies, greater support from their account managers covering technical, marketing, account and product areas directly from Google.

We are looking forward to passing on the benefits of this enhanced support program directly to our clients. At the end of the day, we are committed to achieving results for our clients’ internet marketing campaigns by attracting and converting more traffic for them.

This move is another important step toward our goal of cementing our place as Australia’s leading internet marketing service providers set for global expansion.

It has been a big week – as our invitation from Google came literally days before we were announced as part of the prestigious Queensland Business Review and Premium Partner PwC’s 2011 Queensland 400.

 What does this mean for businesses? Well, they will need to make sure they have the facilities to sell their products and services accepting payment from this application. Those who are planning to market themselves via Google Offers should make sure customers can pay with Google Wallet. Instead of printing out a coupon or barcode, completed offers are put into a user’s Google Wallet, where they are automatically saved and redeemable.   

With group buying and daily deals sites changing the way we shop and do business, where is this all heading? What is the future of internet marketing and how is this going to change the way we shop, socialise and live?

My prediction for five to ten years from now is that individuals will receive news of offers and deals via their phone. So, not only will they receive daily notifications of new offers according to what they have selected as their interests, but as they physically reach into the vicinity of businesses with deals, these will also “pop” up on their phone. So, say for example you happen to walk down a particular street in a neighbourhood, you will receive offers such as “20% off the lunch menu” and “2 for 1 coffee” sent automatically from shops and businesses on that street or in your immediate vicinity. You could then choose to walk into the shop and take advantage of the offer then and there, paying with your Google Wallet, or invite friends to take advantage of it as well and buy as a group to take advantage of an even better deal.

 I am sure there will be vigorous debate about whether and how your privacy is affected, as your whereabouts will become public knowledge to not only your friends, but local businesses who want to sell to you. In this digital age, it is no secret that there is not much that unknown about you, and facebook already has access to a range of information that is very saleable and also very attractive to businesses wanting to market to a quality and attentive audience. There are so many implications of this new technology, and much to be said about it all. Many companies will be put out of business, as their products and services are made redundant, while others will be provided with opportunities that will make them a fortune.  As an internet marketing pioneer, I will continue to stay at the forefront of the latest innovations, and monitor how they change the way businesses interact with and sell to their consumer groups.

Businesses will need to increasingly look to the online environment for marketing opportunities, bearing in mind the enormous social networks many of us have, and the income potential that this represents. How can you tap into these networks, how can you encourage your customers to share your products and services with their friends to encourage referral business, what offers can you make that they cannot refuse?  How can you communicate with them, know when they are nearby and keep them coming back? These are the questions these new social media and internet marketing avenues will raise that you will need to answer to be successful in business.

Many facebook users think that by giving a false birthdate in profile information adds an element of safety but this isn’t actually correct. Typically, what these hackers do is, once they have gained access to your profile page, they monitor posts and other information with the goal of finding out the password to your email account. 

If you have supplied your email address, all they need to do is work out different combinations of names and numbers to discover your password. People tend to use children’s or pet’s names as passwords. Then once they are in, they can search the emails in your inbox for banking information and passwords to other private accounts.

Facebook users were most vulnerable when they accepted friend requests from people they do not know personally,such as an attractve girl. Many of us have fallen into this trap to boost our “friend numbers” and to appear popular. There is definitely peer pressure to have a lot of Facebook friends, and this is often part of the strategy for business owners who use Facebook for marketing purposes.

An especially great risk is to children with Facebook accounts, simply because of information they give on their pages without being aware of what happens to it, or who is looking at it. Children tend to be especially naïve and trusting, because they feel protected by the screen in front of them. This is unfortunately not the case, and it is a known fact that there are predators who target children and teens on Facebook.

A major flaw with Facebook in its current format is the lack of a function that enables a child to have a profile page attached to the page of a parent. This function would enable parents to have access to their child’s page and be able to monitor what they put on there, as well as limiting settings to protect their child.