There are literally thousands of blogs around that will tell you how best to create a website that will appear high on Google and other search engines. Everyone seems to be an expert on Search Engine Optimisation and Marketing at the moment and everyone professes to knowing the inner workings of how Google’s search algorithm is worked out.

Yeah, whatever. I might not be have all the answers, but I know what has worked for us, and I figure there are enough people out there who are still looking for a proven way of improving their result in search engines.

Here are our eight previously-secret “herbs and spices.” Ben, the web marketing guru will be talking about these in the future so for now you only get the headlines:

* Header - make sure you include keywords, not just the name of your site

* Images - name the images with something relevant to your site, not “image_01″ for instance

* Keyword Links - um, use keyword links

* Content - keep your site updated regularly with unique and relevant content

* Code Quality - make sure your site is built according to appropriate standards

* Links In - have legitimate, relevant sites link legitimately to your site. Be careful here and don’t be tricky because it could backfire

* PPC - tie it all in with a good, solid Pay Per Click program to get better results

This is what we do. I’m not saying it will definitely put you on Google’s Page 1 but it certainly won’t hurt.

The first five months of this year have seen an average price of just over USD$100 per barrel of crude oil. Some of the economist boffins are predicting prices of USD$200 a barrel by 2009. Obviously this kind of upward trend puts some nasty pressure on the pockets of consumers.

If we have a spending budget of 100% and the price of gas goes from 20% to 30% of our total spend, the effect can be calamitous. This monetary pressure has a domino effect on people and organizations who are vying for the consumer dollar, pound and peso. Typically the first goods and services to suffer in a time of financial squeeze are luxury goods and travel. Like the airlines aren’t finding it tough enough, they’re hit with the double whammy - oil prices and a cutback in consumer spending.

But what happens when consumers have made those first two cuts? What’s next? First on the agenda might/should be expenses relating to oil. Public transport patronage increases, sales of 4 cylinder cars increase, large cars are used less often, etc.

**As an aside, we’re big into Vespas around here: we love the style, the sound and the “la dolce vita” lifestyle. They’re cool, and miserly on gas to boot.**

Companies targeting consumers directly should keep in mind that the product and service offering now, more than ever, has to add value to the customers’ life. That doesn’t necessarily mean lowering prices, but it does mean that discretionary spending is down and buying for need is up. There is of course emotional purchasing, but that’s different again. Value adding doesn’t equate to giving things away for free either - consider convenience, efficiency and other non-tangible assets that you can include in your sale that adds value but doesn’t necessarily cost you much.

When we release 2Large2Email (our file sharing web app) next month you’ll see it isn’t just a way of moving files. There’s a whole lot more being offered to the customer and that will make the user experience even better. You can check it out now, but remember it’s not live just yet!

You can still succeed in a tight economy but you have to give your customers a reason to stick with you.

So many people think they need to re-invent the wheel when it comes to marketing. Always with the next big thing, the bang, the schwizzle, the bling, the blam… the yawn. Sure, there are some pretty exciting new ways of doing things but often people put all this time and effort into fantastic new marketing gimmicks only for them to fail because they’re too complicated, or too stupid.

But I stumbled across a new promotion from Australia’s largest ISP and phone company just now, in a business journal. In a bid to increase its share of the broadband pie, Telstra has copied one of its most successful phone promos and transplanted it straight into the mobile broadband realm. Where customers can get a “free” phone handset if they sign up to a cell plan, they can now get a free laptop with a contracted mobile broadband plan. Uhh, it’s pretty simple!

The customer has to win, of course, when these plans are rolled out, otherwise they won’t succeed. But let’s face it, the concept has worked brilliantly for years with phones so why not laptops? It’s something customers are both familiar and comfortable with, and after 36 months they can trade in and get something new.

I hate to say it, but a big ISP has impressed me (albeit with their pragmatism and common-sense).

comScore, Inc., has released its monthly comScore qSearch analysis of the U.S. search marketplace. April 2008 saw Americans conduct 10.6 billion core searches, with Google Sites continuing to gain market share as the leading search engine. Google increased its search share to 61.6% in April, up from 59.8% in March. Yahoo! Sites ranked second with 20.4 percent, followed by Microsoft Sites (9.1 percent), AOL LLC (4.6 percent), and Ask Network (4.3 percent). With these figures, the importance of ranking high in Google search results is even more apparent. Websites need to be optimized correctly to make the most of free clicks in the organic search results of search engines and in particular Google. Make sure that the keywords for your industry are used in your website in places such as your URL, Page Title and in particular in the content of your site. In the coming months I will discuss in further detail how to make sure you are doing everything you can to help yourself rank higher in Google and other search engines.

Ever needed a quick way to submit a form through ajax? 
Jquery plus a nice little plug-in can help. 

Download jquery and the plugin

Options

Event

And then simply replace the formId and outPutDiv and your form will be submitted via ajax.
So easy. No unnecessary page reloading needed. 

http://www.malsup.com/jquery/form/#code-samples

Some other available options

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