From the category archives:

Resources

Fancy a free website optimisation report?

by Dave on September 3, 2008

Recently I bought a copy of iBusiness Promoter (IBP), a tool to help with website optimisation. Now, before all you hardcore SEO’s start jumping on your high horses about the value of this type of software, let me point out a few things:

  1. I am not a professional SEO. I hire people to handle SEO for me on my clients’ sites.
  2. I have used this software to increase my website traffic substantially in the past 4 weeks.
  3. IBP helped me spot a simple, yet major flaw in my online marketing strategy.
  4. The recommendations IBP made to change my site are the exact same recommendations my outsourced SEO guys made, so either the software is awfully clever, or SEO is dead-easy and the pro’s have been lying to us all these years.

The fact is that IBP is a great piece of software for small businesses trying to succeed online. One of the features I like the most is the software’s ability to generate a ‘Top 10 optimisation report’, which is a fairly lengthy (up to 60 pages) roadmap to help you get a top 10 ranking on Google.

The report simplifies exactly what needs to be done to a site, allowing website owners to focus on the important stuff. If you’ve been struggling to find your feet online, you might want to try Axandra’s iBusiness Promoter. It’s only available for Windows, so Mac users will have to find a PC to run it on.

Get a free Top 10 Optimisation report

If you’re a bit hesitant to buy the software without giving it a try, I’m giving away a Top 10 Optimisation report to 5 lucky website owners. Simply fill in the form on this page and I’ll let you know if you’ve won. Entries close on Monday the 8th.

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Where to find free images online

by Dave on July 4, 2008

I’ve had a couple of people asking where I find the images I use as headers for most of my blog posts, so I thought I’d blast off a quick Friday post to explain.

I generally use the following resources for free and royalty-free images:

  1. Stock.xchng - free and royalty free photos.
  2. Flickr - using the creative commons attribution license. I’d suggest you read Skellie’s explanation here before you go swiping images from Flickr.
  3. iStockphoto - in my opinion, the best online resource for cheap royalty-free images.

If I can’t find what I want on these 3 sites, I generally create the image from scratch or snap off a couple of photos. For client projects where someone less cheap than me is paying the bill, I’ll do a Google Image search and buy the image from any of hundreds of other stock image suppliers.

And finally, when all else fails (like today), I’ll just ‘forget’ to add an image all together…

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All aboard - motivate your staff before you lose everything

by Dave on January 11, 2008

If you employ staff, take a wander around the building and watch them from a distance. Chances are, some or all of those people aren’t enjoying their jobs, feel there’s something lacking in your leadership, or (as with one of my current clients) feel that the company is on the verge of failure. Not bankruptcy, failure.

It’s not easy to change the mindset of people like this, but you owe it to them to try. And if you believe that poorly motivated staff have no effect on your marketing systems, you’re wrong.

Take a look at these resources to help improve your workplace and learn to help your people, before you lose them, and the customers they help bring through your door.

Motivating your staff in a time of change

The biggest motivation killer

Rochambeau the front line

The motivated survive

Staying motivated at work

How to keep employees motivated and happy

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