That's right! MailChimp are so confident you'll love their Email Marketing service they offer a completely free service - you don't even have to give credit card details. You will be limited to 1,000 names on your mailing list and a maximum of 6,000 emails per month.  More details here

To be honest, when you're first setting up a list, this will be more than adequate while you get to grips with creating effective newsletters. I love the way they have loads of brilliant "how to" guides too. I...

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Carradice growth continues unabated. The original British bike bag company is now the brand of choice for all retro-loving cycle commuters.

The key trend identified at Cycle Show 2009 was the need for smart cyclist commuter bags. Their current range included several bags aimed at that sector, with the emphasis on functionality. So the last year was spent designing and road-testing prototypes. The finished result was launched at Cycle Show 2010 in October to fantastic acclaim. David and the tea...

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People don't read websites - well, not when they first land on them.

They scan the page to see if it feels like it contains the information they're looking for.

And they scan the page in an "F"-shaped pattern - generally, two horizontal stripes and a left-hand vertical. Take a look at these examples from web-usability guru Jakob Neilsen's eyetracker studies:


Note: the hotter the colour, the more the viewers looked at that area.

So, what does this mean for your web page design?

1. Hit the reader ...

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The godfather of Google everything, Perry Marshall, sent me this vital information in his latest newsletter.

It tells you everything you need to know about improving your Adwords Campaign without taking a serious dip in performance during change-over:

After hundreds of Adwords account consultations, I've often seen that a guy can have an account that's a real mess, but it's still working, still profitable. Great improvements can and must be made, BUT must be done without screwing up what was...

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I offer Business Solutions

What does that tell you? Not much!

You're either: 
screaming at your screen - "just tell me what you actually do!!"
or
you've switched off and moved on...

and if you use the word "solutions" that's exactly how your reader is reacting

Act NOW

Scan all your copywriting - website, brochure, leaflets, everything

Be precise in your wording to make it easy for your reader understand how you can help them.

End of rant.
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How much are you spending on Google Adwords?

Probably far too much for the business it brings in. There are 2 key steps to maximise your Return on Investment:

1 Improve your PPC Quality Score
2 Improve your "Clicks to Customer" Conversion Rate

The common factor in both these steps is the Landing Page your adword leads to.

Did you know your competitors could be paying less per click than you but still get a higher position on search pages?

That's down to Quality Score.

Google rates you on how releva...
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To get a good search engine ranking you need to build links to your website. How can press releases help? 

 Press Releases are great for Search Engine optimisation. If you want to rank highly on the search engines for your industry you need to get good quality on topic web pages linking to your website. It used to be that any link pointing to your website would do, but now search engines look more at the quality. The press release is basically an article about your industry that you can make l...

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Have you heard about Survey Monkey? It's a *free* survey build and manage website. Take a look.

As you'd expect, only very basic surveys are free, but it's a good way to get some initial feedback for a new product/service you're planning to offer or get customer satisfaction ratings for your business.

I put a mini survey together for this website - please take a look:

Click Here to take survey

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Many web marketing specialists claim they can get you to the top of Google - how do they do that? 
 
The best web marketers have been established for several years and have networks of directory sites which all link into a sizeable web that the spiders find very attractive. Hence they can guarantee that your website will get found. But you will have to pay to get a slice of their intellectual property.

One of my favourite web marketing specialists is livetech.co.uk - check out the natural ra...

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When you email a newsletter, are you sure it actually gets seen by your recipients? Did you know that up to 46% of all permission-based emails are blocked by over-zealous ISP's spam filters.

So even when people subscribe to your newsletter - it may not even reach them. Most filters spot when the same message is being pushed to many of their customers, but also the language you use can have an adverse effect on whether your message is allowed or blocked.

I came across this website which will ...

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How can you be sure you're using the best keywords when you submit your website to the search engines? 

You know you need to find keywords that lots of people are searching on, but the only way to give yourself an advantage on search engines is to find keywords that are not being heavily used by your competitors.

Luckily Google (where would we be without them!) have a tool that allows you to check out these two factors. Check it out here

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Money paid to a consultant on web marketing is money well spent? Not when you're paying them to do what you can do for free.
 

Why all the mystery that surrounds submitting your website to the search engines. Is it a complicated procedure? How much will you be charged by a consultant?

Don't pay a penny - it's dead easy to do it yourself. Here's the google sumbission page http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl

Go to it!

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You may think that if your product is one customers will want to experience before buying (ie pick up...