Fraser Internet Ltd

Check your domain name today!

If your web designer has registered your domain name for you, make sure it is in your name and not the name of the web design company. Many web designers register the domain under their company name, which can cause you lots of problems if they ever disappear and you want to move, sell or update your domain. Check today to see what name is on the registration, and if it is not you, get it changed as soon as possible!

Don't advertise your website if it doesn't exist!

I returned home today to find an Indian takeaway menu stuck in the letterbox. I'm partial to the odd kebab or korma so I flicked through the brochure to see what was on offer. A huge selection of tempting dishes were detailed and I noticed the shop web address on the front cover. I thought great, maybe I can even order something online, so I typed the address into my browser - and got a holding page for Lycos Web Hosting. Not exactly a good advert for the business. Adding to the unprofessional experience was the email address printed on the menu, a difficult to remember free Googlemail address.

Get a decent email address

This is a cheap and  easy way to make your business look much more professional, yet so many people still fail to do it. I'm talking about those business owners who stick a free Hotmail or Googlemail address on their business cards and other marketing materials. Why have tonysmith974546@hotmail.com on your business card when for a few pounds you could have office@tonysmith.com or something similar?

How's my driving website?

You've probably seen them, vans and trucks with a sticker on the rear saying: "How's my driving?" followed by a number to call. I've always thought they were a bit pointless, surely nobody bothers to call these numbers? Well, today I saw something a little bit different which encouraged me to look again: as I drove through the rush hour traffic I noticed a van with one of these stickers on the back, same font, same colour, same layout as all the countless others out there. The thing which made me look twice was the text: "How's my website?" and below it the companies web address. Brilliant bit of marketing. I wouldn't have given the van a second glance if it had the standard sticker on it. Well I checked out the site and now the company name is stuck in my mind. Oh, and if you are wondering, the "How's my driving?" stickers generate around 30,000 calls a year.

FREE stuff anyone?

Today I watched a TV advert for Argos - FREE £5 gift card when you spend £50, FREE £10 gift card when you spend £100. Great offers I thought, you could even give the FREE gift card as a Christmas stocking filler. Great marketing idea, really grabbed my attention and I'm sure the attention of many thousands of other viewers. Look more closely and you see what you are really getting is a 10% discount (at most). If you spend £60 or £70 the discount falls further. The point: people love FREE, it's a powerful word and giving the FREE gift card is far more attractive than simply saying, "save 10% today". Look at your business, could you offer something similar? This is a great way to boost sales. It works for the big retailers, so well they can afford to spend thousands on TV ads promoting the offer.

Free business cards can cost you dearly

A recent book purchase from Amazon came with a voucher for free business cards from Vista Print. Tempted by the prospect of something for nothing I went to their website and began the order process. It soon became apparent that FREE was anything but. You have to pay a lot for postage, considerably more than it costs Vista Print to mail, and if you want the cards to arrive in days rather than weeks, you have to pay five times as much. And there's more, if you don't want every single card to have Vista Print advertising on it (why would you?), you have to pay for removal. So my free cards came to around £20, far from free but not bad for a box of 200, or so I thought.

The real cost becomes apparent when you receive them. They are printed on thin card, easily damaged and quickly become tatty when carried in your pocket. If you were to hand one to a potential client what would they think? If the card looks unprofessional and like it wont last long, that's exactly how your business will be perceived. Your cheap card could be driving customers away.

Business cards may seem like an insignificant part of your marketing strategy, but they shouldn't be underestimated. I have binned the "free" cards and bought some high quality laminated replacements. They will look as good as new for years to come and only cost around £10 more than the cheap alternative.

Thousands of businesses use the cheap cards, so invest a little money in decent ones and you will immediately differentiate yourself from your competitors.

Your domain name is wrong

When deciding on a domain name for their website most businesses tend to go with their company name, so Joe Bloggs Computer Store registers www.JoeBloggsComputerStore.com Seems perfectly reasonable, and you should certainly register your company name, so nobody else gets your traffic, or worse still hosts offensive content under it. However it shouldn't be the only domain you register and it wont be the domain bringing the majority of visitors to your site. Unless you are Coca-Cola, Apple, Toyota or some other global corporation very few people are going to know your business name, so they are not going to search Google for it either. Taking the example here of Joe Bloggs Computer Store: If I want to buy a new laptop computer I'll type “buy laptop computer” or “laptop computer” or something similar into a search engine, and see what comes up. It's not likely I'd be typing in Joe Bloggs Computer Store, or any other business name. So your domain should be related to the product or service you sell. Google has a fantastic free tool which lets you see what people are searching for. As I write this post the phrase “buy laptops” is searched for around 1,000,000 times per month worldwide. And this figure only includes those searching in Google, never mind all the other (admittedly less significant) search engines. If your domain name exactly matches the phrase entered into the search engine, you have a much greater chance of appearing on the first page of search results, and potential customers will be more inclined to buy from your site if the domain name exactly matches what they are looking for. Of course, all the “good” domains have already been registered, but with a little creative thinking you can still find some great names.