Grow your business online

Using The Net expands its services

It is impossible to ignore the internet today. In every aspect of our lives the net has become a great tool for networking, doing business and just being entertained or informed.
The web can be a cost effective and easy tool to communicate with your audience, increase your pre-eminence in your market and of course increase sales.
But where do you start?
Are you making the most of the web in your business?
Using the Net has grown to meet the demands of businesses wanting to make using the net easier. Our offering has expanded and now includes:

Newsletter delivery
Editorial creation of newsletters
Website development
SEO services
E-Marketing strategies
Hosting
Domain registration

It makes it easier for you with your online needs being met in the one place.

Effectively keeping in touch with customers

"As many marketers would understand, finding a suitable communication channel with your customer can be a struggle. How do you stay in the customer’s face without annoying them? That’s when we were introduced to Using The Net e-Newsletters. This fantastic facility gives us the capability to communicate with our customers in a non-intrusive way with information that is topical and of interest to them. Since we started sending out e-Newsletter, the response has been well and truly encouraging. Our e-specials are always popular as well as our current industry news articles. Thanks Using The Net – you have made ongoing communication with our customers a breeze."

Renee Brassington, Marketing Coordinator, Pacific Motor Group

How To Achieve a Top 10 Ranking On Google

by Wendy Marsden

There is no secret except knowing what to do. Like many other SEO's, I learnt the hard way. I made many website mistakes and took each lesson on board.

If you were only allowed to do one thing to get a high rank for your site in Google, get as many links as possible to your site.
Your choice of primary keyword phrase is important. A single word phrase is good to get you ranked and bring traffic to your site, but what you want is targeted traffic, with people looking specifically for your product or service.
Most times when people type in a one letter keyphrase, they are in the beginning of their search.
Once you have run through your list of all your keywords, the obvious choice is to pick the ones with the highest amount of searches (and content relevant to your site!).
The next step is to then begin the process of a link campaign - you should expect to see results in Google in as little as 4 days, and as far as 6 months. All of this is determined by where your links are coming from, and the popularity of the site from which the link came.
Next, you need to get as many links as you can pointing to your site with your popular keyword phrase anchor linked to your site.
As I mentioned before, there many other factors that will only enhance your rankings in Google, but the implementation of a link campaign is the strongest method to get your site to a top ranking!

Wendy is our UTN SEO specialist

‘E- Marketing Power in Giving Your Expertise Away’

by Darren Hunter

It isn’t surprising that when we send a client a promotional advert about our company in an email, we can get a limited response. Promoting ourselves and our products and services does not get the attention that we would like all of the time. People seem to automatically ‘switch off’ when they perceive something as ‘promotional advertising. They ‘filter’ it objectionably and have a different attitude toward it than other types of email material, and can see it simply as spam advertising.
I run a real estate training and consultancy business and have found that should we send an email containing information that could actually assist the client ( dare I say giving information that could make them money!) I can have a far better response for my business than purely emailing my database promotional advertising. In business we like to keep our cards ‘close to our chest’ and believe that our information, knowledge and expertise is valuable so why give it away? We can’t just ‘throw away’ our livelihoods!
However I have found that when we email information of value to the client, very different dynamics are at work. For example, I send my clients the UTN newsletter once per month. I send them as links to articles of value that gives insider views to the industry, a tip, a free form or tool to help them. I include also links to my website of upcoming training seminars, in-house workshops, products etc. If I include relevant information that will add value to my audience in their roles as real estate professionals I find that the response to the free information is very encouraging (I can track the response to my link given to my website in the UTN newsletter).
What I find is that clients partake of the information, read it and find value. What then happens is great! They perceive that I am an expert in the industry and when they have a need, I am the one that receives the phone call to do work!
Most people are simply ‘too busy’ to implement the ideas and information I have supplied them, however they think ‘Darren seems to know what he is doing!’
They will call you in to assist them with whatever need they have, and solve it with your product or service. This is simply because when they received and read your free article or tip, they were impressed and perceived you to be an expert. This fast tracks confidence and trust, the very ingredients necessary to facilitate a transaction.
Giving value information away I have found fast tracks this process and does not hinder it!
What information should you use in E-Marketing? This is up to you, but I have found out the more expertise I ‘give away’, the more value they get and the more they perceive I am the industry leader. It is VERY hard for my competition to get in as my profile is ‘first of mind’ with my clients. This is the whole goal of a successful marketing campaign.
So think differently about what information you do not wish to give away, and you may be surprised at the results it may give you and your business.

Avoiding junk filters

More and more email programs have automatic junk/spam filters. This means that unrecognised emails are sent to these folders and may never be read by the recipient.

To assist your subscribers it may be helpful to give them some instructions so that they can add your company's email address/domain to their trusted senders list (ie. whitelisting).

While the process may vary slightly according to the program they use - the essential thing is to get them to list your company in their address book as a safe address.

Here is how they can do this for Outlook 2003

To add your email address to their address book:

1. Right click on the email subject line.
2. Choose "Add Sender To Address Book".

To add your domain to their safe sender list:

1. Right click on a non-displaying image in an HTML email.
2. Choose "Add the domain to the safe sender list" option.

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