Des Vadgama

Here are some great SEO (search engine optimisation) tips from one of the UK’s leading traffic generating agency, Wiredflow, that can help boost your rankings almost immediately:

1. Create an XML sitemap. Don’t worry if you’re not technical, just go to sitemap.org and you just need to press a few buttons and it is done for you for free. Then you just need to upload it to your site, which your website manager can do in 2 seconds. Make sure you then log into to Google Webmaster tools (you can set up an account very easily) and submit the location of your sitemap. 

2. Assign Images on your website with Keywords. If you can take the first three images on your site and add an alt tag to them and then name each image with a different keyword that is related to that particular phrase.

3.  Header Tags. Your first line of each page should have a Header tag known as H1. You should place your most important keyword in that tag. Then place your next most important keyword further down the page in the second header tag, known as H2.

4. Highlight & Emphasise. You should put bold and italic tags on keywords that are important to you on each page. Don’t go crazy with this, just do a few.

5. Internal Links. You should have a few links from each page to other pages on your website. These links should be “anchor text” links.

Just by doing these 5 steps – you should see a big increase in your rankings.

If you’re not technical in the slightest, don’t panic. Your website developer/manager should be able to do all these changes for you.

These are just some of the steps every website should be taking in order to get maximum value from their website.

If you would like a FREE personalised report on how traffic can be increased to YOUR site, then just go here:

http://generatetrafficforyou.com

A client of mine, who has recently engaged my services, was generating £250,000 last year – but expects perhaps £90,000 this year. So why is that? 

Four months ago he had five potential contracts lined up, but today he is only certain to close one. 

How many of us can live on a third of last year’s income? 

Now listening to his story, two potential problems have revealed themselves: 

1. He did not target his clients effectively

2. He did not demonstrate value to the five potential clients he had

In this case, a strong practical proposal is the key to acquiring new clients and building a lasting relationship. 

Hence, my client has learned one major lesson – costing him two-thirds of his annual income. 

Here are just a few useful points for your business:

1. Target your potential clients/customers more effectively

2. Remember that business in the pipeline is not guaranteed business

3. Use your marketing budget wisely, focus your efforts on closure of the existing leads or enquiries

4. Do not ease up on marketing for new business in the pipeline, even though it may give you some sense of false security

5. Always use an effective and detailed proposal – and a powerful conversion process – to persuade your potential clients 

I’ll show you in more detail how to effectively bring better closure to your business in the pipeline shortly.

Yesterday, I had a reputable seminar speaker and presenter ask me about using seminar promoters for his events, due to my substantial experience within this sector. Here’s my response and overview by email:

In my experience, the whole seminar landscape
has far more competition these days, especially
with Internet-based promotion and marketing, etc.

Seminar providers often pay promoters anything
from 20% to 50% – especially for a front-end offer
(which may be a free seminar, or costing up to
£2,000).

Main factors:

1. Responsiveness of promoters’ list or database

2. How effectively prospects are followed-up

3. Overall marketing campaign – emails, webinars,
on-line videos, tele-seminars, etc

4. How well-known the speaker and seminar is

5. Price-point used. These days, even a £2,000
seminar is quite a hard-sell, depending on how
attractive and compelling the offer is.

Hope this helps.

The first time I came across Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill was back in 1985. I was amazed and impressed with the depth of research undertaken by Napoleon Hill, having met and interviewed 500 of the richest people across some 20 years.

Having read and re-read chapters headed ‘Desire’, ‘Faith’, ‘Autosuggestion’, ‘Specialized Knowledge’, ‘Imagination’, ‘Decision’, ‘Persistence’, etc. I agree that all of these are important in the process of wealth creation, but the key characteristic I found amongst many millionaire entrepreneurs I’ve met over the years is this: the ability to take focused and consistent action toward a specific commercial goal.

That’s it! Clever or dumb, fast or slow, good-looking or plain ugly – this ability always separated the rich business owners from the poor ones. The do-ers from the think-ers.

Hence, if you want to achieve anything today, just take action, and then continue taking action toward your commercial objectives.

According to a Fortune magazine article, these are the AVERAGE annual salaries of the top 10 highest-paying firms for 2009 in the USA:

1. Bingham McCutchen                                    $256,312         for lawyers

2. Lehigh Valley Hospital                               $244,605         for physicians

3. Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe                   $240,955         for lawyers

4. Alston & Bird                                                   $203,655         for lawyers

5. Perkins Coie                                                     $190,126         for lawyers

6. Devon Energy                                                 $186,882         for engineers

7. Salesforce.com                                               $172,303         sales

8. Arnold & Porter                                              $172,192         for lawyers

9. Adobe Systems                                               $165,947         for software developers

10. EOG Resources                                              $158,302         for engineers

Recession – what recession? And after bankers have had so much of the spotlight this year, it’s interesting to see how prominently the law profession figures in these charts.

I was just reading about the massive marketing campaign behind director James Cameron and his latest movie, Avatar.

After Cameron had one of the biggest movie hits of all time with Titanic, he virtually disappeared. Avatar is said to have cost $250 million, and is using almost every marketing channel known to man – movie poster campaigns, TV advertising, cinema trailers, bus advertising, movie trailers on Youtube and dozens of other video sites, deals with Apple and many other large corporations, reviews in hundreds of print media and on-line sites, including blogs, social networks, and on and on…

In short, I wasn’t planning to see the movie, but now I can’t wait for it to come out in a couple of weeks!

There are three main ways to achieve fast business growth for your existing company or start-up business.

In brief, they are:

1. A scalable business model, enabling you to access and use multiple marketing and distribution channels for your range of products or services. For example, using multiple marketing channels include: print advertising, joint ventures with list owners or managers, postcard mailings, targeted direct mail, on-line SEO and/or PPC marketing, affiliate-based marketing, etc.

2. An acquisitive business strategy, meaning buying or acquiring related businesses and companies in your niche or related sectors. For example, Dan Pena has an excellent range of products and business seminars, focused on specific commercial areas like: Deal Making and Acquisitions, Raising Capital and exponential business growth.

3. A commercial strategy driven by giving away a product or service. Some of the biggest business successes include: Hotmail giving away millions of free email addresses; social networking sites like Facebook building up over 350 million free profiles of their members.

I’ll be showing more detail soon about how you can get faster business growth for your company.

I first remember reading the book Money-Love, authored by Jerry Gillies, way back in 1986. In essence, it shows a practical way of developing a ‘prosperity consciousness’ and moving beyond feelings of lack of money – and actually attracting and making more of it.

In fact, there are at least 12 times in my life where the steps in this book helped to make a positive impact in my work and business. One early example was when I was literally handed a first-class flight, hotel stay and 7-day tour of the Pacific Northwest of USA.

Just today, I downloaded a pdf version of The MoneyLove Manifesto – an updated, shorter version of the book. My friends Barry Dunlop and his son Michael (from IncomeDiary.com) are offering a free copy here:

http://moneyloveblog.com/manifesto

Welcome to my site, where I’ll be presenting (and commenting on) good quality information on growing your business and marketing, along with a few interesting insights from the commercial world.