Month: May 2014

THE NO PERFORM NO PAY TRICK.

This is a favourite of many SEO companies and is designed to lull you into an extreme sense of false security. You think its a great deal. It sounds like the perfect offer. I mean you have nothing to loose but all to gain. But, like with all these types of offers there is a huge downside. That is, in order to rank some of your keywords these companies will use extremely spammy and totally non compliant methods to rank easy non competitive keywords.

Sure they may be able to rank these very temporarily, you will see the results, and then after they lock you into a contract, your rankings are going to SLUMP. Why you ask? Because the links they used to get you a prominent position on Google are unsustainable. They have spammed you to page 1 and this WILL NOT LAST. Once ranked ( even for a day) you will have to pay them.

So, you will have to pay them, because they did rank you but they will come up with some fanciful and colourful excuse as to why the rankings are falling. In the meantime, you are handing over cash to these guys every month – BE WARNED – no rank no pay deals are a SHAM!

 

THE QUOTE LOW TRICK

Again a great way to secure your business without actually doing anything. Many SEO companies in Sydney and throughout Australia are so desperate to get your business that they will undercut any quote and will then, once they have you signed up, do absolutely nothing. That is, they work on the theory that you wont be looking at your rankings until the 3 to 4 month mark at which point they will say its Google’s fault you are not ranking.

Meanwhile they have your money and have been taking it gladly since they signed you up. Yes, they may have done a few back links on really dodgy websites, but they won’t have looked at your actual website to see if there are any errors, or why it’s not Google compliant.

Quoting very low prices and getting you in with them is a really nasty trick and WILL result in your website getting penalised due to the poor work being carried out.

SEO and websites need time, effort and lots of hard work and communication to make it successfully rank – there are ABSOLUTELY no short cuts when it comes to SEO and this is why you must pay a proper price that reflects the man hours invested. Paying relatively nothing means you are going to get exactly that in return. In the meantime your competitors are doing the right thing by using a proper SEO company and winning all the new business. Gambling with your SEO and leaving it to a bunch of overseas ( and in some cases local) strangers is a huge risk. Be very careful at this stage of your business marketing.

 

THE WE PROVIDE EXTENSIVE REPORTS TRICK

So many companies will show you their reporting system. These ranking reports generally come at the end of every month and will show you how well your website has been performing. I have seen reports up to 30 pages; with graphs, statistics, trends, analytics, basically information overload.

Don’t be dazzled and overly impressed by these reports. They are there as a disguise to fool you into believing that work is being done. They are ALL SMOKE AND MIRRORS – TOTALLY USELESS and extremely hard to understand. Their philosophy behind this is, that if it looks impressive and complicated, then they MUST BE doing some great work. It's a bluff and a trick to get you to commit to another months SEO work.

Nice charts, pretty graphs and lots of comparison tables are absolute crap and don’t mean a thing. Be careful about this as it’s a way in which these SEO companies trick you into thinking that actual proper work is being done. Remember your concern is about rankings and if this is not happening then all the great looking reports mean nothing. A waste of paper and an waste of time and a waste of your money!

You will see this in their quotes as well – often they are 20 -30 page quotes full of absolute BS. Avoid these guys at all costs – their intention is to take your money – thats all they care about!

 

THE CHECK OUR WEBSITE RANKINGS – LOOK HOW GOOD THEY ARE TRICK.

Make sure these guys are ranking organically and that you haven’t found them through adwords.  A common mistake but happens all the time. SEO companies will tell you they are in the top 3 positions, when in fact they are the ads at the top.

You think, WOW, how good are these guys, but the reality is, they are paying to be there, which is NOT what SEO is about. Be careful with this one – its easy to get misled and make the wrong choice based on this illusion. SEO companies spend thousands of dollars weekly to appear in the top 3 positions. Why? Cause it's a lucrative business to sacm you out of your money. Be careful here – know the difference between organic, natural rankings and pay per click advertising. This small difference could save your business.

Designing websites for the travel industry is not as easy as it appears. Travel related websites are all competing very aggressively online for the lucrative market share. You have some seriously big names and players with marketing, design and SEO budgets all looking to not only be right up there on the search engines but also to have the best looking websites with all the latest add-ons and easy booking systems.

At Hopping Mad Designs we have just completed a travel industry website for a luxury Bali villa website called Bali Villa Escapes. As you can see the design style is very contemporary, the navigation is easy to use and the whole feel of the site is very inviting. PLUS we have been, within a short period of time (within 3-4 months) been able to rank this website on the first page of Google for extremely competitive keywords. The end results is an extremely sales focused website that has an enormous amount of online sales, booking, inquires and new leads.

The trick to designing and marketing websites for the travel industry is to ensure that each website has a point of difference. We don’t offer a template style solution, where a one size fits all. What we do offer, is an all round website design, digital online marketing and search engine optimisation service.

You may ask why you should be working with Hopping Mad Designs for you Travel Agency website or Travel Industry Website? The answers are quite simple:

• We strive for a point of difference. That is we look at alternative design styles that will really set you apart, create a unique selling point for your service or product. To us, your website has to be engaging, inviting and people must feel like they are already well on the way to their holiday destination when they land on your site.
• We look at ways to save you money online. With us you never have to pay expensive, over the top agency fees. We are extremely price sensitive and try to pass as many cost savings as we can during the web build process.
• Your website will be built using the best open source (available to everyone) content management system platform. With us, there are no ‘lock in’ contracts or extreme limitations using the CMS. You get total freedom and the intellectual property is all yours. Add videos, new locations, content, hotels, rooms, rates, prices, specials, blog pages, testimonials anything you like. You are in total control of the content
• We will design your site so it is mobile friendly or responsive – this covers the whole tablet and iphone market.
• We really know SEO. So if you let us design your website, we can from the very beginning look at a SEO campaign and work out a clear path to get you to page 1. Our SEO guys are absolutely awesome at what they do so if you are relying on Google to generate website sales then leave all this to our SEO and design team.

 

So if you want a web, graphic and SEO agency to take care of everything for you please give us a call here at Hopping Mad Designs on 02 9360 8514.

From the moment you start partnering with us you will notice the huge difference we will make your web project. Aim main aim is to deliver you a final product that is creative, extremely search engine friendly and most importantly will deliver you a huge ROI.

Properly managed Facebook campaigns can bring in serious amounts of new business as proven in the past by some of our social media campaigns – one for example was a campaign we implemented for a ‘rental villa company’.

Adwords were delivering OK results but as soon as we started the Facebook campaign we ended up with about 1000 ‘likes/followers’ in roughly 2 months and  the site was getting about 3 rental leads per day extra – all this with a $10 per day budget. This is a great ROI !

 

Following are a few great reasons why businesses should now consider engaging a company like Hopping Mad Designs to handle their Facebook profile and ad campaign.

 

Tip 1.    Facebook Reach is Huge – so you get a massive BOOST in new Customers.

Let's not underestimate the power of Facebook. Yes, Google is still the king BUT Facebook comes in at a very close second. There are over 1.3 billion users and companies engaging daily on Facebook and your business needs to be part of the mix here.

I am not for 1 minute suggesting that you ignore Google and reduce any adwords or SEO spend that you may currently be doing. But, I urge you to realistically put aside a budget for Facebook advertising – it can be a small percentage of your overall marketing spend, BUT at least give it a try. As I said before, we have don this in the past and the results are really quite good.

Once you get fans and likes and a loyal following on Facebook, there is really no turning back.

 

Tip 2.    The Facebook Ad Program Assists Companies Focus In On Their Core Demographic

The key to any marketing campaign is knowing your target audience and knowing what they are looking for. Strategically marketing to this core audience is what will generate sales and in the end grow your business. And this is the BEAUTY about Facebook. It let’s you target an exact demographic, and then encourages these users to ‘like’ your page. Once they are hooked then you’ve got them.

The great thing about this is you are not wasting time or effort appealing to the wrong audience. You can zoom in and really hit your market hard with specials,  give aways, coupons, company news, new products, basically anything you like thats going to trigger a sale.

For example if you run a backpackers hotel you can streamline and specifically target your ads to a certain demographic of users who are say 18-25 who are based in an area, who like to travel and who are single. It is this kind of filtering system that makes Facebook so appealing.

 

Tip 3.    Facebook Ads Create a Following and Act as a Tremendous ‘Word-of-Mouth’ Tool.

People love word of mouth recommendations and if users on Facebook can see that their friends have ‘liked’ your company then most likely they are going to start following you. This can happen quickly so be prepared for the rush.
Once a group of interested parties start following your Facebook page you can easily see how quickly this spreads. This is called ‘viral marketing’ and Facebook is the perfect facilitator of this.

I have literally seen businesses get over 500 followers in a day if there Facebook ad is effective and is backed up by a great looking Facebook page. Highly creating and cleverly worded ads can have a huge impact. Driving people from these ads to your homepage is what it is all about – an IMPORTANT tip here is to plane this out carefully. Perhaps get a graphic design agency to come up with some clever graphics for your FB page to really give your brand a push.

Remember an attractive landing page designed specifically for your market will have a tremendous impact on your clients reaction to your brand and how they will interact with it. This is vital so try not to cut corners with the design side of things.

Tip 4.    Facebook Ads Are A Lot Cheaper Than Google Adwords

Don’t be surprised if you are in a very competitive niche to be paying upwards of $40-$50 per click on Google Adwords. Yes thats right. And this is only going to get more expensive as the market matures and alternative sources of advertising start to dry up. This is NOT good news for a small to medium sized business wanting to crack into a new market or promote a new product line. Google is such a premium product that alternatives like ads on Facebook are actually quite cheap by comparison.

It would be good to split test the performance of both ad streams and find out the best ROI you are getting for your advertising dollar. Both platforms will have analytics where you can review and dissect performance and leads. But make sure you ask your clients where they found you; Google or Facebook. The results may even surprise you.

A Simple Conclusion:

All company owners and marketing agencies, today operate with one main goal and that is to drive sales and broaden the consumer base. Facebook is slowly creeping into this space by providing businesses the opportunity to tap into certain markets and compete with the ‘big boys’.
The very nature of Facebook now allows small businesses to reach out and in a much more level playing field and grab some of those new consumers who were previously unattainable. What a fantastic opportunity this is and I suggest businesses ( no matter the size) seize this moment and start making some money!

 

 

We know exactly what it's like.

There's nothing worse than watching the pros doing their service launches and making thousands or even millions of dollars, while you're stuck where you've always been, working your fingers to the bone, but never seeing any results for all your hard work. And to make matters worse, as your bills start piling up, you are always asking yourself when your accounting business is going to pay off?

You can see the doubt in your colleagues’ eyes. You feel like you've failed and the seeds of doubt begin to grow in your mind as you question the value of your service, and whether the whole journey to the edge of the profession has just been a waste of your time.

Until now the only way to reverse this situation and get your sales flowing, has been to hire an experienced Google AdWords marketing consultant to setup your campaign, and put together a tailored plan to help convert more of your visitors into buyers.

The big problem with these methods is they require huge investments on pay per click options (for example, up to $35 – $40 for per keyword and there's no real way to get good without copping your fair share of falls. Which for a beginner simply isn't worth the risk.

That's why today, we are delighted to share with you our 10 years’ experience for providing SEO services that is capable of boosting your online sales by up to 200% – within 3-4 months’ time.  We know that may sound unbelievable, but case studies on the home page of our website prove that it all works, so what are you waiting for?

We have over the last 18 years has personally dealt with hundreds of small businesses one-on-one and helped them to achieve the results they desire. Professionals and tradies, new starters and experienced, he had seen them all.

In my latest blog posts, I reveal the exact steps you need to follow in order to achieve your most important life goals faster than ever before.

Whether you're trying to boost your sales, create a brand awareness or even find the niche for practicing, Hopping mad designs gives you the missing piece of the puzzle you need to finally make your dreams a reality.

 

And what makes HMD different to every other SEO service providers in Sydney is that it allows you to make achievable plans and visualise your deadlines.

What this means is that as your prospects enter the search term, you practice would appear within first 3 positions within the search engine.  Visitors will click your page discovering all the benefits of your services.

So if you want to unleash your true potential using the techniques hopping mad designs had developed working with small businesses in over 20 different industries, just click pick up your phone and call now.