Choosing a Payment Gateway | Business Basics Series

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If you have decided to take the plunge, and start your own eCommerce store, you are going to need a payment gateway, also known as a merchant services provider. This is a company that will process credit card transactions for you. The security requirements to process credit card payments live are very high, and thus specialist companies and banks are in a position to provide these services. In Australia, there are also legal obligations around security and privacy that need to be met, protecting the consumer from fraud and identity theft.

For new businesses just getting started, we suggest looking at options such as PayPal or Square, as they have no monthly fees, and processing fees under 2% of the transaction value. PayPal has a lot of trust among consumers, but can put extra barriers in the checkout process, taking the customer off your website to theirs. Where possible, you want to make the checkout process as seamless as possible for your customers.

If you have an existing retail store, and are already getting a good deal from your bank, it can be more cost effective to integrate with you bank’s payment gateway system. A good non-bank option in Australia is eWAY, who are a local provider with competitive rates.

Also keep in mind that Afterpay and Zip also offer options to integrate with online stores.

If you need help integrating your eCommerce website with a payment gateway, or want help getting started, give us a call on 0424 199 919.

Keyword Research | Business Basics Series

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Keyword Research – finding out if anyone looking for what you are selling?

In the field of search engine marketing, a “Keyword” or “Keyword Phrase” is the word or string of words that someone puts into a search engine such as Google to search for something, for example, “buy dresses online”. There are Keyword Research Tools that we can use to determine volumes of search traffic for given keywords, which will assist to determine market demand for our product or service, or which words we should optimise our website for.

Also these tools can come up with Alternative Keywords that indicate demand for alternative product ideas or alternative ways of naming or branding your products, that may be the non-technical way of naming the item. Business people often only think in industry terms, instead of putting themselves in the place of their customers.

Tools for finding and assessing the viability of different keywords include the below:

Thompson Marketing are experts in helping you navigate all aspects of Digital Marketing, including Search Engine Marketing. Contact us on 0424 199 919 and we will get to work for you.

Google Ads | Business Basics Series

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Google Ads, a way to show up in Google search results quickly.

When you first launch your website, it can take some time for it to show up in the organic Google search results. For a brand new website, we often recommend that business owners do some paid advertising with Google Ads to get them started.

Google Ads is the name of Google’s paid advertising program. There are 2 main places that the advertising appears; in search results and on other websites, the content network.

  • Advertising in Search Results – Usually the first 3 or 4 search results on Google, are paid ads, as opposed to what is known as the “organic” search results. Google Ads can be a highly effective method of advertising if you are starting a new website and not yet ranked on Google. Users who are searching on Google are more likely to be in buying mode as they are actively searching for a product or service, as opposed to general advertising.
  • Advertising on the Content Network – Google also allows you to place advertising throughout its Content Network, where it effectively rents advertising space on millions of websites and resells that space to it’s advertisers. While not as effective as search advertising, this kind of advertising can also be effective as it allows you to target your ads to very specific interest groups and demographics.

Depending on the type of business you are in, you might want to employ only search ads, or content network ads, or both.

Thompson Marketing is ready to help you get more leads for your business with Google Ads, click here to find out more about Search Engine Marketing.

*Information provided is accurate to the best of our knowledge at the time of publishing. Advice is general in nature, and may not be applicable to your particular situation.

Search Engine Optimisation | Business Basics Series

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Search Engine Optimisation or SEO for short, is the process of improving the ranking of your website it search engine results. There are many “ingredients” in the “recipe” that make up your website’s ranking in search engine results. Google, the market leading search engine, is constantly changing the value that it places on the different elements of SEO, but their main aim is to deliver the most relevant and up to date results to their users. Some of the factors involved in a website’s ranking include:

  1. Social Media – User’s linking to a website and discussing it via social media websites like Facebook and Twitter.
  2. Backlinks – Links from relevant or related websites back to your own website.
  3. Website Content – Although links are the main factor, having up to date, comprehensive and relevant content will greatly assist in your website’s ranking. Google’s primary aim is to provide the best search results to their users, so ensuring you have the best site in your category is the best strategy to win in the Google rankings.
  4. Meta tags and data – In regards to websites “metadata” or “meta tags” are pieces of information that are inserted into the HTML code of the website, but not displayed to the user in their browser. Although not highly weighted by Google any more, the more information you provide to Google and other search engines about what your website is about, the better chance you have of ranking well. Some other search engines like Yahoo and Bing are thought to give more weight to the Meta Tags.
  5. Responsive/Mobile Friendly Website – Google will exclude websites from search results if they are not mobile friendly, if the searcher is on a tablet or mobile phone.

Your first step in Search Engine Optimisation is to start with great content, then share it around and people will link to it.

Click here to find out more about SEO services from Thompson Marketing.

*Information provided is accurate to the best of our knowledge at the time of publishing. Advice is general in nature, and may not be applicable to your particular situation.

Choosing a Domain Name for your Website | Business Basics Series

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The first step in getting a website setup for your business is choosing a domain name, the www.businessname.com. There are a number of decisions to make before you choose a domain name. In this post we’ll look at some things you should consider.

Domain Name Extension – “dot what”

The domain name extension is what comes after the “dot” i.e. .com, .net, .info. There are many extensions to choose from, with more being made available every year. Some extensions like .com, .net, .info are lightly regulated, you can register almost anything (however don’t try and register someone’s brand name). Extensions related to specific countries may be more tightly regulated.

To “au” or not to “au”

If you are specifically appealing to the Australian market, it may be advisable to register a .com.au domain name to let Australian users know you are local. If you are going for a global audience, try and register a .com domain. This is preferably to the lesser known extensions like .info, .biz and others.

Any .com.au extensions require an ABN, to be for commercial purposes and for you to have a connection to the domain. If you don’t have an ABN, you will need to register a .com or other domain that does not end in .au. You can find the rules for .com.au domain name ownership here http://www.auda.org.au/policies/2012-04/ –  In summary, .com.au cannot be someone else’s brand name or personal name, and you need to be able to demonstrate a commercial connection to the domain name. For example, if you don’t use your business name, you could register a name that is a product or service your provide.

SEO is another consideration when choosing a domain name. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation, which is the process of improving the ranking of your website it search engine results. There are many different factors that go into the ranking of a website, which are covered later in the course, the domain is one element. It will be easier to rank for a keyword if that is your domain name.

Your domain name should be as short, easy to spell, and simple to remember as possible. Avoid choosing a domain name that could easily be misspelled, or consider purchasing the common variations of the word.

Choosing a domain name registrar

A domain name registrar is a company that allows you to register a domain name. Surprisingly there can be a huge variation in prices between different companies. Additionally some charge a lot of extra fees if you want to actually do anything with the domain name, or host the website with another company. This is why we recommend Godaddy.com, because they don’t have any major add-on fees, and their basic domain name registration fee is very competitive. They will try and sell you several add on services, but you can simply ignore these if you are not interested in them.

To get started on your business website, get in touch with us here.

*Information provided is accurate to the best of our knowledge at the time of publishing. Advice is general in nature, and may not be applicable to your particular situation.

Email Marketing | Business Basics Series

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Whilst declining in popularity compared to other methods, email marketing is still a very important part of the digital marketing mix. Building up a customer database that you can market to over time is not only going to help you make money, but it adds value to your business. Building a social media following is important, but at the end of the day, the social media company “owns” the client’s contact details, not you. Having your own email database ensures you retain control in the unfortunate instance that a social media company cuts off your access.

It has been proven in marketing studies that it is cheaper to make money from existing or repeat customers, than it is acquiring new ones. Using an email marketing system like Mail Chimp or Campaign Monitor is the best way to manage your customer/subscriber list, and look professional doing it. A system like these will also help you to assess the effectiveness of your efforts, as they provide feedback on whether your emails are being opened, which links are clicked on, and so on. You will be able to tailor your messages to be relevant to different segments of your database, which will increase the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.

Thompson Marketing is ready to help you build your email database, contact us to find out more.

*Information provided is accurate to the best of our knowledge at the time of publishing. Advice is general in nature, and may not be applicable to your particular situation.

Facebook Ads | Business Basics Series

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Banner Ads

Facebook makes money by selling advertising space on their site, called banner ads. These ads can usually be seen down the right hand side of the website. Ads in this space have a set format of an image, a headline, a text area which all links through to another page. Ads can either link to another page on Facebook, or another website altogether. Facebook allows you to broadly, or very specifically target the audience for your ad, that is, you can set your ad to display to a whole country, or a specific gender, age range, location and set of interests.

Once you have some likes on your page, you will have the option to display ads to those who have liked your page and their friends. In this way you would hope to reach an audience of similar interests.

Facebook Ads – Promoted Posts

A “softer” type of advertising that Facebook makes available is what they call “promoted posts”. This is where you have the option to “boost” your post, which means to pay to have the post appear in the news feed of an audience that you can specify.

As in a newspaper, your ads can get lost amongst all the other content that is happening on Facebook, or simply ignored, as users become conditioned to ignore ads. By creating content posts and boosting/promoting them, you are placing your advertising content amongst the prime real estate of the user’s attention. This is more like the “advertorial” model that you might see in a newspaper or magazine.

Click here to find out more about Social Media Marketing services from Thompson Marketing.

*Information provided is accurate to the best of our knowledge at the time of publishing. Advice is general in nature, and may not be applicable to your particular situation.