Online Business Adviser

The Forum For Online Business Success

My collection - yes, I'm a fan

Paid versus free content is really under the spotlight at the moment, and I wanted to take a look at one of the most successful brands of recent years and demonstrate how providing information and services at no charge can lead to revenue and more on the back end. This is a post that I have been wanting to write for a while, but with a TV show on air in a couple of weeks, it is timely.

Since being discovered on a TV show, Jamie Oliver has become one of the most successful brands of the last decade. I am a huge fan of everything he does in both cooking and business. Notice I said brand, not chef. Sure he deals with food, but Oliver’s real business? Education. His positioning? Simplicity. The Naked Chef moniker of his early days was derived from the simplicity and accessibility of his food, that you can create something great without too much fuss.  Read more...

Getting people to any site is a challenge, even more so to a new one. Until your SEO kicks in (and even when it has) and delivers organic search traffic, you need to rely on other methods to get people’s attention.

There are 3 (almost) free tips I can recommend to drive traffic to your site and begin to build awareness (and hopefully quality links).

Blog, and Make Your Content Topical and Current

I am a big believer in blogging, regardless of your niche. Somewhere on your site, you should make room for a blog and write on it regularly. You may think that your insights into your field may not mean much, but to an audience that is coming to your site to know about your product, they may find it useful. And it is a way of actively generating content to a site that may not be otherwise be visited by a potential customer.  Read more...

Before I start covering social media, there are a few final quick tips for SEO that I wanted to add to yesterday’s post:

Submit your URL - Don’t leave it to chance that Google will find you eventually through links and keywords. Submit your URL to Google here – www.google.com/addurl. It may take some time for Google to get to it, but at least you are in the system.

Remember your Keywords – Whenever you are creating content, be conscious of your keywords. But make sure you don’t overdo it as they will lose their relevance. Use tags on your content with keywords where available.

Respect Forums – Make sure you read terms of use on forums before you go putting your URL all over it. Some frown on the use of their forum just to generate links and traffic, and can suspend your account if you do so. Place them where possible and necessary and make sure you are providing value in your contribution, which will in turn generate your traffic.  Read more...

So now that you have considered your keywords, the other part of the SEO puzzle is inbound links and fresh content.

Put simply, inbound links are those that point to your site from elsewhere on the web. It may be from a directory, it may be from a link that someone has added to a social bookmarking site, or someone may consider your site of enough value to link from theirs. Wherever they come from, inbound links are vital to the success of your site.  Read more...