Practical Tips For Small Businesses – Tip #8 Use Pinterest To Advertise Your Business For Free.

Posted on April 12, 2012 by traveljunkies

Are you using Pinterest to advertise your business? – You should for several reasons.

“A picture paints a thousand words.”

Pinterest is all about pictures which is tailor-made for your business, and they don’t have to be your pictures.
Once you have set up your Pinterest account, you can pin and repin any picture you like and it’s so simple to do.
What’s more you can add your own words to the picture and a link to your website.

In just a few minutes searching Pinterest you will find pictures suitable for your business and with one click, post them on one of your own boards.
And other people will do the same, pinning your pictures on their boards.
Because it’s so simple it’s no wonder it’s the No. 3 most popular social network in the US behind Facebook and Twitter and is fast growing worldwide.

So give it a try …

Go to http://www.pinterest.com and enter your email address to request an invitation. It should take just a day or two for your invitation to arrive in your mail.

And to see how it works, take a look at the traveljunkies boards here http://www.pinterest.com/traveljunkies then click on any of the seven pictures to see all the pictures in that board.

Remember, once you have set up your account, come back to the traveljunkies boards and click on Repin to add a picture to your board.
You’ll be amazed at how quickly other people find you and repin your pictures to their boards.

As I said at the beginning, your business is all about pictures and it’s as if Pinterest has been developed just for you.
Go on – Just do it!

Good luck
Cliff
traveljunkies

Practical Tips For Small Businesses – TIP #7 – 4 Top Tips To Make Your Adverts Work For You.

Posted on April 11, 2012 by traveljunkies

Advertising tips …

1. Advertise your website, not your services or products.

If the purpose of your advert is to attract visitors to your website then advertise your website, not your services or products.
Your website should do your selling so don’t make the mistake of making your advertising a mini version of your website.

Traffic is the lifeblood of your website, without traffic your site is dead.
If no-one sees it, it might just as well not exist. So in all your advertising, promote your website.

So remember the rule “Advertise Your Website, Not Your Services or Products.“

2. Attract more visitors. Include a wide range of keywords and key phrases in your adverts.

As well as the keywords you use for your own business, think wider and include key words and phrases people might use when they aren’t specifically looking for you.

For example, if you provide accommodation, include words for nearby attractions and activities. People searching for scuba diving, whitewater rafting, skydiving, sailing, etc. will often need somewhere to stay and with those kind of keywords in your adverts, people will find you.

3. Be friendly, helpful and approachable.

Make it easy for people to get in touch with you. Many adverts fail because they’re not user friendly, and aren’t designed to make life easy. Always include your name and contact details in your advert.

if you send emails to your prospects and customers, keep them short and to the point as more and more people are reading their emails on mobile devices, and make sure your contact details easy to find.

4. Use Social Media to promote your business – it’s free.

Always include links to your social media sites Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin in your advertising and emails. These three cover the widest range of prospects from friends and other people who know you (Facebook), people who come across you from something you posted that interests them (Twitter), and links and recommendations you’ve established with other businesses (Linkedin).

Limit it to three to avoid overload. More than three will look like your spamming.

And don’t forget your Blog. Treat it like another website, which it is.
Promote your Blog in the same way you advertise your website. Then use your Blog to promote your business website.

And don’t forget …

If your advertising isn’t working, stop doing it. Do something else.

You run your business to make money. The most important thing you must do is decide where and how to advertise to get the best value for your money.

See this and more here …

Best wishes

Cliff Chapman
www.traveljunkies.com

Practical Tips For Small Businesses – TIP #6 – If it’s not working, stop doing it.

Posted on April 8, 2012 by traveljunkies

TIP #6 – If it’s not working, stop doing it.

When did you last check how effective your advertising is working for you?

It almost goes without saying that today’s marketing has to be online.

That’s not to say there’s isn’t a place for traditional advertising such as newspapers, magazines, television and radio commercials, outdoor advertising or direct mail, but more and more people are relying on Facebook, Twitter, Blogs and Internet searches to find the information they’re looking for.

And it’s no longer good enough to put up a website and hope people will find it. Search Engines might find you if you have an active site that you regularly update with new content, but if your site rarely changes you can’t rely on searches finding it, you must actively promote it.

In my previous tips I’ve focussed on Facebook and without a doubt that’s one of the places to start, not least because it’s free. And the same goes for Twitter.

So what should you be doing?

See our 4 Top Tips To Make Your Adverts Work.

Cliff
www.traveljunkies.com

PS . . . And remember – always post your business comments from your Fan Page, not your Profile.

Practical Tips For Small Businesses – Tip #4. Our Most Important And Valuable Tip

Posted on March 25, 2012 by traveljunkies

My first three tips are all about your Facebook Fan Page.

1.   Why you must have a Facebook Fan Page
2.   How to use it to get more traffic
3.   How to create a Facebook Fan Page if you don’t already have one.

These have been invaluable tips for us and for thousands of other businesses who use the power of Facebook’s 800+miilion subscribers to advertise and promote their business. So why not you.

My next tip, TIP #4 is the most important and valuable tip of all and I make no apologies for pinching it from a company that really knows how to market their products – JUST DO IT!

Looking back, publishing these tips just before the holiday season may not have been the best choice when you have so many other things to do, but we are now starting a New Year and what better time to take a fresh approach to marketing and promoting your business.
So, as the man says – JUST DO IT!

I believe 2012 will be the year when Social Networking and especially Facebook takes off in a big way for small businesses worldwide, so don’t be left behind. Don’t wait until everything is perfect or the time seems right because you’ll never get started, just get on and DO IT NOW!
Do it yourself or give it to one of your team if you’re lucky enough to have someone, but DO IT! Nothing will change until you do.

Spend a few minutes going back over our first three tips which you’ll find on our Facebook Page then sit down with a cup of coffee and write down your plan. And remember a plan isn’t a plan unless it has dates.

LIKE our Facebook Page at www.facebook.com/traveljunkiesdotcom and post your Facebook Page so we can LIKE you back. That way our fans will see your Fan Page and so will their fans. That’s what Viral Marketing is all about and that’s what drives traffic.

Best wishes for a great 2012

Cliff Chapman
www.traveljunkies.com

PS . . . Always post your business comments from your Fan Page, not your Profile.

In Business? Then Use Your Lists!

Posted on March 12, 2012 by traveljunkies

Not just your customer list … but all your other lists.

“What lists?” you might ask? “I don’t have any other lists”

Don’t you? Think about it!

First of all, what do you do with your customer list?

Do you send them a newsletter? How often? What do you say?

Are you trying to sell them more of what they’ve already bought?

Or are you helping them in some other way?

And what about your other lists?

Oh yes, your other lists!

Have you got a list of them somewhere?

“I DON’T HAVE ANY LISTS!” you shout!

Think about it.

Here’s a few for starters ….

Your family
Your friends
Your neighbours
Friends of friends
Your prospects
Your enquirers
Your suppliers
Your advertisers
Your competitors
Your networks
Your groups
Your organisations
Your clubs
Your local shops
Your local businesses
Your local publications
Your trade publications
Your local telephone directory
Your local schools & university
Your Chamber of Commerce
Your local Government
Your Facebook friends
Your Twitter followers
Your LinkedIn contacts
Other people’s lists
The list here in traveljunkies
The junk mail you get
The business cards you’ve collected
And what about the reps that call on you, they’re a great list.
And how could you forget the Internet?

So you do have some lists don’t you?

(If not – go and get some)

Cliff
traveljunkies

Is Your Website A Waste Of Time & Money? . . .

Posted on March 11, 2012 by traveljunkies

. . . It might be . . .

Not for the first time, nor the last, will you hear or see “traffic is the lifeblood of your website”. Without a website you are invisible and without traffic, your website is worthless.

The trouble with many business websites is they’re static. Very little changes. Not too bad in business areas that remain pretty static, but in areas that have a high rate of change a static website is worse than useless.

Business websites are marketing tools.Their purpose is to provide information which in turn ultimately leads to sales. Unfortunately many have been left to techies and specialist companies to develop with little control from the customer. They are a beautiful display of the developers art, full of flash images, pop-ups, animations and sound, and they take forever to open.
What use is that? People use the Internet to get answers to questions or look for information. How many will hang around while a website takes minutes to load even if they are listening to music? You have the visitors attention for 7 seconds, or they’re gone, never to return.

So there is a dilemma. What is a business to do that has an expensive website that never changes or one that takes so long to open that no-one sees it? Either way the search engines won’t rank it and that adds to the downward spiral.

Savvy businesses have realised that Blogs that are regularly updated and which provide useful information, often answering questions posted in forums and other online services such as Yahoo Answers, are readily picked up by the search engines and help improve search rankings. And Blogs are where you include the links to your website.

And the same goes for Articles.

Forward looking business owners have also realised that people buy from people. They don’t buy from the thousands of adverts they’re exposed to every day without knowing who they’re buying from. And this has driven the growth in businesses setting up Facebook pages and posting on Twitter, joining LinkedIn etc.etc. But that is a whole new topic.

In summary, if you want to use your wbesite as one of your marketing tools, make sure everyone sees it. The two sayings “content is king” and “If you’re not moving forward you’re going backwards, there’s no standing still” are as true as ever.

If you are a small business in the travel, tourism or activities sectors, take a look at traveljunkies to see how we can help you.

To start with, we’ll give you a free listing in the traveljunkies directory. It’s completely free, no strings, and if you don’t want to use traveljunkies to promote your business, you’ll still have your free listing.
You can get your free listing by going to www.traveljunkies.com and clicking on the link in the side box.

And one final thing. Already more than half Internet searches are made using a mobile device, mostly phones, and it is growing. This kills slow loading websites.

Cliff Chapman
traveljunkies

Worldwide adventure travel & activities directory & search engine, like Google only smaller.

What Google Is Doing Wrong . . .

Posted on March 3, 2012 by traveljunkies

Now don’t get me wrong. Google is doing something right because millions of people use Google every day to find information.

But does Google actually present you with the best information? I think not.
Not unless you’re prepared to go through the thousands and thousands of pages it presents for just about every search.

And as folk rarely go beyond the first or second page it means that they rarely find the best information. They only find information from the big boys or those with enough money to pay to be on Page 1.
So generic searches are mostly a waste of time.

For example, a Google search for “Travel USA” returns more than 6,000,000 hits but a search for traveljunkies has just 138,000 results with our 6 traveljunkies websites all on Page 1.

So unless you’re searching for something specific, like traveljunkies, it’s unlikely you’ll find the best information.

Where do you plan to visit to find what you’re looking for?

Cliff Chapman
www.traveljunkies.com
Worldwide adventure travel & activities directory and search engine – like Google only smaller.

Travel Click-Throughs Are 61% Higher On Mobile

Posted on January 24, 2012 by traveljunkies

Click-through rates for travel searches on mobile are 61% higher than from conventional internet connections, research by performance marketing firm Efficient Frontier has found.