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Datacraft is the leading independent IT services and solutions company in Asia Pacific. Datacraft combines an expertise in networking, security, Microsoft solutions, storage and contact centre technologies, with advanced skills in consulting, integration and managed services, to craft IT solutions for businesses.

Quality Over Quantity With Corporate Websites

So many things in life are more about their quality than quantity. It is under this principle that haute couture French restaurants serve tiny plates of food, that dark chocolate comes in such tiny bars, and that children still love their parents more than childcare workers, even when their parents work full time.

The maxim holds true with web marketing strategies and internet marketing in general - more is not always better. The ban on keyword stuffing is a recent example, but the idea should permeate every aspect of your corporate website design, in order to increase your search engine rankings as much as possible.

It seems that many corporations fear deleting information from their website, just in case it is needed one day. This trepidation about letting go of information may actually be driving customers away - leading internet consulting experts and online marketing agencies see customers driven away time after time by websites that have too much information in them.

Websites should be simplified and relevant, otherwise the risk is that the customers that arrive at your website will be driven to a competitor through frustration with not being able to find the information they want. Even worse is the inclusion of content that doesn’t need to be there.

Many companies believe that the inclusion of extra content with the relevant keywords will help increase their search engine ranking. While you may earn more click-throughs to your website, it is also highly likely that customers will leave without purchasing or finding the information they need, as they become frustrated with the website’s cumbersomeness.

In fact, advice from many website optimization services has nothing to do with having plenty of content, and focuses much more on the quality of the content that is there, and the quality of how the website is built. This is only one of the key points for a web marketing strategy and internet marketing.

There are other simple essentials for attracting customers to your website, like knowing your keywords, making sure there are keywords in your title tags and the content that is there, ensuring that Javascript and CSS are accompanied by content, ensuring that your business contact information is available on each page, and ensuring you engage in link building.

There are other ways to beef up the amount of keyword-focused content on the web that is associated with your website, without actually including this content on your site. Press release distribution services are one way to do this, article distribution and article marketing are other easy ways.

Ask your Thailand internet consulting service or Thailand SEO expert for further information on how these web marketing strategies could be applied to your company.

The way your website is built is also infinitely more important than having ‘plenty’ of content on your website pages. Building your website with CSS can be a good complement to pr distribution services and article marketing for internet marketing.

Building a website using CSS, or converting an existing one to a CSS based layout, can reduce your bandwidth usage and save money on hosting, as well as helping your pages load quicker for customers.

However, it can also help increase your search engine ranking, by streamlining the page code and making it easier to have the code indexed.

The Magic Quadrant - Identifying The Best Network Service Provider For Your Business

Your business’s choice of partners, in any field, can have a huge impact on its success or failure, productivity or inefficiency, and general culture and satisfaction.

Many businesses are now realizing the value of outsourcing a broader approach to network operations, with remote technology now able to identify and proactively work to solve network problems with relatively little downtime.

However, what most businesses do not know is which provider of network performance analysis services, network performance management services, and even related IT consulting services is best for their particular needs and style. This is what the magic quadrant aims to help explain.

The Magic Quadrant looks at managed and professional network service providers, shortened to MPNS’s. To be included, the companies must provide services that fall under network performance management, network maintenance, network performance analysis, network development, or network consulting categories.

The vendors that are included in the magic quadrant don’t necessarily provide information technology infrastructure, but do provide services for managing it.

Gartner, the study administrator, is an analytic service that provides advice and insight to assist in IT consultant and manager decision making with regard to purchased services or products.

You can see that companies examined in the study - Dimension Data, Orange Business Services, Verizon Business, AT&T, BT Global Services, CSC, EDS, IBM Global technology Services, T Systems, HP, Getronics, Unisys, Nortel and Avaya have been ranked according to four characteristics.

That is, the extent to which they are leaders, challengers, niche players, or visionaries in the field of managed professional network service providers.

Leaders in this network performance management and other service quadrant are defined as those companies that “affect competitors by enabling technology and IT service offerings; their focus on the enterprise and targeted industry segments and their capability to differentitate on price, value and service levels to be the first to market with relevant products”.

We believe that if your business wants stability in its network performance analysis and management, wants one of the most competitive prices and some of the best service levels, a leader is best for you.

They are quick followers, but may not be as innovative as the leaders in the field. Challengers do have a base of satisfied network performance management and outsourcing clients. However, they may not have the capability, or the professionalism in delivery, to fully satisfy their clients.

If you want the best planning and quickest recognition of technological opportunities, go for a visionary company. They are seen as having a clear idea of market direction and future requirements, however service delivery and execution may be lacking somewhat.

Information technology consultants see these companies as ones which will invest heavily in information technology infrastructure to offer better network performance management for their clients.
Niche players in the quadrant focus on a particular segment of the market, and could be an excellent choice for your business - if you choose the right player.

They offer service tailored to specific characteristics, like size, industry focus or selective network technology.

Expert Tips For Getting Hits On Your Website

Knowledge is power and conversely, no knowledge means not much power! In terms of internet marketing, web analytics packages are the way that you can obtain knowledge about your customers, the way they search, and how they respond to what they find.

Without a web analytics package, you could spend quite a few dollars and plenty of time on web marketing strategies that pay no dividends - and following that, if you don’t know how to interpret your web analytics package data, or don’t use the data, there has been more time wasted. Basically, a web analytics package allows you to see how visitors use your website.

A website costs you money, and you need to be able to justify that spending by using it to attract paying customers. A web analytics package should identify information about your site, at a minimum, such as the number of hits you receive, both per individual website page and as a whole.

The number of unique visitors that these hits represent, the top pages that visitors come to your website on, and the top ones that cause them to leave; your top referrers, which are the links that people use to get to your site. The search keywords people typed into a search engine to find you.

Information about where your visitors are located in the world and what browser they use; and some more advanced web analytics packages will show you graphical depiction of click paths, or a visual depiction of the route somebody took through the website.

Then to assess your web marketing strategy, you can get a conversion rate, which tells you what percentage of visits/visitors did what you wanted them to, whether that is to buy something, to use your contact form or to sign up for something, for example.

You can see how many visitors to your site came through the link in the About the Author box of an article, or through a particular press release. You can also see which incoming links are working best for you, then decide whether to push your top hit-earners, or to focus on the paths which aren’t earning you as many visitors at present.

These tools not only help you to see where you could be spending your web marketing strategy dollar more wisely, they quickly convince you that they are an essential part of life with a corporate website!

Comparing Bang For Your Buck With Online Marketing Methods

Of course, if anyone in the world could tell you which internet marketing method would always get more conversions, and make more money per dollar spent, that person would be richer than Bill Gates!

The answer to “Which internet marketing method is best for me?” is a resounding “That depends!”. Here, we look at some of the most popular and long-standing forms of internet marketing, including article marketing, press release distribution, blogging and email marketing, how each of them can affect your website traffic and sales, and also their relative costs.

Article marketing is a method that costs little, but does represent a significant time investment. Alongside the cost, though, are some real results in terms of your search engine marketing and increasing your search engine ranking.

In many cases, article distribution is free, however, you can make use of internet consulting services to help streamline the process. Many firms will write, distribute and monitor the results of your articles for you - relieving you of the time and effort investment.

Email marketing can also be a great investment, if you consider guidelines like making sure you send offers at typical shopping times, and ensuring that you use special offers and update requests to keep current subscribers interested.

Press release distribution has been around for much longer than the internet has, and it is still a very effective way of marketing your business. The prime goal, of course, is to have your event or news published in a newspaper or online journal, bringing you priceless publicity.

However, distributing press releases can also be a valuable link building tool. Again, using the services of an internet consulting business will cost a little more, but be much more effective.

If you choose to save the money, but invest the time by writing your own press releases for distribution, there are a couple of guidelines to follow. You should send them frequently - being a regular contributor helps your standing.

Use web analysis tools to determine your target keywords, and then use them in your press releases in the correct quantities. Also, try to appeal to buyers as well as journalists in your distributing press releases - use some of the emotive language that is found in your marketing materials, not only straight factual language.

Of course, the methods that will always offer the best return on your investment are those that didn’t cost anything to begin.

Blogging is one internet marketing method which does not cost anything, and for those who loathe the fact that the modern world forces you to become not only an expert in your field, but also at administration and marketing, this is a chance to reconnect with why you are in business.

Blogging is not only a good way to connect with your customers, it is also a great link building strategy. If you include links in your blogs that will fetch backlinks, this will greatly assist your search engine marketing campaign.

If you publish your opinions on products or services that are relevant to you, it not only helps build your company’s personality and brand, but is a vital part of an web marketing strategy. And remember, it is free!

Effective, Kid Friendly Marketing

Most of us intuitively know that the internet has become a pervasive phenomenon in our lives. Banking can be slow and painful without the internet, you can buy Christmas gifts much more interesting than those available at your local store, you can save money on things that you need everyday, and how often would you contact your friends and family if it weren’t for email and facebook?

Research is now confirming this though, and especially confirming how much young people depend on the internet also. 100% of UK children between 12 and 14 use the internet often, while 98% of Israelis in the same age group, 96% of children from Macau and the Czech Republic, 88% of kids in America, and 70% of Hungarian and Singaporeans also going online often.

If this age group forms part of your company’s target market, how should you change your SEO marketing, web marketing strategy, and even your choice of online marketing agency to reflect this?

The first thing you should be aware of when you change your web marketing strategy to aim it more directly at children is the relevant legislation. COPPA is the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, and violating it can mean that hefty penalties ensue.

It is best to engage an online marketing agency to help you assess your COPPA compliance. While this internet marketing guideline is USA-specific, many other countries have similar rules and regulations.

Much of the time that children and tweens spend on the internet is taken up with social networking sites. More than traditional forms of internet marketing, like article marketing and press release distribution, if you are looking to target tweens you should look into social network advertising.

An online marketing agency can advise you of the most popular sites, and hoe to market effectively on them.
You should also look into advertising and linking to sites with games and competitions - a recent survey revealed this is actually the top reason that kids go online. For 86% of children aged 7 to 15, this is their prime reason for being on the internet.

Far more than search engine optimization or increasing your search engine ranking, building links from the top online game and competition sites should drive younger traffic to your website.

More than half of kids also use the internet for homework, however, kids (should be!) unlikely to click through to any sites not related to their homework while they are researching.

However, if you are internet marketing information to young people, this could be a valuable strategy. Ask your online marketing agency about advertising on popular information oriented sites.

Another extremely successful internet marketing technique to reach children is through Bebo. Skittles have actually created their own channel on this popular social networking site - a much more effective tactic, considering their audience, than press release distribution or article marketing.

Your internet consulting service can show you how this sort of thing can also be great for link building, and then increase your search engine ranking as a side bonus.