So imagine if you could tap into this goldmine yourself and start your very own online retail store and compete with the big retailers on the same level!

It’s actually much easier, and cheaper, than you think.

In three simple steps you can have an online business up and running within a few days.

You don’t even need to buy any products for your online store

Here is my simple 3 step guide to creating your own online retail business:

Step 1: Getting started with a domain name and hosting:

Like any retail store, you need ‘office’ space. In the online world this is web hosting. You also need your business ‘name’, which is a domain name.

Probably the cheapest and easiest way to get this started is to visit our friends at Hostgator who can set your web hosting up for around $7.95 per month. This comes with a free domain name.
You will also need a shopping cart for your products, and for this instance we will be using WordPress, which is a free software package. Hostgator offer a free ’1 click’ install of WordPress on your hosting package so the software can be literally up and running a few minutes after you sign up with Hosthgator.

Once you have done this the next thing you need to do is create your online store:

Step 3: Creating an online store – the easy way! 
Usually running any business online you need to update the products pricing, arrange postage and handling and even buy and stock the products, which is all very expensive and time consuming.

But there is a much easier way to run an online retail store, without buying any products and it only requires a few minutes a day or even per week to manage.

Datafeedr is an online subscription service which connects to retail affiliate companies, and feeds their product data directly through to your online store.
This means that you simply select the affiliated companies you want to sell for, select the products you want to sell and then with a click of a button all the product information including product images, descriptions and the latest prices are all on your website, and they update automatically!
So you don’t need to update anything manually if you don’t want to, apart from reviewing possible new products you would like to sell.

Sign up with Datafeedr and all the instruction videos and support are readily available for you to start your own site instantly.

Step 3: Find the products you want to sell:

One of the biggest concerns for online shoppers is knocking if the products they are purchasing are genuine. The great thing about using Datafeedr and affiliate businesses is that your customers are buying direct from leading brand companies, but each time they make a sale through your affiliate link you make a commission. These commissions usually range from around 6% to 50%, so making money online is very easy, and you don’t have to do anything!

Datafeedr lists all the companies it works with, and the affiliates you need to sign up with first to make it work.
Signing up with affiliate retail companies is totally free, which provides you with your unique sales link, which you enter into your Datafeedr account. When this link is clicked on your website and a sale is made you receive the sales commission. Simple!

The recommended affiliates to sign up with include:
Commission Junction
Commission Monster
Share A Sale

To view a site I have created myself using Datafeedr and Hostgator, check out Shoppalot:  www.Shoppalot.com

Here’s a quick small screenshot too:

Shoppalot took just a couple of days to create and started earning an income within days!

So if you are looking for a new business venture without the costs or time required, creating your own online affiliate-based business might be the solution for you!

For those not familiar with QR codes, the QR code is a type of scanning code that can be read on mobile devices with a camera installed, and a QR code reader.

There are a number of great QR code readers available totally free on the iTunes store for the iPhone.

The way the QR code works is very simple:
You simply go to a website such as http://qrcode.kaywa.com
or search Google for ‘QR Code Generator”, and you will find sites that allow you to generate and download a QR code for free for your needs.

QR Codes can be set up to share your contact details, web address, physical business location or even links to your Twitter or Facebook pages.

But what many people are slowly learning is that QR codes can play a very important role in the marketing and promotion of your business, and there are ways many people may not have yet though of.

 Here is my top 7 ways QR Codes can be used:

Business Cards
Probably the most obvious way a QR code can be used is adding it to your business card, allowing people to simply scan your card to either add your contact detail to their contacts on their phone, or just to access your website.

Real Estate
Real Estates are the perfect market to use QR codes, yet not many have caught on to this yet.

Most real estates have their properties listed online on their own website, or even a larger real estate directory such as RealEstate.com.au but unless you are visiting the website you don’t really know which properties are available, and the larger directories you might need to scroll for pages until you find the right property.

QR codes can make this much easier. For instance, if the Agent created a QR code for each of his properties and added them to his press ads o or flyers people can simply scan it and their phone can show them where the property is on the website or even on a Google Map.
Or better still, the Agent could add the QR code to his property signage and as people drive past to view the property they can scan the QR code, providing them with information of the property, even the inspection times and the Agent’s contact details, or just set it up to instantly phone the Agent!

Restaurants,Cafes & Hotels
Restaurants and Cafe’s can print a QR code on their menus, Napkins or drink coasters, which can provide the customer with access to their menu online, or just their contact details.
You could also set it up to link directly to their Facebook page, making it easy to share and like the establishment.

Markets
Even the small local markets can benefit from QR codes! Say for instance you are selling a necklace at the markets and the person loves it but may not have the money on them. Rather than lose a sale, you could have a QR code set up for the product so the buyer can scan it, taking them to your online store or even just to send you an email of interest on that particular product, allowing them to purchase it at a later time.

Social Media
Just about everyone now has a Facebook or Twitter account, but the only problem with social media sites such as Twitter or Youtube is that they have a static background that cannot be clicked. If you are receiving heavy traffic then this background area is prime marketing space. Adding a QR code can turn your static page into an active
link to your website, latest specials, etc.

An example of how this can work can be viewed here:
http://www.twitter.com/innercityhotels

Add your QR code to your Facebook profile page can do the same for you.

Press Advertising

Traditional press advertising is dead in terms of tracing it’s effectiveness. You really don’t know how many people even look at your ad or make a call to action if they did read it.

But if you were to add a QR code to your advertisement, especially a special offer, you could send the viewer to a specific page on your website which you can easily track through your website statistics, and monitor the success of your campaign easily.
This is also a handy way to grow your mailing list of subscribers, as you could easily direct them to an online form from their mobile device, capturing their details for future marketing.

Affiliate Marketing
If you sell other people’s products online you can ramp up your sales using QR codes, by adding them to anything…whether it is any of the things mentioned above, or to brochures, thirst, websites etc.

for instance if you were an affiliate of iTunes or the App store, you can create the link to go directly to your affiliate link and then direct them automatically to the link in the iTunes store. You make a sale directly from the link! How easy is that!
This is just a few handy ways to use the QR code, but I am sure you can think of a bunch more once you start embracing them!

Author: Chris Bourke
Chris Bourke is a web developer at Devision Design, and also an online business and social media coach at WebSEOCoach
Follow Chris on Twitter:  twitter/webseocoach

Add An Optin Form with a “lightbox” (a popup with the background darkened, so that all your visitor sees is your Optin Offer, so they either have to subscribe or dismiss your form in order to see the page underneath…)

Have a Footer Bar or Header Bar Opt-In Form — especially if you want to attract the visitor’s attention, but not hit them with an “in your face” popup requiring them to take action

Display hidden content: Rarely seen outside of expensive WordPress membership software, but you can have it — get your visitors salivating to see more, and show it to them after they’ve opted in.

Subscribe on commenting: Get the ideal subscribers — those folks already commenting on your blog … this makes it super simple for them to do — all they have to do is click a checkbox…

Subscribe on registration: Not something most blogs offer, but if you offer user registration, why not make it so it adds them to your email list (the one of your choosing, of course!)

Put a “Subscribe” Box In All Your Posts: Hey, a sweet, quiet, simple request for them to signup to your email list to get more … you just gave them great content, show them how to keep getting more…

Put a “Subscribe” Box In Particular Posts…(shhhh…remember the “Get The Rest Of This” from the Optin statistics above? He split a great post into two, kept the first half in the post and the second half in a pdf. The visitor had to opt-in to the subscribe form in the post to get the second half.)

Create a “Cascade” of Exit Popups…under precise “fighter pilot” control…each popup with its own content, each sending the user to a unique URL…and you can add the “cascade” to all your pages or any of your pages…you choose…!

Put Your “Subscribe” Form anywhere you want on your WordPress blog…

Mix’n’Match all of the above to your heart’s content…

And Of Course…

Does everything that you would expect…

• Unlimited Optins: Have As Many Optin forms as you need or want, of whatever type you’d like (This means NOT just as many forms as you’d like, but as many different email lists as you’d like!)
• Works With ANY Email Service Provider: Aweber, GetResponse, Mailchimp, Turbo AutoResponder, Google Feedburner…or even software you’ve rolled on your own …
• Compatible With All Modern Browsers: whether you, or your visitor, use Internet Explorer, Google Chrome or the latest version of Firefox — or Opera or Safari…

And Not Just That…

Also get…

• Facebook Connectivity — .tempt your visitor with an offer and add a facebook connect button. The visitor clicks this button to connect with you, and they are automagically added to your email list. How cool is that?
• Analytics! — And, no, not a bunch of statistics that you need to have a Ph.D. to figure out. Something simple yet useful — see how well each of your subscribe forms is doing so you can quickly take action on any poor performers — and leverage your best performers…
• “Smorgasbord” flexibility — you can add popups and forms just about anywhere — your imagination is the limit.
  • Want a particular popup on just the posts in one category? DONE!
  • Want it add a webpage to your popup? DONE!
  • Want to add a countdown timer and have the popup disappear when it reaches zero? DONE!

And … there’s even more ….?

So…what are we talking about?

The “All-In-One”, Swiss Army Knife, Smorgabord Optin And Popup Plugin For Your WordPress Blogs:

WPSubscribers

Create an unlimited number of subscribe forms	Working with any opt-in email marketing service
Compatible with all modern web browsers	Build a Lightbox Subscription Form with ease
Have your subscribe form in the footer bar	Embed Subscribe Form inside your Post content
WPSubscribers Can Now Integrate With FaceBook Up to now, 500 million people all around the world are actively using Facebook to stay connected with their friends and the people around them. These people have all verified names and e-mail addresses that would be your greatest opt-in list opportunity. WPSubscribers can add a Facebook Connect button to anywhere in your website that allows visitor to be subscribed to your mailing list in seconds!   Want to see live example? Please click here. This post example uses a custom design popup + Facebook connect button, they’re all created by WPSubscribers plugin.  CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT MORE AND TEST DRIVE WP SUBSCRIBER FREE TODAY!

Web developers have usually had to substitute the nice animation work for a javascript transition animation instead, which while still visually nice, lacks the functionality that Flash does.

But there is now finally a solution!

Google have now launched Swiffy…an online app which allows you to convert your Flash SWF files into HTML5 and then load into your website, which will then finally run perfectly on iPads and iPhones.

Simply go to the Google Swiffy page and upload your Flash SWF file, and it will convert the file for you in just a few seconds!

Swiffy currently supports SWF 8 and ActionScript 2.0, and the output will work in all Webkit browsers, including Chrome and Mobile Safari.

Web developers rejoice!

Author: Chris Bourke of WebSEOCoach.com

The new Lujure Facebook Business page creator lets you easily build your own professional pages and upload them with all the tools to create the ulimate Facebook page

 
All it takes is just a little knowledge of what is possible to do in Facebook and away you go. For instance did you know you can offer exclusive one-time offers by setting up an initial entry page, and if someone ‘likes’ your page they will be taken to an alternative welcome page with your special offer. Or did you know you can add video, shopping carts, blog feeds, like twitter feeds, Flash animated photo galleries, Mailing list forms, Google maps and even Paypal payment buttons directly into your Business page, allowing people to purchase directly from within your Facebook page!

Facebook also provides you with great demographics enabling you to learn more about your visitors and followers, including their age, location, and main keywords that attracted them to you, helping you plan future online marketing campaigns to your targeted audience.

Here is a quick snapshot of Facebook demographics.

So if you aren’t using Facebook for creating a unique customer base and business community you are most likely missing out on a lot of business opportunites. Check out Lujure and try the totally free demo and create your own Facebook business page – Click here to visit their website

Online retail shopping has become big business!

But the great thing about online retail websites is you don’t have to have millions of dollars to create an online shopping website. You don’t even need any products!

Setting up your own retail website similar to Amazon is now easy and very affordable, and the great thing about it is you can earn up to 70% of the value of the purchase. You only need to make a handful of sales a day to make more than your average office job would pay, and the best thing about online store is it keeps making money while you sleep, you don’t have to spend every hour of the day slaving over a hot computer, and the money is in your account before you arrange the dispatch of the product.

This sort of online retail sales is called ‘Dropshopping‘

The way dropshipping works is you first sign up with a Dropshipper who stocks the products you want to sell, and they will provide you with a wholesale price for the products. You then upload these products to your website and you can then charge whatever you want for the products.

When someone visits your website and purchases the product, usually through Ebay, you then pass the order to the dropshipper once the payment has cleared, and then you pay the dropshipper before he dispatches it directly to your customer.

There is no handling of the product yourself, and the dropshipper usually sends out the product with your business name on the package.

Sounds simple right? Well it is!

HERE ARE THE THREE STEPS TO SETTING UP YOUR OWN DROPSHIPPING WEBSITE:

1 First, find your dropshipper.
This can often be hard to find the products you want, but Professional Dropshippers such as SaleHoo offer over 8000 categorized suppliers, so finding a dropshipper that has your products is easy and they offer high quality genuine brand name products.

SaleHoo charge a small annual fee to join, but for the return you get back from your website, and the hours you would waste otherwise looking for quality dropshippers yourself, it is well worth the price.

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT SALEHOO

2. Set up your website hosting and domain name
To set up your website you will first need a domain name and web hosting. Godaddy are one of the most affordable sites for purchasing domain names, and offers tools to help you find a great domain name to suit you online business. Then sign up for your website hosting.

Hostgator is one of the quickest and easiest hosting providers to get up and running with, offering great online support, and a simple 1-click setup of Wordress, so no tricky uploading and configuration is required. You are literally up and running in a matter of minutes!

CLICK HERE TO VIEW HOSTGATOR WEB HOSTING

3. Creating your online store.
If you want to create a professional looking online store you should invest in Shopperpress.

Shopperpress is a WordPress-based shopping cart theme which offers all the bells and Whistles of the big professional shopping cart systems, but for a fraction of the price. Shopperpress comes with a great range of pre-designed themes to suit most common retail niches, or you can edit it to create your own design.

As it is based on WordPress, Shopperpress ranks extremely well on the search engines, so getting on the top of the search engines is easy, driving more traffic to your website than most other shopping cart applications.

CLICK HERE FOR FULL DETAILS ON SHOPPERPRESS

Once your website is in place, simple go to your Salehoo account, search the products you want to promote and add them into your website and you are in business!

Author: Chris Bourke of Devision Design and WebSEOCoach.com

- – - THE WEB SEO COACH INTERNET BUSINESS MARKETING PLAN – - -

YOUR BUSINESS NAME

YOUR WEBSITE ADDRESS:

YOUR BUSINESS EMAIL ACCOUNT:

DEFINE YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE
Knowing your target audience is critical to the success of any business. If your business brand, and marketing, products or services relate to your target audience you will achieve success.

Define your audience:

• Are they Male or Female?
• What is your target audience’s age group?
• What is your ideal customer’s net household income?
• What is the level of education of your target audience?
• What is the job profile of your ideal customer:
- worker
- manager
- stay at home parent
- executive
- entrepreneur

• Do your ideal customers buy your products for themselves or as a gift?

• What is the average you would expect your ideal customer to spend online on your website?

ABOUT YOUR PRODUCTS
To succeed online you need to offer something else your competitors don’t. To achieve this you first need to know your products and your own business: • Describe your products or services.

• How does your product relate to the marketplace?

• What is the unique difference of your products or services compared to your competitors?

• What is your overall unique point of sale compared to your competitors?

COMPETITION
Knowing your competition, and their strengths and weaknesses is important to being the best in your niche: • Describe your competition

• What is unique about your overall business compared to your competition?

• What is your overall unique selling proposition?

MISSION STATEMENT
In 2 sentences or less, outline your mission statement. define your business and the services you provide, your business goal, and your unique selling point that will make you successful.

BRANDING
Your brand is a reflection of your services and your business in general. every successful business has a strong professional brand.

• Have you consulted a design/brand agency to create a professional brand and logo for your business or website, based upon the above information?

• Has your graphic designer provided you with a visual style manual outlining the correct colours, fonts and elements of your logo/brand?

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
Social Media Marketing is one of the most cost-effective and best ways of promoting your online business to the world.

• Will you be marketing through Facebook, Twitter and social bookmarks?

• Do you have your social media branding in place ( Eg, Twitter branded background, Facebook Business page with welcome page

• If you are using Facebook Business/Fanpage to gain followers, what incentive do you have for them to follow you?

• How do you plan on tracking and managing your social media marketing? (eg, using Sprout Social, Tweetdeck, Hootsuite, etc)

• If you have a blog, have you created a Links Alpha account to automated your messages to multiple social media networks?

• Have you added your Facebook ‘Like and Twitter ‘tweet buttons into each page of your website or shopping cart for social media exposure?

MARKETING & PROMOTIONAL STRATEGIES
Creating an ongoing marketing strategy will ensure you continue to increase the awareness of your products and brand.

Email Marketing
• Does your website have an email marketing signup form for capturing potential customers?

• Have you set up a professional email marketing account such as Aweber, Constant Contact, MailChimp to send, track and manage email marketing?

• Have you created a professional looking email marketing template?

ONLINE MARKETING & ADVERTISING
• Have you established an online advertising budget for Facebook/Google Adwords campaigns?

• Have you planned and designed campaigns to target your audience on these social media networks?

• How are you tracking click through rates from online marketing campaigns? • Have you considered an affiliate/commission marketing program to sell your products?

LINK EXCHANGES
Exchanging links with other businesses online helps increase your page rank and popularity on the search engines. • Do you have software in place to exchange links with other related websites?

E-COMMERCE
• Have you arranged a payment system to handle online trisections (eg, Paypal, Paymate, etc)

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION
• Is your website/blog pages and images correctly setup for maximum SEO results on the search engines?

• Have you done your keyword research as to what keywords best reflect your business online?

• Has your website been submitted to all major search engines?

• Have you created a Google Webmaster tools account and created and submitted an XML sitemap?

• Have you created a Google Analytics account to track your website statistics and visitors and keyword search results.

ARTICLE DISTRIBUTION
If you run a blog for your website, creating regular articles is a great way of attracting the search engines and traffic to your website as related articles help define your positioning and placement on the search engines.

• Have you planned a regular scheduled article campaign to promote your services, products or events?

• Are you writing these articles yourself, or have you arranged an online seo copywriter to write the articles?

• How often duo you plan on publishing/releasing the articles?

OFFLINE/TRADITIONAL MARKETING & ADVERTISING STRATEGIES
Even if your business in web-based, you should still promote it offline using traditional marketing strategies.

• Have you arranged the printing of business cards, letterheads, brochures, promotional flyers?

• Have you set your budget for print/tv/video marketing?

• Have you arranged publication of Advertorial/editorial to promote your business in print?

• Have you arranged promoting your business at tradeshows or seminars to increase awareness?

WEBSITE STRUCTURE AND SITEPLAN
The success of your website also relies on have a website that not only looks professional, but is quick to load, and easy to navigate

• With all the above information in place, have you created a siteplan and structure that works best for your target audience?

• Have you ensured your website will load fast and is easy to navigation?

• Have you allowed in your website for important customer information such as Return and Shipping policies?

BUDGET
• Have you established a budget for the set-up and running of your business, taking into account:

• Branding
• Website development and regular updates
• Hosting and domain registration
• Email Marketing and other paid online marketing including article writing/publishing to social press release sites
• Print / radio / tv marketing production costs

DEFINING YOUR PERSONAL ACHIEVEMENT GOALS
Many businesses create a goal for the businesses, but overlook their personal reasons for creating the business in the first place.
Every business is created with the initial goal to create wealth, but look at setting long term ‘real’ goals.

• Establish the personal goals you wish to achieve from the website business ( eg, regular holidays, early retirement, healthier lifestyle, less stressful workplace, more time with the family, financial freedom, passive income)

———–

This is only a basic online business plan, but should be enough to hopefully help you plan your successful online business venture. With a little smart planning you will be on your way to achieving a wealthy online business in no time!
———–

Author: Chris Bourke of WebSEOCoach.com and Devision Design Australia
Chris is a web designer and internet marketing strategist for online business and social media marketing, and also owns a number of online retail and travel business ventures.

When it comes to promoting your business online, Facebook is a much more cost effective way to advertise online compared to Google Adwords and other paid advertising methods.

One of the great things about Facebook advertising is the flexibility to customise your ads and your target audience for a very cost effective success rate.

You can customise your Facebook advertisements so that they will only appear to specific groups or market segments, based upon gender, location or people’s likes and personal preferences, which equates to a much more successful success rate.

For instance, if you are marketing your product towards teen girls, you can develop your create your advertisements so that they only appear to girls that watch America’s Next Top Model, and follow certain bands or fashions, which might relate to your product range. So your audience is the exact target audience you want.

By setting up your ad preferences to only be seen by girls that follow particular groups, as well as their personal preferences that match the same type, means not only do you get the exact market you want but you also keep your costs down.

I recommend that you do some market research first to accurately define your target market, and then develop your advertisements to suit your target audience.

Staying within Facebook Guidelines

Facebook is very particular about the advertising they allow, and have a good quality control system in place to ensure all advertisements stay within their guidelines. IT’s advised that you review their guidelines first to avoid wasting time and money and get the most out of your ad campaigns.

Where Facebook differs from Google Adwords is that your success is not related to what people search for, but more the target audience, so your ads are automatically triggered to appear for the audience and settings selected rather than is someone searches for something.

Users can also choose to rate advertisements, which helps retain the ad quality throughout the Facebook community.

Setting Your Maximum Daily Bid

When you are advertising on Facebook, one of the most important aspects to setting up a successful Facebook ad campaign is setting the maximum daily bid.

The higher you bid, the more exposure your ads will receive.

When you are just starting up your ad campaigns it is a wise move just to start your bids low, and then increase your maximum daily bid as you start to fine-tune your ads for better results. I recommend doing 3 ads for the same product, using different text and see what works best, and then increase your daily bids on the one that is more successful click thru ratio of the three.

When you create your ads, Facebook will suggest a maximum bid which is based upon your target audience and your advertising focus.

This information is based upon your preference you set.

I suggest go lower than what Facebook suggests and see how it goes, then increase it slightly daily and monitor your success ratio until you get it perfect.

If you want to achieve a more targeted result for a lesser bid amount I recommend carefully choosing your target audience and narrow it down to the exact location, gender, interests, etc and you will dramatically reduce how much you pay, and also increase your click through and sales ratio.

Improve your Click Through Rate

Obviously, your click through rate is a very important part of a cost-effective marketing campaign, so it’s important to keep track of your click through rate and make necessary adjustments or fix any problems your campaign might be having to improve your overall CTR (Click Through Ratio)

If your ads’ CTR drops too low it can possibly be automatically removed by Facebook, so keep an eye on how it converts and either change the bid or change the content, or even adjust your target audience setup.

Typically, your advertisements should stay about a 2% conversion rate.

One of the best ways to do this is with an ad that really stands out and prompts people to want to click.

On the graphic of your ad, add a button that makes people want to click it, or offer something that entices people to want to see where the click will take them. But always target it to your audience or you will receive un-necessary clicks.

Also pay attention to the times of the day that your ad runs. You can set your ad to just run between particular hours of the day, so you may only want it to run from 5pm to 10.30pm or just on weekends etc, when your particular audience is more likely to be online.

Facebook Cost-Per-Click vs Impressions

Facebook gives you the option to create your ad campaigns based upon either the CPC or number of impressions you receive.

If you are just starting up I recommend the CPC option as you only pay if someone clicks on your advertisement, rather than paying for every view. As you fine-tune your target audience you might decide to change to impressions.

At any stage, you can easily click a button and change over the advertising format to impression based. If it gets too expensive for your success ratio you can easily change it back.

For more information on successful Facebook marketing, we recommend the following guides to increase your revenue and save you money advertising on Facebook:

Facebook Ad Expert
Facebook Ad Expert is a comprehensive and detailed instructional E- book on how to become a social media ad expert specific to the Facebook advertising platform, Learn all the insider secrets to profit hugely from the Facebook advertising platform.
CLICK FOR DETAILS

Facebook Ads Guide by Jonathan Volk
Complete A to Z guide of how I generated over $1,000,000 in revenue using Facebook Ads in just 10 months time! Hot product put out by well known Super Affiliate (trusted) Jonathan Volk of JonathanVolk.com
CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS

Author: Chris Bourke of WebSEOCoach.com and Devision Design
Chris is a web designer and seo expert from Australia, who also specializes in social media marketing for business

Over the past decades visitor have flocked to Australia to explore our unique landscape and relaxed way of life, yet in the more recent years due to global economic hardship, we are seeing a massive drop in visitors to Australia.

Many of Australia’s regions heavily reliant on the tourism and accommodation industry are suffering, with many tourism operators in areas such as the Whitsundays and the Sunshine Coast on the verge of closing their doors.

And if financial and tourism experts are correct, this situation will possibly continue for the next 2 years.

But is the economic climate really the main problem?

If you follow Google’s statistics on the main tourism regions of Australia, the trend in people searching for holidays in Australia remains consistent over the past few years, and in fact on the increase in many areas such as the Gold Coast, Sydney, the Sunshine Coast…and the Whitsundays.

So if these live statistics are true, why are the visitor numbers slowing and what is the real problem?

More people than ever before are turning to the internet to book and plan their travel, so for tourism operators having an online marketing tool is critical.

These days just having a website that acts as an online brochure is not good enough if you want to capture the visitors.

Tourism operators and organisations need to thing outside the square and think much bigger.

I reviewed many of Australia’s leading tourism operator and corporate websites and found that most are ill-equipped to attract and capture visitors successfully.

Here are a few tips for all operators in the accommodation industry:

Thinking Global

With so much of the Australian tourism market reliant on international visitors this should be obvious, yet around 95% of accommodation-based websites have no translation tools on their website, or even a way of seeing where their visitors have come from for their future marketing.

Beating The Language Barrier

Believe it or not, but the English language is not the same globally when it comes to travel.

For instance, in Australia and the UK we go on a ‘holiday’, in many other parts of the world they call it a ‘vacation’. We stay in ‘apartments or units’, in many parts of the world they call it a ‘hotel or resort’.

Adding these simple keywords to your website in the text not only helps the international visitor understand you better, but will boost your international websites visitors from search engines.

Informing the visitors

Many visitors know little about Australia, or the local regions, so providing quick easy access to these details on the first page of your website is critical to get their attention. Give them a reason they should explore your area.

Adding links to the top 10 things to do in your region, local events and a downloadable ebook to give them something to take away after leaving your website gives your visitor a better education…and more chance of making a booking.

Connecting with the visitor

Most tourism websites are basically just an online brochure and don’t give the tourist operator a chance to really connect with the audience.

Simple technology now available that allows you to connect instantly with your audience as soon as they view your website. You can even see what they are moving their mouse over on your website, and you can send a pop up chat box to them to ask if they need assistance. You have the opportunity to connect with them before they leave your website!

This technology can be added to any website very easily and costs less than $10 per month, yet it is rarely seen on accommodation websites!

Social Media

We all hear about the power of social media. Social media such as Twitter and Facebook marketing allow you and your visitors to connect and converse, building a trusting relationship online.

You can also share events, photos, and local news plus use these tools to communicate with your potential customers as to their needs and likes, helping you as a service provider to provide a better holiday experience.

Facebook and Twitter can also be branded, allowing you to add messages, special deals and more. What other global marketing tools allow free advertising to potentially millions of people every day?

Creating a call to action

When people visit your website you don’t just want them to view your website and then leave.

Create a call to action with a subscription form, offering either discount voucher or fare ebook download when then sign up allows you to capture their details immediately for future marketing.

Many websites just add a basic newsletter subscribe link. Offering something free will gain a much better response.

Using smart online marketing tools you can create email marketing campaigns easily that not only target your audience, but also integrate with your social media tools, sending out simultaneously to a global audience.

Offering More

Adding value to your online bookings can really increase sales.

If you can have people book direct from your accommodation website rather than going through an external booking system you save, so offer a free bottle of champagne on arrival for online bookings and you win the visitor over with a nice start!

Create proactive marketing

Reaching your target audience online is becoming increasingly easier.

By creating articles and blog posts on your website and also submitting them to article websites helps you gain a greater presence on the search engines, as well as providing more information to potential visitors. If they find you before your competitors than you win!

Adding Polls to your website allow your visitors to interact and provide you with marketing information for you. Simple tickbox polls can help you find out what your audience likes to do on holiday, etc. This is critical marketing information which you can collect for free from your own website.

Simplify your enquiry system

Many websites are losing bookings simply because their online enquiry form is too complex.

Plan your booking or enquiry form like you’d plan a phone conversation. Don’t initially ask too many details, instead use the enquiry form to gain the basic information and then provide them later with the additional information and the upsell.

Getting the initial enquiry is critical, so don’t lose them by asking for too much information that you scare them away!

Marketing Smarter

Online marketing has become easier and the ability to reach a wider audience, such as simple Youtube videos, online image galleries branded with your logo. Keyworded correctly this will be picked up by Google and attract a lot more visitors directly back to your website.

If you are not implementing the tips mentioned above in your accommodation marketing you are most likely missing out of potential customers.

Everyone needs a holiday, so beat the economic crisis with some smart marketing and watch your business flourish!

Author: Chris Bourke of Devision Design and Web SEO Coach

Chris Bourke is a web designer and internet marketer from Australia, who also is General Manager of Australian Holiday Resorts

By planning and integrating smart online marketing campaigns using social media such as Facebook and Twitter can increase your profit by 400% or more within 24 hours!

The only other ways to achieve this result online would be pay-per-click marketing such as Google Adwords or Facebook ads, yet professional social media marketing costs a fraction of what you would spend on other online services.

The big advantage of marketing using social media is that you promote your products more effectively by branding and utilising your social media pages more effectively.

Did you know nearly 80% off Facebook business accounts don’t use their Facebook business page to attract or promote their services?
Most don’t even realise that you can brand your Facebook business page up, add contact forms, run videos or even set up booking forms, blogs and shopping carts directly inside of Facebook!

Here is a quick example of what your Facebook business page could look like:

By branding up your Facebook page you not only strengthen your branding by becoming more recognisable but you also make it easier to create an online following as you look professional.

The same can be done with Twitter, Youtube and so on.

Here is an example of a Twitter custom branded page:

So now that you can see what can easily be done using these free powerful online social media marketing tool, if you aren’t generating customers and sales using social media you are probably missing out on a lot of business!

Author: Chris Bourke of Devision Design and Web SEO Coach
Chris is a web designer and social media marketer in Australai, helping business’s with online branding for success.
for more on how you can make money online check out Chris’s guide: http://www.ultimatecashblog.com