Business TO Business

Pay Per Click, SEO or Content, which should you focus on?

The dynamics of wealth creation are changing. There was a time when typically it would take enterprise and capital to set up a business and create wealth over a period of years. Invariably, you needed good selling skills and were proficient at managing customer relationships.

Today, at least where internet businesses are concerned, the requirements for capital are greatly reduced, you don’t necessarily need selling skills, and managing customer relationships has become far easier with the advent of intelligent software technology.

The Internet now presents a huge array of opportunities to chase your dreams of building wealth to an ever-increasing number of people. Global borders mean little, as do who you are, or your background, for you can remain faceless behind your TFT screens.

The website is now the face of your business. It displays your wares, sells them, collects payment, even delivers, and thanks your customers whom it also makes captive. It is most of your staff, since much of the business processing is handled by your software, with occasional human input.

So, what has changed most?
Probably the biggest change has been that, for some savvy folk, it is becoming increasingly possible to be able to create personal or enterprise wealth in a shorter span of time. This is a significant change to the business dynamic, made possible through Pay Per Click methods.

These have to some extent encouraged shorter term business models, a mentality of I’m in the business of business. Many affiliates follow this model, going from product to product, without building lasting value other than in terms of revenue, sometimes significant, for themselves.

Many “principal” businesses also follow this model, as a quick means of getting found on the search engines. However, as PPC prices edge upwards due to ever more people jumping on the bandwagon and as PPC fraud makes this method increasingly expensive, it is time to consider the alternatives. Especially since Google themselves appear to be reviewing the model. Should PPC start becoming a pay on results model, the whole dynamic of the business model is likely to change affecting not just affiliates but also business principals.

This is when possibly when we begin to see the re-emergence of the longer term “traditional” business model where acquiring customers, sales and customer relationships take more time to build.

SEO techniques compared to PPC do take longer, and there is a cost in terms of in-house staffing and expertise, or outsourcing. However, the benefits are two-fold. Once you make that investment, you should get “free” traffic. If you stay on top of your SEO activity, you can continually expect to get that free traffic.
Alongwith what is considered the remit of SEO (keywords, tags and link strategy) you also need to focus on content, which search engines like Google love. This helps considerably in improving page rankings.

Just as in running bricks and mortar businesses, Internet enterprises will have to become increasingly inventive and clever at staying ahead of their web-based competition.

PPC is of course not dead just yet, but businesses need to start considering and planning the alternatives of Search Engine Optimisation blended with Content and other techniques.
We’ll expand a bit more on these in our next feature.
Stay tuned.
© Pardy Singh

Writer: Pardy Singh
CEO, www.life-media.co.uk
CEO, www.sunderland-life.co.uk

Car Insurance Cost Killing You

Car insurance is one of the most irritating of bills for the average family. It's getting more and more expensive to insure your car just as it is getting more and more expensive to run your car.

With fuel costs escalating out of control car running costs are becoming a serious burden for the average family, especially families with more than one car. For this reason more and more people are looking for ways to control the costs associated with their family transport.

And whereas you can't bring the price of gas down you can do something to reduce your car insurance costs.

Car insurance rates are a reflection of the perceived risk that the insurance company takes on when it insures you. If the company sees the risks as higher then the insurance premium will be higher. If they see the risks of insuring you as lower then this also will reflect in your car insurance premium.

So reducing your premium is all about doing things to demonstrate that the risk when insuring your car is low.

7 Tips To Reducing Car Insurance Costs.

1. A major factor for any car insurance company in assessing the insurance premium you pay comes down to the type of car you drive. Different types of car attract different levels of premium because, in particular, different types of car are driven by different types of people, who may have different types of risk profile.

Sports cars, for example, will usually show a higher rate of accidents than staid boring family cars.

And there are always certain types of cars which attract thieves more than others, and this is reflected in the premiums you pay to insure them.

Your insurance company can tell you which types of cars are cheaper or more expensive to insure, so before you buy a car make some enquiries about whether that type of car is a high insurance premium car.

2. Consider your deductible. This is the amount you pay first out of any claim, and the cost of your policy is directly related to the amount of your deductible. Higher deductible - lower premium. So consider carefully whether you could afford to pay a higher amount first from any accident and raise your deductible. If so, you will get lower premiums.

3. Safety and anti theft devices can reduce the insurance costs for a car. Talk to your insurance company and find out if there are any safety or anti theft devices that you can install to reduce your premium. Then consider installing them making sure that you notify your insurance company once you have done so. And why not ring up your company and make sure that they are aware of any safety and anti theft devices you already have, if they aren't you may get a reduction.

4. Drive carefully. It may sound obvious but as insurance premiums are related to risk then your manner of driving is related to your insurance premiums. Safer driver equals lower premiums. It may not seem so at the time but those traffic violations or speeding fines reflect in your bill.

5. Don't just pay your premium each time it comes around without investigating if you can do better. Car insurance rates vary all the time and so even if it was the best rate last year it may not be this year. Every year shop around to see if you can do better, you may be surprised.

6. Have a look at other insurance policies you have with other companies. Many insurers offer discounts for combining all your family insurance with their company. Find out who they are and get a quote on all your policies combined.

7. Always look online for a competitive quote. Most of the major players and brokers are represented online and it is extremely competitive. It is very easy to get an online quote, just go to Google and search for car insurance quote and start looking.

These are just a few of the things that you can do, there are plenty more. Educate yourself about your car insurance, find out all you can about it and be prepared to shop around once you know exactly what you do need, and what you don't. You will find cheaper insurance.