Source Suppliers For Your Online Store In One Hour

Over the last 5 years I’ve been heavily involved with eCommerce sites, both my own and as a consultant working with others. Being around this community for so long I’ve seen an amazing growth in the number of people wanting to start an online store for various good reasons but I find they often come up with the same issue very early on in their journey. How to find brands to supply their new store?

It’s true that for somebody looking into starting an online business the quest of finding reliable, trustworthy suppliers in your chosen niche can be daunting. I recall spending weeks when setting up my first store searching Google for “niche keyword” + wholesale/supplier/trade….it doesn’t work. Well, it does work, but not very well.

So, what does work?

[Read more...]

The Benefits of Free Stuff for Brands #freebieman

Before we get into this I’d just like to say a big thanks to Mike for agreeing to let me publish an extract from his book for this blog post, I’d also like to wish him a happy birthday! (or ‘appy both’dee as we say here in Stoke) …enjoy..

Below is an exclusive extract from “Free Stuff Everyday”, the book by Mike Essex which explains how to build a brand by giving away freebies. If you enjoy this post be sure to check out Mike’s experiment that is happening today (!) which you can help with by visiting the Koozai website

[Read more...]

Mastering Inbound Marketing with 43 Free Ebooks

I’m a firm believer that there is a ton of great information and insight available about many aspects of inbound marketing  all over the internet and much of it is completely free of charge. 100% Gratis. In fact, I don’t “Believe” this, it’s just a fact, deal with it.

There’s often a stigma attached to anything “free”, people think that free means it has no value but nothing could be further from the truth in many cases. Giving away free eBooks and white papers is a legitimate inbound tactic in it’s own right, and if they are not great quality you’re doing it wrong. Now to be clear, by “free” I mean they don’t cost any money, you may need to hand over an email address, or pay with a Tweet but I promise, not a single credit card or paypal account required.

I’ve created this list of 38 free eBooks and white papers from various sources, some I used myself when I was learning the trade, some I’ve picked up more recently and the rest have been recommended to me or are from trusted sources. This is going to be a work in progress so feel free to add your own recommendations in the comments and I’ll consider adding them to the list.

[Read more...]

Twitter competitions to grow your followers

Damn it I love Twitter, and I recently had the pleasure of engaging with one of my favorite local businesses (Moddershall Oaks Spa Staffordshire) who were looking for idea’s to quickly grow their Twitter account with relevant and targeted followers. (That’s right, I dropped them an anchor text link, what of it?)

I have to admit these guys already do a great job with their social media efforts anyway so I was delighted that they listened to my ideas and that they achieved the results they wanted in UNDER 24 hours. Here a few of the idea’s that helped them do it.

(and they did most of them without me even mentioning it – Muchos Kudos)

[Read more...]

Google+ Local “The Best Bits”

I guess you heard right? Yeah, that’s right, the Google+ epidemic has claimed it’s latest victim in the shape of the treasured (and often spammed to death) Google Places. I jest of course (not about the spamming), on the face of it the newly branded Google+ Local looks pretty good and in reality everybody has been waiting for this to happen since the launch of G+ some months ago.

Google+ Local has been launched for about a week now and as is always the case when “The Big G” launches anything new there has been a flurry of activity in the blogsphere as every man and his dog tries to catch some traffic on the coat tails of the announcement. If you’ve been out of the loop for the last 7 days (or just been doing something else, like work or something) here’s a run down of the Google+ Local “Best Bits”…

[Read more...]

Meet your SEO (The Takeover!) : Alessio Madeyski

Hello, and welcome to “Meet your SEO“…The Takeover!! For those of you who don’t know (where have you been??) my good buddy Alessio Madeyski (twitter) has been running a fantastic series of interviews featuring great SEO’s from all over the world. I had the honour of  being the first person to be featured in the series and have been hooked ever since. It’s not that often that I read SEO interviews but I never miss one of these. 

Alessio is dedicated to becoming a famous and well respected SEO. Don’t believe me? Well check out the yellow background AND facial hair! Remind you of anybody?

Alessio is a scientist (molecular biologist know less!) turned SEO coming out of his beautiful homeland of Italy, he is well travelled and has lived across Europe, finally settleing (for the moment) in Berlin, Germany. Currently he is the SEO Manager for well know eCom company Zalando looking after their Scandinavian and Italian operation.

[Read more...]

5 Top SEO Agency Circles for Google+

I’ve been trying to spend a little bit more time over on Google+ over the past couple of weeks and it’s definitely growing on me, until now the only social network I’ve frequented on a daily basis has been Twitter and that still takes up a large chunk of my day although it’s taken a Google+ shaped hit recently.

One of the features of Google+ which got a lot of praise after the initial launch was the ability to create various circles in order to segment those people/pages you are following and it’s definitely a feature I’ve found really handy as I have been adding new people to my fold. One thing which I have been doing is seeking out some of my favourite SEO’s and Internet Marketing hero’s and also the key agencies these guys are often a part of.

[Read more...]

How eCommerce websites can (almost) passively attract links

You and I both know that proactively chasing links is a tiring and often tedious business.

What if I said there was a set and forget way for you to earn links whilst you sleep without lifting a finger? You’d probably think I was about to go spamtastic on you and start preaching the benefits of some push button comment posting software.

Fear not. This is far more interesting.

[Read more...]

Sharing is Caring: 10 Tips To Get Your Content “Out There”

1.  Write Good Stuff Damn it!

This one has been done to death but if you don’t have content that is at least decent it stands almost no chance of being shared by anybody. I would stress that you don’t have to write killer content every single time, just writing decent stuff coupled with more of the tips below will get you shares. Similarly, just having immense content and doing nothing else is probably not going to get you anywhere.

[Read more...]

SEO Rappers Delight #SEOMusic

One of the things I love most about the SEO community is the people, some of the friendliest, intelligent and most inspirational folks I have come across are working in this industry. Another thing which stands out about the people and which is something I can totally identify with is their love of music. Alessio compiled a great piece a little while ago “Now that’s what SEO’s call music” which was an amazing insight into what SEO’s listen to when plying their trade.

I don’t know what it is about the industry but it seems that every other SEO I come across is/was/wants to be a rapper and that’s cool with me. I’ve pulled together some of the best SEO related raps for your entertainment.

[Read more...]