- 30Jan
Facebook To Go Public This Week
Facebook continues its quest to World domination and overtaking Google as the no 1 internet destination by starting the process of becoming a publicly listed company this week. The valuation of the company is set to be between $75bn (£48bn) and $100bn.
Staggering numbers in anyone's World, but even more so when you consider that Google, when it went public in 2004, raised a meager $1.9bn - at the time a staggering amount.
The Financial Times this morning has stated that Facebook will start the process by filing its papers with the US financial Watchdog this Wednesday - this is regarded by many as the 1st step of the process.
When the flotation goes ahead, it is expected to become one of the largest that Wall Street has ever seen - beaten by only a prestigious handful of bigger IPO's, such as General Motors which raised $20 billion last year.
The FT reported Facebook's shares have been changing hands in private secondary markets at levels valuing the company at about $80bn, but the company could be worth anything from $75bn-$100bn by the time it reaches Wall Street.
It is undecided who will handle the flotation yet, but both Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs are amongst the favourites, both having been involved in high profile internet style flotations already.
Rumours surrounding the IPO have been circulating for months and the reported valuation would make the company one of the world's largest by market capitalisation.
However, analysts have warned the deadline could slip due to unexpected problems with the company's regulatory filing or external news.
Because Facebook is still a privately owned company it us under no legal obligation to release it's accounting numbers, but reliable sources did release last year that its profit for 2010 was around the $355 million mark, with revenue of $1.2 billion.
It's worth remembering that despite becoming a global brand known to everyone, Facebook is actually only 8 years old, even younger in terms of it's current mass appeal format.
The site now has approx 800,000,000 monthly users, and monetises itself through offering targeted advertising.
@ 12:05
- 26Jan
Why Do We Offer Pay on Results SEO?
When we launched our latest Pay On Results SEO plan in early December, even though we knew it was a brilliant concept, we weren't quite prepared for the deluge of enquiries and new clients that resulted from it. It would seem that offering a pure and fair pay on results concept is something that the industry has been waiting for.What has been interesting is since taking on clients on this plan, is finding out what in particular appealed to them about working on a pay on results plan rather than a fixed fee model.
An alarming amount of our new clients told us that they had previously worked with an seo company but had been left disappointed by the results and the service, and had actually felt that they had wasted their money. They liked the pay on performance SEO model because it mean they would only be paying once the results were there - they also felt that by offering this type of plan, they had more confidence in us as a company, as we would be pretty silly to offer a plan like this if we were not confident on delivering.
Whilst we always hate to hear stories of poor service and performance in our industry, we are glad that one of the reasons this plan is working so well is because it gives our clients an element of comfort working with us - this is really important.
Another aspect of the plan that seems to appeal to new clients is the flexibility of the performance criteria - we basically can work the plan on improved rankings (Pay Per Rank SEO), improved traffic, or an increase in organic traffic sales.
Having said all this, we are not content to rest on our laurels - we are always thinking of new ways to make working with an SEO company even more comfortable for potential clients. At i-Fluid we are in a strong position, as we know our team of experts will deliver results, so we can afford to take all the risk up front, hence we offer pay on results plans.
If you know your business needs SEO, but have been burned, are unsure what it can deliver, or just need to talk through how it can work for you, why not get in touch and have an informal chat with us. We can talk you through how we work, some of our results and what performance models might suit your business best.
Shaun Measday
Co-Founder www.i-Fluid.co.uk
Filed under: Company News @ 09:23
- 25Jan
Facebook Helps The Flagging Economy....
Facebook is doing its bit to boost the flagging economy by offering free ad's to small business upto a certain budget - that's Facebooks slant on it anyway.The reality is that Facebook advertising has never really taken off in the way that Google Adwords did, and in the current market where online marketing spend is, for the 1st time facing its own mini recession, Facebook must get aggressive to try and establish a stable foothold in the minds of those who choose where to allocate their online marketing budget.
Those that have ventured into Facebook ad's in the past have in our experience, always been pleasantly surprised by the depth of the targeting that is available - after all, if nothing else, the one thing Facebook does have over Google is a wealth of personal data.
But the other side to this coin is the results are all too often disappointing - yes there can be a healthy ROI ( ad clicks on FB are type for type lower than on Google in general ), but the scale of the results has always been the issue, and here i think lies the inextricable problem with Facebook advertising.
When you are using Google, as a browser, you are looking for something - a product, a service, information, directions - you are by nature of the fact you're on a search engine, searching for something. Therefore, the ad's you see surrounding your search time should match what you are looking for, and so they are well worth your click.
On Facebook, your whole mindset is usually very different - you are posting something, looking at others information, being nosey - what in general you are not doing on Facebook is looking for a new car insurance deal, or buying a JD Bug Scooter.
For us as a digital marketing agency, we are increasingly advising our clients to make use of Facebook ad's, but we also caveat that advice with what to expect - yes you can hit your demographic spot on, yes you can get a good ROI, but you will probably struggle ( unless your product is running an online virtual farm - then you're in the right place ;-) ) to see massive revenue growth and certainly should not rely just on Facebook ad's.Because we are a very ROI focussed marketing agency, we tend to steer away from the term " Brand Building" when talking about marketing spend, but this is something else FB ad's can do effectively. You may not get many clicks ( so you won't be paying much ), but you will get 1000's of impressions ( think of an impression as a view ) of your ad - whether the browser consciously takes your banner ad in, reads it or remembers it, they will have viewed it, which no matter how small, should carry a value.
So well done to Facebook for offering to help small businesses - oh and at the same time introducing them to a new place to spend the online marketing budget - and if you would like to talk more about how Facebook advertising, normal Pay Per Click advertising, or Search Engine Optimisation can help your business, just give us call or drop as an email, we'd love to hear from you.@ 09:31
- 09Dec
Pay on Results SEO from i-Fluid
The concept of Pay on Results SEO is something we played with for a long time at i-Fluid before finally releasing it last year. Before I write about that, let me start by telling you the reason behind having a Pay on Results SEO plan anyway!Unfortunately in our industry, there is just too many cowboy SEO outfits who do are happy to charge big ticket prices for their services, but then ultimately deliver little or no value to their clients - this includes no rank improvements, no evidence of work and so absoloutely no return on the clients investment.
These cowboy in some ways make our work easier, as we love to be the opposite of everything they do - we love to get amazing results, please our clients and generally be the sheriff in the town!
In other ways, they have destroyed the landscape for us, as no matter how much we tell prospective clients we can do wonders for them, they quite rightly claim they have heard it all before! So convincing them to take a chance with us has always been tricky - until we came up with the concept of Pay On Results SEO!
It pretty much is what it says on the tin - as a client you would only pay for our services once have actually performed agreed objectives for you.
These can fall into several categories - the most popular being we are paid a % of the incremental sales our SEO has provided, so if we do not get you any sales, you do not have to pay us a penny!!
We also work this model on a CPL ( cost per lead ) and a CPA ( cost per acquisition ) basis, as well as a ranking based model - so you pay a set fee for going top 10, a slightly higher one for top 5, then a higher one for top 3 and ultimately no 1.
The idea all along is that you shouldn't have to pay anything unless we are generating revenue or business for you - now this then gives us a great marketing opportunity.
It gives our potential clients a feeling of trust and no risk - the worse case scenerio is they pay us nothing at all! The best case is they pay us a load of money, because it means they would be making a whole lot more!!
As with everything in life, once a good idea is out there, it can be copied and exploited, and already we are seeing other Pay on Results SEO services pop up - some i'm sure are genuine, but some are designed to hook the client in and then con them out of vast sums of money.
One we have had our eye on even try's to sell the concept on paying per additional click they send to your site, without any pre qualification of the extra traffic they are sending - so you may be selling hair dryers, and this firm could send you an extra 1000 clicks from the term "tumble dryers" and guess what? You have to pay them for that traffic!
Pay on Results SEO is not the right model for everyone, but for certain clients ( large ecommerce sites are probably the ideal example ) it is a perfect no risk way to find out how good we really are!
If you would like an informal chat, or some more info, please don't hesitate to get in contact with us,
All the best,
Shaun Measday
Co Founder www.i-fluid.co.uk
@ 08:59
- 18Nov
i-Fluid Welcomes Gadsby Onboard
i-Fluid are delighted to welcome Gadsby.co.uk on board as a full SEO client.Gadsby is a well established family business providing Wicker and Willow products to shops and distributors. Their range of wicker hampers, wicker baskets, pet baskets and shop fitting products are of an extremely high quality - Gadsby have been wholesalers of wicker products for 150 years.
i-Fluid have come on board to facilitate a full SEO strategy and to support the imminent launch of their brand new website (due to launch early 2012). Welcome aboard Gadsby.co.uk, we look forward to working with you!
If you are looking for a SEO company to handle your search engine marketing please view our SEO Services page or get in touch today!
@ 13:07
Screenshot Tour
ClosePage Management
Within our system you can quickly and easily edit, add, position and remove pages aswell as sub pages. Simply click on the page you would like to edit or the pencil icon and you will be taken to the editor for that page.
You can also add mulitple pages to your website if you have a whole new section you need added. You also have the ability to preview your page from within the CMS rather than having to open a seperate browser window or tab.
If you want to add a page but not set it live straight away then you can simply select a date you would like that page to appear. If you would like to temporarily remove a page you can click on the globe icon which will not remove the page but hide it on the website so it can’t be seen by visitors.
Editing Content
Editable areas of the page appear within the editor section of the page. Text can be entered into this box and formatted. The EvoCMS editor provides you with the most commonly used functions that you would find from a desktop editor like Word.
By using the EvoCMS editor you can write text, format it, add images, create links, create tables plus much more.
From this page you can also use the tabs across the top of the page to edit buttons, video and header banners to give you complete control over the look and feel of your website.
Also on this page you can edit your search engine titles, description and keywords enabling you to tweak your SEO depending on the information on that particular page.
Image Manager
Inserting images onto your website is very simple. Just click on the ‘Insert Image’ icon on the editor toolbar and a popup window called ‘Image Properties’ will appear showing you all the folders that are setup for your website.
You can either select an image you have already uploaded or click on the upload tab to upload one directly from you desktop.
There are many image settings you can use such as changing the image sizes, changing the alternative text, adding a caption to appear under the image aswell as setting the alignment of the image on the page.
Product Catalogue
If your EvoCMS includes an online shop then an ecommerce tab will appear in your CMS allowing you to add, edit and position your products.
This module works in a similar way as ‘Page Management’. If you would like to edit your product details just click on the title of the product or the pencil icon. This will take you to the product detail page where you have all the features you need to maximise sales on your website such as the related product selector, sale prices, product options and much more.
If you have the ecommerce module enabled on your CMS you also have a comprehensive filtering system so you can quickly find the product you need to edit. This is especially useful for clients that have 1,000’s of products on their website.
Order Management
The order management module will automatically appear in your CMS if you have an online shop.
This area allows you to process the orders you receive on your website. There are various states an order will go through such as Open/New, Pending Payment, Dispatched and Refunded. These can all be set by you within the CMS to archive your orders efficiently.
Once you click on an order not only does it contain all your customers details and delivery information but you can also notify the customers of any delays or special promotions you are currently running.
EvoCMS will auto generate formatted invoices and packing labels with your logo on for you to print off and use when your items are shipped to your customers.
User Privileges
There are various levels of user management you can setup within EvoCMS that allows you to decide what modules can be edited by collegues.
You can set up new accounts in a matter of seconds to allow a user to just edit pages for example and not to view the order managment part of the CMS.