A key event during the tour was being invited to speak with both business owners and media students at Adam Smith College in Kirkcaldy Fife. The whole event was captured by the College’s Adam Smith TV and therefore we are pleased to be able to share this video presentation delivered to a very receptive audience at Adam Smith Colleg on How to Promote Your Website.

We look forward to you enjoying the video and our thanks to Adam Smith College for hosting the event.

Please add any comments on this page or get in contact should you want to know more about how your business can achieve OnlineXcellence with your business website or learn to improve your web author skills

Matt, was last in Scotland during February 2011 when he visited Glasgow and from this visit decided he wanted to return and meet with more business owners from different business industries from across all of Scotland who have either a brochure website or ecommerce website and are serious about making money with their website online.
Matt is going to be working more closely with us here at OnlineXcellence and is looking to deliver some Masterclass events during 2012 to those who may seek a career as a website author and being trained by use here at OnlineXcellence.

If you are running a website and you want to be trained to a high standard by Internet Marketing Professionals then look no further than the engaging with the website marketing experts at OnlineXcellence to help you.

If you want to know how to make your website successful and have never attended a Search Engine Strategies conference in locations such as London or New York, you don’t want to miss hearing Matt Bailey speak about Internet Marketing.

Every year in London, New York, Chicago, Amsterdam, Singapore, Hong Kong, Toronto and San Francisco business owners come to hear from high profile speakers such as Google Evangelist Matt Bailey. So you don’t miss out on what Matt has to say listen watch the presentation he delivered at Google.

Matt’s presentations are in a language that everyone can understand from his conversational, entertaining speaking style and his ability to explain high-level search marketing concepts in a way that even “non-techies” understand. So if you are a Scottish business owner frustrated with your website not making you enough money you want to work with Matt Bailey and the internet marketing and seo experts here at OnlineXcellence then  othen why not consider working with Matt Bailey and the other Internet Marketing  and SEO experts here at OnlineXcellence where you can be guaranteed the knowledge you gain will help you achieve improved sales and profitability from your website.

Matt will address business owners from across Scotland who are serious about their website being successful online. The session scheduled for Thursday 17 February 2011 at the Allan Glen Campus in Central College Glasgow is expected to attract a large audience.

Every year the hosts of these MasterClass events OnlineXcellence Ltd work hard to secure visits from such high profile speakers such as Matt Bailey. Seminar attendees consistently rave about Matt’s conversational, entertaining speaking style and his ability to explain high-level search marketing concepts in a way that even “non-techies” understand. So Scottish business owners will not be disappointed and are guaranteed a very interactive session on the day.

The people behind OnlineXcellence have been helping businesses launch websites since 1998. Over the years we have seen a number of funded campaigns launched to help the UK business owner be ‘trading online’. The headlines and marketing messages offered by such campaigns were all too familiar, ‘Be Online in 5 days’ or ‘Set up a Website in One Day’. It is known that in the past such schemes have been doomed to failure as successful websites need proper planning if they are to survive.

Get British Business Online was launched in April 2010 to help create an internet presence for 100,000 firms. It is a partnership between the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, BT, the British Library Business and IP centre, Google and a number of support partners UK wide.

The Getting British Business Online initiative will allow firms that sign up to be given a free web site which will be registered in Google’s search engine. And here is the interesting part, a tool to help businesses create a website in 20 minutes.

Can this really be done? Without doubt if you have sufficient web design skills and have an idea about best practice website design you probalby can build a website in this time frame. But, what was important to us was how many novice business owners who never set out to build their own website, could do this task in 20 minutes and months later find out they had built a website that has not really worked for them.

BT offers free telephone support, but admittedly its limited support.

So, this was a reason OnlineXcellence became a support partner in Scotland for businesses who want to begin by having a GBBO website.

Our website training courses hand hold the business owner to achieve having a successful website, whether its a starter website offered via the GBBO scheme, or you want to create a more complex website.

OnlineXcellence training courses provide important advice and guidance through a number of workshops that starts by helping the business owner understand search engine marketing, best practice website design, and the best approach towards website marketing that includes Search Engine Optimisation, so you end up with a successful websites.

It is excellent that Google is involved, because when you build a website and launch it you do need to ensure that Google can start building relationships with your website domain name.

To get your FREE website Google provides a domain name address.

It would still be recommended once your website is built you go to Google and ‘ADD YOUR URL’.

The Getting British Business Online website has an area that provides details on other Google products.

An important product you need to put in place is a Google Account.

Once you have signed up to a Google Account you need to ‘import’ other important Google tools needed to support your website;s marketing strategy.

These tools contribute to ‘search engine optimise’ your website.

How much time do we need to train the people to use these tools effectively?

We have devised 8 training modules to assist businesses in Scotland who have either signed up to a GBBO website or already have another website platform type in place, and need to improve the websites performance.

We cover all sorts of topics in the marketing training courses from Search Engine Optimisation to where to host your website.

You would be amazed the amount of businesses who thought there website was hosted in the UK only to find there website was on a cheap hosting solution in Minnesota or some other off-shore location.

OnlineXcellence has carried out a number of website audits for businesses and we can include this when you attend an OnlineXcellence marketing training course. 

You can learn more about Google tools such as a tool that helps you do ‘Geo Specific Targeting’ with your website. We can teach you how effective this tool is.

In order to deliver our website marketing training courses hailed by business owners as excellent we regular attend the Search Engine Strategies Conferences the next being in London during Feb 21-25 2011, where all the industry thought leaders and real world practitioners in the world of search gather once a year.

Here we meet and exchange information with some of the best online marketing people in the world and bring this valuable marketing tips back to business owners in Scotland via our well attended courses.

Paypal are also participating in this ‘Getting British Business Online’ campaign. This means you can turn the free ’20 minute website’ on offer into an e-commerce website.

Be in no doubt that this ecommerce add-on comes with some limitations. You can learn from attending our workshops what these are and whether adding this ecommerce module will be right for your business.

If you need a  more complex website, we can introduce you to a number of website design companies in Scotland that build successful ecommerce websites

A website project cost can vary from, £2k to £12k to £24k or more.

We can guide you through this price minefield to ensure your budget meets its objective. Why this service is important? Well take a quote that crossed our desk recently indicating it would be around £92k for a website. That included the website platform and all associated marketing for this new website where the company’s brand was not yet known across the UK. Don’t fall into this trap, come and do our training courses.

The government backed GET BRITISH BUSINESS ONLINE initiative will deliver a series of activities run throughout the country by partners such as OnlineXcellence. These events will promote the benefits to business owners why they should have an online presence and why they should go a step further and gain further marketing skills and learn more about making use of Google products.

The presenters are knowledgeable at internet marketing and best practice website design.
At times well known search engine marketing professionals will come to Scotland and give incredible insight into website marketing.
Our workshop presenters have a track record of showing they have helped businesses to be profitable from either having a brochure website or an ecommerce website.

The OnlineXcellence program launched in Scotland helps small businesses be successful online with the aid of a website. The training program will help your business achieve putting place competent staff members to manage your website towards achieving ROI for the business.

Larger websites can take longer to plan, build and launch.

The OnlineXcellence program helps and trains either a new start business or one that is already established, with a website presence that not only provides a fit for purpose website platform being put in place, but more importantly providing the necessary skills to manage the website day in day out. This day to day website managing task is always seriously overlooked, and yet its the most important to both the website owner and the person who is given this very important task to do. That person is who we up skill and then becomes known as the website author or champion.

Having a website is one thing but understanding search marketing and knowing what to do in order for the website to achieve getting visitors and sales, well that is at the heart of having a successful online presence.

‘Getting British Business Online’ , aims to provide positive results and meet with business owners expectations. We hope the scheme is successful and that is why we have become a partner to help deliver  your business expectations.

GBBO is just about 1 year old. If you want to us to review your website, then get in contact with us through this website.

We would also welcome any comments about whether you think the GBBO scheme can or is working with you.

We would particularly like to hear from website owners who are actively in the thick of things trying to keep their website ahead of the competitor curve everyday.

We thought this post should signpost you to a number of comments made by those who were in attendance.

Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz who presented on the Monday and Tuesday before having to return to Seattle on Wednesday has put his thoughts together by commenting on his blog about some interesting tips and tidbits he picked up during the conference.

Jaamit Durani over at Fresh Egg done well in capturing like a true journalist what was being said during some of the presentations Avinash Kaushik is one of the smartest people in Analytics and the OnlineXcellence team are testimony to this having been able to spend some time in Avinash’s company when we were last at SES New York.

Read what Avinash had to say in his keynote speach as captured by Jaamit when he opened the SES London 2010 conference.

Jaamit also neatly captured the debate of SEO vs PPC where in the blue corner the SEO proponents we had Rand Fishkin, Dave Naylor and Ralph Tegtmeier against those in the red corner the PPC evangelists Andrew Goodman and Paul Mead.

And if you really want to see the power of social media marketing then we have to give a thumbs up to Jonathan Allen over at searchenginewatch. Jonathan’s has put together an excellent blog of statistics on the impact blogging had covering SES London 2010.
As we come across other useful links from what has been hailed as another fantastic event from the SES Strategies team, then we will post them here at the OnlineXcellence blog.
Why not consider signing up for the OnlineXcellence program where you can learn how to accelerate your business growth online. And, we can guarantee you will end up joining us in attending the best conference event in the Search Marketing calendar.

But, all that is soon to change. OnlineXcellence has already been blessed with the presence of one of the world’s TOP 10 SEO professionals Rand Fishkin, who thoroughly enjoyed his time in Scotland before facing massive audiences at the SES London conference.

During the London conference the OnlineXcellence team presented Rand with a bottle of whisky to thank him for launching OnlineXcellence on February 12. But this was no ordinary bottle containing one of Scotland’s finest single malt whiskies. The bottle was specially made by Stylish Whisky who provide unique whisky bottles that you can have designed to your own specification. So, with Rand being famous for his yellow shoes we had those prominently featured inside the bottle of whisky. So special thanks to Gyorgy Hodos who went to great lengths to ensure the bottle would impress our guest’s first visit to Scotland.

Rand contacted the OnlineXcellence offices when he returned to Seattle on Thursday and said “Very much appreciated Friday and am excited about Scotland’s potential to do remarkable things on the web. It was also great to see you again in London for SES and thanks so much for the kind words and amazing gift. I’m still overwhelmed by your kindness and generosity”.

Rand has informed OnlineXcellence he will now be returning to Scotland in August (2010) and we are already planning another mini event as the feedback from the Scottish Business community was overwhelmingly positive. One of the best comments we saw come through was “thanks for such a great event, seriously, this was the best SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) event in Scotland to date. It was a great venue, and I learned a lot”. This was the general concensus of everyone who attended.

At the end of SES London the OnlineXcellence team spoke with Matthew Bailey of SiteLogic who is situated in the Mid West of the USA. Matt has indicated we could see upto six of the top speakers lined up for Search Engine Strategies London stop off in Scotland as a precursor before the London event in 2011. So the OnlineXcellence team are in discussion with SES to host an even bigger event than what the Scottish companies attended a few weeks ago at Central College Glasgow.

The Secretary of State for Scotland provided OnlineXcellence with a statement of support when it launched in Glasgow and how he would like to see it grow to something much bigger by 2011. Now it looks like we are already on the road to delivering towards his expectations. Read Jim Murphy MPs statement about what he had to say about the OnlineXcellence program.

Apart from the impressive presenation that Rand Fishkin presented in Glasgow and again at SES London, who else did we think provided some great informative topics filled with tips and hints to impove a websites online performance. Where would you like us to start?

We will provide a seperate more detailed post, but lets give a name check here to just a few people who really influence us on the day and we were able to speak with during our time in London.
Let’s put our hands together for Matthew Bailey, Heather Lloyd Martin, Sheri Thrurow, Avinash Kaushik, Jim Sterne, Jim Boykin, Andrew Goodman, Bryan Eisenberg, Dixon Jones, Greg Jarboe, John Marshall, Maile Ohye, Matt Paines and Ralph Tegtmeier.

We could go on and will give more text space to others who also impressed us during the conference. The next post we put up will tell you why we feel these people are so important and why you should get to know their names and what their professionalism is.

We are here to promote OnlineXcellence a program for Scottish Business Owners that will commence in April 2010. If you want to have a successful website and know you have built it properly and it clearly demonstrates its fit for purpose, then you won’t want to miss getting a place on this program. And what is even more important for you to know, is that many of the people given a name check in this post could well be contributing to increasing your knowledge to manage a successful website.

Do stick with us, we don’t want to disappoint you.

Business owners from across Scotland who were either considering having a website or were already in engaged in either offering goods or services online learned what they need to do with their websites to satisfy the major search engines.

Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz based in Seattle is one of the top 10 most influential search engine optimisation professionals who is well versed in online search marketing tactics. Normally business owners would have to travel to London, New York, Chicago or other major locations and attend events such as SES Strategies or the SMX Conferences to hear from such top online marketers in the industry.

Online business growth professionals Brian Mathers and Adrian Bereziuk who are behind the OnlineXcellence program to assist business owners gain better leverage from their websites were honoured that Rand Fishkin agreed to visit Scotland and help them launch OnlineXcellence.

During the course of the day MDs and those responsible for the day to day marketing of their website were given an insight into understanding how search engines work and what it takes to build successful websites. Rand also gave his predictions on the strategies businesses would have to consider during 2010 if their websites were to achieve any degree of online success.

Now other influential speakers in the world of online marketing are gearing up to come to Scotland’s first OnlineXcellence centre at Central College Glasgow that will exclusively serve businesses located in the greater Glasgow region.

To recognise a bad SEO person or company you need to be educated towards understanding and following the rules. So that, your website gives you better miles to the gallon and you stop getting penalised for getting your SEO so wrong.

An SEO article written by Eric Enge in 2008 still stands true as we trundle into 2010. Eric is president of Stone Temple and of course is the 27th most influential marketer by readers of the Invesp blog. I know a few other good people on that list that I could recommend, but I suggest you read Eric’s article and leave him your comments.

There are tons of good interview articles on Eric’s site and so another interview we want you to read on Eric’s site is the one he did with Ken McGaffin of Wordtracker.com.

I have known Ken for a very long while now and I am already looking forward to our time together next week at the SES London Conference.

Read Ken’s article over at Stonetemple.

If you can’t make it to London on the 15 Feb 2010, for what will be a fantastic week filled with wealth, knowledge and the best search marketing talent on the planet, then read on………..

We have something special to tell you about here, why not get yourself to Glasgow for Friday 12 Feb 2009 and here about what you should be doing to your website by using best practice SEO techniques. World class top 10 SEO professional Rand Fishkinof SEOmoz.org is joining me for the day to launch the OnlineXcellence initiative. Come along, as you will not be disappointed. It all kicks off at 1000 inside Central College next to Queen Street Station.

It does not matter whether you have an ecommerce website selling products or a brochure website just promoting services, any website page has the ability to bring revenue into a business.

The information provided by the National Statistics office said in 2009 that 18.3 million households in the UK (70 per cent) had Internet access in that year. This was an increase of 28 per cent since 2006.

What was interesting about the statistics provided was that the region with the highest level of access was London, with 80 per cent, and the region with the lowest access level was Scotland, with 62 per cent.

Now that gets you thinking when considering to launch a website and, especially an ecommerce website. What businesses fail to do is tactical marketing. Where to aim your website pages in order to capture the cash rich and the large audiences that are in buying mode.

With any new website, the first year is tough if you are trying to grow your website organically. We say tough because we are referring to the smaller businesses who have great ambitions and high expectations to do well online. Especially if they are intent on selling products online. But depending on what marketing budget has been laid aside, will depend on how quickly that large footprint across the major search engines will take to develop.

And there are many small businesses out there who are spending very little or in some cases nothing at all on marketing their website and just hoping that traffic will come.

Organic search engine marketing takes time to mature, it could be 9 months or more depending on the marketing activities you apply to ‘fuel inject’ your website.
So flicking the turbo switch that is Pay Per Click advertising might be in your strategy to increase your websites awareness.

But many businesses jump into this with little or no knowledge of say, how Google Adwords actually works. If no training is sought and no PPC professional is hired, it is usually inevitable that the campaigns set up will lose the business owner money and the website not achieving a page conversion to sale or gaining an enquiry.

So, whilst the UK as a whole has seen an increase of 69 per cent since 2006 of households getting internet access, just how much sales would an ecommerce website achieve if only targeting Scotland?

And for those business owners spending less than £10-£20 a day on Pay Per Click Advertising are there any Scottish businesses out there right now who can say hand on heart that they are achieving excellent conversion ratios and high volumes of sales from such a small budget, and just getting there traffic from Scotland?

Or lets open this debate out more and ask of a Scottish business who can boast that for this small daily marketing budget they are achieving global reach into new markets and there PPC Ad landing page is a real revenue generator for their business.

And, one final question to the Scottish Business Community with websites, how many of you feel you are being successful and getting a reasonable slice of the £4billion a month being spent in the UK online?

The OnlineXcellence team would like to hear from you

We just love this article from their guest blogger Judith Lewis
Judith will be publicly speaking in London at this years Search Engine Strategies conference from Feb 16 2010. And of course the OnlineXcellence team will be there too.

But more about Judith who is raising the issue about SEO standards, getting accreditation, qualifications and a subject that is really important, and that is the business owner who wants a website, but we all have to manage their expectations.

We once came across a website agency not that long ago that said SEO was dead. But as Judith is trying to say there is SEO and then there is SEO. And this is where we agree, because we put it to the business owner, how do you know you are getting a good SEO Service? How much SEO knowledge could you achieve by yourself?

There are those website designers out there that are going to add in their website build quote to the business owner ‘SEO Services’. And a lot of the time the business owner doesn’t really know what that entails. Maybe the business owner doesn’t want to know, but, would you drive a car not knowing where to put the oil, fuel and water? How far would the car go without such ingredients?

A business owner does want their website to succeed, they have expectations, and usually high ones. There is no point paying good money for this glitzy looking platform if its not going to bring what is important to the business owner seeking online success.

We are of course referring to traffic, visitors, sales, profitability and wealth. A website is only going to achieve those things if the person driving the website everyday is knowledgeable enough to know what gear to put the website pages into.

And therefore OnlineXcellence and Judith Lewis in the opinion of this article are very much on the same frequency because it is true what we both agree on, SEO can make or break a website.

We love the website design community, without them there are no websites to market. But this is an unregulated community. When the OnlineXcellence team engage with a business owner who may already have a website or considering to build one, either way there will be a website company in the project.

As soon as we are hired, the shutters come down at the website agency, because they think we are going to upset their kitchen.

They could not be more wrong. OnlineXcellence is looking for a win win situation. If a website agency would freely admit they might not have all the skills or are willing to work with us so they can deliver on best practice and be even better at what they do, what is going to happen? Of course, more people will want to do business with that website agency.

And if there was some form of regulatory body that could point the business owner towards a best practice agency delivering OnlineXcellence, which is not just a ‘nice website design’ but a website that is bringing the client traffic, sales, profits, wealth and return on investment. Everyone’s a winner.

If your a business in Scotland and cannot make the pilgrimage to the really big Search Marketing shows in London, New York, Chicago and other fine locations around the world, then Friday 12 Feb in Scotland at Central College Glasgow from 0900-1530 come and hear Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz.org and find out how the OnlineXcellence initiative can help grow your business online.

Register for the event as you cannot afford to miss it.