Infoserve Group

One of the great advantages to Internet marketing, as opposed to other forms of marketing, is that it is constantly changing and improving. The Internet is developed through programs and machines, so the possibilities are endless. Search engines like Yahoo! and Google are constantly adapting their systems to suit their users. The biggest change recently has been with the search engines recognition of the importance of local search. Research from March 2010 found that 97% of consumers use the Internet to find local businesses and 90% of these consumers use search engines to find them. (more…)

Ok, here’s the next its-never-been-easier blog about the best ways to market your business online.

We’ve covered:

- Infoserve KeySites, which are one/two page websites specifically designed to rank highly in major search engines for chosen search terms, like “garden maintenance in Coventry” for example (see here).

- City-Visitor, which is one of the most used business directories on the Internet. You can get a listing on here to be found on the first page of major search engine results.

The next product?

- Infoserve eStart Websites

It’s all very well getting your business to the top of search engines, but what if your website is really old or you can’t manage it yourself to update the content? Or what if you don’t even have a website?

Infoserve’s eStart Website packages are simple.

Easy-to-manage, professional looking websites at affordable prices. There are a variety of designs which, using your own images and text, can be customised to your business.

They are like template websites so you don’t pay the huge costs of design and build.

Infoserve sorts the domain registration for you (yourbusinessname.co.uk), hosting (your website has to ‘sit’ somewhere to be available for Internet users to see), but then it’s down to you.

YOU get to maintain your company website and be in control; you can view reports on how many people have visited it, edit any text to include latest offers and upload any new photos.

And if one or two pages isn’t enough, try out eStart Plus product which gives you up to 10 pages on content.

So if you want to ditch your current website (Not modern enough? Not able to edit the content at all? Worried it will cost too much?) or want to start from scratch and build up a website for your business, give us a call. It really is pretty straight forward. The hardest part will be choosing your design…

Another no-nonsense guide to Infoserve’s products to try and make everything as simple as possible for businesses looking to increase their online presence.

We started with Infoserve’s KeySite product, now let’s look at City-Visitor.

In essence, this is one of the most used business finders on the Internet – or an online directory as most people like to call it.

Someone searches for Hotels in Durham, for example, and you can bet a directory will pop up, because it provides the exact information that person wants – a list of hotels.

Infoserve’s City-Visitor website is a really powerful opportunity to help your business get to the top of search engine results. It has 12 million number one positions and 22 million first page positions on major search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo!, so if you’re listed on here with Infoserve, potential customers can easily track you down.

Infoserve offers free listings, but to get ahead of competitors there are also enhanced and priority listings so people spot your business first.

Infoserve’s City-Visitor website basically does all the hard work for you, getting you top rankings.

What are you waiting for: contact Infoserve to find out more about how we can help get your business found online.

It’s very interesting watching the recent television programmes reminding us how far gadgetry and IT progressed over the last decade. We can look back with fondness and a bit of a smile at brick-like mobile phones, walkmans, and video recorders?

But one of the greatest advancements has to be the Internet.

When we started Infoserve in the last century (1999 to be precise) the Internet was in its relative infancy. Do you remember having to dial up to get online in those days?

So we can forgive those people who thought we were a little crazy all those years ago when we told them about our prediction that paper directories would gradually be phased out and replaced by people searching for their products and services on the internet.

It was a tough sell. Yellow Pages dominated the market and through brilliant marketing they created a fear factor among SMEs. Businesses were literally scared of not being in the directory in their area.

It’s been a long journey for Infoserve since then. Being the first in the UK to have this vision (we believe), we feel as though we have set the pace and created the agenda for online local search.

Imagine when we set up city-visitor.co.uk. There was nothing like it around, so we had to build it from scratch. Today it is one of the most used business finders on the net with 12 million number one positions and 22 million first page positions on the major search engines!

In the last ten years or so we have invested an enormous amount of money in the business. We have continued to build our technical platform and improve search performance to cater for the huge growth in online marketing by SMEs.

And its growth has been astounding.

Today 38.5 million people (63.8% of the population) use the internet in the UK¹. This has resulted in 86% of all local searches taking place online² with 90% of these searches resulting in offline activity³ and 61% of the offline activity resulting in a purchase⁴.

Some people may say it was a huge leap of faith when we set up in 1999 but we like to think it was extraordinary vision.

So if you are looking for dramatic changes in the next ten years, the way companies advertise themselves has got to be right up there.

It is incredible to think that the Internet has now overtaken TV advertising.

With 90% of consumer purchases made within 20 miles of where people live or work⁵, SMEs are now worried about not being found when people are looking online for and the products and services they provide.

1. Source: Nielsen Ner//Ratings;
2, 3, 5. Source: The Kelsey Group, March 2008;
4. Source: TMP Directional Marketing Source