Web Marketing Information, Net Action Search Engine optimisation, registration and submission

Frequently Asked Questions

This page is regularly updated and added to as users ask us questions. The FAQ's are roughly sorted into the following order:

questions about web marketing, your site, domains names etc
questions about us and our services
questions about technical issues, viruses etc

FAQ Listing:

Where are the most important places to be listed?
Currently, the most important engines and directories to be listed in are Google, Yahoo and Xtra MSN.
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Should I have a .co.nz or a .com or .biz domain name?
.com domains are technically for US businesses but because the US dominates the Internet world both in numbers of web sites and Net users, it has become more generically used for commercial web sites. There is no advantage to having a .com domain name as such for a New Zealand based business. The main reason for doing so would be to protect your brandname if this was important to your business on a worldwide basis. Or if you are an extremely well known business internationally, and you think people might try to find you by typing www.yourbusiness.com into their browser - Americans especially will probably tend to use .com when looking for a business. In many cases now, it is not possible to get the .com domain name you would like - hence the proliferation of new domains like .biz and .info.

It also depends on whether your business is physically located in NZ eg hotel, tour operator or its a virtual business operating worldwide - then a .com address by be more appropriate.

If you are a NZ based business, you should register a .co.nz domain. We think it is good to have a .co.nz address as this identifies where in the world you are. Also, it can be helpful to have a .co.nz domain for registering your site with some NZ search engines (although most of the key ones will accept a .com domain now). Also, many of the major international search engines also have regional versions eg Yahoo Aust/NZ and nz.altavista.com - usually they filter web sites by their domain for regional searches.

Read our newsletter article on the new domains like .biz, .travel etc
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Should I pay to have my site submitted to thousands of engines?
The short answer is NO, because there are not that many engines. For a complete answer click here to see our newsletter article on the issue
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Should I get listed on PureNZ ?
Yes, if you are a tourism business in New Zealand. This is an important site for referrals from people looking for New Zealand tourism and travel information. To register go to http://register.nztb.co.nz
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Is Yahoo an important place to be listed ?
Yes, Yahoo is a very well used directory and one of the most important places to try to have your site listed. It now also has its' own search engine so directory listings are less important. In the directory, human editors review your site and then place it in an appropriate category. Many of our clients get a significant amount of visitors from Yahoo. Paid listings cost $AUD450 (one off non refundable fee, no listing guarantee)
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What is the difference between a high ranking and being indexed in an engine?
Being indexed purely means that an engine has your site listed somewhere in their database. Whether your site comes up at the top of a search results list will depend a raft of other factors. These include - site design issues, your site's title, description and META Tags, the number of times the search phrase appears in your page text, the algorithm the particular engine uses,the number of links in to your site, how long your site has been around and the number of competitor sites that are also there. Your site will rank quite differently for the same search in different engines based on these and other factors.
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How important is my page text?
This is vitally important from both a search engine and user point of view. Search engines only read words and determine the relevance of your site by the keywords they find in your page text - especially your home page. Users also look to find information quickly. The trick is for you to balance good keyword heavy text to help the search engines with the warm fuzzy marketing text that you think your users will want to read. We think the search engine text is the most important - if the user doesn't find your site, they will never read your warm fuzzy stuff anyhow!
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Can my site design affect search engine rankings?
Yes, most definitely. Search engine robots are quite unsophisticated and can be put off by technical wizardry such as frames, flash and dynamically generated pages. Your page content is also very important. See Site design issues for more information and detail. Also read our newsletter article on search engine friendly design.
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Is my site Search Engine Friendly?
In search engines, simple sites work best - see our newsletter article for more information about what makes a site "search engine friendly". There is also an excellent article at ClickZ
We can perform a site audit on your site if you would like to find this out.
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Can you recommend a web developer to me?
We work closely with a few selected developers who we know build good search engine friendly sites and who understand the web marketing issues, and are focussed on your marketing needs. Let us know what sort of site you are wanting and we will suggest a couple of people you can talk to. At the end of the day it is important that you find someone who you can trust to give you the service your need for a reasonable price.
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How much should my web site hosting cost me?
A 2 MB web site (which will do most small clients) can cost from as little as $15 per month. The cost increases for bigger sites, secure servers for credit cards and other services. Some hosting companies will charge you for traffic (visits) to your site so the more successful we make your site the more it will cost you ! We recomend that you find a hosting company that does not have a traffic charge. One client recently saved about $2000 per month by changing their hosting co to one with no traffic charge. Your hosting company MUST be reliable (so your site is always working) and also be able to provide you with good site statistics each month (ie number of users, number of page views etc) as part of your standard monthly charge.
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How much does it cost to use your services?
Web marketing work is very time intensive so the cost depends on several factors These include whether your site is "search engine friendly" and the tasks that we perform for you. Please contact us and we will quote for you once we have had an initial look at your site.
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Who are your clients?
Many clients see what we do for them as part of their "competitive advantage" We strive to maintain client confidentiality so do not publish our client list. However, if you look at the sites that rank well in the engines, or ask around the key players in the New Zealand Tourism industry, we are sure you will very soon find satisfied clients of ours.
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Can you get me a top ranking in the engines?
All engines use a different complex and secret algorithms to rank web sites. We cannot therefore guarantee top rankings for particular searches. It is very hard to get a great ranking for a very generic term like "New Zealand Travel" The more specific the term the better chance of a high ranking (eg PureNZ). Top rankings can however be bid for in engines such as Overture - see information about Paid Placement programs on our Search engines and directories page. Our aim is to achieve good rankings for your site for a range of relevent searches in the major engines and directories.
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Do you do marketing work for non tourism clients?
Unfortunately we are so busy that we now restrict our work to travel and tourism sites. We may be able to refer you elsewhere though.
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My developer does Web Marketing - do I need you?
A few developers do indeed do some or all of what we do. Most of those that do will only do a very basic submission initially and then no more. Developers are often specialists in just building sites and may not be marketing oriented. Many do not understand site design issues regarding search engines. It is difficult to keep up to date with both development and marketing issues in this rapidly changing field. Therefore, we specialise only in web marketing and do not build sites. We offer a comprehensive program to ensure that your site is properly marketed and that this marketing effort is followed up appropriately. Check what your developer offers and then compare our services. You may not need us.
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Do you build web sites?
No, we only do web marketing. This is a complex field so we specialise just in this area in order to provide a quality service. This way we also remain independant and are able to work with whoever your selected developer is with no conflict of interest.
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Why did nobody tell me I needed to market my site?
They should have! Unfortunately many developers are not aware of web marketing issues. They are interested in the technical stuff and not what you do with your site once you have it. We spend a lot of time trying to make people aware that marketing must be an integral part of getting a web site. It should be factored in to your site budget from day one and your site should be designed with search engines in mind. (see newsletter article) Subscribe to our free newsletter for regular information on web marketing.
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Why can't I find the Net Action web site in engines?
We are very busy and our work mostly comes by word of mouth referrals. We do not therefore actively promote our own site on the internet in order to attract business. Our site is designed primarily as a resource site with web marketing information, FAQs, links etc for interested users. Attracting a huge quantity of traffic and enquiries is not always the reason to have a web site.
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Who is Quasar Consulting?
Our company was called Quasar Consulting until Sept 2000 when we changed it to Net Action Ltd to better reflect our Internet focus. Same people, same great service!!
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Viruses - what should I do about them?
You should be concerned about viruses. They can destroy your systems and infuriate those who receive them from you. Run a reputable virus scanner and keep it regularly updated (usually by downloading updates from the net). For more information about how to buy as well as the latest viruses visit the Nortons site or the Mcafee site Firewalls can also stop viruses. Some ISPs also now offer email virus scanning services to stop viruses before they get to you.
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SPAM email - why do I get so much?
Spammers send millions of emails because they work on the theory that a very small percentage of sales from a very large number of prospects is a good return. Spammers can send 180 million emails a day from one computer. Email lists can be purchased very cheaply - 6 million Australian or 175 million US addresses can be bought for $US80. Or you can buy 1748 million addresses for the whole world for only $US300. Spammers see what they do as legitimate direct marketing
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SPAM email - How do I stop it?
Many ISPs now have Spam (and virus) blocking software installed on their servers - for a small fee they will screen your emails and stop those they think are spam. There is a risk they might also stop a very small percentage of your legitimate emails. Emails are stopped based on a number of rules - eg if they are from known spammers, if they contain certain words, if they do not come from valid email addresses etc. We have found our ISP's spam blocking software to be very effective. Ask your ISP. If they don't offer something software is available that you can use yourself (eg Mailwasher)
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