Category Archives: Online Promotion Tips

Recently, we received a worried email from one of our clients. It said he was being sued for copyright infringement for using a photo on his website - a website we designed. <!--more--> The news was obviously very alarming. We were completely taken aback because we have ensured that our team follows ethical practices. We obviously didn't want our client to suffer and offered to bear the costs associated in case we are responsible for putting the said photo on his website. Our challenge now was to locate 2 year old project data and communication files. Once we located it, we found out that we had not added that image on the client's website. When we logged into the client's server, we also found that the image had been uploaded on the server a year before we actually started to communicate with the client. Our team had just transfered the page contents (including this photo) to the new design. We also found the old page in the backup folder. Although we are extremely happy that we lived up to our word, we are very concerned about our client. The picture was obviously used by the previous design company. And our client might now have to live with the consequences. This brought us to the whole issue of copyright laws and the Internet. Image Banks are using image tracking softwares like PicScout (http://www.picscout.com) and are now going after websites displaying their images without license. And it's the website owne

One of the best piece of advice I can share with businesses/individuals who are about to (re)start promoting their online properties is - "Do not put all your eggs in one basket." Each technique of promotion be it Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Link Building, Pay Per Click (PPC) management, blogging, content syndication, banner ads, podcasting, Social Media Optimization (SMO) etc. has it own unique advantages and has certain shortcomings too. Understanding 'what works when' is crucial and helps in setting the right expectations from your investment. No 'single' technique alone is supreme. There are of course instances when one promotion technique would bear more results or be more effective than the others. For eg. during peak seasons, carefully stepping the gas on PPC spend would be a good investment, in order to capitalize on the buying potential of that limited period. However a solid online promotion plan will utilize the strengths of each of these techniques and reach a fine balance which allows optimum performance. Get the right mix for your business! You will, however, need to factor in some important variables like budget, time by when results are expected, resources available, past history of the website, current rankings etc. in mind as well.