Services
QuickStart
I regularly have client’s bemoaning about the lack of success of their web sites. They aren’t appearing high enough in the search engines nor is the site delivering the business they want. They want to know if they should be leaving their current ISP and paying for search engine optimisation services.
An audit of both their web site and their other marketing activities generally reveals that the solution isn’t solely a technical one.
Many companies have built web sites as an afterthought to the business because they know the need a presence on the internet. The site is hardly ever constructed from the customer viewpoint and rarely presents the same messages as the other media that the company use.
There are certain key things to keep in mind when setting up and running a website, whether its purpose is to generate revenue or just to inform:
- The web is just one media and it should be looked at as part of an integrated marketing strategy. It should reflect the messages of the other media used, using common text and images to reinforce the brand.
- It should include information on why customers should buy that particular product or service (your USPs in marketing jargon) in preference to that of your competitors, as should your other media.
- It should be driven by the business not the other way round. It should be changed as often as the business dictates - monthly, weekly or even daily.
- It should be updated regularly with details of new products, new prices, new offers, detail of press campaigns and any relevant news items.
The web site needs to be properly constructed which is generally the case with most Service Providers, although there are still a few sites out there that do not follow some of the basic rules. It should make proper use of Titles, Tags and Site Maps and provide you with usage statistics showing you what pages are accessed, which search engines refer people and what search terms are used.
In order for the site to be updated regularly you need resource in your business to make the changes. For large companies with IT departments this isn’t generally a problem as they have the resource to develop and manage the web site in-house. For smaller companies it is not necessary for staff to be able to design and build sites or be literate in HTML. There are now many companies that build sites using a series of templates or a Content Management System (CMS). These then enable someone with basic PC skills (Word and Excel) to maintain the content on the site.
Search Engines
Have you or your client ever received an offer to submit your site details to 1,000 search engines for only £99 or $99? Sounds like a good deal doesn’t it?
Examine the stats of most web sites in the
So as far as search engines are concerned the key is to get your site and products as highly ranked as possible on Google (as a minimum) and the other main four. Ignore the rest.
Web Site Links
Google has a concept called ‘importance’ or ‘relevance’. One of the main elements used to calculate ‘importance’ is the number of sites that link through to your site. In principle the more the better. However Google also rates the content high, so the links need to come from sites with similar content.
Google has a way of stopping artificial link inflation. It has an ageing delay built in which has been nicknamed the Sandbox. Google finds the site, spiders and indexes it and then sits on it for a while to allow the links to ‘age’. Somewhere around 90 to 120 days later if all the links are still in place then the site re-appears in the Google rankings. This does mean that a new site may not appear in Google for some while even though it is showing in MSN or Yahoo.
Google has an algorithm which assigns each page a Pagerank which takes all this into account. A Pagerank of 0 to 2 is very low and means you need to work on it. A Pagerank of 3 to 4 is reasonable and 5 or 6 is pretty good. The BBC, IBM and Microsoft have Pageranks of 9/10 so don’t worry if you don’t get to the top.
During the period in the Sandbox you might want to consider using Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) services or Pay Per Click advertising to boost your search engine rankings and keep your products in front of your target customers. But once you have made it to the top 2 pages in Google, I really don’t think there is any need to continue with these offerings.
You can tell when you have made it because not only will your site stats reflect the additional traffic but you will receive loads of requests from web sites wanting you to link to them, to help drive up their traffic.
Having had the site built properly so that it can be updated regularly, loaded up the initial content and established a reasonable number of web links, what next?
Content, Content and Content
Ask an accountant for the three most important things in business and the answers are Cash, Cash and Cash.
Ask a property developer and the answers are Location, Location, and Location.
For your web site the three most important things are Content, Content and Content.
On the content side you need to do the following:
- Put yourself in your customer’s shoes. You know what your product does, they don’t.
- They may not know its name, or your company name so use the words they will enter as search terms.
- When showing pictures, always use the Alt Text as Google can’t read pictures.
- Make it easy for them to do business with you. If your business model makes e-commerce possible then sell your products and take payments through a secure service provider.
- When they buy a product or call you, ask them what words they used in the search engines. If the words they give you aren’t on your site then do a bit of word-smithing and incorporate them into the text.
- Check the stats regularly to see what search engine terms are being used.
- Check the stats regularly to see what pages are being used and which aren’t.
- Change pages don’t delete them. If you have a Christmas special offer, don’t delete the page after Christmas. Change it to a winter or spring offer so that Google will refresh the page in its cache.
- Add some reference material to your site to give users reasons to come back time and again.
- Make sure the site is fully integrated with all your other media and PR activity. If you get a mention in the local or trade press, add it to the web site.
- Add your press releases to the site on the same day that you issue them to the press. Indeed include additional information so that the press will use your site for reference.
- Make sure your contact page collects as much information from the user as possible.
- Build an email mailing list and mail them information on new products or offers, complete with links back to the web site so that they can place an order.
Once your site is listed in Google, it is much quicker than most people think at finding new pages and changes. I have made changes to a site and checked Google the following day and it has spidered the site and cached the changes. For most SME businesses I recommend you make changes to the site at least one a month, possibly once a week depending on levels of business activity. If updated regularly, it becomes a relatively, small routine task.