Author: Sophie Wegat

Benefits of a Search Friendly Website

The process of putting your business online involves more than just building a website. As with other areas of your marketing your website requires careful planning to ensure it will be a success. One area which is crucial to that success, but sadly often overlooked, is a search engine friendly, or search friendly – website.

What is a Search Friendly Website?

A search friendly website is a website that has been designed from the ground up in a manner that enables the search engines to find, crawl and index the website’s pages. You may think that sounds easy but you would be amazed at how many search engines, such as Google, are unable to list a website because of technical issues.

A search friendly website should also ideally rank highly in the search engines for keyword phrases related to your business. Personally I would take search friendly a step further and say that a search friendly website is a website that is also user friendly. By that I mean a website that users (your customers and prospects) find easy to use and engage with.

What Are the Benefits of a Search Friendly Website?

A website that looks great but has no one visit it is not very useful. It’s kind of like a bricks and mortar store that is tucked away out of sight, and no doubt out of mind. The search engines are like busy shopping strips and ideally you want your business, or website, to be positioned up front and centre so you can attract lots of prospects and convert them into customers. A search friendly website can deliver this prime position to you. Some additional benefits of a search friendly website include:

  • High visibility in the search engines;
  • Increased targeted traffic to your website;
  • A website that is search friendly is usually more user friendly – meaning your prospects will find it easier to use and therefore convert into customers;
  • Saves you time and money by not having to find someone to optimise your website after it has been built;
  • Increased customers and sales!!

What Stops a Website From Being Search Friendly?

As I mentioned above you would be amazed at the number of websites that don’t appear, let alone rank, in Google purely because of the way they are built. Here are some common issues that can harm your website and stop it from being search friendly:

Frames

In the earlier days of the internet frames were hailed as the next big web design weapon. These days frames are probably one of the worst offenders when it comes to having a search friendly website as most search engines cannot follow links via frames. Even if a search engine does index your pages it is usually just the content of the page so a user is taken to a page of your website’s content with no visible logo or navigation as they are part of a separate frame. Frames also cause problems for users when using the browsers back button, printing or bookmarking a page. There are some remedial fixes available but they really are an interim fix until you can get your website re-designed.

If your current website has been built using frames I would highly recommend you consider redesigning it.

Flash

Flash is not the total search engine friendly killer it once was but you do need to ensure that the web designer who implements a flash website for you either develops a HTML version of your website or creates a website that can incorporate Flash within your HTML search friendly website.

Again I would avoid a purely Flash built site if at all possible.

Dynamic URLs

Dynamic URLs are generally seen in e-commerce websites and Content Management Systems (CMS) that have not been designed in a search engine friendly manner. Here is an example of a dynamic URL:

  • http://www.mywebsite.com.au/products.php&123=prod762&subproduct

Re-written to be search engine friendly the URL would look like this:

  • http://www.mywebsite.com.au/products/123/prod762/subproduct/

Dynamic URLs can cause problems with the search engines who may find them too complex to index. Generally speaking they can be avoided by ensuring that the system you use allows search engine friendly URLs. If your website already has dynamic URLs your web designer should be able to work with you to correct the problem.

Splash Pages

A splash page is usually the entry point of your website which contains an animated image/message and not much else. Apart from all the usability issues I’ve raised about them in the past they generally contain no content a search engine can index which makes them redundant to the search engines as well as your users.

Poorly Implemented Page Title and Meta Tags

Unique well crafted page title and meta tags on each page of your website help the search engines to understand what each page of your website is about and rank it accordingly. A website with the same page title and meta tags on each page makes it difficult for the search engines to understand the contents of the page which in turn will affect their ability to rank the page well.

What To Do If Your Existing Website Is Not Search Friendly

If your existing website has not been built in a search friendly manner I suggest you talk to a web design company who specialises is search friendly web design to see what can be done to rectify the problem. They may be able to make changes to your current site, or re-design it to ensure its search friendliness. A company that specialises in search engine optimisation (SEO) may also be able to help you.

Its also important to review your current site for it’s potential to convert visitors into customers. If the design is not up to scratch in this regard it may be better to re-design the website from scratch.

How Can I Ensure My New Website Is Built In a Search Friendly Manner?

The best way to ensure your new website is built in a search engine friendly manner is to find a web design firm who understands the importance of search engines to the success of your website and has knowledge of search engine optimisation and search friendly web design. Alternatively select web design and search engine optimisation firms who are happy to work together to ensure your website is search friendly.

The best way to find companies who have this expertise is by doing your homework, asking questions and looking at other sites they have built to see how search (and user) friendly they are. If they don’t seem knowledgeable and/or interested in search engine traffic I would suggest you run, not walk, away.

Conclusion

A search friendly website is vital if you want to receive targeted visitors to your site from the search engines, such as Google. Ideally having your website built in a search friendly manner from the ground up is the ideal way to go, however if your site has already been built talking to the right people can help you rectify the problems and reap the reward of targeted traffic to your website.

Local SEO Isn’t a Walk in the Park: According to Matt McGee

I’ve always found Local SEO an interesting prospect. Often what works to rank one site doesn’t work for the next. Trial and error and a lot of hard work is what will ultimately get you results, much like traditional SEO. Matt McGee agrees and has written a great post Why Local SEO is Harder Than SEOs Think. It’s well worth a read.

Think You Can Avoid The Conversation?

Think again. The epic failure of Kraft’s new iSpread 2.0 is the perfect example of the way the Internet has changed the way we communicate which in turn has changed the way we need to run and promote our businesses.

Don’t believe me? After running a nationwide competition to name their new Vegemite and cheese spread Kraft announced the new name, iSnack 2.0, on Saturday at the AFL Grand Final. The name was met with resounding horror. And so the conversation began. The Internet became abuzz with people Tweeting, blogging and even creating Facebook hate pages. People hated the name and were not afraid to say so. So much so that Kraft are now rethinking the name. Epic failure indeed.

There are some valuable lessons that can be taken from this example. In 1999 Chris Locke, Doc Searls, David Weinberger and Rick Levine wrote “The Cluetrain Manifesto”. Apart from the attention grabbing line on the cover “the end of business as usual” it’s ideas turned the idea of business on it’s head. In summary they state that customers talk and the Internet finally gives these customers a powerful medium to talk on. If businesses want to do well in the future they need to become part of this conversation. It was not a conversation they could control and one where “marketing hype” and “corporate speak” are detected with alarming speed. Not only did they need to be part of the conversation they needed to talk to their customers authentically. And they needed to listen to their customers and their conversations. If customers didn’t like the service or thought a product was crap they could speak out and thousands, if not millions of people heard.

Back to iSnack 2.0. The customer has spoken. They hate the name and they aren’t afraid to say so. And Kraft have finally listened. Not 5 days after the announcement of the name they have canned it and gone back to the drawing board. It’s a good decision and great to see that they have listened to their customers but one wonders why they didn’t start the conversation earlier. It would have saved a lot of time and money. And face.

Should My Email & Website Address Match?

I’m often asked whether email addresses should match website addresses. Many businesses seem to to have their website address as businessname.com.au but their email address is email@isp.com.au. My response: they most definitely should match and here’s why:

Branding

Every time a prospect sees your domain name it reminds them of you and your business. So why promote your ISP (Internet Service Provider) when you could be promoting your business?

Consistency

Consistency in your marketing is important so it makes sense to have your domain as both your email and website address.

Portability

When you move ISP’s you can’t take your email address with you. So any marketing material with that address will have to be updated and all your contacts notified. Email addresses on your domain name (email@yourbusiness.com.au) are yours and can be moved whenever you switch ISP’s or move web hosts.

If your web developer is not doing this I suggest you get onto them and make the switch. You won’t regret it.

Do We Really Value Free?

I’ve been on a bit of a de-cluttering spree recently. One of the areas I de-cluttered was my skincare and make-up. I then did some research and went and bought a whole lot of new items suitable for my (more mature) skin. Pretty much everything was ordered online and in one of the parcels I was given a gift of an eye shadow. During the checkout I was able to select from 3 colours so I picked as best I could.

All my products have arrived and I really love them all. Yes I know I’m a trite anal but I do appreciate good packaging and lovely products. In fact my husband laughs at me because I often keep product boxes. Anyway the eye shadow arrived and it’s a good brand and a nice product. But I don’t wear that colour. Ever. So it sits there. And I constantly move it as it’s in my way and I can see it’s becoming clutter. Sure it was nice of the company to give me a free gift but truly I don’t value it. It’s become a weight around my neck (ok perhaps that’s a bit dramatic but you get what I mean).

So I’ve made the decision to turf it. And it’s made me wonder how much we really do value free. After the initial excitement has worn off do we still perceive the product or service the same way? I suspect not.

It Takes Two to Make a Successful Website

I am often asked what it takes to build a successful website. Of course web design, usability, search marketing and the like are vital but the most important element is teamwork. Teamwork between the web designer and the client. If this teamwork is not there it doesn’t matter how good the site looks, or how usable it is, it probably won’t be successful.

So how do you acheive this teamwork? Start by understanding that as the client you will need to spend time on the project. Yes you are hiring a web designer to build your website but you need to be able to educate them on your business, your products and services and your site goals.

It is also important to define who has what role from the beginning. For most parts of the site it should be pretty clear but one area that crops up again and again is the website copy or text. It is vital that you and your web designer clarify this at the beginning. If it is you, the client, who will be providing this, talk to your web designer about what they expect and the format it should be in. If the web designer will be writing your copy understand that you will still need to provide them with information and some of your time so they have a foundation to work with.

I guess what I am trying to say is the more you are able to work with your web designer the more successful the outcome of your project will be. If you lack time or resources talk to them in the beginning so you can come up with a plan that will work for you both.

Conduct Your Own Website SEO Audit

Most people who contact me regarding their website’s performance worry about their rankings in the search engines. The website may not be ranking at all or may only rank for a few keywords, which affects the quality and quantity of traffic they receive. Most, however, don’t know how to evaluate their website in terms of it’s current status in the search engines and what to do to improve it’s rankings. Enter the SEO Audit. An SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) Audit will help you evaluate your website’s search engine friendliness and show you where it needs improvement.

Conducting regular SEO Audits is vital to any SEO success, in fact I recommend you conduct one every 3-4 months. While utilising the services of a professional internet marketer to perform your SEO Audit is ideal the following will hep you get started and show you the main areas of your website that need improving.

Are Your Targeting the Right Keywords?

Selecting the keywords to use when optimising your website is a vital part of the search engine optimisation process. Select the wrong words and it doesn’t matter how well you rank. Select just a few of the more obvious words and it will minimise your chances of attracting a wide range of visitors at different stages of the buying cycle.

When selecting keywords for your website you want to target a wide range of phrases. Select both easy (longer phrases) and hard terms (shorter more competitive phrases). This will allow you to work towards both long and short term goals. It’s also worth including locations, if relevant, synonyms and singular and plural versions of your keywords.

To see what keywords visitors are using to find you study your log files or web analytics data. This will show you what search engines your visitors are coming from and what keywords they used to find you.

Are Your Website URL’s Search Friendly?

There are two types of URL’s: dynamic and static. A dynamic URL is a page address that results from the search of a database driven website or a website that runs a script. The content on this page will change depending upon the query being run (variable strings). Static URL’s, or pages, on the other hand have content that remains the same.

A dynamic URL generally looks something like this:

http://www.website.com/products/widget.php?product=12345&cat=987

A static URL on the other hand, is a URL that doesn’t change, and doesn’t have variable strings. It looks like this:

http://www.somesites.com/products/widget-12345.htm

Dynamic URL’s can be difficult for search engine spiders to read. If your website utilises dynamic URL’s I’d recommend rewriting them to appear as static “search friendly URLs”.

Does Each Page Have a Unique Page Title?

From a search engine optimisation perspective page titles are one of the most important factors in getting pages indexed and visited. Each page should have a unique page title that describes the specific content of that page and contains the main keyword phases used on that page.

Search engines give the words in page titles great weight, especially if the words in the page title are also in the copy on the page.

It is recommended that your page titles be approximately 63 characters long. Some search engines, in particular Google, cut off the page title after about 63 characters. There are two main reasons to ensure a search engine displays a complete page title:

  1. It tells the search engine what the page is about.
  2. When listed in the search results it tells potential visitors what the page is about.

A page title should not be just a list of keywords. Instead it should include the main keyword phrase related to the page it’s on  and should be as compelling as possible to encourage potential visitors to click on your listing and not those around it. No two pages on your website should have the same page titles.

Does Each Page Have Unique Meta Description and Keyword Tags?

There are two main meta tags that should be included on every page of your website:

  1. Meta Description Tag: <meta name=”description” content=”Your description here”>
  2. Meta Keywords Tag: <meta name=”keywords” content=”keywords here”>

Meta Description Tag

The meta description tag has varying levels of relevancy in each of the search engines. Many search engines still support it and some will use it as a text snippet when showing their results.

Your meta description tag should be between a sentence and a paragraph, include your main keyword phrase, and describe what the page is about. It should also be compelling to encourage searches to click on it.

Your meta description tags should be unique for each page on your website.

Meta Keywords Tag

At this point in time the meta keywords tag is not supported by many major search engines. Of the top three search engines (Google, Yahoo! and MSN Live,) Yahoo! is the only one that gives it some credence.

Whilst it is not currently supported that’s not to say that this will change down the track so it’s still worthwhile spending a few minutes on this tag.

Your meta keywords tag should be unique for each page on your site and should include the keywords relate to that page as well as common misspellings, synonyms and alternate versions of a word.

Are You Using H1, H2 and H3 Tags Correctly?

H1, H2 and H3 tags create different sized heading on your pages  such as the main page title (h1), sub heading (h2) and small heading (h3). As well as being a great way to break up the text on the page search engines also take note of them so it’s important to use them and incorporate your keywords into these headings.

Does Your Website Have a Site Map?

A Site Map page, linked to every page of your website, and using html-based text links, provides another pathway for search engine spiders to find all of the pages of the site, and index them.

Google and Yahoo! Both recommend the use of a Site Map. From the Google Information for webmasters page (http://www.google.com/intl/en/webmasters/guidelines.html):

“Offer a site map to your users with links that point to the important parts of your site. If the site map is larger than 100 or so links, you may want to break the site map into separate pages.”

From Yahoo!’s search help (http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/search/indexing/indexing-10.html):

“Our crawler isn’t always able to follow dynamic links, so to make sure that content is included, provide a static link to new content. If your site navigation is normally done only with dynamic links, you can create a site map page with a static link map of your site so robots can discover all of your content.”

An example of a Site Map page is this one from Google:

http://www.google.com/sitemap.html

It doesn’t link to every page on the site, but it does link to the most important ones, and it is organised to make it easy for people to find the information that they are interested in.

Do You Check Your Website’s Statistics Regularly?

Website analytics, the process of analysing your website’s visitors, is a powerful way to understand what is going on with your website. It enables you to see who is visiting your website, where they are coming from, what search terms they used (if applicable) to find your site, how long they stayed on your site, what pages they looked at and so on.

Website analytics can be handled in two ways:

  1. By analysing your website log files with a software program.
  2. Installing a small piece of code on your website.

There are many applications out there ranging from free to extremely expensive. I’ve listed some of the more popular in the resources section on our website.

Conducting an SEO Audit of your website is an essential part of the SEO process and vital for ensuring your ranking on the search engines and attracting targeted visitors to your site. As your site grows it’s easy to overlook these elements so make sure you audit your site regularly.

Online Marketing in Tough Economic Times

We all know in tough economic times we’re meant to continue to market and advertise our business. But when cash flow is down it can be easier said than done. However that doesn’t mean you have to stop marketing, it just means you have to be wiser with how you spend your money.

One of the great advantages of online marketing is that it is highly measurable. If you try a new marketing initiative and it doesn’t provide a positive return on your investment (ROI) then stop, or tweak the activity. If you find an online marketing initiative that works for your business increase your spend and watch your profit increase. There are also many online marketing activities that you can do in-house, again saving you valuable dollars.

The sky’s the limit when it comes to ways market yourself online. I’m going to talk about three options available to you but don’t let that stop you from trying others.

Pay Per Click Advertising

If you’ve heard of Google AdWords then you’ve heard of Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising. Pay Per Click ads are the sponsored ads you see on search engines such as Google or Yahoo! With Pay Per Click advertising you pay only when a customer clicks on your ad, regardless of how many times it’s shown. You select your keywords and set an amount you are prepared to pay if someone clicks on your ad. When a user searches for, or is using, a keyword you have bid for, your ad will appear on the right side of results pages under the heading Sponsored Links. If a user clicks on your ad you pay the amount you bid for that term.

Pay Per Click advertising is a great way to target hundreds of niche keyword terms for a relatively low cost. In addition it is highly targeted and the results are highly quantifiable. The benefit of this is targeted traffic to your website – i.e. the people visiting are looking for your services!

Pay Per Click advertising is also highly customisable. You can target specific geographic areas and set specific times (hours and days) for your ads to be displayed. You can also start with a budget as low as $1.00 a day.

Pay Per Click campaigns can be running within hours and is a great way to drive prospective customers to your website quickly.

Blogging

Blogging is a fantastic and cost effective way to promote your business and stay in touch with your customers and prospects. There is an initial cost in setting up a blog but once you’ve done that all it requires is time and effort on your part. There are many benefits of having a business blog:

  • Blogging is a great way to communicate with clients, customers and prospects. Whether it be talking about new products or services, company news or resolving an issue, you can communicate on a level not seen before.
  • A blog gives you a voice which in turn gives readers an idea of who you and your business are. Your goal is to then engage them enough to want to do business with you.
  • Blogging can help position you as an expert in your industry.
  • Blogs attracts links and can help you in your search engine rankings.

When setting up a business blog I always recommend incorporating it into your current website design. Integrating your blog into your existing website design ensures that it provides a consistency of your brand and identity. It also enables readers who enjoy your blog to wander into other parts of your website such as your services and how to contact you.

If you decide that blogging is for you then make sure you set aside some time each week to write posts as there’s nothing worse than a blog that’s not updated.

Social Networking Sites

Social networking is a more recent phenomena on the internet. A social network is an online community of people who share interests and/or activities. Most social networks are web based and provide a variety of ways for users to interact such as though posts, messaging and email.

If your target market is into social networking then communicating with them via this method is a fantastic way to interact with them, promote your business and get your message across. There are many ways social networking can benefit your business:

  • It allows you communicate with a far reaching audience and promote your business on a global scale.
  • It can help you build trust and promote yourself as an expert in your field.
  • It can help you connect with potential business partners and employees.

If you are thinking of using social networking sites to promote your business it’s important that you take the time to understand social networking and the right way to go about it. The internet can be a very unforgiving place and bad stories and promotions can spread like wildfire.

Two popular social networking sites are Facebook and Twitter.

Facebook

Facebook is one of the most popular social networking sites online. Facebook can be used to connect with people, stay in touch, post pictures, share links and exchange information. It can be used to connect friends, family and co-workers. Used smartly it can also be used to promote your business and connect with your prospects and customers using the many applications that are being developed. You can use Facebook to:

  • Create brand awareness.
  • Engage with your customers and communicate promotions, contests and events.
  • Announce new products.
  • Generate leads and acquire new customers.
  • Manage your online reputation.

With the enormous market share and number of new applications being developed Facebook is one social networking service I highly recommend you familiarise yourself with.

Twitter

When it comes to social networking sites Twitter is the new kid on the block. So what is it? Twitter is kinda like micro-blogging – basically you can say (or tweet) anything you like in 140 characters or less. You can follow other people’s Twitters and others, in turn, can follow you. So why would you want to use it? Good question. Like all marketing initiatives you need to first look at whether it’s for you. If your target audience is likely to use Twitter then you should be too. Twitter can help you to:

  • Connect and network with others in your industry.
  • Share thoughts and ideas with like minded people.
  • Stay in touch with customers and prospects.
  • Test out new ideas and get feedback on existing products and services.
  • Monitor what’s being said about you and your business.
  • Monitor what’s being said about your competitors.
  • Monitor your competitors if they’re on twitter.

There really isn’t enough space here to delve into Twitter too deeply but hopefully I’ve given you some food for thought. I’ll post some resources on our website (http://www.thinkprospect.com.au/articles/resources/) that will help get you started.

They are numerous other social networking services that could be worth a look. They include: MySpace, Flickr, LinkedIn and Friendster. It’s also worth researching your market and looking for niche social networking sites geared to your industry and target audience.

With all these ideas it’s important to measure and track their performance. Ditch the non performing, expand the successful, rinse and repeat.

Tough economic times may mean less dollars to spend on your business’s marketing but you can still find smart initiatives that can help you grow your business in a cost effective manner. And don’t forget that promoting your business and website now is helping you to establish your business and your brand for the long haul.

Back to Basics: Building a Website 101

With the economy in decline I’m getting a lot of calls from businesses looking to increase their enquiries and sales in a cost effective manner. Many are finding they need to design or re-design their website in order to achieve these goals so I thought it was a good time to go back to the basics of building a website.

For too long a website was more of a vanity item, with no real thought into how it could make you money. Over the past few years there has been more talk on how a website should make a positive return on your investment (ROI) and boost your bottom line. Today that goes without saying and so a website that is not achieving your goals is a drain on your finances and a waste of your time.

The best way to ensure your website is a success is to plan it wisely. Be realistic about your online goals, budget a reasonable amount of money to build it, select the right web team and put time and effort into working together to build and market it. Do all of the above and you have a very strong chance of creating a successful website.

Be Realistic About Your Online Goals

The first step in building a successful website is to define your online goals. So step back and think about what you want to achieve with your website. These goals could include:

  • Promote your products and services;
  • Sell online;
  • Collect targeted leads;
  • To brand yourself;
  • Provide customer support;
  • Reduce postage and printing costs;
  • Build an online community;
  • Collect advertising revenue.

When determining your online goals bear in mind that they don’t all have to be achieved at once. If you are on a budget and can’t afford all the bells and whistles in the beginning plan a website that can have new features introduced over a period of time. Being realistic abut what you can achieve is really important. I can’t tell you the number of enquiries I get from people wanting to build the next eBay with a budget of $200. I kid you not.

Defining your goals is the first step in realising a successful website. Everything about your website should be geared towards achieving these goals. The clearer and more realistic you are about your goals the better the strategy you will develop, and the more likely you will achieve online success.

Set a Reasonable Budget

Once your website’s goals have been defined it’s time to start looking at your budget. When building a website it’s important to look at all the costs involved including website design, content creation, website hosting and ongoing marketing and promotion. Under each of these areas are issues you need to consider:

Website Design

The design of your website can include logo design, graphic creation and photography, such as product photography. Take a look at your current marketing materials and determine what can be used on your website and what will need to be  created from scratch. It’s important to keep in mind that your online image should reflect your offline brand. This can be achieved by using the same logo and colour schemes as well as utilising other elements used in your existing marketing materials.

Content Creation

Content creation more simply refers to the text on your website. This text includes information about your business and the products and/or services you offer. Are you able to write this text yourself or will you require someone to do it for you?

Website Hosting

Once built your website needs somewhere to live. This is known as website hosting. There are hundreds of thousands of website hosting providers which can make choosing the right one a daunting task. When researching your available options keep in mind the following:

  1. Reliability
  2. Speed
  3. Storage Space
  4. Scalability
  5. Support

Your web designer should be able to help you choose a website hosting provider to suit your budget and requirements.

Marketing and Promotion

The final consideration in developing your budget is the promotion of your website. A common mistake is the assumption that if you build it they will come. Not so. The Internet is huge, and growing every day, if you want people to visit your site you need to promote it, just like you would an offline business. Website promotion can include a multitude activities including:

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

  • Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising
  • Link Building
  • Newsletter Creation
  • Blogs
  • Promotions
  • Forums

I’ll talk more about these marketing activities later in the article and you can also view our online resources (link at end of the article) for more information.

When it comes to setting your online budget I often find it’s better to look at your budget in terms of what you are prepared to spend in the first 12 months as opposed to just budgeting the initial development of your website. By having a budget for the first 12 months you and your web designer can look at the best way to allocate your money. It may be that you spend 60% building and hosting your website and the remaining 40% to promote it.

Choose the Right Web Design Team

Ok you’ve defined your online goals and set a reasonable budget. Now you need to find someone who can help you achieve these goals. Enter the web designer.

With so many web design firms available the biggest problem will not be finding one but making sure that you find the right one for you. The right web designer will not only make a website that looks good but will understand your site is a business tool that needs to perform for you. In order to find the best web designer for your project you’ll need to spend some time researching the market, looking for potential design firms and talking with them to make sure you are a good fit, that they understand your needs and can deliver a successful solution.

Ideally you want to become a team with your web designer, developing a long term relationship where they can help with your ongoing efforts to create a successful website.

Put Time & Effort Into Marketing Your Website

Once you’ve got your website online you need to market it to attract targeted prospects. A mix of the following internet marketing efforts will be a good start:

  • Search Engine Optimisation – usually best done in conjunction with building your website. Search engine optimisation (SEO) is the process of creating a website that ranks highly in the search engines for keyword phrases related to your business. A motel in Cairns would want to rank well for phrases such as “cairns motel” for example.
  • Link Development – links from credible, related type websites will not only bring targeted prospects to your website it will also help you with your search engine rankings.
  • Advertising & Sponsorships – seek out other websites that you can advertise on. Look for sites that attract an audience you think would be interested in your products and/or services. Consider banner ads, sponsorships, competitions and newsletter advertising, to name a few.
  • Pay Per Click Advertising – the two main players in the Pay Per Click (PPC) market are Google and Yahoo! PPC allows you to create advertisements that only display when specific keywords, chosen by you, are searched on. When your ad is clicked on you pay an amount (or bid), set by you. Bids start from about AU$0.10 and a campaign can be up and running in a few minutes.
  • Online Newsletters – online newsletters are a fabulous way to communicate with prospective customers. It’s an opportunity to showcase your knowledge, provide information about your products and services and promote special offers.

Ongoing marketing and promotion takes time and money but on the plus side you’re able to track and measure your results accurately which will ensure the money you spend is returned twofold.

It’s the old adage, you’ve got to spend money to make money. With the right approach to developing your website and creating a positive return on your investment (ROI) your online efforts will help you build a successful site and help you ride out these economic down times.

Your Product Photography Must Accurately Reflect Your Products

I’ve blogged before about how important it is to use professional photographs on your website. In fact I can’t emphasise enough how strongly I feel about this. That said the photographs must accurately reflect what you are selling. If your products are crappy then perhaps you should do something about them instead of just putting gorgeous photos online.

Unfortunately I’m talking about this from experience. I recently bought something for my son online. The product photographs looked great so I ordered with confidence only to be bitterly disappointed when the package arrived. They had obviously used a professional photographer, which was great, but the product was nothing like the photographs.

Having your products or service photographed professionally is the best way to ensure you’re putting your best foot forward but whatever you do take a step back and make sure what you’re selling is as good as what we’re seeing.