I’m not into outing businesses so I won’t name the business but it amazes me that in 2008 there are still businesses who don’t bother to reply to sales enquiries submitted via their website contact form. And this was a sales enquiry that was in response to an email marketing newsletter! What a waste!
I wonder how many businesses are throwing away money and loosing business by missing such simple things.
With search engines accounting for up to 75% of visitors to a website, and Google being the dominant player in town, having your website listed and ranking in Google is vital to your online success. In fact not being in Google is like having an unlisted phone number. Unfortunately many business owners discover this to late and are unsure how to rectify the problem. The following article will provide you with a series of strategies to help ensure your site is listed, and at the top of Google’s search results.
There are a number of ways to ensure your website is at the top of Google. The three main approaches I recommend you start with are:
If you are about to start building your website you are in the perfect position to ensure your website is designed and built in a search engine friendly manner from the ground up. By search engine friendly I mean a website that is easy for the search engines to find, crawl and index. A search friendly website should also rank highly in the search engines for keyword phrases related to your business.
Unfortunately many web designers have no understanding of the search engines and do not take them into account when creating websites. For this reason it’s important that you find a company that understands how important search engines are and can help you develop and implement a strategy to ensure you are capitalising on the targeted visitors Google can send you.
The first step is to find out what knowledge of the search engines your potential web designer has. if they have none I would suggest looking for some alternative companies. Once you have determined your web designer can help you to create a search engine friendly website it’s time to sit down and discuss the strategies you will adopt. You and your web designer should discuss:
Talk to your web designer about what you want to achieve with your website. This could include generating online sales, attracting targeted leads, increasing newsletter sign ups, online subscriptions, advertising sales and so forth. These goals will help you with the steps outlined in the next few sections.
It’s important that you define your target audience(s). Who is your website gong to be targeted to? I would recommend breaking your audience down in terms of:
It’s also important to consider primary and secondary audiences. Perhaps your main audience are people you want to sell products to but an important secondary audience is existing customers to whom you provide online product support.
Defining your target audience will help you to plan your search friendly strategy. For example whether your online audience is local, Australia-wide or International will have a big effect on the approach you will take in relation to Google.
Keywords are the words and phrases that prospective customers type into Google to find products and services they are looking for. Too often businesses fall into the trap of using words they, and their industry have for describing their goods and not those their customers are using. A successful keyword strategy will look at the words your customers are using – this is vital, as they are the ones you are appealing to.
I always recommend you start by brainstorming with your web designer to come up with an initial list of keywords. When undertaking this consider looking at the keywords used by your competitors as well as talking to your existing customers to see how they describe your offerings.
This initial keywords list can then be used by your web designer who will do further research to come up with a list of relevant, regularly used keywords phrases to incorporate into your website.
A main component of any campaign to get to the top of Google includes creating interesting content that encourages other websites to link to you. These “links” help boost the popularity of your website (as well as attracting potential customers) and helps you rank higher in Google.
There are numerus content creation ideas you could consider. They include:
These content strategies can be implemented over time and will help your website stand out by containing valuable information relevant to your prospective customers as well as helping your rank higher in Google.
All of this information will help you and your web designer plan and build a website that not only appeals to your target audience but helps propel you to the top of Google. Remember building a website is an ongoing process and working on it steadily over time will help increase your chances of top search rankings.
If you already have website that is not performing in Google you need to discuss your options with your web designer or a search engine optimisation (SEO) expert. It is important to point out that SEO is a medium to long term strategy. It takes time to implement and see results but once the results start to roll in you will reap the rewards for a long time.
Your SEO or web designer will help you to ensure that your website can be crawled and indexed by Google and will be able to rectify any problems your website may have. They will also help you define your target audience and help you research and select the appropriate keywords for your business (see above in Building a Search Friendly Website) and incorporate them into your website.
Finally they will be able to monitor and track your success and make recommendations to increase your targeted traffic based on your own specific needs.
The quickest and easiest way to get to the top of Google is to implement a Pay Per Click (PPC) campaign. PPC campaigns are a short to medium term strategy – they can be running within hours and are a great way to drive prospective customers to your website quickly. For this reason a PPC campaign can compliment your SEO efforts. It sends you targeted traffic quickly while you wait for your SEO efforts to kick in.
Pay Per Click (PPC) ads are the sponsored ads you see on search engines such as Google. 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 search terms and set an amount you are prepared to pay if someone clicks on your ad. When a user searches for, or is using, a search term 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 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.
A search marketing professional will be able to help you with ad copywriting, landing page copywriting and design, and set-up and monitor your PPC campaigns. As with building a search friendly website or implementing an SEO campaign you’ll need to sit down and determine your goals, target audience and keyword list. This information will help you develop a successful PPC campaign. PPC campaigns are highly quantifiable which will ensure you can measure the return on your investment (ROI).
By focusing on the 3 strategies above you’ll be in the perfect position to propel your website to the top of Google, ensuring your website receives targeted visitors that you’ll then be able to convert into paying customers.
You’ll often find web designers and search engine marketers telling you you need content on your site to help you rank highly in the search engines. Unfortunately many website owners find it hard to work out what sort of content they should add to their site – or focus too much on adding content for the search engines and not their users.
I came across a great use of content that should benefit both the search engines and visitors on Specsavers recently. Specsavers sell glasses so what better content to add to their site than a guide to frame choice. Admittedly they haven’t optimised it for the search engines (and are no doubt missing out on valuable traffic) but as far as visitors go it’s a great way to attract prospects and convert them into customers. It can also be used to get people to refer their friends to the site and encourage repeat visits.
So the next time someone suggest you add content to your site step back and think of what you can add to benefit both the search engines and your visitors.
Kalena Jordan from Search Engine College has written a great article titled “Secrets Your Web Designer Isn’t Telling You”, in which she asks:
If I was to ask you right now “Are you absolutely certain that your web site is optimized for high visibility in search engines?”, what would you say?
Sadly the vast majority of websites have not been designed with the search engines in mind, and worse, many business owners have no idea that’s the case. And with so much traffic coming from search engines, it’s like being cut off from your air supply.
What to do?
If you already have a website, do some research to see if your site is listed in the search engines — especially Google. A quick way of doing this is to type your business name and/or website address into the search engine to see what results are found. Ideally you should be listed at the top of the results.
As well as making sure your site is in the search engine it’s important to see if your website ranks for keywords related to your business. So if you are a motel located in Bondi, for example, try typing “bondi motels” into the search engine and seeing what is returned. Ideally your website should be prominent. Repeat this for a variety of phrases.
If you are listed and ranking for relevant phrases good for you, however if you are one of the majority who is no where to be found, it’s a good idea to get some outside expertise to help get things sorted.
If you are about to start building a website, it is a good idea to discuss your search engine strategy with your web designers. If they don’t have one, or have no idea what you are talking about I’d suggest firing them and finding someone who does know.
Remember: Having a website that’s not in the search engines is like having an unlisted phone number.
References
Secrets Your Web Designer Isn’t Telling You by Kalena Jordan.
Website Health Check Report by ThinkProspect
As the internet has matured so have business’s requirements in a website. No longer is it enough to just have a website, or have a website that looks good. A website is now a vital part of a business’s marketing arsenal and is a valuable sales tool in itself. In order to ensure that the money spent you spend on your website is well spent and will provide a return on your initial investment you need to spend time planning your website and setting attainable goals.
This document will help you plan your website design and get you thinking about all the issues you need to address. It will also help you when talking to web design firms as you will be able to give them a clear idea of what you are after.
It probably goes without saying but the place to start is with the planning of your website. This can be broken down into four (4) main steps:
The first place to start is by defining the goals of your website. This is also what you will measure to evaluate the success of the venture. Ask yourself what do you want to achieve with your site? Some goal suggestions:
When you define these goals bear in mind they don’t all have to be achieved at once. Your plan could involve a roll out of goals over a period of time.
Who is your target audience? This can be broken down into:
Primary Audience
Your primary audience is who the majority of your website will be targeted to. Generally this will be one or two groups who are most important to your business and those you expect to receive the maximum return on your investment (ROI).
Secondary Audience
Your secondary audiences are everyone else you expect to visit your site. List as many of these as you can.
Geographic Locations
The beauty of the internet is that you don’t necessarily have to market just to your local area, unless you provide a service that is only available to your local area of course. If you are only targeting a local area again it is easy to focus on just that region. List all the geographic regions you would like to target – think local suburbs, states and countries.
The internet is a great tool to research your competition. Spend some time on your competitor’s websites and ask yourself:
Is the website professional looking?
Is it easy to work out who they are and what they do?
Is it easy to use? Can you find what you are looking for?
Would I do business with them based on their website?
It’s also important to remember that your competition offline may not be the same as your online competition. If you are wanting your website to rank in the search engines take some time to see what sites are currently ranking well for keywords relevant to your business. The top ranking sites are your online competition. Take a look at their websites and answer the questions above for them too. You may also need to consider what effort they took to reach the top of the search engines and talk to your web designer/search marketer about what will be required of your site to achieve similar success.
Where will the visitors to your website be coming from? I’m not going to address offline marketing here just the online marketing as some of the options need to be considered before the site is designed so they can be done together – such as search engine optimisation (SEO.
Here are some of your online marketing options:
It’s important that you tell your web designer what online marketing strategies you are planning to use so they can take that into account if need be when developing your website.
All of the above will help you in deciding what information you should have on your website and how best to structure it.
Now is the time to decide on the content you want on your website. By content I am including text, images, illustrations, support documents and the like. Here are some of your options:
Product information – descriptions, specifications, photos, user manuals, warranties, reviews, pricing etc.
Online ordering help – payments accepted, shipping info, returns policy etc.
Service information – services offered, locations covered, warranties, pricing etc.
Company information – history, staff profiles, photos etc.
Contact details – address, phone and fax numbers, email addresses, contact names etc.
Location details – maps, parking options, opening hours etc.
News – business news, special offers, features etc.
Articles and resources – information to help support your offerings and educate your prospects and clients.
Forms – quote requests, contact forms, newsletter subscriptions etc.
Case studies – examples of successful work done to date.
Often called an information architecture or site flowchart – the site structure is like the architect’s blueprint of the organisation and layout of your website. The content you want on your website will help determine the structure of the site. It’s best to break this down into main section which will then have sub-sections off of that.
As a starting point I’ve listed the main sections that most sites would have. This can be added to or deleted from as required.
This will give potential web design firms an idea of what is required in your website and will help them prepare a quote for you.
Once you have completed all of the above you are ready to have your website built. If you have not done so you will need to select a web design firm. Provide all the information you’ve put together from above, discuss your requirements and budget, provide examples of websites you like and talk to them to see whether they are a good fit for your business. You want a company that understands you and your goals and that you feel will help you ensure that your website is a success. With the right web design team and the planning you did using the above structure you;re sure to be on the path to a successful website.
Interesting article in The Age about the changing face of advertising:
The advertising universe is being turned on its head with the explosion of the online world, creating the highest levels of choice and fragmentation of audiences we’ve seen.
It’s a good read although not particularly surprising for many – heck we’ve been saying this for years. đ
Here’s a list of current International and Australian directories we recommend you evaluate when undertaking a link building campaign.
Youâve no doubt read that in order for your website to rank well in the search engines, such as Google, your site needs to attract links. However there is so much information online on how to get those links that it can become overwhelming – and if you follow the wrong advice your site can be penalised by the very search engines you want to rank in. This guide is aimed at providing you with simple, step by step information on how to attract the right links to your website â links that not only help you rank highly in the search engines but will also help you attract targeted visitors to your website.
Link building is an exercise in getting another website to link to your website. Google were the first search engine that deemed that the popularity of a website would be partially determined by the number of links that website had from other sites. The more links to a site, the more popular it was thought to be, and the more highly ranked it would be in Google. It didnât take long for people to realise that in order to rank well for their chosen keywords they needed to get links to their site and hence the beginning of the link building revolution.
Link building has evolved over the years. In the beginning a link from almost any site would help you, especially if the link contained the keywords you were targeting. So if you ran a car hire website in Brisbane a link with the words âcar hire Brisbaneâ in it would go a long way in helping your search engine rankings, especially for the term âcar hire brisbaneâ.
All good things must come to an end and it did with link building. As more and more people started manipulating links the search engines fought back and upped the ante on what constituted a valuable link. These days not all links are created equal. Links from more popular, reputable websites carry far more value than those from smaller unknown sites. In addition links from websites within your theme carry far more weight than links from a site with no relevance to yours. So again if you ran a car hire business in Brisbane links from a Queensland Tourism website and local B & B accommodation operators would be far more valuable to you than a links from a crocheting hobbyist websites in Arizona.
There are two main benefits of getting other websites to link to you:
As I stated above the more links you have to your website the higher your search engine rankings will be. This in turn means that you should attract more visitors to your website â more visitors that you can convert into sales, leads, customers or subscribers.
A great additional benefit of getting links from high quality, on topic websites is that they should send targeted visitors to your site. Visitors who are already interested in what you have to offer and are ready for conversion into customers.
There are hundreds of ways to attract links to your website. Iâll detail some of the more popular methods below and also provide links to some great resources which will help you further. One thing to keep in mind. If you have a fantastic website full of valuable content in your chosen field youâll find your website attracts links without you even trying. This is a strategy I recommend to all our clients.
Website directories have been around for as long as the internet. In fact Yahoo! started as a directory long before search engines became the place to find what you are looking for.
Directories arenât the most popular way of getting links but I always recommend you focus on getting links from at least the most important. There are both paid and free directories that you can list your site in â try for a mixture of both.
Local directories, focusing on your immediate are is one area to explore. Itâs also a good idea to try and list your website in niche directories focused on your businessâs theme. Searching Google for your theme plus âdirectoryâ is a good place to start.
Reciprocal links are links that you generally swap with other websites â you add their link to your website and they do likewise. Getting reciprocal links can be a time consuming process but one that I definitely recommend.
To get started I recommend finding websites within, or that compliment, your niche. Spend some time on the sites and make an effort to see how our sites can compliment each other.
When you are fully informed itâs time to craft an email to the site suggesting that you swap links. Try and get a contact name so you can make your approach more personal. If at first you donât succeed donât give up. As I said above reciprocal linking takes time and patience but the results are well worth it.
A great place to get links is from your clients and suppliers. You already have a relationship with them which should help the process go smoother. The links cold be in the form of testimonials, client list or recommended suppliers.
Are you part of a local business organisation that you cold ask for a link from? Are you or could you sponsor a local sports team, radio station or the like and request a link as part of the deal. What other local relationships do you have that you could use to get links to your website?
Finally as I said above if your website has interesting, unique content you should naturally find other websites linking to you. Another benefit of this content is it should also help your prospects learn more about your business and skills, can show that you are an expert in your field and can help them choose you in their decision making process.
Here are a few suggestions to get you started:
Finally you need to keep in mind that not all links are desired. When researching potential sites to get a link ask yourself whether you would feel proud or embarrassed about having a link on their site. Are they a website you would do business with? If the answer is no they do not, I repeat do not put your link on their website. As much as links from good, reputable websites can help you links from âbadâ websites can hurt you.
Building the links to your website are a great way to help boost your search engine rankings. However getting those links is a time consuming task. Donât let that daunt you. Treat it as a long term strategy and spend a few hours a week working at it. Over time you will see, and reap, the rewards of your labour.
By now many businesses have a first website and are looking at re-designing it. There can be many reasons for this re-design: to make it more up to date, to add more content, to rank better in the search engines, to fix errors discovered in the first site and to increases it’s overall success.
A website re-design is also a perfect opportunity for you to analyse what works and what doesn’t on your current website and to make changes that will boost your site’s overall performance.
If you are considering re-designing your site the following article can help you plan the project to ensure the re-design is a success. I recommend that the re-design be done in two parts:
To start it’s a good idea to review the performance of your current website. Discovering what is working and what is letting you down will help you determine what you need to keep from your existing website and what areas will need improving.
Depending how long ago your current website was created it may be looking tired and outdated. There are two issues to consider:
In most cases an updated, fresh look and feel is a good place to start in a website re-design.
The usability of your website is vital to it’s success. If you prospective customers can’t use it they’re hardly going to buy from you. Take a look at your current website and ask yourself how easy is to use. Questions to ask yourselves:
It might also be worthwhile to spend some time watching other people (friends, family, clients) use the site and ask for their feedback.
All this information will help you and your web designer plan the website structure and content of your new website.
What is your current website’s traffic like? How many visitors do you get a day? How many pages do they look at? How many visitors convert into customers or subscribers? What are your most popular pages and your least popular pages? Where do your visitors come from?
All of this information will help you decide what pages are vital in your new website, what can be left off and what pages need improving. It can also help you determine if you are maximising the amount of visitors and sales you are getting. If your traffic figures are low it is good to discuss tactics to increase these visitors with your web designer. If you are getting a decent amount of traffic and no sales this also needs to be addressed.
If your website is currently ranking in the search engines it is vital that you make a note of what pages are ranking and for what keyword phrases. You need to share this information with your web designer and make sure that these rankings are not lost in your re-design. Any good web designer will be happy to discuss this with you and take it as seriously as you do.
If you are not ranking in the search engines this needs to be addressed in your re-design.
Ask yourself how happy you are with your current website hosting provider. Things to consider include: the service you receive, how often the website goes down, the response times when there’s a problem and the speed of your website, ie how long does it take for your website to come up in a web browser.
If you’ve found your hosting provider to be good it might be best to stay where you are. However if you have had problems discuss this with your web designer who can help you find a better alternative.
All of the above will provide you and your web designer with a lot of valuable information that can be taken into account when re-designing your website. I recommend breaking your website re-design down into 6 stages:
This is a good opportunity to redefine your online goals. Are they the same as before or are there some changes? These goals can include:
The goals you set will help you and your web designer decide how to best approach your website design.
The website structure is the blueprint of your new website. It defines each section and page of your website.
This structure should take into account your website goals and the performance of the pages on your current website. I strongly recommend you work with your web designer to finalise this structure. Their expertise can help ensure your website is laid out in a logical, usable way to maximise the return on your investment (ROI).
These days many people want to be able to update the content of their website themselves using a Content Management System (CMS). If this is something you are interested in now is a good time to discuss this with your web designer.
You’ll want to make sure your re-design does not loose all your current search engine rankings and also look at how you can improve your search engine strategy. For example is there a new product or service you’d like to promote that is not on your current website?
It is important to remember that not all web designers are skilled at optimising websites for the search engines. It’s really important you find a company that can do this, or find a search engine optimisation company who will work with your web designer to ensure your new website is search engine friendly.
The first step in defining the look and feel of your website is to ensure that your new website has the same look and feel (or branding) as your existing marketing materials. It’s always a good idea to provide these to your web designer so they can get a feel for your businesses identity. You may also want to give your web designer a list of websites you like and dislike to help give them an idea of your tastes.
This is also a good time to talk about the longevity of your website and how often you feel you will want to make it over. If you want to ensure the website has a long life it would be best to avoid design the website using the latest online design trends and go for a look that is more timeless.
Once you’ve defined your website strategy and structure you’ll need to create the content for your site. This content can be created by you by a website copywriter or your web designer (if they offer this service). Again, use the feedback from your current website to ensure that this content is suited to your customers, is compelling and engaging and supports your online goals.
Once you have completed the first five steps it’s time to build your website. By this time you and your web designer should have a clear idea of what your site’s goals are, how they can be achieved and the steps required to fulfil them.
A website re-design is an excellent opportunity to capitalise on the success of your current website and to rectify any mistakes that were made. It’s also a great time to listen to your customers and build a website with features that will encourage them , and new customers, to come back time and time again.
In the early days on the Internet website traffic was measured in “hits”. It was never an accurate guide to the number of visitors to your website but it took off anyway.
Over time many of us in the biz have tried to educate people about the correct terms to use (page views, visitors, unique visitors and so forth) with varying success. And it’s always frustrating when you hear someone refer to “hits” as you know just how much education is going to be required. So it was with great joy that I read the following quote in Lance Loveday and Sandra Niehaus’s fantastic book Web Design For ROI:
If your standard answer includes the words “hits” please take a moment to close this book and whack yourself in the head with it. There. Now remember that every time you’re tempted to use that term again. It’s an open secret in the web design community that anyone who uses the word “hits” in reference to their website most likely has no idea what they are talking about. Just don’t tell anyone we told you.”
Hehe. Seriously though analysing your website traffic is a vital part of running your online business. It can take a bit to get a handle on but is well worth doing. Here are some resources to get you started:
Web Analytics Demystified – by Eric Peterson
Google Analytics – probably the best free web analytics program around.
Measuring Your Web Site – great forum threads from Cre8asite.
Hurol Inan – web analytics guru.
Web Design For ROI – get the book.