Tag: search

Sensis Goes With Google

With Nielsen NetRatings figures showing Google Search is used by 9.3 million Australians compared to just 184,000 users for Sensis Search is it any wonder Sensis have finally bitten the bullet and abandoned their search engine for Google’s? In addition all their Yellow listings will be stored in Google Maps, as well as WhereIs. It’s not before time.

So what does this mean for Australian businesses? It means that if you do not have a presence in Google it’s more vital than ever that you rectify the problem. More Australians use Google to find products and services online than any other search engine and if you aren’t listed you are missing out on vital traffic. And now more than ever with this announcement. The change is expected to happen from early next year so now is the time to get started.

The Google Grail: Getting to the Top

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:

  • Building a Search Friendly Website
  • Optimising (SEO) an Existing Website
  • Implementing a Pay Per Click (PPC) Campaign

Building a Search Friendly Website

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:

  • Website Goals
  • Your Target Audience
  • Keyword Selection
  • Content Creation

Website Goals

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.

Your Target Audience

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:

  • Age
  • Sex
  • Location
  • Income
  • Internet skills

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.

Keyword Selection

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.

Content Creation

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:

  • Publishing a blog;
  • Hosting forums;
  • Publishing a newsletter;
  • Writing articles on your subject area;
  • Running a topical directory.

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.

Optimising (SEO) an Existing Website

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.

Implementing a Pay Per Click (PPC) Campaign

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.

Using Content Wisely

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.

Website Health Check: Is Your Site Search Friendly?

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

Planning a Successful Website

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 Starts With the Planning

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:

  1. Defining your website’s goals;
  2. Determining your target audience(s);
  3. Reviewing your competition;
  4. Determining you traffic sources.

Define Your Website Goals

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:

  • To sell online?
  • To collect targeted leads?
  • To provide information about your products and services?
  • To brand yourself?
  • To provide customer support?
  • To entertain?
  • To build a community?
  • To receive advertising revenue?
  • To reduce printing and mail out costs?

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.

Determine Your Target Audience(s)

Who is your target audience? This can be broken down into:

  • Primary Audience
  • Secondary Audience
  • Geographic Locations

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.

Review Your Competition

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.

Determine Your Traffic Sources

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:

  • Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
  • Pay Per Click Advertising
  • Links on Partner Sites
  • Email Campaigns
  • Website Sponsorship
  • Forum Participation
  • Content Creation
  • Blogging
  • Other – you may have other ideas.

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.

Develop Your Online Strategy

All of the above will help you in deciding what information you should have on your website and how best to structure it.

Determine Your Website’s Content

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.

Develop Your Website Structure

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.

  • Home
    • Products/Services
      • Product/Service 1
      • Product/Service 2
      • Product/Service 3
      • Product/Service 4
    • Company News
    • Resources
    • Articles
    • Guides
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Site Map

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.

Putting It All Together

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.

Planning Your Website Re-design

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:

  1. Review the performance of your current website.
  2. Use this information to help you and your web designer plan your new website.

Review the Performance of Your Current Website

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.

Review the Look and Feel of Existing Website

Depending how long ago your current website was created it may be looking tired and outdated. There are two issues to consider:

  1. Has your businesses identity changed and if so does this need to be reflected in your new website?
  2. Has the website used online design trends that are now outdated? A note here: design trends move fast on the internet. As nice as it is to have a website with the latest online design trends it’s more important to ensure the website’s look can be usable for more than just the next trend.

In most cases an updated, fresh look and feel is a good place to start in a website re-design.

Review Your Current Site’s Usability

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:

  • Can I quickly see who this company is and what they offer?
  • Is it easy to find what I am looking for?
  • Does the website structure and navigation make sense?
  • Is the website easy to read?
  • Does it compel me to take the next step (place an order, make an enquiry, subscribe etc)?
  • Are order forms easy to use?

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.

Review Traffic and Conversions

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.

Review Search Engine Rankings

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.

Review Current Website Hosting

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.

Planning Your Re-Design

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:

  1. Redefine Your Online Goals
  2. Finalise The Website Structure
  3. Develop Your SEO Strategy
  4. Define Your New Look & Feel
  5. Prepare New Website Content
  6. Develop Your Website

Redefine Your Online Goals

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:

  • Selling online
  • Promoting your brand
  • Generating leads
  • Earning advertising revenue
  • Cutting costs

The goals you set will help you and your web designer decide how to best approach your website design.

Finalise The Website Structure

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.

Develop Your SEO Strategy

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.

Define Your New Look & Feel

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.

Prepare New Website Content

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.

Developing Your Website

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.

Putting It All Together

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.

Measuring the Success of Your Website

I was talking to a potential client the other day. Her website was ranking well in the search engines and she could not work out why she was not getting the number of enquiries she expected with the rankings she had. My first question to her was how was she analysing the success of her website. Her answer, was she wasn’t apart from checking her search rankings.

Without delving into her site and reviewing what is going on sadly she will never know what is working and what is not. And more importantly what steps she could take to improve the overall performance of her website.

Defining Website Success

The first step in measuring your website success is to determine how you define that success. Generally this should be based on the goals you set when you first started planning the site. This is one of the first and most important steps when building your website. What do you want your website to do for your business? Is your goal to sell online, collect leads, inform people or to promote your brand? You may have more than one goal for your site. These goals could include:

  • Selling online?
  • Collecting targeted leads?
  • Providing information about your products and services?
  • Branding yourself?
  • Providing customer support?
  • Building a community?
  • Receiving advertising revenue?
  • Reducing printing and mail out costs?

Once you have defined these goals you can then put measures in place to evaluate how successfully they are being achieved. For example if a goal of your website is to reduce print and mail out costs in your business you can review how many people are downloading material from your website and compare it to how many mail outs you were sending out before you had it on your site. You can also compare your printing and mail costs from before and after the material was offered on your site. These results will help you to measure the success of your goal to reduce printing and mail out costs.

Tools to Measure Your Success

The goals you set for your site will help determine the best methods of measuring your success. As a starting point the following tools can help you analyse your website traffic and make adjustments to improve on your success.

Checking Your Search Engine Rankings

Many people will deem their website a success if they have high search engine rankings, as did my prospective client above. Unfortunately this alone is not a good measurement – all the number one rankings in the world mean nothing if they don’t convert into sales, leads or other website activity. Having said that a good presence in the search engines is a vital piece of the website success puzzle and a good start to your online success.

You can monitor your search engine rankings manually by typing your main keyword phrases directly into the search engines. Alternatively there are a number of automated rankings checkers. Here’s a list of some of the more popular:

Free Solutions

Paid Solutions

Please note that automated rankings checkers are against the terms of some search engines – so be sure to check that what you are doing is ok before going ahead.

As I said above having high search engine rankings is no guarantee of success however it’s a start. When you combine this with analysing your website traffic (see Web Analytics below) you will have a good idea which keywords are performing and which need to be re-evaluated.

Web Analytics

One of the great bonuses of having a website is there are many ways for you to measure and track the visitors to your site. You are able to find out many things including:

  • How many people visit your website.
  • How many pages of your site they look at.
  • How long they are on your website.
  • The most popular/least popular page of your website.
  • Where your visitors come from eg search engine, another website, etc.
  • What your most popular keyword phrases are and which need improving.
  • What country/state/location your visitors come from.
  • What web browser they use.
  • What operating system they are on.
  • And so on.

This data can then be used to help you gauge the success of your website and pinpoint what areas of your site need improving.

Free Solutions

Paid Solutions

Link Analysis

Links to your website can provide you a number of benefits:

  • If you have links on topical, relevant websites they can sent highly targeted traffic to your website.
  • They can help boost your search engine rankings. Many search engines use the number of relevant links to your website as a measure of the importance of your website. The more relevant links your website has the higher your site will rank in the search engines.

Building links to your website can be a time consuming task but one that is definitely worth doing. The following tools can help you monitor the links to your website:

The Search Engine’s Webmaster Tools

Both Google and Yahoo! offer a set of webmaster tools that can help you evaluate the performance of your website.

Google Webmaster Tools

Google’s Webmaster Tools can help you monitor and track a variety of performance indicators in the one spot. They include:

  • How often your website is crawled by their spider and what, if any, errors are found.
  • How many, and what pages, are in their search index.
  • How many links there are to your website.
  • The top 20 search queries in which your site appeared.
  • The top clicked queries.

Google Webmaster Tools is quite advanced but it’s a great way to see how their search engine views your website. And let’s face it, success in Google is pretty vital to most websites.

Yahoo! Site Explorer

Like Google’s Webmaster Tools, Yahoo!’s Site Explorer helps you monitor and track the performance of your site in Yahoo! Features include:

  • All the pages that are indexed by Yahoo!
  • How many links they see to your site.
  • The last time the Yahoo! spider crawled your website.

Yahoo! is not as popular as Google however using both sets of tools to monitor your site will give you a clearer picture of how the search engines view your website.

Putting It All Together

All these tools on their own don’t mean a lot, it’s when you put them together and analyse the results that you start to reap the real rewards. Here are just some of the ways you can measure the success of your website using the tools above:

  • You can see where your visitors are coming from and use that data to make sure the content they see is targeted towards them.
  • You can see how many people are visiting your website and the number of visitors that convert into customers – giving you a conversion rate.
  • You can work out which keywords best convert visitors into customers and work on improving your rankings for those words to increase traffic and hence conversions.
  • You can see which pages are your least successful – for example those that have a high rate of people leaving – and then make changes to improve that figure. You can then track and measure each change to work out what works and what doesn’t.
  • You can measure response rates to online campaigns, such as placing an offer on another site or in a newsletter.
  • You can record how many people are downloading documents and compare it to the number you are posting out to see how much you are saving in postage over time.
  • You can create 2 different ads and monitor the response rates to both – this type of A/B Testing is easy to set-up and monitor online.

These are just a few of the ways you can measure the success of your website. Without this data you are running your website in the dark and most likely leaving dollars on the table in the process. Start implementing the above and make adjustments to your website according to what you see and watch your online success increase dramatically.

The Recipe For Online Success

I’ve spoken to, and worked with, numerous people who have decided to set-up an online business. And as with bricks and mortar establishments some succeeded spectacularly and some fail badly. I’ve analysed these success and failures and have found some common traits in the successful online ventures. So without further ado here’s my straightforward recipe for running an online business, successfully.

Research Your Market

It seems obvious but this is one of the most overlooked areas of starting an online business. Which is all the more strange when you consider how easy it is to conduct research into a market and it’s competitiveness on the internet.

Researching your market will help you determine whether there is a need for your idea, whether that need is already being serviced, and if so how well. Using a search engine, such as Google, can help you determine the level of competitiveness of your chosen industry. You can use it to see how many relevant businesses come up in common searches (the more results the more competitive it will be) and then check out those websites to see how they are run.

Think about your audience, will you be focusing on a small regional area or aiming for a global market? Is there a reason why a particular demographic would want to choose you over another business? Can you, for example, promote a favourable exchange rate or the ability to work while the rest of the world sleeps?

Finally, it’s important that you take into account whether your idea translates to being sold online. For example large, heavy, fragile products will be harder to ship and therefore sell than smaller, easy to post items.

Set Realistic Budgets

I know I’ve talked about this before but I am again as I can’t emphasise enough how important setting a realistic budget is. If you’re planning on running a successful online business you will need to budget for both the establishment and the ongoing marketing of that business.

If you’re reluctant to divulge your budget when talking to online service providers at least provide them with a ballpark figure so they are able to tailor a solution to fit your needs. You’ll probably find that costs vary from company to company – take the time to do your research and choose the one that not only fits your budget but the one you feel will best help you succeed (more on this below).

Surround Yourself With a Good Team

In order to succeed in your online business you will need to ensure you’re working with a web team that can help you achieve your goals. As a starting point you will need the services of the following people:

  • Web Hosting Company
  • Web Design Company
  • Search Engine Marketing / Internet Marketing Company

You can choose to go with separate companies or select a full service business who can help you with everything. Whatever you decide the most important thing is to make sure you pick a company you feel is a good fit.

The right company will understand the principles of business and selling online, they will understand how to get a website to rank in the search engines and most importantly they will be able to build you a website that prospects find easy to use and converts those prospects into customers.

Budget is important, obviously, but it’s just as important, if not more, to work with a company who understands your requirements and is able to help you to realise your goals and turn it into a profitable business.

Invest in Online Marketing

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 prosects 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.

It’s the old adage, you’ve got to spend money to make money. With the right marketing mix and a focus on creating a positive return on your investment (ROI) your online marketing efforts will help you build and run your business successfully.

Finally, remember that the above suggestions are just a starting point. Talk to your internet marketing expert who should be able to help you develop an online marketing plan that will grow your business.

Be Prompt and Responsive

You’ve found a site that sells the exact widget you want. You place your order, and… pray. It sounds awful I know but I commonly hear people say that they’ve contacted a business via their website, or placed an order, and are now wondering if they’ll ever hear from them. You don’t want to be one of those businesses. Clearly state the best ways for people to contact you, let them know when they should expect a response and what to do if they’ve not heard anything.

On an e-commerce site have the order response page acknowledge an order and provide a shipping timeframe. Follow up with a confirmation email again letting the customer know when they should expect their goods. And finally, send them an email when the package has actually shipped.

The internet can seem very anonymous. By continually communicating with your customers and reassuring them along the way they will be confident in doing ongoing business with you. And perhaps even recommending you to their friends.

Measure Your Results

A website that’s not being measured and tracked is like running around in the dark, with sunglasses on. Are you getting lots of visitors and few sales? Are you getting a few visitors but most of them make a purchase? Where are your visitors coming from? What do they look at? How long do they stay?

One of the great benefits of running an online business is the ability to collect and analyse website visitor data. All this data will help you tailor your website and refine your marketing to ensure you’re bringing in maximum visitors and converting them into customers.

There’s no substitute for hard work but with some careful research and planning and ongoing effort into promoting and managing your online business you too can be one of the internet success stories!

Are Your Contact Details Prominent on Your Website?

When I find a website I like one of the first things I look for are the contact details. I always do this when it’s a site I’m considering buying from, but I also often do it on information sites. If a site is purely informational I can understand they may not have this information but if you are selling products and services online your contact details are a must.

I want to know who I am buying from and if I can’t find any contact details or they are hidden and I have to hunt them out I wonder why. What are you trying to hide?

Make your contact details clear and easy to find. As well as helping convert visitors into customers they’ll help your rankings in local search queries.