Bournemouth Pier

Online Website Marketing Blog

Being ranked number 1 is good right?

Being ranked number 1 is good right?

So you have a great looking web site – well, maybe you’re not quite there yet – but you are ready to rock the Internet with your brilliant products or services. All that you need to do now is make sure your site is ranked number 1 on Google.

Right?

Well not necessarily…

We are all told that being number 1 on Google is the ticket to riches. You will have even received a marketing email or seen an advert by a Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) company guaranteeing you top position or your money back.

Be number 1 on Google and:

  • you will be found by customers
  • people in their droves will visit your web site
  • the only way is up for your business.

But the truth is being top of the Google tree offers no guarantees for your business. I have lost count of the number of times I have heard people excited that their business web site has made top spot on Google (or they are listed on Page 1) for this, that or the other.

That is not to rubbish their claims. In most cases they are, but that is not the whole story. We had a new client come to us recently in exactly this situation. They had spent a lot of money on their site, had lots of good content and now, with their web site positioned first and second from over 50,000 search results, everything was set up for their business to grow. But they waited, and waited, yet hardly anyone came. So what happened? OK.

I ought to come clean… despite the headline to this blog post, being number 1 on Google can be extremely good for your business, but you need to understand that being number 1 doesn’t guarantee anything. In the case of our client, as is the case with many who are proudly listed on Page 1 of Google yet receive little traffic to their site, the problem was not to do with them being there but the fact that nobody searched on the term for which they were listed top. If that is what is happening to you, then that is why being listed on top for a term that no-one searches on can be bad for your business.

The likelihood is, just like our client, you could be sitting there with days and weeks passing expecting visitors to come to your site, when all the time they are going to your competitor’s web site. So, what’s the answer? The key to your web site being found is to optimise your web pages for the right search terms not just any terms, that is, not just the words and phrases you think people are searching on.

Here are some dos and don’ts for optimising for the right search terms:

  1. Check out the terms your competitors are using but don’t assume they are using the right terms either. You need to do some more research.
  2. Ask some trusted friends what words or phrases they would use to search for your products and services, but don’t feed them with suggestions. Allow them to decide themselves.
  3. Having gathered some suggestions, try them in Google’s free keyword tool. This will give you some useful suggestions based on the words you enter and will also give you an idea of how many searches use those terms per month both nationally and globally.
  4. Don’t optimise a single web page for more than one term, but do optimise for terms that include more than one word. A single term can contain several words that people will be searching for, e.g. ‘luxury hotel breaks’ will be indexed by Google for that term but also for ‘hotel breaks’, ‘luxury hotel’ and ‘luxury breaks’.
  5. If your business operates mainly locally or within a defined geographic region then consider including a city, county, state or country in the term, e.g. ‘luxury hotel breaks uk’.
  6. Once you have decided on your search term, you can then set to work on optimising your web page. There is a lot you can do to refine this, but you must as a minimum do some basic optimisation. Essentially, you need to make sure your search term is represented in the Title metatag of your web page (this is what appears in the caption bar at the top of your browser) as well as the Description metatag (which can be more descriptive).

There will be more on metatags and SEO another time, but for now Happy SEOptimising! But if you are stuck not being sure what to do next, then please visit our SEO Services page to find out more.

Online Website Marketing Blog

Understanding Why Your Website isn’t Working

Why Your Website isn’t Working

Posted on August 8, 2012 by Amanda Ferris

Do you want the visitors that flock to your website to be converted into profitable customers?

Are you disappointed in the lack of response you received from website visitors? Is trying to understand ‘Internet Marketing’ and the options available confusing to you?

understanding-internet-marketing-300x158There are some common misconceptions held by website owners. Changing these ideas and using proven solutions will help you improve your Internet strategy and bring in customers more effectively.

1. You have a brilliant website, but nobody knows about it:

It’s simple; you need to drive people toward your website. The only way to do that is to market your website as part of your ‘Internet Marketing’ strategy. Try not to fall in the trap of thinking the design of your website has a link with how many people visit your site, this is a mistake commonly made with Internet Marketing. The quality of the content on the site and how it helps visitors has far more to do with driving traffic to your site than how it looks.

2. Your website is all about you:

 This is possibly the biggest mistake made by website owners. Unfortunately this is not the case, visitors are only interested in what you can do for them. If your website is worded to focus on solving their problems rather than how good your service is, then it will dramatically change the performance of your site. Many websites are written by sales people and don’t give away any useful information to visitors.

 

If your site is written this way visitors will more likely move on to the next site to find their answers.

3. Getting visits to convert to Enquires/Sales:

You need to think about what you want people to do when they visit your site. Do you need them to buy something from the site or do you focus on getting their contact details, so that you or your sales team can follow up?

A big move in Internet Marketing is the shift from sites that sell products or a business, to sites that want to build ongoing relationships with their customers. This has become known as ‘Permission Marketing’, acquiring a customer’s permission to communicate with them. If you’re using your site to get customers’ contact details, they will need a compelling reason to offer those details. Possibly the best way to do that is to offer something ‘free’ in exchange e.g. a newsletter or free sample of a product, but it needs to have value. Follow that up with a good email campaign and a proportion of those people will convert into customers.

If you are interested in getting sales when potential customers visit your site, then it’s a combination of the written content, images or video that explains and shows the benefits of the product that will possibly guarantee the purchase.

Things to look into:

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Being listed in what are called organic search results costs nothing other than the time involved to make sure each page on your website is optimised for search engines. Try to identify what words or phrases people use to search for the products or services you sell and make sure those words/phrases are represented in the pages of your site. If you only market to customers that are local to you then make sure you include the name of your local area when you optimise each page. You can find out more about SEO in our post on Search Engine Optimisation.

Pay Per Click (PPC)

Using Google AdWords, you only pay for the visitors that click through to your website making it one of the most cost effective advertising solutions available. Beware though as your ads need to be written clearly and targeted at the correct audience so that costs don’t get out of control.

Video Search

YouTube is now the second most popular search engine in the world and Google also uses video content in its regular search results. Obviously, the only way to be listed in YouTube is by using video, but it is well worth considering as video content is more and more sought after and the cost of producing video has fallen.

Get into the Testing Habit

Don’t forget to test and experiment, find out what works for your website. Always use analytics to measure the results from your different strategies. Google’s own analytics tool is free to use and is being improved all the time. The results may astound you.

Writing-articles-for-SEO Online Marketing Blog Content

Writing Articles for SEO

Writing-articles-for-SEOWriting Articles for SEO

With the rise in blogging and more recently the growing power of sharing your blog through social media, it’s easy to get focused on putting new articles on your website without considering the SEO value of the content.

As great as Social Media is for sharing your content with contacts and friends, if you want to extend your reach beyond that it’s vital you spend some time and effort making your blog content Search Engine Friendly.

Before you post your blog article, come up with a list of keywords that are relevant only to the subject you are writing about from within your text, then make sure these keywords are used in strong keyword phrases.

Another approach is to make a list of keyword phrases from within your industry, then build your article around these. Next, use best search engine optimization practices to give you a better chance of getting the most out of your keywords.

Try to use words or phrases that will stand out like a headline in your text, did you see one in the previous sentence..?

When doing this consider:

  • Correct placement in the Article 
  • Keyword density
  • Keyword emphasis

Another under used technique when writing blog articles is to do keyword research in advance. Doing this tells you what people in your sector are searching for, giving you the opportunity to target your content to their needs.

Keyword research before writing your blog articles is a great technique that will attract more readers to click through to your website.

Even after your blog post is published, it’s good to remember you can continue to optimise the blog page with the comments you make in reply to others. Continue to attract search engines back by using specific keyword phrases within your comments, remembering to not overuse them.

Good use of Keywords

Online Marketing Blog Content

So What is Demographic Bidding..?

demographic-bidding-adwords-300x167So What is Demographic Bidding..?

Google have announced that demographic bidding is now available for all AdWords advertisers.

Demographic Bidding is a feature that helps you target your ads to specific age groups (such as ages 18-24), by gender, or to combinations of both.

Demographic bidding can be used whether you are using contextual or placement targeting also with both CPC (cost-per-click) and CPM (cost-per-thousand impressions) bidding and reach can be refined based on users’ gender and age on certain sites in the Google content network, for users who provide that information about themselves.

Users of partner sites won’t be identified through Demographic Bidding as AdWords receives the data in anonymous and aggregate form from participating sites.

Why Demographic Bidding gives you more control

Demographic bidding lets you display your ad campaigns on thousands of websites, that’s nothing new, however demographic bidding gives you the option to have your ads only seen by men, women or both in a specific age group of your choice. If you add in the ability to choose to run ads only on specific websites, ones relevant to the types of customers you want to reach – and if you are a business that serves a local community, then just run those ads to people in your area, this becomes a really powerful marketing tool.

Overall, demographic bidding gives you more control over who sees your ads. Combine this with the measuring tools available in your Adwords account and ad performance testing for specific demographics will help you adjust your bid modifiers and restricts to reach the right audiences.

Demographic Bidding will help you to get a better ROI.

Posted in Business, Helping Hand, Online Marketing, SEO, Web Marketing | Leave a comment

Online Marketing Blog Content

Start with the Basics to Look Professional

Get the basics right to Look Professional

These are the things that all businesses should have, they are relatively inexpensive, quick to develop and give you a professional image that becomes a great base to work from.

Start with a well planned and easy to navigate web site. This web site should be well-optimised during the development phase which will save money on future SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and help you start to climb the search rankings quickly.

Consider your logo, does it need to be refreshed, modernised or replaced with a new one? Are the images on your site bright and clear or were they snapped on a phone. A combination of all these elements that fits your requirements will help you stand out from the crowd.

Online Website Marketing Blog

Use Clear Visuals to Create a Strong Message

Use Clear Visuals to Create a Strong Message

Using clean but strong visual elements to promote your products or services offers you greater benefits than ever before and a great example of this is video.

Video is widely acknowledged by viewers as trusted information with sites like youtube.com becoming the first choice for many when searching a topic online.

Add to this the integration of all the elements you need to run a marketing campaign, such as social media management, SEO and analytic reporting and you have the best combination to help you build an audience for your business…

Here is some of the different types of media you can add to your marketing:

  • Promotional video
  • e-commerce photography
  • User experience and testimonial video
  • PR photography
  • product demonstration/training videos
  • podcasts/video blogging

In today’s competitive business world it’s so important to present a great image.