For most small businesses a company website is a necessity to boost sales and project a professional image to customers, suppliers and investors…
Incredibly, many small firms do not have a business website. Unfortunately, few owners possess the technical knowledge or time to build their own company website. Instead, many rely on a local web designer, to create a 'brochure website' for them, consisting of a few pages about the company along with its contact details. Yet, just having a business website does not mean anyone will visit it. Promoting a company website is vital. Yet, doing so without outside help involves developing a practical internet marketing strategy. With lots of tenacity and patience, this can be achieved as surprisingly low cost.
Most users only bother clicking through to the top three results for a given search result. So, getting your company website to the top of the results should one of your primary marketing objectives. Yet, it takes time to acquire internet marketing knowledge and then knowing how to put theory into practice. So ask yourself, 'should I do the job myself or outsource the job to a professional Internet marketing organisation?'…
The biggest challenge is knowing who to ask for help and what to ask for! Search Engine Optimisation remains as much a black art as it is a science. Internet marketing is largely an unregulated and pioneering market sector. So, to find a credible SEO company ask trusted friend or colleague. It can be devilishly difficult to qualify a potential supplier’s level of knowledge or claims and promises. Ask them for the contact details of reference sites and case studies of existing clients. Find someone local so you can regularly meet them face to face. Offshore suppliers may be cheaper, but telephone only business relationships are never quite the same. Once you find the right internet marketing organisation, agree a fixed price, deadlines and a detailed description of the services you require.
The initial step is to study your market to find out what your prospects are using the Internet for. Check competitor web sites to get a feel for pivotal sales messages they are using. Establish some realistic financial goals. Look closely at your average margins, overheads and sales conversion ratios. Based on your research conclusions, determine a suitable business model to meet your goals. Bear in mind that to implement 'organic' search engine rankings can take between six months to one year. Alternatively, you may choose to opt for a low cost affiliate marketing business model, where time is the critical success factor. If you do want to wait, you could invest heavily in online pay per click advertising to bring about instant sales conversions.
Supporting your model should be the right kind of website with the right functionality. For example, an e-commerce site is ideal to sell high volume, low margin; consumer based products and can be hugely scalable. Conversely, many firms cannot sell online due to the nature of their service delivery. These include local firms, manufacturers and serviced based businesses. These types of businesses can still benefit from a comprehensive 'brochure website' or 'portal' based website. Here, social media and traditional content driven marketing are central in generating online traffic.
Search engines use mathematical algorithms to compare one website with another, based on a search query to deliver the most relevant result. So, to achieve high rankings, a systematic marketing process needs to be rigorously followed by webmasters. It is critical you follow proper published search engine guidelines. This avoids penalties or even your web site being banned.
The most crucial step is to identify the key phrases used by your prospect market. By including these key phrases in your webpages, the greater chance those web pages have of appearing in a search engine result. Those key phrases need only appear a couple of times and in prominent positions on each page. For instance, it should appear on the page title and near the top of the textual content in the first paragraph. Conversely, repeating the chosen key phrase 10 or 20 times can have the opposite effect, and may be seen as 'spamming'. Search engines take a dim view of this and sites are automatically penalised for such techniques.
Secondly, you must write persuasive and exclusive content. The aim is to provide real value and interest to the reader. Writing quality content is the core of Internet marketing. Focus on articles that concern customers, discuss industry pressures, summarise industry news, write press releases of product launches and employees activity. There are many ways increase the number and variety of written pages on a website. Never write content just for search engines.
Thirdly, ensure your website is useable and aesthetically pleasing. It is highly recommended you use the skills graphics designer that also has a decent knowledge of search engines. They should implement a browser independent design, with a navigational structure that is easy to understand, and accessible according to W3C standards.
Fourthly, try and increase the quantity and quality of inbound links pointing to your website. These links should originate from similar ‘on topic’ websites with similar content. Link baiting success hinges around creating great content that can be recommended, bookmarked and shared across social media. It must be powerful enough that other webmasters want to talk about it in forums or in blogs.
'Off topic' links are not as highly valued and can even damage search engine rankings (especially if the link alliance is two-way or 'reciprocal' in nature). A lot of SEO firms offer link popularity services. Be extremely cautious of such offers, which generally include hazardous techniques.
Lastly, you need to spread the word your website exists. You can submit your website to hundreds of search engines and thousands of business directories. Likewise, there are also many social networks, blogs and forums where you can improve your credibility by offering solutions to problems or discussing and sharing your knowledge. These posts will create many inbound links to your site , which help rankings. Try and share your content by offering it up as XML or RSS content feeds.
Remember this are no quick fixes to using internet marketing. It is a full time job, involving many skills and long term commitment. So be patient, organised and purposeful.