The first part of SEO is the basic structure and configuration of the website itself, and its front page, and it is actually more difficult to get that wrong than to have it created correctly. Still, I find sites every day with the basics missing; car – no petrol, put some in and it will go.

Once you are beyond the basics, you then have a choice between either waiting for your site to grow in stature and ranking naturally over time (known as organically) or you can pay to have your site listed quickly. A good website with a high organic position costs nothing to display week to week, to advertise your company and its products. A good paid (PPC) position may cost you £10,000 a week.

So, if you can achieve a high organic ranking then that’s the way to go; good visibility, no cost. Recent research shows that most web surfers still look at the left hand side of Google page displays first, i.e. the organic rank. Many people do not ‘trust’ the paid adverts, since quality can be short-cut by money.

Organic ranking

How do you get your website to a high position in the organic ranks? Well, you could just sit back and wait, hoping that many people will find it, love it, and tell their friends. That is ‘viral’ advertising, and it works for Apple iPads, political protesting, local issues, celeb gossip, but won’t work for a factory or a car dealership. The alternative, is to talk to us.

Site ranking

How does Google ‘rank’ your site. That’s something that has been evolving and changing since 1998, but comes down to a basic premise - is your website popular? A popular website will have several qualities. First, many people will click on it. Second, those people will spend many minutes trawling through the site after clicking on it. Third, those people will then go away and write a good review about your site, with a link to it, on a forum or in a blog. If your website ticks all of these boxes, then it will climb up the charts like the latest pop song.

But that will take time, which is why some people like to give their website a nudge, and a head start. You could send out an email broadcast, bringing the site to the attention of those you wish to target via profiling, or you could use a paid search engine like Google for a while - till people know about the site, love it, and use it. Once your site has a momentum, and is the talk of the town, you can cut back on paid advertising. If your website details widgets that fit tractors, you will always need paid advertising to get trade and some interest in the site; forget social media and viral advertising.

If your website details the new releases from up and coming boy bands, then social media, viral campaigns, and word of mouth will probably do the job for you. If you have a dull website that sells a product or service found in many places elsewhere, then you’ll need to market your site, and you’ll need to optimise your site first.

That optimisation means understanding how Google “ranks” your website. Google will look at your site and create a score-card based on a number of factors, and the adherence to Google’s rules will affect your positioning in the search engine; that we can advise you on. Send us a link to your website and we can make an assessment very quickly; optimising your basic elements typically costs £50 or less and can be done in a day or two, sometimes within an hour.

Organic ranking is something that many companies ignore, when it can be a very cost effective way of reaching your customers, and once a site is optimised it will move up the ranks. If it reaches a good position, the enquiries it generates will be free.

Paid advertising

Most companies don’t understand the organic rankings - or how to optimise their website, but also don’t believe that they could be No.1 on Google without paying a great deal of money. Being No.1 in the organic ranks is not about money, it’s about being clever, and some people pay £300 to end up at No.1 whilst others pay £10,000. And don’t forget that you will have a parallel organic ranking even when you pay for advertising.

Paid advertising is typically either Google Adwords or Google Adsense. Adwords is pay-per-click, in that you may create an account with Google, register your details, then offer an amount such as £1 a click for the search phrase “Seaweed flavour ice cream”. If few other people want or use that search phrase, you may only end up paying 1p a click for it.

If you sell insurance or mobile phones, then you’ll find it harder than other industries because of all the local and national competition. But there are ways, and there is hope for a good position without spending a fortune.

PPC optimisation

As a website can be optimised, so can your paid campaign, and we could handle it for you. There are rules, best practices, tricks and tips - and the benefit of experience that can be employed to get the best results for the least price.

Email broadcasts

Email broadcasts can be a good way of launching a new website or a new product, by bringing it to the attention of a wide audience very quickly. Business owners like the idea of email broadcasts because the results are same-day results. The downside is that most people don’t bother to open the advertising emails, and if they do then just a small percentage would rush out to buy your product. Email broadcasts work like traditional mailshots landing on doorsteps, in that there is a low response rate for most products; don't believe that email is a magic bullet - it isn't.

Where email broadcasts can be very effective is in the support of SEO and PPC campaigns, and carefully profiled emails can be very effective. Most website owners find out that they can email 100,000 people for a few hundred pounds, and rub their hands, but the response rates are often very poor. You are better off using people like us to source and produce a tightly profiled list of 20,000 recipients. Such a list may be profiled by age, sex, family, affluence, postcode, home ownership, sports and hobbies, lifestyle and habbits, etc...  

Social media

Social media such as Facebook and Twitter is currently seen as a ‘must have’ by most businesses. They create Twitter and Facebook accounts, get friends and employees to sign up and make posts or tweets, then … nothing. None of the public bothers to respond, and the company looks sad, like the kid in school with no friends sat by himself.

No Twitter account … is better than a lame Twitter account.

The same applies for Facebook. People are not stupid, and they know the difference between genuine and spontaneous interaction with the buying public - and company generated crap. I often see large companies with Twitter sites that have weekly tweets out about new products, no comments coming back.

“Wow, yes, I am excited about that new insurance product for tractor widgets,” is not a tweet that you are likely to see.

And don’t, whatever you do, ask all of your staff to join your Facebook page as friends. You can be sure that one will advocate the smoking of weed, one loves porn, and several will criticise their pay and promotions, especially if they’re thinking of leaving. Don’t show your customers your dirty laundry.

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