Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Already speculation is emerging that companies are switching from display advertising to more direct response forms of marketing. These forms of marketing focus on tangible return on investment (ROI) with measurable results to assess the value of each activity.
One major area to consider if you have a website, and let’s face it most of us do, is search engine optimisation (SEO).
There are two forms of SEO to consider; natural search listings and pay per click. The first of these is driven by a number of factors relating to a mysterious algorithm used by major search engine, Google. The second is a pay for service where companies bid for clicks on keywords or phrases associated with their business.
Chances are you have received literally hundreds of spam emails and telesales calls from agencies promising to get you to the top of Google but don’t be fooled! Unless you operate in a niche market, work within a small specified boundary or have a massive advertising budget, getting to the top of Google is not an easy task.
You need to start the process of optimising your site by making a list of all the words and phrases people are likely to associate with your business. Include all the variations you can think of and play around with regional identifiers as well i.e. soap, organic soap, natural soap, beauty products, soap Cornwall, soap UK. If you get stuck try out Google’s Keyword Tool.
Once you have your list, you need to start working out the competition for each of these words or phrases, after all, the phrase may attract 1,000 hits a day but there could also be 2,000 companies fighting for each and every one. The best way to track the number of searches performed against the competition for each word or phrase is to use a service such as Wordtracker which collates searches and the competition for them.
So now you have the list, what next?
This list of keywords or phrases now forms the backbone of your SEO strategy. They can be used to target customers through pay per click or written into the content of your site to improve your natural rankings. Further still, they may even affect the structure of your site with you deciding to dedicate whole pages or sections or your site to a particular area highlighted as a good search term.
The benefit of the SEO approach to marketing your business is that it gives you tangible, measurable results to analyse. This will mean having a suitable tracking code installed on your site, such as Google Analytics, which not only tells you how people arrived at your site by keywords or phrases but also how long they spent there, where they went, who referred them and much more.
This section is only an introduction to the subject of SEO. It is a big area on its own and you should take time to study the process in more depth if you plan to carry out the work yourself. Alternatively, you should consider hiring the services of a professional SEO consultant; recognised by Google and carrying the ‘Google Adwords Qualified Company’ mark shown above.
Tags: 5. Marketing Effectively, business advice, business guides, Marketing, marketing advice, recession, recession guide, search engine optimisation, seo