RETAIL TECHNOLOGY N
early everyone out there now has a website for their business. The few business dinosaurs who steadfastly refuse to acknowledge the internet will be extinct soon, so we won’t focus on them.
If you have a website then you probably already
know that the old Teddy Roosevelt expression “Build it and they will come” doesn’t work on the internet. To get traffic (visitors) to your website you need
to advertise it well in conventional media like magazines and television which is incredibly cost prohibitive for an SME (small to medium enterprise – you). Alternatively, for a fraction of the cost (thank goodness), you can exploit a process called Search Engine Optimisation (or SEO) to make your website appear more attractive to Google and the other search engines. An expert in the field of SEO will be required as it is a tricky process of what is known as “on page optimization” and “off page optimization”. In a nutshell this is the tweaking of the text content of your website (on page) and getting a number of good quality links from other websites (off page). The good news is that whilst SEO is not a very
cheap process, if it is carried out by a suitable expert they will ensure that they only work on phrases and search terms that will generate you more business rather than just visitors. An SEO campaign is time consuming and will last for many months and should be part of your ongoing advertising budget. A good SEO campaign will pay for itself many times over. If you are looking for instant traffic to your
website (and hopefully leads from your website) then you are looking for a slightly different thing to SEO called Pay Per Click. SEO takes a good few months to see results, whereas a Pay Per Click campaign can get your website found in the search engines and getting additional, highly targeted, visitors within hours. Pay Per Click is a lot more expensive than SEO but does give instant results. We will cover this topic in a future article. There are many, MANY charlatans out there
selling SEO solutions, so “caveat emptor” is the order of the day (“let the buyer beware” as the latin geeks out there already knew). Always find out how long the company has been trading, and ensure they have a proven track record. Some of the more reputable companies will offer a money back guarantee but it only has any value if the company has been around a long time and has a good reputation.
Beware of the wording of money back guarantees, some do not make it clear which search engines are being referred to (ensure 100% that it is Google) and some do not make the search phrases obvious either. Anyone can guarantee to get you to the top of google – if the search phrase in question is your company name for instance. If you are going to dramatically increase the number of visitors to your website then you should spend a little time asking yourself what is it that you want your website to do? That may sound like a stupid question, but it isn’t. Most people just throw information onto their website without any real thought about what they want the visitor to do. If you want your website to make the telephone ring with an enquiry then you need to ensure your telephone number is prominently displayed on every page and the wording and images of each page convey a call to action that suggests to the visitor that they pick up the telephone and make an enquiry. Since the internet is open 24 hours a day and your puny human body probably needs to sleep at some point, you might decide that you want your website to persuade visitors to complete an online contact form which will allow you to collect leads from your site 24 hours a day. These are not the only two options available remember. A lot of success on the internet has been gained by giving something away.
Search Engine Optimisation what is it and why do I need it?
You could offer to send a free DVD of your service or product (for instance) and then use the captive audience of your website to convince people to ask for a copy of the DVD. Then let the DVD sell your product or service. Each business is different but 99% fail to have a clear action requirement written in to their website. Don’t waste those visitors!
SiteWizard.co.uk offer highly
respected and relatively low cost SEO solution that guarantees Google page 1 results for your search phrases or your money back.
Visit
www.SiteWizard.co.uk or call 08450 60 88 60 for more information.
28 • FOOTWEAR TODAY
• OCTOBER 2011
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