SEO made simple
Web marketing rests on simple principles and you must take each step
in the correct order:
- Define your target market
- Create the relevant website
- Test the effectiveness of the site
- Promote
We all want to get to the top of the search listings for our main
keywords. That is where the problems start! All your competitors
want the same position. The search engines are now doing an
excellent job in helping searchers find the information they want.
If your site is clearly the best in its particular field - and assuming
it has been built to assist search engines to index it - then you can
expect to be top of the pile. Since most of us do not have such clear
superiority, we have to accept a more mixed result but still ensure it
is profitable.
Of the four stages listed above, the third is the most important.
Testing can be done in the real world by spending some money on cost per
click advertising to attract sufficient visitors quickly. If enough of
those visitors convert to leads and sales to cover your costs, then you
can promote further in the knowledge of increasing profitability.
If not, then you have to review the earlier stages.
The testing in the real world is vital and may lead to results that
surprise you. I had a classic instance last month where a website
was redesigned, everyone involved thought it more 'professional' but it
simply failed to bring in the business. We sometimes forget that
searchers are looking for information that they see as important and
they want to find it quickly and easily. Complex navigation
systems can kill a site. The best 'experts' are sometimes wrong.
Regards
Stephen Orr
|
