1. Be a big fish in a small pond!

Visibility is the key. People go to look for whales, but  only notice the fish when the pool is small. 

If you concentrate on the UK market, don't optimise for global search engines. The UK has less than 10% of all internet sites. Concentrate on UK search engines and cut your competition by 90%, ( and potential sales hardly at all).

2. No website is finished

Websites can always be improved  and repeat visitors will be encouraged by new features.

So plan your site with ease of change in mind before you even publish the first version.

3. Words are better than pictures

If your priority is to attract new customers, the site must appeal first to the search engines so that prospects can find you. 

Search engines use text as the basis for categorising a site and ignore pictures.

Pictures/design only come into play once the visitor has arrived.

4. Expect the Unexpected

The joy of the internet is that you don't know in advance quite what connections you are going to make. 

  Look out for the new opportunities and use the web site to develop and test new markets.

5. Others like a mention

If you write an article, or conduct a survey, that mentions other sites, they are likely to link to you and so help promote your own site.

6. Don't destroy your own work

When you have worked hard to achieve good rankings in search engines and built up links from other sites, don't  change your site structure and page names without careful thought. You could break all the established links.

7. Always check the results

Monitor your web statistics and track the orders and enquiries from your site.  You can measure the results of your web promotion very accurately.  

Lack of suitable promotion is the main reason for disappointing website results.

See you next month!

Regards

Stephen Orr