Search Engine Marketing - Website Optimisation

"Over 80% of your potential online customers.....

              …. are looking for your site on a Search Engine"

"They search using a product or service description ......

                                        …. can your site be found?"

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Search Engine Marketing:

  ..... an essential investment .... or waste of money?

This is a question easily answered by every website owner.

"When 80% of people use the Search Engines to find the service or product they are looking for, .....is this free advertising of value to your business or not?"

Contrary to what many people think, Search Engine marketing or Search Engine optimisation, is not some secretive art that requires a huge degree of technical knowledge. And if you have these problems on your site, it does not have to be a hugely expensive proposition to fix.

It does require some knowledge of what you are doing but the difference that it will make to your site is comparable to asking yourself "How important is petrol to your car?"

If you cannot locate your own website......

 ............... on one of the main search engines using a generic product or service description, then you are loosing business as you read this..... and it's time to either call your website designer and get them to fix the problem .....

...... or you can call us!

The chances are that you will need to call us anyway, because if your web designer did not make the correct meta-tag inclusions, and structure each page text correctly when they built the site, it's because they lack the knowledge and expertise necessary to ensure your site would be ranked well within the Search Engines....

....... and it's because they are website designers and not Search Engine Marketing specialists!

Why is it essential to have good Search Engine visibility?

     ..... because over 80% of your potential customers will find your site using generic search terms or phrases!

What is Good Search Engine Visibility?

........ good Search Engine Visibility is having your site appearing within the first 5 positions on the first page of Search Engine results. In fact you should be appearing in either the first or second positions, because those sites in the 5th position, generally get only 5% of the visitors that the site appearing in the first position receives.

If your site does not appear anywhere on that first page of Search Engine results, then you have serious problems which, if you are serious about your website, you need to address ASAP.

Why are the Search Engines So Important?

...... because the Search Engine traffic is FREE!

                    ........ and because 80% of people use them!

In fact it is about the only form of free advertising you will ever get, so you should be taking advantage of it!

What enables your site to be seen on Search Engines?

By ensuring that every page on your website is providing the right information to the Search Engines, in the correct manner.

Each page of your website is a potential entry point for potential customers coming from a Search Engine, and therefore every page on your website should have correctly structured meta-tags. All Search Engines use automated software called "spiders" or "robots" that will regularly come out and visit your site. The "siders" will examine your website and will capture certain information from your website and then take it back to the Search Engine where that information is processed and from that your ranking in that Search Engine is determined.

One of the primary places that the Search Engine "spider" looks for specific information on each page is in your Title, Description and Keyword meta-tags, and if they are either missing, incorrectly located or structured, then you loose your opportunity to improve your ranking, or even appear, in that Search Engine.

The Search Engine "spider" will also examine the text on each page of your site, and that text needs to complement the information contained within your meta-tags on that page if your meta-tags are to be effective.

One of the other major considerations used by some Search Engines, particularly Google, is your Page Ranking (which is determined by a popularity factor) and the number of Links to your site from other websites. We discuss this more on our page about Link Marketing.

Common Mistakes on many New Zealand websites

Some of the most common mistakes we see on the majority of New Zealand websites include:

• Meta-tags are completely missing
  
  
• Meta-tags only included on the front page
  
  
• Incorrectly structured or located meta-tags
  
  
• An over-reliance on the Keyword meta-tags which are largely ignored by the Search Engines now
  
  
• Use of incorrect Keywords and Keyphrases that the site owner thinks potential customers will use, instead of Keywords and Keyphrases that they do actual use on the Search Engines (we use specific tools that allow us to identify the more commonly used search phrases that are actually being used by potential customers)
  
  
• Attempts at using Search Engine marketing methods that went our of date even 6 months ago, including Search Engine spamming that is now likely to get you banned from the main Search Engines

......and the very worst mistake we see is when web designers have attempted to provide a very upmarket and fancy introduction to the website by using an animated front page using software solutions like Flash or Shockwave. In such situations the Search Engine "spider" is totally unable to read these pages and will be unable to even enter the website to capture the information it needs. Those websites that suffer from this problem will never appear in the Search Engines until this virtual roadblock is removed.

If you are the owner of a New Zealand website.....

.....there is a 95% likelihood that you will find one or more of the above errors on your website. When you address this problem you, will be surprised how much difference it makes to the number of potential customers that will start using your website. It is the first, and most important step of making your website available to your potential customers.

We are happy to show our clients how to address these problems themselves, however unless you have a reasonably comprehensive understanding of how and where to construct your meta-tags, how to identify the actual search terms that your potential customers are using to try and find your site, and how to correctly structure your page text to support the keyphrases you use, and which are the more productive Search Engines to target, it is a job best left to experts.

The Key to Successful Search Engine Marketing:

.......is having a current working knowledge of what the Search Engines are looking for in your website today, remembering that it is quite different to what they were looking for even a year ago.