Online Marketing

"We have found that your excellent advice about design and content has helped us to leapfrog our competitors to the top of the Google charts for 95% of the products we sell."

Jeff Bowen, Bowen Awnings

Online Marketing: SEO - Search Engine Optimisation

SEO - Search Engine Optimisation - is probably the most talked about element in website marketing. It is probably no surprise that a typical website will receive 70% - 90% of its traffic from search engines, therefore it is crucial to ensure that the website is constructed in a way which makes it easy for search engines to read, and helps them to determine exactly what each page is about.

The basic principals of search engine optimisation are simple enough:

Identify the terms your business wants to be found
Create pages that fulfills those needs

The Devil is in the Detail

Ideally, the process should start before a single word has been written for the Website. The first step is keyword analysis: This is the process of identifying exactly what your customers are likely to search for. The results of this research yields a list of terms that should be incorporated into the content of the pages. This process may also indicate a structure or hierarchy of terms that could be reflected in terms of pages on the site.

Search engines also take notice of what is "under the hood", the coding of the page, which must also reflect the chosen keywords.

Then there is off-page optimisation - that is inbound links from directories, Blogs, social media and the like. Inbound links lend authority to your pages when they come from sites supporting similar topics.

Compelling Content

With this in mind you can get others to help your website simply by providing them with relevant, useful content. When someone finds a useful resource they will link to it and tell their friends. It's not quite free marketing because you have to create the top quality content, but it is a very effective way to spread the word!

Short term vs. long term

There is no substitute for getting high natural listings, it has a long term, lasting effect. Most of our clients will tell you that the investment is worth while as effective SEO can reduce ongoing marketing spends.

SEO campaigns are by their nature slow moving, but once they have momentum.... As a result we always recommend balancing short term campaigns such as PPC and banner advertising with SEO campaigns.