More and more businesses are moving traditional processes online in the aim to create more efficient models for servicing their customers. The Web offers unlimited potential to businesses that are willing to embrace its ability to transform the means by which we define ‘doing business’ in today’s hyper-competitive online space.

The popularity of search engines as the ‘first step’ in locating a business for services or products is growing expeonentially and having a latest and greatest website means squat if potetial customers cannot find your website online. SEO and online marketing specialists have been preaching the importance of ‘being found online’ for years and anybody with experience managing a business website will vouch that it’s no good having that great website if it’s off the radar. So how can you boost your businesses online potential to get found?

Focusing your energy on designing and implementing a full circle online marketing strategy can result in limitless possibilities of business growth our modern world, and I am going to discuss today some of the key strategies that can help you boost your buiness online.

Internet Marketing isn’t for every business for a couple of reasons which I will explain, however I do believe that this is slowly shifting and at some point in the near future online marketing will be a must even for extremely small businesses. However for the time being, obviously a small ‘handyman’ business doesn’t stand to reap as many benefits and possible growth as a company that produces and sells via wholesale and retail options, a range of merchandise or products via an eCommerce website.

When correctly designed and implemented, online marketing has the ability to grow and transform businesses even in the current global financial crisis. In fact Internet marketing offers possibly the strongest and most measurable form of business marketing ever to have existed and represents amazing opportunities to businesses that choose to embrace its power.

What I am aiming to outline in this article are techniques that we have exercised time and again for our clients business websites that work to grow a business online.

Powerful web design

The single most important factor of online marketing is have a powerful and high converting website. If your website was to start receiving large amounts of web traffic, is that automatically going to mean more sales and enquiries for your business? The answer is No. You can promote your website and drive traffic to arrive at your online destination from Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC), search engine optimisations (SEO), email marketing, affiliate marketing, banner advertising or any other form of marketing. However when people arrive, if your website fails to engage, compel and assist your audience to do business with your business then all the money and time spent to influence that customer to visit your website is a complete loss.

This makes your website the single most important element of your entire online marketing strategy. Does your website currently instill confidence in you that it will ensure a high conversion rate of web traffic into customers?

To be working effectively your website should be able to convert a high proportion of the traffic it receives into sales and enquiries for your business. The higher the percentage of enquiries and sales that your website converts from traffic, the more money your business will make. The more your business makes the more you can spend on advertising and online marketing, the more your business will grow and the harder it will be for your competition to beat you.

Quality Content

Creating content that conveys speaks the tone of your business, enhances your brand and inspires your readers is vital to any online marketing campaign. This relates back heavily to having a website that converts traffic. Writing content for the web is different to traditional copy-writing and many new web-copywriters have spawned up as the internet grows to be the first place a potential customer engages your business. Having a large slab of text on a page will not help your customers pick and move through your website and could ensure that they bounce off your site in favour of a competitors more digestible web-copy. Make sure that the wording on your website is effective for web users.

Search Engine Marketing

Boosting traffic to your website is important, what’s more important however is that the people arriving at your website have been pre-qualified as relevant, potential customers. Search engine marketing is about getting your website to appear on search engines for selected keywords that make the products and services that your business has to offer. This ensures that users who arrive at your website are genuinely interested in what you’re offering. If you were a plumber in Melbourne you would want to be found for words like “acquisitions” or “mergers” however it would be even better if you could localize that search and have customers searching for “acquisition services Melbourne” finding your website. It will not be of much value if a person searching for “painter” finds your website. Fortunately search engine marketing is a measurable and profitable method of pre-qualifying potential traffic is implemented correctly.

Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC)

PPC advertising is the fastest way to get your website found by people searching for your products and services. Pay-per-click advertising (also known as Google AdWords) is the process of setting up a online advertising campaign whereby you pay each time a user clicks on a ad for your business from the search engine results. For example, as ad for your website can be displayed on the front page of the search engine results for the keyword phrase “acquisition services Melbourne” right away and you only pay when someone actually clicks on the ad that you are running. This means that you are paying for real, qualified traffic. People actually searching for your business offerings are finding your website. PPC is fast becoming an expensive medium however there are still abundant opportunities for businesses. It is also the most measurable form of advertising ever and provides some of the best returns on investment of all advertising mediums.

Before you launch a PPC campaign it is important that you have setup and installed analytic tracking software and goal conversion tracking. This will enable you to cipher out best performing ads and keywords. Also this enables you to accurately calculate the cost-per-action (CPA) for a lead or sale and isolate any keywords that are too expensive to compete against your competition for the margin that they make for you. These isolating keywords can then be focused on for organic search engine optimisation.

To be continued…

This concludes my first installment of “Strategies That Will Grow Your Business Online”. The next chapter will focus on the following topics.

• Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
• Split Testing
• Blogging
• Email Marketing
• Landing Pages
• Banner Advertising
• Execute the plan

Be sure to follow us online at http://www.facebook.com/alaress and http://www.twitter.com/alaress or simply subscribe to our feed to get the latest articles sent to your inbox.

And remember, successful online marketing requires on-going research, revision and general love for the web so get involved.

If you are considering investing either time, money or both into an online marketing or SEO campaign, one of the first steps we advise you to consider completing is to assess and measure the potential rewards of optimising your website for a set of keywords. The reason why this step is so important is that before you start investing is an often time consuming, labor intensive and often expensive strategy to boost your businesses online traffic, why not gain some insurance that your selected keywords will yield the results you are seeking.

Fortunately for us our good friends over at Google have provided us with yet another invaluable tool which provides this exact information enabling us to ensure that the effort and spend we intend to invest on search engine optimisation for a website is both justified, risk managed and will yield the traffic results that we set out to achieve.

Google AdWords traffic estimator is a publicly available, keyword traffic analysis tool and helps in gathering data on how much estimated traffic individual keyword will result in based on certain parameters including locality and other metrics. The first step once you arrive on the traffic estimator’s interface is to enter in any the keywords that you have selected for inclusion in your SEO strategy. Next you choose to detail an optional daily budget which will enable you to see estimates for the amount that you want to spend each day. You can alternatively leave this field blank to see all available clicks. Then simply select the local currency and user locality targeting such as country, regions and cities etc and proceed on to the results.

The results interface now presents you with a range of information including search volume indicators, estimated cost-per-click (CPC) amounts, ad positions, clicks-per-day and cost-per-day.

Albeit convenient and generally awesome that the traffic estimator is freely available for anyone to use regardless of whether or not they have a Google AdWords accounts, you do need to be made aware that if you are not using a Google AdWords account, there can be a margin of error in the statistics that you are presented with. This is due to the tool not having the advantage of direct access to information about your specific keyword campaign.

Google quotes: “Estimates are based on general system-wide performance information. You’ll see better estimates with an existing account that has built up a performance history. Newer accounts may still show less accurate results.”

It’s also worth noting that all estimates are provided as a guideline, and are based on system-wide averages and that your actual costs and ad positions may vary from those displayed. Also, estimates for your selected keywords are based on click-through rates for current advertisers and this means that these dynamic estimates do change often.

Anyone that is considering investing time and money and is establishing which keywords would be best suited for search engine optimisation for their business should consider using this traffic estimator. It will provide you will information on a keyword’s estimated popularity, the average cost-per-click that you should expect to be paying for certain search engine result positions and more.

Whether you currently have an online marketing firm completing your AdWords search engine marketing, you manage your own internet marketing campaigns or if you are an SEO expert, this tool is a valuable asset to your arselal of SEO tools.

Estimates for these keywords are based on clickthrough rates for current advertisers.

Back in November 2008, Google found themselves asked often at conferences or in the Webmaster Help Group, “What are some simple ways that I can improve my website’s performance in Google?”

Of course there are multiple answers to this question, and a wealth of search engine optimisation information available on the web, however there is so much that it can be intimidating people who are not web veterans, newer webmasters or those unfamiliar with the topic. Fortunately Google thought it would be useful to create a compact guide that lists some best practices that teams within Google and external webmasters alike can follow that could improve their sites’ crawlability and indexing.

We’ve created a simple mind map of what the SEO guide covers:

Download The Alaress SEO Mindmap

The Google Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide covers around a dozen common areas that webmasters might consider optimizing. The idea was that these areas (like improving title and description meta tags, URL structure, site navigation, content creation, anchor text, and more) would apply to webmasters of all experience levels and sites of all sizes and types. Throughout the guide, Google included many illustrations, pitfalls to avoid and links to other resources that help expand our explanation of the topics. Google plan on updating the guide at regular intervals with new optimisation suggestions and to keep the technical advice current.

So, if you find yourself asking the question, “I’m new to SEO, how do I improve my site?”, we can say, “Well, here’s a list of best SEO practices that you might want to check out.”

Google Since the release of our Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide last November, They have been extra busy adding in localized versions for international users. Today, they announced that the guide is now available in 40 languages, which covers 98% of the global Internet audience.

If you are able to digest the concepts that this guide outlines and manage to implement the recommendations provided by Google, your business’ website will definitely rank more competitively for your keyword phrases. Further, you might actually find your website ranking for less competitive keyword phrases you never thought would bring in new traffic. In our experience, a healthy link building strategy builds the fundamentals of successful SEO and forms up to 95% of a well executed SEO strategy.

For those interested, here’s a list of the languages available:

• Arabic
• Bulgarian
• Catalan
• Chinese (Simplified)
• Chinese (Traditional)
• Croatian
• Czech
• Danish
• Dutch
• English
• English (GB)
• Filipino
• Finnish
• French
• German
• Greek
• Hebrew
• Hindi
• Hungarian
• Indonesian
• Italian
• Japanese
• Korean
• Latvian
• Lithuanian
• Norwegian
• Polish
• Portuguese (BR)
• Portuguese (PT)
• Romanian
• Russian
• Serbian
• Slovak
• Slovenian
• Spanish
• Swedish
• Thai
• Turkish
• Ukrainian
• Vietnamese

Unless you’ve been locked away for the past few years, no doubt you will have heard, used or possibly integrated a website with Google Maps. Another world class web application created by Google that some say is a masterpiece of mapping handed down from the Google gods to the people. Well I’m not sure about the this, however used wisely this is an invaluable tool to business owners with a limited online marketing budget.

Google maps originally started out as yet another mapping and navigation tool. A website which you enter your location, destination and BAM out spit the directions. It turned out however to be much more powerful than the existing mapping utilities and the advanced JavaScript functionality utilised in Gogole maps set this web application ahead of the rest. Further, Google’s intelligent search algorithm has made it so simple for users to use when attempting to locate potential suppliers and businesses offering services locally.

Google Maps is opening the doors of many businesses by enabling them to be found in organic search results by users searching locally for their key services and products. In some cases, businesses that are not search engine optimised are still achieving rank 1 positions in the SERPs for searches containing their services and locality. This is driving qualified traffic to their websites and businesses for free that they otherwise would simple not have had access to.

Why Would You List Your Business With Google Maps?

Hypothetically, if a Yellow Pages representative called up your business and asked, “Hi, would you be interested in listing your business with us for free and possibly list in the top ten listings when users searched the world’s most popular search engine for services you offer within your locality. It will only take fifteen minutes or less of your time to setup”? What would you say? YES of course! Personally, I would jump on that opportunity and even ask if there is any way I can get multiple listings and if there is a way to target traffic nationally from other search queries. Free traffic, free leads and more importantly more sales! This is exactly what Google Local Business Center offering by listing your business with Google Maps.

Google Maps also offers the ability to publish your logo next to your listing. This further increases brand awareness by supporting another place for potential customers to come in contact with your corporate identity. Users can also submit reviews about the business listing. A restaurant for example could setup a laptop and request that their customers complete a short review of their experiences before leaving. They could offer some form of ensentive such as a free coffee on their next return to the restaurant for providing the feedback. Reviews can build credability so when people new searches find the listing on Google Maps these users could be more likely to engage that business. A business can even publish coupons through the Google Local Business Center.

TrueLocal used to power the Australian local business listings for Google, however recently Yellow Pages has taken over the supply of business listings. What does this mean? Well you used to be able to create a full profile in TrueLocal including your website address, logo and so much more free of charge. Yellow Pages however will now charge businesses to list their website address and upsell the bonus to businesses that they will also get their website and business listed on Google Maps. What they are not telling people is that you can list a business on Google Maps for free.

So What Are You Waiting For?

What is really amazing about the ability to list your business on Google Maps for free is that even if your business website ranks poorly in the search results for your key services and/or products on Google, a listing with Google Maps can position your website link above the organic listings, above all your competition. I am blown away by the results and increased traffic that some of our clients have received after simply adding their business to Google Maps. A skilled SEO company will be able to construct a Google Maps listing that includes a selection of your keyword phrases. When creating a listing, you can select up to six categories that best describe your services and products. It’s important that you select keyword phrases that are actually searched for in Google, not just a selection of keywords that you think are what you want to come up for. For more information on this I recommend reading my article on keyword selection, coming up in the next few weeks.

Has anyone had positive experiences with listing their business with Google Maps that you can share?

Sticks and stones may break our bones, however failing to research and select the right keywords for your website will really hurt your business’ chances to succeed online. In this article I take a close look at a real life example of what can happen if keyword selection if left to the client or an inexperienced web developer and how to avoid getting it wrong.

A Typical Instance Of When Things Can Go Wrong.

A friend approached me recently requesting some feedback on a proposed search engine optimisation (SEO) strategy for their new website which had been  commissioned to a web design company not long ago. The pitch this web company made in order to win the web development contract leveraged off a proposed SEO strategy that would be included in the launch of the new website. The client however was concerned that the web agency wasn’t following through on the SEO in their execution.

I agreed to look at the documentation the client’s web agency supplied and after skimming through the project brief I located the section on search engine optimisation. To my surprise it was rather detailed and appeared as though they had completed the preliminary keyword research they had promised, however I uncovered a major mistake. After consulting with the client to gain an insight into the core keywords that outlined the client’s services, the web agency had not made any further intelligent decisions of whether or not these words were really right for this client. They opted to trust the client’s knowledge of choosing the correct keywords for their website.  No care had actually been taken to select the right keywords for their client and these mistakes were going to cost their client dearly. Here is the data they provided to the client:

In the preliminary discussions held between the client and the web designers, the web agency did what most web companies do and suggest that the client provide them with a set of key services and keywords. The problem is that how is a client with little to absolutely no understanding going to be able to make an educated selection on what their website should be optimised for? So the client delivers a set of very broad keywords and phrases that would be difficult to optimise a small business website to compete for in the SERP’s.

Realising the unlikeliness that the website will be able to compete for these terms, the web agency suggest that the client should think of some “out of the box search terms “. I don’t understand how do they propose the client completes this for the following reasons. Does the client:

• Know how to use keyword research and analysis tools such as Google Keyword Research Tool and Word Tracker?
• Understand the science of selecting terms with high traffic and low competition?

Probably not. The web design firm simply explains to the client that it’s unlikely they will be able to compete for the term “Management”. What an amazing deduction, any suggestions?

Well actually there is one suggested keyword phase presented on behalf of this web design agency. “Personal Outplacement Solutions”. With a quick search on the tools mentioned above I located the value of this keyword to the client. Are you ready?

There was not one search performed over the last 4 years for this search term, anywhere in the world!

And this is their recommendation to their client. Wow!

Another Case Of  “You Get What You Pay For”.

In my experience, most web design agencies offer some form of search engine optimisation, online marketing and Internet marketing, however they make it clear that this will not be included in the initial contract to design, build and deploy a website. The fact is however, of those offering these services, only a very small percentage can truly demonstrate their ability to generate a significant growth in leads and conversions from implementing a successful online marketing strategy. I can tell you that very few will have actually achieved a #1 position in the SERP’s for a competitive keyword or phase?

I did some consultation for my friend and prepared a more realistic and attainable list of keywords and search phrases for them to pass back to the web design agency.

How can I avoid this happening to me?

• It is difficult for a web agency to include this level of research and analysis without charging for it, so ensure that you question whether or not proper keyword research and analysis is included in the cost of building the website, or whether you are to provide these.
• Discover who is going to be in charge of the keyword research and analysis if it is included. The project brief document and SEO research I refer to earlier had been completed by an account manager, not an SEO or search engine marketing expert.
• If you are delegated the responsibility of providing the keywords to the web developer, please ensure that you use the Google Keyword Research Tool, Word Tracker or another keyword tool.

If you are serious about succeeding with an online marketing strategy, then select a Internet marketing company that can demonstrate results and speaks simple language. The search engines provide an amazing opportunity to generate traffic, leads and sales for your business, however to really succeed you need to maximise your chances by backing up an SEO strategy with a great website that converts this traffic into inquiries to your business and further.

Google recommends the following useful questions to ask an SEO:

• Can you show me examples of your previous work and share some success stories?
• Do you follow the Google Webmaster Guidelines?
• Do you offer any online marketing services or advice to complement your organic search business?
• What kind of results do you expect to see, and in what timeframe? How do you measure your success?
• What’s your experience in my industry?
• What’s your experience in my country/city?
• What’s your experience developing international sites?
• What are your most important SEO techniques?
• How long have you been in business?
• How can I expect to communicate with you? Will you share with me all the changes you make to my site, and provide detailed information about your recommendations and the reasoning behind them?

Through many years working with a diverse range on SME clients in the website creation process I have learned in order to deliver successful web solutions, professional copywriting is a very valuable asset when managed correctly.

If you have been involved with web development before you will have probably heard the question “Who is going to be in charge of producing the copy and content for this website”?

In the initial discussions with a client it is crucial that the question of content creation is raised and answered before it’s too late.

So often the answer from the business owner is “Well I am going to be in charge of this”.

Generally the most qualified to produce the required content for a website is the owner of the business who lives and breathes the company. They know their customers, target markets and competitors best. They can even supply the initial keywords in most instances (albeit based on no research or analysis). No one knows better what their customers are looking for, how best to sell their products and services and what terminology is spoken in their industry?

There are however far more important questions that must be asked. Does the business owner:

• Have time in their already manic schedule to sit down and strategically plan the content for multiple pages in their website?
• Respect the importance of high converting content and calls to action within a web site’s content?
• Know that their home page is the make or break chance they have to grab new customers who find their company online?
• Understand the principals of online marketing and search engine marketing?
• Understand search engine optimisation and the importance of proper keyword analysis?
• Really understand the interactive nature of the web as a medium, the technologies and web 2.0 functionality available and how this relates to the production of copy?
• Know about the ‘title” attribute to a link, the “alt” tag to an image?

If the answer is “NO” to any or all of these questions then won’t you be doing your client an injustice by not alerting them to these points and offering a better solution?

Well fear not, the solution is here. An emerging field of experts ready to fill the gaping hole in the website creation process known as website copywriters have been breeding for some time now. Like all things in life, they’ve not all been created equally and from my experience it’s a little case of hit and miss to locate and select the right person for the job. Take note, web copywriters are not your typical content producers. These tech savvies have been brought up in the modern world, rich with information technology, their lives have been integrated with the web and technology from an early age and they possess the exact skills required to write for the web medium.

If you are in the business of creating website solutions and don’t already offer professional website copywriting then your not servicing your clients as effectively as you could.

If you are a business owner or person in charge of selecting a web design company then ensure that you query their in-house or outsourced copywriting capability. Use questions such as “Can you provide us with examples of search engine optimised content that has been produced by your copywriter for an industry similar to ours”? Be wary of a firm that does not offer copywriting either in-house or has competent outsourced partners. As the director of a successful web development agency I can assure you that this is a critical step in the creation of world class web solutions. A web design firm that doesn’t have these services at their fingertips obviously hasn’t yet learned how to overcome the project management issues that arise from content and copywriting production if left alone to the client.

A common question that may be asked by a client when suggesting the use of a skilled website content producer is, “How will they understand our industry, our customers and sell our services with little prior knowledge of the industry”? Website copywriters like any other content producer have the skills to learn and research any industry. It’s their job. Further, a good copywriter will consult with you to learn about your business and translate this into your web site’s copy.

Sometimes it’s possible for the business owner to find time to produce draft content which enables them to convey a personal message and spin about their company, which the copywriter may have missed. This draft can then act as a blue print for further copy development. Whilst preferable this is not essential as a good copywriter will ask the right questions and take a thorough brief that will ensure that they produce a quality draft. Like most steps in the website creation process copywriting will go through a rigorous revision phase that will iron out any inconsistencies and flaws.

However, despite all that you do to educate a client on the pros of utilising a skilled website copywriter, there will always be clients who balk at your recommendations and insist that they are the “only one’s” that can complete the content for their website.

I’m not saying that the client should never write or be delegated the responsibility of producing the content for the website, I’m simply illustrating the importance of raising appropriate questions from the beginning and ensuring the client is educated on the likely limitations they will encounter regarding their time and content creation skills.  As experts knowing very well the dangers we face with the content production step in the web development process, it is important that we have educated our clients thoroughly on the pitfalls of not selecting the right person to complete in this crucial step and the benefits if they do.

If your client insists on taking the responsibility of content production into their own hands, be sure that they understand the associated responsibilities with delivering website ready content in a professional and timely manner.  Alert their attention to the dependency that the website creation project life cycle has on the delivery of the content. A web developer cannot complete a website without content. You may want to highlight the following dangers and  issues that can arise from not ensuring the content preparation is carefully managed. Some of the negative outcomes that may occur are:

• Loss of traffic to the website from search engines. This results in a loss of new customers, poor website visitor conversion rates and loss of product/service enquiries.
• Time frame blow outs! You will not receive the content when you need it to complete the website. This can sometimes blow out months and in some cases years. One question to ask yourself if you are a web developer is “Does our contract protect us from this happening”?
• Poor quality content, usually because whilst the owner knows the company best, their writing skills are simply not good enough.
• Little to no understanding of search engine marketing and producing keyword rich and relevant copy. This will dictate that no title tags, page descriptions etc. are present in the content delivery.
• Negative impact of the relationship between you and your client.
• Client unhappy about your overall skills because their website doesn’t perform well in search engines, or fails to convert traffic resulting in failed ROI.

Perhaps the production of a “How to write your own website content” pamphlet could help with the process should the client proceed with self producing?

I think we’ve established that employing and/or partnering with skilled copywriters with web and SEO experience will result in the delivery of better web solutions for your clients. The fact remains that some clients will insist on producing their own content. The question is then, have you satisfied your responsibilities to educate your client on the pro’s and cons of neglecting this important step in website development?

What are your experiences working with clients to complete the content delivery stage in website creation?

Welcome to The Web Nut.

For those whom I am not yet acquainted, my name is Sean Richards. I was born and reside in Melbourne, Australia and am the joint director of a small yet successful web design company named Alaress.

Since the early age of five, I have possessed, worked on, programmed, learned from and grown with a computer. Since the birth of the web, I have immersed myself in the online space and it’s my great pleasure now to witness the Internet rapidly integrate with society on a level not many people could foresee happening. I strongly believe that this is only the beginning and that technology is going to really shine through and become an integral part of evolution within my lifetime.

So why The Web Nut you ask? Well, it’s really quite simple. The web in the song I awake to and the book that sends me to sleep. My brain constantly ticks to the boundless information that is populating our virtual space and I am here to make the Web a better place. It inspires me that I can be laying in bed thinking to myself ,”Where in the world is Bahrain?” as I watch the Formula 1’s. To then simply pull out my iPhone and punch a string into Google Maps and spend the entire night flicking my finger over the small touch screen interacting with technology to embed the map of the Middle East in my head. I was disinterested in geography in school, despite the extensive travel I have under my belt. However technology is making this possible, the web is making this possible.

I believe that I have digested enough information now to begin giving back to the web. Particularly on topics that I can confidently educate people on. These topics include web and graphic design, website development online marketing, search engine optimisation and digital strategies to improve business.

Successful education is not all about the acquisition of facts, rather how one ensures that the facts become part of whole again. In other words, contribution.

I hope to bring you many more positively contributing blogs on various articles and wish you the best in your journey of positive contribution to the web.

If you would like to learn more about the team I work with, please visit my web design company.