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There’s an awful lot written about Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), white hats, black hats and all sorts of detailed technical mumbo jumbo (much of which is very useful, by the way). This is not a technical article but rather a helicopter view for businesses. It’s a common sense approach to search engines and how to help your site compete effectively online for search results from a business perspective.

Before you delve into the bowels of the technical detail of Search Engine Optimisation it’s important to understand the commercial rationale of the search engines and develop a strategy to compliment the search engines rather than attempt to out smart them. Google is the de facto search engine of choice and although there are many other powerful players in the market such as Yahoo! and Microsoft, I am going to focus on Google for simplicity.

The Background
Google’s mission statement is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”. What does this mean? Well in broad strokes it means that Google aims to catalog all the information in the world and make it available to users (through search) in a relevant and useful way. So when you search for something in Google they are working hard in the background to ensure that the websites that they list in the search results are relevant and useful to the user.

How does Google make money?
Google makes money through advertising. When you search for something on Google they display sponsored links around the search results and they charge the advertisers if you happen to click on the advert. This generates revenues in excess of £10Bn for Google.

What has this to do with my business and Search Engine Optimisation?
Well, it’s very simple…

If you make money for Google - Google will make money for you

Just stop and think about it for a moment. If you want your site to be found and ranked in Google, instead of trying to outwit Google (just think how ludicrous this is - they have some of the brightest people on the planet working for them!!!) you should work with them. It’s a simple principle of commerce - “one hand washes the other”. What do I mean? Well, Google has a huge audience, an inspired mechanism for delivering relevant advertising, an amazing (ever changing algorithm) to rank search results - so what do they need from me? CONTENT. They need useful relevant content to help them make money from advertising.

If person A searching for Product X uses Google today and finds useful results on the topic he’s much more likely to come back tomorrow and search for Product Z (rather than going to Yahoo! or MSN) thereby creating an ongoing opportunity for Google to advertise to him.

So if your website will work with Google to create genuinely useful and relevant content to help them make money, they will in turn rank you website and send you traffic (which if you have any clue should make you money!)

What is the catch?
Well you have to compete with other businesses online and convince Google that you are an authority on your chosen subject. How do you do that? Well that is the kernel of Search Engine Optimisation. A good starting point is the Google Webmaster Guidelines This is Google’s own guide on the what to do and what not to do - you’d be amazed at the number of websites that never bother to read or follow these simple rules! Google doesn’t want you to try to manipulate the search engine results. THEY want to decide which sites should be ranked. Break their rules at your peril!

The basics?

1. Have a webstandards compliant website that the spider can index

2. Design your sites architecture to reflect the content

3. Get other websites to link to you

4. Publish relevant content regularly

5. Have a site that is designed to help the user navigate easily to the content

6. Have clear goals to ensure you maximise the effort you’ve put in to steps 1-5 and convert a portion of the traffic you receive into something useful like sales or leads.

If you need help improving your search engine ranking we can help! We help companies drive sales from their websites. If you want more from your website contact us today.

What problems do most businesses face when they decide to do business online?

Competition! 

In my experience they have generally been sold on the idea that there is an exciting opportunity to sell through another channel to a “global” market, the problem is that nobody bothered to tell them that the flip side is that they will often have to compete with large technically savvy competitors. Competitors who are established in the marketplace and are targeting your back yard as their “global marketplace”…

So you launch your e-commerce program, you talk to some techies who seem to speak another language, you design your site and finally you launch it… What happens? Quite often very little! Why? Well, generally online selling is a percentages game. You will sell to a percentage of the people who visit your site (assuming that you have a credible product and have got the pricing and logistic right). The problem is one of scale, as the conversion rates are typically very low you need a lot of traffic to your website. Incredibly most businesses still operate on a build it and “they” will come basis.

Google is the great gatekeeper of traffic. What do I mean? Well, Google is the dominant search engine and most users will use search to help them find a credible site selling whatever it is they are looking for. Hence the issue of “FINDABILITY”. If your site is not findable in Google you are just wasting your time (unless you have huge budgets for advertising online). So you have to be findable for the search terms that people are likely to use when they go to Google. Normally it pretty easy to be findable for your name - but this is not really going to help you get new business it’s only going to help those who already know you find you again (important but not a huge revenue driver - unless you already are a huge offline brand). So, for example if your company sells widgets you will probably want to be found for:

“widgets”
“widgets & colours you sell”
“widgets & countries you ship to”
“widgets & materials you use”
“widgets & brandnames of widgets”
“things widgets are used for”
“variations of widget type”

etc etc

The first issue is how do you prioritise these search terms. Rather than just guessing we generally we use an Google AdWord Performance Trial, in association with a robust measurement tool, to establish the search terms that are going to perform for you. Once you’ve done that you will need to establish your domain as a credible source of information with Google. How do you do that? Well this is probably beyond the scope of an article of this length but in summary:

1. Design a web standards compliant website
2. Get other sites to link to your site
3. Write relevant content regularly
4. Read the Google Webmaster Guidelines

Most importantly you need to understand that a website is a business in it’s own right. It requires the resources you would allocate to any other revenue generating division. Many companies approach their website much the same way as they approach the annual brochure - somebody is dispatched to pull some marketing collateral together, some photos, hire a designer to lay it out and get a web developer to lash it out. It seems reasonable (and it is if your website serves no real commercial function in your organisation, beyond “yes we have a website” ). Developing and running a successful website is more akin to opening a branch of your business in Reykjavik! You probably don’t know the culture of the internet, the language, you will need a strategy, someone to interpret the cultural landscape, someone to find you the right property (domain & hosting), customer service reps who understand the locals etc etc - It’s not rocket science but it is business and you need to have a plan and a budget if you want to succeed.

If you need help improving your website’s findability we can help! We help companies drive sales from their websites. If you want more from your website contact us today.