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12 January 2005
A Guide to Nurturing Your Website!
So now you have your website; it has an innovative, clean and striking design; the site is easy to navigate, and offers a great user experience. Now all you have to do is sit back & wait for the cash to start flowing. Unfortunately online business is not so simple: a well designed website requires much nurturing to accomplish its full potential as a marketing tool. This article outlines simple guidelines that allow your website to deliver fantastic results. Submit your Site Research shows that 85% of all online transactions originate from search engines; therefore if you are not registered with them you are missing out on a huge number of customers that are actively searching for your products or services. Search engines gather web pages for their search results. Although they may eventually look at any good website, inviting them to your site will speed up this process and deliver listings quicker. Some search engine submissions are free although a number offer a priority listing, which guarantees that they will visit your site. Keywords Once your site is listed, it is essential it appears in search results under relevant phrases and best represents what the site offers. For example, if your business is a London based company offering sash windows, your key terms should represent this, e.g. ‘Sash Windows London’. This can be achieved by employing a Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) expert, to provide key word research and work on your site to target these key terms. Search Engine Optimisation is a specialist skill that many agencies claim to provide. However, not all live up to their claims, so ask to see results that have been delivered for other clients. Inbound Links The primary purpose of search engines is to deliver high quality, relevant results, which best suit the searcher’s request. Put simply, if a large number of quality websites are linking and directing traffic to your site, these count as ‘votes’ in the eyes of the search engines. A large number of quality inbound links will help to achieve increased ‘votes’ and hence higher positions in search engines. As part of your online strategy, you should regularly approach potential partners to request a link. Some sites will expect a reciprocal link in return, whilst others may require a small payment. This strategy should result in a constant flow of new links to your site, driving traffic and helping to achieve better search engine rankings. Content The site content is one of, if not the, most important aspects of a website and is often the deciding factor in whether your site achieves good search engine positions. Content is critical for a number of reasons: (i) The more content a site has, the greater the resource and the more it has to offer searchers. Put simply, larger sites perform better in the search engines than smaller ones. (ii) Sites that regularly add new pages demonstrate that they are up-to-date and this helps achieve good search engine positions. (iii) New content opens up opportunities to increase ‘key word’ density, and provides further emphasis to the search engines. An easy way to increase relevant content is to add a weekly newsletter or product review, which can be filled with relevant key terms. By writing a new page each week, your site will be 52 pages stronger by the end of the year! Lastly, be patient! By employing this strategy your site is likely to achieve high search engine positions and deliver increased levels of relevant traffic. It is not, however, a process that happens overnight. Good luck! Article published in Anglia Industry & Business Magazine - January 2004‹ Back
