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Its true, shoppers and businesses are now turning to the internet to find a terrific variety of products and services. This is of course partly due to the economical nature of online advertising as opposed to more traditional forms of marketing activity. However, it is also evidence of a more significant shift in the arena of marketing. The message has changed;

Don’t sell to everyone – Sell to someone

Nearly all traditional forms of marketing relied on broad brush campaigning. Its a numbers game, approach enough people and percentages state that you should get a good proportion of customers from the drive. Now we realise this approach is expensive, harmful to the environment and to be quite honest, ineffective.

A far better method of marketing is to identify your target market and personally approach them. Obviously very difficult with traditional methods but with the digital age this is exactly what we can do. A search or a click through is a direct request from a prospective client about the service or product you are selling. You know that they are interested because they clicked.

How we then deal with the enquiry is one of the most important areas of development on the web today. We need customers to remain on our sites, find what they want and have clear calls to action as to what their next step should be. We should also profile the customer so that we can market to them in the future.  If you would like more help to define your marketing strategy and take advantage of a growth market in a shrinking economy then the web is where the smart money goes

OK - You have invested in an all singing all - dancing website, it looks great and it really tells the world what your company / products / services are all about. You are proud, and rightly so as not every company reaches even these standards!

Still there is a problem… you have seen more traffic on a country lane in the deep of winter. The odd visitor drops in but not the open floodgates you were expecting and definitely not enough to provide the return on your original investment.

‘Its OK we can pay for advertising!’ comes the cry…and in comes the bright spark at Google with one of the most incredible money making ideas anyone has ever had. This employee of the century realised that even more unfathomable wealth was available to Google by simply charging everyone for each click on the number one search position, Genius!

Still anyone who has started down the PPC or Pay Per Click route, has soon realised that this is a very expensive way of generating a very fickle client base. In other words, when you stop paying they stop coming!

Here is where the alchemy that is Search Engine Optimisation or SEO steps in.

What exactly is search engine optimisation?

Quite simply it is the process of optimising your website so that it is ranked more highly by search engines resulting in higher traffic levels.

OK then, how do I optimise my website?

And here lies the big question and also what is one of the most common mistakes on the web today. For a long time businesses have been trying to trick search engines in to ranking them highly. They have abandoned real information for code workarounds and paid advertising.

There is no magic solution, and the ‘get ranked number one in Google - guaranteed’ claims are lies. Effective SEO is a constant and ongoing battle waged on multiple fronts with millions of adversaries.

So here are the basic rules:

1) Content, content & more content
Firstly ask the ‘So what?’ question. I have found your website and so what, now you have to capture me with information that I really want to read or see. This is your content, if you have something really interesting or informative to say about your product or service then get it on your website.

2) Get linking
One of the primary ways that search engines decide that you are an interesting site for people to see is that lots of other websites are linking to you, preferably sites that have a lot of traffic on them!

3) Get a professional to build your site
We don’t get our mate Derek who can build a CD tower from Ikea to build our extension, and for the same reason you should be careful which company you choose to build your website.

4)  Get the code right
Now the reason for getting professionals to develop your site becomes apparent. You are not a programmer! Accept this limitation and concentrate on what you should be doing. What you need to do is effectively communicate what your company / product / service is all about to your web developers – oh and did I mention WRITE GOOD CONTENT!

5) Keep adding to it
If you stop changing your website or adding new and pertinent content to it then it will gradually fall away in the rankings. Good ways of adding new content fall under the banner of news, blogs, articles, interviews, product reviews and a host of other meaningful pieces of information.

6) Market your website in other ways
Don’t just rely on search engines. Approach your customers; make sure your link is on your business cards and on your emails. Spread your link around in every way possible. The more traffic you get to your site the more highly you will be ranked.

7) Set targets and apply budgets
Just like traditional advertising you can enlist the help of an agency to help with all of these methods of SEO. As with all business decisions you should set realistic goals and then apply a sensible budget to achieve your return on investment.

If you would like to know more about SEO and require impartial advice on this area of digital marketing please feel free to contact me.

I’m sure you are recently becoming more and more aware of the various social media terms such as Twittering, Facebook, YouTube, Digg, Stumbleupon and many more. A lot of our clients also discovering how this new wave of social awareness is changing the way leading brands approach their consumers.

Social media empowers the consumer with the knowledge to sell your product or brand within their group or community, however most brand or marketing managers have little understanding of how to harness the power of a consumer promoting their products. Companies are also undecided who owns this new responsibility internally within the organisation as this article points out;

Harnessing Social Media

The kinds of questions your company should be asking about social media are;

• What exactly are our consumers saying about our brand / products / competitors? 

• Can we control what the consumers is saying?
• How can I measure activity and respond to my consumers moods, likes or dislikes?

• How do I make social media work for my brand? 

• How can I measure the success of my social media campaigns?