e-Marketing

Search Engine Optimisation

Introduction.
Making your site visible to your customers.
The importance of keywords.
Avoid splash pages
Flashy technology can be a hindrance.
Navigation: Easy to use.
Monitoring and Keeping your site up to date.

"We already have a web site"

Far too many websites are put together without proper regard been given to marketing issues and the means by which you can bring interested visitors (potential customers) to your site. Why spend good money on a site if it not going to benefit your business. Check to see if your website is really working for you?

e-marketing is using the internet to promote your products or services, and as a means of attracting customers and increasing sales. It includes a variety of techniques, such as banner adverts on websites and mail shots by email. But primarily it involves having a presence on the 'world wide web'.

Note that e-marketing is not e-commerce, which is selling over the web through a site such as Amazon.

In order to bring visitors to your site and increase your business, marketing issues should be considered during the initial planning, and not as an afterthought.

Visibility

Why go hiding your light under a bushel?

Out of the way Billboard Just as you wouldn't rent space on advertising hoarding hidden from view, or pay for advertising space in a publication that your target market is unlikely to read, so why pay good money for a website that few people will find?

Unless your web site is visible to internet search engines such as Google, Microsoft's Live Search or Yahoo!, your customers are unlikely to find you. Only by careful design, with search engine marketing in mind from the outset can one ensure that a site is fully indexed by search engines and is likely to ranked well when people search for your products and services, using 'keywords'

Keywords:

When people use Google or other search engines; they type in 'keywords' such as "Cheap CDs", "Web Site Design", or "Plumber". The first decision is how to word your pages so that they contain the typical words or phrases which potential customers are likely to use when searching the web, for services or products such as those you supply. For instance a business might describe themselves a "sanitary engineers", but the rest of the world will be looking for "plumbers"; so unless their website includes that word (and more than once), customers will not find them. Córas IT can use web based services to identify a range of commonly used keywords or phrases appropriate to each page on your site, and make it more likely that your site will be found through search engines.

The Home page or Splash Page:

Google considers your index page - the one which visitors usually land on first - as the most important and so is ranked higher than the other pages. If a site has a 'splash page' the the only words to be indexed are: 'here', 'enter' and' click'; it will say nothing about your business,

Technology:

The way in which the pages are put together can seriously affect how they are ranked by search engines (or even listed at all). Technologies which have the text fading into view or scrolling across the screen can actually hide this text and your keywords from search engines. On the other hand, some of the cheaper web design software gives little control over the final code and whether your keywords are emphasised or not. Websites designed by Córas IT are written directly in HTML - the language of the web - and we ensure that they are standards compliant so that they are fully indexed by search engines.

Clear Navigation:

It is important that visitors can find their way around your site easily, and identify that the products and services which you provide are what they are after. With a badly designed site, it is unlikely that they will return! Search Engines can also find their way round.

Maintenance:

In today's high speed digital world, when you can check on flights to Paris this coming weekend, a site that is obviously out of date will put off your visitors. An instance of this is 'news' or 'recent projects' page in which the latest entry is over a year old, not to mention "last updated ....", being well in the past. A maintenance contract with us will keep the site up to date; and much more besides, providing regular monitoring of the site itself including visitors and of search engine listing.

Getting well ranked on Google!

The job of the web designer is to ensure that the website is constructed in such a way as to easily read and indexed by Google (and other search engines). The website designer will also ensure that the text on the pages include combinations of appropriate key words, e.g.: Plumber, North West.

However even when Google has found your site and indexed it fully, it will be competing against all the other sites which contain the words 'Plumber' and 'North West' and so may not be ranked in the top three on page.

For further advice, register your interest and download our help sheet "Doing well on Search Engines"

Another criteria is that the site being kept fresh and up to date. So think of a maintenance contract.

For more in formation on how you can pay good money and not get good marketing see "Poor Websites"

At the end of the day; SEO is more an 'Art' than a Science. Córas IT cannot guarantee a good position, mere avoid the mistakes which won't help.

Working to make IT work for you and your business