Untangling the web
Matt Goode, head of sales and marketing at Immediacy, which provides content management software, comments that only a couple of years ago a lot of companies were set up to advise on the best SEO techniques to make a company top the listing pages. ‘They’ve all disappeared,’ he comments. ‘It has all been replaced by simple solutions and training.’
Barling makes a similar point: ‘Pay-per-click has its place but search engine optimisation is the best thing if you do it right, but it takes time and effort. There are a lot of shysters out there who take your money and deliver nothing.’ The point to remember is that SEO is not an exact science because information providers like Google and Yahoo won’t reveal the algorithms they use to conduct searches. Nevertheless, after some highly educated guesswork, it has been found that certain keywords for ‘long-tail’ searches are effective in getting your company up that listing page. Essentially, long-tail means you need to highlight and link information to alert search engines which are looking for pages on a site deeper and more context-relevant than a homepage.
‘It’s not something that is very well understood,’ says Goode. ‘It’s one of those grey areas in that you don’t have to put loads of money behind it and non-technical people with limited training can use tools to deliver what’s needed.’
Clarity of purpose
A common complaint with web analytics is that, as you analyse what’s happening on your site, track users, tailor marketing campaigns, keep everything fresh and lively, you can easily be swamped by the information available. To cut through the distractions,
be clear about what you’re trying to achieve. Planning is fundamental to the success or failure of a website.
James Tuke is a director at website management and business consultancy, Intendance, which publishes an annual review of the top 50 websites of law firms. Tuke notes that establishing the objective of a site is essential and this means answering questions, such as:
• What is the business case behind the website? Is a return on investment sought? If so, is it direct or indirect?
• What are the intended audiences? Have their needs been researched?
• Is the compatibility of in-house IT systems and associated web interfaces likely to be an issue?
• What is the intended budget and timescale?
Tuke believes that, when it comes to a website, a company needs to see it almost as another employee. ‘You have to think about what you’re doing. Is it there to drive business or is it there to enhance credibility?’ he remarks. What you must not do, says Tuke, is ignore a website. He refers to a senior figure at a law firm who told him: ‘Why should we change our website? No one has complained about it.’ This, adds Tuke with genuine disdain, is not the approach to take.
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Ten tips for your website’s health*:
1) First, get informed
2) Use technology that already works
3) Make sure you have ownership of your site
4) Try and get a web address that makes sense
5) Ask the question, what’s working?
6) Find sites that are complementary to yours and offer mutual links
7) Learn from the success of others
8) Use email marketing
9) Choose two or three key phrases that you think customers will use to search for a product or service like yours
10) Keep it simple
*Source: Actinic Software – Selling successfully online