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Googling your way to the top of the Internet
Every month the folks at the British Computer Society Isle of Man section invites everyone to a seminar where information technology, how people use it and the industry that surrounds it is discussed.
Last month Andy Orton, managing director of Dotperfor-mance, an Isle of Man-based digital agency, spoke about search engine marketing.
Andy's been in business for three years now and his firm has come to be recognised as one of the Island's most respected digital agencies.
'To be successful on the web it's not enough to stick up a brochure website and hope your it meets your customers' needs,' he said. 'You need to be proactive about connecting your business with people who are searching the Internet.'
Andy used the example of someone searching a home insurance policy on Google. The search is likely to turn up hundreds of links to websites of providers all over the UK and further afield. The goal of search engine marketing is to ensure your site is near the top of page one.
There are two strategies to achieve this, pay per click or organic marketing. With PPC, also called Google Adwords or 'sponsored links', you pay to ensure your site appears at the top of page one or along the right hand side. Each time someone clicks on your link, you are charged a fee – determined by search phrases used.
'PPC is a great way to draw traffic to your site and can be even more powerful when combined with an incentive or special offer,' said Andy.
'Offering a discount or extra value to Internet users is one more encourage-ment to get someone to choose your link over the others on the page.'
To be most effective the link must deliver the surfer immediately to relevant information. Arriving at the homepage isn't enough if information about the incentive deal isn't displayed prominently. It's best to have a landing page specific to the deal on offer. These should mirror the advert in both look and content.
In search engine marketing, relevancy is the key to success.
According to Andy, a four-word search string delivers the most qualified visitors to your site. So not 'insurance' but instead 'home insurance first-time buyer' are key words for drawing the right customer to your site.
There are four core elements of organic search engine marketing. These are site architecture, on page elements (including 64 factors from meta information to headlines), link building and creation of fresh content.
'Depending upon meta tagging alone is not very effective,' says Andy.
Google now has 200 ranking factors in its algorithm and this changes constantly in the company's effort to hold manipulators at bay.
Site architecture and page elements are important in drawing traffic and the key is to have a strong focus on customer needs. Dynamic site mapping tools can help. Free tools like Google Analytics keep track of who your visitors are, what attracts them and where they go on your site.
Link building and the creation of fresh content are extremely powerful in drawing people to your page. I've found our blog, Strive Notes, to be particularly effective. By frequently updating content, and ensuring it's interesting and useful, we've found other website owners linking to us.
If blogging isn't your thing, there are news services to which you can subscribe which will provide fresh content directly to your website.
Adding RSS – really simple syndication – will allow you to push new content directly to customers and pulls them to your site.
There are competitors to Google. MSN, Yahoo! and AOL are all well known alternatives and each has its own system for ranking content. But optimising for the rest is folly, especially for companies in the UK where four out of every five Internet searches are done on Google.
'I think the recession will be good news for the Internet,' says Andy. 'Because the Internet lends itself to price marketing ... just look at the increasing popularity of sites like supermarket.com and confused.com.'
>>Sherrilynne Starkie is the managing partner of Strive Public Relations, a strategic communications consultancy serving the Isle of Man. Visit her business blog, Strive Notes for frequent updates www.strivepr.com/notes or follow her on twitter.com/sherrilynne
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Weather for Isle of Man
Tuesday 07 February 2012
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