e-Presence and website optimisation

Organic search-engine optimisation (powered by blogging, social networking and online profiling) combined with a fantastic series of new business wins to shout about (both on- and off-line) will obviously help you to increase your e-presence on the web — but let’s not forget the all important company website.

With so many service led businesses now electing to use Pay-Per-Click, poorly I may add, strategically planning and profiling your business online can take up a lot of time, especially if you’re a one-man team. But with analytical data becoming so readily available measuring the ROI, of whatever initiative you take on the web, has never been simpler.

However, once you have successfully driven traffic away from the clutches of your competitor, it’s your own website that will most likely be the deciding factor of influence — providing the pièce de résistance to your online advertising campaign.

Using your site as an effective tool to tell your story, and communicate what you have actually recently done well, is seriously underused, and websites (certainly from the UK sample I recently looked at) are so infrequently updated.

So, if you have managed to woo a potential client to your website, and the content of which is out-of-date, supported by dull as dishwater imagery, what then?

Master Google Adwords, By Mark Buckingham, Net Magazine

“Despite its multifaceted nature and increasing range of ad formats, the essence of AdWords is simple: subscribers bid for exposure in the sponsored links section to the right (and sometimes at the top) of any given relevant search results page on Google, and, if selected, its search and content syndication network.”

“AdWords is about bringing visitors to your website, but what about the user experience? Ultimately, what commercial websites want are conversions, and Analytics gives our customers accountability and transparency in terms of what they’re doing with Google. You can use it as a sort of benchmark or thermometer, if you like.”

Let Search Engines Do the Walking, By Sherry Alpert, Business Week

“So for small businesses still reluctant to embrace the Internet — and there are plenty — no matter your industry, you would be well-advised to have a well-designed, well-written, but not overly jazzed-up, Web site. It will bolster your credibility, and just as important, your accessibility. Today, it’s a virtual necessity.”

DD