Build your Web of Dreams
Well, essentially there are three ways for a customer to find your website. Firstly, they can type your website address (URL) into their browser, but naturally this only works if they already know what that is, such as finding it on a business card, other product literature or advertisement. Naturally, this will restrict your site’s exposure to people who have heard of you. Secondly, they may find your site by clicking on a link to it from another website, usually a directory or another website specialising in your chosen industry with whom you have agreed to exchange links. This is a great, generally free, way of boosting your traffic but it only works if you have the permission of the parent website to link from it. Linking from directories can also be a fairly non-exact science as it is usually someone’s job to review submissions before they are published, so the chances are you may easily be overlooked.

Relevant Content
The third way in which a customer may find your website is from a search engine e.g. Google, MSN, Altavista, etc. A search engine’s speciality is to help internet users find relevant content and information on the web, quickly and easily. They do this by ranking every website that they come across, using a variety of criteria, and storing that information in their considerable database. When a user then performs a search for, say ‘Manchester design agency’, (try it now and see who’s top!) the search engine will trawl it’s database and present the user with a list of the most relevant websites, in order of importance. Obviously when presented with a list, which may stretch over tens or hundreds of pages depending on the search term, users will instinctively only browse the first one or two pages before they find exactly what they are looking for and are away. The key, therefore, is to ensure your website appears on the first or second pages, maximising the number of potential visitors it is exposed to, and that’s where search engine optimisation (SEO) comes in.

Pay Per Click Advertising
Search engine optimisation can take two basic forms, organic and pay-per-click (PPC). Pay-per-click is essentially a form of online advertising. Search engines, and the most notable exponent of this is Google, place small text adverts on their search results pages so that users are presented with not only a list of relevant websites that have been derived from the search engine’s database, but also a selection of targeted ads from advertisers who have paid to be on there. It is relatively simple to set up an account, write your adverts and select the search terms for which you would like to be displayed. You are then only charged by Google when a user clicks on your advert, which can make this a very cost-effective type of advertising. If no-one visits your site, then you have no expenditure. The crux of the matter is exactly where you appear in the list and this depends on how much you are prepared to pay for a single visitor to your site. The more lucrative the industry sector and search term, the more advertisers are prepared to pay to appear higher up the list. Conversely, if you have a niche market and a fairly obscure search term, PPC advertising can cost as little as 4p per click.

Search Engine Criteria
However, it’s always said that the best form of advertising is free advertising, so how else do you get onto the first page of Google? Well we’re back to what we discussed earlier and the way that search engines rank your website. Getting your website to appear high in the search engine’s listings is known as organic optimisation and it’s been the subject of much debate for a number of years now. Essentially, unless you have a relative who works for Google (and is prepared to break their highly probable code of confidentiality!) no-one knows for certain what criteria search engines consider when ranking your website. However by trial and error over a number of years, webmasters have deduced that it is a combination of factors including:

- The URL (website address) of your site and page titles
- Meta tags
- Links, page content and keyword density
- Website coding and file structure

Obviously there are many other techniques and tools out there to help webmasters optimise their sites but one thing is certain, there is no magic bullet. Quality search engine optimisation takes time to perfect and, as search engines only update their rankings every few months, can be a pain-staking process of trial and error. And that’s before the search engines change their algorithms and blow all of your good work out of the water! Best practice involves creating a relevant, frequently updated website that is well built, well designed and offers users what they want in the first instance and then building on that web presence using PPC and organic optimisation techniques.

Dubious Techniques
Incidentally, it should be noted that search engines take attempts to deceive their ranking software, and consequently their users, very seriously and any attempts to infringe that can result in URLs being banned from their listings. Previously, BMW Germany were involved in a case where their site was removed from Google for having the term ‘used car’ hidden frequently amongst numerous ‘doorway pages’, specially created pages designed to trick search engines. Whilst you may argue that you can buy a used BMW quite legitimately, Google’s issue was that you can’t buy one from BMW Germany’s corporate website and, as such, that was potentially misleading users. Anyone who tells you they can get your brand new website onto the first page of Google next week is either going to set you up a vastly expensive PPC campaign or employ dubious techniques which we’ll leave well alone for the time being!

So there you have it. Search engine optimization can be one of the most effective internet marketing tools available. You can, for a little time and effort, reach thousands of potential customers and clients across the world for minimal outlay. All your website now has to do is convert these visits into sales!

But more about that later…

For further information on how we can help with your online presence click here to arrange a consultation.

In the begining was the World Wide Web and it was kind of good. People (usually computer-geek type people like, erm, myself) built a few websites and it’s fame began to spread. Pretty soon big businesses cottoned onto the idea and corporate websites sprang up all over the place with everything from the chief executives biography to a list of their company’s widgets available to purchase. In those days to say you were a ‘website designer’ was to be treated with the reverance normally only reserved for Nobel Prize-winning rock stars, or even possibly the Pope. Untold riches were yours and beautiful women would fall at your feet (although, curiously, not in my particularly grimy neck of the woods at the time).

Anyway, I digress. Eventually people tired of merely seeing a company brochure transferred to the internet and so then came the advent of what those in the know wearing black polo necks like to describe as Web 2.0. The buzzword in this new world was ‘user generated content’, in other words, rather than businesses creating fancy websites to sell you things and otherwise tell you what you should be viewing, the onus was on website users to create their own content and this materialised in spades through the likes of Facebook, Bebo, Twitter, Blogger and other such sites. Unless today is your first day on the Internet (in which case welcome, you’ve come to a great first site!) you’re probably using one or even all of these yourself already. Whole communities were created, developed and grew without website owners ever needing to input content or, tediously, create new pages and endless possibilities were opened up to a new generation of photographers, writers and publishers previously restricted to this strange world of mysterious code and unfathomable software packages.

So where, I hear you cry, do we go from here? Well hypothese abound over the future direction of the web, nattily titled for the numerically challenged as Web 3.0. Some theorists suggest that the next step will be towards the ‘intelligent web’ whereby websites will gain some kind of artificial intelligence or will be able to learn from the data you give them and aid you in subsequent operations. Instead of multiple searches to find the information you’re after, your Web 3.0 browser will know what your interests are (and where you live) and will automatically present you with results tailored to your needs. Looking for a restaurant for Friday night? Your browser knows you live in Didsbury and are a sucker for a risotto so will suggest to you Italian establishments in South Manchester. On the lash in Wigan? Well there’s a kebab shop serving a donner just for you round the corner. While Web 2.0 uses the Internet to make connections between people, Web 3.0 will use the Internet to make connections with information and, more than likely from different sources at the same time, such as data from a search positioned on a Google Map interface. With Web 3.0 you’ll be able to sit back and let the Internet do all the hard work for you feeding you the information you want from relevant sources.

Others argue that it will not so much be what you view but where, and on what, you view it. Figures suggest 1 in 10 people have a GPS-enabled phone now and the smart money reckons in 2 years time that will be 1 in 3. As phones become more powerful and technology ever smaller, will it be a case that your phone becomes your everyday PC, always connected, always on, accessing data stored in the “cloud” and ready to plug into a screen/keyboard combination wherever you happen to be? Buses and trains with built in docking stations on every seat so people could work/socialise on the move or while commuting? Blimey. Beats Virgin Rail into a cocked hat.

So, all in all, it’s an exciting time. A glance at the companies we saw at the Technology for Marketing & Advertising exhibition only serves to underline that fact. Never mind the dotcom boom (and subsequent bust) of the nineties… THIS is the real boom time with the internet rapidly becoming available to everyone, fresh technologies emerging on an almost daily basis and a new raft of dynamic business owners pushing the boundaries.

The question is now, where do YOU go from here?

The net’s regulator, Icann, voted unanimously to relax the strict rules on so-called “top-level” domain names, such as .com or .uk.

The decision means that companies could turn brands into web addresses, while individuals could use their names. A second proposal, to introduce domain names written in Asian, Arabic or other scripts, was also approved.

To read the full story http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7475986.stm