Website Marketing

Effective marketing improves any business. The Internet provides a fast, low cost, and specifically targeted method for marketing. However it is not just a case of building a website then expecting the world to come to you. It doesn't happen that way for most of us. We need to work at it, we need to build an internet presence.

Everything starts with great content (copy)

We need to create a great website with lots of quality copy. Quality copy is necessary to attract and interest visitors. Quality copy is necessary to get good ratings in the search engines. Quality copy is necessary to get other websites to link to yours.

We place a large emphasis on the content (copy) of your website and here you will find our advice.

Tell the world and keep telling them

Tell everyone about your website. Take every opportunity you can to advertise your website and provide people with reasons for visiting it. This includes telling the search engines your website exists. Start building links to your website. Then you must keep at it - improving the content, building the links, telling people about your website.

An effective website marketing campaign can take a long time - do not expect overnight success.

Google Maps - local business search

If you do a search for a local business in Google you will often see an extra set of listings next to a map. This comes from Google Maps local business directory. Make sure you list your business in Googles Local Business Centre Search - it is completely free to all business owners. It is completely independent of your website and any other search engine optimisation measures.

This is probably the quickest, easiest and most effective (SEO) step you can take to get your business to appear in local business searches.

Search Engines Optimisation (SEO)

You can read more about our Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) services here.

As people become more sophisticated in using the Internet they become more specific with their search terms. Understanding your customer is vital when specifying the necessary keywords and search phrases required to achieve good Search Engine Rankings.

Websites need to be designed to work firstly for people and secondly for search engines. Effective search engine optimisation is not a set of tricks that are added to websites later. There are techniques that need to be designed into a website from the start.

Linking can boost your search engine ranking in Google

Google's sees good quality sites that are linking to your site as a strong recommendation for your web site

So good links to your website are definitely worth having. But bad links can get your site penalised by Google so think about the links carefully. Swapping links with unrelated sites is no longer helpful. Think about:

Social Media - Blogs, Facebook, Twitter ....

Everywhere I see Social Media (Blogs, Forums, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc.) being referred to as the new way to market your products and services.

Generally these fall into the social arena rather more than into the business arena but they do provide

for your business web site. So they can be helpful in improving your search rankings. So many marketing people are pushing the use of these tools to market web sites. You should think carefully about:

Blogs - Blogs are Diary or date based web publishing tools. (Or looked at another way - a website Content Management System (CMS) designed to publish your daily musings.) If that is what you want they are great tools. If however what you really want is to add new content to your website regularly in a logical fashion then you might want a more appropriate CMS attached to your website.

Forums - Forums are for online discussions. They are often used to provide online support for software etc and can grow into great resources but they require a lot of on-going time and effort to support. You can't expect to set one up and expect a community to just appear and make it work for you.

PPC Pay Per Click or Google Ads

Pay Per Click or Google Ads are a simple way of getting in front of potential customers on Google. The sponsored links down the right hand side and sometimes at the top are PPC Google Ads.

Basically you choose the keywords for which you want your advert to appear, set the maximum price you are prepared to pay for a click, when and where you want your advert to run and the maximum daily budget.

Newsletters

Newsletters are a great way to keep your customers in touch with your Company. Regular newsletters will keep your customers informed and create awareness of your business and website. They can be designed to point directly to your website thereby getting people to visit your website to find out the latest information.

There are numerous Newsletter Services available for a moderate fee and there is usually a simple method of linking its sign-up mechanism into your website. Mailchimp is a nice example.

Marketing Emails

Many companies now use HTML marketing emails that link to their websites because they can be far more eye catching than normal text emails. They can be linked to special promotions on your website and used to collect valuable information about your customers.

Existing paper marketing campaigns can be converted into HTML versions or micro sites.

There are numerous mass Email Marketing Services available for a moderate fee.

Banner ads

There are different views on the value for money provided by banner ads. Personally I think most people ignore anything that looks like an advert on a website.

Regards

Michael Spencer, Managing Director.
michael@epsilis.co.uk
Epsilis - Website Designers
47 Farthing Drive
Letchworth Garden City
Hertfordshire (Herts)
SG6 2TR
UK

Marketing Strategies and Marketing Consultants

Should you want a professional marketing consultant to help you develop an effective marketing strategy for your business that goes beyond just your website I have no hesitation in recommending an old friend - Joseph Tirelli

Web Design and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) covering Hertfordshire (Herts) and Bedfordshire (Beds)