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In the world of bricks and mortar retail shopping the location of a shop is quite often the key to its success if it’s going to benefit from passing footfall. Similarly some types of businesses such as factories and distribution centres, understand it is essential to locate themselves close to a motorway junction in order to keep their deliveries flowing freely.

However when it comes to trading online, many of these real-world concepts fall by the way side as Google places little importance on where a business is located when considering how to rank its website in its search results. What is important however are “keywords� and “relevancy�.

To understand what this means and why it is important for your own website; it is helpful to try and understand why Google is so popular as a search engine and why in only a few short years, it has come to dominate the web as the search engine of choice for most people over the old stalwarts of Yahoo and MSN.

Back in the mid 1990’s before Google came along, when a search phrase was typed into one of the popular search engines of the day the results that were presented were often poorly related to the search phrase being used. This resulted in the searcher having to trawl through pages and pages of irrelevant results before they actually found a web site that was worth looking at.

Then along came Google who use a different method of measuring the importance of a web site to a particular search term and as a consequence, began to deliver meaningful results to people who use its search engine. Word quickly spread about this new search engine that actually presented ‘useful search results’ and subsequently Google rapidly became so popular that today approximately 87% of all searches made on the web are done through Google.

So what does this mean to you as a web site owner? Well quite simply, you need to make sure that your web site is relevant to its subject matter and contains text with relevant “keyword phrases� that are important to your customers. So for example if your business sells or makes “plumbing equipment� then you need to make sure that the text on your pages contains phrases or terminology that are centred on this basic concept, as these are the phrases that your customers are likely to use when searching for your business.

In this instance, such phrases as “pvc pipe fittings� or “radiator valves� might be some of the important “keyword phrases� to use across your website. Time spent identifying what these phrases and then re-writing the normal text on your web site’s pages to include them, is time well spent and will make it easier to get your site ranked in Google. To help you, use Google’s own Keyword Generator Tool at https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal to help you identify phrases that are relevant to your business and its website.

Jaimie Dobson is a director of Heckmondwike based digital marketing agency Keyclicks UK Ltd

Note: This original article by Jaimie Dobson was orignally published in the Business Matters section of The Weekly Press Newspaper on the 22nd August 2008

The Fading Attractions of Office Life

O2 (the mobile telecoms company) have recently surveyed small businesses about their working arrangements so I read in one of the nationals earlier this week.

The article made interesting reading and reported that O2’s survey, conducted amongst 530 small businesses, found that 50 per cent of the companies contacted; do not work in a formal office environment. Of this 50 per cent, 24 per cent did have an office but spent most of their time working remotely or from home. A further 18 per cent had made the transition to this style of working within the last few months.

The survey also found that almost two thirds of companies that are still working from fixed offices, plan to give them up and move back home within the year.

The main reason apparently is the credit crunch, spiralling fuel and therefore commuting costs and the rising cost of office space.

Who can blame them?

Give the availability of low cost technology include high speed broadband, WiFi, VoIP and mobile internet I’m not surprised this is happening. Couple a home based business with a professionally designed web site which is suitable for small businesses and hey presto; who’s to know (or care) where a business is based so long as it delivers a professional job to its clients.

We as a company maintain a number of virtual workers who base themselves at home. Regular readers of our blog will also note that we have one employee who splits her time 50/50 between our Heckmondwike office and her home: although this is for ‘childcare’ reasons and not the ‘credit crunch’.

Last month’s column introduced the concepts of website ‘Search Engine Optimization’ and its value as a marketing strategy for your own company’s website.

To continue with this theme, this month the principles of how the search engines work are discussed.

Understanding what a search engine is and how the major ones like Google work, is an important aspect to grasp if you’re going to optimise your website. Once the basic concepts have been understood, then it’s easier to build a website that may be effectively promoted in Google.

Directories and Search Engines - What’s the Difference?

What’s the difference between a search engine like Google and a web directory such as Yell.com? Search engines are huge databases that regularly browse the web in order to catalogue it. Once catalogued or indexed as it is known, references to the websites they find are stored within their databases in readiness for when people like you and I visit their search page in order to search for a particular type of website. The entire process is automated without any human intervention. This cataloguing or indexing of the web is done using pieces of software called ‘Search Engine Spiders’ or ‘Search Engine Robots’. Spider software is controlled by complex mathematical processes called algorithms which are unique to each search engine. Exactly how these algorithms work is a closely guarded secret, but through experience and following published rules, a website that assists the spidering process and conforms to the needs of an algorithm, has a greater chance of being listed highly within a search engine’s results. Take a look at www.google.co.uk/webmasters for Google’s published rules on optimising your website.

Directories, of which there are many examples on the web, Yell.com being a popular one; are essentially online versions of paper directories like the Yellow Pages or the Thomson Local. They do not index the web using Spider software like search engines in order to establish their entries, but instead rely upon humans to manually add entries to their databases. Directories generally group entries or websites that are similar to each other, together into subject and regional categories e.g. “Accountants in Leeds� or “Hotels in Wakefield�. Many online directories often contain a keyword search form on their home page that helps filter the contents of their categories for the User of their site. Search engine optimisation has no impact upon the results you may find in an online directory.

Getting your site listed in a particular directory is usually a matter of submitting your website’s link to it. Look for a “Submit My Site�, “Add My Site� or a “Get Listed� link somewhere on the directory’s website. Many directories charge an inclusion fee in order to list a website link; however this can often be worth the cost if you feel a particular directory is popular amongst your target customers. Some of the more popular web directories such as Applegate (www.applegate.co.uk) can make a positive impact upon your website’s PageRank value (more on this matter in later columns), so it’s worth considering getting your site listed in the most popular web directories where you can and if your budget can stretch to their inclusion fees.

Next month’s column will talk about what Google is looking for in your website and will introduce the concepts of ‘keywords’.

Jaimie Dobson is a director of Heckmondwike based digital marketing agency Keyclicks UK Ltd

Note: This original article by Jaimie Dobson was orignally published in the Business Matters section of The Weekly Press newspaper on the 25th July 2008

Build it and they will come! Or will they?

by Jaimie Dobson

In its last report on the matter the Office of National Statistics stated that Internet sales rose 29% to £130.4bn in 2006 over a 2005 figure of £101bn. That’s a big jump. No doubt the figures for 2007 will show a similar if not greater leap when they are released later this year. The ONS goes on to say that 56.3% of businesses made a purchase online during 2006. This indicates that businesses wanting to source new products or services for themselves are increasingly turning to the search-engines on the web rather than picking up a paper directory.

Most people when looking on the web for a new product or service turn to one of the top four search-engines, namely; Google, Yahoo Search, MSN or Ask to help them find it. Google which accounts for approximately 87% of the Internet searches made in the UK can be said to be the ‘search-engine of choice’ for the majority of Internet users.

Given the dominance of Google in the search engine world, it makes sense if your business maintains its own website and uses it as a promotional or sales tool, to firstly get it listed within Google’s database and then to get it placed as high as possible within its search results. This ‘placement’ process is called website ranking. Research has shown that Internet searchers rarely scroll onto page two of their given search results, so it’s important that your site is placed or ranked on the first page of Google’s results when a particular phrase is used as the search term. So for example if you are promoting “widgets for cars� on your website then to be successful your site should appear on page one of Google’s search results when the phrase “widgets for cars� is used as a search term.

The higher you get your site placed for search terms that are relevant to it, the more chance you’ll have of attracting a visitor to your site and in-turn, the more chance you will have of making a sale or generating an enquiry.

The process of preparing a website for ranking in the search-engines is called “Search Engine Optimisation� (SEO) and generally goes hand in hand with the process of “Search Engine Promotion� (SEP) which involves getting an “optimised� website included and then ranked, within the results pages of a particular search engine.

A correctly optimised website together with an effective search engine promotional strategy can pay dividends for its owner but can be time consuming and fraught with pitfalls for the unwary. However, with patience and commitment there is a lot the small business owner can do for themselves to promote their website in the search engines for very little or no cost.

To this end and through this column over the next few weeks, I’m going to look at the different aspects of search engine promotion that a business website owner can adopt for themselves in order to help them increase traffic levels to their website.

Jaimie Dobson is a director of Heckmondwike based digital marketing agency Keyclicks UK Ltd

Note: This original article by Jaimie Dobson was orignally published in the Business Matters section of The Weekly Press newspaper on the 27th June 2008