Are you Ready to Optimize your Website for Search Engines?

By Alexandre Brabant, eMarketing 101

We recently sat down with Alexandre Brabant, President of eMarketing 101 and asked him about Search Engine Optimization and where small business operators who want to market their website on search engines should start.

Alex provided us with a checklist of things to think about before you make the financial leap to hiring a web developer or e-marketer to optimize your website.

Here’s what Alex has to say:

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) have become popular subjects nowadays, as more people begin to understand the importance of making their site visible in search results as a way of getting traffic. Except, most business owners don't know what they are up against when they attempt to optimize their site for search engines.

Online business variables have changed since the Internet began, and although some SEO techniques are still valid, the days when you submitted your site to search engines for free are long gone. Now SEO requires some solid investment and careful planning.

Before you even ask a web consultant to help you build a new site or drive more traffic to your existing site, do your homework and make a checklist. If you take the time to assess your readiness before moving forward with SEM you will save yourself a lot of money in the long run.

Check your statistical reports

First and foremost – do you have a comprehensive statistical report of your web traffic? A comprehensive stats report is the primary tool you should have in place before launching a Search Engine Marketing campaign. Why? Because, if you understand your web metrics you will be more comfortable making decisions about SEM.

When looking for a web stats report, keep in mind that there are many hosting companies out there that provide very poor reports - reports that lack graphical content and are not easily understood. The most reliable stats report packages are Webtrends http://webtrends.com and Mediahouse Live Stats http://www.deepmetrix.com/

For more information on this topic, please take a minute to read Mark Sakalosky’s article, Ignorance is Bliss. It’s worth it!

Assess your current website marketability

Ask yourself, is your website marketable in its current state?
For most online businesses with storefronts, the main focus should be to build trust among your customers. And a sense of trust can only be achieved with a professional design. A lot of companies have very poor websites that don’t focus on raising trust. Ask yourself what your site has to offer your customers in it’s content, how often it’s updated, it’s look and feel and it’s professionalism.

Standards increase over time, and if you are still operating on a site you built in 1996 or even 2001, there is a good chance that it may no longer be competitive. If your site is not interesting, there is no point investing money in getting more traffic, as your site will not retain visitors over time.

Make sure your site is trustworthy before stepping into a Search Engine Marketing campaign. By raising trust you will convert strangers into friends, and eventually, friends into customers. Remember, traffic is only half the distance between a complete stranger that clicks on your link and a completed sale.

What’s in your name?

Take another look at your domain name. Does it represent what you are selling? The fact of the matter is, it is extremely important to have a keyword-rich online business name.

For example, Joe Smith sets up a Web site selling plastic widgets and registers the domain name "JoeSmith.com." This is a mistake, especially for smaller companies or entrepreneurs running their online businesses from home.

Joe should have registered a domain name that contains keywords that relate to the products he sells, such as ‘plasticwidgets.com’ or ‘plastic-widgets.com’. By having keywords in his domain name, Joe will do a lot more to help his site rank higher in search engines than by using his own name alone.

Before implementing a long term Search Engine Marketing plan, please make sure your online business name contains keywords that are relevant to your business. For more information on this topic, read Andy Beal’s article Is your Domain Name Optimized?

Assess your hosting plan

Do you have a reliable hosting plan? Increasing your web traffic implies increased usage of your web host’s server. Before implementing a Search Engine Marketing campaign, you need to make sure your hosting package allows you to handle any additional traffic you may experience. Upgrades can easily be obtained from hosting companies. Please, take a minute to ask your hosting supplier about your current package.

Assess your web tracking methods

I have seen many companies invest a lot of money in ‘pay-for-performance’ marketing (also known as pay-per-click advertising), yet these same companies were not tracking the leads they were generating from this (i.e. phone calls, email inquiries & completed sales).

It is critical to track results from your website traffic in order to ensure your e-marketing strategy is on the right path. Search Engine Marketing requires an investment and its safe to assume that business owners want to know what their Return on Investment (ROI) will be - don’t you? It takes little effort to isolate your website from other marketing initiatives and measure your ROI with great accuracy. For example, you may want to put a separate phone number on your website to track calls from your site.

Assess your budget

What is your online budget? How much traffic would you like? How much are you willing to invest to get it? When developing an online project, it is important to allocate funds to building and fine-tuning your site, to the ongoing maintenance of your site, and to increasing traffic.

The proportion you spend on each will vary depending on the project and the competition. Nevertheless, if you put all your money into developing your site and nothing into acquiring traffic, it is likely your new site will not provide the expected results.

You cannot simply submit your site to search engines and wait for your traffic to grow. Today, marketing a website requires some investment -- of thought and time, not just money. Investing in acquiring visitors to your site is much like investing time to make new friends. They keep coming back - free of charge -- if they like what they see.

Check out the competition

What are you fighting for? Most business owners do not seem to be aware of the number of competitors in their market. In some markets, thousands of companies are fighting for the same top 10 positions in search results. Simply put, you are not the only company who is trying to achieve top ranking in search results with the keywords you have selected.

The web is global, so is the competition! In any online project, you need to identify who the players are so you can react with an online marketing strategy that rocks! Make sure your competitors are clearly defined before implementing a Search Engine Marketing strategy.

Make a plan

What is your e-marketing plan? How much traffic volume can you handle? Before you start investing in e-marketing, whether you do it yourself or outsource the work, make sure you know where you are going, and how much time is required to get there. A comprehensive Search Engine Optimization strategy takes time to bring the expected results. Remember, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. But, the right kind of campaign will provide an impressive ROI if it is planned and implemented properly in a measurable environment.