Growing your business using the world wide web

Brochure Websites

In essence, the web is just another marketing medium. The question is how it fits into your marketing strategy, and that very much depends on what business you are in, the geographies you operate in, and the contraints imposed on your business.

Some businesses take the view that they want a brochure website. Their primary marketing channel is not the web, but prospects ask to see their website so that they can get further information, and there's nothing wrong with that - at the very least its a first step on the web. You've got to remember though, that this is your shop front, it needs to be inviting, and convey your wares to potential customers in a manner which portrays your brand. Brochure websites though, are unlikely to get you a high ranking on the search engines.

E-Commerce Websites

An E-Commerce website enables a business to provide a shop front on the web. E-Commerce software should also provide a customer with the ability to register, search and view product images, detailed product information, and of course pricing. The software must also be able to calculate stock levels, shipping costs, tax, and accounting information.

E-Commerce websites are not something you can dip your toe into. It takes considerable effort to keep these websites constantly updated with product information, pricing, special offers and news. 

There are loads of free to use software packages out there - examples being VirtueMart, OSCommerce, Zen Cart, Freeway, Magneto, they all have strengths and weaknesses. So its important to pick the correct software for your business. A really important feature is the ability to support Search engine Friendly URLs, and the capability to update products from suppliers automatically.

I want to find a new audience for my products or services.

Trust us, just putting up a website on the Internet is very unlikely to transform your business; just like any other form of advertising, you need objectives, goals, a target audience, competitor analysis and a budget (both in terms of money, and the time and resources you can expend on it). Having said all that, we are not firm believers in paid for advertising, if its at all avoidable.

In order for customers to find your webiste, you are most definitely going to need to advertise in one form or another, and that means that you need to know your target audience and how to communicate effectively with them. There's nothing wrong with the traditional media such as press, radio, media to drive traffic to your website. But the Internet provides an alternative  and sometimes complementary avenue. That's primarily (but not exclusively) the search engines.

So How do i get a high ranking on the search engines? - see our article on search engine optimisation

Search engines are in the business of providing clients with what they want, to a search engine that means quality and "buzz". One of the criteria google uses to determine the quality of a "page" (not a site - we'll come to that later) is how well the page is constructed. By this I don't mean the strength of your grammar, but if there are any errors in the html, and whether the page fits together. Is the title of the page consistent with the content of the page, are there lots of keywords which are not used in the content of the page; how long is the description and title compared with the content and good practice. There's lots of other criteria (such as construction of the address of the page), but following these guidelines are a great start. So in summary great unique content which is inline with what google believes your site is about will help you score well.

It also takes search engines time to index content from each site, you can help them by providing site maps that enable them to quickly index the site. It also shows that you are serious about maintaining your website. Fortunately sitemaps can be automatically generated for you, and of course Cube Creative can setup your site to do that.

Basically if a large number of sites which are themselves highly ranked within the search engines link to a page on your site, then this helps to give the impression that the page has quallity content. Lots of links from poorly ranked websites can hinder your ranking, so the scatter gun approach by paying for links on a large number of sites is not a great way to a high ranking.

Register a page on facebook, linked-in, myspace, and twitter, they can all help drive traffic to your site.

Do I need to pay for adverts on search engines?

No not necessarily, quite often you see the sponsored links with the same website ranked at number 1. But if you do decide to go down this route,you need to plan it, and monitor the campaign continually to ensure its meeting the objectives and budget you have set for it. We can help you set and manage the campaign, but think very carefully before going down this route. A well designed, thought out web site can be just as effective.

Can I make money out of providing adverts on my website?

You can make money, but in order to do that you need huge volumes of visitors to my website. Its unlikely to make you rich, but it can help to offset the cost of advertising your website to some degree.

Whats the story with "buzz"?

Buzz is about generating interest from communities on the web in your site or product/service. If you can generate sufficient buzz, it takes on a life of its own (thats what we term a viral campaign). So you need to write articles, or produce video which people find so interesting they pass it onto their friends. A great example is the message from santa viral from 2009.

I don't update my pages often does this affect my ranking?

Well that depends on the competition for high ranking within your pages topic. In the past search engines were not too concerned with the age of content. However, search engines are becoming like news programmes, they want the latest content now, so the more recent the content, the more likely you are to get a good ranking.

Remember also, that if you change your content often, then people are much more likely to come back and see whats new on your site. You can even use a "newsfeed" that allows people to subscribe to updated content on your website. So its always a good idea to keep producing great, relevant content.

Whats the worst thing for Search Engine Ranking?

Theres a couple of things that can really seriously affect your ranking. The worst possible is to get banned from the indexes of the search engines. That normally happens if your website has been hacked and malicious code inserted into your website. If you think that won't happen to you, then think again. Joomla (the webs best known content management system) was hacked, they attacked the joomla site itself, and then proceeded to look for Joomla sites, and attacked them too. If it happens to you, we can help get you back on track. But as usual prevention is better than cure; so its important to keep your content management system up to date with the latest patches.

You should not use third parties to generate thousands of links for you. The search engines can determine this to be spamming, and drop your ranking overnight - they have done this in the past. Produce a quality site, with quality content, keep your customers happy, and your business with thrive.

Innovate, Innovate, Innovate!

The one thing guaranteed to generate buzz is an innovative product on your site. Get people blogging about your services or products and expect high volume traffic!

The competition

you need to be constantly analysiing what the competition are up to, the web is a fickle place, and traffic is just a changed url away from moving away from your site. If you don't believe me, ask yourself how many hot, well known web companies are still in business after a couple of years. A few years ago friendsreunited.com was the hot thing, where are they now ?