Impact Media's SEO Blog

10 years on from the cataclysmic collapse of the dotcom boom, we look at what it takes to make an online business successful today.

A mere decade ago the Internet was in tatters, with start-ups everywhere imploding due to the sudden crash of stock value and a sudden realisation of the worthlessness of online property. In the heady days of teenage millionaires and geeks galore owning thousands of stocks in a multitude of websites they’d had a hand in, the Internet was a very different beast. Opportunity was abound and investors were clamouring for the opportunity to throw their money at something, today things have moved on.

In the year 2000, almost every idea was a new one. People were still only just coming around to the idea of using the Internet as a marketing platform and as such getting a foothold was relatively easy. The trouble was that not every idea was a good one, but they still continued to invest right up until the moment the administrators knocked down the front door and stripped their assets. Now there is competition, and plenty of it too, so you have to be clever as a fledgling business with how you market yourself.
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As Social Media continues to expand and lure in vast volumes of Internet traffic, where does its fustier, slower (methodical if you will) and more derided website marketing compadre, SEO, now fit in?

Search Engine Optimisation has been saddled with a reputation for being something of a shadowy practice; online alchemy, created to appease the search engine gods. The thing is though, it works. Better still, it continues to work to this day.

Social Media has emerged from the Friends Reunited Petri dish and exploded into a full-grown living organism, consuming everything in its path; or, at least, nearly everything. Facebook has experienced the most meteoric of rises, propelled by the slipstream of fading stars like MySpace, it has slipped seamlessly into the top 3 sites in the world (2nd by some metrics, 3rd in others) and gained itself over 350 million users.

Thanks to Facebook, along with Twitter, YouTube and a whole multitude of bookmarking cohorts, Social Media has got the world communicating in real-time. This free network of conversations has engulfed the Internet and opened the door of opportunity to marketers. Inevitably, when something huge comes to dominate an entity as the Internet, something has to make way; but is that thing SEO?
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Still in the formative days of this new year, we look ahead at the 7 ways you can help your website get the level of attention you deserve in 2010.

Making bold predictions to cover a 365 day period, you can easily set yourself up for a fairly monumental fall. However, with this very much in mind, I have put together a straightforward guide to promoting your website in 2010.

As anybody who has spent a day or more working amongst websites will no doubt already understand, there are a fair few avenues for you to explore when it comes to promoting your site, brand and company. As any company with limited resources will have no doubt also have discovered, targeting the most effective techniques in the efficient fashion is not always straightforward.
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Unfortunately not all websites are owned by companies with endless resources and a bottomless pit of money. Most in fact have tight restrictions when it comes to both time and finances. However all sites share a common desire, which is to be the most successful in their field, regardless of the strength of their competition.

To get to the top with limited resources, particularly for SMEs, is no easy task. It requires an acute understanding of your market and effective management of your priorities. Many businesses see SEO as a cure, others have heard about the emerging success stories emanating from social media, whilst some believe that Paid Search (PPC) will get them the targeted traffic they need. There’s plenty of evidence to support all of these viewpoints, but which will work best for you?
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Friday afternoon is almost a dead zone for webmasters and search specialists everywhere. Not just because it’s the last few hours of the working week and a good portion of the lunch hour is spent in the local pub. No, the real issue is that any changes you make to a website will be live throughout the weekend.

This leaves you in something of a quandary. Do you a) carry on regardless, hope that the new site alterations go without a hitch, b) test, re-test and then make an informed decision on whether to set any changes live or c) just hold fire until Monday?
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Dormant, untendered blogs lie littered across the Internet. Not updated since that first week back in June 2007, they create a visual eyesore and clutter up SERPs with their wanton insignificance.

But a blog should never be beyond recovery. If you’ve taken the time to set one up, it only takes one post to reinvigorate it and bring the page out of its enforced latency period. Why not kick it back into gear and make it a key part of your business once more.
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Optimising a website with any notion of your targeted keywords is like setting off in a dinghy without any navigational tools, heading west and hoping that you’ll discover America. Yes, there’s a chance you’ll make it, but you’ll have an epic struggle and could well end up lost in the search wilderness.

Think of SEO as a cartographic process, with keywords acting as the perfect route. It helps you to map out exactly where you’re going with your site, defining what areas are good to explore and those that are best left alone. Key terms are essential in every aspect of SEO, without them you’ll be working on sheer chance alone, just as you would in a dinghy across the Atlantic.
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The Internet presents limitless opportunities for mid-sized businesses that want to compete in the larger market.  Thanks to affordable online marketing options, it’s possible for a medium-sized business to carve a place in their sector and contend with the bigger companies.  The problem is finding or choosing the most suitable way to market your product or service online.

There are a number of options for businesses to choose from when considering cost-effective or affordable Internet marketing solutions, although the combined method or blended mix of marketing might better serve as the best approach.  This blended approach is made up of the five most effective and affordable ways to market your business website online.

SEO

Although SEO, or search engine optimisation, appears to be a rather simple way to increase your share of online traffic, the Natural Search results that it yields are powerfully impressive. SEO is the process of engineering your website so that it most effectively responds to the way that potential customers search for your business online.

Many people believe that SEO is something that can be done by just about anyone, but it takes a professional SEO expert to glean dynamic results without causing some of the very damaging errors that amateurs easily make.

Always choose to work with a professional SEO in order to get the best out of your website’s SEO potential.  The cost of an SEO expert is nothing compared to the potential increase in revenue from having your website optimised.

Articles

The Internet is a word-based medium and very much search driven.  Including articles on your website has a multiplicity of benefits, not least of all providing your customers with up to date expert advice.  Other benefits include:

• Increased credibility
• Improved SEO results from keywords in the articles
• Expanded web presence

You don’t need to be an expert author, there are lots of highly competent and affordable writers that can provide any number of quality articles for your website on any topic.

PPC

PPC, or pay per click, is one of the best methods of bringing traffic to your website and converting it to sales.

Imagine advertising that is read directly by people who are already interested in your product or service.  That’s exactly what PPC offers!  When a potential customer is interested in your ad, they click to find out more.  You only pay for the number of clicks that your ad receives and you can set your budget accordingly.

PPC represents a highly customisable and a truly affordable method of advertising.  Unfortunately, this has been one of the reasons why so many people have attempted DIY PPC, resulting in some quite catastrophic wasted opportunities.

Online PR

Your reputation online matters because it’s easily raised and easily damaged in the same measure.  Online PR can be used to fire fight problems but can also be used to announce important product news, service changes, sales, launches and make the best use of all profile raising opportunities.

Video Marketing

Still relatively in its infancy but drawing increased interest and attention, online video marketing can offer a stunningly effective alternative to television advertising. Many people have found that they can obtain dramatic results from very simple videos.  In the increasingly competitive online market, this is one approach that cannot be ignored.

By using these five methods together, you will create a powerful yet affordable website marketing campaign for your business.

If you feel you need help with any of these areas and would like to work with a professional UK based search marketing agency, please refer to our search engine marketing services page.