Real World Computing
Optimise and prosper
Many a successful online business has been built upon an effective Google AdWords campaign, and this form of marketing has a number of advantages, perhaps the biggest being that it's practically instant. Create a website or web application and drive traffic to it within hours, change your ad copy and see it reflected more or less immediately, track the effect of the changes and adjust accordingly.
AdWords appear in the Sponsored Listings section to the right of the "natural" or "organic" listings (as do their MSN and Yahoo equivalents), but their big disadvantage is that they cost money, whereas you pay nothing if your site appears in the organic listings. So how do you get your site to the top of the free listings? That's where the black magic of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) comes in: of all the aspects of website development and marketing, SEO is the one most shrouded in mystery and downright flim-flam. Tell you what: just set up a standing order in my favour for £500 per month and I'll sort it for you using a mixture of secret incantations and voodoo dolls representing your competitors... That isn't so far off the business model you'll discover when you search for SEO - the internet equivalent of the emperor's new clothes.
Even I bought into this mystique for while, deciding to concentrate on AdWords, since it seemed I'd be wasting my time trying to get to the top of the organic listings for my important keywords. However, now I know better, and so let's take a look at, and debunk, the three main myths relating to SEO:
Myth 1: it's complex
As with most topics, IT-related or otherwise, the basics of SEO are pretty straightforward and easy to implement; apply them to your site and you'll certainly improve your place in the organic listings.
Myth 2: I can get position 1
Run a mile from any SEO "expert" who guarantees top place in the listings: what they almost certainly mean is a top ten place against some obscure and unprofitable keywords. What you can do, though, is improve your position, often dramatically.
Myth 3: it takes months to have an effect
Nonsense. In my experience, you can achieve major effects within a week or two, the only delay being the time it takes the search engine spiders to re-index your site. That said, some aspects of optimisation can take longer - for example, getting people to link to your site takes time - but there are many other enhancements you can implement in the meantime.
I spent a lot of time researching SEO techniques before applying them to www.passyourtheory.co.uk, and in this month's column I'm going to share the techniques that worked. The search engines won't release details of how they rank web pages, so there's no definitive list of techniques guaranteed to produce results. However, the techniques here worked for me, and most are based on common sense: don't fall into the trap of the latest "trick" technique. The key to SEO is to create a content-rich, relevant site and then make it as visible as possible to search engines and easy for them to index.
Before you even get started, it's essential to undertake the sort of market analysis that underlies any successful business - understanding your customers and your competition. How much do you know about your customers? The more specific you can be, the more effectively you can target them. Look at age, gender, income level, ethnic background, IT competence and any other factors that might be relevant for your business. Also, think in detail about who you'd expect to be your most profitable customers, since these are the ones towards whom you should direct the greatest effort.
