Not that it is surprising or anything but the average small business client does not really know what has to go on behind the scenes of a website to make it visible to their target clients. The general feeling is that, just because it's there and they can see it, everyone else must be able to see it too!
I understand this feeling only too well. I don't really want to know all the bits that have to come together to get my car to get me to Bristol. I just assume that if it starts OK then I can drive off listening to the radio and following the SatNav instructions.Most small businesses understand business. If they have never had a website before then they can not be expected to have even thought about what is actually involved in attracting visitors to it. The sad fact of life is that the clients who obviously need you the most often don not even know they need you. So many times I have seen websites that look good but a quick look at the source code gives a clear indication that it was designed by someone who has not given the slightest thought to pulling new visitors to the site.
So what's to understand? Everyone understands that copy, content and style are important when designing a website. You must give the site the right look and feel required. The site often looks like a company brochure. The problem is, that unless you email out a link to the site to everyone, in the same way you might send them a new brochure, nobody will ever see it.
Certainly no potential new clients will ever see it. The point I'm getting at is that you have to make it easy for potential new clients to find your site when they don't even know they are looking for it.
Clients are not looking for you, they are looking for something. Actually, they are searching for something
Where do they search?............. Search Engines, Directories and Articles.
What are they searching for?... Things or information they want.
What have you got to offer?..... You had better find a way of telling them so they can link up with you.
Once you have understood that this does not happen by accident then you are more than half way to understanding what internet search engine marketing is all about.
In the business of web design we talk about things like website optimization, meta tags, search engine submission, search engine rankings and making the best choice of "keywords but we do this without a though for the average businessman who has never seen an of examples of "ranking reports" or even knows he needs to work on improving the site rankings.
People often resort to "Pay per Click" or sponsored "paid" links as the only way to get seen. Much more can be achieved with a little more thought about what their customers might be searching for and some work on the website to optimize the chances of these "key" search words being actually linked to their website by all the search engines.
Getting a good ranking on page 1 of a search engine should be the objective. Any further back than page 2 and you are nowhere. However, what is the point of getting ranked number one in a search for "plumbers" if you work in a small town in Essex and all your 1000s of inquiries come from California?
Be specific with your keywords. The choice of carefully selected "local keywords" can work wonders for a local business. Most don't want inquiries from too far away if they supply the services locally so they also serve the purpose of filtering out the unwanted, time wasting inquiries from distant places.
The subject of getting ranked for the chosen keywords by the search engines is more of an art than a science but lets just say that the behind the scenes work is what makes the difference.
The problem, as the title of this article might suggest, is that most people actually don't know that they don't know this. Who was it that once said "We can plan for the things we know we do not know but the problem is planning for the things we do not even know that we do not know." If you can't think who it was, then you can attribute it to me:-)
Nigel Stride |
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