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Getting the absolute most from your internet marketing is without doubt a team effort.  You’ll need to communicate regularly with, and be prepared to bounce ideas around with your web marketing providers.

For example, if your website isnt getting the volume of visitors you would like, you should consider talking with you web team about the key phrases which you have chosen to focus on, and perhaps working on great content which would be useful to your visitor and which would back up those phrases. After all, its all about great content and your web team will need your input on this as its your own specialist field.

On the other hand, you might be getting the volume of website visitors that you were expecting but with little or no conversions.  If this is the case there are loads of things that your web marketing team will be able to suggest that helps to convert website visitors into enquiries, business or phone calls.  One such technique may well be the inclusion of video footage helping to introduce your company, or another may be to offer something free via your website to help capture your visitors details so that you can follow up on the visit.

In our experience, its those that keep in regular contact with us that get the most fronm their web marketing. We like to think that we do as much as humanly possible in the background, but with that added input from you – the expert – a formidable team can be formed.

There’s probably never been a better time to focus on the user experience over everything else when it comes to your web marketing.

It’s been just over a month now since Google announced the implementation of there “over optimisation” penalty – which seems to be delivering big changes in the search results we are used to seeing.

Basically, the well known Google Bot is increasingly adaptable and the over optimisation penalty is set to give a place on the search engines for those that dont use SEO – but do focus on great content.

So what does this mean for us all? Well, it means that we have to take the website visitor experience into heavier consideration than ever before, making sure that our web pages deliver valuable information and an incentive for our prospects to visit. It also means that keyword stuffing, and excessive use of  key terms within out meta data should be (as ever) avoided.

Building links to our websites should be achieved through natural processes that occur on the back of the fact that our web pages contain something useful.

If you have been ethical in the creation of your website then nothing really changes – for those that push their luck, it’s a whole new ball park.

If you’re the proud owner of a great new website you’ll possibly be wondering how it is being received by your website visitors.

Who’s visiting? Where are they from? Are they enjoying your web content? What are they doing whilst on your website?

Fortunately, these are all questions which can be answered by setting up Google Analytics. Google Analytics will thoroughly monitor the activity on your website and provide you with a detailed report which you can use to tweek your website content and layout to get the absolute most from it.

With Google Analytics you can see exactly how many visitors your website has had every month, how many unique visitors you’ve had (rather than returning visitors), what the visitors typed in to Google to find you, how long they stayed on your website, what they did next, which search engine they used, where they were in the world and loads more. Basically, you’ll be provided with eveything you need to figure out what you might do to improve your website moving forward.  For example, if your website is getting very few visits, you might consider improving your search rankings for different search terms – or, if you are getting lots of visitors but very few phone calls or enquiries, you might consider altering your home page so that it grabs the attention of your visitor, or changing your call to action so that it motivates your visitor to get in touch more effectively.

It’s well worth setting up Google Analytics, and here’s how you do it…

• Set up an account with Google if you havnt already (click “sign in” at the top right of the Google home page and follow the instructions).
• Once signed in, click the drop down  button next to your name at the top right of the Google home page.
• Click “account”
• Next choose “products” from the left hand column.
• Select “Analytics”.

Follow the instructions provided by Google Analytics to set it up agains your website profile. At the end, you’ll be given some HTML code which needs to be placed within the code of your website. Get your web geek to help you with this.

How to produce great websites for tradesmen

If you’re in business as a tradesman (or tradeswoman) and you’re reading (or watching) this, it’s probably because you’re one of our customers, or you’ve just Googled “websites for tradesmen”.

Either way this article will explain how to go about creating a great website which will sit high on the search engines (Google, Bing etc), build trust and familiarity with your customers immediately and encourage your website visitor to get in touch with you, the qualified tradesman, directly.

Step 1: What do you want your website to achieve?

Put some thought into what in an ideal world a website will do for your business as a tradesman.  Will your websites main focus be to generate leads and business (which in our experience is usually the case) or is it simply to refer people to when they require specific information about your trade?  In 99% of cases with the tradesmen we have on our books (thanks to you all) the main goal is to create a website that sits high on Google, looks great and gets the phone ringing with enquiries, we’ll focus on that within this article.

So, we need to think about our target market and be realistic about which key phrases we would like our website to appear on Google for.  If you are a plumber based in Bolton and carrying out local services for example, it would make no sense to engineer a website to appear for the search term “plumber”, or “plumbing repair”.  These are known as national search terms and it would be highly unlikely that your new website would appear on Googles first page on a national basis each time someone typed in “plumber” on Google.  Even if it did the vast majority of prospects that found your website would be based elsewhere in the UK and out of your target area as a local tradesman.

Better, more realistic key phrases would include “plumbers Bolton” or “plumbing services Bolton” for example.  You can use Google’s Keyword Tool to find out exactly how often localised search terms such as this get typed in.

Dont choose too many key phrases to focus on, and remember that for any key phrase there really needs to be good content on your website to back up any key phrases you choose.  In other words, if one of your chosen key phrases is “bathroom installers Bolton” – be sure to have good information on your web page about Bathroom Installation, particularly in the Bolton area.

So now we know when and to who we want our website to appear for – we can make a start on designing the website…

Step 2:  Choose a great URL for your website.

Although this is not the be-all-and-end-all when it comes to achieving great search engine results, choosing the right domain for your website can give you a good head start in getting yourself to the top of Google.  For example if you are operating as a plumber in Bolton and your company name is DLS Plumbing Services, it would be a great idea to consider a website address such as www.plumbersbolton.com – rather than www.dlsplumbingservices.co.uk

There is more than one good reason for this – firstly, search websites such as Google have always (and still do) assume that your web content will be reflected in your website address so a generic URL such as www.plumbersbolton.com is still very SEO friendly.  Secondly, generic URL’s such as this are easy to remember when printed on your van or other promotional material.  You can still have a secondary URL such as www.dlsplumbingservices.co.uk which points to the same website so that you can put your company name URL on business cards and other literature if you so wish.

Step 3:  Getting started on your websites for trademen.

Most web designers will begin by putting your website homepage together first.  When doing this we need to make sure that the meta data in the <head> section of your website is realistic and accurate if your website is likely to achieve the goals we set earlier.

Meta Title:

The Meta Title is the element of your website which Google will display on its Search Engine Results Page in large, blue text.  In HTML the Meta Title should look like this:

<title>Plumbers Bolton | Bathroom Installers Bolton | DLS Plumbing Services</title>

We need to get your key phrases in here without making the Meta Title too long.  Definately less than 75 charactors in length.

Meta Keywords:

The Meta Keywords element indicate to search engines what your website is focussing on.  This element of your head section doesnt carry as much weight as it used to due to some serious key phrase spamming over the years but we still need to make it accurate.  In HTML your Meta Keyword element looks like this:

<meta name=”keywords” content=”plumbers bolton, bathroom installers bolton, DLS Plumbing Service” /> (separate key phrases with a comma)

Your key phrases should relate closely to your Meta Title.

Meta Description:

The Meta Description is the black text (like a blurb if you like) that appears on Googles SERP and helps to describe the content of your website.  In HTML it looks like this:

<meta name=”description” content=”Professional plumbing, bathroom installation and plumbing repair based in Bolton carrying out all associated plumbers services.” />

This needs to be les than 160 charactors and written in a human sounding manner.

Step 4:  Designing you home page

Getting the best out of Google is more about great written information than graphics.  None the less, a website needs to be visually appealing if you are going to keep the attention of your visitor.  Create graphics and use images that are inline with what your prospect is looking for.  For example, if you are in garden maintenance, you might use a high quality, large background image of a beautiful garden to grab your visitors attention.  You should also use graphics which “call for action” i.e. a crisp graphic containing the words “click here for a free quote”, encouraging your visitor to contact you via email.

Use the “alt” atribute to tag your images with your chosen key phrases and variations of them – dont go crazy on one key phrase or you’ll risk Google assuming that you’re “stuffing” key phrases.

Remember though, Google takes website loading times into consideration so dont go crazy on large, high res images but do use images that give your website warmth and a professional edge.

Also, and this really important, particularly for tradesmen – MAKE YOUR WEBSITE HUMAN TO CONVERT HITS INTO CUSTOMERS!  What do we mean by this? Well its easy to create a website that is made up entirely of stock images, and whilst this will undoubtably produce a crisp looking finished product, it will lack any real, human feel.  We need to concentrate on making our website visitor feel as though they are looking at a real, human run business and not just a faceless, glossy website.

You can use real photographs of your van (if you’re a tradesman you might have a sign written van for example) or video of yourself in action to demonstrate to your website visitor that your company is a real life, human run company operating right now.

Step 5: Writing great content

Now we know that writing content is time consuming (trust me – look what I’ve just written) but this is the most important aspect of all.  Your website will need to contain unique, useful information, relative to your chosen key phrases. The more good stuff you can think of to tell people the better.  Think of yourself as a valuable source of information, dont hold back on your industry secrets (within reason) and you will have created a reason for people to visit.

Keep your content up to date regularly and Google will have a reason to keep checking you out and altering the position in which it indexes you.

And finally:

Once you have designed your website, alt tagged your images, set you <head> section out with realistic meta data – you can go ahead and upload your website to your chosen server, submit it to Google through Google’s Webmaster Tools (you’ll need to set up a Google account for this), create and submit a XML Site Map (there are free tools online which will do this for you if you are unsure).

We really hope that helps you get started.  Next we’ll talk about creating high quality links to your website to give it further credibility…

Blogs are great – and you dont necessarily need vast amounts of HTML or coding skills, or design skills to get a blog started.  There are many ready to use blogging platforms which are quick and easy to set up.

You dont need to know a great deal about blogging technology to establish your blog and even to promote it.  The following are some great tips for you to keep in mind when asking the question – “how do  I get started on a blog?”

Choose your blog name and tagline wisely.

Before you get started have a good think about the name of your blog and its tagline. These are the elements of your blog which will be indexed by the search engines and it can be a bit of a pain to back pedal and change it later.

Choose the perfect blogging software.

There are tons of blog software providers to choose from, some are free and others require a subscription to use them. Great blog software providers include WordPress, Blogger and Typepad.  Choose really carefully based on your blogging needs as moving to a new provider later may result in lost blog content and subscribers.

Choose a great URL for your blog.

You can generally use provider based blog URLs for free such as www.myblogname.typepad.com but your own URL is generally better.  If your blog was to target potential buyers of security shutters for example, your blog URL might be www.securityshutters.co.uk.  Choose a SEO friendly URL for your blog if you can find a good one.

Make your blog visually appealing.

Blogging software usually allows you to put your own design stamp on your blog.  Do try to make your blog as visually appealing as possible without detracting from the message that your blog is trying to deliver.

Blog carefully first!

Before making your blog public you can test out a few posts as password protected items before letting your views loose on the world.