By PHILIP ZOHRAB
How does a small business with just two staff take $100,000 in international orders in eight months with no active marketing? Search engines, that's how.
Peter Maude Fine Wines is a retail shop in Auckland with a global customer base via its website and listing on search engines
and directories.
Research indicates that 81 per cent of internet users find new websites through search engines, making such listings far more effective than banner ads, word of mouth, print or other media.
Search engines refer users looking for a specific product, service or information. These users are six times more likely to purchase than someone who surfed in from a banner ad, and top search engine rankings are more effective for brand recall than banner ads.
If you are wondering why your website is not the cash cow you hoped it would be, a search engine marketing strategy can put you back on track.
Registering your site with the major search engines is not enough.
When was the last time you used a search engine and looked further than the second page of results? Even obscure queries can garner hundreds of results.
Sites listed in the heavy end of the search results are unlikely to get any traffic.
To find out how your site ranks on major international search engines, you can use a free online reporting tool provided by Search Engine Strategies.
Search for the company name or URL to see if a search engine even lists your site, then search again for the key words someone would use to find your products or services.
If your site does not rank well you are losing potential customers.
Top positions for popular search terms can be lucrative and these websites are likely to have undergone search engine optimisation.
Search engines are now seen as so important that many companies have a specialist to monitor rankings and tweak the site occasionally.
Preparing a site for registration involves researching the key words, then incorporating them into the HTML and page text.
Links are created to relevant external pages and inbound links are cultivated to boost a site's link popularity.
The sites are then registered with major search engines and directories. There are three ways to do this: free registration, pay-per-inclusion (PPI), and pay-per-click (PPC).
Registration is free with big sites such as Google and the Open Directory, but be aware that it can take weeks or months to show up in search results.
Other large search engines such as Inktomi or Look Smart are PPI, but guarantee listings in 48 hours.
Yahoo! and AltaVista offer free listings, but pay them a fee and the months of waiting for results can turn into days.
The sponsored or premium listings seen in search results are usually PPC listings where the advertiser bids an amount he or she is willing to pay for a click.
Overture and Google are the main engines in this market, but Google may be of particular interest to New Zealand businesses as specific countries and/or languages can be targeted.
Whether targeting the local or global market, search engine marketing is the most cost-effective way to promote your website.
Peter Maude Fine Wines
Search Engine Strategies
* Philip Zohrab is a consultant with Search Engine Strategies, a web marketing agency.
Email: phil@searchenginestrategies.co.nz
How to milk a lot more money from your online cash cow
By PHILIP ZOHRAB
How does a small business with just two staff take $100,000 in international orders in eight months with no active marketing? Search engines, that's how.
Peter Maude Fine Wines is a retail shop in Auckland with a global customer base via its website and listing on search engines
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