Website Marketing - Surefire Design

The right image can really support your message. But where can you get them from?

Your own photography may be appropriate. Especially if you are creating galleries in your website. Just remember to take note of shadows, light, and composition. In this digital era it doesn’t cost anything more to take 10 photos and choose the best one.

When it comes to other images on your website, a professional touch can really help. This is where stock photography can come in.

Stock sites such as iStockphoto http://www.istockphoto.com/ have a huge range of styles and topics covered. Images can work out to cost mere dollars. Note it pays to check how many $ = a credit or a point before you accidentally buy something expensive! Also make sure you are buying images at an appropriate image pixel size and file size for web. You will find they are cheaper! Online images only need to be 72 dpi unlike print which requires 300 dpi.

Think about your website. Will clear cut images stand out best? Do you want your images all to be rectangular? Make sure your images make sense together as a group and match stylistically. Little details such as making sure images are all the same width lend design edge and credibility to your website.

Think about good search words to find that perfect image. “Man Suit Orange Fish”

One last tip… step away from the clipart!

It’s simple really, get your information in Finda and your business will appear on Google Map searches.
Here’s what you need to do –

Check your Finda Listing then Register

* Browse to http://www.finda.co.nz/
* Search for your business to check if you are there! Put your business name in ‘I’m looking for’

… and your location in ‘Located In’

…. and click FIND.

* Not there? Click on REGISTER at the very top right hand corner of the site. Follow the registration process.
* Surprised to find your business listed? Check your details. If you didn’t create this account, get in touch with Finda and get access to update your details!

NOTE: Finda definitely used to be free. We are getting some feedback that they are now charging for changes to your details. So make sure you check first!

Does your website homepage still say ‘Merry Christmas 2011!’ complete with a Christmas bauble? Ours does too! But to be fair it is just the first month back.

So the task this week is simple. Go and edit that home page (now).
And write a nice welcome message for 2012, or better yet write something exciting and new your company is offering clients this year.

Why have I put these three in the same title you ask?
The answer is that if you own a website you should understand the relationship between them.

Tablets have been around for a very long time. Touch screen technology has been around for a very long time. The two never took off together in the market until Apple launched their insanely successful iPad and iPad 2. There are a multitude of me-too products being released, with Android or Windows Mobile operating systems on them. So far none have made much of a dent.

As mobile Internet speeds got quicker, and chips got smaller, smart phones became possible. Rather than phones, these are literally little Internet enabled computers, with speeds and capacities seen in laptops not long ago. Again lead into the market by the iconic Apple iPhone. The difference with smart phones to iPads is that other manufacturers came on board quickly with their own handsets, with the largest number of smart phones running the now dominant Android operating system.

Brands and competition aside, there are big ramifications for website owners. From my own experience, these gadgets redefine how I consume content. I’m not big on entering large amounts of content through them yet, but I now read more emails on a touch device than my laptop, check the weather, find routes and get turn by turn in the car, and constantly check on social media such as facebook. Of more interest is the fact I find most of my accommodation through my phone. I use an app to scan barcodes on items I want to price check. Last week my wife and I watched a how-to on breast feeding, on YouTube on the phone.

But of most significance of all, I search for places on the phone and tablet.

In comes Google. With so many people consuming Internet content on mobile devices, and Google’s dominance in search and mapping, you simply can’t ignore-

1) Google places listings for your business and
2) Search engine optimising your website , especially for your local geographical area. Think about dotting your city or even local suburb names into your website content.

The answer is - it depends on what you want to achieve.
The first question to ask yourself is - Am I trying to reach new customers through the search engines with my website? Or is my website primarily aimed at my existing client base, providing them with information and a contact point.
Websites should always provide credibility, a professional representation of your brand, clear contact information and clearly state what you do. But not everyone is looking to reach the far uncharted corners of the world with their site.
All Surefire Design clients receive some SEO training and our newsletters reinforce those core messages. These are the SEO things you can (and should) do yourself. Every site should have a reasonable level of optimisation to be found by existing clients and reinforced with other marketing efforts and advertisements.

If you are in a very competitive industry, and/or have a very specific market you want to reach online, its a very different story. This is when you need to know exactly what you want to optimise for. I.e. Which search phrases are the ones you really want to rank well for. Then it is a whole new level of optimisation and measurement well beyond simply writing content with keywords, meta titles and descriptions.

The trouble is, anyone can call themselves an SEO specialist. You need to know what they plan to achieve. It is particularly easy to optimise a website for key phrases that aren’t competitive, achieving rankings on page one. Likewise traffic can be artificially increased by optimising for particularly broad terms. On the face of it this can all look great. The reality is if it doesn’t translate into conversions then it is a waste of time! You need to hit your target market and increase the traffic from that group.

We don’t optimise our site for just “design” as this can cover design of anything at all. It could also get traffic from people seeking design training in many areas.

So in short, before you start thinking about optimising, or even talking to an SEO specialist, the reality is you need to know what it is your target market search for. You need to know your target market’s language. The best person to analyse and determine your target market behaviours is actually an experienced marketer.