SEO

Advice: Search Engine Optimisation 101

September 22, 2008

Search engine *what*? Yes, yes, sorry if I use too many ‘big words’ this month, but for a lot of businesses, ‘optimising’ your site so that it appears higher in the big search engines is well worth the effort.

So, up front: what is search engine optimisation?

SEO (*much* easier to write than ’search engine optimisation’) is the process of preparing your web site so that it ranks higher on the search results page of a search engine. The aim is to be seen before your competition – and even though it may or may not result in more clicks through to your web site, at least you were *found* – from that position, you can work on ways to increase your conversion/click-through rate. If you consider the reverse position, where your web site does not feature at all for a given search, then trivial things like your conversion rate won’t matter at all if no-one can find you.

So how the heck to we make sure our site is featured prominently for any given search? And how do I make sure my site is listed before my competitor’s site?

Well, I’m glad you asked. Read on…

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Folio: How Bazaar Antiques

March 10, 2008

How Bazaar Antiques is a large warehouse full of wonderful and truly bizarre antiques and collectables. Packed to the rafters with all manner of furniture, garagenalia and valuable antiques, How Bazaar is literally overflowing with many tens of thousands of precious items.

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Advice: The Wonders of Web Site Statistics

February 20, 2008

Marketing is vital for any business – it’s simply the act of getting your name out there in a controlled and positive way. Nine times out of ten, though, marketing is almost impossible to measure: apart from focus groups, surveys and TV ratings, any effort you spend on marketing tends to pay off as a rather long term positive ‘aura’ surrounding your business. It’s all a bit ‘woofy’, but it does add up eventually.

Enter web site statistics: whether you have a tiny one-page ‘contact me’ web site, or a small brochure online, or a larger ecommerce or content-based web site, every person that visits your web site leaves their own individual, indelible mark.

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Advice: Googling 101: How to get better results from your Google Searches.

November 19, 2007

Just like getting to know your way around your local library, you really have to get to know Google if you want to find things faster and easier – the good news is that there are many tips, tricks and techniques to getting the most out of searching for things on the internet – so sit back, and I’ll show you some of the best ones.

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