Visibility, visibility, visibility – more than ever, our own clients, and the market as a whole, work to improve their search engine ranking in order to raise their site visibility, and get the sales they need.

As part of this, as shown in Section (2), they are shifting their ad budgets from traditional media (where spend is actually declining) to web marketing, especially on search engine marketing via companies like us, to get that precious visibility. I hope you find something on this issue to help your own business make progress down that road.

1. NET ISSUES

“I find all this stuff about links, and reciprocal links, baffling – what should I do”

The concept is simple – the search engines, especially Google, judge that if no sites out there are recommending yours ie by linking to you, then your site can’t be of great value.

However, although the concept is simple, the following tips may help to apply it.

Exchanging Links

They are worth pursuing but the key is to know your own page rank - generally don’t exchange links with sites with page ranks below your own. Plus:

• check the Page Rank of the actual page on which the link to your site will appear – not just the Home page of the other site
• it is best to link with sites whose activities relate closely to your own
• check – without fail – that the other site has definitely put on the link to you.
  

Use Directories

If the url of your site appears in a web directory, that constitutes a link back to your site. It really mirrors the process of the pre-web world, ie good companies would be listed in relevant directories. Remember the following though: 

• when it gets harder to find good, free directories, check out the paid directories carefully – some can be good value
• well structured directories are best, ie with good Page Ranks both on their Home page and the Links page where your link will appear
• it's best if they don’t have too many sites on their link page – below 25 is best
• keep a spreadsheet to record renewal dates for paid directories.

Don’t be over ambitious – managing your time is key

• we can tell you the links held by companies on page one of the search engine results to help set your target
• a programme to add links steadily each month, will deliver good results over time.
  

Article-based links can be good value

There are sites/portals in most sectors which like to feature knowledge-based articles to enrich their content.

• if you provide them with an article, they will give you a link back in return
• preparing the article can take time, but once written, it can be submitted to a number of sites and gain links from each.

Use Professional help

We have access to tools to help find Directories and standalone sites with the Page Rank needed

A useful strategy is to use a mix of professional help from NCS, and your own time:

• we can help define the best mix of links for you, and number and quality needed
• we identify either possible reciprocal link partners, or suitable directories – we can also complete the Directory submissions where needed.

With this initial platform in place, and the knowledge gained, you can then build your link volumes over time.

There is more information on our site on search engines work – just click here to read one of the articles, or contact us for help in building your links.

2. NET HAPPENINGS

News, themes and trends from the Internet – home and abroad

Technology enablers still developing strongly…………….…………..……………

Text messaging - volumes are still growing strongly. In Mar 2007 volumes reached a record monthly total of 4.4 billion for March – up 25% on Mar 2006. (mda-org)

Broadband – UK has now overtaken the USA, ie 47.4% of UK households now have broadband access, compared to 43.9% in the USA – in 2002, three times as many US households had broadband as in the UK. (nytimes.com)

Internet usage – usage is growing by c10% worldwide, the highest growth countries being India, Russia, China where growth is 33%, 21% and 22% respectively. (comscore.com/nma.co.uk)

Mobile web use – over 20% of mobile phone users use their mobile phone to access the web, ie 15.52m people accessed the web in this way during Mar 2007. (Text.it)

Web Usage – around 80% of 12-14 year olds now go online every day, for email, instant messaging, downloading music and shopping. (Forrester/nma.co.uk)

Online Shopping Update - UK figures showing strong growth……………….….

• In QI 2007 Sales period, online sales recorded a growth of 62% in the sale of major domestic appliances. Internet retailing will reach 15% of total retail sales (all sectors) by the end of 2007. (Internetretailing.net) 
• UK Retail spend is currently forecast to exceed £20bn by 2010

Internet Promotion – continued shift away from traditional media…………...

• Advertising - Online advertising spend grew at 40% last year – by contrast, traditional advertising showed a reduction of 1.9%. (iabuk.net) 
• Similarly, spend on online classified ads increased by 45%, whilst press classifieds showed a 7.8% decline. (nma.co.uk) 
• We have extensive experience in Pay Per Click – the most prominent web promotion option - click here to learn more about how it works.
  
  

3. NET TIPS

Some hints you could consider

“Long tail” keywords work best – longer keyword phrases, are usually better than single keywords – they help to attract users who want exactly the service/goods you offer. We have clear examples where visitor volumes have remained the same, but sales have gone up markedly, by refining keywords in this way.

Put a search box on your site – 96% of e-commerce sites are likely to have a search box on their site in the next 24 months. (Aberdeen.com) As you would expect, all the evidence says it increase sales – please contact us if your site needs one.

4. NCS FOCUS

News and services from NCS that might help

Fulfillment – some clients have found it a challenge to fulfill sales when sales volumes have been growing sharply. In fact there are specialist fulfillment houses with real expertise, and in case of need we would be happy to help select a fulfillment partner for you.

Company Information – Companies House advised earlier this year that “all companies must show on their website, their place of registration, their registered number, and their registered office address” – please let us know if these details need to be added.

5. NET NOTHINGS

You probably already know that:

Women like to shop - actually, young women are now the largest group of web users in the UK, with women between 18-34 making up 21% of all time spent online in the UK. (Nielsen-netratings.com)

Google are big – in fact in Q1 2007 it handled three times as many searches as its closest competitor, Yahoo. In order of volumes handled, the top 5 engines are currently, Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL and Ask. (netrating.com)

Developments in web marketing, site design, and web services  

Social Networking and Mobile web use remain the two liveliest
issues in Web marketing currently - good use of both is a platform for getting better value from your site.  In the next issue, we give an action check list on Social Networking, so this month we lead on Mobile web use – I hope the article and the rest of the content help you win more users for your site.

1 NET ISSUES
Significant issues that could impact on your website approach

Using Mobile access to bring more visitors to your site

Use this approach to increase your site traffic through Mobile web access:

a) Scale of web usage - using mobiles to access the web has stepped up sharply over the past year  - according to Scoot UK, web traffic from mobile devices increased by over 4000% in the last 18 months.  Apple hold by far the greatest share of this - their devices now handle more than 70% of mobile traffic on the web.

Even a year ago nearly 70% of i–phone users visited web sites via their phone on a daily basis.

b) Most popular uses - the most popular use of mobiles on the web is for email (59% of users); news headlines (46%) and social networking (41%)

c) Web brands – the most popular web brands were Google (55%); Facebook (42%); BBCNews  (40%); E-bay (30%) and  YouTube (77%)

d) Trends - Gartner reported in May that, worldwide, smart-phone sales increased by 85% year-on-year, so web usage trend seems likely to continue growing.

Clearly website owners should consider carefully the extent of the need to tailor their sites to suit mobile phone visitors, and how best to do this.

e) Our Approach - NCS assesses the degree of mobile relevance for all sites we develop, especially potentially high usage sites, e.g. information only sites, forums, social networking,  sites addressing young user market.

Lower priority sites e.g. within certain industrial/commercial sectors will be identified also with, typically, a different technical solution being offered.  Optimal domain usage, i.e. whether .mobi is best option, or whether non mobile domains will be adequate, are considered also.

f) Technical solutions - the optimal technical solution will be considered, e.g. for simple sites– the existing web site will often suffice for majority of mobile phones, with minimal content change needed, and .mobi use not needed.

For complex sites, e.g. for mobile-relevant sites with high content levels, (e.g. offering a wide range of products) a .mobi domain may be appropriate; the text content may need simplification; use of the flash/javascript content of existing site may need removing and image formats may need changing.

We will consider with clients the optimal level of search spend, once the site is up, to achieve the necessary level of visibility for the site.

g) Cost - the cost of specifying and developing fully mobile-friendly sites depends on the profile of individual sites.  In some instances an effective solution can be delivered for minimal additional cost, as all requirements can be incorporated within the basic site specification.

In other cases it may be necessary to radically tailor the site content for mobile visitors - effectively a separate, mobile - orientated site is needed, although it can detect the mobile device and serve up a different set of pages suitable to them.

Under all options we closely tailor the price to reflect the work needed, with maximum re-use of existing content.

2. NET HAPPENINGS
News, themes and trends from the Internet – home and abroad

Mobile web usage - UK web traffic from mobile devices has increased by over 4000% in the last 18 months.  Apple hold by far the greatest share of this - their devices now handling more than 70% of all mobile traffic (scoot.co.uk).
                                               
Social Networking - Facebook remains dominant – in the US 50% of the population is now on Facebook (Dreamgrow.com) – followed by YouTube and Twitter.
 
Online Shopping Update  - UK online shopping is growing at 18% pa – the UK is Europe’s leading e-retail economy, with online sales likely to reach c£75bn in 2011 (imrg.org).  By contrast, overall retail sales have actually shown falls in recent months.

Internet Promotion – double digit growth in online advertising spend is expected in 2011 – being driven by higher social media use, video, and display advertising.  Paid search and mobile show strong growth also (nma.co.uk).

3. NET TIPS
Some hints you could consider

Use correct anchor text  - when you put links to pages on your site, use terms for the clickable link which are the terms people will use when searching in a Search Engine for that activity. e.g. if you are a golf equipment e-tailer, and want to link to your new products page, don’t use “our new products” for the link, but describe the page more specifically, for example, “latest golf hybrids and drivers” – Search Engines attach far greater weight to specific terms like these.

Having said this, it is also important to vary the anchor text in your links – so don’t put the same text in all your links.

Get a long tail – long tail keywords are those which have several words, not a single word as the search term. Recent research (axandra.com) has highlighted that long tail keywords are much more likely to result in a sale than more general ones and often have less competition from other sites.

Thus, you will get both better conversion rates and more visitors if you focus on long tail keywords, rather than a single word, for your keyword.

Get on top  - research (optify.net/axandra.com) has confirmed that if you get to the top positions on page 1 of Google, you not only get more clicks (the top 3 get 60% of the clicks), but you get a higher click through rate. Optify conclude that if you you double your site promotion spend to get to from 2nd position to 1st, you might triple your visits for that keyword.

NCS has 10 years experience in Search Engine marketing, so please contact us  if you need help with this.

Think Firefox – the lastest Statcounter browsers statistics show that by May, Firefox held a share of 42% of browser usage -  Internet Explorer was below 25% with Google Chrome increasing to nearly 26%. Clearly, Web owners need to check that their sites operate effectively with each of these browsers.

4. NCS FOCUS
News and services from NCS that might help

New Sites – we have launched a number of sites since the last newsletter – just visit our News Release page for a sample or click on our Portfolio page to see a much wider selection of our work.

Content Development -  Google are reducing the rankings of shallow content sites, ie sites with minimal content. So be wary of relying on a minimal, passive, brochure site, to gain the search engine ranking you need. We have massive experience developing content for sites across a wide range of sectors – just approach us if you think your content needs enhancing.