The marketing of any website should be considered even before the site development has started.  Good design incorporating the latest ‘conversion architecture’ techniques is an essential element in its success.  But marketing does not stop when the website has been developed and launched.  To ensure continuing online success your website will need to retain a high position in results of all the major search engines, particularly Google, for all your primary keywords and keyword phrases.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) are terms used to describe the implementation of your online strategy to attain the best possible position for your website in the search engine results.

Success can be achieved quite quickly particularly if you already have, or can buy an established domain name rather than a brand new one. If all other SEO elements are equal, the search engines will always give priority to the website, or domain, that has been around the longest.

It will not always be appropriate or possible to use an established domain and a new one will have to be purchased. In time all domains will achieve a search engine ranking, but this can often take weeks or even months to accomplish.  Whilst you are waiting to give your domain the ‘credit’ and respect it deserves you can use Pay-per-Click (paid search) advertising as well as Social Media profiles and blogs to build your online credibility.

Wherever possible use your primary keyword in your domain name.  This will enable the search engines to more readily determine what topic the website content is likely to cover.  The importance of having a good and relevant domain name should not be underestimated – it is no accident that the major hardware and do –it-yourself retailer B&Q has the domain name www.diy.com!

When formulating your online marketing strategy you must focus on your target market – not just the search engines.  It will be your customers and prospects that will buy your goods and services, not the search engines. In order to second guess what your customers want you need to be absolutely certain about:

• who your target market is
• what interests them
• what information will they need
• when will they be ready to buy
• what age group are they
• what is important to them
• where are they located.

Understanding your target market and their preferences requires an investment of time on your part, but you will find it worthwhile.

The search engines use the keywords included within the page content of your website as part of the algorithm they use to ‘rank’ your website pages.  It is important to understand that the search engines do not rank websites, they rank web pages.  Each page in your website should be unique, you must avoid duplicate content and ensure that each page has a unique page title, page header, meta description etc.  By selecting the most appropriate keywords and keyword phrases for your web pages and making sure these phrases are repeated a few times within the page content   you will be well on the way to having a website which appeals to both your customers and the search engines. Keyword research is essential and something that should be done by  search engine marketing professionals such as WSIIMS – WSI Digital Marketing Services in Surrey, Sussex, Kent & the South East of England