What you need to know beforehand: Websites, SEO & Search Marketing

Confused about the functional roles of website design & development, website maintenance, SEO & search marketing in general? You're not alone. Yet, few budgetary line items have more impact on marketing ROI. For visitors & prospects a website is the company and visa versa: a company is the sum of its Internet marketing. Online exposure in all forms is what defines a B to B company for its customers, prospects, and other business contacts.

So let's manage expectations for both developers and site owners with a review of basic industry questions and definitions. It's a good, self fulfilling prophecy that when all stakeholder start on the same page we've taken the first step toward making practical & cost-effective Internet marketing production and maintenance choices.

What's included in website design? - Website Design encompasses the overall look and feel of a website, from the home page to inside screens. Design is fun, but because all websites are interactive to some degree, web design must also include the site visiter's interface with all aspects of the site, including structure.

So, website design, and user interface design in particular, requires a unique combination of graphic arts creativity, left brain logic, and a grounding in current technologies. Impossible in a single talent? Because devices, technology and standards continue to advance at light speed, interdisciplinary teams are more the norm than an exception.

A website design specification that outlines project scope with clearly defined deliverables will help manage expectations for a new or upgraded website.  Note: even in the design phase, development functionality (discussed below) may be addressed in general sense.

What's included in website development? - Another name for Website Development could be website production because it includes whatever it takes to make the approved website design a functional reality. This phase requires an intense focus on how everything in a website is to work and the information that will be conveyed to site visitors in every screen. This may include:

• Setting up or migrating Domain Name & hosting account
• Creating or purchasing illustrations, graphics, professional photography
• Creating or adapting written content
• Creating animations, videos & other multi-media
• Building an Administrator Dashboard
• Template setup/coding to design specifications
• Populating new site with content
• Functionality scripting, coding
• Integration with CRM & other databases
• Integration with eCommerce financial systems
• Beta website functional review, debug, revisions
• Final website roll-out

Website maintenance - Even a "brochure-ware" website is not a set it and forget it proposition. Not only do freshened websites garner more Search Engine ranking points, but an updated website is a marketing asset. Creating and refreshing content is a big deal.

SEO (search engine optimizing) is the process of optimizing a website so that it may rise to a top result in a Google, Yahoo, Bing search. When querying a search engine both natural (organic) and paid advertising listings are displayed in select areas within 100's or 1,000's of result pages. Search engines have special algorithms to ensure the most meaningful listings for a given search string are given top priority. This applies to both natural and paid listings

Optimizing a website to enhance a website's status in a natural search result is the sole focus of SEO, and requires yet another area of expertise. SEO has evolved from a combination of tricks and value-add practices to solely value-add content and link practices to warrant a priority rank. Today, search engine optimizing a website requires an initial setup with ongoing SEO only required to the extent keyword focus may change.

Search Marketing (or Internet Marketing) is an all-encompassing discipline that includes whatever it takes to promote a website in the context of a marketing search. Traditionally, Search Marketing was more narrowly focused Adword or "click" advertising and SEO efforts. But today, a marketer may use a wide variety of inbound or outbound strategic tools to enhance website and company exposure:

• Websites
• Landing Pages
• SEO
• Adword or "click" advertising
• Banner advertising
• Direct Mailing or ePromotions
• PR & Content Marketing
• Analytical Tools

Each of these tools may be employed individually or in some combination in an integrated marketing effort. 

For more information on agency services for website development & hosting call me at 770-664-9322, or visit http://www.ejwassoc.com/what-we-do/web-design-development/

The Dirty Little Secret of SEO

SEO is not a one shot deal. It's not a magic wand. What's more, it can ZAP marketing resources better applied elsewhere to boost sales. Optimizing a web site for high search rankings (Search Engine Optimizing) can be a slow and steady effort over time, or major investment up front with ongoing maintenance to match. Regardless, SEO as a marketing budget line-item must be cost-justified based on traditional marketing parameters, including its role in contributing to customer value.

Because SEO demands so many unique skill sets, in-house SEO is rife with just as many management and execution challenges as an out-sourced solution. SEO demands industry, product and sales knowledge coupled with writing, website development, and marketing management expertise.

Just like in brick-and-mortar retail, not every business can cost-justify the overhead of a prime real estate location. If not justified and held accountable like any other marketing project, SEO can become the proverbial bottomless money pit for B2B marketers.

Yet, because every business has clamored for first page search visibility ever since top management twigged to the idea that a website really can effect sales, SEO companies have sprouted like mushrooms with some very slick salesmanship - eager to match expectations with acronym-laced rhetoric and a hefty contract.

Alas, after signing and the honeymoon ends three months into a Search Engine Optimizing contract, many marketers are left wondering just what they got after lots of boilerplate SEO reports, to-do lists that never get done, and account reps that call less and less frequently. When will the magic kick in?

Or, on the other hand, an SEO project plays out the proverbial "be careful what you ask for" scenario. The SEO provider is successful in gaining top ranking for the client, but site visitors are not converting, leaving the marketer to play catchup while would-be customers and costly sales leads vanish.

So, how badly do we need yet another marketing tool like SEO?

A subset of the general category of search marketing, SEO demands a healthy investment in time and/or expense to achieve a reasonable return on investment. Place SEO in perspective before initiating a search optimizing program. Treat SEO as just one more arrow in the marketing lead-generating quiver that includes:

• Search Engine Optimizing

• Adword or "Click" advertising

• Direct marketing e-Promotions

• Integration with traditional advertising, PR, events, and other sales and marketing promotions

Planned properly within the scope of an overall marketing program, the right dose of SEO at the right time will yield a respectable ROI. An independent marketing services company that combines SEO, business marketing experience, and relevant industry expertise can ensure all pieces of a marketing puzzle come together. On the other hand, highly specialized SEO companies exist solely to get more eyeballs on a client site. Never mind that your site may be ill-equipped to handle new-found visitors, capture relevant visitor information, track traffic patterns, or otherwise encourage visitors to raise their hands and identify themselves as sales prospects.

How much SEO should you be doing?

As with any lead generating program, budget as much SEO as you can realistically handle. By that I mean working a plan, developing a conversion process, tracking and measuring against a target ROI. eCcommerce sites can clearly benefit from higher volumes of high quality traffic from both natural and pay per click campaigns. B2B sites without a direct ordering mechanism or other clarion call to action may have a harder time cost-justifying the resources required for an SEO program that consumes more than its fair share of a marketing lead generation budget.

The really big question comes back to your choices for implementing SEO. Realize that even legitimate third parties committed to providing the best SEO services will inevitably require more than your cash to make their services work for you. Improving a site's natural ranking with the major search engines (at this time these include Google, Yahoo and MSN) requires just three major things of your web site:

• Tons of relevant, keyword-rich content

• Lots of relevant links to your site (popularity)

• Easy to follow site structure with relevant naming conventions

In other words, even when outsourcing be prepared to do more than write a check when it comes to both content and link-building especially if you are a manufacturer, technology products/service company, financial services provider, or other industrial company. B2B marketing departments will be tasked with developing much of the new site content, regardless of who does the final SEO. For SMB (small to medium business) marketers on a limited budget, the following proves to be cost-effective SEO choices:

• Moderate investment in a site upgrade that includes SEO best practices coding.
• 
Regular site content additions that improve a site's worth to prospects and customers.

• Ongoing research and registration on important industry directory sites.
• Well-planned click advertising campaign.
• Integration of existing PR, article and lead generation programs into your website.

• Add site analytics that work across all search engines - study what’s working and what is not.

• Add staff capabilities as appropriate to handle one or more of the diverse components required for SEO.

Remember to fulfill the promise

Does your existing website separate curious visitors from sales prospects?
A business website can be both a destination to fulfill market information needs, and a revenue-generating tool. Its marketing function is to service existing customers and encourage new ones. Number one: it must "fulfill the promise" that drove the visitor to it in the first place. Just as your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) draws prospects, your site must work to inspire qualified visitor interaction. SEO is important, but the marketer must first get his marketing house in order.

EJW Associates offers powerful marketing solutions