<< Back to articles
(Article first published in July '09. It has been modified slightly to suit its publication on our site)
A lot of business owners are falling foul of a misconception that leaves them with a great looking website that nobody can find. Imagine spending €1,000 or more on a website in the hopes of having lots of potential customers find it, only to discover that nobody even knows it exists?
Unfortunately this is what I am seeing more and more. During most of the free consultations I provide I have to tell business owners that their website may look nice, but will never be found by anyone doing a Google search.
Why Is My Website Not Shown In Google?
So why is this happening to so many businesses? Very simple, there's a difference between website design and web visibility. We have outlined SEO (search engine optimisation) in a previous article, but to recap: SEO is the approach of matching your website to a number of specific search terms as closely as possible, so that the search engines then show a description of your site and link to it in the results pages. In simple terms, the better the SEO job, the higher your listing appears in the organic listings in Google, although there are other factors that can complicate things a lot.
SEO is a complex and specialist area and the web company needs to understand how to optimise the design itself, the code of the site and the visible content, including the text and all images. Then there are what we call the 'off-page' factors that can help ranking, including links back into your website from other websites.
Why Didn't My Web Design Company Tell Me All This?
I hear this question a lot when I tell disappointed business owners that their website will never generate any sales for them through the search engine results. The answer is simple; they chose a web design company rather than a web marketing company. A web design company can deliver great looking websites whereas a web marketing company can deliver a great looking website that can also be found and help to sell your products or services.
What Can I Do About It?
If you are planning a new website then you simply make sure you choose a web company that understands web marketing and SEO. Like everything though, there is a 'BUT'. If you decide to choose a cheap website option or you choose a web design company that offers the cheapest prices, you will end up with a site that cannot be found. Creating a website that can be found by search engines takes a lot more time and effort and so by definition is more expensive and a typically well optimised website can cost from €3,000 up (depending on the number of pages and the functionality of the site).
If you have a website that is lost in cyberspace, then you will need to have it optimised. In some cases, this is a relatively simple, but lengthy, process, which can deliver amazing results. In others however the original site needs to be scrapped and an optimised site built from scratch. This obviously puts a lot of people off, but the alternative is a website that just doesn't work!
In summary, a well designed and optimised website can make a huge difference to your business and you literally cannot put a price on success, so before you create your website, choose your web company carefully and make sure they truly understand web marketing and SEO. Talk to a lot of companies and make sure they can explain their SEO plans for your business is a way that you can understand.
Franco De Bonis has worked in the field of sales and marketing promotion since 1990 and was most recently the global marketing manager for a major international technology company before setting up DG Group in January 2007.
DG Group is dedicated to delivering all the marketing solutions any company may require. Whether it's a website or leaflets and brochures, or even some product packaging; DG Group will manage the whole project and even provide guidance along the way.
The content in this section is the original creation of DG Group and is protected by copyright. You may use this content on your site or in other materials providing you acknowledge DG Group as the author and include a link our site.
|
|
