In a previous post, I highlighted 6 things anyone can do to optimize their website.  This post got a great response, so I thought I’d go into a bit more detail about why it is so important.

Make a start, don’t delay, avoid website gangrene!

If your website hasn’t been designed with search engines in mind, it will suffer from an illness that will slowly kill off your site’s ability to gain a reasonable level of search engine visibility.  Whilst your website is suffering, another organization will come along and steal your search engine ranking, steal potential customers and leave your site hobbled for conversions.

The arena continues to get increasingly competitive and as you’re hindered by a poorly optimized site, it will become harder and harder to compete.  The illness induced by poor website optimization can spread quickly but it can be cured.

Optimization is an investment

A successful website optimization project actually can make money for the site, and it will often add up to more than is spent over the course of a year. If you don’t invest, your competitors will.

The longer you leave it, the further behind you’ll get.

You should view search engine visibility as a bit of a race.  With that in mind, if you are the last to start then you’re at an immediate disadvantage.  Start your website optimization effort as soon as possible.  If you haven’t, you’ve already got a pretty large but not insurmountable hill to climb in front of you.

In the current recession, we are currently witnessing a push for our website optimization services as businesses have to use every opportunity to their advantage.  Most businesses we speak to know what website optimization can offer, but, in the uncertain financial environment, are hesitant to commit.

Remember that the longer you wait, the harder and more expensive it becomes to catch up. There’s no more time for excuses. The time for website optimization is now.

Do you need our help? We specialise in website optimisation for small to medium sized businesses and have a proven track record of success.

Contact us today.

Do you use Twitter?  Initially, the thought of recording every minutiae of your life over a series of posts, under 140 characters a pop and following others doing the same, seemed like one of the biggest wastes of time around.

Twitter is after all, just a communication tool in much the same way as the telegram, fax and mobile phone were before it.  Like it’s forebears, it is after all,  just a tool that lets one person connect with another.

Twitter for business

Here’s a quick list of Twitter uses that could be applied a variety of businesses.

• A restaurant tweets their daily specials
• A concert booking agency tweets about-to-expire tickets
• An estate agent tweets new homes on the market
• A specialist car dealer could list latest additions to his showroom
• A personal finance specialist could tweet about relevant blog postings and financial developments.
• A voluntary organisation tweets about upcoming events and promotions.
• An IT company could use Twitter as a customer service portal

Twitter for business / Twitter for fun

As with blogging, it’s important you develop your own tone when using Twitter.  Think about who your audience is and what you want to convey.  It’s pretty easy to blur the lines between using it for fun and using it for business.

In some cases, it may be better to establish separate Twitter accounts for business and pleasure.  How seriously would you take an estate agent on a Monday morning if you could read one of his posts from 12 hours previously where he talks about sinking his tenth pint of lager?

Me? I’ve not quite decided how I want to use Twitter.  You can view my Twitter account here.  I tend to use it to follow others in the industries I am interested in – it’s great for getting new ideas and differing views on how to do things.  I do tend to post tweets but as you’ll see they are of a pretty random vintage and I only really use Twitter in a business sense to draw attention to updates to this website and blog. That’s not to say we’ve not been dissecting it pretty thoroughly and working out how best to use Twitter in business.  We’ve also been developing some pretty nifty Twitter applications that integrate nicely with ubiCMS, our own fully-featured content management system.

I expect this to change at some point in the future, but for now it feels right.

How do you use Twitter for business?

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This doesn’t really mean anything – let’s just say I’m testing out some search engine stuff.

We’ve been doing quite a lot of this recently, in a bid to make the service we provide even more comprehensive.  As mentioned on the Ubisan Management website, we prefer to call what we do “Site Optimisation” rather than search engine optimisation.

As search algorithms change, so does the way we do things.

Despite the recession and favorable weather we’re having this summer, online sales are still on the increase meaning that more and more consumers are enjoying the speed and convenience that shopping online provides.   Selling your products online is not without it’s challenges but if it’s done properly, the benefits can be substantial.

We are often approached by clients who are interested in selling items online but just don’t know where to start or go about it.   Part of the process of providing clients with e-commerce systems that are right for them is getting the client to think clearly about what they are trying to achieve.  This list is by no means definitive, but should be enough to get you thinking.

1. How many products do you intend to sell online and will there be many variations?
   Think about product categories, sizes, colours and how much information and imagery you have for each product.
2. Which locations will you be delivering to and which currencies will you accept?
   Whilst this may increase your potential market size can you really afford to accept alternative currencies when the exchange rate is so poor.  You may also need to assess the competition from rival stores in the territories you wish to sell in.
3. Will you require your e-commerce system to be linked to any other in-house systems?
   We like to think that the e-commerce systems we create will not only generate income but actually increase profit margins by acting as a labour saving device.  Do you have any internal stock control or accounting systems that could be integrated into your online shop admin area?
4. How will you take payments?
   Our e-commerce systems can be linked to practically any payment network from web-based solutions such as Google Checkouts and Paypal, to external services such as a branded Worldpay payment page.  Alternatively, you may already be set up with an online Merchant ID and a secure payment provider so that users do not leave your site to process an online payment.
5. How strong is your company’s branding and logos?
   It goes without saying that the internet is a highly visual medium and if you want to create as strong impression as possible with potential customers this area needs to be addressed properly.
6. How will you generate sales?
   This is a key question and one that is often overlooked.  Whilst more and more potential customers are choosing to shop online, it may be that your products are already available via existing online sources.  The standard rules of ‘physical’ retail apply just as heavily within the online retail environment.   You must think about how you are going to advertise your products so that potential customers visit your site.

   Blogging, Twitter, link building, Google Adwords….all of these and more may need to be in the mix and they all take up valuable time. Have you got the time or the resource to commit to it?

So there I was mucking around with straplines on the Ubisan Management website.

A strapline can be an important ‘first impression’ element for your website.  If a potential client has located you through a search engine and they’ve hit upon your site, the strapline can be the first line of “attack” when you’re trying to lure them in and can make all the difference between them getting past your homepage or bouncing elsewhere.

So, “Creating stronger businesses through better web design” is where it’s at for Ubisan Management….we think this is a fairly strong and coherent message and puts across what we feel is our main selling point in just one sentence.

If you’re thinking about straplines for your business, try to keep it succinct, captivating and above all something you can easily back up or demonstrate to site visitors and prospective clients.

Ultimately, the success of your online business is determined by the visibility of your website.

If people aren’t finding your website then you can’t expect to increase your customer base or bottom line.  It’s simply no use having a website that’s barely managing to tread water on the search engine visibility stakes – you want it to stand out.

Driving traffic to your website should be one of your top priorities – to that end, you should be considering various tactics that will encourage and inflame browsers interest and direct them to your homepage.

Driving traffic to your site and generating strong content go hand in hand.   Using ubiCMS, our own fully-featured, high quality content management system, you can keep your website up to date with interesting, engaging and authoratitive content from any computer with an internet connection.

Combining ubiCMS with our expertise, you can pretty soon have a site that’s not only fully optimised for search but also full of relevant content and complimentary imagery.

Another key approach toward creating an authoritative website is to discover a niche that you are knowledgeable about and then start blogging about it.  ubiCMS comes fully loaded with it’s own blogging engine or can work seamlessly with any third party open source blogging software and can prove to be a cost effective method of extending your reach and gaining a wider audience with increased sales potential.

There are no magic bullets – just a concerted, consistent and ongoing effort….it almost always pays off though.

Would you like us to help?