Why people like music in the background?
I don’t know? I would love to know who truly enjoys music in the background of a website. Specially the one you can’t turn off. Are there any people there? Does any website owner tested version with and without music in the background and find out that the one with the music in background works better? Does people spend more time and buy more because of music?
Here is an example of a website additude.com.au. They are digital agency. I wonder if they ever thought why Facebook and Twitter does not have a flash with music. May be it works better with music, I would love to know.
Please share your thoughts in comments.
Top Australian companies and their SEO
I recently read an article stating that some top Australian companies are not doing very well with their Google ranking. I have had a look on some of the companies mentioned in the article and have found out that this statement seems to be true. I was quite surprised! Multimillion dollar companies obviously don’t do enough SEO.
This is great news for small businesses because search engine optimization can be done by anyone, even companies with small online marketing budgets. In the ever expanding online world it does not matter how big your company is, it only matters how good you are with online marketing.
Let’s look at Telstra as an example. Telstra is definitely one of the biggest companies in Australia. You would think Telstra should rank quite well for keywords such as “phone” and “phones”. They don’t rank at all! Well, not on the first page in the top ten search results! First is crazyjohns, followed by vodafone and phonechoice. Good on them.
There are many big Australian companies who are behind the eight ball in regards to search engine optimisation. This leaves the door wide open for smaller companies to take advantage of this situation and allows them promote their companies and products to potential online customers.
What Google wants?
If you expect to find an easy solution or a golden ticket on an express train to the top position in Google you can stop reading right now. Your best option is to find some SEO company who has a first position guarantee (just be cautious, these companies might do more harm than good).
Firstly, you must think about Google as a business. What do businesses generally try to do? They want to have happy customers who will keep spending money. 99% percent of Google income comes from advertising (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google). The only way to continue generating income from advertising is to keep people interested in search, gmail and other services. Of course search is the most important part. The only way to keep visitors returning to Google is to provide great service.
What is great service?
Great service is when you search for something on Google and it provides the results you are looking for. That’s why Google don’t like website owners who try to scam Google into making their pages more important. Google is and will keep fighting websites who try unnaturally to improve their ranking on Google. Google wants to present websites with the best information for your search term. Cutting it short, Google cares about people who are using their service.
What can you do?
Firstly make sure you are not trying to cheat your way to the top of Google. (I will write an article about how to find a good SEO company in future).
Secondly try to provide as much good information to your audience as you can. It will help your clients and improvement in your Google ranking will follow.
Have you ever heard the saying “Content is the king”? It is true, quality content should be the top priority when creating and running your website.
I recommend everyone who is interested in Google to visit Matt Cutts webpage. Matt Cutts is the head of the Web Spam team in Google.
The market is so huge
I have heard that phrase many times. People think about the size of the market before they start a business. It is usually the winning argument for starting a business. The market is there, it is so big, and there is so much money to make. There are lots of huge markets out there such as food, finance, car manufacturing and many more. It makes sense to go to for the big market right? As you have probably guessed I am not going to agree with this statement. Well I do agree, but there are few catches with this argument.
Fast food market
The fast food market is definitely one of the big markets in Australia and it seems to be growing. Is it a good idea to open up a hamburger shop? One obvious problem is there are loads of hamburger shops not to mentioned McDonald’s and Hungry Jacks. The point is even when is market is huge, can you successfully reach it and market to it? Unless you have something very different for your customers there is no point opening up a take away shop next to McDonald’s and selling hamburgers for two dollars.
How does it relate to the online market?
It is a quite a similar situation. Let’s look at an example of personal loans. The market is huge and there are millions of loans made in Australia every year. How do people look for a loan? Online of course. 673,000 people searched for “personal loan” on Google last month, that is over 8 millions searches in a year. But how hard is it to get applications? Very hard, your website has to be on the first page of Google for personal loan related keywords. If you don’t beat the 10 websites listed of the first page of Google you don’t get many applications. And you can bet your bottom dollar that the big 4 banks are going to appear on that first page.
If you think the market is huge, think again and research if it is possible to get customers. You can always go for a niche market or offer a remarkable product or service.
Who are you designing your website for?
I wonder how many business owners who need/or have a website asks that question. himself.
At first glance the answer seems quite obvious. If you are a business owner you want to have a website that you like. Maybe with a flash, music in the background, a few popups which visitors can’t ignore and have a great picture which people can’t miss. Surely these are important elements of every website. It must work because you like it, right?
I don’t think so! It is not a rocket science and answer is quite obvious. You are creating a website for your clients. Clients are the people who should be happy with your website. A successful website is the one which sells a product, create leads, spreads an important message. If the website does not help people to buy a product, subscribe to your newsletter or convey a message, it does not work.
Here are some questions to ask yourself or your web designer:
Does this fancy looking flash help my clients?
Or does it slow the website, make clients install a plugin, make them leave and never come back?
How does this picture help the website? Do you need it?
Do images help Google to read my website better?
Does having 150 questions in my application form encourage people to fill it out?
Does the popup banner make people stay on my website or leave?
Does … The list can go on…
Do you have any question or comments? Maybe you don’t agree? Leave a comment.