JC Services Technology Viewpoints News Feed

Article By Richard Jerothe

It is getting more and more difficult these days to ignore the allure of the internet. In both my business and personal life, access to the World Wide Web is not just a “nice to have” it has become a necessity.  From helping my wife cheat on crossword puzzles to educating myself on certain topics, to buying products or services it is hard to think of life without it.  If you are about to establish a web presence –or- you have a website running there is one important fact you need to consider.  With millions of websites out there and more on the way, It is more critical than ever to consider how people will actually find your site and ultimately your information, product or service. 

Because of the explosive use of the internet, most organizations today have made the leap in getting a website up and running.   If you haven’t done so, there are literally thousands of consultants and web development companies (like JC Services) out there that can help to accomplish this task for you.   If you're more of a do-it yourselfer, with a little research and some shopping around,  you can even get one underway with minimal knowledge of website design. Hosting services like CrystalTech have made it very simple to establish a website and get you underway quickly and cheaply.

Regardless if your site is up and running or if you’re still shopping around for one, it’s important to remember the simple fact that customers will need to find your website.  That process of effectively finding your site and ultimately your product or service doesn’t just happen magically.  You need to plan for it.

Chances are that in order to locate something on the Internet people are going to do one of two things. The Internet veterans might just go ahead and type a website URL into their browser and see what comes up.  As a matter of fact, there is a very high percentage of “direct URL” usage on the internet today. That is why it’s important to have a half way decent domain name for your website.  On the other hand, the internet neophytes among us are going to use one of the popular search engines to locate the products or services we are looking for. I’m sure you have used one of the search engines and as you know, it sometimes can be a bit daunting when it returns thousands of websites depending what Keyword you used. The underlying issue here is that most people searching for product or services rarely go past the first few pages of search results.  Because of this action, if you are not being seen first on the search engines results, your site can be little more than a glorified business card and chances are you're not the one people will call first. It's that simple.

The process of aiding your site into a better ranking on search results is called Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO is more of a service you buy rather than a particular product. SEO is the process in which a website is enhanced to make sure it’s search engine friendly thus helping to increase its ranking on engines such as Google or MSN. Now before you go searching for more information about SEO, I’ll warn you now… If you simply enter SEO into Google it will return over 253 million hits (or for the math challenged, just over 25 million pages). Now this pales in comparison to typing the keyword “sex” (comparing in at a hefty 857 million hits) but SEO is still a formidable and very overwhelming topic.

Getting your website discovered by search engines and increasing its exposure should be your number one priority, but I would suggest that SEO alone is not the answer. Effective websites don’t get high on the rankings by simply following a prescribed SEO process; they get there because they have a well rounded website marketing strategy.  If you want to increase your exposure on the web, then you need to consider a website marketing plan that is all encompassing. This should not only include the SEO process but it should also help to establish procedures to keep the site alive and well. Consider how you will measure its effectiveness and provide a long term plan to set realistic time and money expectations.  Keep in mind that developing such a plan doesn’t necessarily mean this will be an expensive endeavor. As a matter a fact, if done properly a website marketing plan can help to prioritize and plan out your on-line marketing approach while keeping your budget in mind.

So where do you start? If you have an existing site consider evaluating the site for its overall on-line marketing capability. Most reputable website marketing firms will complete some sort of assessment for you (such as JCS's Website Analysis Report). Regardless of who you use be sure the assessment is comprehensive and factors in at least five key elements

• Hosting Services evaluation

• Overall graphic design

• Quality of text based content

• Quantity of sites referring back to your site

• Sites ranking when performing a search for a specific product or service

If your are currently considering starting a new site and need some help, JC Services can provide assistance in getting your website marketing plans underway.

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