How to promote your business online!

How to promote your business online! A few tips and ideas to start promoting you business on the Internet without blowing the budget. Internet advertising and marketing have rapidly become a priority for most business managers in New Zealand and internationally. At Domainz and our parent company Melbourne IT we have developed extensive expertise in the areas of web marketing and web promotion. In this article we offer you some more tips and useful advise on do's and don'ts and basic tools to market your web site online, with the help of our Senior Developer Rickard Liljeberg. Rickard has a background in web development dating back to the mid 90's. He has been involved in a number successful projects in the last ten years. He joined Domainz after teaching web development technologies at the University of Kalmar in Sweden. We have asked Rickard a few fundamental questions about web and search engine marketing to to help you understand this space better:

Getting started with the basics. What is "search engine optimisation"?
Quite simply "search engine optimisation" is the sum of all techniques used to increase the chances that any search engine will rank your website at the top of its listings.

What’s the difference between search engine optimisation and web marketing?
Web marketing is all based on advertising for humans, this can include many things such as banner advertising, pay per click advertising, directory listings and Traffic Pages. Web advertising is very powerful just like regular advertising but just like regular advertising it costs money to keep it running.
Search engine optimisation is instead aimed towards machines, that is the "search bots" that constantly crawl the Internet in search of all information. The idea is if the search engine (like Goggle) knows everything about your website it will automatically display it when people search for relevant terms. Search engine optimisation is the name for anything that will help the search engines understand your website better. You can successfully combine different web marketing tactics to achieve maximum visibility and traffic results.

Why choose Domainz to optimise your website?
Through our parent company Melbourne IT, we have developed a unique & proven methodology to deliver ranking success.
You will be account managed by our team of high qualified search engine marketing professionals who have years of experience in the International market. Access the intellectual property we have accumulated from over 600 satisfied clients.
Peace of mind that you are working with a leading Australian Internet company publicly traded on the Australian Stock Exchange.

What is a Search Engine Submission
Search engine submission is not the same as Search Engine Optimisation. Submitting your website to a search engine is not the same as optimising your website to rank high in the search engine.
Submission is a useful service when you are launching a new website and wish to let the search engines know that you have published your website to the Internet. If you didn't notify the search engines of your new website, they could take up to 6 weeks to find and categorise your website.
Search Engine optimisation is a different service for more "mature" websites (sites that have been online for at least 6 months) to increase their rankings within Google and other search engines, through the optimisation of the HTML code and content within the website.

Do search engines charge for placing any listings?
Most search engines base their rankings on “merit”. They compile databases of web site and reward web sites that have better content, links and visits, with higher ranking. Optimisation helps you achieve just that. On the other hand most search engines charge a premium for listings to be highlighted as sponsors for a period of time (web marketing).
Is there anything else I can do to help my web site performance in the search engines?
A vital step is to start developing relevant and unique content for your website. This could be in the form of newsletters, or news updates etc. Domainz web marketing experts can help you develop unique, search engine driven content for your web site.
However as mentioned, search engines do work on a combination of factors (including quality of content) therefore the best results are achieved by complete optimisation.

What about Email Marketing?
Email marketing (communicating with consumers through email) can be a very effective way to keep in contact with your customers. But there's a huge difference between trying to talk to prospects who didn’t ask to be contacted in the first place, and contacting your own customers, who have approved to hear from you (subscribed). If you decide to use email marketing to promote your web site, make sure you obtain permission to communicate with all recipients.

Does design impact web marketing performance?
While design features do not have a huge impact on search engine rankings, it is also true that web visitors favour web sites that are kept up to date and are easy to navigate. A good web site structure helps users find what they are looking for and in turn help you convert visitors in to sales or enquiries.
Equally, search engines recognise broken links or error pages and end up removing these pages from their listing. Therefore it is essential that you keep your webmaster busy with keeping your web site up to date. Newsletters providing industry updates and information are a good way to keep in touch with existing customers.

I don’t have access to statistics about how many visits my web site receives and any referring web sites?
Making sure you have a statistics programme installed in the body of your website is definitely a very good investment. Nowadays, the majority of visitors tracking tools allow you to monitor important data like: the number of page visits, the duration of a visit, referring web sites or search engines, entry pages and exit pages etc.
This data can help you make informed decisions on how to shape your web marketing strategy.

Other web marketing articles from Domainz News:

• How much should a web visit to your website cost to really make business sense?
• How is your web site rated by Google Google PR (Page Rank)
• Key-phrase Advertising. Visitors or Clients?
• FREE Search Engine Marketing evaluation
• Internet marketing activity continues to grow
• Eyetracking research to help marketers with online advertising and positioning
• Online Marketing, online and TV times comparable
• Domain names and search engines