This page describes the more common digital marketing issues that I've encountered with South Australian business websites in the 2006/7 period. These are listed in a tonight show style in ascending order of potential online sales 'damage' the issue represents.

Also provided is self-help information for the intrepid DIY web marketer.

The links to Wikipedia provides further background on some of the more technical aspects.

If you have any questions or comments please contact me here

• 5. No or few inbound links
  
• 4. Technical Defects
  
• 3. Website not fully known to Google
  
• 2. Keywords not aligned with your business
  
• 1. Website unknown to Google

See my note on the bias to Google in this information

5. No or few inbound links

FACT: Links from other websites to yours can significantly improve your site's rank in searches.

DETAIL: Links from other sites is a major influencer on your 'Page Rank'; Google's indicator of your website's value ranging from 0 to 10. Page Rank is calculated and assigned when Google's spider GoogleBot indexes your website.

Page Rank is based on a complex mathematical formula, but is significantly influenced by high quality inbound links i.e. links from other web pages that also have a high page rank.

Page rank is readily viewed from the page rank indicator in the Google toolbar.

RESOLUTION: Arrange for website links from business affiliates, associations, clients and internet directories. If your budget allows you may be able to purchase links from high ranking websites.
A practical strategy is to initially provide links from your site to theirs then approach them to provide back to back links.

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4. Technical Defects

FACT: Technical defects prevent your website from realizing its full search effectiveness.

DETAIL: Technical defects broadly involve two primary areas:

• Use of tags
  Tags are buried in the website HTML software of your website and not immediately apparent from your normal browser view. Tags provide additional information about your website that can be used to:
  • Ensure accurate presentation of your look and feel
  • Information for the browser title bar
  • Textual descriptions of pictures on your website for low bandwidth, or low vision visitors.

  Search engine spiders examine tag information so tags can contribute to your site's keyword density.
  
  Certain tags are also used in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) pictured below. The SERP of course is scrutinised by searchers when considering which site to visit - a critical online sales decision! Note also that Google higlights appearances of the search criteria in the SERP further attracting searcher interest.
  
  Consequently tag contents are simply far too important to be left blank or delegated to a poorly briefed web developer to compose.

Search Engine Results Page (SERP)

RESOLUTION: Tags are buried inside website HTML and not always obvious. Consult your digital marketing professional to ensure these important parameters are working optimally for your wwebsite.

• W3C Compliance
  The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has an established series of website technical standards that are used by browsers when displaying a website. If your site declares compliance with a standard but doesn't comply it has a couple of impacts:
  • It is likely your site wont display properly in one or more browsers or browser versions.
    Clients can't buy products and services they cant read read about .
  • If your incompatibility stops a search spider, when indexing your site; particularly GoogleBot if your target market is Australia your website may get indexed properly and so potential customers wont find you.
  If your website does not claim any W3C compliance, the browser's internal logic will switch to a special 'quirks mode' to attempt to display your site, which slows the display of your website.

RESOLUTION: Check your website's W3C compliance with the W3C Markup Validation Service Contact your web developer and ask that your site be made compliant to one of the W3C standards.

 

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3. Website not fully known to Google

FACT: Any pages not known to Google in your website are 'invisible' to search.

DETAIL: A number of situations can and do arise where a search engine is not aware of all of the pages in your website. A casual search may result in your website being listed in the search results, so reassured you get back to doing the doing - but your entire website content may not be available for search.

An important distinction is that while a prospective client may find your home page and then navigate to the un-indexed page(s), any unique content on the 'invisible' page(s) will not be result in your site being in a search for that unique content.

I'm surprised at how frequently this happens, with causes such as

• Technical defects, particularly poor W3C compliance (see item 4 Technical defects) which is stalling the spider
• Programmed menus (i.e. Flash etc) masking the location of other pages from the spider

RESOLUTION: Check if Google knows all your website pages by using the 'site' command in the Google search text box: site: <your website's address> e.g.

Check the output and ensure that all of the pages in your site are listed.

Setup and register an XML sitemap to ensure the search engine spider keeps coming back regularly and visits all of your pages.

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2. Keywords not aligned with your business

FACT: Internet search is all about keywords - If your website keywords are misaligned with your business or your client's searches you're loosing sales online opportunities.

DETAIL: A major factor in search success is a good match between the text used in a search and the repetitive occurrence of that word or phrase (i.e. keyword) in your website.

RESOLUTION: Optimise the keyword alignment

'Keyword alignment' is a term I use to describe consistency between the words used in three key areas:

• That represent your business
  These are the keywords that you believe best encapsulate your business offerings
  
• Are being used by your target demographic
  These are the words that a prospective client (not you !) uses when searching for your offerings
  Listen that what your clients say on the phone, over the counter or in their emails. Check your website metrics to seek what keywords are already being used to find you. Your Digital Marketing professional can extract a list of recent searches relating to your criteria from Google.
  
• Are present on and in your site
  Your Digital Marketing professional can extract a list of keywords and their keyword density from your web site

The challenge then is to select keywords that best represent each of these interests

Note that a only small number of keywords (e.g. i.e. 3 or less) can be optimised in a website as the greater the number of keywords the reduced ability there is to improve keyword density

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1. Website unknown to Google

FACT: If Google has not found your website, then neither will a prospective client searching for your products or services; you are invisible on the internet.

DETAIL: The "build it and they will come" philosophy simply does not apply to websites. Search engine spiders rely on links to sites they already know about. You can also door direct submission to find your site.

RESOLUTION: Your web developer or digital marketing professional can submit your site to a search engine or you can do this yourself, however some search engines are now charging a fee to submit. Fortunately Google still allows you to submit a site

Note also that some of the free search submission sites will generate huge amounts of spam email to you which is also not desirable

Chances are that you don't have any inbound links (that's why Google hasn't found you!) so approach business associates internet directories etc to arrange inbound links to your site.

Your Digital Marketing professional could also setup and register an XML sitemap to ensure GoogleBot keeps coming back regularly and importantly visits all of your pages.

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A note on why Google

Over the last year Succinct Ideas has closely examined many, many South Australian business websites and without exception Google has been the most significant search engine - i.e. most Australian business people are using Google

Google Analytics consistently shows over 90% and up to 98% of Australian searches are conducted using Google.

This is fundamentally important information if your target market is Australia especially if you are considering digital marketing optimisation and/or paid search marketing.

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