Search-Engine Optimisation and Search-Engine Marketing
We often find that these two phrases get mixed up, or even combined. Although they are intended to achieve the same end-result (ie getting more traffic to your website) they go about it in different ways.
Firstly, Search-Engine Optimisation or SEO. If you sell any kind of product or service, you'll be competing with other websites who sell a similar product or service. Let's take the example of plumbers. If you go to Google.com and search for 'plumbers', Google will tell you that roughly 68 million pages on the web refer to plumbers in one way or another. If you're a plumber, you'd want your website to come near the top when anyone searches for 'plumbers' wouldn't you? So would several million other plumbing firms!
Search-Engine optimisation refers to the process of making your site as 'friendly' to search-engines as humanly possible. This starts with a good domain name (this is why 'plumbers.com' will be worth a fortune!) and continues with well-structure text and carefully though-out phrases, all of which are designed to make Google aware of what service or product you offer. Secondly, what are the phrases that prospective customers are actually using? These might not necessarily be the ones you think they are. For example: You might think of yourself as a ‘sanitary engineer’, but if users mostly search on Google for the words ‘plumber’ they may never find your website! So an important step is to find out which key phrases are used when looking for your type of goods or services.
Finally, we may be able to help you to identify an additional keyword that helps your business 'stand out'. For instance, saying that you want to be in the number one spot for “Luxury Accommodation Auckland” may be a tough call. But “Luxury Hosted Accommodation Auckland” might be easier.
ACTION PLAN: We’ll understand your business objectives and analyse results to date. Once we know your keywords and phrases, we will make sure as many of these as possible are included in the site’s text. Ideally, they also need to be placed in page titles and header text. This all helps to give Google a good ‘understanding’ about what your site is all about. This is also a good time to make sure any out of date information is removed from the site.
ACTION PLAN: We’ll help you define the campaign, set up an account and monitor the results.
For more information, please contact us.
Here comes the bad news, SEO is not a one-time effort. Your competitors will be doing the same thing, so you'll probably need to refine your site occasionally to keep it at the top of the search-results. SEO is not a 'trick' - you can't fool Google for long. In the end your website needs to reflect honestly what your potential consumers are looking for.
Next, Search-Engine Marketing or SEM. If you operate in a highly competitive market, it’s likely that however optimised your site is, you may not appear on the first couple of pages in Google for some keywords. Adwords allow you to ‘bid’ for sponsored advertisements. These appear on the right-hand side of Google searches. The good news is that you’ll only pay each time a user clicks on the advert and goes to your site. Hence - it’s called ‘pay-per-click’ advertising and be extremely cost effective. You can set daily or weekly budget limits. Turn the advert on and off in minutes.
ACTION PLAN: We’ll help you to unravel the concepts of social media, work out whether your business might be able to benefit from it, and define and execute specific campaigns.
For more information, please contact us.
Social Media Marketing
If you’re not entirely comfortable on the internet, this might seem a strange topic to you. However, depending on the market you’re aiming at, social media marketing can provide huge benefits to businesses that can get their heads around the concept. Social Media includes such concepts as blogs, podcasts, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, MySpace. It’s about Location, Location and Location. Think of these like busy shopping streets. They already have hundreds of thousands of users every day. How can you use that traffic to increase your business? Particularly if your business includes any kind of ‘enthusiast’ audience, eg pets, hi-fi, sustainability etc, a ‘discussion forum’ can attract people to your site to discuss on-line the topics that concern them. You’ll learn a lot if you listen and participate!
ACTION PLAN: We can help you collect a permission-based list, define your Newsletter’s look and feel, despatch your emails on a regular basis, and report the results to you.
For more information, please contact us.
Email marketing
Sending out regular email newsletters to your clients and prospects can be a huge boost to customer loyalty, and hence sales. But it has to be done properly – no short-cuts! You’ll need specific permission to send out e-communications, and your customers need to be able to unsubscribe easily. On top of that, the content has to be fresh, interesting and relevant.
ACTION PLAN: Even better, we can offer a revenue-based payment, so that there are no up-front costs, and payment can be spaced over a couple of years. Please ask for more information.
For more information, please contact us.
Video on your website
Sometimes, even pictures don't speak loudly enough. Particularly if your business deals with accommodation, propery or similar, a professionally produced video can transform the number of enquiries you receive. The video is streamed from a specialist video service who can also distribute your video through a number of other channels such as airports and tourism destinations. This gives you even wider exposure. See www.evergreenlodge.co.nz for an example
ACTION PLAN: Ask us how we can provide experienced help to produce text for your website and other marketing material.
For more information, please contact us.
Copy writing
If you're suffering from writer's block, we can help to produce SEO-friendly copy (text) for your website. Most businesses understand what they offer and how it can help their potential clients, but they can't always get their message over in a benefit-led way.
Photography Rates: Typically we charge $120+GST per hour for photography services, plus travel expenses. We'll always be pleased to quote specifically for your job, however.
For more information, please contact us.
Photography
To enhance the quality of your marketing material, we recommend the use of professional photography. Often the use of good photography not only provides visual impact, it also reduces the amount of words required to 'paint a picture' of what you are selling.
Our photography service can assist in this area by providing 'on location' or 'in studio' photography with extensive digital photography equipment and professional expertise. We can provide photography for advertising, events, products, property (accommodation, real estate, architecture, interiors), travel and food. We invite you to view examples of our photography in our Photography Portfolio.
For more information on any of these services, please
contact us.