SWeCS NEWSLETTER - March 2007
Welcome to this month's South West eCommerce newsletter.
In this issue...
- The Latest On Australian Search Engine Ranking
- This Fortnight's Question
- Latest Website Awards
- Billing Options
- Resources For Small Business
THE LATEST ON AUSTRALIAN SEARCH ENGINE RANKING
We still get asked regularly about how to get websites to the top of the search engine results, so we thought it was time to do another update on the latest in search engine ranking in Australia.
The trend continues for all major search engines to now provide a combination of free and paid results when you do a search. More often than not, the paid results will now appear at the very top, or at least down the side of the page. For example, if you go to Google or Yahoo and do a search, you will see sponsored listings at the very top and/or down the right hand side. In many cases, you can now only get to the number 1 spot via a paid listing. This seems to be the natural trend for search engines and they move towards making their business model as profitable as they can.
Combined with that change, is the fact that over time it is becoming increasingly difficult for websites to rank high in the free search results. It's not impossible, but with the increasing amount of websites being built (ie. millions of new pages daily), the number of competing websites for those limited spaces is growing rapidly. Add to that the trend that search engines will often rank the larger, more popular, websites higher (eg. directories and portals), and it makes it increasingly difficult for the small business operator to get good results in the free section.
It is still definitely worthwhile working on your ranking in the free search results by ensuring that your site coding is properly optimised, and by working on a long term quality link building strategy. But apart from that, it is now becoming more and more important to consider the paid results as a viable option for getting good rankings.
And it is very viable. For most industries, the returns are actually very good. Consider what happens if you spend say $100 at $0.20 per click. That means for your $100 you get 500 visitors. And not just 500 random visitors, but 500 visitors who searched for your product or service. It would be difficult to guarantee that kind of return if you spent the same amount of money on other kinds of advertising. Combine that with the ability of paid ads to be implemented immediately, and it is a very good way for small business to compete with big business quickly and cheaply.
In response to these changes, we have begun to phase out our traditional search engine ranking service and focus more on "Pay Per Click" (paid) Management. We still offer optimisation services to those who need them, but we are now specialising in Paid Search management, and have been accredited by Google to do so.
THIS FORTNIGHT'S QUESTION
This fortnight's question comes Kieran:
"How can I tell how many people are visiting my website?"
This information should be provided as standard by your website hosting company. Just about every hosting company provides a website statistics package where you can log in and view how many visitors, what pages they are looking at, where they came from, and much more. If they haven't got one, ask them to install one, or switch to a host that does provide it.
Got a question? Send it to us at admin@southwestecommerce.com and we'll do our best to answer it, as well as publish one every
fortnight for everyone to see.
LATEST WEBSITE AWARDS
South West eCommerce has recently been awarded three Gold Awards for website design, by the Australian Website Designers Community, for the following sites:
www.cityandregionalfuels.com.au
Does your site need a makeover? Contact us for a quote.
HOSTING BILLING OPTIONS
If you have a website hosting account with us, don't forget that we offer a range of billing options, including invoicing monthly, quarterly, or annually, or alternatively we can autmatically charge your credit card at regular intervals. If you'd like to update your payment method or frequency, just contact us.
RESOURCES FOR SMALL BUSINESS
Browse through the SWeCS Ecommerce Library, full of FREE information about getting more out of the Internet. Sections include Web Site Development, Web Site Promotion & Internet Marketing, Online Commerce, Computer & Technical Issues, and Miscellaneous.
The SWeCS Newsletter archives provides a wealth of FREE information on small business and the Internet. Browse through the main topics or search for your particular query.
Start up another income stream, by earning commissions for each referral who signs up for one of our services.
Do you know of a resource that should be added
here? Email us and let us know. There is only one
condition - it must be free.
OTHER EMAIL NEWSLETTERS
Here's some other email newsletters you might
like:
www.dunsboroughbayvillageresort.com/news/newsindex.htm
www.west-oz.com/enewsletter/enewsletteronline.asp
http://derekstockley.com/newsletters/news-index.html
This newsletter is produced by South West eCommerce
Strategies - © 2007
PO Box 2340, Bunbury, WA 6230
Ph: (08) 9721 1326
Fax: (08) 9721 1352
Email: admin@southwestecommerce.com
Web Site: www.southwestecommerce.com
