SWeCS NEWSLETTER - October 2007
Hi %%First Name%% and welcome to this month's South West eCommerce newsletter.
In this issue...
- Search Results 101: How It Works
- This Fortnight's Question
- Email Marketing System
- Website Hosting Packages Updated
- Resources For Small Business
SEARCH RESULTS 101: HOW IT WORKS
We've discussed this topic many times before, but it's still one of the most common questions we get asked: "How can I make sure my website shows up in the search results?"
First of all, lets explain how the results are shown. If you go to a major search engine like www.google.com.au or www.yahoo.com.au and do a search, you'll notice the results are split into 2 main sections.
The first type of listing appears at the very top and also down the right hand side. These are usually called "Sponsored Listings" or something similar, and are "Pay Per Click" advertisements. This means that the advertisements are actually free to list there, but the advertiser pays each time someone clicks on them (eg. $0.40 per click). This might sound like a recipe for a big advertising bill, but the advertiser actually has a lot of control over it, such as what keywords to appear for, how much to bid, how much in total to spend, and so on. The system knows if ads are repeatedly clicked on by the same person and only charges once, and the ad is automatically removed once the advertiser reaches their budget (eg. $3 per day).
Besides the Sponsored Listings, there is also another section of free results (often called Organic results). These are the listings that come from the database of the search engine, and are the sites that the engine feels are most relevant to your search. So if you've typed in "gardening equipment", it shows the most relevant websites in it's database for gardening equipment. How does it work it out? Well there's around 100 factors or more that the engine takes into account, including the text on your page, and the title of your website, but one of the most important factors of all is link popularity.
Link popularity means that the more websites linking to yours, the more popular the search engine will think your site is, and therefore the higher it will rank you. So if your site has 3 other websites linking to it, but your competitor has 1000 sites linking to their website, the search engine will think that your competitor's site is more important/popular, and therefore normally rank it higher (taking into account other factors, of course). Note that it's the number of links coming in, not out, that is relevant.
Ever done a search for accommodation? Notice how all the top sites listed in the free section are the major travel portals? This is because these portals have thousands and thousands of websites linking to them and are large, well established sites. So the search engines place a higher importance on those sites and rank them higher.
So back to the question of "How can I make sure my website shows up in the search results?". You have no control over the free listings section. Although you can optimise your website to suit the preferences of the major search engines, and work on increasing your link popularity, at the end of the day you can't guarantee that your website will appear on the first page. Over time, as you work on increasing your inbound links, your ranking should increase, but you can never guarantee exactly where you will appear.
The only part of the first page you have control over is those Sponsored Listings. This is a way for small businesses to compete with the larger, more established portal sites by allowing them to be on the first page of results immediately, yet only pay each time they get a visitor.
To find out more about Pay Per Click Advertising, visit our website at www.southwestecommerce.com/ppc.htm.
THIS FORTNIGHT'S QUESTION
This fortnight's question comes Jerry:
"I've used Frontpage to make the images on my website smaller, but they still take a long time to load. How can I make them load faster? "
If you've only resized your images in Frontpage (or any web editing software), then that only tells the browser to resize the image after it's downloaded it. So what it's doing is still downloading your large images and then resizing them to fit into your page.
The better way to ensure fast loading of images is to resize your images in an image editing program first (eg. in Photoshop) to the exact size you want them on the site, and then upload them and insert them into your website. That way, when the browser loads them in, they are already shrunk down in size and will load much faster.
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.
EMAIL MARKETING SYSTEM
If you have an opt-in email list, are you using it to keep your customers updated? If you think you'd benefit from a regular newsletter to your clients, it's doesn't have to be hard to send out professional looking newsletters that automatically handle subscriptions and unsubscriptions.
We can set up an email marketing system for you that will enable you to send out full colour emails to your list, matching your corporate brand or website, as well as handle subscriptions and unsubscriptions, including an online signup form on your website.
For further information visit www.southwestecommerce.com/emailmarketing.htm
WEBSITE HOSTING PACKAGES UPDATED
We have recently updated our website hosting packages, increasing the bandwidth available on all accounts. The new package levels are:
| Basic | Professional | Corporate | Premier | ||
| Disk Space | 150MB | 300MB | 400MB | 500MB | Extra disk space is available for $0.08 per month per MB |
| Data Transfer | 4GB per month | 8GB per month | 12GB per month | 16GB per month | Extra data transfer is available for $0.0025 per month per MB |
| Cost per month (inc GST) | $22 | $33 | $44 | $55 | We can send you an account as often as you like - monthly, quarterly or annually. |
| Setup fee | $22 | $22 | $22 | $22 |
If you are a current hosting customer, your package has been automatically updated for you, including dropping you to a cheaper package if possible.
For more information on what's included as standard in our hosting packages, please visit our hosting website at www.southwestecommerce.net.au.
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
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This newsletter is produced by South West eCommerce
Strategies - © 2007
PO Box 2340, Bunbury, WA 6230
Ph: (08) 9721 1326
Fax: (08) 9721 1352
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