..full of award winning companies – this year’s Scottish Awards for Business Excellence brochure was designed by Marketing Matters.

On a very tight deadline and production timetable the brochure was put together as quick as you could say “3 course meal with coffee and a small mint”. OK, it  maybe took slightly longer than that, but it was a rush of adrenalin, some late nights and early mornings to get it all put together from initial meeting to final printed brochure (10 days).

The project was fun, fast and furious. And the client is delighted with the results “I was really pleased with the outcome of the brochure and got lots of great comments on it.” Anne Sutherland, Quality Scotland.

Past downturns in the market have shown that marketing during a recession puts you in a much stronger position after it has passed.

Comparing the results of those companies who have continued to invest in marketing with those companies who have either reduced or pulled their marketing budget, show that it’s those businesses who continue to spend that gain market share from their competitors during tough periods and, ultimately are able to position themselves better and grow, when the downturn has passed.

Why you should market more:

• If your competitors reduce their marketing then you have less to compete with – your activities will be more prominent and the message louder and clearer
• Customers want to be communicated with and will welcome those businesses that continue to engage with them, delivering messages that are specific and relevant
• Lowering brand awareness loses market share that’s hard to win back
• With customers spending less, each sale is harder to win – so more marketing is required, rather than less.

You can’t cut marketing without affecting sales, just as you can’t sell effectively without marketing. So it goes that you can’t cut your marketing budget and still expect the sales team to meet their targets.  So how do you achieve this in a recession?

You need to market smarter:

• Look at where you are generating the best responses or results and move more into these activities, away from those channels which are not as effective.
• Look at alternative communication channels. If you are not already marketing through online and digital media – these can deliver targeted, tailored messages to a clearly defined audience, at a very low cost per lead.
• Find ways to stand out from the crowd – do things differently with design and copy
• Be ready to identify market opportunities and respond quickly to them.
• Look after your existing customers – remind them how much you value their custom and find ways to add value.
• Meet the needs – understand what it is the customer needs or wants and meet those needs.

According to Wikipedia, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a set of methods aimed at improving the ranking of a website in search engine listings. SEO could be considered a subset of search engine marketing.

Search engines display different kinds of listings in the search engine results pages, such as paid advertisements, and organic search results. Search Engine Optimisation, however, is primarily concerned with improving the position of a website on a search engine result page when certain keywords are entered and a search is performed. If a website achieves a good position in a search engine, both the number and the quality of visitors to a website may be increased.

Marketing Matters offer Search engine optimization as a stand-alone service in West Lothian. If we have developed your website, we provide initial search engine optimisation as standard to make sure that your website is indexed in the major search engines, such as Google, MSN, Yahoo. SEO is a lot more effective when the optimisation is incorporated into the initial development and design of a website.

My website is indexed… What does that mean? It simply means that Google, MSN, Yahoo has listed your website, i.e. these search engines have created an entry on their search pages. Indexing simply means a search engine knows about you and might show your search engine when a very specific search is carried out – for example a search that includes your company name. Not many people will know your company name though.

A listing does not determine the position in the list though – i.e. the Ranking on the Search Engine Result Pages. If you enter a generic search phrase and your website comes up amongst the first 10 results, then your Ranking is very high. But if you only appear between entries 1000 and 2000 – your ranking is very poor, not many people go through so many search engine result pages until they arrive at the page where a link to your website is listed.

Search Engine Optimisation works mainly on your Ranking and regular SEO should improve your ranking when your most important search terms are displayed.

What do I need to optimise my website for?

• What website visitors are you after?
• Do you want to raise awareness about your product?
• Do you want to sell online?
• Do you just want to be found if someone looks for a business like yours in your area?

You need to have a goal for your Search Engine Optimisation. What do you want to achieve? For example, if you are a wedding photographer, you might want your website to be displayed in Google when someone enters “wedding photographer Edinburgh” or “portrait photographer Scotland“. Click on the two links to see where his website is currently listed. If you provide a local service, you can use this to your advantage by simply optimising your website to include lots of mentions of the local area, such as Edinburgh, Dundee, Fife, etc. By optimising his website for local searches, you are likely to receive a lot of local enquiries.

How long will it take until my site is No 1?

We are asked this question often when we develop or re-design a new website. No-one can give you a time frame for this. No-one can give you any guarantees. There are a lot of companies out there that claim they get you to No 1 in Google within a week. What they don’t tell you is what keywords they use and baffle the unknowing person with. If your company is called “EazyPeazy” for example, and is located in Dundee, then this company will get you to No 1 in Google within a week and they will enter the words “EazyPeazy Dundee” and Voila you are No 1. That does not help you though, because a) you are a new business – no-one knows your company name, b) it does not take any of your website content into consideration, c) all they have done is indexed your website, but your ranking is really non-existent.

If you offer some obscure thing only people with specialist knowledge know about and if you don’t have (m)any competitors, your Google ranking can be very good within a very short time – because there are not so many pages to compete with. But if you offer something that is well-known and where there is a lot of competition, it might take you a considerable amount of time until you appear anywhere in the first 10 pages of a search engine. “A considerable amount of time” can mean anything up to 6 months or even longer.

The homepage is the last page you write

When you have a new website developed, the designer will show you an example of your website design which most likely contains words that cannot be read. This text which usually starts with the words “Lorem Ipsum” is called “greeking” and it is not a language. It is simply dummy text which allows you to take in your website design without being distracted by meaningful text. The design is about the layout of the website, not the content. That’s the reason why no real text or content is used so that you – the client – can concentrate on the look and feel of your website. Have a look at this example so you understand what we mean.

Example of Greeking

Once the design is signed off, the developer can go ahead and start developing your website. Some developers will ask you to provide all content at the start of the development. It’s sometimes better to hold back until the website is almost ready to go live.

The website structure has to be discussed first before you start developing the site. For industry sites for example – the smaller the number of clicks to the information the visitor wants the better. Your website visitors don’t have any time to look for the information. Give them the information they want – fast.

Think about what your company offers, what is your most important service / product – and who is your most important type of client – this will help you guide into the right direction for your site structure.

If a company deals mainly with architects for example, having a link called “architects” on the homepage will greatly please any architect that visits your site, because they immediately feel welcome.

The most common mistake some companies still make is adding lots of content on the homepage which is about the company and not about their products. This puts the company in the center rather than the client. This should be avoided and a summary of the services and/or products you offer should be highlighted on the homepage.

Websites follow the same structure as authors who write books: They write the book first and then they write the introduction – the first page. Once your website is almost ready, you will know the content of the different pages and you can better provide a summary of your main products / services.

The best thing is to test-drive the site with web visitors who know nothing about the product/service your company offers. Ask them – without clicking on any other pages – if they know what you do and what you specialise in just by looking on your homepage.

Keywords are King

So you company develops blue medium-sized widgets. Put yourself into your clients’ shoes and visit open up Google. In order to buy blue medium-sized widgets, what would you enter in Google to find a website that sells blue medium-sized widgets? – Yes, correct – you would enter “blue medium sized widgets”. That’s why you need to include keywords into your content, exactly those keywords your website visitors would use in Search Engines to find websites like yours. So if you have content on your website that describes your company history, you missed a big chance, because the company history will not highlight blue medium sized widgets.

Keywords vs Key Phrases

What’s a keyword? – A keyword is a single word such as “photography“, or “design“, or “website“.

What’s a key phrase? - A key phrase consists of several keywords, such as “web design west lothian“, “commercial photography Bathgate“. When people perform a search in Google, for example, they have learnt that key phrases will give them a better result rather than just single keywords. If you are trying to find a web designer, and you only enter “web design” in Google, you will spend the next year trying to go through the millions and millions of result pages that are displayed. However, if you enter “Web Design Bathgate“, you will more likely find a web designer that is located in Bathgate.

Homepage Content – Examples

Have a look at the below examples for some homepage content.

CreatWeb is a web design company based in Bathgate, West Lothian who specialise in website design, website maintenance, website updates, search engine optimisation, website translation, and commercial photography. CreatWeb have developed an impressive website portfolio which clearly demonstrates the diversity of industries for which we develop websites.

This small paragraph summarises what CreatWeb do and where we do it. If you are a national company, you can re-phrase this:

CreatWeb is a web design company in the UK who specialise in designing websites, website maintenance, website updates, search engine optimisation, German & French website translation, and commercial photography.

The keyphrases used in the two examples are as follow:

• web design company
• West Lothian
• website design
• website maintenance
• website updates
• search engine optimisation
• commercial photography
• web design company UK
• German & French website translation