Route22 Limited Paul Hooper

This is NOT true of your website HE This is NOT true of your website Do you recognise this? Field of Dreams It’s a very common mis-quote. Do you know what it should say? <CLICK> <CLICK> Either way; many people think this is true of their website – It’s not. <CLICK>

Search Engine Optimisation Why will they pick your entry from the others on the results page? Are they searching for what you expect? SEO (Don) stands for Search Engine Optimisation, and this is very important for your website. <start vid> As far as SEO is concerned this guy is king so I’m going to give him two minutes to explain how search works   When you prepare the content for your website, consider what Matt has just told you. Imagine you are a prospective customer and include content that will help with the search process. Being near the top of the list is a terrific help when it comes to getting noticed, but it’s not the end of the challenge. <CLICK> There are ways to ensure that your entry is more enticing than the others But how do you know that you've chosen the best key phrases to optimise for? There are ways to encourage people to make the right searches. How can you get them to make the searches you want them to?

Go out and get ‘em You need to do more than merely optimise your site and then sit back and expect visitors. For your site to be successful you need to go out there and create interest and then drag people in. <CLICK> If you’re a local business, one of the best ways to do this is to talk about your website at networking events and use traditional old fashioned advertising. In the digital world, you need to get involved. Look for discussions in the blogosphere (other people’s blogs), Look on Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn, and join in, provide helpful information and become a go to person for advice in that field. Subtly include links back to your own site and post related blogs of your own. Look beyond your normal realm, search for online discussions and involve yourself in discussions that may only be tangential to your core business. Use online tools to discover what people are actually searching for and add or modify content on your website to cover those phrases. Use pay per click advertising to experiment with key phrases. This is much faster than modifying content and waiting for Google to update its indexes. Regularly update your sites content. This will interest Google and cause it to return more frequently and update its indexes for your site.   Most important of all; measure what you do and adjust your approach constantly by adding to and updating your website and keeping active on social media.

Engagement & Conversion OK, they've searched, they've found your site and they've chosen you ahead of all the other results. Now you need to motivate them to actually buy your product? <CLICK> An excellent copywriter, a great photographer, and a super videographer <START VID> will be well worth their fee here.   The famous "rule of seven" suggests it will take seven contacts before a prospect will have enough confidence in you to make a purchase. In reality, this depends. If it's an impulse buy, it will only take one contact. If it's a very large purchase it will take more. The better the quality of each contact the less contacts it will take. But this is drifting into Claire's area of expertise and you should certainly ask her to help you with it. It is clear though, that you must try to make every contact with your website as good as you can, and you must do all you can to encourage your prospects to keep returning. Perhaps to read your latest blog, to use your handy app, to play a fun game, or maybe to delve deeper into the detailed information you provide. Don't limit this to your website. Co-ordinate branding across all of your digital and traditional presence: social media, print campaigns, face to face connections, etc. Now we're drifting into Jonathan's area. Make sure that you speak to him about this. Make sure every page includes a single “Call to Action”

Design your Website with care & Look after it through the Whole of its Life Remember, they WON'T come just because you build it, but they will if you monitor it, nurture it and shout about it. Compared to most other media, websites are cheap to build and cheap to maintain, but they do require some time and effort if they are to perform well for you. <CLICK>