of last year,
including the snow. Many companies are experiencing falling sales due to consumers not having the disposable income they once had. Point in case is Clinton Cards. Last week they reported a massive 83% profits slump according to The Guardian. This has been attributed to competition from supermarkets, cut price high street stores and Internet Retailers.
I suspect that this is the case with many businesses in these difficult times, people want more for less. To achieve this, it makes sense to either cut out the middleman or choose someone with lower overheads and thus lower prices. In most cases this means the internet.
Today, if you don't have an internet presence, you can be depriving yourself of increased turnover and more importantly, increased profits. There is no doubt that in the past, getting a professionally designed website that is both functional and aesthetically pleasing to the eye could cost from several hundred pounds to many thousands. Somewhat off putting if you're a SME or Start Up. That's only part of the problem, once you have a site published you need people to find it. That's fine if your customers know your website address (Which is usually just close friends and family) but how can you get your site to pop up on Google when someone is looking for "party plates in Hull"? The chances are that your site will appear at position 20/30/40/50 behind your competitors.
So what do you do to make sure that you get the right visitors to your site, and once they get there, convert their visit to a sale? It all starts with the website. It's no good it looking classy and attractive if it can't be found. So you need a professional to build it and optimise it. You need reliable hosting (No one will find you if the server your website is on goes down for two hours every day) and you need Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) to make your site visible.
SEO, the term that makes Joe Public want to spend £30 per month on and wanting to see results in a week. Forget it, it just isn't going to happen. So, can you do it yourself? Of course, but if you're going to try be prepared to spend many, many hours sitting in front of a computer when you should be running your business. Oh, and by the way, you need to know exactly what you're doing. SEO is not a magic spell that will improve your ranking and profits. It is a means to an end. It is very time consuming and done correctly can have you beaming like a Cheshire Cat. If it isn't, it will do more harm than good to your business and you'll certainly consider retraining as a Big Issue sales executive (No offence to Big Issue Sales Executives).
What are we actually saying then about SEO? Easy, Step 1. Get a professional to do it. Step 2. budget a sensible amount and Step 3. Be patient. Ok, we've covered Step 1, Step 2 is crucial and basically cost is relevant to what you want to achieve. If you pay £50 per month you are throwing your money away. Look at it this way, if you took out a monthly half page colour advertisement in a magazine, you will pay anything between £300 to £2000 depending on distribution and subscription. So why would you only pay £50 to promote your website to potentially seven billion people worldwide. Extremes, I know, but you see my point. All of a sudden, SEO appears to be a bargain.
All in all, if you don't have a professional website with monthly structured SEO both on site and off site, you will not grow. At least not as quickly and efficiently as you would want. Now is the time to take stock and take action. Internet sales are on the increase. If you have the product or service, there are plenty of people in internetland willing to give you money. Think about it!
http://www.dpom.co.uk/website_design
http://www.dpom.co.uk/search_engine_optimisation
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