Look before you leap: Consider SEO before engaging web designers

In the fast moving world of online trading, performance within search engines has become everything. The rules of how the Internet now works currently revolve heavily around Google. Although not the only search on the market, you’d be forgiven for thinking it had invented the whole thing. Until others bridge the gap, Google for the time being at least, needs to be foremost in any website design and e-marketing undertaking.

While larger organisations are gearing up to carryout SEO (search engine optimisation) on their websites and to capitalise on PPC (pay per click) and Adsense advertising, there is a danger that the small organisation could miss the boat. Without good advice to hand the average SME (small medium enterprise) could invest their online budget in nothing more than an expensive secret – a slick but possibly well hidden website, failing to rank high in Google. Many SME’s are today attempting to re-design their previous forays into the online world, believing that e-commerce was the ingredient they last missed out. To some extent this may be true, but simply adding shopping carts and credit card payment facilities are no longer enough.

The shortsightedness of those who believed their websites would bring trade flowing in from around the world has been staggering. The speed with which every good idea was copied or even bettered has been widely reported; nevertheless some organisations still exhibit unrealistic thinking and lack any form of logic when it comes their expectations. Many still feel the answer is to simply to re-fresh and modernise, and it has to be said there are plenty of designers eager to oblige. Today, organisations should be seeking out designers with all round abilities or indeed design studios with specialists in many areas. To think of website design as being purely ‘design’ is where many go wrong. Designers who provide Internet solutions, mixing design with backend development and ongoing promotion, in the end will create a much better and more successful website.

The best websites require constant attention. A website is after all relatively easy to keep up to date and to grow. But many organisations see the launch of their new website as the conclusion or indeed the extent of their budget. The point often missed is that this is the time to go the extra mile and this is the moment to capitalise on the investment they’ve already made. This is where their competitor may have gone further, or not as the case may be. Is their competitor already enjoying the benefits of investing in site promotion or did they also falter? Further investment is essential as most companies are either trying to get ahead or else trying to catch up. To not look seriously at SEO, PPC and other forms of e-marketing is to severely limit the contribution their website can make to their bottom line.

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Paul Coupe is lead designer / developer with Zoom Online.
Zoom Online is a UK based specialist web design company providing total online solutions.
paul@zoom-online.co.uk
http://www.zoom-online.co.uk/e-marketing/Look_before_you_leap_Consider_SEO_before_engaging_web_designers.htm