ResourcesSmall Business: Websites lack punch if they don’t get hitsTimes Online [published 8th May 2005]An internet presence won’t raise your profile unless you can lure passing trade, writes Sandra O’Connell When Conor Dooley set up Comprend, his Limerick-based business consultancy two years ago, one of the first things he did was get a website. “I went to a design company that specialised in websites and got one that was strong on graphics and visual content,” he said. But having spent €3,000 on the site, he was disappointed by the lack of traffic it attracted. “Three months after going live, it was still only visited by people who already knew it was there.” ? Many small firms have had similar experiences, because having a website is only the first step to online marketing. Attracting users is the key — and to do that, you’ve got to attract a search engine. There are two types of search engine: directories and web crawlers. Directories, such as Yahoo, pay staff to consider every new website submitted, before slotting them into appropriate categories. Web crawlers, such as Google or Ask Jeeves, work by sending out programs called bots that trawl the web for information relevant to a user’s keyword search. Getting keyword searchers to click onto your website is the cyber space equivalent of catching passing trade. As such, making it to the top of listings for sites such as Google is the holy grail for commercial firms. To see how Swimming Hippo Digital can help with search engine optimisation, click here. |
