Problem: Our website was created in 2001 but since then our services and products had evolved and were hard to fit into our website template. Also when created, it wasn't designed with search engines in mind. We needed a completely new website built and written from scratch.

The steps I took:

Research

1. What search engine ranking was all about.
I was very lucky to have a working relationship with NetConcepts - an Internationally acclaimed SER webdesign firm. I listened and learnt from stephan@netconcepts.com who is running a two hour session in our upcoming Auckland Workshop in March, and researched like mad on the Internet.

2. Where was our traffic coming from?
I knew that I drove 98% of the traffic to the site from my newsletters and online activities. So I studied my stat's and learnt - where were the referrals coming from. What keywords were people using to find us? What pages were being viewed. What international traffic did we have?

3. I pulled my business apart.
First I needed to decide what new business I wanted -and equally important what didn't I want to do. It makes much more sense to concentrate efforts on high income earning activity, doesn't it?

For the business activities I wanted to pursue, what were the "words" people used when searching? I then took my word guestimate, and tried them out on Wordtracker to see if I was right. Most often I was not!!!!

For example, as a speaker, I thought keynote would be a word often used to search - 'keynote speakers'. But I found, that it was motivational speakers (plural) that not only was the most often searched, but had the least other competing websites with that phrase. So instead of naming a page 'speaking' as I did on the old site - my new page was called motivational speakers. Catch that? I used the plural. Take a moment and click through to that section of the site and have a look.

This was an exhaustive painstaking process - but it has paid off enormously in the past. I used it to not only write content, but to develop the wording of my web page navigational links.

Site construction design/marketing considerations

Like a table of contents, the next step was to build the outline, the framework for the website. All the sections and pages. I ended up with over 90+ pages. I also had definite ideas on the look, the use of graphics (or lack thereof I should say) the ease of navigation and also focused on how to get as many visitors to turn into newsletter subscribers as I could.

• I decided on different quotation forms for each service - each with a checkbox to crossmarket other services and the newsletter too.
• I used breadcrumbs - these are navigational links across the top of the page showing a visitor where they are. Since I wrote all my navigational links heavy in keywords, my hope is this will help with SER.
• Used text navigational links - not graphics. Again for SER.
• Built a newsletter signup -with a "why" into the top level pages.
• Gambled on something new - a weekly specials page.
• Made sure the phone and contact number was on every page.
• All sign up forms track where people found out about us - this shows us what marketing is working (we even have yellow pages print).

Site consideration technical considerations

NetConcepts worked on the shell for us. This is a top of the line firm that knows what they're doing. They created the design (based on the prior site); wrote the css (cascading style sheets) and three of the pages.

Next I got my 17 year old neighborhood software genius to create all 90+ blank pages for me (the skeleton), write the ASP code for sending filled in form information to a database and test all the final links.

Then I got started on the painful process of writing an entire website from scratch with search engines in mind.

Content

I deliberately have a lot of text now. It's full, full, full of keywords. I know this is a turnoff for people reading the web pages, but my strategy is this. The majority of traffic to the site is driven by us and we send them to specific pages. But if I want to drive new eyes to the site - it's much better to have keyword specific text (to get found in the first place). This strategy is heavily employed in the navigational link names. I want to multiply the opportunities of being found. Take a look at this page. Look at the navigation to the left (it breaks all the rules really) and look at the text in red at the top of the page.

Nothing was written arbitrarily. Even down to the click here's. Navigational link test is exceedingly important to Google. As well as Page Titles. You try writing 90+ different page titles. Don't know what a page title is - email me

What's next?

Before we put up the new site, I kept a record of all the referrals, search engine referrals and keywords used in coming to the sis website in the last month, 3, 6 months and one year. Immediately after putting the site up - no lie - I got our first US book order in months. I also got a motivational speaking quote request from America.

I'll start looking and comparing my stat's to see if all this hard work was worth it.

P.S. If you notice that your Yahoo driven web visitor numbers has suddenly and drastically declined - it's because a few days ago Yahoo severed it's relationship with Google.

Debbie Mayo-Smith is a keynote speaker, consultant and trainer on marketing and business development. Call Debbie on 09 575 5359 and Subscribe to her online marketing and business development newsletter at www.successis.co.nz

February 2004

By Debbie Mayo-Smith