STANDING OUT FROM THE CROWD: improving web site visibility

Introduction

• Any investment made in building an effective online service may be wasted if customers are not made aware of the site?s existence.
• There is a wide range of techniques which can effectively enhance a site?s visibility on the web. Within this, there are core activities which must be undertaken to attract the maximum number of users.

Finding web sites

• Search engines, links from other sites and word-of-mouth are the dominant drivers of traffic to web sites.
• In attracting consumers, banner advertising on other sites is becoming less effective. E-mail marketing and search engine optimisation are now seen as core elements to the marketing process.
• Business users are more likely to have signed up to a number of newsletters and other regular e-mail services, and will often use these as the starting point for surfing activity.

Tools and techniques

• Sites must be designed with search engines in mind from the outset.
• Submitting sites to directories and search engines should be carefully considered. Automatic submission services cannot replicate a well-planned manual submission programme.
• Web awards, affiliate schemes, banner swaps and web rings can all raise a site?s visibility. Their effectiveness depends on a site?s size and its target audience.
• Viral marketing has proved key to the success of some of the web?s most prominent sites, including Microsoft?s Hotmail.
• Despite concerns about the efficacy of advertising and marketing online, there are good returns on investment on banner advertising and e-mail marketing. This looks set to continue.

Measurement

• Building a search engine-friendly site and submitting it effectively is only useful if the positioning of a site is monitored on all the important search destinations and key changes made if the site?s performance is poor.
• There is a wide range of software tools and dedicated consultancies to help track the performance of sites and maximise their visibility on search engines.