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What is your website worth?
Why search engine optimization will add value to your website
Last updated: 11 Sep 2007
How will Search Engine Optimisation increase the value of my website? This is a question we are often confronted with during the preliminary stages of search engine optimization. We feel that the worth of any aspect of your business is not what you put into it but what you get from it. You may well have paid thousands of pounds to a web designer to build you an all singing all dancing website but is the investment worth it?
The Worthless Web
Unfortunately the majority of websites are worthless in themselves. They give no value and act as a drain on business resources rather than maximising them. In the current market of PPC advertising websites that do not have an advertising budget can not be found and like any product not being found is equivalent to not existing.
PPC - Does it add value to your site?
PPC allows websites without a natural voice to be heard above the cacophony of noise that competitor websites make. Unfortunately it is an ongoing expense, and one which will rise. The bid higher than the competition message given out by many PPC companys is terrible advice. All it does is force market costs up, and increase the PPC companys profits at your expense. The cost will never end and will always cut into your margins. Even those that use PPC properly, bidding on highly appropraite Keywords to the target page, do not always convert a high a level of clicks to sales meaning that the money for that click has been wasted.
If your website survives purely on PPC the tangible value of that site may be close to nil. No matter the revenue you make, without organic Traffic their is no residual income from the site without further input by a website owner.
Websites accrue value by the traffic they can demonstrate comes naturally. Organic traffic is long lasting and can be maintained for far less than the cost of an ongoing PPC campaign. Search Engine Optimisation can bring you the rankings that will enhance the levels of custom available naturally. When you include an Internet Marketing strategy you can convert a far higher level of visits into sales than before. Even if you are in a PPC enmvironment simply altering your Content could help you convert more of these paid for visitors into sales.
To conduct Internet Marketing it is important that you use a company that understands the web medium. It is not the same as print, no matter what ad executives will try and convince you of, the web is a highly hostile environment. The profits can be great but not for everyone. Internet users will decide quickly if you have what they want and at a price they are willing to pay. An average user will make a decision in seconds. They will not see pop ups as adding value to your site, they will see through the flashy images they want info and they want it fast. Think about the quailty internet businesses , take Amazon a site that will tell you about a product briefly and give you the price. If they want more information they want to be able to find more information easily. Once you get a prospective customer to the site you want them to buy. It is not until they buy that you can gather second level business from client testimonials regarding the quality of service you offer. So conversion is the key.
So use PPC if you feel it adds benefit to your business but understand it may not add value to your website. Value added can only be realised through effective application of SEO or SEM techniques. In many cases it is possible that you could increase the value of your website yourself by following some simple guidleines, this is market and web experience dependent.
If you would like to discuss any aspect of this article or any aspect Search Engine Optimization, Internet Marketing or Search Engine Promotion you can contact us at Oyster Web on 0871 900 8407.
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