Website design, build and marketing, inc. SEO

Most businesses of a certain size believe they need a website . Most businesses are right to believe this. Websites, if done well, are very effective marketing tools. Rather too often they're not done well and they run the risk of doing harm to brands.

In its simplest form a website is an online brochure. That doesn't mean we should forget the rules that we would normally apply when developing any other marketing activity, Viz, target market, brand positioning, consumer insights, messages, a good idea, execution, relevance, response and quality.

A good website is never an easier, or cheaper way of producing a brochure - especially if it's done badly with poor thought and creativity. Then its real cost will be the weakening of the brand's values and its sales and profits.

A good website should never be static - even if if the product rarely changes. You waste your money if you build a website that is too complex and expensive to update. An unchanging, or out of date website sends the wrong signals about a brand and it will also fail to be found by search engines and therefore prospective customers.

A good website should have an easy to use Content Management System (CMS) so that it can be constantly refreshed and revised to provide rewards for re-visiting and to encourage extended exploration of its pages.

So you've got a good website. Now begins the hardest and potentially most expensive part: Making it visible to search engines and customers alike.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) - The arcane art of convincing search engines to put your website as high as possible on the website rankings.Something that is getting harder and harder to do as more and more people practice these dark arts.
 

Pay Per Click (PPC) - Paid for advertising on Google and other search engines that can rapidly become an expensive and addictive habit.
 

Social Media - Utilising the expanding range of social networking media to gain the elusive 'talked about' exposure that todays' online chatterers crave. It's all about a conversation, but unlike conversations it takes a lot of time and therefore money. A fact that many people misunderstand when they first think of Social Media Networking.
 

Blogs etc - Tools for creating interest, visits and a buzz around a website and its brand owner.

...and nor forgetting the old fashioned marketing tools:

• Offline advertising
• Direct Marketing
• PR
• Business Development
• Trade campaigns
• Exhibitions
• etc etc
   

They should all be helping your target audiences find your website and therefore your brand.