Dealing With the Credit Crunch From an SEO Point of View

The credit crunch is causing companies to look for ways to generate business more effectively. Consumers are becoming more price conscious and consequently looking for the best deals, turning to the internet and search engines to find them. A company’s website needs to be optimised to feature highly in the search engine results. If it isn’t optimised then it won’t feature when you search; this means that the company loses out on potential business and the customer might miss a better deal.

The first instincts of a company in a cash crisis are to cut back on spending on non-essential items. Advertising can be seen as a non-essential item, therefore being the first thing to go in the cutbacks. Far from reducing advertising costs in the credit crunch, they should be increased. Search engine optimisation (SEO) marketing strategies can play an important part in the success of a business and can help firms to stand out.

There will be some SEO companies who make the mistake of cutting back on costs, and these companies will be the ones who crash, leaving their customers to turn to other companies.

SEO will become incredibly important during the credit crunch. Not only will an SEO company be under increased pressure to perform due to competitors falling from the market, but it will also be important for our customers. We need to make sure that they emerge in good shape on the other side, and that they do not lose any business through our mistakes.

Many of our customers are concerned about the credit crunch, but how has this affected their budget spend on SEO?

You may be surprised to know that our current customers are increasing their SEO spend with us, but why would this be?

Well the fact is that the amount of business on offer has decreased recently and it probably will for some time. Unlike other forms of advertising the ROI (Rate of Return) associated with either Organic Optimisation or Pay per Click is very good (when you are with the right company) and as such many of our customers have been switching their spend from paper advertising to the internet. If anything the credit crunch has speeded up this process as every penny counts now more than ever.

If you need any help getting your website listed for appropriate keyword for your business (SEO) or general marketing advice then please give us a call and we will help you.

So… Your company is feeling the credit crunch and your business is looking for new ways to find new business. Has your company got a web site? Does that website perform well in the search engines? Have you heard of search engine optimisation (SEO)? These are all questions that you need to ask yourself and need to investigate.

Web Site Design

There is no point getting to page 1 number 1 for your main phrase is your site does not represent your business or portrays a poor corporate image. You want to generate interest straight away and it is vital that you have that WOW! factor. Creare have been designing web site for over 8 years and have constantly moved with the times. We now specialise in web site marketing to ensure that we are able to provide your company with a whole well rounded internet marketing package.

Marketing & SEO

Once you have had a site that looks and work great for yourselves and your users it time to start you marketing campaign, using honest tried and tested methods we can promote your site in the UK’s most popular search engines (google, yahoo, msn). We work with you to find the phrases which suit your needs best and that reflect the services that your company provides. Then we try to manage your expectations with constant contact and explanation of our methods throughout the campaign.

ROI

The budget is based on a monthly basis and is totally upto you, we will advise on phrases and cost those for you. You can then sit back and watch the traffic increase week by week and with your new site design, relevant content and eye catching marketing techniques the return on your investment should start. Our companies web sites currently receive accumulated visits of over 500 hits a day with around 20 - 30 enquires a day for web design, ecommerce web design and SEO.

The credit crunch is affecting everybody because the money crisis acts as a chain. The knock on effect snowballs from business to consumer to business. However if businesses knew how to advertise their company in a better place than radio, and papers, this would generate more business for those struggling to make ends meet.

The most important investment any business can make is ensuring their website becomes the best it can be, by utilising Search Engine Optimisation. This is proven to have the best results in generating customer interest than any other way of advertising and in return the success of your business will soar.

As with most things, you have to spend money to gain money, and Search Engine Optimisation is a prime example of this. The cost is based on you as our customer deciding what you want to spend. This means you can spend as little as £100 a month up to thousands of pounds. Of course the more money that is spent the more money that is invested into making your website look and perform the best it can.

Search Engine Optimisation can help you beat the credit crunch because it gets you higher on Google listing, making your business noticed above all those that haven’t optimised. It generates interest form local customers as well as global, so just think of the business that you can generate, from just spending a little money on a great web site.

We have made over 200 businesses grow and expand in the space of a few years. Each Search Engine Optimisation is treated as an individual case and depending on the amount that is spent and the key phrases that are chosen for the site, the amount of time taken can range from a few weeks to a few months. But all in all this process is worth the wait, and soon you will be reaping the rewards and saying goodbye to the credit crunch.

I have been wondering recently how important is W3C compliance? If i had the exact same site one W3C compliant and the other not, would this be reflected in the SERPS?

All the sites that pass through my hands have to be W3C and it is a web standard for Creare. But after a site has been live for a year and various employees have been making changes, there is potentially a chance that the site may no longer be W3C. I believe that W3C compliance does matter and heres why.

• Algorithms, surely they take this into consideration
• Good practice, if there is a standard format that the search engines likes to see, then surely its good practice to adhere to it.
• Dead link, if you have a ‘W3C’ link in the footer of your site, it must be essential to make sure its valid. I guess it’s like having a dead link.

So what if your W3C compliance is invalid and you can’t fix it? talk to someone who can!

Search engine optimisation from creare.

I am glad to say that my director has a good understanding of SEO and the time scales which surround the process, can you imagine if your boss was constantly on your back about the results day by day.

So why is SEO soooo time consuming?

Well there are various reasons why algorithums reward patience, let me explain various points about the process.

• Search engines need to find your site
• Search engines need to crawl and index your site
• Search engines also need to index your friends / link partners sites
• The search engine also may wait to give you the value of a link, as in recent times spammy links were often short term
• Attracting links can take time until you have quality contact

So how long must i wait for my search engine optimisation campaign to be running at full capacity? Anything from 2 months onwards for national phrases. Have you the patiences?