There are a lot of things to consider when preparing the strategy for your on-line presence but two things are critical, choosing the right target audience and getting the most visibility on search engines (especially Google). After all it is pointless having a high-ranking website if it is not driving the right traffic to your site and in turn not generating business (either directly or indirectly).

The goal of SEO is to produce website pages/ content in such a way as to drive search engine robots to visit your site on a regular basis, so that your page will be indexed and hopefully achieve a good ranking for respective "keyword" searches.

The old methods of cramming your content full of keywords and keyword phrases and little relvant coherent content, no longer produce viable results. Search engine robots us very complex programmes and are able to identify sites with useful and relevant content and those sites that are updated with new content on a regular basis.

The Google algorithhm evolves on a regular basis in order to improve the on-line experience by rewarding sites with original and useful content. Recent changes have seen rankings plummet for poorly designed sites, those add little to the visitor experience and those that are simply reworking information from other sites. The reverse is consequently true and sites which have good added value, original content or opinion and are well designed are achieving much better rankings.

The lesson in all of this is to strike a balance between having:-

• the right keywords & how they are incorporated and
• having content thatis interesting to your target audience & encourages them to re-visit. 

The main objectives of your on-line strategy should be:-

• Identify the target for your service/ product
• Lead them to the relevant page on your website where they will find what they need
• Give them the facility to buy, subcribe or enquire.
• Provide a website that is easy to navigate & understand. 

1. Indentify your target audience

Identify what your business is able to provide and then research what people need, desire or would like to know in relation to that provision and your business.

Keywords play a crucial role in this process, research these by by searching words & phrases you think potential customer would enter if they were looking for your service or product. Google Keyword Tool can help you achieve this or the task can be given to a professional SEO specialist.

2. Service your market

Once you have completed your research, write a web page of minimum 300 words that is both interesting and as original as possible and that incorporates the keywords that you have identified. Your page content should, as far as  is possible, contain useful and original information and informed opinion where applicable. Such pages are referred to as 'Landing Pages' as these are the pages you want to feature in search results from search engines like Google.

Remember you your content can include, questions & answers (Q&As/ FAQs), humour, surveys etc. The aim is to tell the visitor why they should use your business and how your business best resolves their need/requirements. Your key words should be targeted towards your product or service rather than brand name e.g. in our own case we use "CIS Tax Refunds", "CIS Tax Returns" etc. as these are the product/service search terms generally used in relation to our service. We provide a  CIS Help & Hints page to answer those Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs). To provide an added value service, we publish two newsletters each week which have the advantage of increasing repeat visitors and building brand awareness. Your overall content should not be static, keep adding relevant new content, consider a newsletter if possible and allow people to susbscribe, it generates new prospects. Have a feedback form to allow comments and suggestions, again it will generate contacts.

3. The Finishing Touches

Make sure your page titles & descriptions get the right message across and contain the right keywords. Provide links within your pages to your home page or other pages of interest on your site so that it can be easily navigated and is not frustating. Ensure you have a reasonable density of keywords in your content but don't over do it, they must be in context. Ensure your contact details are included in the description of the relevant webpage, so they are easily accessable and that your site is optimised for mobile devices such smart phones.

4. Performance Monitoring

It is not enough just to design a great site you will need to monitor performance in respect of the no. of visits and what pages are visited. This way you can judge what's popular and what's not. How you do this will depend on whether you use a professional web design & hosting service or whether you do it yourself via a template style service such as 1&1 My Website . These types of service often have built in SEO tools which make it easier to taylor your site to achieve better rankings without having to have in-depth knoledge of websites and are great if you want to get your website off the ground quickly. You can amend content from anywhere 24/7 at no extra cost, monthly fees may be more expensive but you have instant control. Google Analytics provides a free tool for site performance monitoring.

5. Pay Per Click

If you have spare resources, one option is to use pay-per-click marketing through search engines such as Google. Your advert is placed higher on search engine results pages and you pay per click through to your website.

6. Social Media & Background Marketing

You can drive traffic to your site by utilising other marketing tools such as:-

• Email shots
• RSS feeds
• Posting blogs/ joining on-line forums
• Social Media, such as Twitter, Facebook, Linked-in, Google +
• Shared web content (syndication), accountancy practices regularly use this type of resource to maintain up-to date financial and business content.

Social media channels such as Twitter can be particularly effective, create a profile and then post a tweet when you add new content, when a newsletter is available or when you want to inform your target audience about useful/ interesting content on your website.

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If you have any queries please contact us:

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Mob: 0779 4734711 (text Name & Address followed by "CISPACK" or "SATPACK") & we will send you a CIS Tax Return or Self Assessment pack.

Email: enquiries@cismadeeasy.co.uk

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