Website Designs NZ

Picton website developers offering web design, development, hosting & database services

Developing websites from our bases in the Marlborough Sounds and Picton

Search Engines and Website Optimisation

A quick note to begin with. Beware of paying for "search engine marketing". Often this is simply the submitting of your website to hundreds of search engines which fulfills two objectives;

  • it relieves you of your money then lines the pockets of "search engine marketers".
  • increases the amount of SPAM you'll receive.

In our opinion "search engine marketing" is worthless. The reality is only a handful of search engines actually matter - 99% of all Internet searches use the top few search engines, and if your website is well designed those main engines will index your site just as quickly without help from "marketers".

On the other hand, search engine promotion and optimisation is actually a very useful exercise and can produce staggering results.

Search Engine Optimisation

The coding, structure and content of your website, combined in a way which ensures the preferred "keywords" and "key phrases" are picked up and indexed by the likes of Google, Bing, Yahoo! and other search engines.

That's a very simple definition of search engine optimisation. Some people think they can develop a website, submit it to a few search engines and Bobs your uncle, the business will start booming. We see this a lot, and the result is usually that business does not boom, and the website is only ever visited by a handful of people (most likely family!) because it's almost impossible to find.

For example, suppose you run a horse trekking business. Google alone returns 171,000 pages about "horse trekking". If your website is not in the top 10 or so then it may as well not exist. Getting it to rank in that to 10 is the key to getting inquiries and bookings. The problem is there are 170,699 other websites also wanting that top 10 spot, and that's where optimisation of your website becomes essential.

Unfortunately, search engine optimisation can be tricky, so much in fact that it's become a bit of an art. Just slapping the right keywords in your pages no longer cuts the mustard, as the likes of Google now have incredibly complex indexing algorithms and are no longer as easily manipulated as they were in the past. However, with sound knowledge and experience regarding search engine indexing methods, good website content and methodical design practices, achieving a great ranking is definitely achievable. We know this because we repeatedly obtain great search results. If you type "horse trekking" into Google you'll see at number 1 position (above the other a quarter of a million other websites) is the TrueNZ Guide to Horse Trekking in New Zealand (click here to verify). Yep, that site is one of ours. And that number 1 spot is the difference between a profitable business and "out of business".

If you have an existing website we can examine and tweak the coding to make it more "search engine friendly".

If we develop a new website for you then you needn't immediately worry about search engine optimisation, as we design websites from the ground up to be "search engine friendly".

Website Promotion

Not to be confused with "search engine marketing", website promotion can encompass a range of marketing options. Your website can be promoted via external media such as newspaper and magazine ads and articles, radio or television, brochures and posters and the like.

However, one of the most effective and common forms of website promotion is obtaining links to your website from other sites on the Internet.

This involves getting listed in the major search engines, web directories, and obtaining links from other relevant websites. For example, if you run a Bed and Breakfast or homestay your website promotion may involve the following:

  • get your [hopefully well-designed] website listed in the major search engines.
  • list your website with on line accommodation directories such as the AA-Guides, TrueNZ Guides, and other listing services. Some of these are free, most attract an annual subscription.
  • get links to your website on your regional tourism site.
  • place links to and from other bed and breakfast websites.

One very helpful by-product of listing in directories and linking from other sites is that it increases your "link popularity", with the result being that search engines then perceive your site as being more important and will accordingly rank your site higher in the search results they produce.

We can offer advice on where best to promote your website, and if you wish we can organise links and listings.