$2000 worth of Advice
From Duncan Pollack, webpro veteran from Niagara Falls, Canada...on how a website should market itself on the web. Here is some sage advice for a florist's website:
"1. Educate your florist about the realities of search engine positioning. Money is probably the least important factor, save for paying for a Ton of Topnotch SEO work (which, even then, isn't going to come with any guarantees or, at least, shouldn't be doing). In other words, get the client to recognize that the main requirement is time.
2. Work your daylights out of making the site equal to, if not better than, the online florist ones that presently appear in the SERPS. In turn, do the homework to find out what search phrases are being used for these sites to pop up on the first page(s) of Google et al.
3. Expect the site to be sandboxed, which may mean a wait for several months before it ever turns up on a search. And tell your florist "Get used to it!"
4. If only as an interim measure, sign up for either Overture or Adwords (or maybe both) as soon as the site is ready. Opinions differ, but the consensus is in favour of Overture for e-commerce and Adwords for lead generation -- and there've been several WPW posts that can direct you to detailed accounts of what the two methods are and how to make the best use of them.
5. Submit the site for review by your Web Pro World colleagues. You don't have to agree with all the opinions you'll get, but the advice will invariably be "on the money."
6. When/if things aren't coming together as well or as fast as you (and never mind the florist) wants, start a WPW thread asking for suggestions.
7. Don't, don't, DON'T give up. The web is the cheapest and most effective way of marketing a product that has ever become available to a business, but it takes work, work, and more work to get it right. (And tell the florist this) too).
PS. To help make your case, share the following with the florist:
a) a search for online flower orders shows 5,310,000 results
a) a search for ordering flowers online shows 1,720,000 results
What makes him/her (or you) think it's all that easy to turn up in the Top Ten?!!
"1. Educate your florist about the realities of search engine positioning. Money is probably the least important factor, save for paying for a Ton of Topnotch SEO work (which, even then, isn't going to come with any guarantees or, at least, shouldn't be doing). In other words, get the client to recognize that the main requirement is time.
2. Work your daylights out of making the site equal to, if not better than, the online florist ones that presently appear in the SERPS. In turn, do the homework to find out what search phrases are being used for these sites to pop up on the first page(s) of Google et al.
3. Expect the site to be sandboxed, which may mean a wait for several months before it ever turns up on a search. And tell your florist "Get used to it!"
4. If only as an interim measure, sign up for either Overture or Adwords (or maybe both) as soon as the site is ready. Opinions differ, but the consensus is in favour of Overture for e-commerce and Adwords for lead generation -- and there've been several WPW posts that can direct you to detailed accounts of what the two methods are and how to make the best use of them.
5. Submit the site for review by your Web Pro World colleagues. You don't have to agree with all the opinions you'll get, but the advice will invariably be "on the money."
6. When/if things aren't coming together as well or as fast as you (and never mind the florist) wants, start a WPW thread asking for suggestions.
7. Don't, don't, DON'T give up. The web is the cheapest and most effective way of marketing a product that has ever become available to a business, but it takes work, work, and more work to get it right. (And tell the florist this) too).
PS. To help make your case, share the following with the florist:
a) a search for online flower orders shows 5,310,000 results
a) a search for ordering flowers online shows 1,720,000 results
What makes him/her (or you) think it's all that easy to turn up in the Top Ten?!!
posted by Max Hartshorne at 2:30 PM
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