Ever Wondered How to Make Your Website a Powerful Tool for Your Business Growth?

Content-rich websites are Search-Engine Optimized

Many new businesses recognize the need to advertise and market their products and services, but they don't have the capital needed to compete effectively on the internet.

So they are reduced to cheap hosting packages which leave them high and dry in terms of the tools needed to generate the traffic that is the key component in their return on investment.

What is the solution?

• - get a bank loan and
• - pay a web design company large sums, sometimes thousands of pounds.

So many SEO companies!

There are thousands of web design companies, some which include bespoke and eye-catching designs, and many claim to optimize the customer's website so that it will rank higher in the Search Engines listings.

This so-called Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is only one small part of the whole process however, and Google, Yahoo, MSN and others constantly refine the techniques they use to get good quality results for people searching for solutions.

When a user (or from the business perspective, "potential customer") looks for something using a search engine, they are primarily looking for a solution to a problem: they are looking for a information.

It is information, ie content, that they are wanting to find. Generally, users aren't necessarily looking to spend money (though, if you're lucky - they might!). They're looking to find out how to do something, or get some ideas for their home, work etc.

Content-rich

If businesses learn how to develop content-rich websites that people find useful, then they'll come back. Not just once or twice, but again and again.

These users have become 'pre-sold' to the offerings produced by the website they constantly return.

This is no great secret - it's what the big players have been doing for years (think of websites like YahooKids for example, which provide children with rich content so that that's where they'll always return. When those children grow up, they're much more likely to use the Yahoo Search Engine than any other).

For the local, small business however, they've not got the resources (read: finance) to compete with such offerings, so more often than not, small business websites will be content or feature-poor.

They just don't have the money, or indeed the time, to generate content-rich and interesting websites which would grow their customer-base. So they don't try, and rely on the more tried and tested approach of marketing: linking up with local business associations, using Thompson Local or Yellow Pages, printing business cards etc.

Marketing your company: A story

The point is, however, that in order to compete in the rapidly changing environment of the internet, unless they're able to use the same marketing techniques as the big players, they'll never develop their niche successfully. Think about this: let's say that you've just set up in business selling waterproof matches. They're the best matches that have ever been invented, and what's more, you've discovered a technique for re-generating the matches so they can be used over and over again (very environmentally sound!).

Down the road from you however, your competitor has just started producing a similar waterproof match, but it doesn't re-generate.

However, the Managing Director of that company has produced a content-rich, eye-catching website that grabs it's visitors, and interests them in the product. You, on the other hand, have just stuck up a quick 2 page website detailing the product, its cost, and some contact details. Nothing more. It doesn't take much imagination to realize which match company becomes the household name. Your match may be better, more environmentally sound, even cheaper...but unless it succeeds in getting peoples attention, you'll remain just a small competitor, and your company might never get off the ground.

Cost-effective web-design: Good news for small businesses

UKBizonline is offering small businesses a chance to gain better rankings with the search engines, and help you build your customer base. The cost? £720 for the first year, then £360/year after this. How can we offer such an inexpensive solution? We're using a tried & tested set of tools, designed specifically for sole-traders and small businesses who are on a tight budget.Click on the above video and contact us to find out more.