Unlocking the doors to internet address

CASH-strapped small and medium businesses know that a website will open their business to the world - but too often they skimp on marketing the site and it fails to achieve its true potential.

Internet expert Jasmine Batra said it did not have to be so difficult.

"A website can be such a level playing field and small business can compete against the big corporates," she said.

Mrs Batra, the director of Arrow Internet Marketing, said there were measures that businesses could take to optimise their presence on the internet.

She said her own company was ranked first for searches on google.com.au for 'SEO company' thanks to clever use of optimisation.

Mrs Batra said experts could identify what people were searching for and how best the small or medium business could tap into demand.

One step was to find out what search words people were using when looking for goods or services.

It helps, she said, to put yourself in their shoes. For instance, are people searching for 'used baby goods' or 'second hand baby goods'.

Mrs Batra said when websites were developed they generally had access to tools to track who was visiting the site. Traffic statistics can not only show how many people are visiting but how long they stayed.

Mrs Batra said people should do this at least once a month.

"I like to look at my traffic stats every week," she said.

"There are lots of insights in them.

"If you were running a retail store you would be interested to know how many people walked in the door." She said people could install Google Analytics which would assist them find out where their visitors were coming from and how they interacted with the site.

She said it also was important to manage the content of the site, keeping it up-to-date and relevant.

Mrs Batra said Google had more than 300 criteria when ranking websites. Blogging, RSS feeds and repeating key words were all advantageous and would optimise a site.

Mrs Batra said it was pointless to spend a lot of money on a site and not market it.

"They need to be spending money on the online marketing of the site as well," she said.

It's also important to identify your target market. If, for example, you are targeting Generation Y you might be interested in pursuing bookmarking, social networking sites such as MySpace, Flickr and Del.ici.ous.

"There are a lot of opportunities to make the most of it," she said.

She said some businesses might find Pay Per Click promotions, such as Google AdWords, effective.

Mrs Batra said businesses might like to run Google Adwords in the short term, at particular times of the year in their business cycle.

But she said it was important for businesses to know how much the service was costing them and how much it cost to get each client or sell each product.

She said some clients offering professional services had found Google AdWords beneficial.

Mrs Batra said one of her clients, which sells solar panels, had been able to work out that using AdWords it cost it $30 to sell a $1500 panel.

* JASMINE Batra will be a speaker at the 7th annual CeBIT Australia's Exhibition in Darling Harbour, Sydney.

She will cover issues such as eMarketing and search engine optimisation.

More than 750 technology solution providers will feature at CeBIT from May 20-22.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23549968-664,00.html