How Not to Promote Your Website

As a business man or woman, you no doubt know your business very well, and have technical skills. Even so, you probably find the idea of getting business from the internet a bit of a mystery. So when a rep from a well-known company contacts you and tells you glowing stories about how his clients are making lots of money using his service, you listen intently.

In reality, your ears should go up, and alarm bells should start ringing in your ears! Rephrase the wording from 'my clients are making money' to 'our company are making a killing', and you're getting the message. For example, one of the easiest ways of wasting money is on PPC (pay per click) adverts in the search engines with Google Adwords or MSN Bing. Another is getting listed in a local directory.

Why is this? There are many reasons but it is all about 'relevance'. Your advert headline, your landing page (where people are sent when they click on the Advert), the text of the Advert and the keyword you use must all be relevant to one another. If they are not relevant to a high degree, you will pay a lot for the advert. You also pay more if your site is not ranked highly for that keyword.

So, you might ask, why do PPC sites recommend that you use a huge list of keywords to advertise your products or services? Good question.

Of course, the more keywords you use the exposure you get, and the more clicks, which means more money for the search engines. And that is where their money comes from. It also follows that if you use, say, 100 keywords for 10 products many will not be relevant.

So, don't waste your money on Adwords, etc. When you hear that companies like BT are now selling themselves as intermediaries to help you get lots of sales from Adwords, you know that there must be plenty of money in getting people to use the service.

Local directories

There are also a host of companies jumping on another bandwagon: mini local directories.

There are many of these, and the idea is that they get their site on the front page for local keywords like 'plumber Bristol' or 'double glazing Liecester' or 'roofer Dorset'.

They claim you will always be on page one or two, which can't be possible for everyone all the time. To overcome this weakness, you may find that they have placed your site on the front page for a keyword that is unrelated to your business. A good example would be a listing for 'wooden doors' when you are selling PVC double glazing. The result is very few clicks, if any.

We have heard of several horror stories. One cost the firm over £10,000 a year, and they never got a single enquiry from it. So, avoid these mini-directories, even though they may get a page one link. How do they do it? By making every customer send a link to their site, which soon collects thousands of links, nearly all of very poor 'quality' in the eyes of Google bots.