4.8 Budgeting for Web Enhancement

Web Design - the early years:

The first into the market with high profile web development services were traditional marketing firms looking to transfer thier print representation of client services onto the web. Unfortunately, the skill sets required to create compelling and frequently visited web content were not consistent with the graphic design and image making capacity of traditional marketing firms.

Others in the market place who call themselves web designers simply developed the skillsets using off the shelf software to edit images and create simple web sites quickly and fairly inexpensively.

Today, there are two main areas of concern that go hand-in-hand with basic web development, Search Engine Marketing, and Search Engine Optimization. Most firms that specialize in Search Engine Marketing (SEM) don't specialize in Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and vice versa. Though some services require some of the same skills (such as keyword research), SEO and SEM are completely distinct services.

Both SEO and SEM require keyword research and copywriting skills. Yet writing Web page content is quite different from writing ad copy.

What to Look for in a Search Engine Marketing firm:

Since search engine advertising has become hot, ad agencies jumped on the bandwagon to offer it. The focus of these firms is on developing compelling text for Keyword advertising that generates web site visits and refining web content to encourage web visitors to take you up on your calls to action. Top search engine positions are not very important to SEM

In a basic sense, the first job of a SEM is to understand what people are looking for when they enter search terms in a search engine and to encourage them to click on a hyperlink to your site. The SEM's tools are often only 100 unformatted text characters!

With ad copy, writers deal with only a limited set of words, including:

• Query words
• Benefits
• Unique selling propositions
• Sense of urgency (e.g., limited offer)
• Calls to action.

The second job of SEM is to help you achieve your goals on your site. This is usually achieved by paying attention to the design and function of entry (landing) pages. Once users click to your site, what do you want them to do? Do you want them to click the back button or complete your call to action? If visitors aren't ready to take that action, do you provide other alternatives or an incentive to return to your site later? Although conversion marketing is often overlooked in SEM the focus is on getting web visitors to act.

What to Look for in a Search Engine Optimization firm:

Keyword Research and Copywriting

Both SEO and SEM require keyword research and copywriting skills. Yet writing Web page content is quite different from writing ad copy.

With actual Web pages (including landing pages) prepared by an SEO, writers must deal with titles, meta tags (or search engine relevant parameters), headings, a higher word count, site navigation schemes, calls to action (above and below the fold), and cross-linking. Though some of these features should be available on ad landing pages, many of these landing pages aren't an integral part of a site's information architecture.

Many copywriters come from a print, advertising, or journalism background. This group might not specialize in Web and search copywriting. Search copywriters capable in SEO know how to write with keyword phrases and incorporate these phrases into sales copy without diluting either brand or copy. Search-friendly copy has a certain level of redundancy that might not be acceptable in a print medium.

Web Design, Development, and Usability

Placing keyword-rich text on Web pages won't increase search engine visibility unless crawler-based search engines can easily access that text. A site's design, page layout, navigation scheme, and technical components are just as important as search-friendly copy.

Finding an SEO firm that specializes in search-friendly design is difficult. Not only must this firm's staff have design skills, staff should have programming, development, marketing, Web analytics, and usability skills. Very few SEO firms have staff with technical and marketing skills.

Many firms that claim to specialize in search-friendly design; promising high rankings with search engines, consist of programmers having limited design and usability skills. SEO firms can often use a little help in developing a site that has at least some of the emotional attraction you might be looking for in transferring your hard copy promotional material which builds your brand to the web. Design focusing on appearance over usability can make a call to action less prominent or navigation difficult or worse, frustrating for the user. Be careful not to place the importance of design over usability!

Even if an SEO firm doesn't have individual staff with multiple talents, make sure it has staff with these six skill sets: design, development, programming, search, Web analytics, and usability. Look for cross-training so staff understand one anothers jobs within the organization to ensure your needs are being met in all areas.

Link Development

Link development is often an ongoing process that is a time consuming process for SEO. For a new site, link development often begins with directory paid inclusion. Since it's difficult to modify a directory listing, a search-friendly copywriter should know how to research categories and write appropriate descriptions that will enhance a site's overall search engine visibility and be an accurate directory description. Directory submission is an important skill that many SEO's lack proficiency in.

Unfortunately, link development isn't a skill PR firms currently provide. Link development requires search, publicity, and e-mail skills. For example, an article opportunity might arise in an online publication. A qualified link development specialist knows how to:

• E-mail a publication to pitch the article
• Write the article so keywords naturally appear in the copy
• Ensure the article links back to the Web site in a search-friendly way.

In Summary

Sometimes, SEO is a simple process. Maybe the title tags need a little tweaking. Adding text links and alt tags might do the trick. However, if you need to outsource or hire an SEO, make sure the firm has staff that specialize in search, copywriting, design, development, programming, marketing, and link development. It's a tall order. But these skills are essential for building a user-friendly, search-friendly, and persuasive site that converts potential guests into visitors.

What's it all cost:

Hiring a Web Design, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization firm requires a clear understanding of your goals. Designing for your tourism-based services requires your service provider to have a basic understanding of the customer-relation management strategies you want to employ. Think this through before web development work is begun. Changes made once work has commenced can be more expensive than planning for your needs from the beginning.

Much of the cost depends on how much time outsourced firms will spend on your project. Determine which components of web enhancement are most important to you, determine your budget and interview at least a few firms who might be able to help meet your needs.

Set realistic goals and develop a long term strategy to increasing your sales on the web over the next few years. Don't focus on getting everything optimized at once. You will find that tweeking your content is a never-ending process, so if you outsource the work, recognize that you will be going back sooner or later and asking for changes. Build this into the contract and your budget.

You might also ask for web design that permits you to edit content without affecting the sites basic design or linking structure. Some firms offer a web based solution where content is edited in a web browser, while others rely on web development tools like Contribute, which permit end users to edit content and upload pages with restricted access, so that the web developers work isn't undone.