Marketing
The environmental movement has united people from all walks of life. This from George Monbiot…
Monbiot.com » Hypocrites Unite!
Environmentalism is the most politically diverse movement in history. Here in the climate camp I have met anarchists, communists, socialists, liberals, conservatives and – mostly - pragmatists. I remember sitting in a campaign meeting during the Newbury bypass protests and marvelling at the weirdness of our coalition. In the front row sat the local squirearchy: brigadiers in tweeds and enormous moustaches, titled women in twinsets and headscarves. In the middle were local burghers of all shapes and sizes. At the back sat the scuzziest collection of grunge-skunks I have ever laid eyes on. The audience disagreed about every other subject under the sun – if someone had asked us to decide what day of the week it was, the meeting would have descended into fisticuffs - but everyone there recognised that our quality of life depends on the quality of our surroundings.
Do you fit into any of these groups? Does the environmental movement suffer or gain because it is so broad?
I'm looking to start a new business venture, and of course I'll also be after a website, probably an ecommerce site with a blog, supporting secure downloads too. I think I've got that sorted with Drupal as a content management system, but it still remains to find the "right" domain name, and this could even influence the decision of what to call the company that I'm likely to form.
So where do you find a good, even a great domain name that's not already taken or even worse, available, but at a price that you can't afford!
This is where the guys at Picky Domains come in.
Send them $50, a bit of info about what you want , what your site is/will be about, any naming rules or conventions you want to follow, (dashes or not, for example), and they'll send the info out to a number of domain namers who get a 50% cut of the fee if their suggested domain is picked by you.
The testimonials and example domains that have been bought through the site are evidence of a great concept executed at a simple level. If you are in the market for a new name, give these guys a go.
Great domains are darn hard to come by. Especially if you consider the fact, that there are over 10000 domainers whose only job is to find cool domain names and register them for further resale. And register they do – every single day. 70% of all registered domain names are registered to domainers.
PickyDomains.Com unites 17 domain namers from United States, Canada, Russia, UK, Australia and New Zealand, all with extensive experience of picking great domain names. Some pick domain names for over 6 years.
Here is “our method”. Each domain namer thinks about what the site does, rather than how to name it. This is how we come up with domains like DialerQueen.Com. This is a site that sells internet dialers.
I must use Google about 50 times a day for searching things: products, reference material, shops, directions, images. You name it, Google will generally deliver the goods, so to speak. I'm not alone in my quest for knowledge at the fount of Google, Nielson reported that Google holds a 49.2% share of the more than 60 search engine sites, averaging a total of 5.6 billion searches in August 2006. And that's why I focus on Google.
Unfortunately, Google is only as smart as the content that it crawls on the big bad world wide web and the algorithms that it uses to sort through the junk to find the best content, then delivery it in search results for people to use. For most search queries on Google, people will find what they are looking for within the first two, maybe three pages of results.
What does this mean for your company?
Is your company web ready? Have you done any work on your website in the past month? read the following to see where your site fits in...
- You don't have a company website, or have one that is not optimized for search engines like Google. People are not going to find your company online. It is as simple as that.
- Your company website consists of only directions, contact details and opening hours. Google will not even give you a second look, and your customers may find it hard to find you.
- Your company website has some information about what you do, services offered, you might gain some points on the Google ladder. Do you know where you sit on the ladder for relevant keywords such as, "bakery nelson BC"?
- If your website is search engine optimized, (SEO), you have regularly updated, searchable content, such as a blog and you have relevant keywords appropriately placed throughout the content, you will be in Google's, and therefore your client's good books.
Search engine hits convert into sales or service enquiries, and if you are not in the first two pages of results for relevant searches that your clients might be asking Google, you are missing out on a large percentage of potential clients.
As an example, today through my website tracking software, Performancing Metrics, I discovered that for someone searching for "sustainable engineering companies", my website UrbanWorkbench (as of writing this article) is in the number one position (under a sponsored link) on google.com, and on google.ca it's in the number eight position. And of the seven results ahead of mine, most of them are from the University of British Columbia, or the Canadian Department of Natural Resources.
For a similar search, admittedly more narrow in focus, "engineering in the kootenays" my site holds positions 3 and 4 behind two articles about local consultants published on www.investkootenay.com. It's great that they have some exposure via this site, but wouldn't it be better if they had their actual websites as that first and second place in the search results?
Why This Annoys the Heck out of Me
I don't own or run a sustainable engineering company, (sometimes I wish I did, but that's another story!), and I love the fact that I'm getting visitors off this search phrase, but come on! Surely there are companies out there that better represent what it means to be a sustainable engineering company. The companies that do best represent such a search term, should spend a bit of money to get their sites up to scratch with SEO.
I didn't pay anyone to get my website at the top in searches relevant to my site, I wrote content that is relevant to the search terms and use a content management system (CMS) to organize my pages and articles into a format that search engines, (and a lot of people) like. I've set up my site ready to convert to a professional site if required, but at the moment, I'm running it as a personal/professional blog about Engineering, Design, and Sustainability.
As a Google user, I want the best companies to have the best relevant content, so that Google can sort the sheep from the goats so to speak. Content such as this blog has it's place in providing news, articles and opinion, but this type of content, relevant to the field your company operates in, could be on your blog, increasing you search engine rankings as you go.
What Can You Do Today
Or in the next couple of weeks :-)....
Do you want to increase your company's profile and ranking in Google? Try these suggestions...
- Scrap you existing static site;
- Start a Blog or at least a search engine optimized site with a CMS like Drupal, then go back to point 1;
- Signup for Google's Local Business Centre, to get your company's location mapped for search results like "bakery nelson BC"
- Buy The SEO Book by Aaron Wall;
- Read CopyBlogger for some great tips on content;
- Sign up for Performancing Metrics statistics package; and
- Enjoy some newly discovered, internet savvy Clients.
If you liked this post you can subscribe to the feed, or give it a digg or stumble if you please!
I'm in the middle of listening to an audio version of Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
Today, the author and speaker Seth Godin writes about what he calls brand DNA:
At 5, the clock radio at the hotel started playing Steely Dan. I knew it in less than a second. Two notes.
Seth asks if our business, our blogs and even ourselves have brand DNA. It got me thinking about a lot of things, Seth often has that effect, he doesn't always answer, but puts the seed of a thought in your head, then gives you permission to ponder it.
Maybe that's his brand DNA? read more »
Community organisations aim for social change, convincing the public to change sounds simple doesn't it? Well in the new world of social media, the rules have changed. These are some thoughts on this topic that have grown in my head from talks at the Northern Voice Conference, thanks to Jason Mogus for his thoughts and presentation this morning.
As many of my readers know, I'm interested in seeing society and communities grow in sustainability and changing the way they live. As such, this topic of change and managing change is dear to my heart.
Social Media and Corporations
Social media and blogging has totally changed the way we make our pitch or campaign to the public, the old way was to push for a response to say the government, whereas now, participation is at the core of campaigns, through blogging, comments and social media. This makes a lot of corporations pretty nervous, they fear openness and transparency, believing that having full control is the only way to control their image.
Those of us who are dabbling in social media and activism are somewhat on the leading edge of the wave of technology and change, but no one really knows where it will go, certainly blogs and youtube are a start, but they are not likely to be the end. Read more after the jump... read more »
How do you drive people to your pages? Many of my readers are not bloggers trying to monetize their sites, rather, they are technical or professional people who have a voice worth hearing. But too often, without the right tools, the great content being written is getting overlooked, mainly from a lack of targeting to their niche.
Yesterday I discussed some of the ways you can make money from blogging, but the critical question still remains, how do you get people to visit the pages or posts that you write? Here are six ways...
1. Great Content
I’m sorry to say it, but this one is true, if you don’t provide visitors with great, thought provoking content, why would they come back? If you love writing and are good at it, that’s a bonus, if you’re not, check out one of my favorite sites, CopyBlogger for tips on how to write great content that will get you noticed.
There is an art to writing content that is readable, searchable and draws visitors into the site: read more »
Click here to subscribe
