WHAT’S IN IT FOR YOU?

This is a case where a long established business builds a site www.apetitefoods.com, I optimise it (on page), but they do not have the resources or desire to continue working on it (optimising).

The company has great products and will continue doing business as usual, their website is just under utilised.

 

If you are in a similar position you may consider doing a strategic deal where I can on-page optimise your site, continue optimising it (on and off page) and commercialise it (add a shopping cart). I can offer this strategic and time consuming work for a very low few and / or a percentage of on-site sales made. This is a very low risk model as not only can you get regular website performance reports, you also make sales that you never would have made, and profit that would have gone to your competitor. The following outlines a position that many small companies find themselves in.

HISTORY

Apetite Foods is a great Melbourne based pet treat and pet milk distributor. It sells several of its brands through supermarkets, to consumers and to export markets. The company has been operating since 1991 and is a well respected family business. However cheap imports into Australia have been decreasing the quality of products in the market, decreasing profits within the industry and with the trend towards warehouse style pet shops, competition is fierce.

Unfortunately the site creation was handled by a relatively uncommitted third party designer. Miscommunication between management and this party meant a delay in the site being built for several months further reducing management commitment to the project.

The decision to optimise a website

ACTION

After numerous consultations with the MD, several lengthy SEO reports were created for them to explore the possible growth options the website could bring them. These reports were equal measure 'selling the value' of being online and getting a high search result position as well as the future optimization that would be required to maintain any positions obtained.

GAINING PAGE ONE ON GOOGLE

RESULTS

The site was originally created to act like an online brochure. A proportion of Apetite’s potential clients are based overseas and it was thought that creating a website would instil further confidence these clients have about dealing with Apetite.

Unfortunately the company believed that ongoing optimization of the site would take too many resources or cause too much distraction from 'core business'. The several niche markets (keywords) that the site was optimized for work surprisingly well. That is, they gained page one ranking for the site on Google for several phrases within the first few months. While these niches represent small monthly search numbers, they are highly targeted meaning that the visitors are likely to be very well qualified and in a position to purchase products. However, if their is no 'close' option on the site, a way of guiding them to making a purchase while reading the information, much of the initial impact and sales will be lost.

As is typically the case for larger search volume keywords (not contested by this site), the search engine results (SERPS) pages are full of highly competitive, high page rank, high visitor number websites. These sites can’t easily be competed with by on page optimization alone or without regular off page optimisation. That is why small companies with small budgets should consider competing in the 'long tail' of the market and trying a 'risk free' method of getting sales.

CONCLUSIONS

As discussed at the start of this article, many companies choose not to put resources towards website maintenance or optimisation. This is often the case for established businesses that have existed for years without the internet. Sometimes owning a website is viewed like adding another layer of complexity to a business for little gain.

As you can see from this case study, as a marketing consultant I am willing to go ‘the extra kilometre’ to assist a client in being successful. I find doing whatever is necessary (white hat) to achieve these results with the multitude of ever evolving search engine optimisation tools is an exciting challenge. The aim of growing a site (and often the ‘bricks and mortar’ associated company) is a mid to long term goal. By now many people are realising that the internet is only growing from strength to strength and monthly is taking a larger proportion of the total sales for any market. If you are interested in taking on a risk free partner, who is willing to help you get to the next level I would like to hear from you.