What does it cost?
If there's one thing that companies like ours are reluctant to talk about, it's price. Normally this is with good reason. Firstly because they're afraid to be open about their pricing for fear of putting people off, and secondly because there are few guarantees that can be offered.
We prefer to be as open we can be. Imagine trying to buy some shoes and not being able to find any indication of the price!
Our daily rate is £300. There, now you know.
In practical terms, you can buy as much or as little as you like (our schedule permitting) on a monthly basis. The Golden Rule is: the more you spend the better - and faster - the results will be.
If you're still reading, we're assuming this figure doesn't phase you and you're serious about turning your website into a significant revenue stream for your business, but you still probably want to know where this money goes (trust us when we say that it is not spent on plush offices!)
What do I get for my money?
There aren't actually any set answers to this question, as it really depends on your needs. If your website has brilliant copy and great design, then the focus might be on linkbuilding or creating a well-managed Pay Per Click campaign to get the traffic you need. Sometimes a site has good visitor numbers already, but problems with the design or wording means that sales are low, and our attention needs to be turned to these aspects instead. In some cases, businesses aren't even sure how their site can be used to make money and we need to revisit the whole business model to find out where we need to begin.
We bill on a monthly basis, and every client is different. If we had to try to give you a typical plan though, it would look something like this.
Month 1
In the first month, we normally recommend that you buy extra days from us so we can evaluate your needs from all kinds of perspective. Is your copy up to scratch? What is your market like and who are your competitors? What keywords are going to bring traffic into your site? Should you be using AdWords for market research or to gain new visitors? Are there problems with your site that make it hard for visitors to buy or enquire?
We try to shy away from big reports that you'll never read, but in this first month it is vital that we establish a good understanding of your business and what you want your website to do. You'd be surprised how many businesses we speak to that can't offer a clear explanation of these things! The first month is a clarification exercise, and we normally begin to make changes to your site to make it easier for us to manage your search engine optimisation from a technical perspective.
Months 2-6
Based on our initial findings, we produce monthly action plans which detail the specific steps we will take for your website. Mostly these actions lie with us, but sometimes we need information or resources from you. As a general rule, our core activities are performing keyword research, technical search engine optimisation, writing copy and managing online advertising campaigns.
As traffic numbers build, we begin the process of refining our activities as we discover more about your market and your audience.
Months 6-12
With 6 months of visitor data to draw on, we should be in a position to discern trends from your website. If we've set up methods to capture visitor details, then we might find there is enough data to launch an email marketing campaign to previous customers or people who've expressed an interest. We will be identifying drop-off points in your website (wherever people are getting bored and leaving the site) or failing to fill in forms.
After a Year...
There is no such thing as a static market. Most online businesses fail within a year so some of your competitors will have dropped out. However, with barriers to entry still being so low there'll be new kids on the block with new ideas and offerings.
The search engines too will have moved on. New factors that affect their rankings come along all the time and today's good advice is tomorrow's 'how silly does that look now?' article.
With a years worth of customer information and search engine rankings to draw on, we'll be looking at new ways to drive traffic and enquiries. Like painting the Forth Road Bridge, the optimisation never ends...
