Vernon Chalmers

In a recent blog post on Doodlekit (my hosting and CMS provider) I answered this question to a new website owner with the following:

The short answer to your question is - yes it will. But it may take quite a while to do so.
I have found by even doing the keywords and built-in optimisation it could be a while
for the site and keywords to be recognized by search engines. It will generally take a
couple of days (if the site is already indexed).

Note - the site will be indexed and listed in the search engines, but it may take weeks before specific search criteria will serve up your URL / content / blog posts / tags.

Also read the Vuvuzelas for Africa Internet Marketing / SEO case study

Purpose of your site
It is very important to understand the real purpose of your site - this will assist targeted traffic to visit for specific purposes. You have to be patient with SEO and work on your site content for targeted traffic. I am busy preparing my site for about 300 students per week that's required to register and download course information. I have steered away from waiting for traffic to find me to a pro-active informative site / publishing approach with important content (for which the users must register).

Decide what you want to do with your site. Is it a business for selling - or is it a medium
for getting relevant content across to support other / offline material? In my case the
www.vernonchalmers.com is mainly a medium to inform, educate and communicate.
It does not need to cost you to be on the search engines. Determine your real online
purpose and work patiently to link your site with other relevant and professional
entities.

Own / custom domain name
For sustained online visibility it is recommended to register your own domain name with access to a dynamic CMS system for content updating. Operating from a sub-domain is a start, but will prevent [your] proprietary and custom SEO functionality to leverage your site's ability to attract new visitors.

Search Engine Indexing
You should also prepare your site for indexing with major search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo. This should add further visibility and stickiness to your site. Many of these indexing services are free and with bundled webmaster tools will provide amateur webmasters many tools for analysis and optimisation.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
It is not just important to have a good site description and relevant keywords, but it is key to know what you wish to achieve with your site in terms of site / product / service / publicity in your selected geographical area. To make your site SEO friendly it is vital to have a relevant site title and description to identify with customers and to know how to select and develop relevant in-content keywords to direct them to your site.

Backlinks
What I have done was to add / build backlinks with my local business / academic directories in Cape Town (My main "business" area is the presentation of short management and business courses) so that when people search for short courses my business name and my courses will be displayed as high as possible in their searches.

this will also assist in getting an acceptable page rank (PR) from Google. I focused
my SEO efforts around Google as it is very popular in my market area. And keep in
mind up to 60 - 70% of Internet users only search up to the first page of Google.

Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns
There is also the option of Google Adwords advertising campaigns to assist with specific events or launches. I personally believe in organic SEO practices, but for the new site owner an Adwords or similar campaign may provide start-up momentum that could later evolve to only use on-site practices. I am not against Google Adwords, it is just a tactic that is not very cost-effective in my search marketing approach.

Do not just Google your domain name, but also the various products / services /
content you are offering to your target market(s). Have a good look what competitors /
similar sites are doing on the search engines when you type your own keywords in.
You could also use some of online SEO services to evaluate your site? It will assist in
analysing your site's description and keywords. The built-in automatic and manual
URL submission will add your URL to many, many search engines and directories. I
have found these to be ineffective somewhat as it increase email spam from unknown
search engines and marketing companies.

Conclusion
SEO should be a major part of your Internet Marketing efforts and should happen over
time. It is important to appreciate traditional marketing and advertising practices to
assist in creating an effective online presence. Hosting and managing a website is an
important building block in executing business / marketing strategy and respect to
traditional business principles should guide you in the execution of your business
strategy. Key is not to wait for customers, but to proactively deploy the Internet as the
medium and message to communicate your presence, business and unique content.

Internet Marketing and SEO training and consultations.

Vernon Chalmers is an independent lecturer in e-Commerce at Varsity College Rondebosch Cape Town

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