Mini website audit

Over the next few weeks I’ll be looking at what you (an entry level audience) can do to improve your website’s performance. Each time I add new tips, I’ll overwrite the previous version. We’ll kick off with keywords, links and content.

First think of a list of three keywords that are important for your organisation and jot them down on a piece of paper - then put them into Google and see where you appear in the rankings. I’m guessing you’re not at the top, but not to worry. Make a note of three competitors that rank more highly than you and visit each of the sites in turn. For each click on the view menu in your browser and select source from the drop down menu. Most of the code won’t mean much but look for the lines with the terms keywords and description in them.

Now look at the number of inbound links that each site has. You can use a free tool like http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/ to do this - all you need is a Yahoo account. While keywords and description is a quick fix, a programme of link exchange has to be ongoing so you might want to involve others in the organisation in this project and meet once a month to report on progress.

The same goes for site content. Look at what your competitors - or any site that you particularly like - are doing. The trick is to be content-rich. Give as much information as you can - without, of course, divulging any trade secrets! Show visitors that you really know what you’re talking about and they’ll be more likely to contact you directly. Again, pool your resources and ask colleagues from other departments to feed information through. Most organisations have huge untapped reserves of knowledge.

Who reads this stuff anyway?

One really important point about digital press releases is that nobody reads them. But allow me to explain - the operative word is nobody. For the purposes of page ranking, getting noticed or just having your press release 'lodge' somewhere on the net, it's mechanised search engines that trawl the internet, not people. And they just don't have the same tastes as humans.

That doesn't mean you can copy and paste 1000 words of search terms without any syntax and get away with it - you need real content but there's no requirement to keep it quite so brief. These guys are so much faster and more 'patient' that it's a good idea to keep in all of those notes and background that you would have edited out for time-poor human eyes. What might have been a one page (double spaced) release becomes possibly three or four pages.

Company and author profiles, more detailed product/service specs and a nice section of relevant links - in addition to those embedded in the text - it's all grist to the mill. And when your client (if you're an agency) or you MD (if you're in-house) says 'I think we should put out a release our our investment in a new set of step ladders' or 'a change of a pantone reference in our logo,' there's no need to argue any more. Don't send it to journalists if you think it will weaken your reputation, but do issue it on a wire service. It will get picked up somewhere and together with stronger material can possibly help you deny a competitor some space on the initial pages of a Google search.