As businesses increasingly begin to sell their products and services online, we are getting more and more questions about payment gateways and how you take payment from your e-commerce website.

The first thing to understand is that an online store or e-commerce website is very similar to a physical retail store in some respects. At a physical retail store, you'd walk in, pick a product off the rack, take it to the checkout and either hand over some cash or pay through an EFTPOS/Credit Card machine. The shop owner will be paying someone for the privilege of using that machine (particularly for credit card transactions), so that's while you'll often see stores either charging more for credit card transactions or not offering them at all. Online, it's the same story. A customer will come to your online store, click on the product they want to buy, head through to an online checkout and then provide their credit card details through a payment gateway. That gateway takes care of all the security and the $$ transaction, but as far as the customer is concerned, they've just paid you for the item they are buying. As an online store owner, you'll end up having to pay that payment gateway provider somehow, and how each gateway works for you as the store owner is slightly different in each case. Below are a couple of the options we use both ourselves and with clients.

PayPal
If you've shopped online you've probably come across PayPal at some point. It's globally recognised, has a very good track record, and is very simple to use.

• Sign Up - one of the best things about PayPal is that the sign up process is very easy. Answer a few questions and you're basically good to go.
• Pricing - PayPal has simplified their pricing in NZ recently - at the time of writing you'll only pay on the transaction (3.4% + 45c per transaction). So if you sold a $10 item online, you'd pay 79c ($9.21 into your pocket). You can find PayPal's fees at this link.
• Getting your money - the one downside of PayPal is that you'll need to draw down your money from your PayPal account manually. You'll receive the funds into your PayPal account (less the transaction fee), and they'll stay in that account until you sign into PayPal and make a lump sum withdrawal to your verified bank account.
• Integration - integration with the CMS that 543 uses is really simple (just sign in basically), and PayPal works equally well with software like Xero. By creating a PayPal 'bank account' in your Xero reporting software, all the transactions will be recorded and it is super easy to reconcile. You can also connect PayPal up to your Xero invoicing if you want to give the option for any invoices you generate to be paid online.
• Other bonuses - because PayPal effectively acts as a bank account, you'll be able to use your PayPal ID to pay for transactions across the internet with other stores. That means no need to add your credit card details over and over again.
• PROS - globally recognised and trusted. Super easy to use & integrates easily with Xero etc.
• CONS - have to draw funds down yourself. Can be confusing to some users as the PayPal portal gives users the chance to 'sign in'.

Stripe
Stripe is the new kid on the block in New Zealand, but has been established overseas for a while now. 

• Sign Up - again, Stripe is really easy to sign up for, just make sure to have all your business details ready when you go through the process.
• Pricing - Stripe has come into the NZ market lower than PayPal with a per transaction price of 2.9% plus 30c. So if you sold a $10 item online you'd pay 59c ($9.41 into your pocket). You can find Stripe's fees at this link.
• Getting your money - unlike PayPal, Stripe will automatically pay your funds across to your bank account (once they have cleared). You'll be able to login and see a full summary of all the transactions, which have cleared and when they are expected to clear and land in your account etc.
• Integration - Stripe integrates really well into the payment side of most applications and certainly in the 543 CMS it's a simple matter of signing in. Because Stripe acts more as a direct payment portal, rather than a bank account, it doesn't integrate quite as well as PayPal into Xero. The descriptions that come across into Xero can be a little confusing for reconciliation, but there are ways around this, and we're picking this will improve in the not too distant future. Connecting Stripe up to Xero invoicing is also really easy - and reconciling that when you do connect it is extremely straight forward.
• Other bonuses - developers really seem to like Stripe. That means alot of plugins etc accept Stripe, and it's growing really quickly globally.
• PROS - payment straight through to your bank account (once confirmed). Easy to use. More in depth reporting and developer functionality. Low fees.
• CONS - doesn't integrate into Xero as smoothly as it could.

Other Options
There are a bucketload of other payment gateway providers out there (basically every bank will have some sort of option - Payment Express, PayMark...the list goes on). When you talk to your bank, they'll recommend the one that they use, but they'll all have different pro's and con's. The reason we've looked at PayPal and Stripe are because they are a perfect starting point for small to medium sized businesses. They are robust, easy to use, integrate into the CMS we use effortlessly and only charge per transaction. We've found alot of gateways (particularly with the major banks) charge a monthly fee plus a transaction fee. They'll have other upsides - like payment straight into your account - but the first thing you should always do is chat to your website designer or developer about what will or won't work with the site they are building/have built for you. Technology is a bit like a jigsaw puzzle, and while you can mash pieces together to get something to work, it's always best to use gateways and facilities that fit and work well together.

Like anything, do your own research and chat to your designer. Listen to the opinions of the experts, and you're bound to be better off in the long run.

One of the most common questions we get asked when we put a site live is "why can't I find my website on Google?" It's a natural enough question - we think it's entirely understandable that once your site is live you'll want to be able to find it. Unfortunately, the reality isn't quite as instant as we'd all love it to be!

It's important to remember that while Google is smart, it's still trawling millions of websites every day. It finds those websites, tries to decide what they are all about, then compares them to other websites in similar topic areas to decide which are the most relevant. After doing all of that it decides an order to put the websites into and presents that back to us as our search results. It's very clever stuff.

Step 1:
The first thing that needs to happen is for Google to find your website address and acknowledge your site exists at all. Over time this will happen automatically...in one of Google's many crawls across the internet it'll find your new url/domain/website address and put it into it's database. If you want to speed that process up, you'll need to submit your site to Google using their Webmaster Tools (ask your web designer about these, or just Google "submit site to Google"). If you've got a really unique company name like "Jiggy Jumpy Jobs" and your website url is unique as well ie "jiggyjumpyjobs.co.nz", then pretty much as soon as Google has crawled your site you'll be able to search "Jiggy Jumpy Jobs" and your site will pop up at the top of the list. However, if you have a generic company name or website address (eg "New Zealand Jobs" - newzealandjobs.co.nz), then you'll have to wait longer for your site to appear high in the search results. Why? Because Google will compare you against all the other New Zealand Job websites out there.

Step 2:
Once Google has done an initial crawl and your site has made it into their database, you'll be eager for it to move up the rankings in the important search terms your company works in. So Jiggy Jump Jobs will obviously want to hit the top of that New Zealand Jobs search, because that will get alot more search hits (and potential customers) than just a jiggy jumpy jobs google search. That's where online advertising and in particular search engine optimisation comes in.  By saying the right things in the right places and constantly monitoring your website you can try to shortcut to the top of those important results. It's something that can't really be covered in one blog post, and you'll usually need some expert advice on it, but it's definitely worth considering.

The summary and tips

• Choose a website url that is going to help you in BOTH the general search terms as well as one about your business. Using 543 an example, "websitedesign.co.nz" would be the perfect generic url, and "543.co.nz" would be really easy for searches looking to find 543 specifically - so we combined the two into "543websitedesign.co.nz". That url gives Google specifics about our company AND the more generic, descriptive search term. If you're a local business, think about including your city or region in the website address as well. As an NZ company, you should also be thinking about using .co.nz rather than .com.
  
• Once your site goes live submit your site to google, yahoo and bing.
• Give it a few weeks. Every site takes a bit of time to appear in search results, so patience is a virtue.
• Advertise on Google & Facebook early. If you want to cut out the delay in appearing in search results, pay for some advertising so you sit at the top of the pile immediately.
• Run a search engine optimisation plan. The monthly cost should more than pay for it further down the line when your site is getting tons of traffic from being at the top of the search list.

If you have your website on Google My Business, earlier this month you may have received an email giving you the opportunity to run specials and deals on your business listing. This is a new feature for most, so we thought we’d just quickly run through how you make those posts, and what they might best be used for.

First the how:

• Login to your Google My Business account (if you haven’t got one already – see our article here on getting that set up) and click on ‘Posts’ on the left-side menu when you are in your listing.
• You’ll then be given the ability to create a 300 word post with an image…or add an event title with start and end times.
• Choose a button to go with the post – from the basic “Learn More” to “Reserve” or “Get Offer”
• Publish the post and it will show on your business listing in google search and map results (see how ours looks on mobile in the image on this page).

 
So why would you use it?
At it’s core it’s just another way to get your key message out there. The idea behind the feature is to let businesses quickly and easily share specials or promotions – potentially even on a daily basis. At the end of the day it’s up to you though, you can showcase your top products, share an event, or even try to get more sign ups to your e-newsletter if that’s your goal.

Should we do it?
The question really is why wouldn’t you do it. It’s free and it’s easy to setup and change. How much you use it will be more the question, and that will all come down to your business time allocation.

There has been a lot of chatter recently about the rise and rise of platforms like SnapChat with the younger generation, and that perhaps Facebook might be on the way out. This has obviously led to a lot of companies questioning whether they should be putting focus and effort into running campaigns on the likes of Facebook – perhaps thinking they should be jumping to the cooler, newer platforms.

While it’s a valid thought process, and something to look into, some recent statistics should give small businesses in particular real comfort that Facebook should still be one of their first port of calls for social media posting and advertising. More importantly – it’s actually grown by more the last year than any year since 2012 (17%). Add in that your Facebook adverts can also run on Instagram and it remains the easiest and most effective social media platform for a small business to advertise on.

Why the continued growth? In our view it’s down to Facebook being the best channel for a range of different media types – video, pictures, text and web links. In that regard it also makes it really powerful as a search engine optimisation tool for your website. By cleverly sharing website links and blog posts, you can help with that search juice.
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At the end of the day it all comes down to what platform suits your company. Instagram might be spot on if you’re in food or fashion, or SnapChat could have serious appeal if you are running events. All in all though, Facebook remains a strong starting point for small business, and if you haven’t utilised it for your business yet – you might want to think about it.

Graphs and images from Tech Crunch. To read their more in depth look at the stats - click on this link.

I recently read a fantastic article in the NZ Herald espousing the view that Sky TV is dying and it needs to change it's business model to stay relevant. That's a viewpoint I think alot of New Zealander's believe is true - high prices with limited options isn't a model that works in the current consumer marketplace...it's why Uber stuck it to taxi's and it's why companies like Sky are facing serious challenges from Netflix and the like. It's the new normal and established companies are having to re-invent both their business model and the way they sell themselves. If they are smart they push ahead of the pack - but if they don't embrace change, they can really suffer. The question is...if Sky TV is flailing and struggling - what 'older' companies are making the most of this new media world? We are sure there are plenty out there, but the big winner we have seen of late is Vodafone.

Vodafone is a bit of a monolith in the telecommunications space. They were one of the first companies to enter the mobile world in NZ, but with disrupters like 2Degrees coming along, they now sit in that 'established' business zone which can see a company become stale quickly. Over the last few years they've spent a fair amount of marketing budget aiming to be 'cool' - having cars drift around a course to show how good their 3G coverage is for example - but that's not the marketing that's caught my eye. It's the way they have leveraged off their sponsorship of both the All Blacks and Emirates Team New Zealand that has really shown the value of their digital media teams.

Let's get this straight - leveraging off sponsorship isn't necessarily the easiest sell. How much value is your logo on a boat or on a rugby jersey really going to generate by itself? Sure, you'll get a few more eyeballs on the brand, and that might increase sales, but the real skill of a marketing team will be turning that sponsorship into something engaging and relevant without completely breaking the bank...and I think Vodafone has hit the nail on the head. As a sponsor of  Emirates Team New Zealand, the Vodafone team was immediately faced with a tough prospect. Sky TV (that quickly fading giant I mentioned earlier) has the rights to the America's Cup. Their penny pinching business model has meant a limited number of kiwis have access to watch the racing, and those that do, have to listen to the American commentary. Enter ETNZ, Vodafone and the other sponsors of the team who have forked out for Peter Lester and Martin Tasker (qualified sailing commentators) to be embedded with the team during their time in Bermuda. Every day pre and post race the reporters go live on Facebook for 20 minutes chatting to team members and giving some real insight into an event that definitely needs an explanation to most of the public. Of course, Martin wears the obligatory Vodafone hat, and just like that the company has incredible, unique and immediate content engaging kiwis and sports fans. Thousands watch those videos every day and they really have tapped into the power of the Facebook live video function. Unsurprisingly, Vodafone has also done similar with the Lions Tour - creating the "Rugby Roadie" which follows a Lions supporter through the entire tour. In fact if you go have a look at Vodafone's page right now it's video after video relating to ETNZ and the All Blacks (with a tiny sprinkling of product pushing). The New Zealand feel good factor couldn't be higher - and most importantly it's fresh, original and exclusive content. In some ways this telecommunications company is beating Sky TV in terms of media coverage of these two huge events - without having to purchase any screening rights...or even any conventional media advertising space.

The big question is how can smaller businesses learn from these campaigns by Vodafone and implement some of the ideas in their own marketing. Obviously Vodafone has stacks of cash to throw around, and we can't all hire a sailing commentator and sponsor the National rugby team! But removing those high dollar signs, there are a few things all businesses can learn in this new media world:
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• Conventional media has it's place, but it's not the go to any more. I'm sure even the NZ Herald would point to the strength of their new online site in saying that advertising with them online is quickly becoming more effective than advertising in the print media.
• Think about where to put the budget. For Vodafone, they have seen the benefit of putting marketing budget into the people on the ground and the content creation side of things - saving money by using Facebook's lower cost per reach rather than conventional media spend.
• What worked before...might not work now. This is the Sky TV lesson - even if a business has worked on the same model well for the last 10 years, it might need to be looked at now. For us for example, we can see that consumers want more for less, so we've looked for ways to produce high quality results for lower costs...for you, it might be trying a new system. Just keep moving.
• Instant gratification is what consumers are after. As a society our attention spans have got shorter and the 'media minute' is quicker than ever. Keeping your customers and clients up to date really is crucial. That's why live videos at important events can be so powerful - we love to know what's happening as it happens.
• The human touch will always work well. Even in a world where we stare at screens it seems like we crave an informal, personal touch in our social media. Stories about individuals help brands connect with the general public - so long as they can relate to them.
• Experts are everywhere and we like listening to them. Sometimes businesses forget or underestimate the wealth of knowledge in one area they have - mainly because they work in it day to day. Using and sharing knowledge makes for really great online content.
• You don't need to sell all the time. For the most part, social media isn't actually about selling. It's about creating engaging content that people want to see on there newsfeed - so that when you do have something to sell they won't be turned off. 

These are pretty simple lessons that most people reading this will already be implementing, but it's always good for a reminder. Credit where credit is due, and I'm personally really thankful for some of the coverage Vodafone is giving these events - hopefully we can all take a page out of their books to push our businesses forward.

Because we spend every day reading tech articles to keep ahead of the curve, Facebook will often give us 'suggested' posts or pages for tools to help out on websites. We'll tend to give them a test and every now and then one will impress us enough with it's functionality and pricing to start using regularly and recommend to our clients - HotJar seems to fall into that category.

What is HotJar?
In a nutshell, HotJar creates 'heat maps' on your website - showing you exactly where people are clicking, scrolling and moving on different pages on your site. It gives you the ability to quickly understand how people are using your site - which in turn can help you make changes to the site to make it more effective. Below we've given a very brief overview of some of the features and what they do.

The heatmaps
The aspect of HotJar that most people will immediately be drawn to are the heatmaps generated for the site. It shows you how users are interacting with your website design on a computer, mobile and tablet - showing you where they move their mouse, click, and how far down the page they navigate. It can be really intriguing information and if used correctly, should give you an understanding of why your site may or may not be converting into sales. Below are a couple of the heatmaps we generated for our homepage over a few days. What we learned pretty quickly is that twice as many people viewed the site on a computer as a mobile, and next to no-one did on a tablet. That's good info for us - and that stat will no doubt change from industry to industry...but it shows how important the mobile version of a site is. Other than that, what you'll see in the graphics is the attrition rate from the top to the bottom of our single scrolling website. Only about 30% of users make it all the way down to our contact form - which is real food for thought and something we'll put our mind to in tweaking our site in the future. ​

The other features
HotJar comes with a whole stack of other features that some users will really love. You can choose to have each user's journey on your site recorded. This is a fantastic little piece of insight as you can literally sit and watch where the user's mouse tracks on your page. It's an excellent way to see what parts of the site people may be moving away from, where they are trying to click or move on the page, and just in general get an understanding for whether your site is getting used as you want it to be.

Another feature that the HotJar team suggest you use is the 'poll' and 'survey' pop ups - which appear on your site and askusers a question about what they think about the site. We can see the benefit of asking questions of your users (whether there is anything that they want to see on the site, or if they had any issues), but with our site already having a 'sales' point pop up, we didn't want to be too intrusive to people on it so didn't test these particular features.

The final feature that we think alot of clients will get a kick out of is the contact form monitoring tool. By creating a form with HotJar, you will be able to identify exactly where on the form you are possibly losing customers. For websites that utilise a big contact form, that could be extremely useful - helping you refine your forms so that you make sure you hear from everyone who starts to get in touch. Again, with a contact form of only three fields on our site, we didn't give this feature a run, but will do so further down the track.

The verdict
All in all we found HotJar very useful. It's easy to set up (you just need to drop a little snippet of code onto the pages on your site you want to monitor - something easily done by your web team), and the data is pretty instant and understandable. Cost wise, there is a free version for sites with smaller amounts of traffic - which will probably suit most small businesses in New Zealand. We've already had a couple of clients look to start using it, and if you take the time to analyse the data and actually make changes based on that feedback it could be an incredibly powerful tool.

Find out more at HotJar:
https://www.hotjar.com/

The surge to mobile continued this week as Facebook took a big step towards making it's mobile advertising platform a real competitor. In a nutshell, the company has refined it's Ad Manager app and is also set to launch 'Mobile Studio' - which will help advertisers, particularly small business owners, easily edit content on their phone.

This is big news for small business owners as the ability to look professional online is increasingly becoming the realm of everyone, not just the elite few large companies with big marketing budgets. Creating quality content that looks like it's come straight from an agency is something that alot of small businesses can now do. With a little bit of tech know-how, and an eye for what looks classy, editing software like Canva, and now Facebook's Mobile Studio, should let anyone turn their creative thoughts into an advertising reality.

Stand by for the following tweaks to the Facebook mobile advertising suite - and look forward to alot of improved content on your social feed from both your own business, and others that embrace these new changes:

• The Ad Manager app will have a bit of a facelift. The changes are aimed at making the user experience a bit more intuitive, making it easier to compare ad performance and account performance from week to week. Data is knowledge, and knowledge is power!
• Mobile Studio is what Facebook is touting as their next possible game changer for small and medium sized business. The platform will let you create quality video and image content straight from your mobile.
• Watch out for a single inbox to help you send and receive messages from your fans and clients on Facebook, Messenger AND Instagram. Remember, Instagram is part of the Facebook behemoth now, so you can effectively advertise across both platforms.
• Lastly, look for a few new features that will help you target your advertising quickly - particularly nailing down audiences internationally that are similar to the ones you are hitting locally well.

All in all this should just stand as a firm reminder that it is very easy, and very cost effective, to advertise across digital platforms. Getting your business in front of thousands of eyeballs on search engines and social media should be seen as a no-brainer, particularly when your budget only needs to be hundreds of dollars a month, not thousands. As always, we'll keep encouraging you to help your business in house, but if you want to hand over the reigns, we're always happy to help.

​Over the last few days there have been headlines hitting the major news outlets that Google Shopping will now be offered to New Zealand businesses. As with any big development in the Google world, that could present a big opportunity for online retail businesses (big or small), so here is a quick run down on what you need to know.

The first question - do you sell your products?
This is the major one. If you don't have some sort of e-commerce platform, you can probably stop reading now and be happy you've done your due diligence! Google Shopping effectively puts you products straight into the search results in a product carousel (see the screenshot from Google's page below). In our opinion, getting into that newsfeed with your quality product, at the right price, should give an immediate bump in sales.

For those companies that sell products in store, but don't have an e-commerce website, the platform might still be useful, but because you might not have the structure that an e-commerce site gives you for setting up with Google Shopping, you might find it a bit trickier to get to work for your benefit. That said, there are local targeted adverts that include stock numbers nearby if you do go to the effort - which should help get people through your shopfront doors.

How does it work?
Google will basically take all the important data about your product - the image, the price, the name of your store, where you are located, product deals, as well as product reviews (if you have them) and present them at the top of the search list in a carousel format. To do that, you'll need to tell Google what to look at - creating a Merchant Account and 'hooking up' your products to the Google brains trust. The technical way to do that is using an API, which you'll generally need a developer or someone experienced with API's to hook up, but Google does offer you the ability to upload directly with a file that you download straight from your e-commerce platform. With that set up, you'll also need to hook up your AdWords account and create a Shopping campaign. To find out more it's probably best to have a dig around Google's explanatory site, or chat to someone in the know.

Does it cost?
Like everything Google - the answer is yes and no. No, it won't cost you to sign up for a Merchant Account, and by doing that you'll have at least given your product information to Google. However, YES, it will cost for you to advertise that shopping info in Google Shopping. It's basically a more direct version of AdWords advertising (pay per click), except with your product front and centre.

Is the juice worth the squeeze?
This is the question we always ask with any type of advertising. How much time and money will be spent on any campaign, versus the potential upside. Google Shopping falls into an interesting category. We definitely see huge potential upside, but if you don't have your product pricing, and product offering right, then that upside will largely fall flat anyway. There is also a fair amount of setup that will go into the campaign, and to do well you'll probably need to monitor it quite heavily - it won't be a set and forget type thing. So it all comes down to the time factor. Can your time be better spent on another aspect of your business than on this type of advertising? That'll be a decision each business owner will end up having to make themselves, but it is definitely worth a serious look for all online stores.

​It's been a crazy couple of months in the business world as many of us start the year wanting to get ahead of the curve and notch off a few tasks that got put off in 2016. For a lot of people that has meant starting new businesses and creating websites to help publicise their new idea. We love working with entrepreneurs and business people that are just starting out - they are absolutely full of enthusiasm and excitement that becomes infectious along the creative journey. However, with that enthusiasm comes a tendency to look for immediate results and an expectation that sales and growth happen straight away. We totally get it - when you start a company you have a sense of belief that on day one orders and sales will come walking through the door (or flying into your email), but as most of us in business can attest, there is alot of hard graft in getting a company going - and creating a business venture is no different. So today we want to answer one of the most common questions we get from new business owners the day of, or day after, we put their website live - "I just searched google, why isn't my website showing?"

Why isn't my new website appearing in searches?
I suspect as you read this some of you will have a knowing chuckle at this point....most of us have probably been in this position. As customers and consumers, when we search for something on google, it shows it to us straight away - so naturally our assumption is that when OUR website goes live, it'll get shown to everyone else straight away as well!  Unfortunately - that's not quite how the internet works. To use the Yellow Pages analogy I've thrown on this site a few times, if you were to open a store halfway through the year and get a new landline, that landline wouldn't appear in the hardcopy version of the Yellow Pages straight away... the Yellow Pages would need to find out about your new number, then have it printed in the next version of the book. The internet works the same way - just alot faster. When a website is put live, Google doesn't know about it immediately, so it can't automatically put it into search results. Rather, search engines regularly crawl the internet sniffing out new pages and new content to add to their results. Your site won't register with a search engine in any form until that search engine finds it on one of it's crawls.

How often does Google crawl sites?
How often Google crawls sites varies alot. For a big news outlet, Google will potentially be crawling the site every few minutes or seconds, whereas for a local business the time between crawls can be days - meaning new sites and changes to websites can take a painful amount of time to appear. There are a few things you can do to speed up this process:

1. Install Google Analytics on your website. It's a tool you'll get use out of anyway if you like data, but at the very least it will give Google a direct insight into your site changes.
2. Sign up for a Google Webmaster account - this will give you the ability to tell Google directly that you want it to have a look at your site.
3. Make sure your site has a sitemap and that you submit it to Google and other search engines (through Webmaster tools for Google). A sitemap is basically a directory of your site.
4. Ask Google to 'fetch' your site for indexing. Again, this can be done through your Google Webmaster account, but if you want a shortcut you can do it quickly here - www.google.com/webmasters/tools/submit-url?pli=1

Doing the above will get Google to acknowledge your site quicker - and within days you should be able to search for the name of your website and find it. What won't happen overnight though is the site hitting the top of the search list for important search terms in your industry. As an example, we recently put Gramma Consulting live - if you search for "gramma consulting" that site now appears in the first few search results, but if you were to search "american university rowing" it's still a long way from the top of the list. That's pretty normal... and as a business owner you should expect it will take months to move up the ranks in particular search terms - and to get that movement you'll need to put in a bit of work as well.

But I want to hit the top for certain search terms now!
​If you realise the value of a google search, you'll want to hit the top of the results of the keywords in your industry...and you'll want to do it fast. So how can you do that? We tend to say one thing outright - there is no guarantee of hitting the number one spot in Google (and anyone telling you they can get you there fast is probably doing something that will damage your site rankings long term). What you can do is give your site the absolute best opportunity to move up the rankings you can through doing some organic search engine optimisation (basically saying the right things in the right places on your site). We help our clients with this for a $150 per month fee, or offer a lower rate to give you access to a search engine optimisation tool that will help you monitor your own SEO if you want to give it a go yourself. Either way we're always happy to have a chat - get in touch with [email protected].

And last of all - there is a cheats way to get onto that search list quickly - but like everything these days it costs. Google Advertising can shortcut your journey onto the result list for your major keywords, but you do have to pay for it, and when you stop paying, your result drops off the search results page. That said, given it will only costs you hundreds, versus the thousands you can end up paying in conventional advertising, it can definitely be worth the investment. As always, we're happy to help out here as well!

All in all, when your web designer puts your site live, cut them a little bit of slack and don't expect to Google for your company 5 minutes after it goes up and expect to see your site in search results! You'll get there eventually, and if you employ a few SEO techniques well, you might even be able to hit the top of some search lists in your industry.