My husband is trying to order some decent products online. He’s made his selection, provided his details, given them his credit card info and submitted his order. The page then hangs and hangs and hangs and hangs. Re-submitting does exactly the same thing. He’s given up and gone elsewhere.

I wonder how many e-commerce sites put through dummy orders just to test their system. In the bricks and mortar world you make sure you unlock your door each day. The same should happen online.

I come across a lot of people who are under the assumption that a website must be optimised for their one main keyword phrase only. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Your website should contain hundreds of keyword phrases all targeting variations of the sorts of words people would use to find the products and services you are offering. As a rough guide focus on one or two phrases per page.

You can also use this approach to target both competitive and not so competitive terms. For example the keyword phrase “blue widgets” may be extremely competitive whereas “buy genuine blue widgets” is far easier to rank well for. By combining both on a page you can effectively target both competitive and non-competitive keyword phrases. You may rank quite quickly for the non competitive phrase, whilst ranking well for the more competitive phrase might take more time and effort.

So now you know how to approach distributing your keyword phrases but how do you know what the right phrases are? This is where keyword research come in.

Start with reviewing your marketing materials and talking to staff to get an initial list of phrases used to describe your products and services. You should also look at what industry jargon is used and what words your clients and customers use to describe your offerings. Use these words to form a seed list.

You now need to research those phrases. There are a number of keyword research tools out there that can help you do this. This research can help you determine how popular and competitive a keyword phrase is and help you choose the best ones for your website. Here are some great keyword research tools you may want to try:

• Word Tracker - offers a free trial as well as paid subscription options.
• Keyword Discovery - also offers a free trial and monthly subscriptions.
• Google also have a great free keyword tool to help you find relevant phrases for your website.

These tools will help you come up with a comprehensive list of appropriate keyword phrases for your website.

Finally nothing beats testing. Analyse your website’s visitors and work out which keywords are performing for you. Ongoing tweaking and adjustments will help ensure you are targeting the right keyword phrases and getting targeted traffic to your website.

There’s one element of designing a website I find constantly overlooked - the copy, or text, or to put it more simply the words on the page. Even when I go to great pains to explain that a website needs compelling, easy to read text it takes ages to get little, if any copy to add to the site.

I think one of the reasons for this is for most small businesses a website is the first time they’re marketing their business in a medium that allows you to add lots of copy. Think about it - most traditional advertising mediums charge by the column centimeter (or similar) so for much of their advertising there is only a small space to work with. A website changes that, and with unique compelling content (eg copy) helping your search engine rankings suddenly copy is really important. Not that it wasn’t before but you get my drift.

In initial discussions many prospective clients say they’re happy to provide the copy. But when it comes to the crunch it is often easier said than done. Which I understand. Most of them are busy enough running their businesses without having to sit down and put together pages of copy. It’s also not something they usually have a lot of experience with.

These days I find the easiest solution is to write the copy ourselves. As we usually optimise the website as well as build it it works out well. We’re able to write keyword rich, compelling copy that is beneficial to both visitors and search engines. It makes our lives easier and our clients can get on with the job of running their business. Which is what they do best.

I know I’ve been a bit quiet lately but I’ve been furiously finishing off some websites for clients. One of which we launched today. So if you have a moment you may want to check out Pleasurelea Tourist Resort. Pleasurelea offer accommodation in beautiful Batemans Bay, a place I would love to visit some day!

Many of my clients are starting to pay attention to blogs and wondering if perhaps they should be blogging themselves. My answer is always a resounding yes!

Running a business blog has many benefits. Here are just a few:

• Blogging is a great way to communicate with clients, customers and prospects. Whether it be talking about new products or services, company news or resolving an issue, you can communicate on a level not seen before.
• A blog give you a voice which in turn gives readers an idea of who you and your business are. Your goal is to then engage them enough to want to do business with you.
• Blogging can help position you as an expert in your industry.
• Blogs attracts links and can help you in your search engine rankings.

There you have it, just a few reasons why a blog can benefit your business. I’m sure there are many more so feel free to post yours in the comments.

So I log into Google Reader this afternoon and I have no subscriptions. Not a one! And I have no idea what happened. Not happy Google Reader!

So please help me out. Most of the regular readers here are were in my reader so please add a link to your blog in the comments as well as any other blogs you highly recommend.

Thanks.