If you had a business website created in the past 5 years, did your Website Designer tell you about the importance of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Online Marketing (OM) as the means to attract new customers to your website?

If you suffer from a lack of sales enquiries from your website, Gil van der Sluis has the know-how to revive your website. If you are planning a new website, only SEO and OM can make it a success.

Transcription

Jessie Clark: Hello!, and Welcome to Humber T.V. I am Jessie Clark. and today I am here with Gil Van Der Sluis who is a search engine optimization and online marketing expert. Welcome Gil.

Gil Van Der Sluis: Good afternoon! Very‚  nice to be here actually, and thanks for asking me on the show.

Jessie Clark: You welcome that¢â‚¬â„¢s lovely good to have‚  and I think we are running an idiots guide here into search engine optimization with all due respect, viewers but I think may be a lot of people have heard of it, possibly know a bit about what it can do but we are here now to explain in full.

Gil Van Der Sluis: Sure! Yeah it¢â‚¬â„¢s always difficult to want to know how much people already know about subjects like this and that¢â‚¬â„¢s why I feel it¢â‚¬â„¢s very important that we are trying to get some of the benefits across the people this afternoon. And I will try to leave out as much of the jargon as possible.

Jessie Clark: I think that is the proper mission statement may be a lot people too hear the jargon. So, really if we can get to talk about benefits and why it¢â‚¬â„¢s worthwhile investing in search engine optimization.

Gil Van Der Sluis: Sure! Yeah.

Jessie Clark: So¢â‚¬¦

Gil Van Der Sluis: Well! where do I begin and I was actually born in Holland and, but I¢â‚¬â„¢ve spent most of my adult life in Yorkshire and one of the reasons; why I picked the whole area, is that it has a large core of traditional industry that probably hasn¢â‚¬â„¢t made the best of its abilities but I feel that especially with Hull University and one of two other initiatives that some will get towards new media, that when people from traditional industries and new media people, people like me, get together then they, they can make things fly. Especially because the industry and well the world as a whole has changed so much over the last few decades. That, particularity with internet; we just have to look at things through different light and of thing that websites are one of the things that the people need to take very, very seriously now.

Jessie Clark: And we were just talking a moment ago about, just let¢â‚¬â„¢s say i don’t know if it’s annoy some people ¢â‚¬¦,because you said about flash websites. Google actually can¢â‚¬â„¢t read a flash website. It¢â‚¬â„¢s just like a blank page to it, is it?

Gil Van Der Sluis: Yes! It¢â‚¬â„¢s not completely true because obviously Google is moving along all the time and when I say Google I mean search engines¢â‚¬¦

Jessie Clark: We do tend to just talk about Google, don¢â‚¬â„¢t we?

Gil Van Der Sluis: Yes! Because in particular, in the UK, Google has something like 70 to 80% of the search engine markets and there are others as well, Yahoo and few others but they have such small proportion of the daily searches but, especially when budgets are limited with the clients that I talked to, I do say well lets concentrate on Google and take it from there and obviously that in their eyes it¢â‚¬â„¢s, the number one priority that they want the small budget that they have spent wisely and in the right places.

Jessie Clark: Yes! So, if I was coming to you with my website as it is, I¢â‚¬â„¢m saying I am not getting the traffic that I want and how would you, where would you start? How would you help me?

Gil Van Der Sluis: I would have an initial quick look at the website because I would love to help everybody. I came into this industry; not because of the money. I get a real buzz from turning websites around and turning businesses around because sometimes especially the smaller businesses they feel that if the website doesn¢â‚¬â„¢t work for them the business doesn¢â‚¬â„¢t work and so, obviously when somebody comes to me and says; ¢â‚¬Å“Well, I have had a website for 6 months. I have had absolutely no enquiries and virtually no visitors¢â‚¬ and often and often enough I ask people; how many visitors do you currently get and they say well I don¢â‚¬â„¢t know and because they haven¢â‚¬â„¢t even been given access to their analytics to the statistics from the website. And, which obviously when people are not aware what you can and cannot do it with websites. It¢â‚¬â„¢s always difficult. But what I say to people is well if you have a shop, obviously you know roughly how many people come through the door everyday, you know, roughly how many sales you make everyday and you should know the same things for your website really and, but usually I say well just let me get in touch with the people who host your website, who have designed your website and I¢â‚¬â„¢ll try and get as much information as possible and then report back to you with my findings.

Jessie Clark: So, if you want it, you would have to be in touch with the people who did your website to be to look at Google analytics.

Gil Van Der Sluis: Ah! Well going in Google analytics is something totally separate and in most websites the hosting company or somebody who set up the website will if put either AW stats of Google analytics on the website so obviously there are some statistics available but that¢â‚¬â„¢s not necessarily true and sometimes absolutely no analytics are available but for instance the Google are really useful because they give a very, very clear overview of the number of visitors that come to a website. Where they came from and kind of key words of people used to find the website and there¢â‚¬â„¢s a number of other things that hopefully during the course of this conversation, we¢â‚¬â„¢ll, obviously talk a little bit more about, because again things like bounce rates and keywords, there may be lots of people out there that still don¢â‚¬â„¢t quite understand what they mean and what kind of the impact they have on the website and traffic.

Jessie Clark: Well! Should we look at that then because you¢â‚¬â„¢ve got the information here and I¢â‚¬â„¢m sure this is the screenshot from Google analytics, is it?

Gil Van Der Sluis: Yeah!

Jessie Clark: And it¢â‚¬â„¢s got the amounts of visits, the number of page views. What does that mean in comparison to the amount of the visits?

Gil Van Der Sluis: Again I don¢â‚¬â„¢t want to go too deeply into the nitty gritty of the analytics because obviously to most people it¢â‚¬â„¢s important to know what number of visitors you get but also when you go more deeply into the nature of the website and obviously the content of the website, then you start looking at the different pages, that¢â‚¬â„¢s a page level and I normally ask people just to concentrate on the website as a whole, initially and then once you start getting used to analyzing that information then go onto page level and go deeper into the information that you have on the site because I¢â‚¬â„¢ve mentioned key words and key phrases before and it¢â‚¬â„¢s very important that you choose the right type of key words and key phrases and make sure that they are integrated into every level of your website not just on the page and there¢â‚¬â„¢s titles, there is obviously the domain name itself and number of the other areas where that is really important that you get them in there. What I mean by key words and key phrases are important words that really describe what your skills are, what your best products are, what your services are. And unless you get those dotted all over your website in appropriate places, Google is going to underline your page and say; well, ¢â‚¬Å“This company has nothing to do with that product because the product is not mentioned, service is not mentioned.¢â‚¬ And, so, you can have a fantastic looking website with lots of photographs and this is why I¢â‚¬â„¢ve obviously earlier mentioned flash and you can have these animated pages that are really arty and really nice looking but they don¢â‚¬â„¢t mention in words what the company actually does or what the service actually provides.

Jessie Clark: Couldn¢â‚¬â„¢t the search words, if you haven¢â‚¬â„¢t said, does it not appear a bit repetitive if you use in the particular search word so may be not by interest in to read or it¢â‚¬â„¢s that not the purpose of the website?

Gil Van Der Sluis: Yeah! There is always the danger that people over optimize for search engines and under optimize for people and they always have to find happy balance where you cater for both.

Jessie Clark: So, you could advise that on that can you¢â‚¬¦

Gil Van Der Sluis: Indeed. It¢â‚¬â„¢s always a bit of a trade off and that¢â‚¬â„¢s why it¢â‚¬â„¢s so important that if you come to choose the person who is going to do your optimization, who is going to do your online marketing? And, I must stress that lots of people say, ¢â‚¬Å“Well I had a web designer and he didn¢â‚¬â„¢t tell me anything what you are just telling what your telling me now,¢â‚¬ and I¢â‚¬â„¢ve said well the problem is we have totally different skills sets. You go to a web designer and they will tend to concentrate on the layout of the website and the navigation of it, the graphics and all the visual things and they may have somebody who an write the text for you as well but a lot of the time they will ask you for your photographs, any images, graphics, logos and text and they will just include those on the pages and, but besides that you have to really consider; what skills, an SEO or an online marketing expert can bring to the website and if you don¢â‚¬â„¢t understand these things than you have to ask either your web designer or somebody else to explain those to you because in particular right at the beginning where you clotted for the job, if you just pay somebody to do you web design and not include any optimization or online marketing and the website is only half finished. It literally is going to sit there gathering dust because unless you get people to your website, you are not going to get the enquiries, you are not going to make the sales and that¢â‚¬â„¢s the problem and one analogy if I can just mention that; I use a lot, it¢â‚¬â„¢s a little bit like writing a book and lots of people have book in their head and they say; well once I get a lot of time I am just going to sit down, write his book and put it into a shop or put into a British library and its going to make me a million quid. But the problem is once you¢â‚¬â„¢ve written the book that¢â‚¬â„¢s when the hard work starts because the book will probably take you12 or 18 months to write and people think; done that, you know, I can move on and do something else, no that¢â‚¬â„¢s when it comes to this stage, where you have to go around the country doing interviews, you have to do promotions and you probably have to go an agency to find you the right publisher. If you don¢â‚¬â„¢t want to publish it you sell it online and all these things you have to do after the work is finished or seems finished and it¢â‚¬â„¢s the same with the website and once the website is finished that¢â‚¬â„¢s when the hard work starts.

Jessie Clark: So, in an idea world for yourself, if you could make all the websites perfect and how would you, from start to finish, where would you comment? Right to the beginning when you¢â‚¬â„¢re writing the copy for the website?

Gil Van Der Sluis: Ideally yes. Often enough I comment to this stage, at the stage where people say, ¢â‚¬Å“Well I¢â‚¬â„¢ve had a website and it¢â‚¬â„¢s not working and I¢â‚¬â„¢ve heard that, you know, you may be able to do something for me¢â‚¬ and I¢â‚¬â„¢ll say, ¢â‚¬Å“Yes! That¢â‚¬â„¢s great, I can come in at this late stage, I¢â‚¬â„¢ll have a look, unless it¢â‚¬â„¢s completely flash or something else that I can¢â‚¬â„¢t do anything with; we should be able to do something for you¢â‚¬ But if we have an ideal situation where somebody says starting a new business or you¢â‚¬â„¢re products or whatever I want to launch it with the right website, what shall I do from my SEO and online marketing perspective then I say well can I sit together with the web designer or at least speak to them by phone so we can bat out couple of ideas because obviously you would have told them what you want to see on the website and I¢â‚¬â„¢ve just got to make sure that from the navigational point of view and making it Google friendly, making it people friendly, trying to get all the key words and the key phrases and all these things just right. That¢â‚¬â„¢s easier done right at the beginning and then obviously I can leave the web designer or everybody else to set up the website and then at the last stages I should be able to feed in a couple of other things that will optimize the website on the page. Once that¢â‚¬â„¢s all done and people say; well, we are ready for launch now and it¢â‚¬â„¢s still important that I get involved to do the online marketing because again a website is only as good as the incoming links from other websites obviously the search engines will provide their own traffic but you do have to get your website listed on various directories, and, try and link with these many appropriate websites in a related field as possible, and don¢â‚¬â„¢t try and link with totally random websites because it¢â‚¬â„¢s all down to the value that Google puts on the links and again if the other links, the other websites, the other directories are low value and it¢â‚¬â„¢s a little bit difficult to describe what it means because people start talking about page rank, they start talking about the visitor numbers of the other website, it becomes very apparent if you¢â‚¬â„¢ve seen a good website with lots of traffic because they usually, if it¢â‚¬â„¢s, the information is interesting to a broad range of people, you¢â‚¬â„¢ll see lots of incoming links. Theirs ways you can test in and out and again I don¢â‚¬â„¢t want to go into TV¢â‚¬¦

Jessie Clark: Oh you can do that.

Male Speaker: Yeah. We can do all these kind of things that will obviously straight away analyze what¢â‚¬â„¢s already happening on the existing website, over the new website. Make sure that all these things are in place before we even launch the website. Because, as soon as Google starts indexing the pages on your website, soon as that¢â‚¬â„¢s happening, it will look straight away who you¢â‚¬â„¢re connected with, how popular are you and obviously if there¢â‚¬â„¢s nothing been done on the online marketing then Google will say well this lonely website is just stuck there in the middle of nowhere. It¢â‚¬â„¢s got no friends¢â‚¬¦.

Jessie Clark: Can stay there.

Gil Van Der Suis: You know it¢â‚¬â„¢s got no visitors, will come back in 3 months time and have another look. You know that¢â‚¬â„¢s what Google does. Not literally but you know, that¢â‚¬â„¢s what it feels like. That¢â‚¬â„¢s why sometimes you can take quite a while before you say, well I¢â‚¬â„¢ve got no visitors, you know I¢â‚¬â„¢ve spent ‚£5000 on a website and nothing¢â‚¬â„¢s happening. And, obviously that¢â‚¬â„¢s why I say well if you do the ground work right at the beginning then it can be very, very swift to get to the top of Google.

Jessie Clark: In my job I do get quite a lot phone calls from people saying that they can help to get the website up to the top of the Google rankings and if you pay them excellent amount of ‚£1000′s and but it actually takes 6 months to get there and,. So if you are like you are going out in your limb that generally just steps in the, well, not generally but completely saying no thank you, just not interested. Do you find that¢â‚¬â„¢s the problem for you?

Gil Van Der Suis: I don¢â‚¬â„¢t see that as a problem and I would nearly say, ¢â‚¬Å“well, this is fantastic proposition, why don¢â‚¬â„¢t you take a mop on it?¢â‚¬ and, if you have a website¢â‚¬¦

Jessie Clark: Are they all genuine then? Can they actually do that?

Gil Van Der Suis: Well, I can¢â‚¬â„¢t decide if they¢â‚¬â„¢re genuine or not. And if they come to me, I usually have a quick look at their website and I have a look at their website and ones they’ve done for other people. And if I feel that what they have done is better than what I can do, then I¢â‚¬â„¢d like to find out a little bit more about these people. But it¢â‚¬â„¢s really up to you to find out and, it¢â‚¬â„¢s like with everything else. If you want to buy a new car, you¢â‚¬â„¢ll probably talk to your neighbours, you¢â‚¬â„¢ll talk to your friends, you find out a little bit if that car is worth the money. If it¢â‚¬â„¢s a reliable car, if it¢â‚¬â„¢s fast enough, if it will do the things that you want to do and it¢â‚¬â„¢s the same with the other SEO guys out there and girls of course, and how are they going to do what they say that they are going to do and the only way to find that out is by to look at the previous work and often enough, well, difficult for you to decide but if you speak to some other previous customers, they will probably tell you if they are very happy with the website or they¢â‚¬â„¢ll say well, it cost me a lot of money and I¢â‚¬â„¢m still not quite happy, then you just move on to the next one.

Jessie Clark: So, if you¢â‚¬â„¢ve got anybody sitting on the fence off thinking that may be they do need to do this they just haven¢â‚¬â„¢t got round it or it¢â‚¬â„¢s really expensive and kind of faulty, what do you say to those of people?

Gil Van Der Suis: Yeah. It¢â‚¬â„¢s always difficult to jump in to something that you are not familiar with. It¢â‚¬â„¢s a little bit like taking your car to the garage when it¢â‚¬â„¢s got a little knocking sound or whatever, and, it could literally be as simple as a stone in the wheel arch , but some body will probably tell you¢â‚¬â„¢ll need a new engine because you are totally unaware of, you know, what the technology is, what needs to happen, how much it is supposed to cost, all these things and that¢â‚¬â„¢s why I¢â‚¬â„¢d like to be as genuine as possible with people and try and explain things in layman¢â‚¬â„¢s terms because it¢â‚¬â„¢s bad enough for people not to understand what¢â‚¬â„¢s going to happen and often enough I say well, let¢â‚¬â„¢s have a look at what you¢â‚¬â„¢re hoping to achieve and then let¢â‚¬â„¢s look at the tools that we¢â‚¬â„¢ve got available and then obviously try and put all these things together, see what your budget is and, I say well, before you think of the budget, think as well about what an inquiry is worth to you. Because obviously if you sell a product or a service that¢â‚¬â„¢s quite lot of value, then, if I say to you well it¢â‚¬â„¢s going to cost you ‚£500 or ‚£1000 to obviously optimize your website, you may think well, that¢â‚¬â„¢s difficult to justify. But if you have a product or a service that¢â‚¬â„¢s, say for instance, you have a client and the average client stays with you for 5 years and this client might be worth to you, 5, 6, 10,000 pounds and if you then think I¢â‚¬â„¢m just investing a thousand pounds on something that¢â‚¬â„¢s perhaps going to produce 1 new client every week, dependent on what product or service you sell, then you think that¢â‚¬â„¢s the bargain of the century, because just that 1 client will pay for this optimization 5 times over, so it¢â‚¬â„¢s a no brainier, lets do it. But, if every body thought like that, if everybody said yeah, I want it doing and I want it doing tomorrow and here is my money, then it would make my job so much difficult, more difficult because at the moment, probably 10% to 20% of the people out there with websites, haven’t done anything about SEO and online marketing and that¢â‚¬â„¢s why it is still easy to get people to top of Google. If every body came to me tomorrow and said, ¢â‚¬Å“Oh I want to do; you know I want to spend a ‚£1000 in optimization and get me to the top of Google.¢â‚¬ Then the more people that are cramming into that top section of Google and all fully optimized websites, then we would have to go on a 2 weeks holiday and think well, how are going to improve on that. Because, that would make life really, really difficult so its, still a 2 edge sword you know, I love people to optimize the websites and, but I think, well it¢â‚¬â„¢s the best kept secret in the world, , lets keep it like that. Let¢â‚¬â„¢s just tell a few people, get those to the top of Google and leave the rest floundering¢â‚¬¦

Jessie Clark: So, do you offer a particular package then?

Gil Van Der Suis: They are all tailor made really and because, from literally the first analysis that I do of the website and I will go back to the client or the prospect and say yes I¢â‚¬â„¢ve had a look at your website and I know I can do something for you and you have to only talk to my previous clients. They will tell you that I do a good job, so obviously if you read any reviews, which is not a good idea. If you go to any websites that have reviews from people with service like myself, then at least you can read up what other people think about what I¢â‚¬â„¢ve done for them in the past. And, you can compare with the other providers of the service. So there is absolutely no need to just say Yes, I¢â‚¬â„¢m just going to stick with this guy because, you have to be comfortable communicating with everybody. That¢â‚¬â„¢s usually the first rule. If you can¢â‚¬â„¢t communicate with the person you are going to be working with, then obviously, it is going to make life very difficult because this is not that kind of service or products that you can say I¢â‚¬â„¢m going to start tomorrow, and I¢â‚¬â„¢m going to finish in 3 days time and that¢â‚¬â„¢s¢â‚¬¦ job done. It doesn¢â‚¬â„¢t happen like that. It¢â‚¬â„¢s literally, it¢â‚¬â„¢s a gradual process and unless people say well I¢â‚¬â„¢ve got a set budget and I want you to spend that on my website and then I never want to see you again. Then that would make life simple but it wouldn¢â‚¬â„¢t be in the best interest of the client.

Jessie Clark: So is it not ongoing then if you, do people have to continuously change what they¢â‚¬â„¢ve got there to search words, do they have to do anything like, is it?

Gil Van Der Suis: Ideally, yes. You don¢â‚¬â„¢t necessarily have to say well, how I stick you on the retainer and we¢â‚¬â„¢ve got to work together for the rest of our lives, we don¢â‚¬â„¢t have to do that. But as soon as they realize what needs to be done they do need to keep at it because, nothing sits still. Google doesn¢â‚¬â„¢t sit still. The competition doesn¢â‚¬â„¢t sit still. But once you are somewhere near the top of Google or you get the no. of inquiries that you want from your website, then you can relax a little bit. But I do think that it¢â‚¬â„¢s really, really important for people to either do some of the online marketing themselves. And, it¢â‚¬â„¢s not difficult. Once you realize what needs to be done, it¢â‚¬â„¢s just the case of spending a little bit of time, once a week or once a day if you can and just see what the competition is up to. See what useful websites there are out there that you could link up with in related industries, some times even competitors, if you have similar products but not the same and all these things that over time, you just have to do a little bit of. And, it¢â‚¬â„¢s just like I said before. It¢â‚¬â„¢s like promoting a book and the longer you carry on with it, the more you do, the more popular it will be, the more people will know about your website and obviously that will just improve things all the time.

Jessie Clark: So, that would be some method to start then, to link up with other websites, is that, how do you go about that?

Gil Van Der Suis: Again, it¢â‚¬â„¢s all dependent on the service of the product or the type of websites you¢â‚¬â„¢ve got and because, lots of people out there that just have the information websites. They don¢â‚¬â„¢t sell anything, they don¢â‚¬â„¢t sell any services and often and often it¢â‚¬â„¢s quite easy to link up with other websites and you can go on to forums, you can go on to one, news websites, you can try and obviously get people to review your website. There is, all sort of different opportunities to get your web link posted on another website. And some times you can go for paid advertising, if you¢â‚¬â„¢ve got deep pockets then, it¢â‚¬â„¢s a quick way of doing things because there are things like Google Ad Words¢â‚¬¦

Jessie Clark: Is that pay per click?

Gil Van Der Suis: Yeah, there you are going to pay per click and a lots of people say, well my website wasn¢â‚¬â„¢t producing any results so I¢â‚¬â„¢ve started paying for ad words and pay per click and now I¢â‚¬â„¢m getting some traffic but people are still not buying. And, that¢â‚¬â„¢s when you start going into bounce rates and obviously seen if traffic is good quality traffic or bad traffic. And, I won¢â‚¬â„¢t even go into the details of that¢â‚¬¦ It¢â‚¬â„¢s one of those things that¢â‚¬â„¢s, it¢â‚¬â„¢s a subject you can talk and talk and talk and never finish but if people are aware that it exists and that the work that we do as a high value then that¢â‚¬â„¢s the point I was trying to get across this afternoon.

Jessie Clark: Alright, okay. So do you think, is there anything else that you¢â‚¬â„¢d like to add to that? Is there anything important that you think viewer should know?

Gil Van Der Suis: I really feel that if people, business people or even people with info science, if they feel that they have something they would like to get across to public at large or particular market sections and, not to be too nervous to talk to SEO experts because in most cases you are in control and you can walk away from the conversation at any stage so you don¢â‚¬â„¢t have to be sold to, because easiest things to say is, let me have a work with one of your clients and if people are not willing to do that or if they are not willing to give you web addresses of other websites they¢â‚¬â„¢ve worked on, then walk away from it. So, you¢â‚¬â„¢re never going to be forced to do something you don¢â‚¬â„¢t want to do. But if you are fully aware that your website is not producing results then let somebody have a look at it. Even I can write a report, do a full report or just quick analytics just to let you know that there are problems and I can do a full report that will tell you actually what to do, how to remedy the problems.

Jessie Clark: So a person could take that way and do it themselves?

Gil Van Der Suis: Yeah. That¢â‚¬â„¢s obviously people think to have more time than money¢â‚¬¦ take a work of my hands because it is extremely time consuming to work and if I wanted to do all the work that wasn¢â‚¬â„¢t the worth, you know then I¢â‚¬â„¢ll have to split my self in 10 and absolutely busy everyday. But, it can literally transform a website. That¢â‚¬â„¢s why, I sometimes say I resuscitate dormant websites because there are so many websites now that I have come across and there are lovely little websites and you know they¢â‚¬â„¢d do a really good job, if only people could find them.

Jessie Clark: Well, that¢â‚¬â„¢s great. Thank you very much. Thank you for lots of things today. Thanks very much Gil for coming in today. That¢â‚¬â„¢s Jessie Clark from Humber TV.