3. The “Direct Hit” Admittedly this is not really a search, but it is best outcome of all. The searcher types your address into browser and navigates directly to your site without side trips or distractions. The “”partial search” becomes a “direct hit” if you choose right name for your site and advertise it effectively. The golden rules are memorable, short and unambiguous in terms of meaning and spelling. Obviously memorable is big issue here and quality of your advertising will help with this issue.

The major plus with “pure search” is that it is a minimal outlay option - in fact, it can be done for free, but it takes a good while for search friendliest site to work its way up rankings. For a shorter-term return on investment (ROI) for client, fact needs to be faced that you will need an advertising budget of some sort. On line we speak of “push and pull”, pushing browsers to site with advertising and pulling them in by means of your good design. Options include banners, handouts of all sorts (pens, mugs and like), newspaper advertising, e-mail campaigns and like.

Do not overlook low cost but effective approach of every single scrap of paper that passes through your company’s hands carrying your e-mail and web address, and use of e-mail as much as possible on any pretext so your website can be advertised on every mailing and subsequent reply. It all gets you seen and helps you to ultimate goal of direct hit.

The Final Word.

In terms of short-term return on investment (ROI), a website requires an advertising budget of some sort. The money can be spent on improving your performance artificially on one specific search engine or on advertising your site by what may be described as “traditional” means.

Given time, a well-designed website will improve in terms of visibility. Regardless of promises to contrary, there are no dependable ways of improving your organic positioning assuming your site is reasonably well designed – HTML, non-dynamic and with appropriate meta-tags.

You can throw as much money at this issue as you wish – it will make no significant difference. In hands of a poor-quality or unscrupulous webmaster it may even do harm.

I am sorry if this sounds like a “doddery crumblies on net” cliché, but thrifty pensioners in my experience seldom lash out on killer systems with cable modems and upgrade motherboards every two or three years. They are too wise to waste hard-earned cash on capacity they do not need. Plus, you need them - they do not need you (at this time) so why should they sweat to figure out your site?

Further to viewer profiles - think around issues involved.

Consider, for example, a three star hotel. Those looking for a less expensive level of accommodation, do they have money to change PCs frequently or to 'waste' on broadband connectivity?

A site for an optician – should it not have clear to read type? After all, viewers may well need glasses or have problems with color vision. A black on red logo may be a mistake here.

Will a mother respond better to a playschool website her baby would like – lots of bright colours and teddies - or would she prefer something more serious and trustworthy for perhaps most precious thing in her life?

Not necessarily “bad” use, but frequently inappropriate use of design and net-technology gets in-between viewer and your goal - and produces some of most technically advanced, beautifully executed, clever, portfolio worthy, over-priced lemons that web has ever seen.

Way down on pre flight checklist list is question of selecting images, animations (if any) and audio because unless they conform to design needs I have outlined – they are worse than useless. This is no exaggeration as usesless at best does nothing, but inappropriate contents can send viewers away in their droves. Further; until you know who your target actually is, based on what criteria would you select anything anyway?

To me, all of this leads to relatively small, neat, "say it then shut up" websites aimed at a specific goal with a specific target or range of targets. Simple to use and clear in terms of design and content, and that by a strange coincidence this just happens to be favorite fodder of search engine spiders. The proverbial 4-L's always apply.

With these facts in mind you can critique your site as marketing tool is should be, rather than a work of art or an expression of your or your webmasters desire to produce something that impresses you and your like-minded friends – but that no one else will spare a second glance.