Think ahead and succeed.

You remember last week I blogged about planning your website’s Search Engine Optimisation before you build. This week I want to focus on the importance of planning ahead, especially when it comes to your online marketing and sales.

I hope this doesn’t come across as self promotion, but probably the best way to illustrate my point is through a short case study.

A few years ago we optimised a client’s website for “commonwealth games accommodation”. No prizes for guessing what they were offering.

It was a good 8 months out from the actual Games themselves. We did the usual SEO; created a new page on the site called “commonwealth-games-accommodation.html”, optimised the Title Tag, Meta content description, H1’s, H2’s and then created lots of highly relevant content etc.
Google loved it, and 2 weeks later the page was ranking 1st.

The page also had strong ‘call’s to action’ (CTA’s), and urgency; “rooms booking fast, don’t miss out!” and a form at the bottom where people could make a booking.

The great thing about this campaign was that there were no competitors at Google for that key phrase, but there were lots of people around the world searching for “commonwealth games accommodation” (early planner’s like us!).

The result? All 27 rooms booked in less than 2 weeks with an average stay of 2.5 weeks. It was a huge success!

Soon after, the first competitors began to appear at Google, and before long the top 10 was saturated.

We left them to fight it out amongst themselves. We’d already packed up and gone home with a full bag.

With so many events coming up next year, have a peek at your calendar and see what’s coming up that suits your business.

Here are just some of the big events to hit our shores in 2008:

• 14th – 27th Jan – Australian Tennis Open
• 14th Feb – Valentines day
• 2nd Feb – 3rd March - Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras
• 20th Mar – 2nd Apr - Sydney Royal Easter Show
• March – Melbourne Grand Prix

Of course the list goes on and on.

Given that it can take a little while for Google to rank your website (or web page), make sure you plan and execute your campaigns with plenty of time to spare.

And let’s not forget Google AdWords! An AdWords campaign can have you showing almost instantly, and possibly very cheaply.

Next week’s “Christmas Special” blog should be fun. If I’m allowed, I’m going to “out” some naughty websites I’ve discovered recently using Black Hat SEO techniques, and show you what not to do!

Ho Ho Ho.

SEO and PPC services from Reseo.