Swapping links with other websites, and/or having a links page will do nothing but push your website further down the listings.

It was the done thing 5 or 10 years ago, and ‘newbies’ still get sucked into it now with all the old link request emails bouncing around, but Google got savvy to the trick of swapping links years ago.

You can submit your link to a few niche directories, i.e. directories related to your trade or genre, but don’t fall for any of those unsolicited emails about getting your links in 1000s of directories, they’re all crap. Oh, and it’s better not to choose reciprocal link when submitting to your niche directories as that’s just the same as link swapping.

If there’s an option to pay, just pay if it’s not too expensive. The paid niche directories are usually better quality than the general directories that allow any genre to submit, which become full of junk links usually and are no use to anyone.

Of course this does not apply to the big directories like DMOZ, everyone with a decent website should submit their link to DMOZ – just make sure you choose the right category, drilling right down, and don’t add any hype to your submission text.

There’s a whole load of ways to get more traffic, paid and free, but swapping links definitely isn’t one of them!

One of the usual ways to get higher up is to have more text on your site, to keep adding stuff all the time. The only obstacle to that is a lot of people just can’t be arsed, or don’t understand why, and think people like me are telling them to make their site bigger so I get more money… but anyway, if you had a blog installed and added the pages yourself you wouldn’t need people like me after that – again this assumes you have the time to add anything to it.

If you do have your own blog, it is good way to let people know what your company is doing and that you’re still trading etc. On the other hand if you let it slide and don’t update the blog at least once a month say, it looks like you’ve gone out of business.

If you wanted to take it further you could have a Facebook page and have your blog posts automatically added to it.

The best way at the moment to get one-way links pointing to your site is posting comments in other people’s blogs via Google News that are in a niche related to yours. Again, this means spending some time – but not very much once you get the hang of it, like perhaps 15 to 20 minutes during the evening or whenever you have spare time on your laptop on the train etc.

Basically the more you put into it the more visitors you get back in return, it’s all about time and enthusiasm these days rather than quick fixes and swapping links etc.

It sounds odd, like personifying Google, but Google wants to know that the results it gives people are as genuine as possible and the only real way for them to know this is by calculating how much effort the website owner seems to be putting into building their website and its reputation etc.

Google wants you to present yourself as an expert in your field. If they think you’re doing this it will put you closer to the top. After all, they must provide their users with the most relevant search results to stay at the top themselves.

So forget about swapping links, we recommend having a blog of your own and posting comments in other people’s blogs that allow you to add a website address – by this we don’t mean adding meaningless drivel like ‘great blog’ and ‘I agree!’, but thought out responses that show you actually read the owner’s post so you’re making a real contribution to their website in exchange for your link.

If you’re in the York area and this topic interests you and/or your company, hourly lessons can be arranged where you will be shown how to safely promote your site yourself so you can carry on doing it for free in your own time afterwards.

Mystery Shopping is a tool used by market researchers to find out how a company can improve its products and services or to find out about a competitor’s products and services.

A “mystery shopper” is a person who poses as a customer. The mystery shopper goes through any or all parts of the customer journey – looking for information about a product or service, purchasing the product, attempting to make a return or get a refund, and so on.

The mystery shopper will then report on their experience:

How easy or hard was it to find what they needed?

How long did it take for someone to provide assistance?

Were the people who dealt with them polite and attentive?

Did the product they purchased fulfil their expectations?

How easy was it for them to return something and get their money back?

They often come prepared with a questionnaire, so they know exactly what to look for when they do their mystery shop.

Sometimes, a mystery shopper will perform competitor research by going through the same process with different competitors. For example, the shopper will go into a shop and ask for help purchasing a Christmas gift. The mystery shopper will go to different shops, always asking for the same thing.

Mystery shopping can be used to make improvements to your ecommerce site.

A mystery shopper can go through the process of looking for a product or service and then trying to purchase it on your site.  If anything on your website is difficult or frustrating for them, or just doesn’t work, you know that you have to change it.

The advantage of using a mystery shopper to do this is that you don’t have to wait for a customer to encounter a problem – which might cause them to move to a competitor – before you realize that something needs to be fixed.

On the positive side, if the mystery shopper finds something on your website that they think is fantastic, you can move it to a more prominent position.

A mystery shopper can also research competitor websites for you and let you know what you can do to make your website better than your competitors’ websites.

There are professional mystery shoppers, but a mystery shopper can be a neighbour, a friend or a family member.  The mystery shopper should not, however, be someone who is familiar with your website. They should never have seen your website before, and have no knowledge of how it was designed or how it is “supposed” to work. That is, they should be in the same position as a potential customer.

Some interesting facts from the Office of National Statistics’ 2009 survey on internet use:

1. The 65+ age group is the age group with the fastest growing proportion of internet users.

Older people may have trouble travelling to shops and transporting items home, so make good candidates for internet sales.   If you want to get older customers to visit your website, remember that they are likely to have accessibility issues.

This needs to be taken into consideration when designing a website.  For example, fonts should be easy to read, contrast between text and background should be just right, and someone using a screen reader or other accessibility device should be able to understand every piece of information on the website.

Of course, it is not only older customers who may have accessibility issues; people of all ages can have disabilities.  You can gain valuable customers you might otherwise have lost simply by making sure that your website is accessible to everyone.

At York Interweb, we are experts at making sure that your website is accessible to all internet users.

2. Only about one quarter of people who make purchases over the internet read the conditions of sale.

Encouraging your customers to read and understand the terms of purchase will help to prevent disputes and protect the reputation of your business.  Your customers will be more likely to read the conditions of sale if your entire website is easy to read and understand.  York Interweb can assist you by writing clear, jargon-free content.

3. 83% of UK internet users made a purchase over the internet in last three months – another indicator of the value of having an online business.

4. The number of households in Yorkshire and the Humber with internet access increased by 23% between 2007 and 2009.  This is the second largest percentage increase out of all the regions of UK, after the Northeast, where internet access increased by 27%.  Good news for online businesses in Yorkshire and the Northeast.

A while back, I attended a webinar for small businesses on how to design a good website.  The person who was presenting the webinar stressed the importance of paying for a professional service – that in the long run you are better off getting a professionally designed website than trying to save money by purchasing a cheap template website or doing it yourself. I agree with this completely.

However, she also commented that when it comes to copywriting, you should do it yourself, because hiring a professional copywriter is a waste of money.

Now, there are loads of people who claim to be content writers who can barely speak English and “write” articles by taking old articles other people have written and putting them through a machine that “rewrites” them by substituting words with synonyms (which are often completely inappropriate within the context), in the end creating articles that can barely be understood, let alone capture a reader’s interest or make the reader want to purchase anything.

And there are “writers” who think that writing for the web means learning which keywords are good for SEO and making sure that there are the right amount of them in the article – without any thought of style, the needs of the reader or the outcome you expect from the writing (a sale, a return visit to your site, etc.).

The person presenting the webinar may have been thinking of these types of writers when she said you are better off doing it on your own, and if she was, then she was correct.

But truly good copywriting can make a world of difference.  A good copywriter understands your readers, knows how to interest and entertain them and how to encourage them to take action.  A good copywriter will understand the principles of marketing and will have studied a subject such as  English literature, journalism or creative writing to an advanced level.

It goes without saying that a good writer for the web understands basic spelling and grammar, which is why I thought this article was interesting:

Small Businesses Losing Customers Though Poor Literacy