Once upon a time there were three beautiful girls... Cath, Rose and Liz Ertler. They were all very exciting and creative - possibly because they were made in Tasmania. I remember swimming across the wide bit of Gordon's Bay with them one day and thinking "I wonder what these girls are going to do when they grow up." Well Rose Ertler and Liz Ertler are going strong making jolly music and Cath Erter has just launched the first in what we hope is a line of customisable kid's furniture called the Zeppochair! The Zeppochair is a corrugated cardboard chair for children. It comes flat-packed, so children can assemble and decorate the chair themselves. So this post is for Cath - because the Zeppochair website has just gone live. And just at this minute the needs a bit of traffic help So this is a quick "how to" for Cath.

Being Search Engine Friendly

1. The text on your front page is very important. It should include the words - preferably in multiple combinations - that people search for when looking for your stuff. In this case: "kids cardboard chair" "kids furniture" "eco-friendly furniture" "folded cardboard" This exercise can be made more fun by asking people questions in the field. I love nothing more than to accost random people and ask them how they'd search for this <look at this picture> on the internet. Then get writing. You might say that a long paragraph of text and some text menu buttons all saying the same thing over and over again in different ways is boring. But it works ! This is ably demonstrated if you type in "cheap mobile phones" into Google. All Australians should get the same top search result for Simply Mobiles. While you're doing it, alt tag all your pictures with some of these keywords and phrases. Also - and I hate to say this to such a gorgeous site but here goes - use a menu on every page - even it's a CSS menu that pops up when you roll over an arrow.

Living in an ecosystem which inlcudes other people's sites

2. Websites living within the ecosystem are rated more highly. The Zeppochair is already on Madeit. How about encouraging earlt adopters to get the word out there on Essential Baby and other kid's forum sites. Linking from other people's sites is a way search engines accesses your reputation so the more linking the better !

Keeping an eye on things

3. It's worth installing Google Analytics just to see if the changes that you enact are making a difference. Installing is as simple as signing up and putting a bit of code in each page that Google generates for you. It's really useful if you do a bit of promotion and you want to see what effect it has.

Facebook Like button

4. The Zeppochair is already on Facebook, which is fab. It doesn't raise your search engine ranking but it does increase traffic to your site.

Generating a bit of energy around your new site

5. New websites need a bit of a push to get them off the verge. The more jaw-droppingly fabulous your opening statement the better. Running a ridiculously generous competition where every 5th person wins may seem expensive - but the word of mouth on the internet it will generate is worth it.

Online reputation

6. I've written a whitepaper with Gay Flashman on how to harness your online reputation and turn it into sales. Email me if you'd like a copy.

Youtube

7. Video search results are big and getting bigger. People, including myself, love looking at a video explanation of something to get an idea of how it works. This is especially true of a product that you're wondering about. A video will probably definitively answer the question "is this really as simple to construct as they said it would be?" Ok - so if you haven't already visited the Zeppochair site, please do.