I watched Mary Queen of Shops last week where Mary came to an old vintage and furniture store called “Under the Moon” in Kingston Upon Thames. Being a local resident, I was very interested in the programme and how she was able to turn this shop around. It recently had a closing down sale as they could not afford to keep the shop open.

What Mary does is great, she uses her expertise to allow the business owners to understand their core offering which makes them unique. Mary makes it simple to see the pitfalls, where they went wrong and makes it so easy to see how they can turn their business around.

I like simplicity. I wish websites were given the same publicity as retail stores. Some web owners need to have a “Mary” assess their site and help them to increase traffic and rankings. As part of my job, I audit many websites and analyse what elements they need to change in order to make their websites more profitable.

When a website is built, seo tends to be the last thing people think of, when it should be the first. Seo should be seen as the most important element of a website as it is the first step people take when they are searching for a product or service. Seo is the route to your website. If a retail shop is not in a busy street, if it is down a side alley that is not easily visible for people to see, then they will not come in to browse and purchase. The same is true with a website. It needs to be clearly visible within the search engine results in order for people to click through.

I have raised the profile of seo with my clients through training workshops and have already seen changes. People just have to know about seo and how easy it is to incorporate it with their usual business/marketing tasks. The results will speak for themselves.