Search Engine Optimisation(SEO)

This area of Internet-marketing is fraught with myths and half-truths.

In essence, the whole point of SEO is to try and make your website as ‘attractive’ as possible to search engines – in the hope that they will look favourably upon your website and give you a good listing – NEAR THE TOP!!! Naturally – they have to be aware of the site in the first place – which is the site should be SUBMITTED to the search engines AFTER it has been optimised as best as possible.

There are various technical considerations associated with SEO – which are beyond the scope of this text. Also – search engine algorithms change constantly and are kept secret! It is a constant game of ‘cat and mouse’ between SEO engineers and the search engines themselves. Suffice to say that good SEO and keeping the site up to date will pay dividends – as Internet visitors are much more inclined to choose sites from a search engines ‘natural’ listings rather than paid for listings.

Half of the battle(actually more than half) with SEO is choosing the right ‘key-phrases’ that your potential visitors will be looking for. Remember – they are looking for information through their eyes! By which I mean that they may well be using terminology other than which you are used to.

There are software tools available (e.g. WordTracker) which show word popularity. This includes common spelling mistakes – just as an example.

This research is ESSENTIAL.

Therefore, by reverse engineering what people are looking for – you can ensure that your site is optimised as is best possible to ensure that you have as much chance of being found in the search engines for these given key phrases.

The Process :
1) Keyword Analysis. We use specialised software to determine the best key phrases to use, i.e. the actual phrases that your target market are looking for!
2) The site is then OPTIMISED! This involves a range of processes :
Changing Page Titles. Adding Meta-tags Adding ALT Tags Adding relevant text. Adding text links between pages. Removing un-helpful page objects – such as FLASH, frames, redundant code & scripts etc. Ensuring fonts and text links are ‘acceptable’. Externalising certain codes e.g. CSS and Javascript. Changing header tags if necessary.Adding pages if required.
Creating text Site-Map(if required).
3) The site is then submitted MANUALLY to the relevant search engines and directories

Please note that each site is different and that techniques vary and are constantly changing.

The benefits of ‘Search Engine Optimisation’ include:

• MORE VISITORS!!! If your website is well indexed as a result of SEO then you will see a CONSIDERABLE leap in traffic as a result.

• Lower Overheads. 85% of website traffic comes from search engines and therefore if you have a good position within the major search engines – you can save a fortune on other means of marketing the website – e.g. Pay per click campaigns.

Click here to ask us about creating an independent a site-report for you!