Search engine optimisation
- improved search engine rankings
What is SEO?
Search engine optimisation is the process of working with a web site in order to gain improved search engine rankings, i.e., increase the number of visitors it receives via queries on search engines (such as Google and Yahoo). Good SEO doesn’t just get more of any-old visitor; it focuses on attracting the kind of visitor you want at your site. More of the right visitors mean more business and bigger profits - that’s what SEO is all about.
How is SEO done?
SEO is done by knowing how search engines operate and what you’re target audience is likely to use as search terms.
Knowing how search engines work allows us to remove problems which can prevent the pages of your site from being fully indexed by the search engines. If you’re not in the search engines index, you’ll NEVER be listed in search results.
Information on the actual terms used when performing web searches is available in specialist SEO tools. These tools enable us focus on those terms related to your site that are likely to attract the most visitors (and also those for which there is least competition). With knowledge of these keywords we can optimise the copy of your site to attract higher numbers of visitors via search engines.
As well as ensuring that your site gets fully indexed and optimising the placement of keywords on your pages there is one other major element of SEO - incoming links. These are links to your site from other sites. They are important because the search engines use the number of incoming links (and the importance of the pages they come from) to assess the importance of your pages (sometimes called 'page rank'). The page rank of your pages affects how highly your pages are placed in someone’s search results. The higher your page rank, the higher you are in the list, the more likely you are to be visited.
In order to improve your pages’ importance you need to have a large number of links to your site from other sites that the search engines also regard as important. Creating this network of links is often called a linking campaign. This is done by creating links in a number of different types of sites, by looking at thing such as:
- Local indexes/directories
- Specialist indexes/directories
- General indexes/directories
- Shopping indexes
- Content syndication
- Web-based bulletin boards and discussion groups
- Reciprocal linking (link swaps)
Pay-Per-Click
Although not strictly SEO, pay-per-click or PPC is another approach to web-based marketing. SEO is intended to improve the number and quality of your visitor through the normal search engine results (what is often termed 'natural search'). PPC side-steps natural search by buying prominent placement for your site.
It works like this:
- Draft a short advert containing a link to your site
- Select one or more keyword phrases which you would like to trigger your advert.
- When a user types one of your chosen keyword phrases into the search engine your advert is displayed
- Every time a user follows the link in your advert through to your website you’re charged a small amount. This amount depends on how many other advertisers want to use this keyword phrase. It may be as little as 1 or 2 pence.
PPC is a good option for the quick start-up of an e-commerce site, before natural search SEO techniques start to take effect. It is also good for checking a new site for 'saleability' by getting a higher volume of targeted visitors to your site earlier. It is very good for high value low volume type of products as a few well targeted visitors can bring in a lot of money while costing very little.
Ready to have us optimise your website?
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Want to know more how we work?
Look at our SEO process
Interested in our pricing policy?
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