Search Engine Optimisation

Sorting fact from fiction!

There are plenty of myths about search engines. Some would have you believe that search engine optimisation is a dark art, practiced by search engine wizards and impenetrable for mere mortals. This is - frankly - rubbish!

Here are the facts:

Search engines are continually evolving – adapting and updating the way they rank pages in order to make the search results more accurate (as well as rooting out those attempting to fool the search engines using a variety of underhand means. More on that later).

Search engines do not publish how they rank pages.

Any information on how to achieve high rankings is conjecture. No-one knows for sure: hence the mystery, hence the myths.

However, all is not lost. We do have a fair idea about how to achieve high rankings, based on experience, trial and error, and a willingness to move with the times as the search engines change. No dark art, but no magic bullet either!

Our Approach.
What we do for you depends on whether we are designing your site from scratch, or whether we are optimising an existing site, designed elsewhere. I’ll deal with each in turn:

New Web Sites
At our first web design meeting, before we even discuss structure, graphics or page layout, we’ll  talk about keywords or - more accurately – keyphrases:

What keyphrases will your customers use to find the products or services you provide?

It is very important to nail this down right at the beginning, because your choice of keyphrases will determine the design of your site in four ways:
·    it will define the structure your site - the way your pages link together
·    it will influence the layout of each page on your site
·    your chosen keyphrases should inform the content of your pages.
·    your chosen keyphrase should determine your domain name

By following this course of action, we will make sure your pages are properly optimised for the search engines from the word go.

We can help with keyphrase selection. There are various tools for determining the best phrases for your product or service, which we will make available to you.

Existing web sites

If you already have an existing web site, it’s not the end of the world! Hopefully you have already applied for a FREE analysis of your site – where it ranks with the leading search engines, and the number and quality of your inbound links – in other words the links to your pages from external sites. If you haven’t already done this then please do.

This report gives us a starting point. We will be able to put together a search engine optimisation strategy – firstly knocking your pages into shape, and make sure they are primed fro the search engines, and if necessary altering the internal linking structure of your site.