As businesses look more to optimising and improving their websites, Search Engine Optimisation (or SEO for short) becomes more important to their online marketing strategy.
As I discussed in my previous post you must give any SEO campaign time. I'm afraid there's no quick fix, back door or other clever way of boosting how high up you appear on search results. In fact, trying to use so called 'black hat' SEO techniques will work against you - in the past such practices were quite common - things like creating numerous landing pages laden with your target keywords. These worked for a short while but the search engines soon got wise to them and they won't work for you any more.
So what does work? Your SEO strategy should be realistic, be given time and adhere to good optimisation practices ('white hat' SEO). Of the many ongoing optimisation tasks the following are key:
- Content: What is written on your website, what does it talk about, making it readable but relevant to your products and services. Also making sure the code around your written content is well constructed e.g. using descriptive headings in a correct and SEO friendly way.
- Technical structure: or the 'code' behind your website. Some of this you see, some you don't but it's all important - things like your page titles, descriptive (hidden or meta data) behind each page and how the site is coded (the HTML code that ultimately makes up your web pages - this is how search engines read your website and not necessarily in the same way we do i.e. on your computer screen)
- Page Naming: Ensuring your web pages are named in a logical and descriptive way e.g. a page called car-cleaning-products.html is far more SEO friendly than one called ourproducts.html
- Links (internal): Good internal linking, meaning providing links throughout your website to other areas of your own website and making these as descriptive as possible e.g. Link to your products page with a link 'Cleaning Products' rather than something like 'Click here'.
- Links (external): Possibly the most important and powerful ongoing SEO actvities you should undertake. Building good quality (meaning from other websites relevant to yours) links should be a core SEO activity. This subject warrants a post of its own, which I will cover in the near future because it's one that I discuss a lot with my clients and it's one of the key SEO activites you should be doing.
You can read more detailed information about the SEO activities outlined above on our website search engine optimisation services page.
In summary, there are a number of aspects to improving and working on your search engine positioning for your website. Some can be fixed quite quickly and easily and others need ongoing work, monitoring and analysis. Above all else, take your TIME working on it and give it TIME to start working for you...it'll be worth the wait.
Tuesday 29 November 2011
Monday 21 November 2011
Search engine optimisation...give it time!
Search engine optimisation, SEO, hocus pocus, black magic or whatever you may like to call it, should be part of your company marketing strategy. That's correct, a part of your marketing strategy - discussed at meetings, budgeted for, learned about, monitored, measured and continuously worked on.
I say this because in my experience businesses, or business owners, fall in to one of these categories;
- They've spent the money on the website and this should be enough
- They pay for Adwords or online advertising and that will 'boost' their website up the rankings
- There are so many people searching online they'll get loads of traffic anyway
- Its out of anyone's control anyway, so it's a waste of money
In recent times I've come across all of these and all manner of myths and misunderstandings about SEO and how it works, myths such as;
- The more hits we get the higher up we'll appear
- You have to pay to appear higher up on Google
- The newer the website the higher up it will appear
And there's plenty more where they came from. So what's the secret? How do you do it? Where's the quick fix??
The secret is...TIME. Time, realistic expectations and work.
You need time to see the results, time to keep working on your key SEO areas, realistic expectations about what you'll achieve and when you'll achieve it and work, lots of work in a number of key areas that will, in time, boost your website up the rankings in Google and the other major search engines.
I'll be discussing the ins and outs of SEO in my posts to follow - what you actually need to DO to get your website nearer to the coveted first page you keep hearing about...just give me time...
You can find out more about this on our Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) page
I say this because in my experience businesses, or business owners, fall in to one of these categories;
- They've spent the money on the website and this should be enough
- They pay for Adwords or online advertising and that will 'boost' their website up the rankings
- There are so many people searching online they'll get loads of traffic anyway
- Its out of anyone's control anyway, so it's a waste of money
In recent times I've come across all of these and all manner of myths and misunderstandings about SEO and how it works, myths such as;
- The more hits we get the higher up we'll appear
- You have to pay to appear higher up on Google
- The newer the website the higher up it will appear
And there's plenty more where they came from. So what's the secret? How do you do it? Where's the quick fix??
The secret is...TIME. Time, realistic expectations and work.
You need time to see the results, time to keep working on your key SEO areas, realistic expectations about what you'll achieve and when you'll achieve it and work, lots of work in a number of key areas that will, in time, boost your website up the rankings in Google and the other major search engines.
I'll be discussing the ins and outs of SEO in my posts to follow - what you actually need to DO to get your website nearer to the coveted first page you keep hearing about...just give me time...
You can find out more about this on our Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) page
Web Design and your business
Welcome one and all! Thanks for popping by and seeing what I'm all about....
I've been in the web design business you could say for about 12 years now, and things have changed quite a lot during that time. I started out working on the website for the company I worked for back in 1999 and you could say kind of fell in love with web design there and then. Maybe fell in love is a little extreme, but I was certainly hooked, and have been ever since, not just with the design side, the aesthetics, the look and feel and all of that but the business side, how different types of business use their website, view its place within their business and go about designing, updating and generally managing their web presence.
Of course I have a vested interest in all of this having started my own business in 2001 designing and building websites. I've been doing this ever since. Despite the many ways in which the dynamics of my own particular business have evolved one thing still remains the same, and that's my interest in my clients businesses, learning about them, how they operate, the people in their company and of course how their website fits in with the other parts of their business.
So I feel the time is right for me to share a little of my experience with other business owners, web designers, freelancers and anyone else who cares to listen....I'll try and post something for everybody here, with the emphasis on the business of web design - that's your business, the web design business and any other business you think I may be able to help you with or contribute to...I'd be delighted to hear from you and will try and be as helpful and informative as I can.
I've been in the web design business you could say for about 12 years now, and things have changed quite a lot during that time. I started out working on the website for the company I worked for back in 1999 and you could say kind of fell in love with web design there and then. Maybe fell in love is a little extreme, but I was certainly hooked, and have been ever since, not just with the design side, the aesthetics, the look and feel and all of that but the business side, how different types of business use their website, view its place within their business and go about designing, updating and generally managing their web presence.
Of course I have a vested interest in all of this having started my own business in 2001 designing and building websites. I've been doing this ever since. Despite the many ways in which the dynamics of my own particular business have evolved one thing still remains the same, and that's my interest in my clients businesses, learning about them, how they operate, the people in their company and of course how their website fits in with the other parts of their business.
So I feel the time is right for me to share a little of my experience with other business owners, web designers, freelancers and anyone else who cares to listen....I'll try and post something for everybody here, with the emphasis on the business of web design - that's your business, the web design business and any other business you think I may be able to help you with or contribute to...I'd be delighted to hear from you and will try and be as helpful and informative as I can.
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