Crawford's Crib

So you have your shiny new website on the internet and you expect it to appear in the search results of engines such as Google and Yahoo but have you done your homework? The method by which your website is optimised to rank highly in the search engine indexes is commonly known as Search Engine Optimisation or SEO.

SEO is not a simple task, there is no one hit solution, it is dependent on a number of factors. The search engines send out robots also known as ‘spiders’ to read, yes read your website, so how it is constructed is very important.

Listed below you will find hints and tips to some of the factors that affect SEO. How many did you consider when creating your company website?

Your Key Phrase
This should be a short phrase that best sums up what you do. This phrase should be used in the title of your website home page, repeated prominently near the top of your homepage, then repeated again in the copy text on your homepage. DO NOT repeat it as many times as you can on the page even in a colour you cannot see. The ‘spiders’ will read it and it is seen as cheating by the search engines. Too much cheating and you may even get blacklisted by them and that would not be good for business.

Quality Content
As you may have guessed the text content of your website has to be well written, relevant and original. If you copy text from another website the search engines will know and again this is deemed as cheating. It may be well worth while employing a skilled copy writer who has experience in writing for the web.

Quality Inbound Links
These are links TO your site not a list of links FROM your site to others. If you have links from other ‘trusted’ and ‘respected’ sites then the search engines will think that your website is of high quality and has something good to offer the customer. An example of a highly ranked ‘trusted’ website would be on such as the BBC website. WARNING inbound links should be built up over time at a sensible rate, don’t be fooled by people who try to sell you inbound links. Again this is cheating and the search engine spiders will know.

Adding Site Content
This encourages ‘spiders’ to crawl your site more frequently. Examples of new content could be New Products, News, Articles (like this one), Special offers etc. Something that is useful and relevant to the customer.

Do Not Delete Old Content
Search engines like sites that grow over time. It shows that the business has been in existence for a length of time.

Downloadable Content
Search engines like sites with downloadable content e.g. pdfs or word files that the ‘spiders’ can look at. This should not just be a copy of the web page but something printable such as your company brochure or a datasheet.

As you can see SEO is a complex business, one that should be taken seriously if you want your website to rank well in the search engine results. Unfortunately you cannot just publish a website on-line and expect it to stay on the first page of Google indefinitely, it is an ongoing process that takes planning and commitment.

As previously mentioned there are many factors which affect the SEO of your website if you want to know more get in touch.