| Do you need higher search
engine ranks for your website? It's now estimated that
83.8% of all website visits originate with a search enquiry.
That may seem incredible but consider how you use search
engines yourself and it may not be so suprising.
One more question. Do you measure the number of visitors,
where they come from and what they do when they get
to your site? If the answer to these questions is 'no',
don't worry, you're not alone. There are millions of
websites but very few website owners manage their traffic
building activities properly - what's worse, even less
measure where their traffic originates and how visitors
behave when they get to the site.
Attracting more customers to a website is therefore
the key - getting higher search engine ranks is useless
if you can't persuade your visitors to buy, subscribe
or contact you..
How do you get higher search engine ranks? There are
two ways - search engine optimisation (SEO) and pay-per-click
advertising (PPC).
SEO is the process by which you get your site well
ranked in the natural search results against the keywords
and phrases that you are targeting.
PPC systems like Google's Adwords are auctions for
keywords - the advertisers who bid highest and succeed
in attracting the most clicks get the top positions.
In both cases, selecting the right keywords and phrases
is critical. Keyword research is essential to eliminate
the guesswork from your search traffic building. You
can start by checking your website's log files. These
files contain records of where your traffic was referred
from and what keywords were used. Practitioners of both
SEO and PPC also use tools that capture the search terms
used by people - you may have heard of Wordtracker for
example.
Search engine optimisation - getting higher search
engine ranks in the 'natural' listings
The main search results are known as the 'natural'
listings. Search engine 'spiders' or software, visit
your web pages, index the content that they can access
and check which pages are linking to yours and which
pages you link to.
SEO splits into onsite and offsite.
Your first onsite challenge is to ensure that the search
engines can access all the pages that you want them
to deliver in their search results. Many sites are built
with complex code using Flash, Frames or just far too
much messy code. This doesn't help the search engines.
Secondly you need to give the spiders plenty of relevant
content. That's RELEVANT content. Sorry to shout but
it's critical to remember that what the search engines
are trying to do is to deliver relevant search results.
They will reward web pages with content that's relevant
to web searches - it's that simple.
You need to write at least 450 words per page and ensure
that your keywords are spread across your site. There
are technical issues too - your meta title and description
tags need to be written in the same way that you would
write a pay-per-click advertisement - the reason is
that they are what the search engines display in their
results. When you write a ppc ad you have a headline
and a description designed to persuade the searcher
to click on your ad as opposed to the other dozen or
so ads on the page. The same principle applies to the
natural search listings.
Other onsite issues include sitemaps, alt tags and
robots.txt files.
Offsite optimisation is primarily about building links
into your site from other relevant web pages. Google
in particular regards 'votes' from other web pages as
one of the most important criteria in assessing a page's
search engine rank. You can build links by submitting
to directories, writing articles for other sites, offering
an RSS feed from your site and by buying or exchanging
links.
But before you invest any money to get a higher search
engine rank you would be well advised to install a web
analytics system that will tell you at a glance how
your site and its marketing are performing. We can help
you with that - Google provides a very good system for
free.
To achieve higher search engine ranks and get more
customers, call us on 01453 873638 for more information.
To find out more, call us on +44(0)845
456 5342
|
