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Search Engine Optimization is still considered by many website owners to be a secretive black art with SEO specialists charging exorbitant fees for their services.
There are different search engine optimisation techniques but most focus on code, content and links. Some techniques used by SEO specialists can be frowned upon and may ultimately further reduce your website's ranking on a search engine so you do have to carefully choose who you wish to use.
In my own opinion and from my clients comments:
IGNORE COLD CALLS SOLICITING SEO SERVICES FOR YOUR WEBSITE
Instead look on the web, review their results, ask friends and business contacts for details of web marketing consultants.
Or why not contact me?
I can readily show successful results, my expertise, integrity and client referral always helps me secure new business.
I as a web marketing consultant and SEO specialist can offer your company:
Proven results of client success online
AFFORDABLE & professional Search Engine Optimization services
Competitive and affordable rates
Search engine spiders or bots (programs that follow links across websites and index content) are becoming more sophisticated.
Search Engine Optimization is a relatively known process, find out more here - How to optimize a website for search engines
I recommend only Search Engine Specialists and professionals carry out SEO.
Because if carried out by someone with little knowledge or experience it could make matters a lot worse for your website.
Lots of Search Engine Optimization deceptions, cheats or tricks are easily picked up by search engines who will penalise accordingly and remove websites from their listings if caught cheating.
It can happen to websites large or small - it even happened to BMW's website
for redirecting visitors. Google removed them from their database and it created a huge impact on visitors to their site until their website errors had been removed.
Many web designers offer Search Engine Optimization Services as an add-on service mostly due to demand from their own clients.
I, Darren Moloney of All Things Web, am different!
I started optimising and marketing websites first and then moved into website design, ecommerce and website graphics. Here are just some of the issues you should consider if deciding to use a web designer rather than a web marketing specialist for search engine optimization:
I analyze what make websites successful, source the best tools and have gained huge experience in making websites profitable for their owners.
Many web designers do a great job but should concentrate on what the site LOOKS like and not necessarily on the SEO and INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE of a website.
These are entirely separate roles and for best results should be carried out by specialists.
Yes, it will make your website a higher financial investment for you but spending some time and money today can make a BIG difference to your bottom line.
I regularly appraise search engine optimisation services offered to my clients by competitors. Unfortunately I find the usual claims or myths some SEO companies make consist of one or more of the following statements:
Its only about stuffing your Keyword metatag with dozens and dozens of keywords
WRONG!
Metatags were once important but due to abuse most search engines now ignore them. I have had client sites listed highly in Google WITHOUT metatags in the HTML code.
You have to submit your site to THOUSANDS of search engines every day/week/month
WRONG!
If I emailed you a link to the All Things Web site asking to be listed on your website every day would you soon grow tired of it? Search engines do too and they have billions of pages to take care of.
Submit once, move on and review at a later date.
Most people find it hard to name thousands of search engines, just concentrate on the major players such as Google, Yahoo and MSN and some of the bigger human edited directories such as DMOZ initially and then move onto industry specific directories.
The offer of guaranteed or permanent search engine positions
WRONG!
Search engines regularly change their algorithms to catch out spammers (people who cheat to gain high rankings) and to keep results fresh and up-to-date.
All Things Web cannot guarantee results. I can only demonstrate successful SEO results that have happened for existing clients but I cannot predict what a search engine will do in the future. Only the search engines know what they will do and they do not announce changes until usually AFTER an update has occurred.
Guaranteeing search engine positions can be a sign of the desperate.
SEO can take time to develop for a website but Search Engine Spammers quickly generate upto millions of false pages linking to your site and this can result in a very fast listing.
The spammer then keeps their guarantee to you and sends you the bill. However you find your site is then quickly caught cheating by the search engines, penalised and removed from its rankings - either FOREVER or for a potentially very LONG time.
Is this something you want to risk?
Instant link popularity - i.e. instant links to your website
WRONG!
Instant links to your site along with doorway pages are usually poor quality LINK FARMS. Again search engines are smart enough these days to remove your site from its listings or reduce it's rankings if it is found to be part of one.
No need to update, amend or change your website - leave it as it is
WRONG!
A website MUST be a work in progress. Would you watch the same episode of your favourite TV program over and over again?
I expect you're saying "no".
Yet notice in the short to mid term the program appears to change or develop its content regularly but in the long term the content actually remains quite similar?
You must keep your website up-to-date and relevant but it does not have to take a huge budget. A consistent effort will help you succeed in the long run. Failing to update your site or worse updating it for a season such as Xmas or Valentines and then failing to remove it promptly is a recipe for disaster.
Think about how many times you have visited a website where the Valentines special offer is still on show weeks or months later?? Did you feel it was somewhat unprofessional?
If search engines AND website visitors know you update your website with good content on a regular basis they will revisit on a regular basis and that's one of the best ways to generate highly targeted traffic.
SEO - a few outlined processes
Most search engines do not rely on Keyword meta tags due to abuse in the past. Title tags and meta description tags are useful and should be applied to each page targeting keyword phrases in your content on a particular page.
Search engines can currently use Title and Description tags as the link to your page in their search results. However if your Title or Description tags are poorly written you may be highly listed but they will never persuade someone searching to click on your site.
It is crucial you target the correct keyword phrases with additional benefits and features in the meta tags to ensure someone visits your site first before going to your online competition.
Notice the blue bar right at the top of your browser window?
That is where you will find your title tag. The most common mistake here is to put your company name or/and the name of the page (i.e. "contact page" or "home page".)
Ideally your title tags should be unique for EACH page and contain 8 to 15 words with your targeted keyword(s) in a brief sentence describing what that page is about. Avoid the use of "stop-words" as much as possible (such as the, and, a, etc) and remove words like "the best" or "the greatest" from the tag.
Your meta description tag should be a sentence that describes the site in 15-20 words and contains a few targeted keyword phrases with appropriate benefits or features. Make the description tag compelling as possible to entice someone to click on your site.
Targeted keyword phrases must be at the beginning of the tag and placed together or as close as possible to get the best results possible.
Keyword Tags are not relied upon heavily at present (if at all in some cases) for most search engines but if the major players (Google, MSN, Yahoo, Ask) do begin to start using them again it does not hurt to have them in your code.
Do not spam this metatag and cram it full of keywords. Instead target keyword phrases and place them in the code. Try to use less than 5 keyword phrases in a Keyword Metatag and ensure each unique page targets a different set of keyword phrases grouped together.
As an example of structuring copy then take a look at the set up of this page.
Notice I have placed keywords in headings and ensured my content is readable with certain sentences highlighted in bold or with bullet points?
Targeted keywords are also placed prominently at the top of the page especially in the first few paragraphs. Search engines usually regard pages with relevant content presented in this manner far more favourably than pages not structured correctly.
Generally a search engine will give more prominence to the first 20 or 30 words on a page.
It is very tempting to have buttons on your site suitably formed to integrate with the graphic look and feel of your website design. Most search engines are unable to follow links generated by Javascript or links within an image map and this can cause your site to be poorly listed.
Make it as easy as possible for a search engine spider to follow links and index the text on your web pages by using text based links in your navigation.
As you can see I have used the appearance of buttons on our website but they are pure HTML and CSS which allow search engines to navigate across all of my site links.
If you have a lot of pages it is easier to provide a site map page to help a search engines bot or spider find all the pages in your website. Make sure your site map is linked to from your home page and all your other pages.
Search engines have until recently put a lot of weight on determining a website's popularity by the number and relevance of other website's that link to it by a certain keyword phrase.
A recent update however has changed the Google algorithm to look at links in closer detail to check for link spamming - where lots of inbound links to your site are generated in a short space of time.
To prevent this I suggest you carry out the following link strategy:
Look for other websites that would link to you - ensure they are related in some way
Get listed by major directories such as DMOZ
Focus on slowly building links to your site based on relevancy and would be likely to deliver targeted traffic. For instance if you were a Country Hotel owner concentrate on getting links from local tourist boards, hotel directories and hotel review websites rather than links from anyone who is just happy to link for no real purpose.
I think the best way to generate links is to directly contact the website owner. Sometimes it might take a telephone call rather than an email but usually most website owners are happy to swap links - especially when they think your site is more authoritative or professional than their own.
If you feel you need to talk with me then call the telephone number below or email SEO Specialists & Professionals here
Call today on 01793 729326 for successful search engine optimisation services for YOUR business.
All Things Web, 50 Sams Lane, Blunsdon, Wiltshire, SN26 7AZ