| There's little point in
having a great website if no-one can find it from the
search engines - especially the big 4: Google, Yahoo,
MSN, and ASK .
How does your site rank against competing sites when
potential customers are searching or your product or
service? How do other sites achieve their position? Is
your site Search Engine Optimised?
Surveys have shown: If your site is not found on
the first couple of pages, the chance of a click-thru to
your site is dramatically reduced.
Search engine optimization of a website for high ranking
in the major search engines has
many aspects, some of them very technical. But below
are 7 essential steps to reaching the heights -
that elusive top spot in the organic search results. For
the full course in 7 weekly parts, sign up in the box at
the right... |
|
- Decide on your top search terms
Don't skimp this fundamental step. Have your team
brainstorm the likely words and phrases that your
desired potential visitors are likely to use. Try to
avoid insider jargon unless you desired visitors use
these terms. Select the top 4 or 5 by analysing
their recent
popularity in searches. (The major search engines have
tools to help you.)
- Check your site's current ranking
Check where your site appears in the search
results from each search engine, for each of your
chosen keywords. Use a tool such as Web Position
4 to do the work. This analysis will form the base
line against which you will start your improvement
process. This initial result may surprise you - much
worse than you expected, but don't give up!
- Make your pages 'search engine friendly'
Every page in your website should have lots of
clues for the search engine 'bot' to tell it what
that page is about. The bot will be looking for
which words and phrases are the most prominent to
determine when the page should be shown in the
results.
- Ensure an unbroken chain of links to your pages
Make sure all your pages can be found (and
therefore indexed) by the search engine, starting at
the home page. If you use dynamic 'Flash' menus, make
sure there are also plain links for the search
engine to follow.
- Get incoming links to your website
Search engines such as Google give a strong
weighting to other sites linking to yours,
especially if they are found in pages that are
themselves well ranked. Avoid 'link farms' whihc
will count against you.
- Set up optimized key pages
Create some pages that are highly optimized for
each of your most important key words and phrases.
- Don't play tricks
Search engines are smart. If you type in
keywords multiple times in small print or in white
on a white background, you will be punished by the
search engine. Likewise using javascript to show a
special page that ordinary visitors don't see will
get your site ranked lower or not at all.
Of course this all takes time and expertise. Why not
let us do it for you?
Contact us at
sales_info@viewselect.com
to discuss your needs. |
