Search Engine Optimisation
Sheffield Web Designer's Idle Moments
- Blog: May 2009
-
Handling search engines seems to be widely regarded as a black art, second in its blackness only to
figuring out the behaviour of visitors to your home page! This article tries to prise some of
the truth from the mystique that has grown up around search engine optimisation.
They're only computers...
Search engines are only computers, large networks of computers maybe, but still only computers. This means they're essentially stupid. If you want your website to be found when searching for 'shoe repairs' then that phrase, shoe repairs, must appear on your web pages. If your pages talk about 'cobblers' or 'boot makers' then you won't be found under shoe repairs. It's that simple!
Search Engine Submission
There's a lot of hot air about search engine submission and to see some advertisements you might imagine that your website must be submitted to every search engine on the planet at least twice a day! In fact this sort of activity is more likely to get your site removed from the search engines rather than moved up. The truth is that modern search engines like to see a website rich with relevant text (not pictures - search engines don't read graphics), a site that gives lots of information about its chosen subject. And when you've submitted it once to the big three (Google, Yahoo and MSN/Live/Bling or whatever Microsoft are calling themselves today) that's all you need to do. Your site won't mysteriously be unsubmitted unless you do something very silly with it.
Content, content, content... and cunning!
So if your chosen subject is 'shoe repairs' we'll put that phrase into your website pages - into the title, the first heading, a few times in the body text and maybe again at the end of the page. Of course there will be thousands of websites about the same subject and most people, after a few searches, will realise that if they want to find a shoe repairer in Sheffield rather than San Francisco or Saarbrucken, they must include Sheffield in their search. We'll capitalize on that by making your web page talk specifically about shoe repairs in Sheffield.
Get Networked
Once your site is seen as relevant the next thing search engines look for is how popular it is. They assess this by counting the number of other websites that link to yours. In simple terms the more 'inbound' links you have the higher you rise in the search results. The difference between a page 1 appearance and page 3 is usually down to inbound links. To some extent you can help us to help you because you know your own industry and trade bodies are often good for a link or two. We'll arrange links to your site from relevant directories to help boost traffic to your site and to boost its search engine position.
So don't waste your money on spurious 'search engine submission tools'. Get a boost from someone who knows how search engines work!
* Give us a call on 08450 533466 and see what we can do for your website.