Search Engine Optimisation
About Search Engine Optimisation
Search engine optimisation is a set of methods aimed at improving the ranking of a website in organic engine listings. The term also refers to an industry of consultants who carry out optimisation projects on behalf of clients' sites. Practitioners may use "white hat SEO" (methods generally approved by search engines, such as building content, building links and improving site quality), or "black hat SEO" (tricks such as cloaking and spamdexing).
We are purely white hat SEO practitioners; anyone who claims black hat techniques are "fine" are wrong. Google and other search engines frown upon this and will ban your site from their listings. Anybody who feels the need to use these techniques do not have an expertise in true search engine optimisation.
SEO strategies can increase both the number and quality of visitors, where quality means visitors who complete the action hoped for by the site owner (e.g. purchase, sign up, learn something).
- For competitive, high-volume search terms, the cost of Pay-Per-Click advertising can be substantial.
- Ranking well in the organic search results can provide the same targeted traffic at a potentially lower cost.
- Site owners may choose to optimise their sites for organic search, if the cost of optimisation is less than the cost of advertising.
- Not all sites have identical goals for search optimisation.
- Some sites are seeking any and all traffic, and may be optimised to rank highly for common search phrase.
A broad search optimisation strategy can work for a site that has broad interest, such as a periodical, a directory, or site that displays advertising with a CPM revenue model. In contrast, many businesses try to optimise their sites for large numbers of highly specific keywords that indicate readiness to buy. Overly broad search optimisation can hinder marketing strategy by generating a large volume of low-quality enquiries that cost money to handle, yet result in little business. Focusing on desirable traffic generates better quality sales leads, allowing the sales force to close more business.
Search Engine Optimisation can be split in to two sections; On-Page (strategies concentrating on factors on your website) and Off-Page (strategies concentrated on externally to your website) optimisation.
On-Page Optimisation
On-Page optimisation is not as powerful as it used to be because of all the search engine manipulation that went on to try and get higher rankings. Google sees through a lot of these techniques and has become more intelligent within its algorithm. However, it is still extremely important and is still the primary building block of any SEO campaign. Some of the techniques we use are as follows:
- Tag
- Meta-tags (Description & Keyword)
- Visible text
- Headings and Formatting
- Internal Link structure
- ALT image attributes
- Keyword frequency, weight and prominence;
- Professional copywriting of content.
It is important is that all on-page optimisation is done as naturally as possible as you don't want to be accused of the cheating the system. The other risk with doing too much on-page optimisation is to ruin the usability or aesthetics of a site; we have SEO professionals who are qualified in website design as well, preventing this from happening.
Keyword research
This is key for any website; you need the right customers coming to your site in the right quantities or all other techniques are in affect, pointless. We are skilled in many market sectors and have a range of sophisticated keyword research tools for determining the best keywords for your site and each individual page.
Off-Page Optimisation
Off-page optimisation has become increasingly important in the world of SEO due to the face the search engines can detect the on-page optimisation more easily, but as with the on-page optimisation, we make it look as natural as possible.
- Domain name
- Filename
- Link Partner Building
- Directory Submissions
- External Link Structure
- Anchor text of inbound links
- Page quality of inbound links
- Article Marketing
- Web 2.0 Techniques
Spamdexing - what we don't do!
Spamdexing comes from the words spam and index and is using methods to "cheat" a search engine into listing a page highly. These methods include:
- Presenting text in page code which is not seen in the viewable page.
- Keyword-packed doorway pages (with and without redirects).
- The use of words unrelated to the true subject of the web site.
- Barely visible text.
- The (illegal) use of competitors' trademarks in tags.
- Page cloaking and IP delivery.
- Participation in link farms.
- Multiple URLs with redirects to a single site.
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