Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
How do potential clients find your web site?
Firstly, they can type in your domain name into their browser. This
implies that they already know your address because you have given it to them or
they have found it on some written advert or other. This option is
obviously limited in number.
Secondly, they can go to a search engine, such as Google, to search for the
product or service in which they are interested, for instance a guest house in
Chichester or used cars in Tokyo. This option opens up the world to your
site.
For this second option to be effective it is not enough to have a web site on
the internet. There is such a multitude of sites on the internet in just
about any field you care to think of that any one site is like a needle in a
haystack. To be found by visitors, your web site must first be found,
indexed and ranked by
the search engines.
A web site therefore needs to be
submitted to the search engines after it has been
optimised (for the highest possible ranking). This
may seem trite and yet many websites are "invisible" to the search engines.
To which search engines should a web site be submitted?
There are thousands of search engines in existence but the plain fact of the
matter is that the vast majority of people surfing the net use a mere handful.
Google, Yahoo and MSN between them account for the vast majority of searches.
There is also a small number of national search engines
such as Ananzi and Aardvark in South Africa which mop up most of
the remainder of searches within their own national markets. The remaining
horde of search engines accounts for almost nothing.
There exist programs which promise to automatically submit your site to huge
numbers of search engines. These offers are of no value as the major
search engines, which matter, do not accept automatic submissions while the rest
do not matter anyway.
How do search engines treat a web site?
Submission is not enough by itself. For instance, if you go to
Google
and search for "accommodation London" there will be over 35 million "finds".
Even to be number 5 000 in such a list is useless as no-one is going to search
that far before finding something that suits them.
Clearly it is important to be as close to the top of the list as possible in
at least one relevant search expression. In other words, you need a good
ranking on the search engines.
Search engine ranking is determined by the search engines themselves using a
wide range of criteria; Google has been reported as looking at 200 factors
to establish its ranking.
Some of these factors are quite beyond the influence of the web site
designer; a web site about football may attract millions of visitors while one
about the use of pogo sticks on the island of Lombok is likely to attract very
limited interest. In that single respect, the football site will have a
definite advantage. On the other hand, the second site has the potential
to become the leading site in its field.
Others of these factors can be addressed. This is where
search engine
optimisation becomes important.
What is search engine optimisation?
It is the structuring and fine tuning of a web site
to meet as best as possible the search engine ranking criteria with the aim of
achieving the best search engine ranking possible under the circumstances.
Unfortunately, different
search engines have different criteria so that it is
not possible to optimise equally for all of them. Thus in practice one has
three choices:
-
optimise for
Google and partners, which is currently the most important search
engine, and neglect the others
-
optimise for
Yahoo or MSN and neglect Google
-
or compromise and try for decent (but not brilliant) ranking all round.
There is no single "right" strategy; each site needs to be examined on a case
by case basis. It is sometimes possible to achieve very good ranking on
Google in a niche market after optimising for the other search engines.
Contact us now for more information about search engine optimisation or a free quote to optimise
your website for the search engines.
Search Engine Optimisation | Web Site
Design
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