Search Engine Optimisation

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a must for all websites these days and should be done to at least a minimum level during website creation.

I offer the base service as part of a website build for a client. If you require SEO and have not been a client of mine in the past then contact me I can offer a service for everyone.

Base SEO is not all you might need though, as with all  tech things can change and may do so rapidly.

So what is it?

The aim of SEO is to improve your website rankings and positioning in search engines in relation to the words used when a person searches – especially Google.

By improving your rankings allows more people to find you, this increases visits and potentially sales for yourself, quite simple really.

Just ask yourself one question…

Are you happy with your sites position in Google search results?

You could ask yourself lots of other questions such as do you know how your website ranks against your competitors or do you measure your conversions and how to improve them… the list goes on.

However, the important question is the first one, sort this and things will follow. To achieve the correct answer to the first question (namely YES) and in the process answer all the other questions that need to be answered keep reading….

But Google will promote my site if I pay them?

Yep this is quite correct and in some cases this will work, not going to deny that. But  as the saying goes “you pays your money and you takes your chances” The title above, in many cases, should have the words …a lot at the end

Paying Google is called PPC (or Pay Per Click) so every time someone clicks on a link to your website you pay a fee to Google, that fee can vary quite a lot. Stop paying and your site disappears from the search results!

Another thing worth asking yourself, when you do a search in Google do you always click on he result at the top (or bottom)? A lot of the time these are sponsored or have the word “Ad” next to them because this is what they are, and this is where your site links will appear. Most people (ask your friends) will think hmmm trying to sell me something, naah, I’ll scroll down to the “non ads” and here you will find the sites that have been SEO’d.

Using SEO means your website, is optimised, has quality content, good coding and usability etc. etc. this takes work but it is worth it.

Good SEO answers the first question so all the rest follow along. With good SEO from the beginning and even if you stop at this point or just “slow down a little” it still comes through for you in search results, unlike PPC.

So SEO, me and you?

This is a list of all the potential SEO work that might need to be done for your site. I say might as some of the following might not be necessary.

  • SEO and Usability Audit – built well, standardised and checks the need for the rest of this list
  • Keyword Research – The most important aspect of this whole process as the results of this feed into a number of the following
  • Meta Tag Optimisation – Page titles and descriptions
  • Page Load Speed Analysis – Slow speeds can affect rankings and can be caused by a number of different factors
  • Mobile Friendly Analysis – Mobile friendly sites became v important recently due to Google “looking at” how sites behave on a mobile first
  • Links –
    • Adding internal / external links – Helps the search engine navigate and figure out the layout of your site
    • Improving Backlinks – links from other good internet sources that go to your site
    • Blog/Article Submission  Adds relevant content containing keywords which keeps the site ticking over with new info. A big plus for search engines as it keeps them coming back to your site for a look.
  • Fix broken items if needed ––
    • Crawl Errors are fixed – is Google trying to navigate around your site and is running into problems
    • Broken Links are fixed – Are internal and external links going where they should be
  • Set up and Manage a Google Places Listing – A very good way of helping with SEO, ever done a search and a map with a list of results appears at the top?
  • Social Media Integration – Posting to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Plus, YouTube etc

After an initial appraisal and depending on your budget we will agree a number of hours per month. The minimum for this to be effective is 2 hours per month .

How long does this take, I hear you ask?

Well from a standing start the minimal time is usually 6 months for any desirable results to become apparent. Having said that though there are a lot of factors that can affect SEO, this can either make the time shorter or longer e.g. competition, type of business, site quality, even do people search for your type of business on the web or not!

How Do We Measure Success?

That is the big questions isn’t it it’s good to be questioning about this as it can be hard to explain.

Fortunately, there are a range of tools and software that can be employed that will  measure ‘SEO metrics’ or measurements on how well the site is doing.

Every month, I send you a report with an overview of what has improved, what I have been doing, and what work I will be doing over the forthcoming month.