Search Engine Optimisation

The Engines Have It...

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is an essential element of strong web site design and traffic generation.  SEO is not a single one-off event, it is a process which we firmly believe starts at the web design stage.

The biggest driver for doing SEO for any web site owner is an almost predictable flow of relevant website traffic.  If you're a web site owner and you're reading this you'll know that targeted quality website traffic is the name of the game.  If you don't know this we recommend you contact us.  It's pretty straightforward...

No traffic = no customers = no sales. 

It's also fact that wrong traffic = visitors BUT few sales.

Search Engine Optimisation is all about focusing on important  factors that influence how each page of a site is viewed by search engines. For new sites we do this as a standard part of the web design and build process.

Learn From The Competition

For existing sites we use a blend of assessing how a given page stacks up against the factors we know matter and how the same page compares against the most important competing sites, for the same factors. This approach works because it gives our customers choices when it comes to where to invest in improving their sites performance. In short, you only need to beat the current top performing sites and they may simply be the best of a bad bunch.

A Moving Target

It's important to keep in mind that search engines regularly change the algorithms they use to decide in what order to show web site pages for specific search terms.  This fact means that a web page may rank on the first page on one day and then be relegated to page three the next.  This has and will continue to happen, which is why SEO focus should never only be on the front page of a web site.  It's also why analytics are an essential part of ongoing SEO efforts.

It's key that web site owners establish flows of traffic that are not just from search engines, and this is where our broader website optimisation services comes in.

Is It Rocket Science?

SEO is not even close to rocket science.  The guidance from the search engines is very clear.  They reward good content.  This almost seems too easy, and of course it is.

What Is Good Content?

Web pages are ranked for relevant content and popularity.  Good content, in the eyes of the search engines, is therefore relevant to what internet users are looking for and is popular, and this is the tricky bit.  Creating relevant content is pretty straightforward.  You know what users are looking for because you've done the keyword research... and if you haven't you need to.

Making a page of content popular is not so easy.  Page popularity can be broken down into two elements.  The first is how many visitors a page gets and how many other sites link to that page.  It follows that a new page, or site, isn't going to have many visitors.  So some effort needs to be put into getting traffic and getting links.

How Long Does It Take?

It's not possible to say exactly when a given page will break onto the first page of search results.  For established sites it can be very quick.  For new sites it can take months.

If the end reward for getting on page one for a specific search term is big then it's worth putting in the time.  If the research says the rewards are small then the commensurate effort should be small.  What we're saying is that you should always know what getting onto page one will mean to your business.  If you don't know this then you risk spending time on getting to page one for the wrong terms.