Search engine optimisation, promotion and positioning UK
It's a black art, but does it work?. There's no doubt, that
done properly, optimisation and professional promotion can send
volumes of traffic to your site. It's up to you to capitalise
on it.
Here are a few pointers that should help you decide how to promote
your Web site on the internet. After all, if no one can find
it, it won't work - ever!
There is a whole lot of guff talked about search engine optimisation
and promotion, lots of 'too good to be true' deals. "Let
us register your site with 3000 search engines", how many
times have you seen that?
So if you don't want to throw your money away on dodgy promotions,
read on....
Search Engines and Directories
Once you build a Web site you must help people to find it.
The internet is like a library, but the books in no order and
someones turned the light off. How can you find what you want?
This is where search engines come in. They will catalogue the
library and deliver relevant topics when asked. There are getting
on for 5 billion pages on the Web. That's five BILLION - or one
for nearly every person on the planet today.
Search engines and directories are the means that people use
to find what they're looking for. They scour their index for
sites that mention the keywords (the topics) that have been typed
in, and display the results.
Types of Search Engine
There are two different types of Search Engine. To put it simply,
they are Directories (like Yahoo) and Search Engines like AltaVista
or MSN.
The directories are compiled by humans and split their subjects
into catagories whilst the search engines 'crawl' the web and
index what they find. In either case, you need to tell it where
to find your site in the first place - this is called Search
Engine Submission.
Search Engine Submission
For a site to be successful, it must be listed with the Search
Engines. It must also use wording that will show up well in
searches.
Building a search-engine friendly website is an art in itself.
This rather arcane art is called Search Engine Optimisation.
Search Engine Optimisation
Employ a Search Engine Optimiser (like me), a specialist who
makes sure that the relevant words and phrases appear in the
best positions on the pages. There are many considerations,
complicated by the engines modifying their preferences on a
monthly basis. The trick is knowledge and experience.
Part of the effort is to research what people are looking up.
We pay for access to a database listing over 350 million searches
carried out over the last eight weeks. That way, we make sure
that we are constructing the page in such a way that people will
find it.
There are those who try to fool search engines. If they are
detected, the site will probably be penalised and shifted down
the rankings. And, in many cases, removed from their listings
completely.
And, it's worth noting, search engines all use different means
to look for sites.
Most read the text on the page. That's one reason you found
this page. Some use meta tags although most now ignore these,
some use the description tag and some use even use what is called
'alt text‘, the text you see when your cursor is over an
image on a page. Oh, and don't forget relevant links in from
related sites. Most don't see frames, and can't follow the links
properly so they ignore sites created using frames.
The rules are constantly changing - which is why I work full-time
on them.
High ranking on search engines
Apart from the conventional site optimisation techniques, there are various ways
of getting your site to show up well on search engines.
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| Be found... Or die - Very true. |
Hook pages can be a good idea. They are pages related to your site
through a topic, rather than the main subject - Rockbase, the difinitive
music database, has a 'UK Radio Station' list which introduces potential
customers.
A recent development has been for many search engines - especially
the major ones - to insist on paid submissions. A word of caution though,
some are more effective than others! We know which ones are worth paying
for.
Search engines get their content and results from several sources,
Inktomi provides information to 126 different engines, like MSN and
AOL, Yahoo uses Google information and many add in results from GoTo.
This is the tip of the iceberg.
It's part of my work as a Search Engine Optimiser to know about these
links and to exploit them for the benefit of my customers.
Great deals
You may see adverts from people offering what look to be great deals.
"We'll submit your site to 3000 search engines for $49.95!!"
Why is that a bad deal?
For starters, there aren't 3000, or even 300, search engines that
are worth submitting to. The top six search engines get 95 percent
of the hits. Time is much better spent figuring out how to maximise
your results in the important search engines and in specialised directories.
The cheapies aren't going to do that for $49.95. In fact, all they're
going to do is to plug your URL into an automated program that submits
it to a bevy of search engines with the click of a button. However,
search engine submissions do not always take on the first attempt,
and many engines deliberately exclude automated submissions. So your
$49.95 is gone, and your site will see no benefit.
I could do that for a tenner so if you're still tempted.
I used automated submission software when it worked, but things have
moved on. Many search engines now descriminate against this type of
software so I submit manually to selected engines & directories.
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But what about 'getting to number one'? Surely, that's a good promise,
isn't it?
It's less attractive than you think. Let's try a search.
Hit the Google link to search for ICI, you know, the chemical giant.
It comes out top just as you'd expect.
Now search for chemical manufacturer ........
It's nowhere.
Anyone can get to number 1 on a unique word or trade name, but on
a generic key phrase, that's much more tricky.
Now search for web design bournemouth. Out of 509,000 results returned,
my company and clients, Spectrum and Cravenplan are number 1, 2 and
3 !!
A search for search engine specilaist lists my advice site 2nd.
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Can your site benefit from search engine optimisation, check out these
links for more in-depth information:
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engine specialist | |
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Featured website
Alchemy, rock and pop covers
function band in
Bournemouth found easily in search engines and now derives
many lucrative bookings from the internet
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