Using Search Engine Optimisation to get your site ranked higher in the organic listings

Search engine optimisation is probably the most time consuming of all the ways to promote your website and even if you do everything by the book there is no absolute guarantee that you will get a top listing - or if you get one that you will remain there as search engines regularly reconfigure their search results criteria.

Search Engine optimisation is about getting the basics right and setting up systems in place that contribute to your websites value to users. Quiet Storm will build your website so that from the foundations up it will be as search engine friendly as possible and during your training we will provide you with the 'Killer Secrets of the search engines'. Below there are half a dozen things that affect your search engine position, but these are just the tip of the iceberg!

6 things that get your website placed higher within organic search engine results

1. Remember that Search Engines are a business and they need to deliver what their customers are looking for

The whole purpose for a search engine is to aid people in finding what it is they are looking for, so this means you need to put yourself in the position of the person carrying out the search – your potential client.

Then you need to put yourself in the position of the search engine - how is it going to match up that enquiry with the right type of website? If their search results are no good then they will be out of business.

So the point here is that if you cheat and they find out - you will be blacklisted and have to put far more effort into getting a new site built and submitted.

2. Build your website so that it is accessible by the search engine spiders

The construction of your website is crucial, there are things that search engines don't like such as Flash and Frames as they limit the access to their spiders whose job it is to look at your website and record the content.

There are also things that search engines love, such as a site map, where the spider can quickly access all areas of the site you want it to see, and content specific page titles - this isn't the title that you read on the web page but the title describing the page contents that the spider reads and which appears within your browser window.

As you can imagine there are many things that will help the way the search engine views your website but these are things that your web developer should be aware of - if you are using Quiet Storm for your web development we will take you through this in more detail.

3. Search engines work on computer logic, so think about how they search and make your content rich in the keywords that are likely to be searched upon.

Content rich – this means that you have lots of content relevant to the search term. (This is where you need to be in the same mind set as your client, what is it they will want, how will they search for it? Bear in mind that different groups may search on different terms for the same thing!)

This is a fine line between making the content appeal to a search engine and making it readable for your potential customer. There are guides and statistics for word counts etc, and we can provide you with a guide to writing copy for the web - however there is no easy way around it; creating a content rich website is very time consuming.

There are some techniques which can be used to make your website content rich and which hit some of the other points below. Things such as case studies, news items, press releases, reports and reviews, all of which will enable you to write copy in a way which is content rich for the search engine and relevant to your prospect.

For example if someone searches on the phrase 'web developer Leicestershire' then the search engine (among other things) looks up how many times that phrase appears within the content of every website it has visited - the website with the most entries will score higher than the website with fewer entries which will score higher than any site with no mention of 'web developer Leicestershire'.

4. Keep it fresh, no customer wants a stale website

Regularly changing content – the search engines want to ensure that their client not only gets the right information but that it is up to date. Now the search engines can’t tell if the information is up to date but they can see how frequently it changes. In fact the more frequently you change/add to your content the more frequently the search engines visit and rank your website. Unfortunately the opposite is also true.

For example, if you put your website up and leave it without changing it, then the search engine will visit it, log the content and go away. When it returns, for sake of argument, two weeks later and the content is checked and logged and it sees no changes it will take longer to return for its next visit, this cycle will be repeated until the search engine rarely visits your website.

However if the spider returns after two weeks and records content changes then it will reduce the time it waits until its next visit - so by changing or adding to your content you can encourage the search engine back to your website more frequently.

So following on from the 'web developer Leicestershire' search given as an example earlier, if your website has the phrase 'web developer Leicestershire' and another site has exactly the same word count on the phrase but the site content hasn't been changed recently, then your website would score higher.

5. Relevant inward bound web links make your website appear more popular

Relevant inward bound links are simply external links to your website. Again the more inward bound links, thinking like a search engine here, the more up to date and useful your information is (otherwise why would all these ‘external people’ be linking to your website?). But the search engines are smart and they don't put any value to links from sites that are unrelated to the key topics of your website - hence the term 'relevant'.

Again the opposite is true for outward bound links, so make sure that they add real value to your site.

Relevant inward bound links can be:

From other websites
Web based directories and adverts (i.e. Free and paid for listings)
Chat forums and discussion boards - so long as it is relevant otherwise you will soon get blacklisted
Pay per click campaigns (these also have the positive effect of raising your website’s profile with the search engines).
Blogs

Our recommended number is 40 inward bound links which takes quite a lot of maintenance, as it is more likely that you will get links through chat forums, blogs and discussion boards (which are constantly changing) than other websites.

6. The catch 22 of search engine optimisation - more visits to your website the higher it is regarded by the search engines

Usage – the more people you get using your website then higher ranking it will achieve. So think about how you can get your clients to regularly visit your website. This is where you need to think strategically about all of your marketing and ensure that your website is fully integrated with your overall marketing strategy.

Things you can do to drive traffic to your website:

Send out newsletters, direct mail and/or e-mailshots which provide a reason for the recipient to visit your website. This could be an offer, free report, a special promotion or some other benefit.
Make an area of your website that is dedicated to adding value to your existing customers. This could be order tracking, order placement, data sheets, installation instructions - I'm sure you get the idea. (often you may find that this provides other benefits such as reduced overheads or provides you with an added unique perceived benefit over your competitor).

There are many other things that the search engines consider when ranking your site and the different search engines look for different things, so something that works on one engine may not on another. Google, for instance, looks at how long you have your domain registered, Spam sites typically register their names for 1 year so the longer you have ‘advanced purchased’ your name the better your search results will be on Google.

If you would like to know more about Search Engine Optimisation then we will be running regular seminars on this and the other techniques used to promote your website.

To arrange a no obligation FREE consultation please complete our enquiry form - stating which days and times would be most convenient for us to call you for a brief and informal chat about your requirements.