SEO 4 Traffic
SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) 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 should start at the web design stage. This is exactly what we do as part of our standard web design approach, irrespective of what type of technical solution we're delivering.
The biggest driver for doing SEO for any web site owner is 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.
No traffic = no customers = no sales.
Search Engine Optimisation is all about focusing on every single factor that influences 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.
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.
Keyword Research
Keyword research is where it all starts. Knowing what internet users are looking for and what terms they're using sounds like good common sense, and it is! After all, search is how 80% of internet users find things. Search involves using keywords so it follows that knowing what phrases people are using is going to be useful when creating content for a site. It's surprising how many site owners miss this vital exercise. The result is site navigation and site pages that don't align with the majority of potential customers. This in turn means sites that don't attract visitors. Needless to say, we make sure keyword research is not ignored.
On-page Factors
If you know what you want a web site page to be famous for, because you've done your keyword research, you can start to look at how well a specific page performs in terms of aligning with selected terms. There are a number of factors that can be easily tweaked to make pages more search engine friendly. These are referred to as on-page factors, because they relate directly to the content and the code on a page. When we design sites we naturally make sure all on-page factors are designed in. When we are asked to optimise an existing site page, which we haven't designed or built, it's often necessary to make changes to the code so that all on-page factors are properly covered.
Off-page Factors
Sadly, it's not a simple case of making sure the right keywords are on a page. It's not enough to make sure the underlying code is search engine friendly. As well as on-page factors there are some very important off-page factors that need to be covered in order to place a web page in a strong position to get first page search engine result positions. These off-page factors are independent of web site design but this does not mean they can be ignored during design. Our experience is that many people approach us for help with getting traffic to their site and most often the problem is not the site design, it is the fact that off-page search engine factors have simply been ignored.
Links to your site are essential
One of the most important off-page factors that site owners have to get to grips with is links. Sites need links! Web pages need links! Fact! A site with no-one linking to it is like a desert island so it's hardly rocket science to work out why some sites get little traffic. Getting links is not that hard but getting good links takes effort. Not surprisingly we're interested in helping our clients get good quality links. Think of links as representing the social or business circles you move in. You already know that some are more rewarding than others and the same applies to links. Who links to your site and who your site links to means something to the search engines