Search Engine Optimisation or the lack of it can actually make or break
your online business. Without an effective SEO campaign in place, you
are not likely to get much traffic on your website. No traffic means no
sales for you. In order for your site to be successful, it has to be
viewable and the only way to make it viewable is through an effective
SEO campaign.
Many companies are unaware of how to go about setting up an SEO campaign
and so they sit there without any traffic at all. Optimising your site
for search engine crawling allows your potential customers to easily
find you. When a customer searches for a specific keyword or key phrase
that is relevant to your business, your site needs to be listed within
the first 3 pages of the search engine results. Studies have shown that
most internet users only scroll through the first 3 pages. If your site
is not listed on these top pages there is a good chance that you are not
getting any traffic from search engine searches.
You can solve this problem with an effective SEO campaign. If you are
unsure of how to optimise your site properly, it may be time to seek
professional help. You can do your own internet search for companies
that specialize in SEO. For instance, a search for SEO London will give
you companies that offer search engine optimisation in the London area.
There are 2 main methods in Search Engine Optimisation (also known as
Search Engine Optimization) that are used to optimise websites and
obtain better search engine rankings.
Stage 1 - Competitor and Keyword Analysis and Code Improvement (Website Optimisation)
Ensure browser compliance - All your site’s code should be checked and
validated according to the strictest level of W3C guidelines. It is also
important to maximise the internal links in your site to ensure all
your pages will be crawled by search engines to maximum efficiency
Competitor analysis - Analyse your best performing competitors in your
field to ascertain the keywords they are using and the density at which
these keywords appear in their sites. Obtaining good keyword density is
of high importance, and the density used varies in different markets.
Trace Back links - Analyse your main competitors to find out who links
to them. Often sites that link to your competitors will link to you, and
getting your links placed in these places will help greatly to improve
your visibility
Stage 2 – Link building, PR and Monitoring Traffic (Offsite Optimisation)
Ethical Linking - Constructively build links back to you with relevant
companies. If you are a shoe shop for example then you wouldn’t build
links with pig farms or put you in directories with unrelated websites,
as this can actually harm your ranking. Take the keywords from the
research and use these to generate contextual links to your site in
relevant places. This helps search engines to know what your site is
about.
Use only ethical methods of search optimisation which do not risk
getting you black listed from search engines. Some companies may offer
quick fix schemes but these may run the risk of your site getting black
listed, and often as soon as you stop paying the premium all the links
to your site will disappear, along with your ranking. The methods of
link building should create permanent relevant links into your site.
Once you have found a company to help you with optimising your site, you
can begin to enjoy higher levels of traffic each day. An effective SEO
campaign will give you visitors that are specifically looking for the
goods or services that you offer so your traffic is much more likely to
provide you with sales.
