Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Pros

The work you pay for keeps working for you, you are not paying for each visitor and the Search Engine Optimisation work done 12 months ago is still producing results for you.

The users of the search engines are more likely to click on the organic natural search engine results than they are the paid advertisements.

The natural listings are seem as more likely to give the information the person is looking for as the search engines have promoted the sites up the search engines on the basis of relevancy rather than just having the money to pay for the positions.

So long as the site stays within the guidelines set out by the search engines the site will continue to grow in popularity as the positions in the search engines rise.

You are able to rank very well for terms that you may not have considered before you started with your site, the combination of words used on the page will help determine where in the rankings you will show up and for what words, you may never have found these terms if you relied on PPC.

Cons

Getting results from the natural rankings can take time it is not unusual for a competitive phrase to take 6 to 12 months to rank well in the search engines, although often if is more like 4 weeks.

If you try and do the SEO your self it can be a slow and time consuming exercise, it is also complex and getting it wrong can cause more problems than it solves.

If you use an agency who do not comply to the search engines preferred methods of SEO then you can find your site getting banned from the search engines, this can cost you the rankings you fought hard to get.

Conclusion

If you have the time to learn Search Engine Optimisation and complete the link building necessary to make a difference to your site then it is a great way of getting free traffic, if you have the budget to get a professional Search Engine Optimisation company to do the work for you this is even better as they will have the experience to avoid the pitfalls, here is a guide on how to choose a SEO company.

Someone using a search engine to look to buy a Paul Frank t-shirt is likely to use a term like Buy Paul Frank Clothes or Buy Paul Frank T-shirts as these are likely to bring up results from businesses that sell Paul Frank merchandise. If they were looking to find out about the history of the company or more about the designer then the search terms used would be similar to About Paul Frank Industries or Paul Frank Designer.

This is not true for all businesses and products. If someone already knows the product description or id number then they may use that to search for their desired product. For example if someone was searching for a specific medical product like a Vitalograph Emergency Aspirator then they might use the key phrase (M1830) Vitalograph Aspirator including the product number. This is likely to return results for pages with the specific product on so it is easy for the user to compare prices.

There are also other types of search term that cover both research and buying visitors. These are terms that will be used by both types of user. For instance someone who was looking to research into local web design and search engine optimisation companies is likely to use terms like Web Design Salisbury or Web Design Wiltshire. These terms are also likely to be used by someone who is looking to use the services of a web design company or search engine optimisation team.

Unfortunately my site wasn’t like this, the site itself appearing to busy without an simply negotiable set up, the few individuals that did discover my site, seemed to leave the site almost as quickly as they came onto it. Working on the outskirts of Salisbury, I wish I had typed in
Web Design Salisbury I might have received the answers that my site and business so badly needed.

Customers to your site should want to spend money almost as soon as they arrive on your front page, if the web design for your website is of no interest to the individual that has just arrived on it they will just as quickly move off it and leave the site to spend there money.

For that person to actually get to your site they will have normally used the search engines to get to you, few organisations know that if you are not on the first page of a search engine you are not likely to be visited, because lets face it how often do you go trawling through page after page of search data for a certain site do you not normally just click on the front page.

Its only through doing appropriate long term work to a site that you can make it work effectively, efficiently and give you a positive return on investment there are no quick solutions just processes that will work to make your site number excellent in the search engines for your specific topic.

•  Things to consider when designing your own website 
• What users want from a website
• Encouraging users to stay on your website and spend more
• Building visitor loyalty 

If you are interested in attending the free seminar then you’ll be in for a treat.  SEO Salisbury highly recommends them for both the content and the opportunity to network with like minded business people.  Everyone is welcome and snacks and drinks will be available so if you wish to attend then visit the seminar booking page on the site. 

Adding the Google Tool Bar to your browser will help you to do a number of things.   You will be able to add buttons to your tool bar and bookmark your favourite websites but the Google toolbar has some much more useful functions for optimisation.

Firstly the tool bar has a Google search function which makes instant suggestions as you type in words you’re searching for.  This can be useful for optimisation as it gives you possible examples of search phrases that people might use to find a website.

Secondly the toolbar has the Page Rank feature this is very useful for SEO.  The PageRank feature will tell you the ranking that Google has given the webpage.  If click on the drop down menu on the button there are 3 options – Cached Snapshot of Page, Similar Pages and Backwards Links.

Cached Snapshot of Page – The cache is the snapshot taken of the page as it was crawled by the Google bot.  This lets you know if your page has been indexed by Google and whether it is in the search engine or not.

Similar Pages – This function supplies you with a list of related websites.

Backwards Links - This function shows you some of the links from other sites to your site.

Download the Google Toolbar For Internet Explorer

Download the Google Toolbar For FireFox       

The Child Protection Seminar focuses on the following areas:

· To consider the risks and benefits for children using the internet and online communications
· To look at what children are doing online
· To consider some possible solutions and strategies for keeping children and young people safe

Click here for further free seminar details including directions and bookings. 

This blog will be giving advice, news and information about SEM or Search Engine Optimisation in Wiltshire.  For those of you that don’t know SEO is a form of internet marketing that is used to promote websites in search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN.  It is becoming a more integral part of web design because as more websites are being built the competition for traffic is increasing. 

As well as giving advice about search engine marketing this site will also provide information and news about Salisbury based search engine optimisation and web design companies as well as events, seminars and local news.

We hope you find the contents of this blog useful and informative.