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website optimisation services include the following:
Research for Search Engine Optimisation
Projects
Research is a major part of any search engine Optimisation
project. We need to take a close look at your current site and those
of your competitors. If other sites in your field are rating better
in the search engines than yours, we need to understand why. They
may be spending a lot of money on advertising. They may have a well-known
brand name and are taking advantage of that. They may be using certain
tricks -- what is called "spamming" or "cloaking" in an effort to
fool the search engines into treating their sites as more relevant
to certain keyword phrases than they really deserve to be.
We'll look at the current state of your site and identify problems.
This could include poorly written html, unclear text, use of the wrong
keywords, insufficient use of the correct ones, or an over-reliance
on scripting that makes it harder for the search engines' spiders
to find what you want them to see.
We will also identify other web sites in your field which the search
engines view as authoritative. Such sites can serve to give us ideas
about the directions we can take your optimisation, and some of them
may later be useful in obtaining links to your site.
You know your business far better than we ever will. Because of this,
we will have to work together during this phase of the process, as
you will need to teach us enough about the people you'd like us to
bring into your site so that we can target your site to them.
Keyword Research
Many business owners believe that search engine Optimisation
is all about getting your site to rank on the top of the search engine
results for an ultra-competitive single word. However, research has
indicated that the more words in a search query (up to four words),
the more likely the page that searcher finds will convert. It may
give you bragging rights to rank on top for "insurance," but you'll
probably find that a page optimised for a term like "Hampshire whole
life insurance" will lead to more sales.
This is why it's essential that any search engine Optimisation project
include extensive keyword research, and the more pages your site has,
the more opportunities you have to bring in people searching on different
phrases.
We start most keyword research projects by discussing your business
with you. We'll spend some time talking about what terms people are
currently using to find you, what terms you feel you should be ranking
higher for, etc. We can then draw up a list of related keyword phrases
that can be targeted
Content Editing
Once the research has pointed us in the proper direction,
we will make recommendations regarding changes to the content of your
site. The text will be rewritten based on the keyword phrases we have
chosen to target. Proper page titles, headings, and meta tags will
be created. Your image files will be given appropriate alternative
text. We will do all we can to get your site to present the right
information to the right people.
In some cases, we will recommend the creation of new content pages.
These will serve both to make your site more useful to your target
audience and to bring in traffic from searches on additional keyword
phrases.
Log File Analysis
Your server logs tell us what's really happening with
your site: which pages get the most traffic, how people are finding
those pages, the paths they follow through the site, the amount of
time they're spending, whether the same people are coming back for
additional visits, etc. We use Google Analytics for log file analysis,
which allows us to generate both standard and custom reports. That
makes it possible to study almost any aspect of your site's traffic.
We need to study the log files before we start the optimisation project
as this will give us a good idea of where the site stands and where
it can be improved. Identifying the site's strengths and weaknesses
can be a great aid in determining a strategy for making improvements.
Tracking Your Success
Once a given page has been optimised, the log files will
tell us a great deal about how well we've accomplished the task. We'll
see how people are finding the page, and what they're doing when they
arrive there.
The goal of your website is not simply to rank well. It's to contribute
to your business, helping it grow. As our efforts to improve your
site help your business, the server logs will show us how that's happening,
and that information is vitally important in finding new ways to improve.
Rankings Are Not Everything
When your site moves up in the search engine rankings,
that's certainly a step in the right direction, but it's probably
not the goal. We need to study the results of that movement in rankings.
Has traffic increased?
How much time are people spending on the landing page?
Where do they go from there?
Are they converting?
All of that is far more important that just gaining improved rankings,
and if only some of those things are happening, we can find out where
the breakdown is occurring, and do something to rectify it.
New Opportunities
We normally optimise a page for two or three different
keyword phrases. Sometimes, we'll find that people are finding the
page by searching on a phrase we had not considered. That's often
a reason to create a new page that better targets that traffic by
concentrating on a very specific phrase.
Similarly, we're going to see what we're doing wrong. It's always
possible that a keyword phrase we thought was highly relevant to your
site isn't being seen that way by the people using that phrase to
search. If that happens, the efforts we made to get one of your pages
to rank well for that term aren't going to bear much fruit. Searchers
will see it in the results pages, but either won't click it because
the title and short description don't express what they're looking
for, or they'll click through but won't stay. The sooner we know that
that's happening, the sooner we can make changes to that page, either
to speak to those searchers, or to optimise it for a term which is
more relevant.
You should strongly consider having us study your server logs each
month. The knowledge we can gain over time can be extraordinarily
useful.
Optimisation of Your Site's Navigation
Once your site has the content it needs, we need to arrange
that content in such a way that it's easy to find. As sites grow over
time, people sometimes lose sight of the need to organize content
for the sake of the user. It may not be necessary to completely restructure
your site, but we will make suggestions to make it possible for your
visitors to get where they need to go and find what they need to find.
While it's important to enable your users to find everything they
want, it's equally important to guide them into your site in such
a way that turns browsers into customers. Depending on the size of
the site and the nature of your business, that may involve segmenting
users from the point at which they enter the site, or placing calls
to action in the right places on the right pages.
Link-Building Campaigns to Promote Your
Web Site
A link-building campaign can accomplish a great deal for
your web site. Links from other web sites to yours are seen by Google
as a vote for your site - a recommendation of your site as a good
resource for information. When you increase the number of quality,
relevant links pointing to your site, you are increasing traffic that
is pre-targeted to your subject-matter. You also are demonstrating
to search engines that your site has been deemed worthwhile by people
who know something about your field. This will improve your site's
ranking for keyword phrases that are highly relevant to your audience.
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