Lowestoft Web Design - Blue Lobster IT

Search Engine Optimisation

What is Search Engine Optimisation?

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the practice of amending a website’s internal and external aspects to increase the site traffic via search engines.

The majority of site traffic is generated by search engines so it’s vital to have a good representation in the search engines under your business area. SEO is a marketing activity and is specifically geared towards marketing your website.

By correctly optimising your site, we are able to tell search engines who you are and what you do. In doing this, we can target potential traffic for your site, providing publicity, revenue and exposure. Targeted visitors are a critical success factor in SEO and can provide an exceptional rate of Return on Investment.

Web Site Marketing

So your site exists and it’s beautifully designed and implemented. No matter how good the site looks, this in itself will not attract people to the site and your offerings. To fully realise the potential of a site, people need to know it exists. There needs be an easy path to finding the site.

There are many differing directory services out there that could link to the site but this may only pale in comparison to the potential of the major Search Engines. Collectively: Google, Yahoo and MSN account for 99% of all internet search traffic and should be considered the main target of any marketing strategy.

Search Engines change constantly in the algorithms they employ to index a site in their struggle to provide the best service possible to the end user – The Searcher. By carrying out SEO, we are able to work on the content, structure and link popularity of a site to improve its chances of appearing under the correct search criteria within the Search Engines.

Don’t we just need to put in the right META Keywords?

META Keywords have little to do with good SEO. Long gone are the days when Alta Vista was a major player in the search engine market and looked at META (in particular keywords) tags to identify the content of a site – this hasn’t been the case for years. Modern day Search Engines look at RELEVANCE. In SEO we are trying to show how relevant the site is and how important it is in that field.

When will the site be at Number 1?

SEO is a long term game and should never be seen as anything other than this. The ‘dark art’ of enhancing a sites ranking outside of a ‘clean’ approach may work briefly in the short term, but is destined to backfire (this known as the ‘Black Hat’ approach to SEO). It may even get the site blacklisted by Google and other search engines. Google is designed to recognise all the tricks and WILL penalise anything untoward. There are many offerings for the quick route to the top on the internet – these do not work.

SEO is used to show the search engines how ‘relevant’ the site is. Utilising a ‘White Hat’ approach to SEO, we are able to develop a long term strategy to offer considerably better results over a longer period of time.

Our process

Initial steps

We meet with you to identify:

• Organic and/or paid search SEO campaigns
• Expectations from SEO
• Identification of primary keywords for the site
• Identification of the number of sites / pages to be actively managed
• Identification of other marketing strategies and activities
• Identification of On and Off Page SEO requirements (On Page is amending the structure and content of the site, Off Page is Linking plans. Linking plans are a VERY important part of SEO but also, potentially, the most in depth).
• Assessment of competition
• Assessment of conversion levels and monitoring. Determine expected ROI. Is conversion more important than traffic?
• Assess Paid Search budget
• Assess Reporting Requirements / targets

We carry out some basic work

• Review existing site architecture. Validation of site architecture for SEO
• Identification of primary keywords on the site

Development of Work Programme

• Production of outline SEO options
• Preparation of SEO recommendations and budget

SEO Setup

Keyword Analysis

• Market Analysis
• Identification of main target phrases and keywords
• Identification of less common associated phrases and keywords
• Validation of keywords strategy against potential clicks
• Keyword report of current position
• Reappraise competition with proposed keywords / phrases to refine the list
• Prepare proposal of keywords / pages for Organic Search
• Prepare proposal of keywords for Paid Search
• Prepare proposals of content changes

Competition Analysis

• Selection of competitors
• Identification of competitor keywords and strategies
• Ranking comparisons against keywords / competitors
• Analysis of back links
• Production of preferred links

Initial Site configuration

• Amendment of page names
• Optimisation of XHTML & CSS code to avoid validation errors
• Amendment of page names / links
• Generation and submission of Google Sitemap
• Assessment and submission to major search engines and directories (Google, MSN, Lycos, DMOZ, Yahoo etc)
• Analysis of keyword density & Implementation of content changes
• Application of tag, title, description etc changes to reflect appropriate levels of keyword density.
• Implementation of Analytics tools

SEO On-going Management

Link Popularity / Link Building

• Assessment of competitor links
• Review of desired high PageRank and relevant links
• Agreement of approach
• Contact and establishment of dialogue with appropriate link partners
• Periodic reporting of link partner progress
• Removal of links from unwanted link partners

Rank Reporting and Monitoring – ongoing maintenance

• Organic Programme - Production of monthly keyword ranking report showing performance against previous month
• Paid Search Programme – Report of expenditure, search terms
• Traffic report
• Analysis of code and content changes required to maintain impact in the major search engines
• Report of recommendations