Your business's website success is determined by effective Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). SEO involves finetuning your website to achieve the highest possible position in the search results when a person searches for information using a search engine. ','
Considering how easily your prospective clients can find you is of paramount importance when running a website. If you have deemed your business or products suitable for online marketing, but you haven't utilised SEO, you will miss out on valuable new business opportunities. Even if your website has all the latest 'bells and whistles', unless it can be found among the millions of web pages now on the Internet, your time, money and resources will be completely wasted.
SEO is essential in maximising your chances of online success.
SEO explained simply
When an online user types in a keyword or search phrase into a search engine query box, they will receive a listing of websites that offer information, products and services related to that keyword. Search engines strive to list the most qualified and optimised websites at the top of their list.
SEO is the practice of modifying visible and invisible website content in addition to establishing links from other relevant websites to gain a higher prominence in Internet searches.
How does a SEO company optimise a website for submission to the search engines and directories?
A good SEO provider will:
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Make your website as search engine friendly as possible. This involves changing the text and HTML code behind your website. Simply put, when the search engine robot enters your website, it finds it very easy to determine what your website is about. The correct keywords and meta tags will have been placed within your site to ensure that the robot is able to collect and pass on information with speed and accuracy. This results in a much improved rank for your site; higher than would have been achieved without optimisation.
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Optimise each page differently so that the robot will include more than one page in the search engine. For example, if the robot comes to your homepage and it has been optimised and your primary message and keywords on that page were for new tyres, then you would hope that when someone uses a keyword search for 'new tyres', your website would be within the first 30 results. But on the other hand, another page of your website may be about wheel alignments. You would certainly want another searcher using a search phrase 'wheel alignments' to get results pointing to that relevant wheel alignment page.
Choosing a credible and effective SEO provider can be fraught with doubts.
Tips and answers to often asked questions on choosing and utilising an SEO provider*
How can you judge if the SEO provider will do what they claim?
Be aware of claims that state that your site will be:
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Submitted to more than 30 major search engines and indexes. No reputable search engine optimisation company would do this. The major search engines and directories feed their search results to the million or so other search engines. Submissions to a greater number is quite unnecessary and a certain indicator of a lack of professionalism.
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Submitted to thousands of search engines. It is more than likely that these submissions will be made to what are called FFA websites. These are not search engines at all, but rather a kind of link exchange website. As a result, your email server may be flooded by huge amounts of unwanted email.
Ask any prospective search engine optimisation provider to detail the successes they have had with their previous clients' submissions. This information should assist you with objective decision-making.
How can you know if these website submissions are genuinely being done?
Ask your provider for a list of search engines and directories where submissions will, or have, been made.
Request a written monthly report highlighting the search engines to which your site has been submitted, the submission dates and progress of your website rankings. This should not be an issue for a reputable company.
Will the search engine optimisation provider notify you when they have added your site to their index?
You should be notified within days of your website being indexed and at the very least at the end of each month.
How long before you can reasonably expect your search engine ranking to improve?
Usually, most of the major search engines will take three to four months before they will index your website. This is not always the case, and it can be much faster. Expect a website ranking improvement after three to four months. If your website ranking hasn't improved, it is likely that optimisation isn't occurring, and is doubtful whether the promised website submissions have been made.
*Source: Steve Szasz, SEO and website marketing expert www.webseo.com.au