Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Guide

There are no magic formulae to ensure you perform well in the search engines, but generally speaking:

Good web coding + Good content + Good inbound links = Good Search Engine Position

Good web coding.

The computer code that makes up your web pages must be well formed, efficient and portray your content well.

Good content.

Your content must not only be appealing for humans to read but be effective for search engines to read also. You must work out what your potential customers are searching for, which of these terms has the lowest competition and optimise your pages accordingly. Do not pack your website with unnecessary key words, it is bad practice and Google will detect this. More so when a visitor does get to your website they are likely to be put off by the packing of keywords.

Instead optimise your content for relevant key words but do it in an elegant way that is not an obvious attempt to get your key words in as many times as you can. Do not listen to some search engine optimisation ‘experts’ who perform dirty tricks to get you to the top of search engines. Search engines pay some of the cleverest people in the world to detect such attempts, and when you do get found out you can get banned from search engines for a significant period of time.

Good inbound links

Getting quality links from quality websites is what it is all about. Do not try and simply get links from as many websites as possible. Make sure that your links are relevant, from quality websites (those with a good page ranking) and not from any blacklisted websites. Do not be afraid to pay for some quality links, some quality links will be available for as little as £10 and can be well worth the investment.

Other search engine optimisation factors

Other factors that you may wish to consider include:

• Choice of domain name – does your domain name tell search engines what you do? If your company is called “acme” and sells car parts, “www.acme-car-parts.co.uk” is a much better domain choice than just “www.acme.co.uk”.
• Quality web hosting - Do not be afraid to pay a little bit extra for quality web hosting. The reliability and performance of your website can affect your ranking within search engines.
• Outbound links - Putting links from your website to other relevant websites can help boost your ranking. So if you are a house builder why not put a link to a furniture company?

Call us for a no-obligation consultation to see how Red Spider can help you with your search engine optimisation.