Ask around and you’ll find that many people have been in the same position: they’ve spent a fortune on a gorgeous website, then found to their horror that it didn’t appear on the first page of Google. And, for any company, that’s a big problem.
There are simple things that anyone can do to ensure their website rises higher up the rankings, and even the smallest businesses need only invest a little time to get good results.
SEO and SEM
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) means tweaking your site’s content and construction so that it presents the best possible front to Google and its rivals. Advertising specific products, special offers or campaigns is called Search Engine Marketing (SEM). You pay a fee to the search company to ensure that your site appears as a sponsored link at or near the top of search results for particular words or phrases.
Both have their uses but it’s important to know the differences between the two. David Viney, SEO expert and author of Get to the Top on Google, likens the concepts to buying versus renting. ‘Paid ads are just that – advertisements,’ he explains. ‘They’re good for a specific campaign but they have limited long-term impact. Once you stop paying, they’re gone. The organic side, SEO, has a more long-term impact; it’s like buying a car rather than renting one.’
Visibility
Google consultant Steve Johnston maintains that success in Google SEO depends on getting three things right – visibility, content and reputation. They’re like the legs of a tripod – they all need to be there or the thing falls over.
‘Google needs to find your content and visible sites are those that present it in a well-organised, accessible manner. You need to create content using the same vocabulary your customers use. Write lots of useful content to convince users that you’re the best. This is the form Google prefers; decent prose with proper paragraphs.’
Google assesses content authenticity. ‘The reputation you develop online will be the deciding factor,’ says Johnston. ‘Google measures your reputation by looking at the quality and quantity of the links coming in to your site from elsewhere. Reputation is what matters most and it’s the hardest thing to fake.’
Both Johnston and Viney agree that it is vital to think like your customers. The words and phrases ordinary people use when searching for your product or service are the ones you must include in your web copy.
This helps target what the experts call ‘the long tail’: the searches that might only come through once in a while, but that will be all the more valuable when they do.
Viney offers this example: ‘Someone searching for “ski chalet accommodation” will get millions of results. But if they have specific needs, and search for “ski chalet Chamonix childcare”, and it’s your web page that has those keywords so rises to the top, you’ve probably just made yourself a sale.’
However, the long tail is a long-term investment and doesn’t bring instant results. Says Johnston, ‘Don’t get hung up on trying to reach number one in the search results. Instead, try to make your site as relevant as possible to as many people as possible. That makes the long tail work for you.’
Search Engine Marketing
SEM can offer excellent support to online and offline marketing activities, but when running a specific marketing campaign, it becomes the primary consideration. The best-known form is Google’s AdWords system, although all the major search sites offer something similar. The key to success lies in planning and good copywriting, according to Jane Darley, manager of online advertising products including BT’s search marketing service, BT Web Clicks.
Do your research
‘You have to research the market thoroughly,’ says Darley. ‘Type relevant keywords for your business into search engines and see what comes up. If you have your SEO right, you will float to the top naturally. Most businesses come up near the top if you type in their name, but it’s not the name that the customers or potential customers are searching for – it’s what the product does, or a phrase that describes the problem it solves.’
Good search engine performance isn’t necessarily the dark art it’s sometimes portrayed as, and is easily within reach of even the smallest business. All it takes is a little forethought, a dash of common sense and a good understanding of what customers want… like a lot of other things in business, really.
Three steps to better SEO
Work out your keywords
Use a tool like Google AdWords Keyword Tool to find out what the most popular search terms are on words related to your site. Make sure these keywords are used in the first paragraph of relevant pages. This will increase search engine’s understanding of what your site is all about.
Use smart internal links
Make sure that you don’t just have graphical buttons for navigation. Search engines don’t give these kinds of links the same weight as text links, or buttons with alt-text.
Include properly-styled subheads
Using header tags like H1 and H2 to split up your text adds to the readability for your users, but it also helps search engines to understand the structure of your page – which, in turn, means they are more likely to be able to place the content of it in the correct context for searches.
Next steps
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