Robin and Marion Jones, Croque-en-Bouche,
The Old Post Office, Putley Green, Ledbury HR8 2QN. t: 01531 670809 f. 0870 7066282
SEARCH ENGINES
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a black art. A bit like Michelin; no one actually
knows what it takes to get stars, but everyone has a theory.
SEO does attract scamsters, so beware! Generally don’t go there. The search engines
are also great at ‘moving the goal posts’.
However specialists can sometimes be helpful. If you need to be high on page one
of Google in a very competitive field, it is possible (£100/month?).
Face it! 80% of your web traffic will come via the search engines. Google is the
major player (90% in UK), and with Yahoo and Ask, covers 98% of UK searches. The
other 1000’s of engines don’t figure. Believe me.
Since it’s a Google game, from the start your site should be constructed to be as
attractive as possible. A perfect SE homepage, would be all text (about 300 words)
plus a small graphic, and boring text links. Note some text on sites - the fancier
stuff - is actually a graphic. Check. Put the mouse over this text. A vertical line
shows it is ‘proper text’. Put it over the logo text at the top of this page and
you’ll see it’s a graphic. See a graphic-based homepage done as an example for this
site. It was mostly invisible to Google, and only saved by the text at the bottom.
Style costs.
Using our site as an example, say ‘restaurant’ and website’ are some of my chosen
popular SE words. I should put those keywords in the text as much as possible. Within
reason - do not over-stuff!
Remembering that ‘web site’ too should be in there as an alternative spelling. Also,
the page names, titles, headings, description, alt and title tags (ignore if this
gets too techie!) should basically be full of ‘website, design, web site’. Not over-stuffed
or the SE folk will smell a rat.
The search engines run programs called ‘spiders’ who race from link to link, from
site to site, around the net looking and checking. They do like you better if other
sites - preferably big quality sites - link to yours. But that takes considerable
time - talk to people you do business with, tourist boards, etc. And an automatic
delay of about six months for SE listing, seems built in. That also helps them sell
you ‘sponsored links’ which Google calls ‘Adwords’. You set a max. amount you pay
and if you don’t get outbid, will appear either at the side of page one results,
or best, at the top. When a punter clicks your link you pay. Simple, and very cost
effective. I reckon it is essential! Usually about £40 to set up.
