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Robin and Marion Jones, Croque-en-Bouche,

Old Post Office Cottage, Putley Green, Ledbury HR8 2QN. t: 01531 670809   f. 0870 7066282

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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 (80% in UK), and with Yahoo and Bing, 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. Delay also helps them sell you ‘sponsored links’ which Google calls ‘Adwords’. You set a max. amount you pay and depending on your bid, 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 in the early days! But only long term if it really works for you, i.e. brings you business. One customer of mine spends a lot regularly, even though his organic listings are excellent. He just wants maximum exposure. And it has made him number two in his business sector in under five years. Usually about £40 to set up.