Friday 21 August 2009

SEO - myths and black magic

How do I get to the top of Google? This is a question that is posed to us at least weekly and we always have the same answer – just start to think how Google thinks.

You will no doubt have heard about companies that specialise in search engine optimisation (or SEO for short) – you may have even spoken to some of them. If you have, then along with most other business owners and managers you are probably still as much in the dark about what SEO is all about than if you hadn’t asked.

There are a lot of myths and black magic woven around SEO – much of it to protect the high monthly charges that many of these companies propose to try and get your website rated at the top of Google in a matter of months, sometimes weeks – however, what most people don’t appreciate is that if they do manage this feat then it is often for a specific search term that they have agreed with you. The more specific the search term though the more likely Google will be to rank it highly anyway – so save your time and money.

A couple of years ago a small business client of ours insisted that they wanted to get to the top of the Google listings for the term “sales training”. Despite repeated discussions about the fact that this was not the be-all and end-all in developing their business and that long term they would be better off building a genuinely interesting website and driving traffic to that site through a mix of marketing activities, they were convinced by the pitches of a number of SEO companies that claimed could quickly get them to No 1 position for that search term. At this juncture we parted ways with the client but I can tell you that two years later that company is quite a lot poorer and are still no nearer that No 1 goal – in fact they are not even in the top 10 pages for that term (and how much further would you look than that?). Had they spent the same money developing a broader based marketing mix over the same period they would most certainly have generated a better return on the investment and actually would most likely have improved their position in Google to boot!

So here are some basics that will get you 80% of the way to building a Google friendly website without ever getting near an SEO guru.

1. Content: There is no doubt that content and copy is key. Make sure that the copy on each page is focused around a word or phrase (often referred to as keywords) that people are likely to use when searching. If possible choose less generic and more specific words as people really searching for something in Google will usually enter a quite specific phrase – repeat that keyword multiple times whilst still writing good copy.

2. Structure: Use the keyword where possible in the title of the page and definitely in headlines on the page (in bold or larger font). Any photographs on the page can also have what is called an “Alt-tag” assigned – this is what is often displayed when you roll the mouse over a photograph – make sure that your chosen keyword for the page appears in those tags.

3. Incoming Links: If you can get other companies to link to your site, make sure they are actually relevant to your company – i.e. on their page linking to your website page that they are discussing a similar topic - Google ranks relevant (note relevant) incoming links highly so long as there is an obvious similarity between the two linked pages.

4. Market your site through a mix of channels and media (don’t simply focus on No 1 in Google) – the more people here about your site and visit it then the more it will naturally rise to the top in Google.

In contrast to the “sales training” client, we have many clients that have high positions in Google searches for relevant keywords by doing no more than the basics above. As an example try the search term “swimming pool paint” – our client is No 1 worldwide with a straight forward website that delivers a thriving business in swimming pool paint, but he has done no more to achieve this than the four points above. He is now extending his product range with the same thinking for Pond Paint, and is high up on the first page already.

1 comment:

  1. At last - a welcome breath of commonsense about optimising websites and serach engines - for most small to medium businesses this is the most sensible way to proceed - we have taken this approach in our company for the last couple of years and have found it does indeed pay dividends.

    John Macey - Birmingham

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