Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) in East Kent

The field of SEO has evolved a great deal since We6 started, and it is currently going through a very rapid period of evolution driven largely by Google. This evolution is largely aimed to weed out cheats in the system, who try to artificially raise the position of websites by devious means, known as "black hat" techniques. These include the use of devices such as link farms, hidden pages, using hidden text to stuff extra keywords onto a page etc. We6 is a purely "white hat" operation, as we firmly believe that the best way to gain a solid website reputation is by straightforward and honest means.

Google is currently of course, THE Search Engine of choice for most people, and therefore understanding the way it works is an essential part of Search Engine Optimisation. Google's aim is to reward genuine websites that obey their rules with higher ranking Search Engine positions (and of course, those that pay them to advertise!) and to exclude the cheats. However, as in any conflict of interests, there is always likely to be the potential for underhanded ways around the system. The potential consequences of innocent or pre-meditated cheating are severe - including being sent to the Search Engine's "Sandbox" (being totally excluded from all listings without explanation) from which it can be very hard to escape.

As the leading Search Engine in the market, it is fortunate that Google currently has a much more enlightened and altruistic outlook than some of it's would-be competitors (Microsoft comes to mind) and gives much back to it's users in return.

We6 already has over 10 years experience of Website Design and Search Engine Optimisation. We are therefore in a very good position to apply genuine and inspired SEO techniques to your website, so that it interacts well with the Search Engines and Indexes.

Your website will be one of millions on the internet. So how do you get your target audience to visit your website rather than any of the others?

You can advertise your web address in a lot of ways - business cards, signs, leaflets, yellow pages, media advertising etc.

However (arguably) the biggest potential for attracting large numbers of visitors who want to see your website and what you do, is from Search Engines such as Google and Indexes such as Yahoo.

To attract these visitors, Search Engine Optimisation modifies your website so that it is highly 'friendly' to the main Search Engines and Indexes, using your chosen search words.

Search Engine Optimisation is the art of getting a website to the top of the search engine results using chosen key-words.

This process depends on an increasingly large number of factors, but chiefly:-
1. The optimum placement and repetition of key-words and key-phrases within your web pages and html coding
2. The number and the quality of links to your website from trusted internet sources

You can of course optimise your website yourself. Depending on the type of website you have and your html skills, there is no reason why good results could not be achieved. However, it is a very specialised and constantly changing field, it is a steep learning process if you're not already familiar with it, there are many pitfalls (some of them potentially quite nasty) and you would have to be able to devote a lot of time to it. A site I can recommend from experience is www.selfpromotion.com. Your website details are kept on record and can be automatically re-submitted to your selected search engines at regular intervals, for a modest, voluntary fee.

In addition to Search Engine Optimisation, there are a number of other methods of website promotion available on the internet, such as pay-per-click advertising, email shots, linking to other websites and affiliate schemes. We can advise on which, if any, of these may be suitable for your needs.

Arguably, identifying your key-phrase is the most important step in promoting your website.

You need to identify one phrase that will be a search engine reference to one page of your website, usually the home page. The phrase should contain the words that your potential customers are most likely to type into a search engine. This phrase should be as unique as possible. It should be made up of a one, two (or at the most three) word phrase that ideally sums up exactly what you do or make.

(NOTE: It is possible to promote more than one page of your website, with each page designed and optimised for a different key-phrase).

It is essential to get this key-phrase right the first time - going back and changing it is not only time-consuming, but it can take weeks or even months for an old phrase to be completely superceded.

To identify the best key-phrase is often not nearly so easy at it at first seems. Tools are available that can test a shortlist of potential key-phrases, for example, to see how often people have recently used this phrase in search engines. By a cyclic process of refining and testing potential phrases the best candidate can be identified, or a new phrase suggested. We have a great deal of experience in this area and can provide the research to assist you to choose your main phrase(s).

Once your keyphrase has been identified, it has to be incorporated into the text, headers, meta-tags, links, titles etc so that you end up with the optimum keyword density on your page - not enough keywords and your ranking will suffer - too many and you risk being branded a spammer and your site could be sent to the Search Engine's "sandbox" (a black hole which can be hard to escape from).

The more links to your site there are from relevant sites that are highly rated by search engines, the higher your site will score. For example, a link to your site from Yahoo would be highly rated by Google. Links to pages such as blogs can be a very good source, and it is possible to get a large number of high quality links this way.

Therefore, Search Engine Optimisation is an important part of the marketing strategy for most websites, and particularly for those that depend on the internet for new customers.