4. Use Headings (h1 – h3 title tags) H1 title used for main page
5. Content Relevant, syntax and grammar checked and about 400 – 600 chars
We measure and increase your Flesch Reading score to an acceptable level (over 60).
6. URL Should contain the top search term or part of that term
7. Link Titles ⁄ Image Alt tags
Links should have a title and images an ALT tag (W3C standards)8 Nomenclatures Images named to reflect what they show (using search keywords). File names created to reflect their purpose/content.
8. Sitemap created and sitemap page created
9. Robots.txt file
Ensure the one that is used is not blocking any bots from vi stings and to ensure that it’s not blocking access to any directory that may have search value, like the images directory.
10. XHTML and CSS should be w3c compliant
If required we can place a link on your site showing that you mean W3C standards for your website coding.
11. Fix broken links
Running reports to identify broken links and we fix those links.
12. Add site to relevant directories ⁄ Link Building ⁄ Social Networking
This is a long process but you will normally end up with being submitted to over 100 business directories/search engines and social networking sites.
13. Register and use the free Google tools
We identify and fix any errors found.
Google Webmaster tools
Google analytics
Google’s Local Business center
14. Complete a 30 page customised report of before and after SEO activities including
Links Flesch Reading score of your website
Website rank compared with its top 10 rivals for that particular search term
15. Ensure that images are included in the Google Image search
16. Ensure the website is targeting the correct geographical location
17. Keyword Density Report – ensuring that you are not keyword spamming
SEO on your Established Business Website
SEO is basically polishing the content that you have to make it as visible to the search engines as possible and also it’s about making signposts or links to that content. The content needs to be unique, relevant, search engine friendly and comprehensive to stand a chance to rank alongside ‘class-leading sites’ The basic rules about SEO haven’t changed much since 1997 and that is the content on your site and the links from other sites or ‘back links’ are critical to your site ranking well.
Now that you have a ‘mature’ website that has increased its visitor numbers over a period of years and ranks well you will find that a good route forward would be to regularly add content to that website then polish that content then add or acquire links to that new content. This process will need to be repeat over months and years to ensure your site grows and becomes all-informing giving potential visitors everything they possible would want and more. You will also need to add other services that you may have started offering to your customers.
These things are obviously time-consuming and difficult (otherwise everyone would be number 1) but normally when we are beginning an SEO project on a ‘mature site’ and when we compare the website to their more highly ranking competitors with our own eyes and our SEO tools we normally discover that if the site is to improve its rankings it normally comes down to creating fresh content and then links (which is normal for a well optimised site)
Naturally a website should grow (with the business) and have new content added to it, a word press blog is a great way for a business owner to communicate online with their clients quickly and easily giving them the latest information and showing them what work they have completed recently, There may be a cause to re-evaluate the site’s framework to attempt to improve the website’s conversion rate. It’s very possible that by simply moving some elements around and by putting your buy now buttons and contact details in a prominent position you may positively affect your conversion ratio (website visitor to website booking/client).
Search Engine Myths
Things to avoid when promoting your site
Filling meta keywords with high-value words will result in more traffic
it simply will not, Google hardly registers meta keywords and if you include words that are not included in the content you will receive bad karma from Google et al.
Getting 1000s links to my site will make me top of Google
Google is very sophisticated and can smell a link farm a mile off, not all links are created equal and you shouldn’t participate in purchasing links or using link farms
Submitting to lots of search engines will improve my ranking
There are lots of auto-submit programs/software that will submit your site to the thousands of search engines but there are three main search engines: Google, Yahoo and Bing (previously MSN) and as long as your site is listed on a page that is already listed in the search engines you don’t even need to manually submit to them as they will find you the next time their ‘bots’ visit the page on which you are listed.
We guarantee number 1 position
We normally hear this promise via our clients who have been contacted via phone or email from a ‘professional SEO company’. No company has a special relationship with Google, Yahoo or Bing and no company can promise number 1 listing within the organic / natural results pages.
Paid Listing in the PPC or AdWords section of the results pages can be achieved and is a recognised strategy that should be adopted with a SEO strategy but should not be the only strategy as its temporary and expensive to get high rankings in the paid results section.
Make small changes every day to your website
Standard static business websites are visited every 10-20 days by the search engines to look for changes, although extra valuable content will be welcomed by the search engines any insignificant changes that you make daily will not result in any benefit to your website or your rankings and indeed may harm your ranking if you over ‘tweak’ your important SEO pointers like the page title and headings too much.
