How valuable is it to be number
one on Google?

We mentioned in our last newsletter we summarised in just a few paragraphs the basics of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), but this new web related science is so much more complex than many of us can imagine.

Why is SEO so important to most businesses?

The world wide web is now a huge shop window for many International, National and local businesses. We all recognise the importance of listing our businesses on the internet in some form or another, and often carry out our own research for possible online opportunities. There are many directory websites available, www.yell.com and www.thebestof.co.uk are just a few, but these directories pale into comparison up against a website that is being seen by hundreds or even thousands of potential relevant and targeted clients through appropriate relevant searches on Google, Yahoo and other popular search engines.

How do the search engines work?

It is true to say that we all pretty much know how to do a search on a search engine, and for this article I will talk about Google as this counts for 80%+ of all UK searches. Google are essentially the leading search engine across the globe, although Microsoft is trying to pinch some of that market by buying Yahoo – an interesting battle of the giants for the future.

If you imagine a search engine to be one huge database, that lists billions of pages of information. Every time you carry out a search through the engine, the most relevant pages to your search on that database appear on page one, not websites, individual pages from any relevant website (and sometimes irrelevant ones – like most science – it is never perfect).

So how do I get page one position?

Firstly, you need to employ an expert. Someone who truly understands how to achieve the online goals for your website, and can get the results you desire. Below is some very slightly technical info that will hopefully help you understand why it is so important to employ the right professional to carry out this work, after all as with any good marketing initiative you will need a good pound for pound return.

For a website to be search engine compliant, a list of objectives as long as your arm needs to be considered, but some of the essentials are;

• The website must be built in such a way that it minimises the size of the uploaded website, so every page is optimised to the smallest size possible, keeping download time to a minimum and makes it quick and easy to read for the Googlebots to read
• Your content should be relevant to your business. The title of the page, the headlines, sub-headlines, paragraph text and image identities should all contain relevant terms
• Your text should be well written – Google likes well-written and informative websites. Do not copy text from other websites – Google will see this as duplication, it doesn’t like duplication, and will penalise your site accordingly
• You should always explore the opportunity for inbound and outbound links. These links should also be relevant. If you are talking about left handed widgets, your link to another page on your website or someone else’s should be about left handed widgets
• Amount of keywords: Too many keywords can often be detrimental to a websites ranking, and an expert who understands this can only define the level of keywords should be appointed. Too many keywords can see your site dropped from page one to page fifty-one. Hidden text with keywords on only one page of your site is a no no too and Google will drop your whole website. Repeat offenders will be dropped from the search engines altogether and it could be a long time before they accept you back, costing you thousands of pounds of potential revenue
• Compliance: All of the above pointers are about compliance, but many other factors should be considered for full compliance. Remember, no one can cheat or mislead the search engines, they are far more in the know than the best web developer, and after all they are in control of what they choose to list
• Try to have a level of static pages on your website as well as dynamic pages. Static are actual physical pre-built and populated pages, dynamic pages are gathered from a database. The Googlebot can have difficulty in delving into a database driven website (dynamic), especially if the quality of the content management system (CMS – allows you to update your website) isn’t up to scratch or a little dated or limited in regards to SEO

As I mentioned there are many of other issues in building search engine compliant websites, and every single one of them should be included in your plight to achieve high rankings. If you don’t consider all of them, be sure that your competitors will.

What can search engine rankings do for my business – psychology of searchers

How often do you progress passed page one on your searches? How often do you go to number ten listing on page one? How often do you click the back button if a website takes a long time to load? Rarely, not often and all the time are the right answers for most of us, and in that order. Page one or more importantly as high up page one as you can possibly achieve can make a huge difference to your world wide web success.

Now you have a fully search engine compliant website, and your ready to tackle the worldwide web, can I remind you that you have only done half of the job and our chosen partners for search engine marketing at High Position can step in if required. High Position dedicate themselves to attaining position 1-5 on page one minimum for all relevant search terms and I am not talking about 10 or 20 terms – nearer to 50 terms at least.

High Position don’t like to concentrate very much on PPC (Google ad words), although they do it very well, and they do recognise that PPC can be helpful in the short term. Their primary offering is natural search or SEO, but they really do take it to a completely different level. They are one of very few high level SEO companies in the UK, and their expertise lies in making sure your website not only achieves position 1-5, but stays there on top of the competitor for a very affordable fee.

If you need proof of their ability we challenge you do this: Do a worldwide search on Google for "Search Engine Optimisation". Wikipedia is generally number one, this is usual -this non-competitive encyclopaedia of just about every subject imaginable, and more links than a watch factory. High Position always occupies positions two or three.

At Elan we do build fully search engine compliant websites, and if our clients needs that all important high ranking, High Position are the guys who understand the science of SEO, and can help you to maximise your world wide web opportunity.

Article written by Mark Fiddes – MD of Elan

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