All Things Search

The holy grail of many website owners is getting on the first page or even achieving the pole position on Google and other search engines.  While no reputable Search Engine Optimisation Company can guarantee you the top spot on any search engine, there are a number of key principals that can be undertaken to give you the best chance of achieving this goal.

This blog post will highlight key areas that a website owner or professional or amateur Search Engine Optimiser should adopt in order to improve their website’s search engine rankings. These simple principals can be undertaken by anyone with the desire and motivation to increase visitors to their website.

Everyone website owner would like their website to appear at the top of the search engines for their chosen keywords, yet few actually achieve this goal.  The vast majority of those website owners that manage to achieve these top rankings do so either by employing a Search Engine Optimiser or by undertaking Search Engine Optimisation themselves. May people perceive Search Engine Optimisation as a hugely complex and bewildering science and are often baffled by industry jargon, such as keyword spamming, black hat techniques and Meta Tags.  However, many of the techniques and principals that need to be undertaken are not complex or incomprehensible at all.

This blog post will provide some simple steps, using clear and concise English that can be undertaken to improve your website performance, any jargon used will be carefully explained in order to make the processes accessible to anyone.

The first area that must be considered when looking at optimisation is keyword selection, this is often cited as being the single most important step in your search engine optimisation strategy. Selecting the correct keywords is a lengthy and sometimes boring process, however it is imperative to a successful and structured SEO campaign. Keyword selection refers to the process of choosing the keywords or keyword phrases that a website owner believes their target market would type into search engines when looking for them.  In the first instance a list of every keyword phrase that you think is relevant to your business and that you think your target audience may type into the search engines. It is a good idea to ask other employees and friends for their ideas, because in the first instance it is imperative to have a comprehensive list of keywords.  Once a list of keywords has been selected, a keyword data tool must be used to determine if these keywords are actually being searched for.

Many SEO professionals will use software such as Wordtracker or Keyword Discovery, however both of these tools have a monetary cost, so may not be suitable for novice or part time SEOs. Wordtracker also offer a ‘watered down’ version of their tool which is free, this can be found at freewords.wordtracker, and alternatively, Google offer an Adwords Keyword tool which is also free.

By using these tools you can determine both the search popularity of your terms (approximately how many people are typing these terms into a search engine during a given period of time – usually a month) and the competition level of your chosen keywords.  

The ultimate goal of this process is to choose a small selection of keywords (say 3-5) per page of your website that you want to optimise, that are popular to searchers, relevant to the content on your website and have a low level of competition. If you find keyword phrases that match these three criteria you are doing very well and have found perfect keywords to get started with.Once keywords have been selected, these must be incorporated in the Meta Tags (HTML coding – this is quick and easy and can be done by a website developer or someone with rudimentary HTML skills), and into the text on the website.

The second area that needs to be considered is copywriting, this refers to the actual text on the webpages.  Having effective copy on your website is essential for online marketing and can often make the difference between an ineffective website and a highly productive and profitable website.

First and foremost even when writing copy with search engines in mind the primary goal of the copywriter must be to write copy that is interesting and compelling to humans. It’s all very well writing perfect copy for Google or Yahoo, but if your target market is not interested in what you are saying, then, you are wasting your time.

In order to create effective copy one must be able to interweave the selected keyword terms within the compelling copy they are writing, thereby satisfying both search engines and readers.  One must be very aware that overuse of keywords (otherwise known as keyword spamming) is disliked by Search Engines and may even result in a penalty or blacklisting.The final aspect that will be considered in this article is back links.

This refers to links to your website from other websites. In simple terms, search engines consider a link from another website to your website to be akin to a ‘vote’ for your website, in essence someone else saying that the content on your website is useful or interesting. The best back links to get are from websites that have content that is relevant to your website or is from a ‘reputable’ source (eg. A national newspaper website, a government institution or large corporation).

There are many different methods of obtaining Backlinks, such as writing and calling companies and associations to request a link from their website. Some companies also offer links for sale, although this can be something to be wary of and may not actually be very effective.The three processes highlighted in this article touch on three of the most important aspects of search engine optimisation. Obviously, each of these aspects merits an individual blog post themselves which will be completed in due course.

Pure SEO Press release March 2010

The New Zealand economy is often described as being one of the most entrepreneurial and technologically savvy nations in the developed world, with approximately 80% of the population or 3,360,000 million active Internet users[i]. The emergence of websites such as Trade Me highlight the enormous reach and the economic potential that can be derived from Internet related businesses. Therefore, it is becoming increasingly important for Kiwi companies to have a good, useable, customer friendly website. However, the problem with just creating a website and putting it on the Internet is that often potential customers cannot find your website, or worse still are directed to a competitor’s website whilst looking for yours; It’s a bit like having a party and not telling anyone where it is. You’ll be sitting there wondering why nobody’s turning up.  The solution to this problem is known as Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), ‘A diverse set of activities to increase the number of desirable visitors to your website via Search Engines’. One of the great things about Search Engine Optimisation is that there is a great deal of intent out there, with a large number people who already want to find a particular product or service. All SEO does is convert that intent into action. It takes hot prospects and directs them towards fulfilling their intentMost Internet users looking for goods or services begin their online search via a Search Engine, most notably through the most popular search engine Google which accounts for approximately 92% of all New Zealand searches in July 2009[ii].  In order to rank highly, appear on the first page or even top of the search results, a carefully planned and executed SEO campaign must be undertaken.  There is a wide range of SEO specialists in New Zealand, but also a wide range of cost levels and level of expertise. Some web companies pretend to be SEO specialists and make it up as they go along. Richard Conway, managing director of Pure SEO (www.pureseo.co.nz), an Auckland based SEO and Internet Marketing company says that “Choosing the correct Search Engine Optimisation company is crucial. We get our clients fantastic results but some of them have been burned by SEO providers promising the world in five minutes, and failing to deliver”. Pure SEO works with a disparate array of clients from small businesses, such as Creative Embroidery, an Auckland based embroidery company who have been steadily climbing up the search rankings in the last four months. To large international corporations, such as The Stamford Corporation who have just signed with Pure SEO to work on the launch of their new website for The Stamford Residences, arguably Auckland’s finest residential apartment development. Richard has extensive SEO experience in the UK, he says “SEO in New Zealand presents fantastic opportunities for companies wanting to get in at the beginning and reap the long term rewards of the early-adopter”

[i] Source: Internet World Stats 2009 http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats6.htm#oceania.

[ii] Source: Hitwise, An Experian Company http://www.hitwise.co.nz/datacenter/main/dashboard-190.html