Search engine optimisation

News: September 2011

Search engine optimisation

As business people, many if not all of us have been contacted at some stage by a salesperson offering to “optimize” our company’s website in order to improve the site’s ranking on search engines such as Google, Yahoo, etc.

These sales calls can give the impression that search engine optimization (SEO) is a once off, quick-fix deal. This is certainly not the case. Each and every website is different and in order to optimize your website you need to devote time to analysing your own site, your target audience and your competitor’s sites.

You can use free services such as Google Analytics to help you monitor your website’s search engine ranking and develop strategies to improve the effectiveness of search keywords that you may be using on your site. If you used a web design company to build your business’s website it may be worth asking them to provide a free SEO review of your website. This will enable you to gain an understanding of how to develop a suitable strategy for securing that illusive “top ranking” on Google!

If you don’t have the in-house expertise, you can then retain your web designer to manage your SEO strategy on an on-going basis. Remember, it will take time before you really start to see results from SEO. It is very much a matter of trial and error. Your web designer can advise you on a suitable budget for a Google “Adwords” campaign which allows you to bid on keywords and can have a positive effect on your search engine ranking, albeit for a fee.

Set your SEO budget and stick to it – don’t be tempted to increase the budget if you don’t enjoy immediate success. The approach must be fine-tuned first, it’s not just about the budget. If in doubt, hire in the appropriate expertise – there are plenty of web design firms out there who can manage your SEO for you.