Search Engine Optimisation Introduction

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) or ‘Optimization’ in American spelling is the practice of modifying a website so that it is as visible as possible to the search engines. If a website can be properly read by the search engine software (or spiders) it has far more chance of achieving good results in the Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs).

For example, if someone enters ‘search engine optimisation north east’ into a search engine as a search phrase and a business provides web marketing and optimisation services (as we do), it is highly desirable that our site is returned and shown on the first few pages.  Users seldom browse through the results pages beyond the first two or three pages, so getting a site returned on the first two or three pages for major key phrases is essential to generating high numbers of visitors (and therefore sales) as around 80 percent of visitors to a site will have located it via the popular search engines. So optimisation of your web site is essential if you are going to achieve high visitor levels.

Atomic Web Solutions aim to get our client’s websites onto the first page (if not the top) of all major search engines for their most important key phrases. We have studied what works and what doesn't, with the basis of our service being the effort put into optimisation of the text (copy) within the web site, as well as other techniques of link creation, keyword density study etc. Of course, getting a site optimised and onto the first pages of the search engines takes a lot of expertise, time and effort.

How does search engine optimisation Help?

You may have a great looking website, but if your site gets little or no visitors, the investment is wasted. It is important to ensure that all pages contain good quality text (copy) that can be read by search engine spiders (as well as by humans of course). Strong, good quality content is an extremely important part of the optimisation and marketing strategy. Search engine optimisation is essential if your business is to compete as effectively as possible in the online marketplace.

Good search engine placement cannot be gained simply through registering your domain (URL) with the various search engines. In fact, in many cases, submission is completely unnecessary in order for a search engine spider to find your site. To achieve good rankings, a concerted and ongoing web optimisation and search engine or web marketing campaign is essential.

The ability of a search engine to find, analyse and rank your web site content is based upon a number of key factors. Content created using products such as Flash can hide your information from the search engines and this can seriously affect your positioning. Many content management systems or catalogues that are maintainable without knowledge of HTML store information in a database and load that information dynamically as a page is viewed, this can also affect search engine positioning. Dynamically generated pages can be made to rank highly in the search engines but specialised optimisation (optimization) techniques are required.

In summary, if you have invested time and money in having a professional web site created for your business, it is essential to budget for an ongoing search engine optimisation and web marketing campaign. If your web site attracts 200 visitors per month and you manage to convert 1 percent to sales, that equates to 2 sales. With good search engine optimisation and marketing, your site will rank higher and may attract 20,000 visitors per month, convert 1 percent of this to sales and you have 200 sales! - get the picture?

North East Sheets and Panels Case Study

Through regular ongoing search engine optimisation and marketing, the North East Sheets and Panels (NESP) web site receives high levels of visits and is ranked on page one of the major search engine results pages for many key search phrases.
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Click here for more information on the stage required to run alongside the optimisation process - search engine marketing