Understanding Search Engines

Search engine Optimisation

We will use the analogy of fishing. People want as many fish as possible. To catch fish you need a rod and some bait. You also need somewhere to fish as there are many lakes open to you. The successful fisherman will choose his bait carefully and will either fish in a poorly stocked lake with no other fishermen around or will fish in a well stocked lake with lots of other fisherman. A good fisherman will not fish in a poorly stocked lake with lots of other fishermen competing with him and the canny fisherman will use a different bait to everyone else an concentrate on one type of big fish.

Let's Go Fishing

Search engine optimisation is a lot like fishing – you want to catch people. You can either go for catching lots of people (big effort and little reward) or you can catch a few people that want to spend money. Ideally the only visitors you want to come to your site are those that will spend money but this is not realistic. The concept of optimisation is in bringing QUALITY traffic to your website that converts into sales.

The Method

The key to this is a 2 part formula.

1) The bait – or the keywords you target are essential – imagine you are selling paintings. You could try the keyword ‘Art’ but will find there are lots of other sites out there competing for it so your chances of getting to the top will be a lot lower. The keyword ‘Art’. Will bring in traffic looking for Art – people wanting to visit a gallery, students researching for their projects, artists looking for inspiration and illiterate people looking for ‘Cart’.

If we used the keyword “buy abstract art” or “buy art online” we will be using a very specific bait and the resulting visitors from this keyword is looking to spend money. Fewer fishermen and more of your favourite type of fish.

2) Getting the site in the search engines requires as many links as possible to your site. Search engines also need to be told about your site so they will visit your site and include it in their index. The keywords you are targeting need to be include in your site, in your meta tags and a theme around your keyword needs to be created giving you a niche. Finding a niche is what SEO is all about. Search engines like lakes provide different results – listings need to be matched to your site and chosen client types.

Beware of False Promises

SEO cannot be guaranteed by anyone. Positions cannot be guaranteed by anyone. Inclusion in a search engine cannot be guaranteed by anyone. Submitting your site to 300 search engines will not help if most of those 300 search engines are based abroad.

We are different to other SEO’s we don’t have tricky contracts, we don’t make false promises. We offer initially a monthly retainer typically 1-3 hours per week for 4 months for an agreed amount paid monthly so you get to see what we can do for your business. Typically after 3 months our clients come back to us and ask us to increase our commitment and have requested more SEO from us because they are impressed with the amount of leads generated and want to turn the SEO up to the next level. We have doubled website traffic and also offer Pay Per Click management and internet advertising placement consultancy. We are happy to provide references for you to contact and talk with before you take the plunge. We strongly recommend that you prepare for all those extra leads you will receive.

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