Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an unnecessarily feared term.
During the development of a site it is part of the developers job to ensure that the site can be found and indexed by the search robots that the major search sites (like Google or Yahoo) use.
The complexity of this task depends on the type of business the website is for. For most small, regional business, who do not need to be found by the entire world, this is not difficult. Adding keywords and phrases that accurately describe your business, and where it is located is usually sufficient.
For Example someone living in Wollondilly needs to have their computer repaired. They type "computer repair" into a search page and get 263,000 results, and would have a hard time finding a local repairer.
If they type "Wollondilly computer repair", this site appears 3 times on page 1. Twice from business directories and from this site. 3 out of 10 aint bad!
If your business sells or provides a service Australia wide, then seo is more complex. Your business needs to come up in the first 2 or 3 pages of a web search to realistically draw custom.
There are many strategies that can be used to achieve a high ranking.
- Targeting your audience with good keywords and phrases becomes extremely important!
- Relevant page titles and descriptions
- Regular, relevant text additions to your site in the form of FAQ's or short descriptive pieces that give your target audience useful information.
- An up to date, XML sitemap help robots follow links through the site.
- Links to your site from external sites. Business directories are a good way to achieve this.
- Good site structure that is developed to W3C standards.
- Google has many useful tools to help push your business. Google maps are a good starting point. A business link on a map gets top priority.
A good ranking can take time to achieve and is only one way of driving business to your site. Traditional advertising in the print media remains important, always including your site URL (web address) in the content, also stationery and business cards including your URL are still a vey important way to put your business on the map.
We use Alted Printing for our stationery needs.
