Share Of Searches: July 2006

If you want to get on the first few pages of a search engine, then you must follow guidelines for web site quality determined by the search engine.

Keyword Research

Get to know what the words your customers are typing in to find you. The more you fully understand their seach habits, the more you understand their way of thinking. Once you know these keywords, and determine the frequency they are used by your competitors and others, then you will be able to choose the most effective words as your keywords.

Check The Coding

Your code should be clean HTML. Search engines mark down sites in the rankings if the code is not clean. If your site was not hand coded, but developed in programmes such as Dreamweaver or FrontPage then it is likely the code is not clean. Often 'debris' is left, and whilst the site might look like it is working okay, and errors in the code do not appear to affect the look of the sight, they will affect your search engine ranking and it will need to be re-coded.

We can recode your web site so that it is has no errors and be fully compliant with W3C's standards.

Content

The content of your web site should be matched to the keywords people type in to find you. This encompasses, not only the keywords you have specified to use on your web site, but the title and all of the content of the page. It is crucial that the the content of your site is matched to the search terms your customer uses, otherwise no one will ever find your site.

New content can be added to your site to improve your ranking, effectively optimising your site to the words chosen by your customers.

Submitting Your Site

We can submit your site to Google and Yahoo in such a way as increase the rankings. For instance, Google rankings can be improved if a sitemap of your site is provided. The file is writen in XML and loaded into Google's Sitemap account. At Welcomehand we can do this for you.