Search engine optimisation (SEO)

The days of "Build it and they will come" are over. The internet is now so crowded its become increasingly difficult to make yourself stand out from the crowd. If your site hasn't been Search engine optimised (SEO) then the odds of you getting on the first page is virtually none.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a process of changing a variety of things on your website to make it show up for keywords. You have to be careful though, many search engines penalise or even ban you if you do something wrong.

Search engine optimisation can be divided into two main categories, On page optimisation and off page optimisation. We will briefly explain both below;


On-Page Optimisation

Every few days (depending on how popular your site is) a search engine will attempt to catalogue your site (knows as spidering). Your site must inform the spider how your site should be catalogued. This can be done in numerous ways but a combination of all these techniques is the only way to help make you stand out.


Appropriate keywords
Search engines read quickly through your pages. If you mention related words often (e.g. Television, Panasonic, video recorder) then a search engine will start to think your site is related to electronics. Mention them to much and search engine will start to think you are "key word stuffing" and penalise you! Even the location of these words plays a part. Google Especially favours sites that mention the keywords at the beginning of the site and gives even more points if the keyword is a link or in bold text.

Proper title tags and meta tags
Although you cant see them every page on your site much have them. These tell the spider what you have chosen as your keywords and what each of your pages are called. If you keyword is mentioned in these it must be mentioned in your site.

Image tags and many other techniques.
Remember its no good having a site full of nice images as Search Engines cant see them. You must have what you call Alt tags, This allows Search Engines to understand what each image is. Again if a keyword is mentioned here then its one more point, two if its a link and 3 if its a link with the keyword in the link. There are also many other techniques that we wont list here but every one is just as important.

Each page needs to be optimized individually. A golden rule to remember is that search engines optimize pages, not sites. Each page in your site should be optimized for one or two relevant keywords only.

Off-Page Optimisation

Arguably, off- page optimization is as big if not bigger than on-page optimization. Off-page optimization includes all "external" factors that will influence your ultimate positioning on the search engines. As an example, if many respected websites link to your site, then your site will automatically be considered worthy of a good search engine ranking (provided your on-page optimization is up to par). As with on-page optimization, off-page optimization consists of numerous techniques, all of which must be followed consistently.

This sounds like a lot of work!

If it does sound like a lot of work, you are absolutely right. Great search engine results does not come overnight. It takes consistent work, and constant tweaking to get your desired result.

Based out of Sheffield UK, Blue Alien is a Web solution company specialising in SEO. We will work carefully on your site to perform the highest possible level of optimization.

What about a guarantee?

Be careful of any SEO firm that promises you top rankings. It is impossible to guarantee a first page ranking. The most we can promise you is to try as hard as we possibly can.


Prices

Our prices vary depending on how optimised your site already is and how many pages their are. Generally we charge £10 per page and have a capped price of £1300. This does not include shopping carts. Please contact us for an estimate as these are becoming increasingly difficult to optimise.
We do have a basic package costing £150 for which we will optimise 18 pages for you, again contact us for more details.