Search Engine Optimisation: What, Why, When, How, Who, Where and Which?

SEO = Search Engine Optimisation

What does it mean?
Optimising the way your website is seen by search engines means to present comprehensive data in a certain way - just like you would present business prospects with a document, using headings, sub-headings, summary, details and links to make it easy to follow.

Why optimise?
Websites that have been optimised to present the content in a way that Search Engines can easily index with relevant words are likely to show results more quickly that those that have not. This is not all that has to be done; search engine algorithms also include a number of other factors, such as volume and quality of links into your website, popularity (i.e. number of visitors, length of time spent browsing, etc.) and other activity. With millions of websites competing for attention, it is essential to optimise your website for search engines, most particularly for Google, with its near-monopoly.

When to optimise?
Optimise as soon as possible and regularly, at least every three months, for continuing good results or your competitors may put in greater efforts and leap above you. Also, search-terms evolve over time so you need to ensure that your content keeps pace.

How to optimise - the basics:

• List the keywords that your potential customers are likely to use to search for the products or services that you supply
• Allocate each keyword to a page or pages of your website that have most relevant content
• Prioritise the keywords - because the most important need to be (a) near the top of the content (b) repeated for emphasis
• Write or re-write the page content for human consumption, making sure that you include the keywords listed above.

Behind the content, the source code also plays a vital role; you may need technical assistance with the following:

• "Friendly url" should be meaningful and contain a major keyword, i.e. www.mywebsite.com/flyingwidget rather than /product1
• The page 'Title' should be unique for each page and include the most important keywords in a short sentence or two (maximum 70 characters).
• Meta Tags (Description and Keywords) should be included on each page. Description is the more important and is a longer version (about 160 characters) of your page title; Keywords is a list of the top 10 or so keywords that are contained within the page content and not an opportunity to supplement the content (refer the lists you made for each page at the beginning of this exercise), e.g. flying widget,flying gadget,air propelled widget, etc.
• Header Tags are used by search engines to identify and prioritise key components within the text of each page. H1 will be used for the most important heading or identifier. H2 & H3 tags can be used for various sub-headings.
• Image Attributes (Alt and Title) add descriptions to images. Not only do these attributes enable a search engine to associate keywords to an image but they are useful information when images are not displayed. Alt is used by text-to-speech software to describe images to visually impaired users.

A Sitemap file can be uploaded with your website to assist search engines flow through the website pages, making it easier to index all the pages listed in the sitemap. There are free tools available to generate a sitemap file for you, e.g. www.xml-sitemaps.com.

Who can perform the code optimisation?
Depending on how your website has been written and on what platform, you may be able to do it yourself, you may be able to shop around for a service supplier you feel comfortable working with or you may be locked in to your website designer/supplier.

If you don't have the technical ability or accessibility to update your website, there will be a cost involved but you can minimise this by preparing the content yourself and, in many cases, viewing the HTML source code to review the elements for optimization.

Where do we go from here?
Anchor Text (the words that are clicked on to link elsewhere) and Links - both internally and externally - can increase the importance of the landing pages. For example, using the term 'flying widget price' on the home page as the anchor-text link to the product page www.mywebsite.com/flyingwidgetprice, that also contains an H1 of flying widget price, is an indication that this key phrase is critical to the website page.

The same applies to external links. One of the best ways to improve your website's search engine position is to have other websites linking to yours - and not just the home page. Sometimes, you will have no control over this but if you are using social media or writing a blog, you do and, instead of using 'click here' as the anchor text, you can choose a relevant phrase.

The more quality links you have, the better your ranking on Google. A quality link is from a website with a high page rank and content that is relevant to the content of the linked landing page. It is the regular building of external links that can be time consuming and, although some can be managed in-house, it's often easier and more cost-effective to contract an external team member for a few hours a month while you concentrate on your core business.

Which tasks are best managed in-house and which services should be outsourced?
Obviously, this varies between organisations and the personnel available but, in general, building followers on Linked-In is personal; Facebook and Twitter can benefit from posts with personality and could be co-managed.

Newsletters, a weekly blog post, press releases and articles should be written or edited and posted by the Internet Marketing specialist but will need periodic input. Other opportunities may include reciprocal links, comments on similar posts and forums.

This is our core business. The BPc will guide you through optimisation or manage your optimisation and linking projects for a monthly fee or an hourly rate. We are also able to create websites for a range of budgets, either in standard code or open-source CMS using Wordpress. We always aim to give best advice.

View our Client Portfolio Blog.
For internet presence and website performance, small to medium businesses, please email The BPc in the first instance:





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Logo and Business cards designed/printed at reasonable prices

If you are in a business start-up, re-launch or re-branding situation, you may require a logo design for your business cards and stationery. Here is a small selection of client logos that we have created:

Logo design is from £75+vat and can include a pdf proof and word template for your headed stationery.

Business card design and print
250 business cards £55+vat (subsequent names at £40+vat)
500 business cards £65+vat (subsequent names at £50+vat)

(prices correct at 31st December 2011)

Design Portfolio of 2011 Web Sites

The BPc offers a web site design service for companies that require an internet presence or need a refreshed look. We launched the following websites for our clients during 2011 - please use the links below to visit them:

Trade sales of made-to-order aluminium framed bi folding doors
Simple, functional site; styled on the company's 'innovative doors' site; includes a cost calculator.

 
Driving lessons in Kent with a Female Driving Instructor
Referral from existing client.
Created using standard template; client specified a funky heading / logo design - see logo design process

Mobility Equipment services, sales, supplies around Hertfordshire

Updated and redesigned from the original website we created in 2001. New photographs sourced, content updated and optimised.

Luxury Florida Villa Rental*
Images and content provided by client. 
Amazing what can be done on a low budget!

*property now sold, website removed





View more website design portfolio posts.

Legalise your website

It is the responsibility of the website owner (usually the business owner) to ensure that the website complies with legislation, such as Advertising Standards and the Equality / Disability Discrimination Acts.

The DDA addresses the accessibility of your website for people who may have impaired vision. This could range from colour blindness and myopia to those who rely on speech software to interpret web site content. It is easy for a web designer to comply by considerate use of fonts and colours; images with descriptive "alt-tags" enable the speech software to include the picture information.

Depending on your business sector and website content, you may need to add various legal notices, such as:

• Terms of Use & Disclaimer notice
• Copyright notice
• Privacy policy
• Cookies policy
• Links policy

UPDATE May 2012: you now need to comply with the EU cookie law too.

Developing a funky image in red, white and blue.

In the beginning, there was a name, colour specification and some image elements, all received via email with a hand-drawn example. This was to create a header for a website and printed materials.

Experience of remote design projects shows that the best way to draw more information from a client is to create the simplest design plus a variation, reflecting all the provided information. The very first logo looked like this:

The instructions were clarified to remove the logos relating to Pass Plus and Approved Driving Instructor (as they will be used separately, as necessary) but keep the 'L' and come up with something more interesting using reds/blues. The BPc produced the following examples (one representing 'dawn', the other alluding to driving on a road, possibly in the misty dawn) for the client's comments:

"More funky" came the response. Enjoying a design challenge, The BPc worked off the clock to produce some arty graphics, throwing colours, textures, shadows and font styles into the mix - you don't get that kind of service from many designers! Here are a few:

To find out which design finally made the grade, visit the website www.dawndrivingtuition.co.uk - and do contact The BPc if you would like us to create an image or website for you.

Benefits of using Twitter Lists

Updated 2012 because Twitter changed things!

So you've gone a bit overboard and you are now following over 300 people, resulting in six tweets per minute - and maybe they're not always interesting all of the time.

The simplest split is to separate 'obligatory' follows from the truly interesting ones. Alternatively, you might want to follow competitors discretely. Everyone will have different ways of using lists.

One of the benefits of using lists is that you can be seen to be following but if you find the majority of tweets boring or irrelevant, just pop the interesting ones into a list and keep those tweets displayed in your browser, ignoring the others most of the time.

Conversely, private lists are useful for following accounts anonymously. You can add to a private list without publicly following.

Here's what to do to set up and populate lists:

• from the cog drop-down menu, click on the Lists then Create List, give it a name, description if you want and choose private or public.
• go to Following in the left menu panel, use the drop-down menu associated with each person to Add or Remove from Lists, click the list(s) and close the panel
• you can do the same for your Followers, even if you are not following them, and this also applies when you browse through other Twitter users, for example with the search or 'who to follow' features.
• remember to place new Follows into lists.

To use, from the cog drop-down menu, click on Lists and select the list you want to see tweets for.

If you are actively listing, say, SME support, small business owners may start following your list (as will small business consultants, of course).

You can also follow other peoples' public lists. This gives you the benefits while other people do all the work! For example, if you want to follow tweets from local restaurants and someone else is actively doing so, just follow their list.

Follow The BPc (UK) on Twitter.

Starting a Business Twitter Account (suggested guidelines)

Our business twitter name is @BPcUK, we follow twitter accounts that relate to clients, local businesses, similar small businesses and informative service sites, e.g. twitter, google, etc. You may want two twitter accounts - register another twitter account for personal use, to follow people with similar interests, perhaps the news and a few celebs. Each account can follow the other one, too.

The way people use twitter varies greatly. Some are in the numbers game - honestly, how can anyone following 1,000+ people read all their tweets?! If you opt for quality rather than quantity, you will be entertained or educated with the majority of tweets. In return, try to offer the same to those who elect to follow you.

Suggested Business Twitter Guidelines for Beginners

• Starting out, follow as many people as you find who may be interested in your business and follow them, giving them the opportunity to discover you and follow you back
• Be polite and follow back your followers - but don't be lazy, take a look at their accounts first and make a judgement call
• Set up links from the company blog or facebook page to automatically tweet, to save your time for supplementary tweets
• Try not to tweet too much all at once - 7 or 8 in quick succession tends to be irritating
• Don't 'hard sell' by just advertising your product/service
• Remember to add links to drive people to your website, as appropriate
• RT (retweet) if you think your followers would appreciate it
• Don't just retweet all the time - your followers want original content from you
• Keep replies @ to a minimum because it can be annoying for others who only see part of a conversation; however, do interact with your followers when you can
• Refine your 'following' list occasionally, perhaps monthly, adding more and perhaps dropping a few

There are extras, such as hashtags, follow-fridays, messages, lists, etc. once you've got to grips with the basics of Twitter.