Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the process of designing your website to rank highly in search engine listings, such as those provided by Google. Glasgow Web Design can provide a range of SEO depending on how aggresively you wish to pursue high search ranking.
Keyword Analysis
The key to successful SEO is to carefully analyse the keywords your customers will try when using search engines. There will be lots of competition if you wish to rank highly for terms like "insurance" or "mortgages". However there will be less competition if you wish to rank highly for a particular combination of terms, such as "car insurance" or "vintage car insurance". If your company name is unique ("Nike", "Rolex") then you can expect to rank very highly for that unique term.
Designing for Search Engines
Search Engines assess take a number of factors into account when deciding how highly to rank a website. The precise ranking method (algorithm) used by a given search engine is a closely guarded secret - in order to preserve the quality of the search engine results by preventing abuse. However there are a number of accepted guidelines for achieving a high rank. Examples of guidelines are that websites should be:
- fast loading
- compliant with accepted web standards
- easy to navigate (including a sitemap)
- linked to by relevant, high quality websites
- rich in interesting, original textual content
"Unethical" methods of achieving a high rank are ultimately foiled by top search engines. For example, stuffing webpages with "invisible" text (the same colour as the background) was used with some success to trick search engines, but this is now detected and penalised.
Search Engine Review
Achieving a high rank in search engines is not a quick or simple process. To be successful it is necessary to monitor the website's performance in search engines and to make changes where appropriate. For this reason, Glasgow Web Design would suggest a Search Engine Review a few months after the site is launched.
