Search engine optimisation explained
Companies looking to boost their online visibility have two options: search engine optimisation and pay-per-click search engine advertising (pay-per-click advertising will be discussed in detail in the next issue of eBusiness Live.) Search engine optimisation is an ongoing process of tweaking your website and building your site's popularity in order to boost your visibility in search engine results.
Ever more Irish SMEs are coming to the conclusion that investing in search engine optimisation (SEO) is money well spent, according to Keelan Cunningham, managing director of web firm Red Sky.
Search engine "spiders" visit websites, crawl through as many pages as they can find and store a copy of those pages on their servers. When a user queries a search engine, it will search through the billions of pages in its database and return the most relevant results. An effective SEO campaign will achieve high rankings for a website in the free search engine listings.
Optimising your website
So how do you go about making sure that search engines crawl through your site? There are conflicting opinions as to whether or not a company should submit its website to search engines in order to improve its chances of being listed high up in the results. Both Cara Callaghan, account director with Limerick-based online marketing firm Digino Marketing, and Sandra Moody, general manager of SitesToGo, suggest that this is not necessary.
"Search engines crawl through all sites and webpages as a matter of course," explains Moody. "What they are looking for is a user-friendly site with appropriate keywords, web directories registration and relevant in-bound links. Companies must also make sure there are no barriers to the search engines."
A study last year of Irish Small and Medium Enterprises Association (ISME) member sites revealed that Irish firms are still having difficulty with search engine optimisation. Thirty-nine percent had "barriers" to search engines, 76 percent had not been correctly optimised for search, while 46 percent failed to meet the most basic accessibility guidelines that make sites easy to use. Barriers to search engine crawlers can include items like pop-up windows, Flash graphics, and drop-down menus.
Although search engine optimisation is a simple process, you do need to get simple things right in order for it to work correctly, according to Callaghan. "It's advisable to select a web design agency that has a strong record of designing and building websites that have achieved strong search engine results; or alternatively use a specialist search engine marketing agency," she says.
As search engine marketing has taken off, so too has the number of specialised marketing and web design firms who can help companies to make sure their site appears high up in relevant search results. A quick search for "search engine optimisation Ireland" or online marketing ireland will reveal a wide range of suitable companies.
Maximising your chances
If, however, a company decides to go it alone, Michael Heraghty of Heraghty Internet Consultants, who has written a book on search engine optimisation, outlines a number of useful tips.
- Add as many pages as possible (without compromising on quality) to your website. Search engines list individual pages, so the more pages you have, the more chances you have of being found.
- Include key phrases or key words per page in your site's metatags as well as in the site's content. Keywords need to be relevant to your products and services. A Cork-based florist, for example, should choose targeted, niche key phrases like "Cork flowers", rather than simply "flowers", which is far too general.
- Don't write your site's content specifically for search engines. Try to blend key words in with the rest of the content on the page, as if the text couldn't have been written without them.
- Ensure the site conforms to usability and accessibility guidelines. Usable, accessible sites are much more likely to rank high in search engine results.
- Search engine crawlers can't see graphics and can't "infer" information - so links and navigation must be clearly and carefully plotted.
- Don't use drop-down menus or pop-up windows. These can cause access problems for crawlers.
- Update your site regularly to ensure that content remains relevant.
Callaghan adds that companies can build their site's search engine power over time by getting listed in web directories and attracting in-bound links from other relevant websites. An in-bound link is a link from a website outside of a company's own site. If, for example, your company provides decorating services, a suitable site to link to your own would be a DIY store or a shop that sells paint or wallpaper.
When managed correctly, search engine optimisation campaigns deliver cost-effective and targeted web traffic. Bearing that in mind, it may be more beneficial to outsource your search strategy to firms that specialise in this area; they will be able to guide you towards the top of the search rankings.