Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Almost everybody knows that a good placement with search engines
is an important factor for the success of a web site. It is free
(at least it can be free) and works often better than paid advertising.
Very few people understand more about it.
Until some years ago, when there were only a few sites on the internet
it was easy to be found but this is no longer the case: there are
now over 20.000.000.000 pages on the internet (actually nobody knows
exactly but this is a minimum number) and hundreds of millions of
web sites. So how can you get found?
If people here on Crete have any knowledge of search engine placement
they will almost always mention the need of 'keywords meta tags'.
The truth is that the 'keyword' meta tags are now ignored
by all the main search emgines.
The strategies to get a good placement are now far far more complex
and if you do not use them, very few people will find your site.
No visitors = no internet business.
First you need to define the keywords that apply to your business.
These must be keywords that a user will enter in a search and you
want your site to appear in the first page of those results. Entering something that a 'searcher' would not use makes no sense so deciding on the right keywords is possibly the most important part of the job.
If
your business is unusual it should be quite easy to place it high because it might have little competition for its keywords.
If on the other hand you are trying to place highly for keywords such as property, hotels, car rental you will have far more difficulities (and it will generally take more time) because many others are trying to get 'up there'.
The way to get a good position is to use the appropriate keywords
in your Title tag, in your Description Tag (the <HEAD> of
your HTML page) and balance them with the same keywords in the <BODY>
of your page through text, appropriate use of Image ALT Tags as
well as use them in specific <h> tags, URL naming etc. The
"density" of the keywords as well as their placement (beginning
of tags, high up in the <BODY> part) and order will also play
an important role. Having a relevant domain name will also help
a lot. A further determining factor with Google will be your Page
Ranking which will be determined in part by the links from and to
your site. The type of server on which you host your site can also
play a factor.
Search Engine Optimisation (now known as SEO) is becoming an important
branch of the internet business in America and is an expensive (from
1000 US $ upwards) and very specialized work. We are not SEO specialists
but will still ensure that your site gets good placements by paying
attention to the points listed above and Search Engine Optimisation
is a major consideration when we create a new web site.
If you already have a site but find that it doesn't get good results
on search engine searches we can also optimise it.
Please bear in mind that we will never guarantee a top placement.
Also bear in mind that getting a listing in search engines
can take from several weeks to several months (but if you are lucky
it can also occur within days, it all depends on when the database
of the search engine is updated). Once it appears in the Google
database it will take even longer for the site to achieve a more
or less stable ranking.
Search Engine Optimisation is an on-going process (with a lot of
trial and error because the algorithms used by search engines are
kept secret and do change from time to time). Once your site gets
included in the search engine database, you carry on the work on
optimisation, observe how the results change (and hopefully improve)
and keep making further adjustments.
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