Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) - Central Coast, NSW

Are you a Central Coast based business?

Improve your Google PageRank

Read the freely given SEO tips and techniques information below. Decide if you want to improve your website's Google PageRank by doing your own search optimisation (SEO). DIY SEO is not difficult, but you will need access to someone with technical knowledge, the time, and the patience. Search engine optimisation is time consuming (30 minutes here, 1 hour there, all spread out over several months) . SEO does not produce instantaneous results (depending on the search terms it can take 12 months or more). However, that said, if you are a regionally based business, just listing your web site on Google Maps may put you on page one in a few minutes! (For example: "architect central coast" or "builder central coast".)

If you decide you are better off outsourcing the SEO task, then contact us by telephone or email. We'll be happy to send you a free basic report and indicative quotation that will outline what needs to be done to get your web site to show up on page one of Google's search results.

See Testimonials & References for examples of our success.

 

Definition of SEO

From the online encyclopedia Wikipedia:

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results. Usually, the earlier a site is presented in the search results, or the higher it "ranks," the more searchers will visit that site. SEO can also target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines.

As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work and what people search for. Optimizing a web site primarily involves editing its content and HTML coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines. Sometimes a site's structure (the relationships between its content) must be altered too. Because of this it is, from a client's perspective, always better to incorporate Search Engine Optimization when a web site is being developed than to try and retroactively apply it.

A much simpler, and almost as complete, explanation of the term "SEO" would be: "Techniques to increase your Google ranking for search terms related to your business".

Google has, for all intents and purposes, a monopoly on online searches. In 2007 it was estimated that Google was used for 64% of all online searches in the United States; in 2008 that figure hit 69%. The percentage is much higher in other countries like Australia where it was 88% in 2008. (Source: HitWise.com)

Thus it can be argued that search engine optimisation, or SEO, is really about understanding how Google’s PageRank Algorithm works and what can be done to your web site so that it makes it as high up as possible on page one of Google’s search results for your targeted search terms.

 

DIY SEO (tips and techniques)

Search terms

Decide which search terms you are targeting. This is often obvious. Note that the more specific the terms, the easier it will be to increase your Google ranking; e.g. getting a high ranking for the single word search term "architect" or "lighting" would be difficult, "architect Sydney" or "commercial lighting Sydney" would be easier, and "architect central coast" or "commercial lighting central coast" would be even easier.

Relevant content: The cornerstone of good SEO & a high Google ranking

Content is (almost) king with Google (relevant and highly ranked links to your site are more important). If you have relevant content relating to your targeted search terms throughout your website it will count heavily in your favour. So write authoritative articles targeting the search terms applicable to your website. If the articles are good enough put them onto Wikipedia or have them published on another (relevant 3rd party) web site with a link back to the original. Having the article in Wikipedia will not increase your Google ranking but it will increase traffic to your site.

Your keywords should be in the <title>, level one heading <h1> and level two headings <h2> wherever possible/practical. Other headings are important too, but not as important as the <h1> and <h2> headings. For example if you are targeting searches like "how to build a house" then a good document title and <h1> heading would be: "How to build a house on a sloping block" and good <h2> headings would be "When not to build on a sloping block".

Scatter key search terms throughout the content/paragraphs of a web page. This is important because it lends credibility to the use of the key words in the title, headings, and URL. Furthermore, try and get similar keywords on the same page; e.g. if the whole page is about home design then make sure the page uses keywords that are in that subject area. It is preferable to use them in "real text" i.e. part of a story about something, rather than just listed in a column... Google does a check on the frequency and ratio of English words to try and ascertain if the page is just a list of keywords or are used in real content. The higher up the page it finds the keywords the better.

Change the content of your home page frequently and update the content of your other pages as often as practical. This shows Google's crawlers that the site is actively being maintained and your information is up-to-date.

Hyperlinks: The key to good SEO & your website's Google ranking

Get as many links to your website as possible. This is very, very important because Google's PageRank algorithm counts each link to your website as a vote for its popularity and subsequent ranking in search results. The link text should contain your targeted keywords (e.g. central coast builder or central coast architect). Avoid getting links that have the rel="nofollow" attribute (usually paid ads). This stops the crawlers from following the link and potentially increasing your ranking. Try to get links that not only refer to your home page, but pages deeper within your website (e.g. get the targeted search term "central coast builders" to link to: "http://www.builders-directory.com.au/featured-builders/East-Coast-Constructions.shtml".

Note: Getting links to your website is the really hard bit. Most website owners, and especially your competitors, will refuse to link to your website. However there are probably suppliers, trade or professional organisations and online directories that will link to your site, sometimes free of charge, sometimes for a fee. Having highly informative and relevant articles and tools will also convince 3rd parties to link to your website (e.g. a construction cost calculator on a home design website) .

Two very important online directories are http://dir.yahoo.com and http://dmoz.org. Yahoo will charge you to list in their directory, but its worth it ($US299.00). DMOZ is run by volunteer editors who are often overwhelmed with work (and too few in number), so getting listed on DMOZ can take a long time. However there is a way around this problem: volunteer to become an editor for the categories within DMOZ that are relevant to your targeted search terms (and you don't need to lie about your intent to list websites with which you are associated). As a final note/caution: Yahoo will automatically charge your credit card each year if you do not cancel the subscription... and you should cancel the subscription because once you are in their directory they do not remove you (this is based on the personal experience of the authors).

Domain names and URL's

Get a short snappy domain name (or set of domain names) that contains the key search terms you are targeting. Good examples are SydneyArchitects.com.au and SydneyLighting.com.au for companies based in Sydney.

Having key search terms in parts of the URL other than the domain name is also very important. The closer these terms are to the beginning of the URL the better. For example:

Note: If your web site has already been created and the URL's are a meaningless mess of numbers and letters, then you should consider either rebuilding your web site, or, less drastically, using URL rewriting.

The title attribute

Add the title attribute to images, anchors, and to other HTML elements when relevant. Use your targeted search terms in the title when you can. For example: <img src="/images/MyHome.jpg" title="My home in the suburbs" />

Image filenames (and file naming conventions)

Image file names should describe the image. Use a file naming convention that is easy for the search engine crawlers to parse. For example use "bear-in-the-woods.jpg" or "bear_in_the_woods.jpg" and not "BearInTheWoods.jpg".

Meta tags

The keyword meta tag is not used by Google's web crawler, in the opinion of the authors of this document. However some of the other meta tags do seem to be used by Google's web crawler. We recommend you use the following meta tags in the manner shown:

<head>
<title>Australian home design directory</title>
<meta name="description" content="An online directory of Australian home designers" />
<meta name="abstract" content="An online directory of Australian home designers" />
<meta name="rating" content="general" />
</head>

Sitemaps

Consider creating a Google (XML) site map if your site is hard to follow. If you already have a HTML site map Google's site map is a waste of time.

Miscellaneous

  • There is a (perhaps cynical?) theory floating around that using Google's Adsense or Adwords will get your web pages indexed faster and crawled more frequently.
  • Share your site by having an RSS feed, and links to digg, delicious etc. (see addthis.com)
  • Make pages XHTML compliant.
  • Don't forget about your site's performance, it needs to be fast, or people leave.
  • Don't try and cheat by using hidden or invisible text, increasing the keyword density artificially an unnaturally, etc. Google's engineers have seen it all before and their PageRank algorithm will penalise you or remove you from Google's index.
  • The longer your web site is around, the better it will do in search results.
  • Understand that a web site is a work in progress. Getting something out there quickly and then improving it over time is a sensible strategy. Google takes a long time to index web sites, and the older a web site is, the more credibility it has; so get something basic out quickly, rather than waiting months for a fully polished version.

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