Does Google find you?

Imagine spending thousands of pounds and countless hours constructing the perfect TV advert for your business, then finding out it was only shown at 3am on the Anglers’ TV channel. Wouldn’t you push the boat out to get it on ITV prime time if you could?

If you’ve invested in a shiny new website, you could be in a similar situation. The fact is, unless your business is easy to fi nd when people search for it on Google, MSN or Yahoo, you might as well not have an online presence at all.

Which is where the concept of ‘search engine optimisation’ (SEO) comes in. SEO increases your site’s visibility on search engines, so can increase your sales and growth potential. But what does it involve? And does it really produce results?

 WHAT DOES SEO DO?

SEO is the process of altering a website so it ranks higher in search engines’ listings. Search engines use algorithms to decide which sites are most ‘relevant’ to the keywords entered by the user. The 10 most relevant sites are shown on the first results page. Your goal is to persuade the search engines your site is relevant to the words potential customers will use to search.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

The main search engines are ‘crawlerbased’. Like a spider, search engines create their listings automatically by ‘crawling’ through the web and reading every site.

Everything the crawler finds goes into a huge index. When you search for a phrase, the search engine software sifts through the millions of pages recorded in the index to find the most relevant. How they decide this is based on highly complex, mathematical algorithms.

This is where SEO veers into the mysterious. These rules are very closely guarded secrets. There’s no way of knowing exactly how to get to the top of the listings, although a fair few people would sell their first born to get hold of Google’s algorithms. Fortunately, there are tricks you can use to optimise your site that have been proven to boost rankings.

1. BE YOUR CUSTOMER 

The best place to start is from your potential customers’ point of view, by working out what they will be searching for. These are your keywords, which will form the basis of your optimisation.

Nick Holmes, from PR recruitment company, Parker, Wayne & Kent, says: “We had a brainstorm to identify all the words that could describe our company. Because we work with clients as well as candidates, we had to ensure we picked up the words that people from both areas might search for.”

If you decided to hire the services of a specialist agency (and there are many), you would start with the same focus.

Jeremy Spiller, MD of online marketing agency White Hat Media, explains: “We discuss with the client what keywords they want to do well with. We take into consideration things like location, USPs and competitiveness of the words. For example, it’s not worth bothering trying to be top with the word ‘houses’ – it’s too generic and competitive.”

Sites such as http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/rc/srch and www.wordtracker.com will tell you for free how frequently your keywords are entered as search terms and suggest related, more popular phrases. Also try www.seochat.com, which contains an extensive list of free SEO tools.

2. ADD KEY WORDS

Your site’s text will need frequent instances of your keywords to attract the attention of search engines. Look especially at the first paragraph, headings and subheadings.

But be warned: don’t be tempted simply to insert a paragraph flooded with keywords. This is called ‘keyword spamming’. The SEO world has developed its own code of conduct and spamming is viewed unfavourably. Google is especially good at spotting things like this and says that if a site does not meet its quality guidelines (www.google.com/support/webmasters), it may temporarily or permanently remove it from its listings.

A good rule of thumb is never to forget that the site is for its users, not for search engines. Spiller warns: “There’s a danger of getting obsessed with search engines, but the most important thing of all is making a good site – easy to use, with good content – and Google does recognise that.”

There is a wealth of frowned-upon behaviour used by sneaky SEO-obsessed site owners, such as putting white text on white background, so only search engines can see it. Resist such tricks – they will backfire in the long run.

3. DON'T FORGET THE AWKWARD BITS

Almost as important as the body text is your site’s title. This is one of the first things search engines – and users – notice, so it’s vital to have your keywords in the short, descriptive title tag.

Another element is the Meta Description tag. This allows you to describe your site to search engines, so a short description can be beneficial. But be aware that Google now ignores it and generates its own description of the page.

Many people believe the Meta Keywords Tag can help. But the major search engines ignore it, meaning that you can too.

Now your site is woven through with search-engine attracting keywords, have a look at how navigable it is. If it’s easy for users to get around, it is likely to be appealing to search engines too. If your  homepage includes hyperlinks to the major sections of your site, search engines will follow them, finding more of your website as a result.

4. LOOK AT YOUR LINKS

Your site is already more likely to catch the wandering eyes of search engines. But you’re not finished yet. Spiller says:“Wesays:“We: We get lots of calls from people who have done all that and still haven’t moved up the listings much. This is often because of links from other websites. It’s important to get as many good ones as possible.”

Popularity is always attractive, especially to search engines. They will love your site if other reputable sites link to it. Andrew Girdwood, head of search at Bigmouthmedia, says: “Google treats links like votes. So if you’re lucky enough that a respected online magazine writing about your industry has a link to your site, then Google sees that you have a good site in respect of the keywords the article is about.”

For this reason, agencies often create link-building campaigns for your site, using techniques such as blogs and submitting papers and press releases to other sites. If your SEO is in-house, there are methods of getting your link on other sites, such as link exchanges, but be careful – often the people willing to exchange don’t have great websites themselves. If you can find high-ranking websites related to the topics on which your site is based and which are willing to link to you, your site is harder for search engines to resist.

Avoid ‘link spamming’, the process of trying to get as many links on external sites as possible, another example of bad industry practice. Search engines will spot it and will be mighty unimpressed.

5. KEEP AN EYE ON RESULTS

If everything goes to plan, your listings should now start to climb. Holmes says: “Google had recrawled our site within a week or so, which meant our listing started to climb almost immediately. I would say two to three weeks for the other engines, although some have taken up to eight.” Be aware that it tends to be easier to get higher listings in Yahoo and Live Search than Google. Holmes says his business is now at the top of these engines for several of their keywords, “but we’re still working on the holy grail of Google. It’s much harder to be ranked highly on Google because it has more sophisticated tools.”

The obsession with Google is justified. According to Hitwise, an online competitive intelligence service, Google accounted for 78% of all internet searches in January 2007, with Yahoo at 8% and MSN at 6%.

Cheapflights.co.uk is a company that has scaled the dizzy heights of Google listings. The company combined the knowledge of its in-house SEO with that of an agency and is now number one on Google for practically every destination key phrase (such as “fl ights to New York”), generic key phrase (such as “flights”), and even for tail terms (such as “cheap flights to New York from Heathrow in summer”).

Impressive stuff. But how much effort did it take to see such results? The company’s SEO global head, Shahin Fard, says: “The amount of time invested into Cheapfl ights’ ongoing product and natural search strategy throughout its years would be impossible to quantify.” And money talks. Fard adds: “Cheapfl ights is fortunate to have had the fi nancial resources to plough back into the company to keep it abreast of technology advances.”

6. REMEMBER TO MONITOR AND MEASURE

On the other hand, monitoring the success of your SEO work can be done for free. Good analytics packages such as Google’s free www.google.com/analytics can measure the effects of the SEO. These packages pinpoint those phrases for which you rank highly and the increase in your traffic. Some, such as Salestrak, will monitor sales versus traffi c. “Anyone can see if SEO is successful in terms of rankings,” Girdwood says. “The next step is to tie it in with traffic, then the fi nal step is conversion – how many people actually become customers.”

For example, Cheapflights.co.uk has enjoyed significant year on year traffi c growth and in January 2007 saw a total of nearly six million unique users. It calculated this translated last year into an estimated US$1.8m (£907,000) sales for its advertising partners.

7. STAY IN IT FOR THE LONG HAUL

When you do start to see results, beware of complacency. Spiller says: “Once you start performing really well on a search engine, your competitors will come back at you big time, so someone should be responsible for it all the time.” Holmes agrees: “It’s defi nitely an on-going process. We check it continually to see how the competition is doing and how we’re ranking.”

It’s also beneficial to keep your site dynamic, adding and changing content frequently to stop it slipping back down.

8. DECIDE BETWEEN AGENCY AND IN-HOUSE

If you think all of the above sounds too exhausting – and you have the fi nancial resources – go to an agency, which will do the vast majority of the work.

Most agencies charge a set-up fee that covers research into your search terms, competitor profi ling, a website analysis and any copywriting. The price for this will vary depending on the size of site and scope of work, but expect to pay at least £3,000. On top of this there will usually be a retainer fee, which will often cover a monthly report of how your site is doing and expansion of your search terms if needed. This is likely to cost around £500 per month. (Some agencies combine this retainer with fees based on performance.) Finally, if your site needs it, the agency will create link-building campaigns, for which you’ll probably need a minimum budget of £2,400 a year.

Whether you choose to use an agency or go it alone depends on your business’ needs and what it can afford. For example, Fard is certain that Cheapflights benefi ted from the agency’s “holistic view”.

However, Holmes has no regrets about flying solo. “We didn’t really have the option of using an agency, but I would say that with a bit of background reading, you’re better off doing it yourself.”

Whichever path you take, the effort will be worth it. Recent research shows that there are 100 million search engine users in Europe alone and 81% of internet consumers find products via search engines. SEO is one of the most recent and most powerful marketing tools – and it’s here to stay.