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Even if your website has all the latest ‘bangs and whistles’, unless it can be found amongst the millions of web pages now on the internet, your time, money and resources are completely wasted.

To ensure that your website is located easily you need to use effective Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). This involves fine tuning your website to achieve the highest possible position in the search results when a person searches the internet for information using a search engine.

SEO explained simply

When an online user types in a keyword or search phrase into a search engine query box, they will receive a listing of websites that offer information, products and services related to that keyword. Search engines strive to list the most qualified and optimised websites at the top of their list.

SEO is the practice of modifying visible and invisible website content in addition to establishing links from other relevant websites to gain a higher prominence in internet searches.

How does a SEO company optimise a website for submission to the search engines and directories?

A good SEO provider makes your website as search engine friendly as possible. This involves changing the text and html code behind your website. This will make it easy for the search engine robot, when it enters your website, to find it very easy to determine what your website is about. The correct keywords and meta tags will have been placed within your site to ensure that the robot is able to collect and pass on information with speed and accuracy. This results in a much improved rank for your site; higher than would have been achieved without optimisation.

Each page should be optimised differently so that the robot will include more than one page in the search engine. For example, if the robot comes to your optimised homepage and your primary message and keywords on that page were for curtains then you would hope that when someone uses a keyword search for ‘curtain making’, your website would be within the first 30 results. However another page of your website may be about curtain material. You would certainly want another searcher using a search phrase ‘curtain material’ to get results pointing to that relevant page on curtain material.

Tips on choosing and using a Search Engine Optimisation provider for your business website

• Ask any prospective search engine optimisation provider to detail the successes they have had with their previous clients’ submissions. This information should assist you with objective decision-making.

• Ask your provider for a list of search engines and directories where submissions have been made.

• Request a written monthly report highlighting the search engines to which your site has been submitted, the submission dates and progress of your website rankings.

• It can take a few months for most of the major search engines to index your site. Once it is indexed you should expect to be notified within days of your website being indexed or at the very least at the end of each month.

• Expect a website ranking improvement after three to four months. If your website ranking hasn’t improved it is likely that optimisation isn’t occurring, and you should check this out with your provider.