There are a lot of web design companies out there that promote search engine optimisation (SEO) services. Many charge a few hundred dollars to optimise your web site for the major search engines.
When they say 'optimise', they mean give your site the best possible chance of being picked up for certain keywords or phrases. While that may sound like it makes sense, it's really only a small part of the search engine equation.
For most SEO services this means changing some code behind your sites web pages which give search engines clues about the content of the page (META tags). They may even go as far as changing page titles. After this they may use a service that resubmits your site a heap of search engines (most of which you would never have heard of) and then send you an invoice for weaving this magic on your website.
Now we don't pretend to know everything about SEO, and realise that a lot has changed since we started developing websites 8 years ago. We know however, there is a lot more that you should expect for your hard earned dollar.
Ranging from dynamic re-writing of your sites urls to be keyword rich, dynamic sitemap generation, search engine referral keyword tracking and how to avoid duplicate content from impacting your ranking.
Let's face it - the purpose of SEO is to increase traffic to your site. When we sit down with a new client, we don't just spend time talking about the design of their new site, we talk about ways in which they can use their website to save time, save money, make sales or improve quality of service.
Real search engine optimisation takes time, crafted content and a serious commitment.
When was the last time you looked closely at your website statistics?
For most people, the answer is "Statistics? I don't think we have them". Like anything in business, if it's not measured and monitored - you have no real control.
Search engine optimisation should be part of any well designed website, not something you add on later. Before you spend money on SEO see how the company you're considering ranks or if they rank at all...
All the best,
David
Labels: Search-Engine-Optimisation, SEO, Web-Design-Melbourne
Posted on Thursday, June 14, 2007