General advice on search engines

People often ask us how they can improve the rankings of their website on search engines. As with many Internet issues this can be a baffling mix of different technical and promotional strategies but the simple answer boils down to this:

“Have useful content and tell people about it”

By useful we mean something as simple as contact details through to more interactive features like discussion boards, events listings or e-commerce. Telling people about your website means traditional promotion and public relations as well as the finer points of e-marketing such as pay-click advertising, search engine marketing and email campaigns. It’s obvious but still worth saying that the overriding objective in all of this activity is to increase the number of quality visitors to your website so they can buy from you, enquire or simply find out about your services for future reference.

The days of tricking search engines with say hidden keywords or spurious links are long gone and could lead to your website being blacklisted. Also search engine marketing should be integrated into your overall marketing strategy so it’s important to understand more about search engines to help you decide on the best actions for your company.

About search engines

Search engines like Google and Yahoo are commercial organizations that value their customers as much as you do. Their business model hinges on attracting visitors and keeping them coming back so they can make money from selling advertising and other services.

People keep using search engines if and only if they deliver a list of website links that is relevant to their keywords.

The more relevant the sites displayed, the happier the user which means they are more likely to use the search engine again, building brand loyalty, market share for the search engine and increased revenue potential for advertising.

Therefore, if a website is to rank highly with search engines, it must be clear to the search engine that the site is relevant to the type of keywords being used by potential customers. This is achieved in several ways: