Waiting for Google
Now that the first raft of changes have been done on our holiday clients site we are now waiting to see the full effect on Google. This doesn't mean we are sat back with our legs up, though that would be nice. Instead we are now looking at the site itself from a visitors perspective to see how easily we think visitors will convert to customers.
Already this has resulted in a few recommendations (mainly text changes) that the client has implemented and quite a few other ideas that we are monitoring. these include improvements to the booking process, adding much clearer contact information and improving the page titles on some of the dynamic pages.
The reason for looking at these things is that great rankings are only useful if they convert to customers. Though our main task it too get the site ranking well in the search engines for the phrases that the client needs, we are also concerned that this be a successful process for the customers business.
We are judged by the return on investment and not just by the positions gained. In some instances this may mean the client has to go back to their original web developers or use us to implement these changes, but we are only making recommendations where we can see an improvement and more importantly where we can start to show visitors not taking the desired actions.
We have already noticed that a large number of visitors are looking at 5 or more pages which is extremely encouraging, but only a small number are using the website to make contact. That could be down to prices, it could be down to wanting to shop around a little more first, it could be they prefer to phone or it could be that they could not quickly and clearly see a means of communicating via the site. All of these have to be considered, some by us and some by the client, but I believe it is our responsibility to point these out.
So feet up and let's wait and watch!
Labels: SEO
Google likes it!
After several conversations with the client we agreed the descriptions and extra content needed for the first stage of the optimisation process for the holiday site (
www.taberhols.co.uk)
Quite a good amount of home page content has been added, but done in a manner that is both search engine and human friendly. So that it looks neat and provides useful information to both visitors and robots.
The meta-tag information has also been applied across the site and a reasonable amount of image and link optimisation has been done to ensure that as much information is provided as possible.
These changes, plus the introduction of a Google site map have had an instant and dramatic effect, with the site already ranking quickly on Google.
The next stage? - Links, lots of links, but not all at once. We will be looking for a reasonable number (25+) of good quality links each month, and I will explain 'quality' as we do this. Also we will do a little waiting to see how the site settles and then look at which phrases may require additional content adding to new keyword specific pages.
An exciting start, but a start is all it is!
Labels: SEO
and they're off!
With the holiday company we have now agreed the final list of target keywords and are ready to start optimising the site for these phrases. This is done in several steps to make sure we cover as many of the requirements as possible and to give the site the best chance of being appreciated when we resubmit the site to the major search engines.
The first changes we look to make are to ensure that the page titles of the appropriate site pages make use of the important keywords and phrases. what is the page title? If you look at the blue band across the very top of your page you will see some text which is the page title (plus it may be followed by 'Microsofy Internet Explorer'). So we go through the site and identify the pages that best fit each phrase and term and where no appropriate page can be found we will keep these phrases for the next round of changes which will be to introduce new pages for specific keywords and phrases.
Also, one of the first things we look to do is update the home page with a good selection of the keywords included in the text. Making sure that we use headers 'h1' 'h2'or 'h3'text with the keywords as well so that the search engines can easily identify the keywords. Plus making sure the obvious meta tags and descriptions are updated on all key pages. Nothing rocket-science so far, but the simple steps are some of the most important!
Labels: SEO
Destination Customers!
The first steps we have taken with our holiday client to get their site ranked well in the search engines is to identify the correct keywords and phrases to target. Sounds simple! but there is always a good amount of too-ing and fro-ing to acheive the perfect set of phrases, and even then we will always end up tweaking the final list as the optimisation process moves forward.
How do we approach this? the first thing we always do is to get the client to tell us what they believe to be the perfect keywords and phrases for their business. This always produces a list that includes their key products or services, some words that they associate with their business and quite often a lot of jargon. Though many of the terms and phrases that a client thinks their customers will use are actually never entered into any search engine, it is vital that we get this understanding of how they perceive their business.
What next? We then start to look for similar or related terms that are entered into the search engines. This is done using keyword research tools, the free overture keyword assistant and the Google adword tools. This gives a good selection of terms that are being entered, and often we will also throw in keywords and phrases that we think we would use to find this sort of client.
This results in a huge list that we then have to narrow down to the optimum phrases. We do this in two ways. One is to discount phrases that have a low search rate, but are very competitive as this will result in a lot of work for little return. We then ask the client to review the list and strip out the phrases that they think may bring the wrong sorts of enquiries or a high volume of low profit enquiries. This then leaves us with a list of target keywords and phrases.
The next step is then to look at how the site ranks at the moment for these terms. Why? This gives the customer a benchmark, it highlights to us where the work is required most and we are nosey!
Labels: SEO
Finding the customers
It has taken a while, but we are now ready to start blogging!
We have had a variety of customers come on board in recent weeks and it has been interesting the different levels of service that they each expect. It seems that whilst some industries understand how the search engines can make a huge difference to their business others are doubtful that it will make any difference. Who is right? Probably both, but it never ceases to amaze me what people are actually looking for via the search engines and which businesses do succeed.
For example we had a company come to us a couple of months ago who sell printed tape and packaging, they were sceptical that SEO or PPC would benefit them at all, and I was honest enough to say that I had no idea either. After a review meeting the last week we were both extremely surprised at the amount of business that had been generated already. The exciting thing for the client was that it had also highlighted a gap in his sales process as many of the leads generated were not correctly followed-up. This is one customer we are excited for, now that we have seen the potential to help their business.
This week we are starting work with a holiday company and over the coming entries I will explain the step-by-step process we are taking to get them the customers they want.
Labels: SEO
