search engine optimisation - intheopen

Simply does it

One of the things we have noticed about Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is that people expect so much, so quickly and yet are not willing to compromise.

People are very protective of the design and format of their website, and rightly so, but are sometimes then blinkered to the actual purpose of their website - to bring customers! One of the common problems we come across is that people have spent a lot of money having a flash website built - and I mean using the technology Flash, and not just looking flash. Unfortunately, despite improving and always trying to change, most of the search engines just cannot index a flash site and so it is never going to rank highly.

If you have spent money on a purely flash website (a little flash does no harm at all), and you want your business to grow via the web, then unfortunately you have wasted your money. This is why, we always urge our customers to think long and hard about why they want a website in the first place, and to make this 'goal' the driving force behind the design and functionality and not the other way round.

The other area that people are protective over is their content. Again, it is very understandable why, but again there needs to be compromise. Your website, must say the right things to a visitor to convert them to a customer, but it must also say the right things to a search engine so that the pages are ranked for the appropriate terms and phrases.

Always keep in mind that a content heavy site will very rarely be read in depth by a visitor. Your sales text and imagery, needs to be short and punchy, but at the same time it can be search engine friendly.

All I ask is that you realise a good SEO company is trying to help you gain more business and not just get good rankings. Both the business goals and the search engines should always be considered at all stages.

Labels: SEO

posted by intheopen @ 1:51 pm