Editorial Articles

Nice Site - Shame about the Ranking

Most people have heard of SEO and PPC, but what does it all mean? Like most new areas of marketing there is often too much jargon and not enough knowledge.

Here we answer a few of the most common questions to refresh your knowledge or provide you with a two minute ‘crash course’ in Search Marketing.

What is Search Engine Optimisation?

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is experiencing huge growth on the internet. It is the process of improving both the volume and quality of the traffic driven to your website from various search engines by ensuring that your site is placed as high up the list of search results as possible for the particular keywords that you want to be found for. How you’re placed, or ‘ranked’ in the list is determined by the internal algorithms of the search engines themselves and it is often referred to as ‘natural’ or ‘organic’ listing. Most search engines rank sites by using ‘spiders’ (programs that permanently index or ‘crawl’ the web). The actual measurements the search engine spiders make is a closely guarded secret. However, understanding how you can manipulate the information and structure of your own website in a way favoured by the search engines is the key to how you rank.

How does SEO work?

Leading search engines, such as Google and Yahoo, publish guidelines for how to optimise pages for their search engines. However, effective optimisation consists largely of two techniques - ‘on-page’ and ‘off-page’ optimisation. ‘On-page’ optimisation is the editorial process of ensuring that the content on your site is descriptive, literal, relevant and well-structured, whereas ‘off-page’ optimisation is largely the process of gaining links to your site from other credible sources of information on the web. Each link is seen as a vote for your website. Each inbound like improves the relevancy of your site in the eyes of the search engines.

In general, the better your content is formatted to be found for particular search terms, coupled with how many inbound links your site receives from credible sources, the more likely you’ll see results in the search engines.

Is SEO a one-off activity?

SEO is an ongoing activity, there’s usually a good deal of work to do when you first look to optimise a site but it’s important to keep refreshing the content as the search engines keep updating their rules. Also continuing to build relevant inbound links from credible sources will edge your site further up the search results.

When it comes to ranking your site, the search engine’s main goal is to return results on the most ‘relevant’ sites for the search term. In other words they’re interested in ensuring that the sites that are of real relevance to the searcher are positioned high on the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). If they did not do this, the search engines themselves would run the risk of being little more than a lottery.

Isn’t there a short cut?

There are always plenty of people about touting incredible shortcuts to getting a high ranking in the search results. Search engines are well aware of the many underhand techniques that some people try, such as embedding hidden content or endlessly repeating phrases. In fact these techniques run a very serious risk of being picked up by the search engines and the site will often be penalised by being removed from the results altogether.

What about paying to get noticed?

Natural search results are only part of the picture, you can pay for the privilege of appearing high up on the results page. For example, on Google, paid-for search results generally appear above the list of natural results and also in a list on the right-hand side of the page. Paid search, or ‘Pay Per Click’ as it’s often termed, auctions the sale of keywords. Like natural search, it is more of an art than a science, as your position on the results page is not just governed by how much you’re prepared to spend, it is coupled with other factors. These factors include the content of your advert text and the number of times that you’re ad is clicked on.

If we promote our website through print media and other advertising, why bother with Search Marketing?

When you consider that in February 2008, in the US alone, Google accounted for 5.9 billion searches then it becomes clear why Search Marketing is so important. Ignoring search engines, or assuming your website will be found anyway, is closing the door to one of the largest and most cost-effective methods of generating business available.

Google has recently unveiled its first major piece of pan-European research showing that appearing high in natural or paid-for search results significantly raised purchase consideration. “The gold standard is being top of both organic and sponsored listings. This combination raised purchase consideration by 22%”. Henry Eccles, Google EMEA Product Marketing Manager for Market Insights team.

So what do I do next?

Whether you choose to run a PPC (Pay Per Click) campaign, have an existing site optimised for SEO, or have a new website built to benefit from a combination of these strategies, it’s important that you engage with an agency that knows the intricacies of how Search Marketing really works.

A reputable agency should also be prepared to provide you with access to accurate reports and analytics to show you just how effective your campaigns have been. Whilst it’s not always possible to see results overnight, appointing an experienced Search Marketing team, with clear measurable goals, will almost always provide worthwhile results and a clear Return on Investment.

For more information about Search Marketing please contact: Theresa Grimes or Tony Heywood at Moore-Wilson. (www.m-w.co.uk)

10 Questions to ask your Search Marketing agency:

1. How much experience does the SEO team have?
2. Is the work subcontracted, or is it performed in-house?
3. Can we see a sample of the SEO reports produced?
4. Can you supply optimised original content for our website?
5. Can you run a combined campaign included SEO and PPC?
6. Have you clearly understood our website aims and our brand?
7. Can you provide bespoke visitor statistics and clear analysis?
8. Can you show examples of successful SEO campaigns that you have managed?
9. Will you carry out in-depth targeted keyword analysis for us?
10. Can you provide training and consultancy?