Search engine optimisation is the term used to describe work completed by a search engine optimiser (SEO). SEO’s become experts in how search engines rank websites in the search results.

Performing well in the search engines is vital to the success of your website, but there’s a lot of competition which can make it challenging. Most web searchers won’t go past the first 10 results in Google and in most industries there are dozens if not hundreds of websites jostling to get into those first ten spots.

So what is the magic formula to get to the top of Google? Well, only Google knows for certain, as they use a secret algorithm to rank websites. But there is widespread general agreement about the basic things you can do to rank well. These include;

1. Getting links from other websites

Google takes into account how popular a website is when it ranks it against other websites. Google does this by determining how many links are going to the website. It also factors in the quality of these links. So you want to get lots of links from other websites, but especially so from sites that are very popular.

2. Good content

Well written content helps considerably with your rankings in Google. So make sure you use the words people will put into a search engine.

3. Adding more content on a regular basis

Adding more content to your website helps in two ways. Firstly, Google will know you are updating your site more often so will visit your site on a frequent basis (which means new pages can get into Google quickly). And secondly, the more topics you can cover in articles or blog posts the more visitors you can draw to your website via search and links.

4. Pay attention to your title tags

A title tag is a piece of HTML code that tells the search engines what your website is about. Every page on your website needs to have a different title tag that includes your keyword phrases.

5. Well worded description tags

A description tag is a piece of HTML code that describes in a short sentence what a web page is about. This description is shown in the search engines, so it’s important that it is enticing to searchers and it should also include your keyword phrases.

6. Include your keywords in your page address (URL)

The words used in your page name create the final URL (or web address) for a specific page. So if the page is about dog grooming services, an ideal URL and page name would be www.doggroomers.co.nz/dog-grooming/.

To find out more about search engine optimisation and how we can improve your ranking in Google give us a call on 03 366 3340.

A keyword domain name uses the words you would like your website to rank well for in Google. For example, a dog trainer might register dogtrainer.co.nz. In addition to getting a keyword domain name, you should also register your business name or brand name.

When ranking a website, Google takes into account the words used in a link to the website. So if links to your website contain keywords then the link text is going to help with your rankings, as Google will consider your website to be ‘relevant’. A relevant website is one that uses the keywords someone searches for (either in the HTML code or in the web copy).

And it’s not just the words used in your domain name that can help with rankings; the words used in the page names of your website can also help considerably, so a page about dog training services should be called dogtraining.html rather than services.html.

To get the full benefit out of a keyword domain name it needs to go to a website and not just be a ‘redirect’. A redirect is where a domain name goes to a website with a different domain name. Google will ignore the domain name if it’s just redirecting to another domain name.

The solution is to use a keyword domain name for your main website, or to set up a secondary website. This secondary website could be a blog, a forum or a new website that is about a specific topic. To continue with the dog trainer example, the trainer could write a blog about their training experiences with tips for dog owners, set up a forum so dog owners can swap information, while the specialist website could be about training a particular breed of dogs.

If you are thinking that all the good domain names have probably gone then you might just be in for a surprise. We regularly discover premium keyword domain names that have expired and are now available to be registered.

If you’d like help finding a keyword domain name give us a call on 03 366 3340 and speak to one of our web consultants. We can also help you develop a blog or website for the new domain name.

Visit any major news website and you will probably see an RSS icon either with the letters RSS on it or with the international symbol for RSS. If you’ve ever wondered what the symbol was and what it did, then this article is for you.

RSS stands for ‘real simple syndication’ and it is a way for people to subscribe to your website updates or blog posts. Once someone has subscribed to an RSS ‘feed’ they are notified of new content via their RSS Reader. To read RSS feeds you can download a reader from the internet or set up a free account with an aggregator website like Google Reader (www.google.com/reader) or Bloglines (www.bloglines.com).

You can also create your own personalised page on Google called an iGoogle page where you can add your favourite RSS feeds as well as cool little ‘gadgets’ like the daily weather forecast for your city. To set up an iGoogle page you need a Google account. You can sign up for a Google account for free at https://google.com/accounts or go to http://www.google.com/ig.

When you visit a website look out for the RSS icon either on the page or in the address bar at the top of the web browser. Click on the icon and you’ll be able to add the RSS feed to your iGoogle page or Google Reader.

Here’s an example of an iGoogle page set up with RSS feeds.

If you use Google Reader to subscribe to feeds it will learn what you are interested in and start suggesting feeds for you to subscribe to.  This is a fantastic way to discover new information sources, and to have your RSS feed discovered by others.

As people become more familiar with RSS, they will start to look for the feed icons on websites. If you’d like a website with multiple RSS feeds (for different subject categories) then give us a call on 03 366 3340

If you have any questions about RSS feeds, readers or blogging, leave a comment and we’ll email you a reply.

Twitter (www.twitter.com) is getting quite a bit of press in the mainstream media right now, but it has been online since August 2006. For those of you new to Twitter, it is a website where you can post an answer to the question ‘What are you doing?’

If you’ve ever used Facebook (www.facebook.com) and updated your status on a regular basis, then you’ll ‘get’ Twitter.

It’s free to sign up for a Twitter account, and you can customise your Twitter page with your own graphical background and add a profile image. Your friends, family and colleagues can then ‘follow’ you on Twitter. This means that your updates – or ‘tweets’ as they are called – will show up on their Twitter page. People can respond to your tweets if they want to, so the conversation can be two way. Some individuals are followed by hundreds of thousands of Twitter users. Take Barack Obama, for example. He has 548,910 followers (http://twitter.com/BarackObama). Other top ‘Twitterers’ include Britney Spears, CNN Breaking News, The New York Times, Stephen Fry and Al Gore. Visit http://twitterholic.com/ to discover more of the most followed people on Twitter.

Twitter updates are limited to just 140 characters, so it really forces people to be concise in describing what they are doing. Updates can be received on your cellphone, and you can also update your Twitter account by cellphone.

So what about the business applications of Twitter? Well for starters, if you want to tap into some of the brightest business minds in the world you can follow them via Twitter. In fact there is a whole site dedicated to the tweets of leading entrepreneurs ExecTweets – check it out at www.exectweets.com. Having a Twitter account for your business is also another way to increase your profile online and get more visitors to your website or blog.

Now if you are thinking ‘Oh no, not another site to update!’ then relax. If you are writing a blog you can sync your blog and your Twitter account so whenever you post a new blog a Tweet is sent to your Twitter account about the new blog. We think that’s pretty cool.

Give us a call on 03 366 3340 if you would like more information about customising your Twitter account and having your website publish updates to Twitter.

Everybody wants more visitors to their website. Marketing is after all a numbers game, and no matter how attractive or informative your website is, if you are not getting enough of the right kind of visitors the site is never going to be an effective marketing channel for your business.

There are many ways to get your website better known – both online and offline. Let’s start with the offline marketing of your website. You want to make sure you have your website address on everything. Here’s a checklist for you to get started with:

Add your website address to:

Number plates, car signage, building signage, pens, letterheads, business cards, compliment slips, carry bags, television adverts, print adverts, radio adverts, all promotional materials, clothing, name badges, billboards, and anything else you can think of.

Online marketing of your website:

Social media

If you have a personal profile on Facebook (www.facebook.com) or other social media sites, make sure you add your business website address. Consider creating a Facebook group, or a Facebook page for your business, or try out Facebook advertising (which is pay per click). Sign up to LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com) – this is a site for business professionals to network with each other. In addition, sign up to Twitter (www.twitter.com) – this is a popular site overseas but not so well known in New Zealand, although it is starting to get some publicity here (www.stuff.co.nz is now on Twitter at http://twitter.com/NZStuff and so are the Christchurch Police at http://twitter.com/nzpolice_chch ). With Twitter you publish short status updates about what you are doing. So the CEO of your company could twitter about the business happenings. Don’t think you have the time to twitter? Well, you can use your blog to automatically update your Twitter account every time a new blog post is published. And you can access Twitter using an iPhone or other mobile device.

Link building

Many websites are discovered via links from other websites. The place to start is with the New Zealand search engines and website directories. Most web directories will list your site for free (though many will insist on a link back). We recommend you create a links page on your site for this purpose so you are ready to place links on your site to other sites. To find New Zealand website directories run a search in Google for “new zealand web directories” as new directory sites come online every few months.

Not only does link building get you traffic from the actual link, but the number of links you have (and the quality of those links) can help with your rankings in Google, so it certainly pays to get as many good links as you can. Think carefully about the sites you swap links with though, as to get the maximum benefit out of reciprocal linking the site you swap with needs to complement yours in some way (for example if you are a real estate agent swap links with a law firm). We recommend you stay away from sites that send out automated link request on your behalf – these are very annoying for website owners and go straight to the junk box.

Search engine optimisation

By far the best way to promote your website is to have the site rank highly in the search engines. Your goal should be to rank in the top 10 for your primary keyword phrases. By keyword phrases we mean the main words that describe what you do or what you offer. For example if you are a motel in Christchurch your phrases might be “Christchurch motel”, “motel accommodation Christchurch”, etc. There’s a lot to search engine optimisation and in particular a lot of misinformation online about what to do, but essentially it boils down to making a website more ‘relevant’ in the search results. A good place to start is by reviewing the wording on your site. Have you included your keywords in your copy and used synonyms for those keywords? If you are targeting a particular market place (say North Americans) make sure you use words they would search for – a classic is ‘vacation’ instead of ‘holiday’. Common spelling mistakes are another source of traffic to a site, but we don’t recommend you add the mistakes to your content; they need to go into your metadata.

Tracking your marketing efforts

Remember to track what you are doing so you can measure its effectiveness. Monitor your website statistics every month and watch for increases in traffic, check which sites are referring visitors, review the keywords used in the search engines that resulted in a visit and track how many visitors Google is sending to your site each month. Most web stats packages will record this information, so check with your web company. If you don’t have a stats package with your hosting you can sign up for Google Analytics for free and have a tracking code added to your site.

Good luck with your marketing efforts, and if you would like some assistance please contact one of our web team on 03 366 3340, as we can assist you with search engine optimisation, link building and Facebook marketing.