One of our newest clients wanted a helping hand with moving domains and webhosting for the website for a guesthouse in Chester. The original design from another web designer has been left intact, although we have recoded the site in html.

We were also asked to cover the basics of Search Engine Optimisation, so the site could be found easily. The result is a website that is now climbing very steadily on Google for a number of other searches including ‘B&B Chester‘. Reaching page one of Google for very competitive terms can take time, but with sensible targets, measurement of achievements, an eye on competitor activity and a regular schedule it is certainly possible.

Search Engine Optimisation can be carried out by our in-house team for you (we don’t subcontract or farm any work out), or we are happy to pass on what we know with our SEO tutorials.

Got a problem with your website? Contact us today on 01244 566286 – we’ll be happy to take a look for you. Our office is in Chester and we have many clients in the city and surrounding areas.

As we’ve previously discussed, Search Engine Optimisation on page and Search Engine Marketing off page are two very different techniques, that when combined can bring greater numbers of visitors, and more importantly, better qualified visitors to your web site.

Before making a start with on page and off page optimisation, it’s a good idea to know where you are today so you can set realistic goals and see how well you are doing further down the road. This means you need some traffic analytics so you know your position and more information about your performance today. You’re looking for information on the numbers of visitors, where your visitors came from, how they found your site, the keywords they use and where they enter and navigate to in your site. There are lots of tools available some free, some not. Perhaps the best known of the free ones is Google Analytics, which is pretty straight forward to set up. You’ll need a Google account, an email address and access to your websites files so you can add a little bit of tracking code.

When you’re setting goals for your website, it’s best not to think in terms of setting a vague target such as getting to number one on Google, which is very difficult in most cases and not in your control. But if you have a realistic goal, such as see an increase in enquiries or an increase in sales by 30% over 4 months, you will be able to see how your on page and off page efforts are performing by comparing your analytical data.

Domain Names

Your domain name at the time of writing this is important, with Google Caffeine giving extra weight to websites with keywords in the domain. Whether this will always be the case, who knows, as this is a technique that is being widely used now to influence search engine results.

If you offer multiple services or lots of different products this may not be an approach you want to take.

However keywords really should be in the structure of each page name. Ideally about three keywords is good and five is the maximum. Any more and the search engines don’t give your page any more weight.

Choosing Keywords

Selecting the right keywords for your site is crucial. The right keywords and use of those keywords are not just important for optimising your website for the search engines, they are also going to help you communicate to site visitors in language they choose to use themselves. The key here is to be sympathetic to search engines, but not forget that the page has got to make sense to humans too. Loading keywords onto a page is seen as ‘spammy’ and won’t do you any favours on search engines. You’ll come across some pages on websites that just don’t make any sense because they have been written for search engines, and not for humans.

To start with, make a list of keywords, not just single words and the top terms, but groups of words and phrases too. Think about your ideal customer. What words, what phrases would they use to find your website? Include them in your list. Ask colleagues, friends, family, and existing customers for ideas on words to add. Go onto competing websites. Have a look at the bottom of Google results pages for alternative suggestions. There are some tools you can use to help with keyword ideas too.

Once you have a good, long keyword list, think about how you are going to use the words. You don’t want to take a chunk of say 100 words and group them together into a paragraph that doesn’t make sense. Instead group the keywords into subject areas and write good quality content that includes them. Don’t overdo it. Your chosen keywords should only form about 3% of the text content. This is known as keyword density.

You need to use keywords in META tags. META tags are bits of your pages code that are there to help search engines understand what your pages are about. You need to use keywords in your pages body text and you need to use them in the anchor text for the links that point into your website from other websites. For example instead of having the words ‘click here’ on a clickable link, relevant keywords instead give the search engines a better idea of what the link is pointing towards and adds a bit more weight to it.

More about the content you need to be writing next time. In the meantime, if there’s any help you need with SEO, you can contact us via our website.

The brief was to create a look that was exciting and edgy. So we did our homework and spent a long time with our client before getting busy, drawing up a concept that excited our client.

The bright red branding, with hand drawn vectors, fits the new website, the flags, gazebo, t-shirts, stickers, business cards and stationery set.

Page One Of Google Already

The website is already on page one of Google for it’s target keywords and is exceeding it’s initial traffic targets already, thanks to some efficient search engine optimisation. The site has a complete content management system, a full blog and is fully integrated with Facebook and Twitter. We also produced a Youtube web video.

Visit website.

Our client is delighted with the real business this website is already bringing in as you can see in this testimonial video.

If you would like us to quote you for web design, branding, or video production, please call us on 01244 566286 or visit our quotation page.

Roodee is a Chester based marketing company specialising in web design Chester.

Some people say having a great website that no one can find is like being lost in the desert. We disagree. We say having a great website that no one can find is like being part of a really big city, but you’re stuck on a back street that no one can find.

So if your website is stuck half way down page 1 million and you want to get nearer to page one – and even better, nearer to the top of page one, what can you do?

That’s what this series is going to be about. Just what can you do to improve your chances of being found on the search engines.

That’s where search engine optimisation comes in, or SEO.

With SEO, like with many other digital marketing activities, you need to carefully define what you want to achieve for your website, and then get the right tools together so you can hit your targets. More about these tools later.

Secondly,it’s important to measure the traffic you are sending to your website. And it’s important to stress that we’re not just interested in volume of traffic being driven to your site, but it’s the quality of that traffic that’s far more important. There are free and paid for tools that can let you see how you’re doing so you can make adjustments as and when necessary.

And thirdly, you need some creativity. A little is good, but lots is better. SEO today really does need good quality content that’s going to entertain, tell a story, be passed around, be linked to and so on.

Your content needs to be found by the search engines and there’s far more than just text that users are looking for when they search. Images, videos, maps, blogs, comments, posts can all get you in front of your prospects as they use the search engines.

The difference between organic search and paid search

There’s a key difference between paid and organic search, and it’s important to know the difference between the two. Open up your browser and go to Google. Type in any search term you like, for example ‘garden furniture wirral’ and then click ‘search’. When you see the results, all of those listings you see at the very top against a beige are labelled ‘sponsored links’. And there are more down the right hand column. These have all been paid for by advertisers, and Google charges them a fee every time someone clicks.

All of the other links are not paid for. These are known as organic results, and this is what people who are interested in SEO concentrate on. They get the most clicks, and no matter how many people click on these links, Google doesn’t charge.

Getting to the top of the organic listings, especially in a competitive niche isn’t easy and staying there can be very difficult. Today the number one result for that term is a client of ours, but as there are many variables, and competitors can pull some surprising tricks – not all playing by Googles rules – things can and do change.

But with good, unique (this is very important) content and properly built web pages, quality links pointing to your website from other websites and content that’s updated regularly, your chances of getting a good position on Google are improved.

Beware anyone who claims or guarantees a number one position, that’s an impossible promise to make. All that ethical SEO can guarantee you is an improved chance.

Now SEO usually covers what you do on your websites pages, and once you’ve optimised your pages, you need to look at the various ways you can bring people in. There are many ways you can do this. For example you can have links from other sites that are relevant, links from articles, you can have links from social websites like Facebook and Twitter. These all come from elsewhere, off-site and the process is often referred to as Search Engine Marketing or SEM.

Practicing SEO and SEM can help to get you to a good place on the search engines.

We’ll go into the nitty grity of Search Engine Optimisation next time. In the meantime, if there’s any help you need with SEO, you can contact us via our website.

Roodee is a web design company based in Chester, UK. You can find us at www.roodee.co.uk.

Dave Clarke

www.clarkey.co.uk

Read the full testimonial or talk to us about a redesign or overhaul for your website on 01244 566286.

How did we get this position? Good quality content that’s constantly being updated. Simples.

If you’d like help with your Search Engine Optimisation give us a call.

Here’s the newly redesigned website for a Chester based business that manufactuers unique mosaic tiled spas.

Key features include:

• It’s completely updateable. Every page can be edited. Our client can add as many new pages himself as needed using content management software. Free CMS management training included.
• The news section is a fully featured blog. Google is ‘pinged’ every time it’s updated.
• Search Engine Optimisation. It’s only a few days old, but already nearing the top of Google.
• Website makeover. The design is unique. We drew it out after taking a brief from our client. It features clean, compliant code.
• It’s modular and can be extended in the future. It can even be converted to e-commerce.

Aswell as bringing the website up to date to do the job it was originally meant to do – be found by potential customers and generate leads – we have taken care of the hosting and emails too.

Motorcycle accident claims specialist, Mark Lampkin commissioned us to makeover the website for his Chester based business.

The brief was to build on his already successful site, increase leads, and generate traffic to the site with an ongoing web marketing and search engine optimisation programme.

The website features an ever increasing number of videos offering advice on many other areas, such as car accident claims and accident at work claims.

The site has already achieved page one placement on Google for a number of target search terms.

Click here to view the site.

Find out more about our Search Engine Optimisation services.

The website will act as a shop window for our clients new photographic studio, portrait commissions, and works available for sale. The website features a stylishly simple Flash animation to showcase recent works, and a fully updateable gallery section for visitors who wish to browse.

The website features our standard Search Engine Optimisation, meaning it will be easy to find on Google using the target keywords specified by our client.

Our client can keep in touch with any visitors who arrive at the site via the easy-to-update Blog, and for techie-fans there’s an RSS feed (a simple way to receive only the latest content from a website or blog).

An elevated level of Content Management was requested for this project, so this has been built in to the project along with full training and ongoing support.

Revisit us on Friday 19th June to visit the new website. Alternatively, subscribe to our RSS feed or join our Newsletter.

We can add a Blog to virtually any website, even sites that we haven’t designed. Find out more.

Our client for this project was a Chester interior design company. Our brief was not to redesign their website, built by another web design company, but to recode it as there were issues that were making it difficult to update. We were also asked to transfer the domain and webhosting.

With a great many existing sites we are asked to look at, the first thing we do is look for more efficient ways of coding. This site contained lots and lots of code on each page that we either moved somewhere else, replaced, or chopped out completely.

We kept the layout and the graphics, but we did remove the introduction ’splash page’, taking visitors directly to the home page instead. We also integrated a powerful blog, complete with it’s own RSS feed.

Finally we gave tutorials in how to update the website, using our client’s choice of content management system; how to optimise images in Photoshop; and how to update the blog for maximum effect.