Search Engine Optimization

Keyword Research

This is the process of discovering what keywords your potential customers are actually searching for.

Common Mistake: Thinking that ranking #1 for your company name is the answer.

Sure, it’s great to rank for your company or brand name, but often that’s not what people are searching for. More often people are searching for terms that include the solution to their problem eg ‘how to deploy sharepoint to production’ than your company name.

Understanding which keywords to target is the first step in any SEO process. After all, if you don’t know what your customers are searching for, how can you expect to appeal to them?

On Page optimisation

Once the right keywords are discovered, site changes can be recommended, implemented and tested.

Often simple changes make a big difference. Things like giving your pages appropriate title tag, properly formatting your headings and images, using appropriate categorisation and submitting proper sitemaps.

Common Mistake: Using the same keyword in all your page titles

Most people understand the importance of page title tags. But then they go and use the same broad key term on every page, thinking this will help. Often, it works against you.

I provide detailed recommendations on improvements to pages, including individual page titles, headings and keywords to use.

Site Architecture

Google and Bing are placing more emphasis on proper site architecture, and often the structure you use will be reflected in search result listings.

Common Mistake: Changing site architecture without proper redirects

Unfortunately, developers sometimes get excited and change around the whole structure of a site, but neglect putting 301 redirects in place. As a result, entire sections of a site can get dropped from the search engine indexes.

I analyse and recommend appropriate site architecture changes PLUS detail the process for implementing changes for maximum benefit in the engines.

Site Audits: I can also audit your existing site if you would like a quick indication of possible problems affecting your rankings.

Link Building

Gaining quality links from other sites to yours is the single biggest contributor to increasing your rankings. Once your site has been optimised for the keywords your customers are searching for, you then need other people linking to you with those terms as well.

Common Mistake: Submitting your site to hundreds of free directories

Whilst it’s true that getting listed in some directories will benefit your site rankings, it is much better to have a consistent increase in links over time.

And so it is with link building. It’s hard work. You need to engage with other sites, find points of benefit for them to recommend (ie link to) you.

This can be time consuming work, but I’ll help you with the heavy lifting: how to find appropriate sites to contact, what content they’re interested in, and how to provide value.