The main way that your website will be located by users is through search engines, meta search engines and indexes. Each search engine has its own way of evaluating web pages based around the placement of your key words or phrases, and some also factor in link popularity (links to your site from other places on the web).
Getting your site listed is not an instant process. Listings in some search engines may appear days after first submission, but extensive listing across all major search engines and indexes can take months to achieve. The effectiveness of our promotion is reflected by the higher than average traffic volumes our websites receive, and we generally achieve good positions on the most important keywords.
If you need help promoting your existing website, we can offer this service on its own. Contact us for more details.
Search Engines
Search engines use software to analyse the content of pages on web servers across, and store results for reference. Their automated processing of data means they yield large numbers of individual page results of variable relevance. Major search engines include Altavista, Excite, Google, Lycos, Hotbot and FAST.
We ensure that all your pages are optimised for search engine indexing with strategic use and placement of key words and phrases, and effective use of the description and keyword 'meta tags' which are hidden within pages. Keywords are also reinforced by the rest of the elements in the page.
Once all pages have been optimised we submit each page to all the major search engines at regular intervals.
*Search engine positions change over time. |
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| Samples of our search engine rankings* |
Keyword: 'abergavenny hotel'
Search engine: ALTAVISTA
Date sampled: 1 August 2000
Allt-yr-Ynys Hotel gets first place plus 2 more places on the first page. |
Keyword: 'shearing'
Search engine: EXCITE
Date sampled: 1 August 2000
Welsh Shearing Equipment placed number one on this generic term. |
Keyword: 'mid wales'
Search engine: LYCOS
Date sampled: 1 August 2000
Gaer Farm and The Old Vicarage in first and second places. |
Keyword: 'mid wales b&b'
Search engine: ALTAVISTA
Date sampled: 1 August 2000
OnlineWales client sites make up the top 6 and have 27 entries out of the first 30. |
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Indexes are different
Web indexes contain more structured information. Websites are listed rather than individual pages. Entries in indexes are all checked by humans and carefully categorised. Some indexes use search engines to provide 'fallback' data. Additionally, some search engines will favour sites listed in indexes. Indexes include Yahoo!, the most popular site on the web, Open Directory, Looksmart and Snap. A listing in Yahoo! is a valuable prize for any website owner. Previously very difficult to get into, Yahoo! now offers a paid express submission service. All our submissions to directories are made and checked manually, with the help of a system we have developed in-house for this purpose.
Meta Search Engines
Meta Search Engines search several search engines and indexes at once and find a cross section of results from all of them. A quick and powerful way of searching the web, you can be sure that sites which rank well in these are positioned well across the board. These include Metacrawler, Dogpile and Ask Jeeves. You can't submit to meta search engines as they do not have their own data.
Additional Promotion
If you are seeking higher volumes of site traffic than you can realistically expect to be generated by promotion of the site and its pages alone, or are in a particularly competitive market (eg. where lots of other websites are being actively promoted on your top keyword or phrase) we can offer these more active promotional techniques.
Additional site entry pages, targetting keywords with pages constructed mainly with search engines in mind (whilst taking account of users) can significantly boost traffic.
Reciprocal links strategy - getting other websites to link to yours in exchange for links to theirs has two-fold effectiveness. Firstly, the links will provide traffic to your site, and secondly, some search engines will rank sites which contain links and which are linked to more highly.
Paid-for listings - We can offer advice and help in evaluating and arranging paid-for web advertising, ranging from the effective pay per click service from GO, the $199 Express services from LookSmart, and Yahoo! to the various online advertising publications online. |
