The majority of web traffic is driven by the major commercial search engines – Yahoo!, MSN, and Google. If your site cannot be found by search engines or your content cannot be put into their databases, you miss out on the incredible opportunities available to websites provided via search – people who want what you have visiting your site.  Whether your site provides content, services, products or information, search engines are a primary method of navigation for almost all Internet users.

Search queries, the words that user’s type into the search box which contain terms and phrases best suited to your site carry extraordinary value. Targeted visitors to a website can provide publicity, revenue and exposure like no other. Investment in SEO, whether through time or finances, can have an exceptional rate of return.

Search engines are always working towards improving their technology to crawl the web more deeply and return increasingly relevant results to users. However, there is and will always be a limit to how search engines can operate. Whereas the right moves can net you thousands of visitors and attention, the wrong moves can hide or bury your site deep in the search results where visibility is minimal.

In addition to making content available to search engines, SEO can also help boost rankings, so that content that has been found will be placed where searchers will more readily see it. The online environment is becoming increasingly competitive and those companies who perform SEO will have a decided advantage in visitors and customers.

When optimizing your website for search engine rankings many factors come into play, but when it comes down to making clients click on your link from the long list of search engine options, optimizing your Title Tags and Meta Description Tags will make a world of difference.

Building the ideal Title Tag

The Title Tag is the most important element to optimize on your webpage because:

• Search engines place significant weight on the words used in the Title Tag when determining ranking.

• It is used as the title for the search engine results page listing. Therefore it is the first impression a search engine user will have when deciding which page to visit.

• When someone bookmarks your page, the title will be used as the bookmark heading. So have a title that stands out and is relevant to the site.

How should a Title Tag be formatted for best results?

Here’s a simple formula we’ve developed in-house that seems to boost rankings:

• Start the title with the keyword phrase for which you are trying to get high rankings.
  Be sure that the keyword phrase is well used on your webpage so the Title Tag is clearly synchronous with the relevance of the page as a whole.

• Insert a breaking character of some type such as a hyphen or double-colon to separate the initial keyword phrase from what comes next to make the title more readable.

Then either:

1. Describe the webpage in five words or less while using all or part of your target keyword phrase again,

or

1. Insert the name of your company or website, but make it three words or less so the second half of the Title Tag does not overshadow the first half. This option is generally best when the site name or website address includes the keyword phrase or a portion of it, such as a Maple Leaf Graphics that has the domain mapleleafgraphics.co.uk

In shortened form here is my formula for a great Title Tag:

[Keyword Phrase] :: [Description of Page or Website Name]

Building the Ideal Description Meta Tag

The Description Meta Tag is the next most important tag, since search engines frequently use it as the description for your page’s listing, thus increasing the chance that your webpage listing will be clicked on.

Begin the Description Tag with the same keyword phrase you used in the Title Tag. Then either use it to start a sentence describing your webpage or follow the same formula used with the Title Tag; just increase the length of the description from 5 words to a maximum of 15. Here are a few guidelines to keep in mind when writing the description:

• The entire tag should be no longer than 22 words.

• It should succinctly describe the webpage and entice users to click on your link in the search results.

• The keyword phrase should appear no more than two times in total. In some cases the phrase can be used three times but only if it does not detract from the quality of the writing. Optimization should never interfere with a customer’s experience.

In shortened form here are two formulas that can be used to create a great Description Tag:

[Keyword Phrase] – [Description of Page]

OR

[Description of page beginning with the keyword phrase]

If you have little time to commit to optimizing your website for search engine rankings, at least implement great Title and Description Tags and you will have completed the fundamentals required for improved search engine visibility.

Done properly, a blog can provide you with a cost effective way of getting your key messages in front of thousands of users. Blog’s also have a fantastic ability to target specific reader, therefore creating quality traffic all linking back to your website.

What is a Blog?
Blog is short for web log. Blogs are online commentaries, journals or news items created by an individual “blogger”.  At any one time there are millions of blogs available to be read, covering a huge range of subjects.

Blogging is used by people to promote ideas, arguments, products, services and news comment. Some blogs have attracted a huge and loyal following of readers; others are simply read by no-one!

Why would a business owner blog?
For the busy small business owner spending time on a blog can seem to be a wasteful exercise but a blog may enable you to communicate another side to your business or personality which may in turn increase your market visibility and your sales. If you are involved in a very specialist business area you may find that your blog starts to attract a following from that market that is not catered for elsewhere – it depends what you write about.

How to start 
With most blog software you can start up in a few minutes.  

Some of the most well-known:   
- Word Press
- Blogspot
- MSN Spaces 
- Movable Type   
- Blogger

Try a blog for a few weeks and see what happens.  When writing try and think of commentary concerning your industry area or expertise and then let people refer back to your website for details of the products and services you sell. If you balance this correctly you should start to see leads and enquiries coming from your blog. 

Remember this is great for your websites Search Engine Optimisation, the more people read your blog and follow the link to your website, the more hits you will receive, and there for the higher your site climes up the rankings.

Hosting a blog
You may decide to host your own blog to drive business to your own website.  Doing this is make exceptional sense for a business looking to improve its search engine rankings.  You can pack your blogs full of articles upon your business which will naturally contain the correct Key words and phrases for someone looking for your product or service.  The Search engines will then not only consider you websites key phrases but it will add the blogs key phrases too instantly helping your websites position on Google for example.

How can Dick Woods Help?
We have created many blogs in the past and keep them updated for our clients sometimes on a daily basis.  We can implement a blog into your website and instantly maintain any entry you would like to make; we would optimise each entry for key phrases and make sure every post you want to make has a positive impact on your Search Engine ranking.  We would then tie in a number of other Search Engine Optimisation techniques and make sure many other sites and links are pointing towards your website.

Create free press releases! You will be very surprised how far we can spread your press releases across the web, and the best thing about it is we know of so many sites that will allow us to do this for FREE.  You can announce the launch of your new website, discuss the in’s and out’s of your new product or let people know the benefits of your service.  Potential client surf the web continually looking for information on various subjects, through this blanket technique you will be one of the first people they find.

In my opinion too many businesses view their websites as an overhead, rather than the most cost effective piece of marketing you will ever invest in.

In fact, I firmly believe that dedicating time and resources to your website can dramatically increase the level of traffic you receive, which in turn will have a dramatic effect on your turnover.

Attracting visitors to your site is half the battle, but if once they arrive if they become uninspired and quickly leave you’ve wasted valuable time and effort on search engine optimisation.  So, it’s vital that you constantly update your website to ensure that people spend more than 10 seconds confused and disorientated!  

I have put together a few simple tips to help you reinvigorate you current website and help improve your traffic:

Why would anyone want to visit your website?
Promotions, competitions and special offers are a great way to draw people to you website, what wrong with encouraging potential clients to browse your web pages and make enquires upon your products or services!  It’s important that people know that your offers or discount services are happening, so market them as loudly and proudly as you can.

Introducing new ranges to the website is a key route to keeping it looking dynamic. Make a song and dance of new products with a new product feature on the homepage. 

Create interest and traffic by sending out e-mail marketing to your database, inform them of something they may not already know, or offer a one week only promotion. Make sure you track who clicked onto your website from each e-mail, you will find that a decent e-mail tracking system is both cheep and extremely effective, and don’t forget to follow up both the interested and inactive e-mail recipients in a different way.

Keep your website updated
Constantly updating your website with fresh, relevant information, will not only help it rise in the search engine ranks, but also offer a reason for visitors to keep coming back for more. 

For an immediate hit, try updating the visuals on the homepage – this is the first signal to visitors that the site is dynamic and likely to include new information.

Make the site an information centre
Providing plenty of information about your product or service is crucial, so that potential customers feel more comfortable buying from you or from your website.

Adding a links page to other relevant websites, you will quickly find that your website becomes an invaluable information centre.

Dick Woods Designs specialize in all these filed and would be more than happy to offer a free half-day consultation on how to really promote your website.

Please feel free to dial: 08450 958 234 or e-mail us info@dickwoods.co.uk

At Dick Woods Designs we always feel it is important to promote any new or excising business in the best light possible, this is why we have put together a short list of which elements you should consider when you begin thinking about a structured corporate identity?

Your Logo
Does your logo effectively represent your business? Is it dated in its appearance? Is it distinctive and eye-catching? Do you feel proud when you look at your logo?

Your Business Card
Are your logo and contact information professionally presented on the business card? Are you satisfied with the quality of the card and the printing? Is it a convenient size for a wallet? Do you have your website and e-mail details upon it? Is it cluttered in it appearance? If someone found your business card, would they know what your company did?

Your Stationery
Are your written correspondences consistent in their appearance (i.e. letterheads consistent with invoices which are also consistent with your complement slips)? Do you have a letterhead with coordinating envelops? Do you have a convenient way to mail reminders or notices to customers?

Your e-mail Signature

Is your branding upon your e-mail signature? Is there a link to your website? Is there a section to let people know about your latest news or events? Is your e-mail signature working as another marketing avenue? Is there a privacy statement under your e-mail signature?

Your Promotional Materials
Do you have brochures, flyers or other materials that you can distribute to potential customers? Are they professional in their appearance? Are they current? Is the flexibility of self-mailers of interest? Do your broachers or leaflets effectively communicate your value proposition?

Your Website
Do you have a website? What would you like your website to accomplish? Is your website attractive and easy to navigate? Are you interested in e-commerce or database-driven content? Is your website in need of an upgrade? Has your website been submitted to the major search engines – SEO?

Your Presentations
Are you taking advantage of electronic presentations? Would customized presentation templates be beneficial? Have you considered distributing presentations on mini-CDs?

Dick Woods Designs specialize in all these filed and would be more than happy to offer a free half-day consultation on how to really promote your business identity.

Please feel free to dial: 08450 958 234 or e-mail us info@dickwoods.co.uk