SEO is not some magical art, nor is it just about Google. It’s not even about getting to “the top of page one!” SEO involves achieving the highest position or ranking practical in the natural or organic listings on the search engines results pages after a specific combination of keywords (search term) has been typed in. Those “top of page one rankings” which those emails boast about are more often than not referring to the paid for sponsored results. In Google (since it’s the most used and recognised search engine) these are the adWords in the yellow box at the top of the page. SEO is about natural search listings for which there is no charge for in regards to being displayed or clicked on.

By putting some thought into your website copywriting, the use of short and long tail keywords, use of heading tags, anchor text and hyper links, image tags and document meta data you can go a long way to improving your natural search listings for your keyword terms. Couple that with building up some quality external links with relevant sites on the internet and you will achieve visibility and credibility.

Don’t get stung by those people who “guarantee” you “top of page one in Google” rankings. Some good practice and consistency on-page will give you the results you are looking for before you start getting into the world of adWords.
Of course, we provide SEO management as a service but we actively work with our clients to improve their on-page optimisation, external links and internal link structure. We also provide our Checklists to customers to help them work on their website themselves.

Accessibility –This is a legal requirement under disability and discrimination law and should be built into all websites. Accessible web design should support visually impaired site users and those with limited limb movement. It also covers what devices your site can be viewed on – from a PC or laptop to a smart phone or tablet.

Usability – Is your site user friendly? Can they find all the information they are looking for and complete actions efficiently? User centric design enables visitors easily to navigate your site and purchase, enquire, register or interact with the richest experience possible.

Structure – Labelling content into headings and navigation sections not only assists with SEO aims but also makes information more findable by your visitors.

Web standards – Does your off-the-shelf solution comply with W3C web standards? This refers to consistency in the way the site is coded (written) and displayed in different browsers.

Delivery of results – Stock templates, layouts and navigation may be easy to ‘build’ but they may not deliver the business results you are looking for. The lack of flexibility from these solutions may restrict you from emphasizing specific content and offers and reduce your ability to lead visitors down a specific pathway to achieve a business goal. With any website you need to consider its purpose and what you want to get out of it so you can measure its success.

Visual design – If you have very specific brand guidelines in regards to logo placement, colours and fonts then stock template designs may not offer you the flexibility you need to display you Brand. The other disadvantage of stock templates are that there is going to be an increased risk of another company having a site which looks exactly like yours – and it may be your competitor! Bespoke design enables you to differentiate yourself within your market and across the whole of the internet.

Analytics – Not all ‘build in a box’ packages offer you comprehensive analytics with which to track and monitor your website traffic and visitor pathways. You may get the number of visitors and some basic metrics but if you want more detail it’s better to add Google Analytics to your site (all our builds come with Google Analytics).

Legal requirements – They are many laws around web presence, too many to go into in this blog post so we’re going to dedicate one specifically in the coming weeks to make you aware of the most pertinent.

Marketing – It would be great if you could just build a website and leave it alone to do its magic. But unfortunately in the competitive world of SEO, search results and business it’s just not possible. You want to be able to easily update your content, change things around, add new products and keep it fresh. If you package solution won’t let you do this or is difficult then your website will not be working as hard as it could be for you.

At the end of the day your company website is an investment of time and money and can be truly awesome. It can generate leads, convert visitors to customers and foster ongoing relationships with your client base. A bespoke to you website does not have to cost the earth and can be budgeted for and built in phases. With the input of a developer all the above considerations can be factored in to ensure your website delivers the results you want to see.

But if you are heading off into the web then we have a set of checklists for you to refer to to help you along your way. First off – typography!

Typography is the use of text styling on your site eg. bolds, italics, underlines, fonts and text size. Here’s our top tips to remember to carry through all the pages of your site to ensure consistency and a great user experience:

1. Never use underline in body text. Visitors will naturally assume it is a hyperlink and may become frustrated or dissatisfied if they think the site is full of broken links.
2. Avoid the extensive use of italics as they are difficult to read on screen. Use selectively to add variety.
3. Agree a standard format for headlines and link text – specifically in regards to capitalisation. ALL CAPS and Title Case can be difficult to scan read and can look ugly whereas sentence case – “Start engaging leads on your site” – is neater and more easily read.
4. Keep headlines no longer than three of four words. This is good practice for SEO purposes but you will need to consider the size of your font (known as point size) or ensure your design supports text wrapping or sub-headlines.
5. Check that your design renders well across different browsers as many will increase text/type size.
6. Use a small difference between heading and body copy text/type size for a smooth look and a big difference for high impact. But, keep this consistent across the site. Stick to one style!
7. Avoid stretching content across the full width of the browser. Using columns increases readability.
8. Agree on which fonts you are going to use and stick to them. Standard fonts can and should be specified in the stylesheet but don’t be tempted to mix things up. Too many font styles is difficult to read and looks messy. Remember – consistency, consistency, consistency!

We hope the above is useful but don’t forget – we’re always available to help and offer advice.