Most people are probably familiar with search engine optimization and the many tools that are available to use. But being familiar with and really understanding how to use them are different things and, if you are not sure if you are really getting the most of SEO tools with your website, it is time to learn how. SEO tools help you to build a better website and to be able to see more people to your website once it is published. The more that you know about how SEO works, the better that you can do.

Licensing

Figure out how many people will be using the tools in your business.  If you have a small business, you may only have to buy a license that allows one person to be able to use the SEO tools. The bigger the business that you have, the more licenses you are going to have to get.  So it is important that you first decide what is going to be the best way to get the most use of the tools, but also save money.

Determine where the tools will be used.  You should try to decide when and where you are going to be using the tools for SEO. If you need to use them in various locations, you may have to get more than one license or a different class that allows more than one computer or user to have the rights to use the tools.

Next, determine if all SEO jobs will be done by one person or more.  Determine who is going to be responsible for doing the search engine optimization work in your company and what that person is going to need to be able to use the tools. If you are only going to have one person do the SEO work, you may be able to save money.  But you may also want another person to use as a resource to help out and to create a more varied approach to using the tools.

Client Reporting

Decide if you’ll need client reporting.  You should see if you are going to be required to use client reporting for your business and for using the SEO tools. If you are going to do this, you may need to acquire different registrations and licenses so be sure that you figure that out before you are ready to start using the SEO tools. It is easier to get it all set up right away then to try to change it later.

Know if the project will be ongoing or if you need the tools for a specific time period.  If you are only going to need the rights to use the SEO tools for a certain time period, you may be able to apply for a trial program that will not make you sign up for full registration and can help you save more money. If you are going to need to use the SEO tools for all of your work, than you may have to get a license.

Goals

Set goals you wish to achieve with the tools – you should outline what your goals are and a process for how you are going to use the search engine optimisation tools to reach those goals. Doing this can help you best decide on the function and role of the tools in your marketing plan and can help you get started with the right kind of programs. Once you have your set of goals completely and have found a way to use the SEO tools for all of them, you can begin to acquire the necessary registration to get started.

Find a way to measure what you consider success.  In order to be able to see if the SEO tools are really working for you, you are going to have to be able to track the progress. This means that you can find tools online that will help you to track the use of your ads and see what is working for you. You may find that one SEO technique is working better than another and you might find that you only need to use a selected few tools to really be successful. The more that you focus on seeing what is working for you, the better you can reach your goals and find the success that you are looking for online. Promoting your website can take some time so be sure to track how you are doing with your SEO tools that you have used as part of your marketing plan.

An XML Sitemap can be crucial for SEO. It is not the same thing as a site map, which is a web page showing the entire structure of a site, with the purpose of helping visitors find their way around. All the major search engine companies support and recommend the use of XML Sitemaps, as they enable search robots to crawl the whole of a site, making sure that every page is included. This is extremely useful as it makes a positive difference for search engine optimisation.

XML Sitemaps are special files, listing all the URLS within a website. They are manually submitted to search engines to increase the chances of all a site’s pages being crawled and indexed. The information they contain helps search robots to discover pages which might otherwise have been missed.

There are a number of ways of creating a Sitemap and as the process is fairly complex, requiring some knowledge of coding, it is well worth hiring the services of a reputable SEO company to carry out the work. What are known as ‘XML Sitemap generators’ are available online. These can automatically generate a Sitemap file and in some cases may also submit the file to search engines. Alternatively, a basic text file can be produced which lists all the pages on a site.

Sometimes there are a number of pages which have similar content. Here the Sitemap is extremely useful, as it can include information specifying which is the definitive version. This is a better option than leaving the search engines to choose which page to display in their search results, which can prove detrimental. Other data contained inside Sitemaps includes: when pages were last updated, and how often such updates have generally been carried out. This can affect how frequently search robots visit a particular site in the future.

After they have been created, Sitemap files are always placed inside one of the high-level directories of a site, preferably the root folder. It is necessary to update them occasionally, when new pages are added to the site, and when a number of pages are removed for any reason. Each of the major search engines will require a Sitemap to be supplied, so each time there is an update a new file will have to be submitted to all of them.

Although it might initially seem like they involve quite a lot of work, the benefits of Sitemaps are worth it, as their presence means search engines will be likely to crawl all the pages of a site and in the case of duplication will know exactly which page is the original version.

It is generally thought that, when a website has taken the time to create an XML Sitemap and register it with a search engine company such as Google, this increases its apparent trustworthiness. What is definitely known is that including a Sitemap certainly seems to improve the search engine optimisation of a website.

At SearchEngineOptimization.co.uk we can create an appropriate XML Sitemap for your website.

One of the best ways for a beginner to understand how search engine optimization works is to learn how to create a website from scratch. Doing this helps one to acquire a more thorough grasp of the code that lies behind every web page, enabling one to discover just what it is that search robots see.

It is not too difficult to begin building web pages, as there are many books available on the topic and many free tutorials online. It is not even necessary to invest in any expensive web design software. In fact, that would defeat the point, which is to understand how HTML works, as more complex software writes the code for the user. These types of program, WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editors, rely on the user moving items around on the page visually, while the code for the page is added automatically at a deeper level. Rather than bothering with these, a beginner can simply use a basic text editor such as Notepad.

Being able to read and understand HTML and to recognise how a web page is structured will reveal exactly which parts of the code are visible to search robots, and which parts of the page are given more weight. With practice, one could soon acquire enough knowledge to tweak a page manually in order to improve its search engine optimization, perhaps by making sure the right keywords were inserted inside title and heading tags. The Meta description, a part of the code which often appears as the text in search results, could easily be rewritten so that it represented a useful and relevant summary of the page.

Learning how to use CSS for styling pages, while not directly linked to improved search results, has a secondary effect by allowing the separation of content from appearance. This means that the HTML of a page can be written in a more concise and meaningful way, which is beneficial for SEO. Also, removing style rules from the HTML leaves a smaller file, which is quicker for search robots to crawl and faster to load for human web visitors.

Separating search engine optimisation content from style allows greater flexibility in the way HTML is written, as the order of various content sections does not have to mirror their order of appearance on the page as viewed in a browser. This means that more significant content can be placed towards the top of the HTML code for a page, before navigation, where search engines will judge it as having more importance.

Once the necessary skills have been acquired to make a simple website, it can be instructive to alter various aspects in order to discover the effect on search engine ratings. Ordering and placement of keywords can make quite a difference to results, and this can be understood more readily when those changes can actually be observed.

At SearchEngineOptimization.co.uk we have a thorough knowledge of the code underlying web pages which we can use on your behalf to increase the performance of your website.

Many people get carried away with social media optimization and backlink building strategies, while failing to realise that SEO starts from the inside out. If your rankings are low despite heavy external profiling, you need to look at your site’s architecture.

Never forget you’re running a commercial enterprise, not a long-term experiment in top ranking. People tend to put internet reputation management and ranking position under the same banner, completely forgetting that overshadowing them both is another banner yelling “conversion factors!”

The aim of SEO isn’t to increase the number of times the shop door opens – it’s to increase the number of people who actually stay long enough to buy something (or at least show a firm interest). What’s the point of paying hefty charges to get your site at the top of the rankings, if 70% of the people who click on your link promptly close it and go elsewhere?

If you don’t have a well constructed site, you won’t achieve high sales figures. It’s that simple. This isn’t necessarily restricted to navigability and artistic design. Visually, your site may look outstanding – but if the design isn’t linked to the needs of the customer, you won’t make a sale. A finance site, for example, won’t get very far if it’s laid out like a chic fashion store, with a home page full of images and little textual content.

This means your web-builder must be sympathetic to your goals and, preferably, familiar with your type of enterprise. So once your site is up and running, take a long hard look at it – and then at your competitors’. You need yours to stand out and look different – but this goes beyond snazzy graphics and streaming media. A well informed blog, for example, can work wonders if other sites are deficient in this area.

Search engine optimisation begins with making your site visible to the search engines. If the spiders can’t “crawl” easily, they won’t be able to index the pages. Sites that are well indexed stand a much better chance of appearing high up the rankings on searches.

This means a site map is essential on large sites, and a good idea on smaller ones. A site map helps the search spiders understand the hierarchy of the site, and access (and therefore index) individual pages quickly. SEO companies generally recommend a maximum of 75 – 100 links per map page, so if your site has a complex navigation menu make several maps – or even think about breaking the site down into smaller, individual domains.

However navigable your site is, you won’t get overnight results. It can take several weeks – even months – for your pages to start appearing high up the rankings. This is especially true of smaller sites, or those where the owner is new to internet commerce.

For this reason, search engine optimisation services often recommend opening a search engine marketing account, otherwise known as PPC (pay per click). Google AdWords is probably best known; Yahoo Search Marketing is another. This will ensure your site is visible from the word go, and can form an important part of your internet marketing plan.

If you have recently had some search engine optimisation work done on your site and are experiencing issues with your website not displaying correctly in some of the major web browsers, you may be frustrated and wondering what you can do to fix the issues. Depending on the browser, there can be different reasons why you cannot see your website displayed properly. For instance, firefox may be displaying your web site correctly, but Internet Explorer is not. These could be issues with the individual browser that you need to adjust, but if you have tried out your website in most of the major web browsers and it is not working, here are some things you may want to try.  Also bear in mind that a reputable SEO company will help you make sure your site appears as it should.

1.    Verify your upload directory - you have to upload files to the right directory on your web hosting web site in order to have them display properly. Depending on what kind of FTP client you are using to upload to your files, you should make sure that you are uploading to the home or start directories. Some servers may not require you to do this but, if you do have these options when you go to upload files, you want to make sure that you are choosing the right directory. A lot of the hosting services that you may be using automatically choose the location for your files when you have uploaded them and place them correctly. However, some of the older or more basic hosting websites may not do this for you and you will have to manually choose the location for the files to be stored. Make sure that you find out from your hosting company where the files need to be uploaded to and verify that they are being stored there correctly.

2.    Verify your home page name – when your domain name of the website is typed into the web browser, the home page of your website should be displayed. The page has to have the right name in order for most hosting servers to support it. Depending on what services you are using for your website, there may be different names that are required. For a lot of hosting services, the home page has to have the Index.html file name in order for it to open and display correctly. If you are not sure what your home page should be named, you can contact your hosting company to see what they require as the name. Most hosting companies will provide you with the name to use automatically if you are also using their design features. If you have your hosting service and design files all at one location, it cannot only be easier to track and manage, but they usually do a lot of the work for you by automatically naming your files what they are required to be. This could also be a canonicalisation issue which your search engine optimization company can help resolve.

3.    Refresh your browser – this may seem like a silly step in the process of determining an issue, but if you try typing in your website address and it is not displaying in the browser, try first to refresh it and see what happens. Sometimes there can be an error that will be fixed by refreshing it. If you try to refresh repeatedly and it is still not displaying, it probably indicates that there is another issue you need to fix. If your website is displaying correctly after you refresh but then you try it again later and are still having the same issue, you may want to take a look at what could be causing it. It could be something easy that you can fix on your hosting service that will help you correct the issue so that it will not be repeated. Also, make sure that you check your website name in all of the major browsers. This can help you get to the root of the issue because if it is not displaying in any of the browsers, clearly it is an issue with your website that needs your attention and to be fixed.  Your search engine optimisation company will be able to give you advice on this.

4.    Ensure your DNS is pointed where it should - depending on how your web hosting service works, your DNS records may or may not have been updated by setting up the hosting account. If you have registered your domain name on one website and then choose another to host your website, you may need to manually update your DNS records to have your web page displayed correctly. If you do not have the DNS records pointed in the right direction when you change or update your hosting service, it can cause issues for your domain and may cause your website not to display. Most of the time, newer hosting services can automatically update your DNS records when you sign up for service with them, regardless if you have registered your domain name with them or with another service. But some hosting services may not be able to do this, do don’t assume that they will automatically update; you may need to do it yourself and verify that they work.

5.    Solve image problems – if you are having issues with not being able to see the images that you have on your website or if they are not displaying correctly, you may need to make sure that you have uploaded them correctly. Depending on where you have your files stored on your hosting service, you may need to change where you have uploaded them to and make sure that they are in your home or start folder. If you have not uploaded the pictures as files to submit to your hosting web site, they are not going to be able to display properly. Images can create a lot of issues for a web site because there are many reasons that can cause them to not display properly. If you have taken the proper steps and verified that your images are uploaded and stored on the right directory but they are still not displaying, there could be something wrong the with image file itself. Check to see what kind of image it is and what the extension is. If it is not a certain file extension like .gif or .jpg, it may not display in a web browser. Make sure that when you are using images on your website and on your home page that they are clear and show up well in all of the major web browsers. Some browsers may display them differently and you want to check all of the browsers to see how yours are displaying.  Ensuring that alt tags are optimised properly can mean for more effective SEO.