Search Engine Optimising: How Can I Do It Myself?

XSEO will bring extra, relevant traffic to your site. But we're interested in adding value, not just taking your money. So before you part with any of it, it makes sense to make sure you're doing all the things to give you the best chance of a decent listing.

This page is intended to give you a good overview of what we do. We don't believe all of this should be kept as an arcane secret, and if you want to try it yourself, then good luck to you. In fact, if you do use our advice to optimise your own site, then we'd love to hear how you're getting on. If, on the other hand, you're one of our competitors looking to pick up tips, then you're still welcome; if you're a competitor worthy of the name then you should already know this stuff!

So whatever your reason for browsing this page, you're welcome to the advice, and we hope it serves you well.

Start From a Good Design
With a great deal of work and thought, it's possible to optimise around the shortcomings of most sites, but starting from a search engine-friendly design can save you a huge amount of time. Search engines like simple design, clearly readable links and lots of text content. This doesn't mean your site has to look dull, but try not to be too clever for your own good. If you use JavaScript menus or graphic buttons, remember that the search engine spider probably won't be able to see them. So if you do use them, make sure you repeat the links as plain text. At all costs, don't be drawn into the trap of an all-Flash site. They look and behave beautifully, but all of your content is totally invisible.

Remember that home made "bedroom sites" always score well with search engines. Try to emulate their simplicity and you won't go too far wrong.

Promote Your Site Off-line
Before you think about promoting your site on the Web, make sure you're giving yourself every chance off-line. Get your web address onto your stationery, your business cards and - especially - your vehicles. People remember Web addresses more easily than they do phone numbers, so you can make a real difference to your traffic this way.

Make the Best of the Hits you Get
Make sure your Website actually has something to say. If all that's there is a lot of clichés along the lines of "commitment to quality" and "one of the country's leading..." then however much you optimise it, you're not going to see a massive jump in sales. Think about giving genuinely useful content - even giving away some of your chargeable expertise. Our sister company, Toad Marketing, has some ideas on this score.

Don't ever forget what the site is there for. Look at what you say from the viewpoint of your customer. Ask yourself "is this what I'd want to learn, and does it make me want to deal with these people?

Choose Your Keywords With Care
Getting together with a group of your colleagues and spending a couple of hours brainstorming keywords is not the way to do it! The process needs research into what people are actually searching for, and then looking carefully at the competition for a given word. Single words are rarely helpful. Not only can the competition for them be unacceptably high, they're also often too vague to be genuinely relevant to your business. An XSEO Keyword Relevancy Report gives you quick, cost effective access to real information.

Get Your Submission Right
Unless you submit your site to the search engines, there's precious little chance that you'll be found at all. Every engine has a page that allows you to submit your URL for indexing. Remember that submission does no more than request the attention of a spider or a human editor. Even when your site has been sampled, it could be a month or more before it's indexed. You may need to re-submit from time to time to get your listing indexed properly, but don't be tempted to nag. Submit manually (not by automatic program) once or twice a month and be patient.

Some of the search engines, particularly those with human editors don't allow multiple submissions. Effectively, that means you get one chance (There are sometimes ways around this, but it's better not to make the mistake in the first place). Submit your site before it's ready and it may be discarded as irrelevant by the reviewer. When you're submitting to directories like Yahoo, make sure that your descriptive text includes your most important key phrases.

Please contact us to discuss your organisation's exact needs