The higher a website appears in search engine results the greater the number of visitors.

For example: a builder located in York would like to be at the top of Google for “York builders”, “builder in York”,  “building contractor York” and similar searches.  The builder also has other phrases for which they would like a high position:  “house extensions in York”, “York attic conversions”, “property renovation York” and so on.  The builder also operates in nearby locations: Leeds, Harrogate, Hull etc. and would like high positions in Google for these localities too.

Google is the most popular search engine.  Google is usually used as the benchmark for a site’s SEO.  Where Google goes the other search engines usually follow.

An SEO project involves:

1. Working with the client to identify the primary phrases for which a high Google position is essential, and other phrases for which a high Google position is desirable.
2. Targeting phrases at different pages of the client’s website by making changes to the underlying website code (HTML) and content (the words that appear on the  page) in order to optimise pages for their allocated phrases.
3. Identifying and correcting issues that are barriers to optimisation.  For example, some sites are driven by content management systems (CMS) which don’t allow the website code to be fully optimised. In such cases the CMS would removed or replaced.
4. Setting up links from other websites to the targeted pages using the target phrases as the linked text.

Steps 1 – 3 are known as “on-site” SEO. Step 4 is known as “off-site” SEO.

Off-site SEO involves links to the target site from other good quality sites.  These links are usually, but not necessarily, reciprocal. A links page is set-up on the target site and other sites approached to “exchange” links.  Sites are chosen which complement rather than compete or detract from the site being promoted.

Often a client will already have a number other firms they do business with who will be happy to exchange links.  A builder might work with a plumber, an electrician, a surveyor, and an estate agent who have websites and can be approached regarding link exchange.

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The site for Buttonbag was a redesign of an existing site, built on the same domain, whereas the Cusp site is a new domain. The SEO links back to these sites have been added from existing sites at roughly the same rate – almost exactly in parallel. There are now around twenty links back to each domain from other sites. Given the different ages of the domains, it’s been interesting to observe how Google has been treating them.

Buttonbag, the older of the two, is now at no. 3 for the Google search ‘sewing kits for children’ and at no. 8 for ‘craft kits for children’. Cusp, a new domain, despite having had approximately the same number of links added over the same period of time, is yet to appear in Google’s listing for either the search ‘personalised christening gifts’ or ‘christening gifts’, the two main phrases for which it has been optimised.

It could be that there is more competition for ‘christening gifts’ than ‘craft kits’ – but is also very likely that Google is more accepting of the established domain and more wary of the new one, which it may be keeping “on hold” for a while just to make sure it’s nothing harmful.

Talking of websites selling products for children, the Twigs4Kids website -which sells organic children’s clothes and organic baby clothes – has had a recent SEO boost and is now at no. 1 in Google for ‘organic children’s clothes’. It had been hovering around no. 2 and no. 3 for several months, so this recent work has obviously made the difference.

The next step for this site could be to raise its rank for the search ‘organic baby clothes‘ – currently only on page 3 of the Google listing for that search, but new links are being added gradually. Future links will be targeted at the ‘organic baby clothes’ phrase since the ‘organic children’s clothes’ search is already a success.

Another new site undergoing SEO treatment is a page for Benson Grays Associates, promoting their mortgage advice service. Despite currently just having a holding page as its content, a large number of incoming links using the targeted phrases have sent it to no. 3 for the Google search ‘mortgage advice in York’ and no. 2 for ‘York mortgage advice’. This domain is only a week older than the Cusp domain, so hopefully Cusp should be making an appearance in the Google listings very soon.

I’ll post an update on the progress of these sites in the next few weeks.

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