Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
> We take a different view...
Everyone wants their site at the top of the search engine results pages. But how much are you willing to sacrifice to get there? Gravitywell believes that there are many factors to consider before you jump into a complete redesign of your website which is focused almost entirely on SEO.
> A balanced approach
We see web design as a balance of many things; aesthetics, usability, Search Engine Optimisation, standards compliance, maintenance, accessibility and portability for example. Often there is a focus on just 1 or 2 of these aspects but we believe the others should also be considered for various stages of the website’s life-cycle. Focusing a website redesign entirely on SEO may well be a mistake for your site.
> Quality of traffic, not quantity of traffic
You've probably had spam emails which scream "we can improve your website's rankings!". We get them too. Well, the question is: at what cost?
Users arriving at sites which are text-heavy with small images and a long scrolling page with clumsy navigation are unlikely to be impressed. Optimising the site for SEO may drive more traffic to the site but conversions and sales may well go down because the site no longer impresses or distinguishes itself from your competitors. SEO needs to consider this quality of traffic, just having more traffic may not be much use.
> Beware of the SEO cowboys!
One of the traditional methods of improving SEO is to add more keywords into the body text of your site. Simply cramming more words onto the page is not going to make pleasant reading though.
It depends on your product/service and your market of course, but this sort of change could possibly damage your sales & conversion rates. You may need to consider that potential customers would be put-off by the SEO changes to your site.
A beautiful photograph and some carefully chosen words from a professional copywriter are much more likely to convince a potential customer.
> Modern search engines
The goal of Google (the search engine leader) is to create a search engine that finds exactly what the user wants. It tries to do that by actually understanding the content of any given page in an intelligent way. Google wants to understand that a site is about photography for example, not just associate it with a keyword called “photography”. One of Google’s goals is to down-grade (in the rankings) sites which seem to be pretending to be about a particular subject, perhaps even trying to fool the engine. So essentially our advice on SEO is the same as Google's: “add regularly updated and relevant content”. That’s it. Sites trying to get around this rule are what Google is getting better and better at dealing with every day.
So understanding what search engines are looking for is simple. Finding ways to provide it is trickier but that's where Gravitywell can help.
> Example SEO success
Go to www.google.co.uk and type "flagstones". The site at the top of the results was built by Gravitywell. Hopefully you'll agree that we've not had to sacrifice or compromise the design in order to get to the top of the results.
> Forward-thinking SEO
If you think our attitude to SEO is a more forward-thinking and honest one then please get in touch. We can advise on reasonable, practical and non-damaging improvements to your existing website which will help you achieve higher search engine rankings.
Call us on 01179 728 958 or
email info@gravitywell.co.uk
© Gravitywell 2008