Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Onsite SEO
You may have been involved with SEO before, or it may be completely new to you. Either way, you should know that it’s important to keep SEO in mind when producing a website.
Do you use Google? In the past couple of years, Google have been incredibly vigilant in providing the best service they can to their customers. We realise there are other search engines out there, but, as it stands, they seem to follow what Google does. Google’s search listings are shown to you in a way that is not only relevant to the subject (keywords) that you’re searching for, but also to the device you’re using. If your website looks great on a desktop computer, but doesn’t change for mobile devices like tablets and phones, you’ll be met with a problem. If a website exists that does the same as you AND they have a mobile or responsive website, it WILL rank higher than you do. This is called ‘search engine penalisation’ – Google doesn’t fine you money, but it does ‘fine’ your ranking ability.
All websites made by Bang! Graphics have been made in such a way that search engines will be able to index them appropriately. They’ll be ‘responsive’, meaning that they’ll work appropriately on all devices, having a mobile view as well as tablet and, of course, desktop views. Responsive design means that the way your website is made allows for one design to fit all devices. There’s no need to have multiple websites anymore.
Offsite SEO
You’ll hear the word ‘organic’ bounced around here. Search engines like two types of website when it comes to being on that sometimes elusive ‘Page 1’ spot. The first is a website that organically appears higher in the list due to how important and relevant it is. This importance is figured out by the amount of relevant content there is on the business’ own website, but, moreover, by the backlinks created elsewhere.
For example:
* Let’s say you have a company selling a fizzy drink called “Caca Cola” 🙂
* Your website itself is likely to talk a lot about what the drink is, what it represents and why you should drink it. Although helpful in letting the search engine know what you do, it isn’t as helpful as what can be done outside of your own website.
* What we mean by this is adding comments, articles and replies on other websites, blogs and forums about your product. Also and, most importantly, adding a link back to your website … either a specific page or the homepage, depending on what you’re talking about.
* The more websites, blogs and forums that point to your website, the more important it’s seen to be in the eyes of the search engine.
Depending on where you wish to rank higher, i.e. locally, countrywide or globally, can greatly change the cost of providing such a service. If you want to rank highly in your county or local area, it’ll be much less than countrywide. We’ve had clients that have decided that they want to market their goods worldwide and the cost of that has been substantially higher.
Generally, SEO packages can start from £100 a month and range up to … well … the sky’s the limit (or your bank balance)!
The good thing about this method is that if you decide to stop paying for a few months, you won’t disappear into obscurity. Any work that has been done will continue to be useful until such a time as they’re considered too old to be relevant, or if a competitor becomes more relevant for a search term than you are.
A bad aspect of it is that as backlinks are added, you’d need to wait for them to be indexed by search engines. This can take anything from weeks to months. With the work continually going on, it’s likely to be a matter of months before you notice a difference; but do remember, should you stop paying for the work to be done, you don’t disappear immediately.
Pay Per Click (PPC)
The second and more immediate method is PPC advertising. It accounts for a large amount of revenue for a search engine. It guarantees a ‘Page 1’ position for specified search terms. Each time someone clicks your advert, you pay the search engine. It doesn’t matter if it leads to a conversion for you though. They’ve done their job – the person clicked through to your site.
In recent months, this has been considered to be a better way to spend your money whilst marketing online – guaranteed ‘Page 1’ positioning for as long as your budget allows.
The great thing about this is that you can specify an amount of money you’d like to spend, and once it’s used up the campaign stops, so you won’t run up a large bill. The bad thing about it is that, unlike organic SEO where you would most likely keep your position for a time and then slowly slip down in the rankings, once you stop paying you’ll disappear. You are paying for placing. Stop paying … no placement.
Facebook Paid Ads
These work much the same as PPC, but with the opportunity to tailor it a little more. Facebook uses its clever algorithms to shove your advert in front of people of the age group and location you specify. Then they use their clever coding to put it in places that mean that people who would genuinely be interested in your product see the product.
Bang! Graphics liaises with a local company to provide these services. We make sure that you get the package that suits your needs and budget, and we’ll advise you along the way.
If you’d like to ask any further questions, please fill out the Contact form below or pick up the phone and call 07472 331136.