(Search Engine Optimisation)
Content taken from older UK website builder blog posts
(Search Engine Optimisation)
Please note this article was first published in 05 Aug 2013. Its content may now be out of date. We recommend taking a look at more recent website building blog posts or check out our comprehensive support pages. If you are looking for information on our 14 day free website builder trial we have a large number of webpages that guide you throug the process.
(Search Engine Optimisation)
There was a time when you could build a website and with minimal effort your pages would be found 
and business would be flooding in. With the Internet now containing an estimated 4 billion WebPages how do you ensure yours get found amongst the competition? This is where SEO comes in.
SEO, or search engine optimisation is the art of understanding how search engine such as Google Bing and Yahoo order their pages. If you can understand their current criteria you can ensure that your website matches what they are looking for as closely as possible. As a result you have a greater chance of your site beating the competition, driving more traffic, and therefore business to your website.
Why do we need SEO?
Sounds simple right? It would be if the search engines actually told you what they were looking for and stuck to it. Instead it’s kept a closely guarded secret. Why is this so? Google in particular want to give their users the best experience possible. They know that by doing so people will use their search tools instead of the competitions. If all website owners knew what to do to ‘beat’ the search engines then sites that don’t merit a good listing will get to the top and subsequently damage the user’s experience.
As a result they change what they like to see with a frightening frequency so keep us all on our toes. They are constantly ‘tweeking’ how they order websites to prevent website owners from ‘spamming’ or beating their ordering process to get an unfair advantage.
If this is the case how can SEO be effective?
There are some mainstay rules which Google and other search engines are happy to let us all in on. Most is just common sense, and if when building your website you constantly keep your users experience in mind you’ll cover most of their criteria. It’s the refining of your page content and how your website interacts with others which provides the most value. Although it isn’t particularly difficult, it is time consuming and requires an in depth understanding of what the search engines are looking for. If you have the time to learn and keep yourself updated for a small local business you can take on the task yourself. But for those without the time or who are trying to become found in a particularly competitive market it is wise to seek professional help. There are numerous companies who offer a bespoke SEO service and can help target your site for your marketplace. It’s important however to find the right company to carry out the work for you. We would advise seeking recommendations from other website owners and looking at the sites in your marketplace who are currently performing well and try to establish who they are using.
What SEO service does DotGO provide?
When you build a website with DotGO we automatically carry out many of the mainstay areas of optimisation that we know Google like to see. When you are building your pages we can guide you on how to modify your content to ensure you are covering what will appeal to your users as well as targeting your site for the search engines. Once you have built your content we are happy to review it for you and provide you with feedback on where improvements can be made.
Please remember, this article was first published 05/08/2013. The content may be out of date and you cannot post comments any more. Please check out our new blog.
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