OPTIMISATION

For those unscrupulous SEO companies out there, the science of search engine optimisation is more akin to a ‘Dark Arts’ with dubious working practices designed to manipulate the search engine rankings. At Ardent SEO we use only ethical, transparent methods to achieve the results we want to see.

Whilst there is no absolute guarantee of achieving first page rankings, a minimum of two hours per month SEO maintenance will ensure a highly reasonable ranking within selected niche ‘search terms’. It is important to bear in mind, however, that specific keywords and phrases are more popular than others.

For example, the search term ‘Spanish Holidays’ yields approximately 1,050,000 results; thus, in order to reach a first page ranking in the search engines, substantial investment is required. Indeed, those companies who are able to dominate the rankings long term have dedicated in-house departments dealing specifically with SEO on a daily basis.

Similarly, there are SEO companies promising first page rankings or even top of the first page ranking; however, in order to fulfil such promises, such companies can charge anywhere between £2,000 – £40,000 per month.

Ardent SEO , based in Surrey, can offer a much more realistic and manageable approach for your web marketing budget; we will also reassess your SEO campaign after three months and make further recommendations as to the way forward.

This is why setting up Google Analytics is part of your SEO strategy; Google Analytics is a free service offered by Google that generates detailed statistics about the visitors to any given website and is an invaluable tool in SEO.

Every client’s needs are unique; however Ardent SEO endeavours to keep the client completely in the picture by working to a structured SEO strategy. Below is a typical one year SEO plan of action that outlines our Search Engine Optimisation Programme . Each month, a bespoke SEO report will be generated to chart a website’s progress on all the major search engines.

Month One

Keyword Analysis

Establishing the core keywords and key phrases for client’s business.

Action: keywords to be provided by client with assistance from Ardent SEO.

Competition Analysis

Establishing client’s competitors and analysing their SEO methods.

Action: analysis of competition’s keywords.

Site Optimisation

Page Title Tags

Head title tags are the string of text that appear in the left corner of the blue bar at the top of the browser window and as such, are one of the most important pieces of information with regard to SEO.

Action: page title tags to be optimised for client’s keywords and phrases.

Description Meta Tags

The meta description tag is the information which appears beneath the head title tag on the search engine results page. Written in a sentence, it offers a more comprehensive explanation of the web page’s contents.

Action: description meta tags to be optimised for client’s keywords and phrases.

Keywords Meta Tags

The keywords meta tag is essentially a list of the most specific keywords associated with your business. The most important keywords should appear at the beginning of the tag to ensure greater keyword weight and should be specific to each page.

Action: keywords meta tags to be optimised for client’s keywords and phrases.

Title Tags

Title tags appear when the mouse hovers over a link or image; they are also important for site accessibility and SEO.

Action: title tags to be optimised for client’s keywords and phrases.

Body Copy

Text is king in SEO. The more body copy is on a page, full of your business’s keywords, the better chance your site will have of being favourably indexed by Google.

Action: to rewrite/edit text to include keywords.

Alt Tags

Alt tags are usually associated with images and are primarily used for accessibility reasons (screen readers will detect alt tags and read them out loud). They are also vital for SEO.

Action: alt tags to be optimised for client’s keywords and phrases.

Robots File

Similarly, when a search engine crawler indexes a site, it is greatly assisted by the presence of a ‘robots’ file, which tells the crawler which files on the site need not be indexed.

Action: creating and uploading a robots file.

Sitemap and Google, MSN and Yahoo! Sitemap Submission

When a search engine crawler indexes a site, it is greatly assisted by the presence of a sitemap. Google has the facility to receive the submission of a sitemap directly. Action: creating a sitemap and upload it to Google sitemaps.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a free service offered by Google that generates detailed statistics about the visitors to any given website. Google Analytics can track visitors from all sources, including search engines, display advertising, PPC networks and email marketing.

In order to access Google Analytics, a Gmail (also known as a Google mail) account must be set up.

Action: creating both a Gmail account and a Google Analytics account.

Month Two

Adwords Campaign

Deciding whether a Google Adwords campaign is important or not will need to be established, when it is taken into consideration that 65% of the client’s business generally comes from organic search engines listings (the general search engine list, as opposed to paid campaigns).

Action: setting up Google Adwords and writing appropriate headings and descriptions for the client’s business.

Month Three

Specialist Directories Submissions

There are numerous directories on the web: some are more generic, e.g. The Open Directory Project and the Yahoo! Directory; some are specific to particular products and services, e.g. Camping and Caravanning UK Directory.

Action: submission to generic and specialist business directories.

Inbound Links/Linking Partnerships

Inbound links are a mark of popularity and help build a network of contacts. It is vital to exchange linking partnerships with relevant, reliable sites.

Action: establishing linking partnerships through link letters, submittals and emails.

Three Month Review

Taking Stock

After three months, a reassessment of your business’s SEO campaign and where it can be improved.

Month Four

Social Media Marketing

The blogosphere and other social networking sites are the latest tier of the internet – bookmarking services (e.g. Delicious) and social networking (e.g. MySpace, Facebook).

Action: creating presence on bookmarking/social media networking sites.

Month Five

Article Generation

The greater a company’s presence on the web, the better chance they will fare in gaining a good ranking on the search engines. This can be greatly boosted by the sheer volume of information related to your business. There are numerous industry-specific sites on the web to which articles can be submitted for example Google Base.

Action: generating copy specific to your business and submitting to free online article/news sites appropriate to your business.

Month Six

Site Maintenance

In order for Google to know that your site is live, regular copy changes and site updates are required; this may be achieved by copy rewrites, adding additional text within a footer, inserting breadcrumbs (a sequence of words indicating on which page a user is in terms of the rest of the site).

Action: generating additional text to increase keyword density.

Month Seven to Twelve

Taking Stock

After six months, a full SEO review and establishing which specific areas of the SEO campaign need further work, both ‘on-page’ and ‘off-page’.

Ongoing SEO

The full six month sequence of work to be reinitiated, incorporating knowledge gained from the six-month review.

So what’s the next step?

Call Ardent SEO Surrey office today on 01483 267 915 for a chat with one of our SEO advisers and discover how quickly the search can be over for your business.

See our Contact Us page for further information.