ciscom Search Engine Optimisation and Search Engine Positioning Service
You have a great web site, now your customers need to find it!

Search engines should not be the only method by which customers find your site, but they can provide you with significant traffic and are an important part of your marketing strategy.

Your site needs to be in the 'Top 30' for the key phrases that customers would use to search for your business. The 'Top 30' puts you on the first three pages of search engine results. Users do not regularly look much further.

But positioning your web site at the top of the search engines is a complex and time consuming task, and the work involved needs updating on a monthly basis. Why not let ciscom take the pain, strain and cost out of search engine positioning?

ciscom provide the complete search engine service. We can:
- Optimise your web site for the search engines
- Submit your web site pages to the search engines
- Manage your paid placement strategy in Google Adwords and Overture

Click here for our Search Engine Optimisation Guide or click here to email ciscom about Search Engine Optimisation

Search Engine Optimisation
Search Engine Optimisation
Search Engine Optimisation
Terminology
It may help you to be familiar with some of the search engine terminology used:

Search Engine
A tool that allows the user to search for relevant content on the internet.

Key Words
These are the words that a search engine user enters to find what he is looking for.

Meta Tags
Lines of programming code in your web site source code that allow a search engine spider to categorise and profile your web site.

Search Engine Spider
The search engine programs that trawl the web collecting information to rank web site pages.

Relevancy Algorithms
These are the complex calculations made by a search engine to decide on a web site ranking.

Search Engine Ranking
The position in which your web site is listed on a search engine. The higher the better.

Paid Inclusion
You pay for your web site to be included in the search engine listing of a particular search engine. This does not give any guarantee of a good listing position though

Paid Placement
You pay for a certain search engine placement or ranking. This would normally be at the top of the list for certain key words. You would normally pay for each click-through. Some free inclusion search engines such as Google have paid placement offerings, whereby your site is listed as a 'featured' site at the top of the listings page.

Pay Per Click
You pay a fee for each time a user clicks through to your web site from the search engine listing. Google Adwords and Overture are the main pay per click engines.
Improving Your Search Engine Position
Many people ask us how they can improve their search engine position, but this is a complex question to answer and it takes a great deal of patience and experience to get right. Here are some important points to remember:

- A web site must be built 'search engine friendly' from the ground up

- There are many features that must be present in the web site code and web site design for best results

- Relevant text is the best way to please the search engines

- Some features, such as hidden pages and hidden or repetitive text can get your web site banned by search engines

- Some search engine spiders may eventually find your site on their own, but it is quicker and better to submit your site

- Each search engine has its own rules for submission and ranking, and you need to be familiar with these for best results

- The popularity of your web site makes a big difference. Make sure other web sites link to your own.

- Search engine algorithms and rules can change month on month and you need to keep up to date with these changes

- It will take at least 8-10 weeks for your web site to get listed after initial submission

Hits or Unique Visitors?
You probably hear the word 'hits' used a lot, but you might not know what this means. A hit is counted every time a file is requested from your web site server (the remote computer on which your web site is stored). When someone looks at a page of your web site, this will generate many hits in itself. If a visitor looks at five pages on a visit, this may be hundreds of hits. This can provide some impressive site statistics, but is not a realistic record of visitors.

You should measure 'unique visitors' to your site, or web page. This is a count of each person who visits your site, or web page. This gives a realistic count of the number of people visiting your web site, or a count of visitors to specific pages.