Mediarun Search Marketing News

Companies engaged in website marketing 'should redesign their site for SEO'

January 06th 2010

Search Engine Optimisation News

Companies engaged in website marketing should start the year by giving their site a makeover targeted towards boosting search engine optimisation (SEO), it has been recommended.

Econsultancy urged firms to redesign their site in order to boost their ranking on search engines such as Google, but noted that they should seek assistance from a search engine optimisation firm if they are not confident of doing the task themselves.

"Speaking from experience, it's very frustrating to be called in to work on a website's optimisation just after a (completely useless) redesign," writer Kevin Gibbons remarked.

"If you can't do it, get help," he added.

Mr Gibbons also underlined the importance of using keywords in content and page names, adding internal links and paying careful attention to spelling and grammar.

He advises companies to "work on their words" and rewrite their whole website, employing a copywriter if they were not too skilled at creating appealing marketing text.

Optimising the meta description tags of a portal is also an effective way to boost website SEO, Mr Gibbons observed.

Implementing keywords is another important aspect when redesigning a site, Mr Gibbons noted, advising companies to make sure they "know and understand" the phrases they intend to use before starting.

He advised that, rather than stuffing sentences with the most commonly searched for term, web marketers might get better results with long-tail keywords and more specialised phrases.

Free resources like Google Adwords were particularly useful when researching keywords, he added.

Google's Matt Cutts recently discussed the value of using keywords in a site URL, explaining that while the order of the words does not matter the type of words used "does help a little bit".

Mr Gibbons noted that intelligently applied pay-per-click (PPC) marketing can help to immediately increase visitor numbers.

Another avenue for increasing search engine optimisation(SEO) is social media such as forums, blogs, Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn or other relevant platforms.

Spending time on a relevant social platform can have "excellent benefits," said Mr Gibbons, adding that they were a good tool for website promotion.

However, he added that this can be a slow burning tactic so it was important to dedicate regular time on an ongoing basis.