Web Design

Search Engine Optimisation is a critical element in any website design project. An analogy that we would often use with our clients is to consider having an expensive print brochure designed and developed, only to lock them away in a cupboard. Similarly, if you have a website designed without regard to search engine optimisation, the chances are you are not going to get many visitors to the website.

Sure, you can use online advertising and promotion strategies such as the google Adwords program, but a good Search Engine Optimisation strategy will help deliver real long term results.

Search Engine Optimization will usually require some help from an expert, but these simple tips will help get you started:
Tip #1 Links
The more links you have on the Web that point to your website means the higher ranking you will receive on Google. This is because Google gives preference to sites with more links on the Web, so make sure you work hard to increase the links to your website that exist on the Web. It is a good idea to have the linking text contain your keywords.
Tip #2 Keywords / Key Phrases
You should choose a couple of 'key phrases' which best describe your business. As you will be ‘competing’ with other website, the more specific your key phrase is the better. This helps both you and your customer.
For example, suppose you run an Equality Training company in Dublin. If your key phrase is just ‘training’, you are very unlikely to get to the top of the search engines, and even if you do succeed, only a very small percentage of web surfers who type in ‘training’ are going to be interested in your services. If however your key phrase is ‘Equality Training in Dublin’, you will be much more likely to get to the top of the search engine for this phrase AND the web surfer who uses this phrase to find you will be much more likely to be interested in your services.
Tip #3 More Text
Google searches for text, not photos or images. Google creates your site description from the first few lines of text on your page so it is important to have your keywords and phrases right at the top. If it finds them your page becomes more relevant. If it doesn't the rest of your page has to work harder to become relevant.
Google considers keyword density in the body of a page for determining relevancy too, so make sure your keywords and phrases appear a couple of times throughout the whole page including the page title and heading tags.