Everyone wants their website to be 'number one in Google'; this may be the wish of your CEO or the dream of your marketing director, but what does it mean? Number one for what? What search term or keyword? Knowing what you want makes that #1 goal achievable; getting there requires the twin steps of search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM). Whether you require a new website or are looking to improve an existing site's rankings we can help. Contact us to discuss your website promotion needs.
Search engine optimization (SEO)
SEO ensures that your web pages are optimized around the key words and phrases which you believe searchers on the web would use to find the goods or services your website promotes.
Selection of keywords is therefore vital to the success of any website; there are a number of tools available to help choose the best keywords and phrases, in terms of search volume and relevancy to your website's specific subject matter.
Having made a selection of appropriate keywords we ensure that your site is optimized around those phrases to make it 'search engine friendly'. This starts with choosing the right domain name and goes on through page titles and meta tags to ensuring that your pages have engaging content featuring the right keyword density.
Search engine optimization is a passive but vital step in ensuring success on the web - search engine marketing is the active side of the equation.
Search engine marketing (SEM)
SEM is the process of submitting your site to search engines & web directories and undertaking pay-per-click promotion. It also includes building incoming links from other sites on the web. The choice of marketing mix is dependent on the aims for the site and the budget available; a site selling fast moving consumer goods straight off the page needs traffic fast, an informational site for a not-profit organisation will have a different perspective.
Submitting your site to search engines and directories is a vital next step in the process; depending on your promotional budget we will devise the most appropriate strategy with you. If you do not have a budget for pay-per-click promotion and paid inclusion in directories there are still a number of highly effective strategies available to promote your site. SEM can be as aggressive or passive as your budget allows, but if you want results yesterday you can indeed buy your way to the top.
Accessibility
Web site accessibility is one of the issues of the day, but what does it mean? Under various jurisdictions around the world there are laws governing discrimination against the disabled, which to a greater or lesser degree apply to the provision of websites. Good web design, using valid code and a little thought, is all that is required to ensure access for a wide range of disabled users; it's not difficult and it's not an option for a new build. If you are responsible for older sites most jurisdictions at the very least require that you are taking demonstrable steps to improve the accessibility of those sites.
We try to build sites that conform to the web accessibility guidelines as defined by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). There are three levels of conformance specified by W3C, roughly escalating from 'must have' through 'should have' to 'nice to have'. Where you want to be is up to you. We also undertake audits of legacy sites to help designers define an actionable roadmap towards accessibility.