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In order to achieve the best possible rankings within the important search engines operating on the Internet, good optimisation is imperative. If your website is dealing with a product or service that falls within the boundaries of a highly competitive marketplace - website design being a fairly typical example - the methods of optimisation used need to incorporate two main factors, namely on-page and off-page optimisation.
On-page optimisation
This method deals mainly with factors that are wholly within the webmaster's control. Text content, keyword density, navigation, meta tags and the anchor text used as internal links can all be engineered to the benefit of every website hoping to gain top search engine rankings for any particular search term, and sometimes can be enough if the relevant search phrase is unpopular. However, the more websites there are competing for the same phrase, the greater the need for other factors to be considered in order to boost your website's relevance and ultimately its position within the search engines.
Off-page optimisation
Off-page techniques are focused mainly on linking strategies that are sometimes out-with the webmaster's control, for instance, when someone finds your website a useful resource and links to it without your knowledge and without using anchor text that is to your advantage, i.e. an important keyword phrase that you want to be found under. Reciprocal linking is a factor that goes a long way to helping the search engines determine an order of relevance when dealing with highly competitive websites all using the same search terms, so long as the correct anchor text is applied. Put simply, the more websites that have been optimised for the same search term, the one with the best quality and most correctly presented incoming links will gain the optimum rankings. Google has devalued reciprocal links to some extent, so where possible, one way links from relevant sites will prove to be more potent.
As mentioned before, using only one of these factors could work for your business, particularly if it has very few competitors on the Internet, but for maximum exposure of your popular product or service, and the best possible rankings in the search engines, on- and off-page optimisation will ensure that everything that can be done to help is being done, whether it's for website design, or a host of other competitive industries. But remember, good quality, comprehensive search engine optimisation involves a great deal of time and work - in-depth research and targeted copywriting don't happen overnight - and for new websites especially, results may take longer than you thought to filter through the complicated workings of the ranking process, and spending vast sums of money with either optimisation companies or link exchange companies will not help you get there any quicker.
Currently, new websites are taking anything from 8 to 12 months to gain rankings for their important keyword phrases in Google, and even longer for websites that are targeting a highly competitive product or service. At Knobblycrab Website Design, our experience and proven track record at achieving top rankings for our many satisfied customers speaks for itself, so if you have the patience we have the know-how.
"Within a week of your optimisation work we were at the top of MSN and a couple of weeks later on page 1 of Yahoo. We are also now quickly creeping up the rankings in Google..."
If you want your business to achieve high rankings, we guarantee to develop a search engine friendly website for you that we can then manage on an on-going basis and through optimisation improve upon and maintain a prominent position.
Beware of SEO companies that claim to guarantee rankings - in the constantly changing environment of the Internet, factors that influence the rankings of any website can alter on a daily basis.
Good website copywriting achieves a perfect balance of friendly chat and hard-sell where an abundance of information focused entirely on the customer and the product is presented in an interesting and concise way, without keyword 'stuffing' or other obvious attempts to gain an advantage in the search engine rankings.