Search Engine Success

Search engines generate a significant amount of traffic to web sites, and they are the top source for new visitors. You can't afford to ignore the traffic which search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing generate.

Building a site with an ecommerce software package which is designed to achieve good search engine optimisation (SEO) and that generates static HTML pages give you the best chance of catching the eye of the search engines. Using such a package, and with no previous experience Charlotte Johnson of The Gentleman's Shop built a web site (www.gentlemans-shop.co.uk) that accounted for 20% of their turnover within a few months. Much of the site traffic comes as a result of people using search engines.

A little time spent actively promoting your site to the major search engines will deliver results and can save you a fortune in online advertising costs.  Richard Smart from SmartPackaging comments "After a recommendation from a friend, you must use Actinic as it will save you £1000's in adwords, it sits in Google searches so well. I have actually saved tens of thousands by using the software. Three years on, we have upgraded the site to the new version 10 and we are on page 1 of Google if not the top for our keywords."

The following video is a recording of a webinar explaining the different techniques which can be used for search engine optimisation for Actinic ecommerce websites.

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See more details of other live and interactive webinars.

In the UK, Google is by far the most-used search site, followed by Yahoo! and Bing.

Seventy five percent of users don't go beyond the second page of search engine results. That means if your site isn't in the top 20 results, you will hardly be noticed. So make sure at least one page on your site - preferably your home page - is set up as described here, to give yourself the best possible chance of getting noticed.

• Choose two or three key phrases that customers use to search for a product or service like yours. Avoid single words or very broad terms - there will be so many sites in these kinds of category that you will be very unlikely to get ranked on the first or second pages. To find out roughly how many pages exist that match your chosen phrase, search for it on Google and check the results just below the search box. For example searching for 'birds' yields over 105 million pages, and searching for 'parrots' yields over 5 million, but searching for 'african grey parrot ' yields less than a million relevant pages. To get an idea of how many people are searching for your chosen phrase, sign up for the Google Adwords program.
• Don't try and cover too many phrases in a single page. If you need to use more phrases, set up separate pages for them. Take a look at your competitors' sites to see what key words they are using.

  In the header section of your home page include Meta tags (Description and Keywords) that contain your key phrases.

• Create a Title tag of 7-8 words that includes the same key words
• Include the phrases in Alt text attached to images
• Get as many links to your pages as possible from other relevant, well-ranking sites. This will improve your ranking on Google and other major search engines.
• Don't put text in small or white or the same colour as the background - you may be penalised for doing so.
• Don't use frames. Search engines may not see them. However well your pages are optimised, they won't get ranked if the search engines can only find the frameset page. Many search engine specialists do use frames to present additional information to search engines, or to 'cloak' pages and make them appear differently to search engines than to end users; but it's very easy to get blacklisted for spamming using these techniques. If you want to use them, employ a specialist.
• Manually submit your pages to the major search engines listed below (N.B. some require payment):
• AltaVista
• Ask.com
• Google
• GoTo
• HotBot
• Looksmart
• Bing
• Open Directory (http://dmoz.org/)
• Yahoo

To see how your site ranks with the search engines, visit one of the many sites that offer this as a free service (search the web for 'free position checker' to find them).

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is still as much an art as a science, there are no guarantees, and the results can range from the spectacular to the bizarre and inexplicable. Love them or hate them, they are still a major source of web traffic - ignore them at your peril.