Search Engine Optimisation

Search engines are the number one source of new visitors to websites. Therefore you can't afford not to have a plan for how you are going to get search engines like Google, Yahoo! and Bing to work for your site.Mail Order Telephone Order

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 success with search engines.

By spending time actively promoting your site to the major search engines will deliver results and can save you a fortune in online advertising costs. 

Actinic has a well-deserved reputation for creating ecommerce websites that deliver good search engine performance.

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

80 percent of users don't look beyond the first page of search engine results so if you are not listed there 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 131 million pages, and searching for 'parrots' yields over 4 million, but searching for 'african grey parrot ' yields less than a 500,000 relevant pages. To get an idea of how many people are searching for your chosen phrase, sign up for the Google Adwords program and use the following resource https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal to determine the volume of searches on each term.
  • 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 keywords they are using.

    In the header section of your home page include descriptions and key phrases about your products and services.

  • Create a Title tag of 7-8 words that includes the same keywords
  • Include the phrases in Alt text attached to images
  • Get as many links to your pages as possible from other relevant, well-ranking sites. You can add a PageRank checker to your google toolbar or (search the web for 'Pagerank checker' to find them). Inbound links 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 in priority order:
    • Google
    • Yahoo! (websites and directory)
    • Bing (Microsoft)
    • Ask
    • Open Directory (http://dmoz.org/)

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).