SEO and choosing a web designer...

[rossmc]

...I presume I'm best going with a web designer who has a sound understanding of SEO so that my site is thought out properly from the outset, rather than spening money on SEO further down the line?

[Chris Jones]

In a word yes but you will still need to do seo work further down the line as all that will be correct is your titles, tags and keyword density so on. It is an ever evolving process and you will still need to do the offsite work.

[rossmc]

So then someone who could show me the basics as well would be a good idea?

[M178591]

SEO is an on going thing rather than something you do once and then forget about but I think in principle you are right, you are better using a designer who has a good understanding of what works well from a search engine perspective. What is it you want from your site? Are you looking for a brochure site or one to trade over. I always tell my clients that SEO is just like any other business decision. Do you really have much to gain by having a good search engine ranking. If you are selling over your site then you do and you should think about this right from the start. If however you site is only there as a means of supporting your other sales activity then a good search engine ranking in itself might not add much value and therefore might not be worth paying much for. All depends what you want from your website really.

Mark

[I, Brian]

...I presume I'm best going with a web designer who has a sound understanding of SEO so that my site is thought out properly from the outset, rather than spening money on SEO further down the line?

It's more that it's best to go with a designer who understands and can work with on-page SEO concerns, because it'll cost you a lot more money to convert a non-SEO site to search friendly at a later date.

That's only half the battle, though - to really rank for anything competitive you'd probably need a good link development campaign later on - but first you need to ensure you're site is search friendly, and has been indexed by Google for around a year first.

2c.

[WebPageOne-Solutions]

...I presume I'm best going with a web designer who has a sound understanding of SEO so that my site is thought out properly from the outset, rather than spening money on SEO further down the line?

Hi If your looking for a quote for design and seo I would be happy to provide one for you.

I work closely with a couple of design companies, and together we should be able to deliver a good solution that works.

[jakeylakey]

It is worthwhile getting your onpage optimization right from the start, however off site optimization has the biggest impact on results in my opinion which needs skills other than that of a web designer.

The main factors I find on on page opt is title tags and anchor texts in your links.

[jakeylakey]

The best part of SEO (off page) can be done by a websites owner or employees that are un technical. There isnt any great secret in gaining PR and improving your position in Google.

Bascially you need to gain as many targeted inbound links to your site as possible. Search engines like google will see websites linking to your website as a reccomendation for your site and will award you credit based on various factors such as...

Anchor text of the link (you should try and make it the keyword you are targeting).

Position of the link on the website (Top of the homepage is best position)

Number of outbound links on the site (If a website is linking to many sites instead of just one, it dilutes any credit given dramatically).

The ranking that the website has itself (If a highly ranked site links to you, SE's will rightly give you more credit than if a low ranked site links to you).

Getting inbound links and following the above rules is the key part to any SEO campaign. Links should be added little and often; if one day your site has no links and the next day it has a 1000 it is quite clear you are buying links and you wont be awarded any credit for these links. It takes time but the results are worth it.

There are many ways to get inbound links without doing any work. Syndicated content, Article submissions, press releases etc. After the content is submitted in each of these cases, the use of the content around the internet will slowly grow and in each case its used, will link to your site and give you SE credit.

Using the above technique and no on page optimization ive managed to achieve 2nd position for the keyword "business cards" on google. That is a highly competitive keyword with many millions of webpages/sites competing for it.

Hope this is of some help.

[rossmc]

"There are many ways to get inbound links without doing any work. Syndicated content, Article submissions, press releases etc."

In terms of press releases and article submissions do you use any automated services or would you say avoid them at all costs?

[jakeylakey]

Ive often out sourced this to indian SEO companies, who will submit your article to say 50 sites for a few quid. Or add your link to 200 directories for a few quid and the like.

Generally though most article sites are syndicated with the big article sites anyway. For example I submitted a article to ezine articles and it soon showed up (through google search) on about 20 other article sites as well as content sites.

Most websites will use automatic syndication (rss) to get content for their site, so a single article submitted in the right place (for free usually) could have your content shown on several hundred sites within a few weeks.

Id suggest just submitting to the larger article sites, like ezine, article alley, article city etc. In fact just search just search for "article submission" in google and youll soon see the bigger companies.

Dont forget to put a targeted link in the footer/credit of your article or your effort will be wasted. A targeted link is one like I have in my signiture here.

[I, Brian]

Article syndication and mass directory submission I personally only use as bonus filler. I find them pretty weak in terms of link strength, and certainly wouldn't recommend these as a sole source of links for competitive markets.

2c.

[sabian1982]

Everyone has pretty much answered you're question; ultimately it needs doing well from the beginning. SEO is just as much about on site work as it is offsite.

Onsite you work with meta's, regular content (google loves this) and also good copy type (which covers your keywords). If its not done properly to start with and further down the road you change your keywords or phrases this can potentially drop you into the search engine sandbox or take your site out of the search results that you've worked so hard to achieve.

As for offsite, this is all about building both quality and quantity of backlinks which will result in PR (something thats not really important unless you want to sell links) or for SERPs - which is very, very important if you want to get your website seen!

[rossmc]

So basically...

Get good content on my site
Submit quality articles
Create a good blog and comment on other people's blogs
Get strong good quality backlinks

Leave the outsourcing of basic directory submission to offshore firms and treat it as a little bonus rather than the bread and butter of my SEO.

Does that sound about righ?

[VLAHAKISA]

A site needs to be built well to start with, so the developer does need an understanding of search engine optimisation yes.

Then even if it has been built well you will still need to carry out search engine optimisation work. SEO is ongoing and something that will need to be carried out every month indefinitely, it isn't a one off task.

I have written a (hopefully) easy to understand article about what tasks need to be carried out on a regular basis to ensure a good seo ranking - www.trulyace.com/searchengineoptimisation.html

Following my guide will yield results and it essentially repeats the good advice here with a few other pointers also. I have a very good ranking for some highly competitive words using my own advice :)

Best Wishes

Amanda

[WebPageOne-Solutions]

Thats a nice, well written article Amanda with very good advice.

The only bit that is bad advice is using automated software to submit to multiple search engines. This is a pointless exercise, submission is best done manually (by hand) and only to google, yahoo and msn. Using .xml sitemaps works a lot faster imo.


The best method of submission however would be a anchor text link from a related website, with good page rank. Search Engines prefer to learn.

[bluemilkshake]

Hiya.

To add my 2p's worth in here, I recommend forums as a surprisingly useful method for helping your position. If you use them respectfully (obey the rules, post regularly (don't spam) and submit content that is relevant and useful for other members) you could see an improvement in targeted hits.

I wrote a blog entry about this a while ago but I've not been a member long enough to post the link (and I don't like cheating :))

Cheers.