SEO for client sites

Increasingly companies are using open source systems to design their early sites and then finding their search engine optimisation is not as effective as it might be. A recent article in The Telegraph highlighted a site owners plea for help. There are certainly many companies who will part clients from their money and in several instances we have been both surprised by what they had charged for the service and bemused by some of their tactics.

There are many factors affecting search engine positioning, but the "black hat" techniques tend to ultimately damage reputation rather than enhance it. Keeping the techniques "above board" never harms a site.

Search Engine Optimisation should really be one of the first things considered when laying out the design of a site and deciding on the appropriate platform. If this has not been done there are still factors which can be improved, both on and off the site, but they do require some active monitoring and a programme of regular updates to maximise the opportunity.

Whilst Google does not focus on meta tags, other browsers do and it will not harm your site to set down the accurate basics:

1. Check that your site contains keywords (preferably not single words) that people are actually searching on

2. Don't use too many keywords (or too many characters in the keyword meta tag)

3. Keep the description meta relevant to the page content.