How to Rank High in Search Engines Result Pages (SERP’s)

Recent studies revealed that 90% of Internet users find websites through search engines and out of those users, 90% do not go past the first 30 results displayed. With this in mind it is easy to see why it’s important for your website to rank high in these results.

Search Engine Results Pages (SERP's) are the pages you see after you type in a search on Google or other search engines and click on the Search button. Because 90% of people use search engines to find what they are looking for these SERP’s are the most important pages on the internet.

The Search Engines Result Pages (SERP’s) can be broadly divided into two categories: “Organic” or ”Natural” listings and Paid Advertisements usually bought on a "Pay Per Click" (PPC) basis.

Roughly 80% of clicks at Google occur within the organic listings not the PPC listings. This is why is it important to get your site to rank naturally in the search engine result pages. Getting your site to rank high is not tricky; it’s just a matter of optimising your website to be search engine friendly. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the process of engineering your website so it can be properly read by the search engine spiders. SEO is pretty much common sense, search engines are text analysis systems so if your webpage is full of images with little text your site will not rank high. You need to target each keyword/phrase on different pages. So if you want to target the search terms “business plans” you need to have one page with the title “business plans” and lots of text about “business plans”.

To me this is just common sense but then I have been working in the SEO field for a number of years. However it never ceases to amaze me why people still call their home pages “home” or have their business name on the title of every single page of website. The owners probably search for their business and are pleased when it comes up first in Google. This is only good for the customers that know your company which is fine for large brands like Argos or Amazon but if you’re trying to get customers from for internet users you need to optimise your text for the search engines.

The other aspect of getting high SERPs is trust and authority. It is kind of no different than any other business trying to gain trust and a good reputation. Forgetting the cyber world for a moment, in the real world established businesses have much more clout that new start up businesses. Like your favourite restaurant. If a new restaurant opened up just down the street you might not want to chance eating there and stick with your favourite restaurant. Now if you hear that its gaining a good reputation for good food you might then decide to try it out yourself. The same can be said about websites except the trust you get is via an algorithm. The more links you get from already established trusted (authoritive) sites the more Google will trust you. It makes sense really, because a good website will not link to a rubbish or not relevant website.

Another aspect of trust is by doing things with the search engines terms and conditions. This means building links naturally and using keywords excessively. Adding 500 pages in one day is not a naturally progression, search engines like websites to expand naturally, anything else and their warning lights flash which means they might look into your site and possibly penalise it.

So the only way to obtain high SERPs is to do everything the search engines like. This means building websites that are easy to navigate (so users and the crawlers can find every page easily) ,have lots of good relevant interesting content and plenty of trusted links. Make your website the best site on the internet in your chosen niche and you shouldn’t go far wrong.

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Carolyn is the webmaster of Search Solutions Ltd, experts in obtaining High Search Engines Results .

What is Link Popularity and how does it benefit your website?

In recent times search engines have begun to look at not only your websites content but also the number of outside websites which link back to your website. Link popularity measures the quality and quantity of other web sites that link to specific sites on the Internet. Link popularity is another way of getting your website higher up the search engines. The way in which link popularity works is that search engines think if people are linking to your site that your website must be good and because of this it deserves a boost in rankings and if you think about it this does make sense as no one would want to link to your site if they thought your site wasn’t up to scratch.

It has been said that there is no need for average websites to obsess over link popularity; however you should make sure that your website is ‘link worthy’ but you should remember that link popularity makes up only a part of the most search engine’s ranking algorithms. It has also been stated that Google places more emphasis on link popularity than most other search engines; however how much they actually boost a sites ranking is debatable and it also depends on lot on the size of the site. One of the best ways to build long term link popularity is to offer good content and features that provide real value to your audience. Link popularity really does make a difference and plays an important role in the visibility of a web site among the top of the search results. It is also important due to the fact that some search engines require at least one or more link coming to a web site otherwise they will drop it from their index.

The philosophy behind the idea of link popularity is that important sites will attract many links and that if a website’s content is poor it will have difficulty attracting any links at all. Search engines such as Google use a special link analysis system to rank web pages based on their link popularity and citations from other website owners help to define a sites reputation.

Link popularity assumes that not all incoming links are equal, as an inbound link from a major directory carries more weight than an inbound link from an obscure personal home page. In other words, the quality of incoming links counts more than sheer numbers of them.

If is safe to say that all of the major search engines place some emphasis on link popularity within their ranking algorithms. Also there seems to be two main types of links that will work best to increase your link popularity; these two main types of links are links that come from other sites that focus on the same keyword phrases that your site focuses on as well as links that come from relevant categories in major directories and industry-specific portals.

It can clearly be stated that link popularity will continue to be an essential factor when it comes to successful search engine marketing initiatives for the foreseeable future. Links are also helpful for search engines when they are trying to get through billions of documents and find ones that are relevant to their users search requests.


Helen is the web master of Search Solutions, specialists in all your Link Popularity needs.

Search Engine Optimisation - Can your Customers find you?

Search Engine Optimisation, known in short as SEO, is the process of ensuring that you have a high return on investments by making sure that you get listed high up within the search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN. Search Engine Optimisation is a way of promoting your website, which is a highly important success factor for any website.

Search Engine Optimisation has the potential to bring you more customers and in effect a higher return on investments, which has been proven to work better than traditional forms of media advertising. The process of successful SEO is all about improving the volume and quality of traffic to your website. Think of it this way if your website is your business then your website has the potential of reaching millions of people from all over the world; millions of people who could easily turn into millions of customers; however if these people can’t find your website on the Internet then you are losing all of these customers. In order for people to find your website it needs to be listed high in the search engine results. People are most likely not to know the name of your website so they will search keywords to do with the products or services of your business and they will do business with the websites that appear on the first page of the search engine results, if your site isn’t here then you will be the one losing out.

So how do you get your website listed on the first page of the search engine results? You need to enlist the help of an SEO consultant. An SEO team can optimise your website so that the search engines will be more likely to pick it up. This Search Engine Optimisation may involve changing a websites coding, presentation and structure as well as fixing problems that could prevent search engine indexing. As well as this your website will be built targeting the right keywords for your products or services and promotional articles will be produced and distributed to several article directories with links back to your website as a way of helping to drive more traffic to your site. Remember SEO is a formula and if done correctly it will equal the success of your website.

SEO is not necessarily an appropriate strategy for every website, and other Internet marketing strategies can be much more effective, depending on the site operator's goals. A successful Internet marketing campaign may drive organic traffic to web pages, but it also may involve the use of paid advertising on search engines and other pages, building high quality web pages to engage and persuade, addressing technical issues that may keep search engines from crawling and indexing those sites, setting up analytics programs to enable site owners to measure their successes, and improving a site's conversion rate.

Organic Search Engine Optimisation means that your site will get listed on the major search engines and you will get high ranking results that will last and keep your site at the top of the search engines for longer.

Helen is the web master of Search Solutions, specialists in performing Search Engine Optimisation and Website Redesigns.

SEO – Directory Submissions

SEO, as you are probably aware stands for search engine optimisation. There are many different aspects that make up the task of SEO such as link building, copywriting and keyword analysis but there are two other aspects that often get overlooked when it comes to the work done with SEO. These two aspects are directory submissions and article promotion.

Submitting to directories is a great way of building up links as well as increasing your search engine ranking. Directories are databases that you can get your website listed in, which as a result gives your website an array of links and helps to push you up your website within the search engine results. It should be noted that there is no fixed amount of directories that you are able to get your website listed in, so the basic idea is to get your website listed in as many directories as you can. So how do you know which directories are the best ones to use? When you are choosing your directories it is better to opt for paid directories because, even though you are shelling out money, your links that you gain from it will last longer; however there are nothing wrong with free directories and there are many of these that have actually stood the test of time and the links have lasted as long as paid directories.

As well as deciding on whether you are going to submit to just paid directories or just free directories or a combination of both of these you also need to decide on whether you are going to opt for just niche or just general directories or a combination of both. It is however recommended that you submit to a combination of both niche and general directories. Niche directories are ones that are specifically for a certain industry area such as compensation. For most industries there are a variety of niche directories out there and the best way to find them is through a search engine. If you do a search for them on Google, Yahoo or MSN, the ones that come up first are usually the best ones to use. With general directories it's better to go for those that are more established. The older a directory is, the better the directory is.

If you are hoping to built links to your site through the use of directories or any other method for that matter it is important that you do it over time. If you submit to 100 directories in a week and then forget about it won’t be as effective as spreading the 100 directory submissions over a three month period.

One good directory to get listed in is Yahoo. This directory however does cost $299 per year, meaning it is expensive and only worthwhile for commercial sites or those looking for that little bit extra.

If you are hoping to reach the top ten search engine results then you should be doing everything possible to give your site the best chance of being placed there. One of these includes submitting your website to directories.

Helen is the web master of Search Solutions, specialists in all aspects of Directory Submissions.

How to effectively use Web Design for SEO purposes

What’s the point of having a website if no one can find it? In order for a website to perform to its best you need to ensure it achieves maximum visibility by reaching as many people as possible. In order to do this you realistically need to get your website into the top 10 positions within the search engine results. One way in which you can help to ensure this is through the web design of a site. Your website needs to have the right design principles.

So how do you know if your website has the right design principles? To come to this decision you need to take a hard look at your site and think about whether your site has curb appeal. To do this effectively you should take a look at your website from your customer’s point of view. You should be able to decide whether your site conveys the essential message of your business within three to five seconds of being on your site. As well as this it is important to look at your site and ask yourself questions such as:

• Who is your targeted customer?
• What is the overall purpose of your website and your business as a whole?
• What action do you want from a visitor to your site?
• What are you selling?
• Where are you expecting to receive the major of your traffic from?

You need to be sure about aspects such as these so that you can ensure that your website gets designed in a way that reflects these. For example if you are targeting pensioners then a flashy website with music and videos isn’t really going to appeal to them to use your site or if you are trying to sell package holidays then you should have your website designed with this in mind and use images that reflect holidays as well as colours which are warm and welcoming. Its little things such as these which will help to optimise your site to perform better in the search engines.

If people find your site attractive, easy to use and informative they are much more likely to convert into a customer, return to your site and refer it on to others. So with over nine billion searches conducted each month in Google, Yahoo and MSN your website really needs to be featured in the top 10 search results otherwise you will be losing vital sales and marketing shares to your competitors. Search engine positioning is crucial; if your online business is out of sight then your website will be out of mind to hundreds or thousands of potential customers every day.

Many people don’t realise how much of an impact the design of your website has on your business. People will form an opinion of your website within seconds and this opinion is then extended to your business. Because of this it is highly important that you get your website design by professionals who will be able to create the perfect site for your business and a perfect site to get you ranked higher in the search engines.

Helen is the web master of Search Solutions, proving you with all of your SEO Web Design needs.

Is your SEO Copywriting doing its job?

First off let me give you a brief explanation of what is involved within the field of SEO Copywriting. SEO Copywriting is the technique of writing the viewable text on a web page in such a way that it reads well for its audience and also targets specific search terms. SEO copywriting is the production of text for a website with one or two keywords being targeted. SEO copywriting can achieve rankings that tend to do well across the search engines and is especially good when there are not many search terms to target, the search terms aren’t highly competitive and money isn’t a problem.

SEO copywriting includes not only the body text but also the slogans and headlines that are used within an article. SEO copywriting should adhere to three basis principles which are as follows:

• Ensure content is informative, sufficient and search engine friendly
• Communicate your business strengths
• Develop content that will convert leads to sales

The text and content that is used within SEO copywriting should appeal to search engines and visitors. The content that is used should not bore your visitors with unnecessary details but you need to make sure that the content says enough to convince them to use your business and purchase your products or services. This is because the idea of SEO copywriting is a way of using words and phrases to promote a person, business, opinion or idea. This promotion may be used as plain text, radio or a television advert as well as being presented in a variety of other forms of media.

As previously stated the main purpose of writing SEO copywriting is to promote products or services. The content that is used needs to persuade its audience to act or to subscribe to a certain viewpoint. Informative, well-structured, search engine friendly text guarantees high web positioning, more traffic, and more clients. So, one major key to your online success is quality content. In order to get the best high quality content for your website it is advised that when it comes to SEO copywriting you should enlist the help of a professional SEO company. This is because SEO copywriting content that has been professionally written is said to be able to increase your businesses online sales by up to 30%.

SEO copywriting is also sometimes referred to as content writing. It includes the strategic placement and repetition of keywords and keyword phrases on web pages. SEO copywriting is about writing for human visitors as well as writing for search engines. It is about being fluent and producing readable content wrote in an SEO manner.

Remember there are nearly 1,000,000 web sites emerging on the Internet every month; however just a select few of these sites take up the top slots when it comes to the search engines so if you want your site to be one of them you need the help of a professional SEO copywriter who will be able to produce content that empowers your website and in return empowers your business.

Helen is the web master of Search Solutions, home of all your SEO Copywriting needs.

Search Engine Optimisation Solutions

The Internet remains one of the fastest growing forms of media with half of the world’s population now having access to the Internet on a frequent basis and 90% of these people find the websites that they want or need to visit through the use of search engines. Search engines such as Google and Yahoo are now said to drive more than half of online purchases for various products and services and the Internet has become one of the most popular places for people to purchase their goods; however in order for people to purchase products and services from your website you need to ensure that your site is ranked highly in the search engines.

There are now over 21 billion web pages that are fighting for the best search position, which is within the top ten search results, and there are billions of other pages not even listed in any search engines. Because of this it is now accepted that search engine marketing shouldn’t be taken lightly and effective search engine marketing for major brands is a complex affair and it needs to be handled by experienced professionals. These experienced professionals work in the field which is known as Search Engine Optimisation or SEO for short.

Search Engine Optimisation, SEO, is based on customer service, technical know how and marketplace research. It is the process of improving the volume and quantity of traffic to a web site using aspects such as:

• Keyword analysis
• Doing a competitor analysis
• Undertaking on-page optimisation
• Performing deep site optimisation
• Producing valuable link building
• Coming up with solutions for non-search engine compatible sites
• Finding solutions for catalogue sites
• Fast, manual search engine submission
• Optimisation for a website, which has undergone a re-brand
• Monthly position reporting demonstrating where a website appears in search engines for various keywords

Search Engine Optimisation involves a lot more than most people realise such as it involves sorting out a sites coding, presentation and structure as well as fixing problems that could prevent search engine indexing programs from fully spidering a site. Usually the earlier a site it presented into search results or the higher it ranks the more people will visit your site. In order to help this SEO can target a lot of different searches including images and industry-specific vertical search engines. SEO can be approached in many ways, but the latest trend is Performance Based SEO.

There are two forms of SEO that have been undertaken; however only one of them is worth pursuing. The two forms are white and black hat. White hat is the form of SEO that you should be following if you want your website to be a success within the search engines. White hat SEO produces results that last a long time. This is not just through following guidelines but also through ensuring that the content a search engine indexes and subsequently ranks is the same content a user will see. White hat is generally summed up as creating content for users not just for search engines.

Black hat SEO however involves techniques that are used to get higher search rankings in an unethical manner and will only provide short term high rankings. Black hat SEO uses aspects such as keyword stuffing, which is when a site contains long lists of keywords and nothing else. Invisible text is another thing that black hat SEO is known for, which is when lists of keywords are placed on a site in a white text on a white background or black text on a black background etc.

If you want natural SEO results that will get you ranked in the search engines for a long term time period then you need to enlist the help of white hat SEO techniques.

Helen is the web master of Search Solutions, specialists in all aspects of White Hat Search Engine Optimisation.