Released on = May 16, 2007, 7:40 am

Press Release Author = Joe Elkington

Industry = Computers

Press Release Summary = Since the heady days of Meta keyword stuffing and link
farms, both the search engines and search engine optimisation has come a long way.
Many, and yes it is many, have never heard of search engine optimisation, like many
industries, when you work within it, it seems to be popular, well known and there is
many a time I find myself surprised (wrongly) when I'm asked what I do for a living
and I get a nod and invariably a change of subject follows. You see it seems to me
that there is a silent battle amongst the different fractions of the SEO companies
and everyone else seems to not know about it or just thinks 'let them get on with
it'. I find myself looking at web sites and trying to guess the focus of the page,
looking for mistakes and barriers to good rankings within the design / code, and yes
brace yourself, this is not the norm! People don't think about it as much as search
engine optimisers or indeed web designers.

Press Release Body = I have been giving some thought to try and break the
impenetrable bubble that is rankings for search engine companies, I mean what more
harsh and unforgiving market place to compete in than a market where the number one
goal is to come first in the search engines. It sounds very simple and many of you
are probably thinking 'that that is the goal of all companies isn't it?' but no it
is not, many companies are happy to trade as small companies and being the biggest
company does not even enter their thoughts, however, if you are not on the first
three pages of Google (1st page really) for search engine optimisation (or other
related keywords) then you are not going to survive and PPC is your only option.
During this process, and extensive keyword analysis, it seems that the only people
searching for search engine optimisation (in the UK) are the optimisers themselves
checking their rankings (within reason), I appreciate the market is there, it just
appears to be very lacking and many sales come with having to educate the customer
first, in contrast, web design is known by all, so I guess it is just a matter of
time and publicity.

'Ok I think we get the message' I hear you shout, and yes the whining is over so
maybe we should discuss what search engine optimisation is. I know there are plenty
of people who want to know what this strange 'science' is and many that think they
know what it is (sorry web designers but got to get my dig in somewhere - you know
who you are) and it is a relatively simple concept in principle. It falls into two
main camps, initially, it is either building a web site with specific design
features to help the web pages rank well for certain keywords, or if the site is
already built, then it is the art of altering, changing and adding to the existing
design in order to help the pages rank well in the search engines.

To make it a little more simple, imagine you own a car, you have just bought it
brand new one off the conveyer belt and you drive it home, on the way home you like
the way it drives but, well, it could just do with a little bit more umph, so you
take it to a specialist dealer and get a turbo fitted, lowered the suspension, made
all the components 'sports' editions and then you try it out for size, and boy does
it go! Well that's search engine optimisation, your web designer does a great job of
building your site but he is looking at it just from a design point of view, your
search engine optimiser looks at your site as a car that can go faster, a set of web
pages that can achieve greatness within the search engine rankings with just a
little more focus, a tweak here and there and some great content - ok, before I get
emailed from all the SEO's, it is a little more complex than that and actually can
become really complex when dealing with a huge site with many thousands of pages,
but that's for another day.

Search engine optimisation is about focusing each and every page of your web site;
it's about finding keywords that people will search for your company within the
major search engines and focusing your message to fit with those keywords. It's
about looking at the design of your web site and making sure there are no obstacles
in the way to stop the site ranking well and then it's about an ongoing process of
tweaking your site and optimising to refine the site so it ranks well for all the
chosen and targeted keywords. It's about making the 'car' go as fast as possible and
remain performing well within the future.

So my point here is that SEO is a separate business to web design, many web designer
'tack' it on the end of their service and frankly do a disservice to both their
customers and search engine optimisers. A good, experienced search engine
optimisation consultant can make your business, he / she can bring you an increase
in traffic and business that often far outweighs how much you paid the optimiser to
complete the work.


Web Site = http://www.seo-clinic.co.uk

Contact Details = Joe Elkington
68 streeed road
Kensington
technical@seo-clinic.co.uk