Search engine ranking more important than ever

More and more people are coming to terms that in order to have a successful website then some sort of promotion is required in order to rank higher on search engines. Back in the 90's when the web was a fraction of the size it is today all one had to do was to fill the bottom of each web page on the site with all the keyword combinations in order to attract traffic. Nowadays however, search engines are a lot smarter and the previously used keyword tactic can actually cause lower rankings as it is perceived to be trying to fool search engines. With the advent of Google's Page Rank (PR) the ranking of sites are based not just on the content of the site but the number and quality of links coming into the site.

Where to start with SEO?

There are numerous companies in this corner of East Sussex that offer a service to promote sites. A quick check on Google for 'Eastbourne SEO' produces 128,000 results. The term 'Eastbourne Search Engine Optimisation' produces 210,000 results. Even the American spelling of the phrase 'Eastbourne Search Engine Optimization' gives a staggering 29,400 pages on the web. High street bookshops are full of books with titles such as 'Getting to the top of Google', 'Get into Bed with Google: Top Ranking Search Optimisation Techniques' and 'Search Engine Optimization for Dummies'. The question is how do you establish which organisation to use to undertake an SEO campaign?

Switchplane's SEO approach

Without wishing to sound pretentious, Switchplane has several characteristics that sets it apart from its contemporaries and undertake promotion work for a variety of clients on a regular basis. By understanding as far as possible the effects and relationships of various components of a website such as keywords in the URL, domain name, description and keyword meta tags, the text in the page including titles, paragraph text, lists and links it is possible to rapidly optimise a site for search engines. What sets Switchplane apart from others however is that we can assess the impact of each change in a more objective, quantitative manner. This has been accomplished over several years by setting up several similar sites and then trying each SEO technique item in turn and comparing the results to a control. One of the interesting characteristics that has been established is that sometimes just changing the site has an effect on rankings and it doesn't really matter what the tweak was. However most effects are short lived and often get interpreted by so called SEO Experts as something that works when in reality it doesn't.

Recent Search Engine Campaigns

A recent success story for Switchplane has been for a Lewes Solicitor Sarah Edmunds. For a presentation at a local BNI meeting a volunteer was requested to demonstrate the effectiveness of Eastbourne based Switchplane's SEO work. Sarah's site originally ranked about 65th on Google for the term Lewes Solicitor. With the help from Switchplane Sarah's site now ranks number 1 on Google.com. This is extremely important as research show that over 70% of traffic goes to the companies and organisations that appear on the first page of Google's search results.

More recently, a campaign to improve the ranking for Brighton Accountants Knill James has been undertaken. The work involved so far involved the identification of popular search terms such as 'Brighton Accountants', 'Brighton Accountancy', 'Brighton Tax Advice' together with discussion with the client of the various on-site and off site optimisation techniques that are available to them together with the development of a 6 month campaign. Various techniques will be used for this campaign including but not limited to links exchange, social bookmarking and article publishing.

Search Engine Optimisation is anticipated to play an increasing role in future and it is Switchplane's goal to be the best Sussex SEO company people can approach.