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Search engine optimisation (SEO) is a crucial consideration for any business or brand that has a website. SEO actions aims to get your online assets rank as highly in Google as possible for the range of searches relevant to your business, which is vital to drive more people to your website and ultimately grow your company.



SEO and PPC



Many people may think that the longer a website has been around, the more popular it will automatically get as the domain age increases and it generates more incoming links meaning it will be higher in Google rankings, but this isn’t necessarily the case.


Many older websites are finding it increasingly difficult to perform well in Google rankings because the Google algorithm keeps changing and adapting as time goes by.

The new “Google 2011” now places huge value on the quality of website coding and the user experience before any other factor.


So, a business could spend a fortune on devising a list of keywords that have high volumes of traffic or pay a specialist SEO company to build links without getting the results they need, because in actual fact there’s a much deeper problem and the way the website is actually built needs to be urgently reviewed.


There are many things that need to be reworked and reconsidered and the team here at Codastar can talk you through everything important. However, here are a few of the main points worth looking into:


  • With so many people accessing the Internet from smart phones and other mobile devices, it’s imperative that your website is compatible with a range of mobile platforms. Google places huge value on this, so for example, you should be using CSS layouts and CSS text instead of HTML and tables as this is crucial and many older websites tend to fail when it comes to this basic requirement.


  • Links to pages on your website should never be “dead” and give users a “404 error”, they should always lead to an active and relevant page and Google webmaster tools can provide you with a list of crawl errors that need to be rectified.


  • Pictures shouldn’t just be added to a website, they need the correct tags, descriptions and links in order for them to be of any value. Therefore, it’s worth getting a professional to check that you’re currently incorporating all of your pictures correctly.


  • Flash should be avoided and JavaScript or HTML5 should be used instead for any moving images.


  • Mata tags and page titles need to be correctly formatted. Again, it’s worth getting a professional to do this, as it’s so easy to get wrong.


  • Google likes regularly updated content and sites that seem new and interactive. This is why it’s important that website copy is regularly reviewed and other things are integrated onto the site, so the steady stream of new content is constant, such as a Twitter or recent news widget.


  • Review your social media activity because Google takes the rather simple view that if you’re not mentioned and active on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube (the other three most popular websites in the world besides Google), then you’re not really “worthy” and popular. This may seem a little harsh, but that’s how the Google algorithm sees it!


  • Video is a new and important factor as Google now likes to see regularly updated video content. This doesn’t mean just placing a video onto your main site and leaving it there, but consider a constant flow of new content. Google now sees that as the way people want to experience the web and finds that those who aren’t streaming regular video content from YouTube are lagging behind.


Of course that isn’t to say that generating links, building relationships with other companies online and devising keywords and phrases isn’t important, you just need to make sure that the foundations of your website are accurate before you start building anything else around it.


To talk to us about making sure your website is right from the ground up, then get in touch with one of our team who not only know a lot about SEO techniques but are also experts in web build and design.


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