What on earth is SEO?

What is SEO?

According to our friends at Wikipedia it is....

"Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine's "natural" or un-paid ("organic") search results. In general, the earlier (or higher ranked on the search results page), and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine's users. Optimizing a website may involve editing its content, HTML and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines."

Or simply, a list of things you can do to help people find your website via search engines.

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What do I need to do?

Luckily for you, a lot of these best practices come straight out of the Psand toolbox. For those that don’t, we can assist you with giving your website the best chance to be seen and heard.

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Our toolbox

• Spidering

  

  Migrating your website to us? Worried about losing the SEO value? Worry not. We don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater, that would just be crazy (and clearly very wrong). We love, cherish and spider your web pages, carefully documenting and matching them up to the new versions and redirect any traffic - and therefore SEO value - automatically.

• Sitemap structure

  

  Huh? Well basically, have you ever seen a URL that looks like this? /index.asp?selection=Details&id=1&catref=2&InBox=Broadleaved&cct=2&TypeSearch=&subcat=
  Loads of random numbers, dashes, slashes and all-round confusing things. Search engines don't like that either! We make sure all your web pages, directories and URLs are given nice, easy to understand names that actually mean something to humans and search engines alike.

• Code to text ratio

  

  Search engines give up quickly. Optimising the code to text ratio helps search engines find their way to important content and makes your pages quicker to load - sweet.

• XML site map

  

  The SatNav of the SEO world, helping search engines search and index your websites so they know what’s new and important. The site maps even update automatically when new content is added.

• Metadata and more

  

  No-one knows your business or product better than you. Get your hands dirty - quickly and easily add and edit the metadata associated with each page to improve your visibility to search engines.

• Responsive design

  

  We optimise your website for multiple browsers on various devices. Create a seamless experience between smartphone, tablet and desktop, or be punished by your search results!

• Speed and security

  

  The faster your site loads the more love search engines give it and it is not running on HTTPS then you may as well stay on the 2nd page of results forever. We can migrate your site onto HTTPS smoothly.

• User experience

  

  We take time to think about UX and the customer's journey. Visual stability is a key feature of User Experience that is recognised by search engines as a ranking factor. Don’t let bad design let you down.