SEO Methodology

Website Report
This is the first step towards the optimisation of the site, with this document we collate all website information regarding their Search Engines status and becomes a benchmark on which to measure future improvement. It also provides a list of suggestions to be undertaken based on the findings.

The following items are included in the audit report.

A list of suggested keywords to be used for the website optimisation
I use specialised websites and tools to select the most searched keywords relevant to the website in order to maximise performance. There is little point to optimise the site using some keywords that people won't be looking for, you may end up being top of the list for some terms that none is searching.

Number of pages indexed with major Search Engines
This is to give an idea of how many of the web site pages the Search Engines have indexed in their listings; the more pages are indexed the wider the scope for optimisation.

Number or inbound links indexed with major Search Engines
This is to give an idea of how many inbound links to the website, inbound links are seen as a vote of confidence, the theory is that people would link to your site only if you have something interesting to offer. Google places lots of importance to inbound links when ranking sites.

Google 'page rank' for the website pages
This is to see how Google (the most used Search Engine and therefore the market leader) rank your page, the higher the 'page rank' the better.

Alexa ranking
This is an indication of the popularity position of the website on the Internet (Yahoo nº 1, Msn nº 2, Google nº 3 etc.) The position is updated periodically based on website traffic.

Number of visits and pages for the website
This is to give an indication on the amount of visitors the site receive and how many pages within the site they visit. This information comes from the website server statistics package

Number of visits provided by major Search Engines (Google, Yahoo and Msn)
Also called Search Engines referrers, this will give us an idea of how many visitors arrive to the site via the 3 major Search Engines. This information comes from the website server statistics package

A sample of Google, Yahoo and Msn results for the existing keywords, should any be available
A snapshot on how the site is performing with the major Search Engines based on the keywords used.

A commentary on the search engine friendliness of the site, and a list of suggestions to be undertaken in order to improve the search engine results
Once I collated all the above data, I will provide the client with a list of actions that I think should to be undertaken in order to improve the site ranking with Search Engines.

Agreement of the best way for amendments to be undertaken
Once the Website report is completed, usually there will be a meeting (either face to face or via telephone) with the client to clarify any existing doubts and decide the best way forward to collect material (if needed) and to decide who will undertake the proposed work. Usually I will undertake the work of modifying the web pages myself (provide the site is not dynamically generated) but some clients may prefer for this to be handled by their technical people, in which case I will liase with them underlining what is needed.

The client also may be asked to provide some material needed (mostly content and information about their business)

Proceeding with amendments
I will then proceed to implement the work and then there will be a waiting period for the search engine to update their listing with the newly updated pages. During this period we will be regularly monitoring any progress.

Finally
It is important to understand that, in order to maximise the chance of improvement, there must be an open co-operation between the client and us. Search Engine Optimisation is an ongoing progress not a one-stop shop. Content is the most important element of optimisation. "Content is king" and many companies fail to understand this basic rule concentrating on the company alone, rather than offering useful up-to-date information and highlighting the benefits it offers to the potential clients.