by Peter Knight - Wednesday, 5th September 2007 -

I have no idea how Google even counts the eight billion pages published on the web, never mind searches them all in 0.25 of a second, and quite frankly I don’t care.

But, what does concern me is how difficult it has got to find the things I want. Of even greater concern is the difficulties new clients may have in finding me.

Should you be concerned? Chances are your company is not the first one to appear on a web search, or even on the first page – and that’s when you actually type in your business name!

Don’t believe me? Well, if you really want to give yourself a scare, open up Google and type in a one or two-word description of your business, ie: “florist” if you sell flowers, or “insurance” if that’s your game.

Now, where do you rank? If you’re not on the first page, you’re invisible – hardly anyone bothers with page two and onwards.

I don’t know a single businessperson who doesn’t regularly use the web to find companies, suppliers and services.

However, many often struggle to even find the web address or URL (which stands for Uniform Resource Locator, don’t you know? I didn’t) of the company they were searching for in the first place.

So, what can you do to improve your performance? The good news is that there is a lot. The bad news is that there are few guarantees and the playing field changes daily.

As is the case with many things marketing-related, the whole process is shrouded in the cloak of the dark arts. Indeed there are now entire companies set up just to help people optimise their search engine ranking.

However, before you give them your money, let’s start with the basics that all businesses can do.

Consider which keywords people will use to try and find you or your competitors.

Repeatedly use these words throughout the copy on your web pages.

Where possible use your main keyword in your domain name.

Make sure keywords appear towards the top of your copy and include them in your page title.

Keep any one keyword to around three or four per cent of the copy – you may be penalised if you have a higher keyword density.

Include keywords close together, e.g. “children’s clothing” rather than “clothing to suit all the children in your family”.

Don’t be tempted to just have a Flash site. It’s better to incorporate Flash into your HTML site.

Most search engines can now read the text within the Flash files (also, make sure you title and tag each page) but you need HTML to be sure you are covered.

Although increasingly it’s the visible web pages that take priority, search engines also scan the source code (the invisible text behind your website) for “meta” keywords.

So where relevant, litter the text on your web pages with them, as well as hiding them behind the pages.

Include misspellings in your meta keywords list, along with unusual words relating to your business that you haven’t used in the page text.

Keep keywords relevant to each individual page’s content. Engines are sophisticated enough to assess significance in relation to other words in the text.

In the search listings, whilst some engines generate their own “description”, most will lift either your title and the first couple of lines of copy, or your hidden description tag, so keep these up-to-date too.

Try to include a site map on your website, accessible from the home page, which links back to all your other pages. Some search engines give prominence to pages only a couple of clicks away from your homepage – so this technique helps register your more “buried” pages.

Be aware that some search engines use your web “popularity” as a ranking criterion, so get as many of your clients and contacts as possible to link their website to yours.

You can submit your site to search engines for free, but for best results it is advisable to use one of the paid programmes of submission, and then re-submit your site whenever you make major changes to it.

Appoint someone within your company to keep on top of this. The search engines change their criteria all the time and you could find yourself going from number one to 100 in the space of a day or two.