search engine optimisation

The UC4 Search Engine Optimisation service offers a practical and affordable way to ensure that potential visitors can find your web site via the leading Internet Search Engines. Four service options cater for the search engine management needs of most web sites, and we can also tailor a service to meet special requirements.

The service is also available for user maintained sites. In this case we offer advice on optimising the site to perform well with search engines and the user agrees to incorporate the initial amendments and any subsequent optimisation changes that may be needed.

Our Approach

Our approach to search engine management is based on a sound initial web site design plus a modest effort regularly applied to the task. Our experience suggests this is a good investment, which will give a handsome return in the form of new, well-qualified, visitors to your web site.

As the web develops, search engines are constantly refining and developing their search algorithms in an effort to improve search results. They continue to get better at recognising the "true" content of pages and at avoiding "trick" pages designed to fool them. For this reason we focus our attention on the site design, making it easy for search engines to index and analyse.

Regular ranking reports are produced showing where the site ranks in the search results of major search engines for agreed keyword phrases. The agreed keyword phrases are intended to give an indication of search engine performance in specific circumstances and so we would normally select the most common phrase likely to be used by potential visitors. However, by concentrating effort on your site as a whole, it will also improve the response to many other keyword phrases that potential visitors might use.

Finally, search engine management has to be a continuous process. There have been many short-lived claims of "automatic" systems guaranteeing top search engine rankings, but in the long run, manual submissions give the best results.

Our service options include the essential activities needed to ensure that your web site is registered with leading search engines and that potential visitors can find the site using agreed search phrases. The options offer a choice in the number of keyword phrases optimised and reported, the frequency of reporting and the speed of response.

Anticipated Results

Unfortunately, it isn't possible to guarantee a result with search engine rankings and neither is it necessary or practical for most sites to aim to rank at number one. We optimise more than 90 sites and so we know that results are influenced by many factors, but mainly by how hotly the agreed search phrase is contested and by how well competing sites are able to optimise their pages.

In the context of achieving a good return for effort spent in search engine optimisation, our experience shows that typical search phrases will rank higher than position 30 for a good proportion of major search engines at any one time and, for many sites, first page rankings can be expected for well optimised phrases.

Whether or not a top 30 or a top 10 result is satisfactory depends on how well your competitors are doing. Research shows that searchers are prepared to go down three pages to find what they want, and this suggests that a page three ranking is satisfactory. In lots of cases it will be, but if your competitor is on page two and offers a satisfactory solution, you are far less likely to get a visit. So, as always, it's important to keep an eye on the competition.

In fighting competitors for top listings, the law of diminishing returns takes over. As a result, it becomes expensive and the final outcome is likely to depend on who is prepared to devote the most resource to secure a top position.

Ranking Reports

Regular ranking reports include keyword-ranking data from the search engines. Both UK and US versions of some search engines are included. This is not so much to check the results of searches performed in other countries but because many users in this country have browser software which directs them to the US versions of search engines.