Our Services - How We Can Help With Search Engines

The Issues and Goals
Client: www.OntarioHouse.net - Salthill Galway.
Goal: Achieve good search results for chosen 'Search Phrases'.

We had designed OntarioHouse's first website back in 1998 (you can see the old one here). From 1998 to 2002 it was receiving pretty good search results, but come 2003 it had begun to slip in the 'Search Engine Rankings' (SERs) - this was partly due to the arrival of many similar websites on the scene from 2000 onwards.

It is this continuing changing nature of the available content in the Internet that makes modernising and updating of your website, extremely important if you want to appear high up in search engines results over a long period of time.

These new websites provided a lot of new competition in Search Engine Rankings (SERs) for 'Search Phrases' like 'Bed & Breakfast Salthill', 'B&B Salthill' and 'Accommodation Salthill'. As a consequence the old site developed in 1998 was not achieving the search result we may have liked.

In early 2004 we set out to improve on this situation.

Our Methodology (Search Engine Friendy Coding & Great Design)
The coding methods used to build / develop a website are immeasurably important! It is the coding methods used that will determine whether or not it will be found in search engines. It is easy for a good graphic designer to produce a visually attractive web page, but unless it is properly constructed, you may as well print it out, frame it and place it on your wall - as you are going to be the only one who ever sees it!

This does not have to be the case, insist on having the best of both worlds, great web design and a properly constructed website!

First we purchased an 'proper' domain name for our client and hosted it on on Irish server - hosting locally is vitally important (a cheap US / UK based server is no good). We then re-designed their website, producing an eye catching, memorable and extremely user friendly interface (you can navigate to anywhere on the website with ONE click), then we built it using 'search engine friendly' coding techniques.

Next we chose a set of 'Search Phrases' (i.e 'Bed & Breakfast Salthill') that we wanted to achieve good search rankings for. We then wove our magic and proceeded with a monthly 'search engine optimisation' program until we got the results we wanted for our chosen 'search phrases' (Key 'Search Phrases' are possible terms that a user may use to locate a business like yours when searching online).

For this client the important key 'search phrases' were deemed to be:

1. 'Bed & Breakfast Salthill'
2. 'Accommodation Salthill'
3. 'B&B Salthill Galway'

The Results Achieved!!!
As of January 2005 - these are the results we achieved with our optimisation of www.OntarioHouse.net all of these appear on the first page of search results!

Targeted search phrases

1. 'Bed & Breakfast Salthill'
   Result as of Jan 2005 - 1st position in Google.com
   Result as of Jan 2005 - 3rd position in Yahoo.co.uk
   
2. 'Accommodation Salthill'
   Result as of Jan 2005 - 1st position in Google.com
   Result as of Jan 2005 - 4th position in Yahoo.co.uk
   
3. 'B&B Salthill Galway'
   Result as of Jan 2005 - 4th position in Google.com
   Result as of Jan 2005 - 2nd position in Yahoo.co.uk
   

These are pretty good result for a business website that sees a lot of competition in its area (both geographic & virtual). This business had over 1400 individual visitors to its website in March 2005 (we can prove this) - for a small business that a lot of virtual knocks on the door! The majority of these visits were from search engines - these are targeted visitors (not random passers-by), they were looking specifically for this type of service & therefore they were much more likely to engage with our clients business!

We can apply the same techniques to promote your products or services online, contact us to find out how we can help you get visitors to your website!

A website should be more than an extension of your business card, it should be an asset that gives you a 'return on investment' (ROI) through good 'search engine rankings' and the visitors they bring to your website - contact us to find out how we can help you get visitors to your website!

Notes: Obtaining these results is not instantaneous, it takes time and unfortunately money. For a new website it can take up to a year to get where you want to be in search results (anyone who tells you otherwise is ill informed). Also search engine optimisation (SEO) is not a science, the search engines preciously guard the details of how their algorithms work, as a result SEO is more of a black art - guided by knowledge & experience.

There are a lot of factors that contribute to getting good search engine results. Some like the quality of your website you can control, other factors are outside reasonable influence. For example: it would be unreasonable to expect to get on the first page of Google results for a search on 'Microsoft Products' or 'books about cars' etc. But 'Microsoft Galway' that's possible!