Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Search engines can be a powerful way to channel targeted traffic to your website.  But, generally people will only click on websites links that are displayed on the first page of the search engines results.  Search engine optimisation is the process by which you can optimise your website so that your web pages rank higher in search engine results for certain keywords or phrases.
 

Search engine friendly website manager software

Firstly all Zeald websites are built on the same technology. We have many websites that are built on our technology that run very well, that produce great SEO results. Over the years we have worked with a number of New Zealand's top SEO specialists, combined with our own research and experience to ensure that our website technology is very search engine friendly technically speaking.  This means that the first step in SEO - making sure your technology is optimised, has already been done for you.  
 

Just some of the built in SEO Features

• Search engine friendly design and development process using CSS and avoiding table layouts and
• Automated generation of metadata
• Ability for you to edit meta title, meta description and meta keywords
• Ability for you to add and edit image alt tags
• Ability for you to edit all headings and content
• Automatic sitemap generation
• Search engine friendly URL's
• Ability for you to set 301 redirects
• Ability for you to set robots no follow tags
• Ability for you to setup templates for the automatic generation of search engine elements of page templates, using dynamic variables. IE the Meta title tag of a product page

SEO Optimisation Services

Zeald's Website Services team are experts in search engine optimisation.  Unlike other SEO organisations, they know the Zeald system inside and out, so they can skip past a lot of the unproductive steps of checking whether you technology is compliant, and get right down to productive recomendations about your content.  We can also make the changes for you, something most SEO organisations can't do.

Most importantly, since our Website Services specialists are able to provide a full service, from planning, design and optimisation right through to pay-per-click advertising - we can help you use your budget more wisely, eg making sure your content is persuasive before investing heavily in SEO, or using other methods such as pay-per-click advertising or social marketing which might deliver more return in some instances.

Zeald's recomendations around SEO are always based around a philosophy of long term improvement to your content - we have always avoided so-called "black hat" techniques that some SEO organisations use, which while they can give you a temporary boost, eventually result in google reducing your ranking or even blacklisting your site.

Third party SEO

There are a lot of other SEO companies out there.  A lot of them are fairly dubious, either using "black hat" techniques, or people with no real knowledge and experience essentially selling "snake oil".  But there are some good ones too, we've worked with many of them over the years.  If you've got and SEO you work with that you'd prefer to use, there's nothing stopping you.  
 

DIY

Of course hiring a specialist comes at a cost. Seo services are very time intensive and you are paying for their specialist skills. If you have the creativity, the technical confidence and the time, you may wish to take on the SEO mission yourself. In which case we have a number of great articles to get you started....

There are 3 major areas that search engines use to rank your website:

1. Target search phrases that your customers are using to find your products and services
2. On-page optimisation based on the target search phrases
3. Off page optimisation IE. Links, based on the target search phrases

We are going to look at each of these areas in detail, but before we do– the rules or algorithms that search engines use to rank web pages, change constantly.  If search engines are a key part of your website promotion strategy and you are in charge of it, then it is imperative that you keep up with what is happening in the search engine world.  The best resources that we have found on the Web for keeping abreast with changes are: 

• SEOmoz
• Search Engine Watch

We are not going to look at any of the more advanced forms of search engine optimisation as these methods can change quite drastically over a number of months. 

In this section we will cover the fundamentals of search engine optimisation.  It is recommended that you look at the sites above for a detailed view of the advanced concepts of search engine optimisation