Based on this web sites log files you most likely found your way here via a relevant search on Google. Maybe a SERP (Search Engine Results Page) like Improve Search Engine Ranking or SEO Consultant.

Whatever keyword search you used, you almost certainly are looking for help to improve your search engine rankings (most likely for free :) ) and more than likely consider Google THE most important search engine to your web sites rankings.

How to Improve Search Engine Rankings

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a relatively straight forward set of quite basic techniques.

1. Create an optimized template/theme for your web sites pages: For example with WordPress (a very popular Blogging CMS, this site uses WordPress) SEOing the WordPress themes is a small business in itself (see Google AdSense Theme Site). Whether you use WordPress or individually hand made HTML pages, the general optimization is the same.

Having a search engine optimized template/theme means your title elements (title tags to the layman), headers, menu links, footers (everything except the main content) should be optimized without having to do much work (the theme should work for you).

2. Create search engine optimized content: It might sound obvious, but if your content doesn’t cover the SERPs you want, there’s no realistic way for your content to gain those SERPs. There are so many pages online today that do a brilliant job of covering content for the web sites visitors, but do terrible when it comes to describing what the page is about to the search engines.

For example the page you are reading is about Improve Search Engine Ranking, if you read the content you will note all those words are used a reasonable amount of times throughout the content and the page title is “Improve Search Engine Ranking”. A related SERP would be SEO Ranking, but if as I wrote this article I did not take the abbreviation SEO into account there would be no way for a search engine to know this page is also about SEO Ranking as well.

3. Incoming links/backlinks and PageRank (PR): Links, links and more links! With your well optimized theme and content you now need to find as many links to your content as possible without doing anything that the search engines (mainly Google) considers blackhat (blackhat SEO techniques = penalized content = low traffic!)

The best way by far to obtain links is to create content others will link to. This isn’t always possible, so take a look at the other pages of our site for ideas (lots of articles on gaining links via various methods).

Why is Search Engine Optimization so Expensive?

As you can read above the concept of search engine optimization is relatively straight forward. This might come as a surprise coming from an SEO consultant looking to take your hard earned money, but improving search engine rankings (Google rankings) isn’t difficult, at least what results in good search engine rankings isn’t a big secret only known by the select few.

Though like any specialty, if you don’t know much about the subject it might as well be advanced brain surgery.

If you know absolutely nothing about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) you might have even been naive enough to believe you build a good website and masses of visitors will swarm to it via search engines, because that’s how websites and search engines work!. Since you are reading this page you’ve realised it doesn’t work that way.

I have to admit to being that naive person over 10 years ago when I started my first website (ecommerce store). My search engine naivety soon vanished when it took weeks to take the first order and that order was paid for via Overture paid advertising!

Eventually I stumbled upon search engine optimization and by the end of the first year the site was seeing about 8,000 unique search engine visitors a day (and growing) and sold over £80,000 worth of stock. Not bad for my first try :)

Over a decade later I use the same SEO information and many more newly learnt skills to help other small business website owners to improve their search engine rankings, with a strong emphasis on Google rankings.

Paying for Search Engine Optimization Advice

For years I’ve offered an email based SEO service where for a monthly retainer fee I’m available to answer search engine optimization questions to small to medium sized businesses. To date I’ve not worked with a big name since the service I offer lacks the “bells and whistles” large companies tend to expect:

I don’t offer phone support – this is because the advice is almost always very detailed and complex, from experience a lot of important technical information is lost using this medium: fine for a business chat, but not for how to SEO a website since the person optimizing needs to keep referring back to the information supplied.

I never meet clients face to face – no need, all I need is one person in the company that can understand and follow instructions and as long as they have the authority to change a sites code/content things go smoothly.

If you’d like to talk to me about search engine optimization take a look at my SEO Consultant Quotes page.