Intelligent Optimisation, search engine optimisation techniques from Helvellyn Consulting

HELVELLYN CONSULTING

Intelligent Optimisation - Helvellyn Consulting’s approach to SEO

The purpose of this page is to give the reader a basic overview of what Search Engine Optimisation is all about and to explain more specifically to provide a case study of one our clients for whom we do SEO work, using what we call intelligent optimisation. It also provides a glossary of SEO terms.

Overview

Our client runs a holiday accommodation and attractions website. There are literally billions of web pages on the internet and this means that most search results bring back literally tens if not hundreds of thousands of pages of results. When it comes to searching for holiday accommodation, the chances of recognition are even more difficult for an individual owner, as most of the sites that come up for searches on the first few pages (and if you're not on page 1 or 2 of the results then forget it) are often the home pages of web sites with hundreds if not thousands of other similar properties.

This is not just frustrating for the accommodation owner, it is also frustrating for the holiday maker, as they often end up having to do a "double search" - find the website, then go on the website and search again to find a suitable property. As a result what increasingly people tend to do is put in a very specific search phrase into the search engines. Anyone looking for a hotel with a swimming pool in Brighton is not going to put just the word "hotel" into google, unless they have a lot of time on their hands…

Intelligent optimisation

We have found that of the 40,000 odd visitors a month visiting our clients web site, they tended to use up to 35,500 different key phrases, so while we optimised the site for more general phrases (for example "holiday accommodation and attractions in the UK", and "property types in location" combinations), we also used "intelligent optimisation" for individual property owner listings on the site. The aim was to get individual premium properties listed on the organic results pages (as opposed to sponsored results) for specific key phrases relating to their property. This is intelligent optimisation. Specific examples which all achieved google page 1 ranking included "Luxury Lake District B&B", "Luxury cottage in Fife", and "luxury large self-catering cottage in Wales".

Glossary of SEO terms

Key Phrases - the words and phrases that people type into the search boxes of the search engines
Natural or Organic Results - the "real" results returned by the search engines to specific searches that appear on the main page, as opposed to the
Sponsored Results - which appear at the top and right hand side of the search results pages and are "paid" adverts listed by companies who have a
Cost-per-Click (CPC) - campaign with the search engines. Basically you bid to have your website displayed as a sponsored result for specific key phrases, and pay the search engine every time someone clicks on your link
SEO - Search Engine Optimisation - making sure your website is designed so it performs well on all the major search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN) for relevant key phrases
Intelligent Optimisation - what Helvellyn Consulting does to ensure client web sites perform well in the natural results pages
Metas - also called meta tags - actually the meta title, meta description, and meta keywords associated with each page on a website and used by the search engines as part of their index of all the sites and pages on the web.
Authority Site - one considered by the search engines as a primary source of relevant and original content, as represented by a high
Page Rank (PR) - Google's ranking of how important a site is, ranked from 0 (not good) to 10 (Google and the BBC!). Sites are also measured on the basis of their
Alexa Ranking - a website that monitors visitor numbers to a site and ranks them according to traffic numbers to sites across the whole internet. So Google is number 2, Yahoo number 1. This is also further broken down by country, where we have an Alexa ranking of 38,675.

So what to do next?

Well we hope this brief article has explained some of the basics. To find out more, and to see what we can do to help your SEO campaign, then please contact us.

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