Blue Web is a web design agency based in Somerset, between Bath and Frome and provides web design and SEO optimised websites to businesses and non profit organisations from the south west of England to London and beyond.

The idea of SEO is to essentially attract new customers via Google and the other search engines, to you via your website. The great thing about SEO (organic search) is that it is essentially free.  The alternatives, including paid search (including Google Adwords) advertise your services via Google and also direct new clients to your website and can compliment organic search.

It's worth noting that Google tries it's best to rank those organisations it considers as the most important or credible organisations for specific key phrases. For example, this website appears on the first page of Google for the following phrases.

"Web design Bath", "Web design Frome" and other variations on this.  This is no accident, this website has been optimised for these phrases and others. So here are a few basic tips to get your website on the first page of Google.

1. Think about the specific phrases that someone would actually type into Google to find your type of organisation, and be as specific as possible, for example, it's no good saying "I need a dentist" this might work if the web browser location search is active, but not if it's inactive as any website worldwide might appear in the results.
2. Include the above specific phrase as a priority in the content and title on your homepage.
3. Get backlinks (links from other websites) from authoritative websites.
4. Write interesting, relevant and compelling content, that demonstrates your expertise on your subject.
5. Don't over optimise your site or try to trick Google using damaging (Black Hat SEO) techniques.
6. Write meaningful URL's that support the content and utilise long tailed keywords.
7. Use categories and tags to aid users in identifying content, but don't overuse.
8. Install Yoast SEO plugin if you need further guidance on writing for SEO.
9. Check Google Analytics and webmaster tools for keyword searches.
10. Use web links across your website and outbound to relevant content.

Google advises that your web designer is in the best position to advise on optimising your website, SEO as a separate industry is no longer relevant or useful and can be damaging to a site if done incorrectly.

So don't employ so called SEO experts, that claim to have all the answers. To check the credentials of any SEO company, check to see if they are at the top of Google for the key phrases for their core business, if they're not at the top of Google, can you trust them to get your business to the top?

By the way, if you want the to know the most important secret to being at the top of Google get in touch, we can't broadcast our IP to the world!

Could the people that contact you via your website be just the tip of the iceberg?

Every day people browse the web using Google primarily, on their mobiles, ipads, laptops etc. People are looking for your products and/or services.

You only become aware of this when someone seemingly 'out of the blue', contacts your business with an enquiry.

What you are probably not aware of, are the number of people that either:

1. Looked for a business providing your products and services, but didn't find your website.
2. Found your website, but immediately passed over it for another one.
3. Looked at your website in some depth but still went elsewhere.

For every person that contacts you from your website probably another 99% or more didn't and chose 1,2, or 3. You may be totally unaware that 1,2 and 3 are happening at all, but rest assured it is.

So how do you ensure a greater percentage actually contact your business instead of the competition?

Blue Web recognises that every business is different and we see it as our task as an external observer of your business to help define and promote the unique customer benefits that your business offers. We try to stand in your customers' shoes to understand why they buy from you, then work with you to define a compelling proposition that is delivered by your website. When you work every day in a business it can be difficult to stand outside the business and see it from your customers point of view.

We tackle 1,2, and 3 with you as follows:

1. Finding your website is due to effective Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), deciding what phrases your web pages need to be optimised for. Optimising the website, code, structure and content.
2. Making your website immediately compelling and engaging, modern and functioning on all devices. We examine the visitors journey from the landing or home page to enabling easy contact with your business.
3. This is the hardest step, as the potential customer is almost ready to contact you, they just need a little more incentive. This is down to using analytics to examine the potential clients journey across your website. Tweaking the content and messages to ensure they want to contact you.

Blue Web delivers the above through discussion with all our clients and consulting over a number of meetings and then providing ongoing support. The result is a bespoke designed website that delivers new customers, how many new customers do you need for a worthwhile investment of your and our time? Contact us to discuss how we can help improve your business.

A business website in Bath or Bristol has one purpose in our view.....

To bring in business.

Whether directly through an online shop, or indirectly by convincing prospective customers to contact you with business enquiries.

It's that simple.

But how can a website do this? This is where it gets slightly more involved.

The following are required:

• Website traffic and
• A website that converts traffic into customers.

Various factors affect a website's ability to deliver Traffic and then convert this traffic into clients as follows:

Blue Web provides and helps with all these services to ensure our customers' websites deliver business results. Contact us for a free introductory discussion on how we can help grow your Bath or Bristol business.

Everyone's trying to sell you search engine optimisation (SEO),

Everyone tells you they can get your website to the top of Google (for a fee).

But who can you trust to get you to the top of Google?

Blue Web's customers receive initial advice without any charge on SEO as we believe advising our clients on SEO best practise and how to market your website are all part of our website design service. This advice is often sufficient to establish the business website as a leading business.

Every website designed by Blue Web includes on page SEO and we are fully aware of all the current methods to help our website design customers.

Remember, there is no silver bullet for website Google ranking, it takes time, persistence, knowledge of best practise, good well structured informative content and above all a popular, quality engaging website.

If a company contacts you and promises to boost your site to the top of Google, we recommend you put the phone down. A company that hasn't built your website does not have the ability to optimise your website for SEO and is therefore unable to fully deliver on these claims. Read more about Blue Web's SEO services.