02 January 2008
Wow! Thanks for all the great feedback on the 2008 Semantic web site. It's great to hear so many positive comments... not to mention clocking our new position on Google. As of today (2nd January 2007) this site comes up in the first page of results for the keyword "semantic"... that's 10th out of around 12,300,000 results*. Not too shabby...
A bit of history
Over the past year or so we've been tracking in the 80-120 range for keyword "semantic". I've been happy with that because a) we don't rely on clients arriving out of the blue via search, and b) because Tim Berners-Lee accidently spoiled search for us a few years ago*.
But of course for a lot of our clients the search engines are a VERY BIG DEAL INDEED as Pooh Bear would say... so it matters. When we took the decision to avoid offering dedicated Search Engine Optimisation service, we did so knowing that almost everything that we do offer continues to have a profound effect on our Client's ranking. Design. Check! Content. Check! Accessibility. Check!
It. All. Matters.
So what's changed?
Because we are a web design agency we've always been lucky enough to have a lot of sites pointing at us, but in the past our own site's development has tended to be squeezed in between "real" projects. The most positive way I can say this is that we've focused our time and skills on our Clients sites, rather than our own :-)
But no more. The new Semantic site is a poster child for all the accessibility and usability work we have done over the past couple of years. It's been rebuilt from the ground up... a site that looks great, works great and de-grades gracefully for users who have special access needs. I am really proud of it.
And I'm not alone.Google's Search Bot, lest we forget, is blind... so the work we have done here to support users with special needs in turn supports us through a hugely improved Search Ranking. Of course their is no guarantee that this will last... but it's nice to see our principles delivering real results... it's great to be Top 10!
*I'm checking all the world's web pages but Google knows where I live (and probably my bank balance) so is probably weighting the results towards UK sites... but that's fine by me.
**When Tim Berners-Lee (the creator of the World Wide Web) coined the phrase "Semantic Web" to describe the next evolutionary stage of the Internet we were as surprised as anyone... total coincidence, and of course it unleashed a huge flood of "semantic" pages online. It would be tricky to fight against that kind of tidal wave, even if you wanted to. Tim... we don't blame you. Thanks for everything!
Posted by Nick Warren at 5:05 PM
