Improving web / search engine hits

[SammySplodger]

Another point which came out of the databases thread.... I have separated these two points for clarity (ie: point 1 = what we call ourselves from point 2 = help with search engines & meta tagging our own websites.

A little thought here guys.
I'm not as computer literate as I'd like to be, so it may just be me being dim, I accept that, and please feel free to put me right!

It seems to me that when we do start to advertise ourselves we need to be careful what words we use to describe ourselves as far as the Internet search engines are concerned.
If we type in Childminder, childminding etc lots of details come up for us and whatever else we've typed in - eg Suffolk, Kent, Essex etc.
However, someone described themselves in the discussions as an Independent Professional Childcarer, which I quite liked the sound of, but out of interest I typed it into the Internet and the majority of info came up with Independent as the main word but not much in the line of Childcarer.
Parents aren't necessarily going to cotton onto the fact that we've changed our "brandname" as such and if they type in Childminder, which is how they universally think of us they're surely going to get "Childminder Agencies" before anything else.

I know this is a picky detail, and we are a way off of deciding this, but it needs to be thought of.

Exactly! THANK YOU! Fab point!
We can feed it into the website: We need to agree a 'job title' to alleviate confusion for Parents. Perhaps this can be the next thread?!

I will also look into tips on search engine submissions and meta tagging for our own individual websites - to add this into the marketing document... if Sarah hasn't included this already :-)

It is also really easy - and FREE- to be listed in Google maps. You just need to know how. Once done, it really highlights your business in a Google search.

I know how to do meta tagging for websites built using Moonfruit (wysiwyg), but I am very rusty on 'professional' sites built using code.
Does anyone have any contacts/suggestions?
Does anyone use Wordpress?

[loocyloo]

Pauline who has designed the independent forum does websites & did mine & did all the meta tag stuff ... I dont understand a word of it myself!

[SammySplodger]

Yes - will involve Pauline in this one :-)

[sarah707]

Yes Pauline is definitely the lady whose brain we need to plunder on this one... I wonder if she would be prepared to write a little bit for us?

Put it on your list of things to ask Sammy please!

[Pauline]

Away at the mo but will be glad to help, still lots of 'behind the scenes' stuff to be done on the website, the main thing at the time was to get it online before I went away

[SammySplodger]

Yes - thank you Pauline :-)
Looking fab so far!
Have a great holiday!