There's no point in having a web site if only you know it's there.

Just as advertising is more-or-less essential for a standard business, so search engines and directories are more-or-less essential for effective web sites.

Search engines deliver pre-qualified visitors to a site. What do we mean by that? Well, the information-hungry web surfer visits a search engine. They type keywords relating to the topic of interest. Links to relevant sites are displayed; the surfer selects some to visit. So, as he/she enters the site, we already know they have an interest in the site's topic.

This is great for web site owners - it's like people travelling for miles to get to a shop, knowing that what's inside should interest them.

Used properly, hidden tags (so called META tags) can be added to web site pages to help search engines index the pages in their databases. And there are other methods for helping search engines index sites effectively. We are experienced in the techniques involved in this search engine optimisation, as the following live demonstration will show.

Use the search engines and directories below to search for Maidenhead.

Search engines and directories Google open in this window • new window Open Directory Project open in this window • new window Yahoo open in this window • new window AltaVista open in this window • new window

You should find that our site, maidenhead.net, covering the Maidenhead area appears in the first page of results.

Another demonstration, shown below, shows a Google search for "internet web design berkshire" - and our ClockTowerWeb site (the site you are viewing now) in first position.

Whilst we can normally get good results for customer sites, we can't guarantee getting a site listed on any search engine. In fact no one can, so beware of any company that appears to offer this. But we are certainly aware of the methods of obtaining good results - see the Vidhya Lockyer site in the portfolio for a good example.