We often get asked a) how a client can get their website further up the search engines and b) what do we do to "optimise" IFAPortal websites.   

Optimisation is not a word we like to use - as we don't attempt to manipulate the search engines, instead we focus on building the best websites for IFAs that we can.  We provide a vast library of current, reliable comprehensive information on a range of financial subjects, which is delivered into your websites in a form that search engines can easilly spider/crawl.

Our websites offer functionality in the form of calculators, plugins and market information , which give your visitors good reason to use your website regularly and link to your websites, and the search engines a good reason to index and rank it.

Of course we make sure your website uses metadata (keywords and description) that include the areas of advice you offer and your geographical area and when your site is live using your domain name, we submit an XML sitemap to Google so that they are aware of every page of your website  - we also submit your domain to Google and a wide array of other search engines and directories, usually a couple of weeks after its been live.

But... how well your IFAPortal website ranks is more up to you than us. For quite a while now a large factor in ranking particularly in Google has been something called "pagerank".  This is essentially a score each page of your website receives based on the quality and relevance of websites that link to yours and the relevance of the websites that you link out to. 

It's a good measure too - hard to manipulate - as reciprocal links tend to net each other off, and linking is something that happens naturally if your website is a valuable source of information. You can't force someone to link to your website!

Rather than spend money and time trying to manipulate your website to comply with what you believe the search engines want to see, I'd urge you to concentrate on building the best resource you can for your clients and visitors alike. Ask people to link to you if it is relevant but don't where it isn't.  Get yourself listed in relevant trade directories, with a link to your website if possible, but most of all focus on building a resource for your visitors (and not the search engines) that strives to be an authority on its subject.

The links and ranking will come, but it won't happen overnight.