mortgages.soich.com is a proto site, developed by Weboptimiser Ltd

Mortgages.soich.com was initially designed as part of the Soich group of proto sites, by search engine marketing company Weboptimiser Ltd., to provide a showcase of the lastest optimisation thinking in a client-neutral evironment in which to develop and test new techniques and technologies.

In fact, it was a unique opportunity for us to build a search engine and visitor friendly site from the ground up - and practice what we preach. The sites are used to turn Weboptimiser's pioneering vision of optimisation, in which performance improvements can be achieved at all four stages of interaction between a web site and its users, into reality.

Firstly, when it came to visibility, we used a variety of tactics to help drive traffic to the site, including a new approach to adding search engine friendly new content and the latest link building and coding strategies.

To optimise the site's functionality, to make it easy and intuitive for people to use, we made sure it was accessible to visitors using assistive technologies, to ensure our compliance with the Disability Discrimination Act. We also followed a series of usability criteria, including putting on-page items where people expect to find them and making sure that the navigation and content reflects the most popular search terms that people use to find the site.

Like the other proto-sites, Mortgages.soich is at the heart of a unique, collaborative project. As an intelligent bookmarking sytem, Soichmark is the driving force behind a unique collaborative directory project, called Soich. When someone finds a site they like, they can rate it, review it, save it or share it - this is soichmarking. Every Soichmarked site is then added to the Soich directory for other people to find.

To meet the challenges of the fourth cornerstone, economy, the site is based on a simple financial model of monetisation through contextual advertising. With keyword-rich navigation, tags and content and advertising focused on the most lucrative clickthrough commissions, income has risen steadily and exponentially.

As a result, since its launch in January 2005, Mortages.soich.com has played a pivotal role in researching how people find and use financial services web sites, and has proved a viable web property in its own right, while helping us perfect a variety of optimisation techniques,

To visit any of our other proto-sites, choose from: UK Mortgages News, UK Business News, UK Property News, UK Sport News, UK Loan News, UK Home News.