Search Engine Optimisation - the basics

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Search engine optimisation (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a website from search engines (Google, Yahoo etc) via "natural" search results for targeted keywords. Usually, the higher up a site is presented in the search results the more visitors a site will attract.

The objectives:

  • Identify an on-line market strategy for your business
  • Find what keywords potential customers are searching for
  • Web strategy is determined by the current on-line market

If you are responsible for marketing your business, some knowledge of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) techniques is important.

Google ranks web pages based on mainly two things: relevance and popularity. A page is relevant to a search term if it shows up in the title and body of the page. A page is popular if plenty of other websites link to it.

The text on your site need to include the words and phrases that best describe your web pages - but it is crucial to include words and phrases that people currently search with. They are useless if the average person won't enter them into Google.

Make a list of what you think are your keywords for each page, the Google Keywords Tool is a free service where you will be ble to check with Google what actual words and phrases people are searching on. One of the best keyword tools on the market is WordTracker.With this software, you can use the Keyword Universe to establish what searches are made based on the keyphrases your research has established.

Search engines have also decided that if other sites are linking to your site, it must be relevant and therefore it boosts its rankings. There are two main types of links that work best to increase your link popularity: links from other sites that focus on the same keyword phrases your site focuses on, and links from relevant categories industry-specific portals (such as visitlancashire.com,  visitbritain.com, enjoyengland.com and local destination websites). 

Basic tips for acheiving increased search engine rankings

  1. Find out how you rank online.
    Go to www.alexa.com - it will tell you what position your website holds against all others. The goal is to make that number lower.
  2. Sumbit your site to search engines.
    Do it personally; avoid "submission services" or software. You only need to do it once. Google's submission page is at: http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl
  3. Place relevant keywords in the title tag.
    The title tag is the text that appears at the top of the browser when a webpage loadsand it tells the search engine what the page is about. Don't use too many keywords, or make it too long. And always ensure the title tag text appears in the body of the page.
  4. Avoid link farms.
    Links are important but don't pay money for a link from another site. Google is cracking down on this link farm activity and it could demote your website position if it thinks you have been trying to artificially boost your rankings.
  5. Use alt tags on images.
    Alt tags are what describes images when you hover over one. They also 'tell' search engines what your images are. This will help them index your pictures and better serve readers with text-only web browsers.
  6. Build a site map.
    A site map helps search engines index web pages quickly. Google loves sites that have site maps.