Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization (SEO or website optimization) refers to the process of purposely designing and structuring your website to rank well on the search engines and so it’s the basic part of the success of your website. It helps your site get higher targeted site traffic, improved conversion rates and return on investment (ROI). Although there are some people out there who will do anything to try and trick search engines into raising their site’s ranking, this is a very dangerous practice and can lead to your website being blacklisted. Real SEO is less of a black art and more a set of common sense procedures for businesses to follow in order to capitalise on the volume of traffic generated every day from search engines both in the UK and around the world.
SEO
The term SEO has been adopted by industry consultants who carry out optimization projects on behalf of clients, and by employees who perform these services in-house. SEO efforts may involve a site’s coding, presentation, and structure, as well as fixing problems that could prevent search engine indexing programs from fully spidering a site (a process that’s crucial to getting a high ranking).
SEO techniques are classified into two broad categories: techniques that search engines recommend as part of good design and those techniques that search engines do not approve of and attempt to minimize the effect of, referred to as spamdexing. SEO is a science in itself and requires a full time effort to make sure your pages are optimized with keywords and phrases that are Google-friendly and up to date.
Search Engines
If you consider that around 80 per cent of first time visitors to your site will come in from one of the major search engines, the implications don’t need to be spelt out. Google and co. rank their results according to the frequency and location of the keywords used in the search and will also check to see if the keywords appear near the top of a web page, such as in the headline or in the first few paragraphs of text. Search engines are looking for well written copy that’s informative and broad in its scope. As optimizing your site ensures a better search engine position, and the higher a website ranks in the results of a search, the greater the chance your website will be visited it’s important to get it right - submitting your website must be done the right way, using the right tools.
Content is King
SEO is not just about following guidelines, you also need to ensure that the content a search engine indexes and subsequently ranks is the same content your visitors will see. Ask yourself: “If I were looking for the content on this page what would I type into a search engine?” Once you’ve thought of 3 or 4 good words/phrases, add them to your content.
Try to get into the habit of using descriptive and informative words when writing your content. If you aren’t the editor, it would be a good idea to explain this concept to whoever does write the content. If you’ve been involved in any aspect of marketing or website development, you’ll know that content is indeed king and, true to the phrase, the more content you have, the higher you will rank on search engines. With this in mind, make sure you focus on updating your site regularly with fresh content with great keywords interspersed, especially in the title and first paragraph. Obviously, it’s important that the words flow on the page and don’t simply read as a list of keywords.
Keywords are Crucial
Keywords and phrases will elevate your site to the top of the search results and must be presented to the search engines properly. Keywords, phrases, page titles, headers and footers are all analyzed by most search engines so it’s best to keep your title, description, keywords and content specific. Enter your keywords as a straight-forward comma separated list of words or phrases you think visitors may enter when searching for your site. Not all search engines index these keywords, but the ones that do give them a high priority in deciding where your site should appear in search results.
Don’t be tempted to stuff so many of your keywords into the text that it becomes unintelligible, repetitive or boring for the reader. Also, avoid generalizations and concentrate on the specific ideas behind the keywords. Normally the limit for a description is 2,000 characters, so get as many keywords in the description as possible, leaving out superfluous terms such as web, page and site which do not contribute to your ranking. Check your ranking in the different search engines on a regular basis to see how high your pages are being ranked and if necessary, consider changing your chosen keywords or phrases to raise the site’s awareness.
Raise your Rankings
A placement at or near the top of the search engine rankings will increase the number of searchers who will visit your site. Luckily, there are lots of ways you can try to improve your site’s position in search engine rankings, but if your site isn’t SEO’d properly in the first place, other site optimization methods like back links from other websites, Squidoo lenses and eForums won’t guarantee good rankings. You will need these links to be in place alongside lots of well-written content to get the higher rankings. You will only attract new visitors and earn lots of cash if your site is high in the search engine rankings, has many links pointing to it and stays that way.
