Website Optimisation Tips – What You Need to Know About SEO

There's so much hype these days about 'search engine optimisation' (SEO) it's difficult to determine what works and what doesn't.  Following a few simple rules should give your site the best chance of being picked up by the major search engines...

First, what exactly do we mean by the term 'Search engine optimization'?  Essentially it means making sure your website content is helping you achieve strong rankings on the major search engines like Google.  This in turn means you are more likely attract more traffic directly to your website – which means more customers and more business.  There are countless SEO specialists out there, many of whom promise excellent results - but it can be an expensive process.  So what can you do yourself to give your site the best chance of being noticed? 

The essential ingredients are:

• plenty of written content that includes key search terms your visitors may use to find your site
• plenty of inbound and outbound links relevant to your business
• headings and page titles which include relevant keywords or phrases

One of the most effective, proven methods to achieve strong search engine rankings is to publish frequent articles online relating to your business or industry, making sure you include links back to your website.  This serves 2 primary functions: it helps raise awareness of your business, positioning you as a serious player in your field.   Secondly, IF your articles are getting picked up by the search engines, it will vastly increase your chances of being picked up in an online search.  Note, you can use your Immediasite website to do this quite easily - contact us for more information.

Written Content - with lots of keywords

When a search engine scans a website, it DOESN’T care about the colourful graphics and Flash animations you may be included in the design.  What it DOES look for is written content.  It is the words on the page that entice the search engines, so it’s important to include plenty of keywords and phrases (ie, the sort of search criteria someone might type into their search engine when looking for your type of business) in the text.

The first thing a search engine looks for is the header to your page.  So it makes sense to use headings which correspond to the search terms your target customers may be looking for.  For example, a page title such as ‘Immediasite Ltd - web designers in Berkshire'  will work better than ‘Our websites are the best’ because no one is likely to type ‘our websites are the best’ into their search engine…

'Keywords’ are the words and phrases your potential clients will be typing into their search engines when looking for your kind of business.   So it makes sense to incorporate as many keywords as possible into the content of your pages.  Naturally if you want to attract customers to your site, it pays to know what search terms they are typically using.    One way to find this information is to use a free online keyword tool such as Wordtracker.  There are a number of these resources available online, all geared to helping you fine tune your list of keywords.  Once you’re happy with your chosen keywords, start incorporating them into your site.

One of the real benefits of using Immediasite is that you can fine-tune the content of your pages quickly and easily, incorporating the relevant keywords and search terms into your text, headings, and page names.  Add regular articles to your site and start an email marketing newsletter campaign and you will soon have a powerful internet marketing machine working for you around the clock.