SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION TIPS

Imagine that you are the absolute best in your field, the most highly skilled person in your industry.  But now imagine you never actually leave your office to tell anyone just how good you are. You never go out to see anyone so people never have the opportunity to find out about you or your business.  It sounds odd, but there are a huge number of websites that operate in just this way because they cannot be found by the popular search engines like Google and Yahoo.

Although the whole area of Search Engine Optimisation is something of a dark art, there are some simple rules which can be applied in order to get results. Here is an overview of the crucial elements which need to be ‘right’ in order for your site to stand the best chance of being found.

Header tags, page titles, and page names – your page names, page titles, and page headers should all include keywords relevant to your content.  For example, you homepage might have the title ‘Joe Bloggs Plumber in Berkshire’ and you might use the same as the heading on the actual page.  Someone searching for a ‘plumber in Berkshire’ is more likely to find your site.

Page content – never underestimate the importance of having quality copy on your site.  A search engine will always read words, not images, so it pays to spend some time getting it right.  Remember, what works well on paper (in your brochure for example) may not work well on the web.  Website copy needs to be concise, high impact, and should contain a high density of keywords and phrases which your target audience may be searching for. 

Reciprocal links – having links to and from other websites (particularly high ranking ones) is a good way to increase your own search ranking with the major engines.  Be aware that the links should be relevant to the content of your site.  If a search engine suspects you are simply adding tons of links in the hope of increasing your website’s chances, you may find your site blacklisted which will of course kill any chances of success.

Regularly changing content – another thing the search engines like to see if content that is changed or updated regularly.  Simply put, if your website just sits there for months on end without any changes, search engines will get bored and won’t bother to return for a while thus lowering your search ranking.

Submit URL to search engines – remember once your site is complete and ready to go live, always submit the address to the major search engines.  It may take a few weeks to get noticed – and it may get picked up automatically anyway – but it’s worth registering the site just the same.  Some SEO companies advise re-submitting the URL regularly although in our experience this makes little difference – and if you ‘over-submit’ you run the risk of being blacklisted.

‘Meta tags’ – in the early days of the web, meta-tags were THE way to get your site noticed.  Basically it’s a list of keywords and phrases which are imbedded in the code that makes up your site.  The problem is, so many people abused the concept (ie, by using vast lists of keywords several pages long…) that most search engines got wise to the scam and no longer bother looking for meta tags.  Some web designers still include them as a matter of course although the general consensus is that it certainly doesn’t help attract Google (the most popular search engine).

Following these few basic rules will help you achieve better page rankings, more traffic, and therefore more business via your website.