Understanding Search Engine Optimisation

The Search Engines all have their own ranking algorithms, which are sets of rules that determine how to rank websites for search queries. We don’t know these algorithms exactly as they are not released publicly, but we have a good idea of what they generally are through testing and analysis. The aim of a search engine is to provide the searcher with the most relevant website for their query.

SEO Keywords

Choosing the right keywords or keyword phrases for SEO is very important in determining how well you will succeed in the Search Engine Results. The problem you face is that there are already a lot of websites out there ranking for popular keywords. It would almost be impossible to create a website and get it to rank well for “Apple iPod” as it is such a popular keyword phrase that will have a lot of established websites ranking for it already.

You want to describe your website but not too generically. If you run a bed and breakfast in the town of Exeter, don’t try and target the keywords “bed and breakfast”, try and target “bed and breakfast in Exeter”. When describing SEO for smaller websites and business I like to use the analogy of would you rather be a small fish in a big pond (trying to rank for bed and breakfast) or a large fish in a small pond (trying to rank for bed and breakfast in Exeter). You may think that more people will be searching for “bed and breakfast”, but then you need to consider that you might not even appear in the top 100 results or on page 8 or 9. Targeting “bed and breakfast in Exeter” will not only give you a better chance of appearing on the first page of Google, but will also send more targeted users to your website.

Onsite SEO

There are two main elements to SEO and improving your website and its rankings, Onsite and Offsite optimisation. Onsite quite literally deals with the on page elements of your website. If we want to appear in the search results for a selection of keywords, then we need to let Google and the other Search Engines know that your site is relevant to that search term.

There are various ways we can make our site more relevant to selected Search Phrases. See a break down below:

Meta Titles and Descriptions: Meta titles serve two purposes, they form the text that appears at the top of your browser when you visit a site or page and the piece of text that appears in Google when you make a search. For example this page has the meta title “Nexus Websites | Web Design Wigan | www.nexuswebsites.co.uk” which will appear in your browser and alse will be the title if you found this page in search engine results. The meta description is small description of each page that sits within the html code. The main use for this is to be the source of the description Google uses for its results. If you do not provide a meta description, Google may use some text from your page or just not give you one at all. Try and keep your titles to 65 characters in length and your descriptions to 150. These figures will stop any of your information being cut off in your Google result. Obviously the aim is to get your targetted keywords into your titles and description where they naturally fit and for pages they belong on. All pages should have unique titles and descriptions to make sure Google knows what each one is about and hopefully list them for your desired terms.

Domain Name: A lot of people underestimate the importance of including what they want to come under in the domain name. For example if my company name is Sharp Shovel yet I work in the scrap metal industry, a domain name like www.sharpshovel.co.uk would be great for people finding you under the business name, however search engines love when you include your keywords within the domain name (it has a large impact in ranking). www.scrapmetaluk.co.uk would be the ideal domain name to display the website under and then setup the business domain name as a redirect.

Sub URL’s: This also another important factor. And example would be www.nexuswebsites.co.uk/suburl.html <— the suburl.html is the sub url. Do you often see example such as this? www.nexuswebsites.co.uk/ihnioedir898923nfsfi21.php. This is in no way going to help your search engine listing. You want to include your keywords in the sub-url.

Image Alt text: Google cannot tell what is in a photo or image so we need to tell it via the image alt text. Ideally your pictures will relate to your keywords so you can use them in your description. If you had a website selling pet food and one of your keywords was “cat food” you could add alt text to a picture of a cat eating “cat eating some teasty cat food”. This describe what the picture is while including your keyword. For further clarification you can name your image files to include the keyword eg cat-food.jpeg.

Onpage Copy: If you have chosen your keywords sensibley and they reflect your website, then your keywords should fit naturally within the text on your site. When writing your text, try to include your keywords as much as you can but only where they fit and not in a spammy way. If any of your keywords relate to other pages on your site, feel free to add a link to that page using the keyword. If your pet food site had text on the home page describing the type of products you offer and you mention cat food, then why not add a link to your cat food page. It is also worth noting that your website content should be 100% original and should not be copied from other sites, if you copy your text, Google may mark it as duplicated content and this will affect your chances of ranking.

Headings: Whether they are H1 headings or just bolded text at the top of your page, try to include your keywords into your headings where they naturally fit. Being clear about what your page is about will not only help it rank in Google but will help the user understand your site.

Page Names: To help your pages rank for appropriate keywords, you can include your keywords in the page names. Hopefully you will have done this naturally, but it is suprising the ammount of sites that do not. If your website is selling pet food and you have a cat food page, it would be much better to have your site set up as http://www.daves-pet-food.co.uk/pet-food-products/cat-food.html rather than something like http://www.daves-pet-food.co.uk/product/product1.html

404 Error page: Many sites are set up that if you click on a broken link within a site or mistype a page name you will recieve an error message or a 404 error page. These pages usually are not SEO friendly, so if you set one up you should include some links to your main pages while including your keywords.

Html Sitemap: Create a html sitemap page that links to all the pages on your website, this will allow visitors to see all the pages on your site and help them get indexed in the Google Index.

XML Sitemap: Using free tools, you can create an xml sitemap that will list all the pages on your site in a format that can be read by the search engine spiders. This file should be placed in your site’s root folder so that appears like http://www.seofordummies.co.uk/sitemap.xml

Back Links: Backlinks are incoming links to a website or web page. Inbound links were originally important (prior to the emergence of search engines) as a primary means of web navigation; today their significance lies in search engine optimization (SEO). The number of backlinks is one indication of the popularity or importance of that website or page (for example, this is used by Google to determine the PageRank of a webpage).

Traffic Rank: Web traffic is the amount of data sent and received by visitors to a web site. It is a large portion of Internet traffic. This is determined by the number of visitors and the number of pages they visit. Sites monitor the incoming and outgoing traffic to see which parts or pages of their site are popular and if there are any apparent trends. Traffic ranking is known to have an impact on the PageRank of a webpage.

Google Webmaster Tools: To help you discover problems about your site and help understand how Google sees your site you should register for a Webmaster tools account. By adding a piece of verification code to your html you can access detailed information about your site.If you have a .com tld, you can tell Google you want to target searchers in the Uk. You can discover pages that have duplicate meta titles and descriptions.

Fresh Content: Google apprently likes fresh content on your websites and older websites that used to dominate the rankings with out dated content are finding their rankings slipping. One of the best ways to add new relevant content to your website is through a blog or news section.

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