| Search Engine Optimisation Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is regarded as important as the content, design and development of any successful online presence. Successful SEO can help a site reach targeted goals much sooner than possibly imagined, simply by adhering to simple rules and guidelines and implementing these methods in such a way that is friendly to all online search engines. SEO campaigns can range from targeting a particular product or service on a website, to the majority of its content and its overal subject matter. Generally a client will wish to freely advertise their website on the internet with the most popular search engines in the most efficient and successful way possible. Welcome to SEO. Design and Content Although sometimes overlooked, the actual design and content of a site can drastically help increase search engine rankings and ensure that they stay there. A good way to ensure that a site’s content is meeting the demands of its visitors is to find out the exact keywords that are regularly being used to find the client’s site. Are the keywords used applicable to the client’s site or its content? Are visitors leaving via single access pages*? There is much information that looks to be looked at and analysed before any actions should be undertaken in order to increase a site’s rankings on the top search engines. This can be done via log file analysis. Log File Analysis An important aspect to any site’s day-to-day running are its log files. These files contain a plethora of information regarding visitor link paths, entry pages, what products they may be looking at and more. By analyising these logs it is quite simple to discover where the site is succeeding/failing. Are the client’s visitors reading their most important content? Are they finding what they’re after? More importantly, is the site’s content deliving to its wanted visitors? Are the right users visiting the website? If the answer is no to any of these questions, then SEO may drastically help the performance of the client’s site and its sales. Taking Action We should now have a good idea as to where the client’s visitors are going on their site and whether or not they are using their site’s content to the best of its ability. If we’re noticing a lot of single access pages, then obviously we’re attracting the wrong visitors. Its time to update our keywords and/or content. If the visitors we’re attracting are using keywords that accurately reflect what they’re looking for, then the site is doing well. It may not be ranked as highly as we’d like – but this can vary a lot with any number of search engines. Depending on the keywords used, we may wish to add/subtract content or even alter our content to better reflect the keywords used with our client’s website. Steps to follow when using SEO in regards to Design & Content A little extra content here and there on any website can help update the rankings on any search engine. For this reason, there are a few little steps we can use to help increase those rankings with quality content. Images have ‘alt’ attributes: Any image displayed on a page has an attribute known as an ‘alt’ attribute. This attribute was first implemented so that non-graphical browsers could see what the image was through text, or view a description of that image. Now, with SEO being such an important aspect of successful website design, the alt attribute offers a great way to help optimize each page. You can easily provide a description or summary for each image that may also include important keywords for your site. Descriptive page titles: Descriptive titles for each page can help improve search engine rankings by once again providing important key words in its desription. Meta tags: Meta tags can help provide a simple way to increase your site’s search ranking. They allow you to list your desired keywords and even provide a description for your site. However, meta tags are nowhere near as heavily weighted as what they once were and some search engines even ignore them. Site Maps: Although not as heavily used as they used to be, site maps can be very useful in regards to SEO. By providing links to every page in the client’s site from one location, you can be sure that each page of the site is crawled by search engine’s spiders and crawlers. Simple Site Heirarchy: Keeping a site’s navigation simple ensures that visitors can get to where they want, fast. Information is only a few clicks away and this also helps search engines crawl your site. Remember, the more easily accessible the information on a client’s site is, the more valuable the site is. Search Engine Preparation & Submission: Before a site can truly make use of SEO, it first needs to exist with the multitude of search engines already available. Site Directory & Search engine Submissions: Before a site is crawled by a large search engine it can often help to first get the site listed with an online search directory. What’s the difference between a search engine and search directory? Simple. An online search directory is manually managed by humans, rather than a computer. The benefits of this are two-fold: you can get your site recognized quicker, because its already linked with an ‘affiliate’ site and 2. the site will be crawled sooner by the larger search engines, meaning SEO can start as soon as possible. Search engines may also have the option to submit your site manually, but these can take quite some time to list. Site Map Submissions: Some search engines like google have an option to manually upload an XML document (or similar), which contains the site heirarchy for all pages of your site. This can be an invaluable resource as it means that all the site’s pages will already be listed when the site goes live on that particular search engine. Internal Site Links and Link Topography: Link topography is an important aspect of search engine rankings and can even penalize you for ‘spam’ linking. In its simplest form, you don’t want all pages linking to every other page as they could be flagged by search engines as a possible link scam. This is also true for external links, including web rings and link pages. Conclusion SEO is a rather fickle process that changes from search engine to search engine. There is no guaranteed formula as to the success of your SEO, nor is there any hard and fast rules that anyone can abide by. However, there are some simple guidelines that can be followed in order to help your page ranking with various search engines. I have outlined the steps below.
Relevant Links and Information Log File Analysis and its relation to SEO Using Negative Keywords for Google AdWords Dealing with new content Link Topology SEO Chat Google Ranking Factors Wikipedia’s Description and Information on Search Engine Optimization Search Engine Optimization Basics Vocabulary Single access pages. These pages are generally the first entry page of a visitor, but they leave as the content they’re delivered does not suit what they’re searching for. Link Topography. The way in which a site’s links work internally. Entry paths. Leading particular visits to separate areas of the site. Ie. Small, medium & large business products should have their own paths, not just their own pages. |
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