Basic Search Engine Optimisation

There is a lot of coverage in the technical press currently about search engine optimisation and how, by making some simple changes, it can increase traffic to web sites.  But how straight forward is it to make those changes?

If you want to find something on the internet, chances are you will use a search engine such as Google, Yahoo! or MSN/Live.com. You will enter your search terms, hit the button and be presented with a list of search results. How do those sites manage to be listed on the first page of results? Is there anything that can be done to help your site be listed there for terms appropriate to your site?

Well, yes and no. To an extent you can help to encourage search engines to index (or read) your site and remember it. There are two types of Search Engine Optimisation – organic and paid. Both have their benefits but ultimately a combination of the two can be hugely effective. My personal opinion is that you should spend more time on the organic SEO – the reasoning being that users are more likely to trust organic listings as they are deduced from an algorithm rather than how much money the advertiser has paid.

Paid SEO
Paid SEO involves using programmes such as Google AdSense to deliver messages to search engine users

Pros:

• Controllable – message, costs
• Quick to set up
• Highly trackable – measureable ROI

Cons:

• Competitive and saturated market
• Commercial feel – less credible
• Requires time and effort to get it right

Organic SEO
Organic, or natural, search listings are the more traditional search results which are returned when a search is performed.

Pros:

• Can produce strong results based on relevancy
• Credible source – not commercial incentive to be listed higher
• Sustainable way of acquiring users

Cons:

• No direct control over position in rankings
• Dependant on search engines not making changes to their methods
• Can optimise too far and cause damage

Simple activities to perform to enhance search engine placement
Produce, high quality, unique content that labels you as authoritative

Google is uses many factors in ranking pages, but high up the list is incoming links – people linking to your page.

By producing useful, relevant content, other sites are more likely to link to your site which increases your worth to Google. The more links, the more authoritative Google believes the page to be and it will increase your ranking accordingly.

Blogs are an excellent way of producing content for this purpose.

Choose outgoing links carefully

Google also looks at who you link to. If you link to sites such as Joe Bloggs personal home page, a page that has little credibility, your page is liable to be downgraded. If, however, you are linking to credible sources such as the BBC, FT, your site will gain additional worth as Google will believe you to be providing useful, relevant links to further information about the subject of the page.

Keep the content short

Attention span on the web is even lower than print media. Articles should be kept concise to keep visitors attention. Long rambling pages dilute the the keyword ratio – the number of keywords that people will search for compared to other words.

Ensure web site is coded according to web standards

Many sites, especially older sites have incredibly messy code. Google only scans the first x number of characters before it gets bored and moves on. If you have a mess of code on the page before you get to any content, there is a change Google will never actually reach the content.

By having neat, well-structured code, Google can easily read the content of your page and index it effectively. It can identify meaningful links between pages on your site and externally and weight your page accordingly. Google can only scan what is put in front of it so it is worth making the effort to ensure it scans useful content

Name pages carefully

The single most important aspect of a web site is its title – the line of text in the blue bar at the top of the window. This is what Google will display in its results and what will entice users to click on the link and visit your site.

Compare these examples:
“Widgets.com – the widget store”
and
“High quality Widgets at low prices, shipped for Free to UK addresses: Widgets.com”

Think about which is more likely to be clicked on if it appeared in a results page.

Ensure relevant meta data is added to each page

Meta data is information about each page, it’s title, description, keywords. This is not the factor it once was, however, it can put a page over the top in terms of ranking. Think carefully about the content of each page and customise the title, description and keywords for each based on what you think users will search on to find that page – think laterally! There are some tools available that can help with what users search for.

Summary

This only scratches the surface of the potential of organic listings. There are many more techniques that can be applied to better your chances of good listings. It is important to remember when discussing organic listings that there are no guarantees – only the search engines know the exact criteria that determine their rankings, these techniques represent current best practice.

Organic and paid for listings should complement each other. It is worth making the effort for good organic listings for their better credibility and long term sustainability. However, paid for listings are ideal should you need to get a message out quickly.

It should be noted that the search engines have rightly taken a hard line against spam and web sites that propagate spam and other types of online attacks such as phishing. Large companies such as BMW have been removed from Google in the past for using what are known as ‘black hat’ or underhand search engine optimisation techniques. Stay focussed on your site and related keywords and you will be fine.

Posted on Monday, October 23rd, 2006 at 8:41 pm