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Having a website is all very well, but will anyone be able to find it? What words or phrases will they use when they search? Search Engine Optimisation is what you need!
Search Engine Optimisation is the process of optimising a website so that it is visible to search engines.
One of the most common misconceptions is that building a website and launching it will bring the search engines flooding in to index it, and then anyone searching on any of your products or services will find you instantly, and you will be first on the list. In the real world this is simply not true. Whilst this may have been the case a few years ago, it is not the case now – getting good position and rank is an involved process, and search engine optimisation processes need to be in-built to your site from the very beginning.
In need of Search Engine Optimisation - does this sound familiar?
• We launched our site weeks ago and I still cannot find it!
• I can’t find my company site when I do a search on our company name!
• Someone just did a search on our name and another site is above us in the results!
Search Engine Optimisation is the process of optimising your website so that it is “Search Engine Friendly” and is an important aspect of building a website that has high visibility on all major search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN and Altavista etc). In order to optimise your website we will ask you for the keywords and phrases that best describe and define your business. We will then conduct research and produce some further keywords and phrases that are actually being used by people searching for your kind of product or service. Each page can be subtly optimised to a certain set of keywords and phrases, enhancing your website’s overall visibility.
The Search Engine Optimisation process has several distinct and clearly defined steps.
Existing status tested
The first step in Search Engine Optimisation is to perform an analysis of your current site to gain an understanding of the target audience and keywords/search terms.
Keywords provided by client (known as a ‘client keyword set’)
A critical aspect of Search Engine Optimisation is the process of gathering keywords. You as the client and website owner provides a set of keywords you believe best describes your business or service (this set should ideally be no less than 10 words or phrases). You may wish to canvas your own customer base to see what they would use as a search term when looking for these particular products or services. This is beneficial as it gives a wider view of what search terms are actually being used or are likely to be used by those outside the ‘company based' viewpoint.
Competitor websites
An important part of Search Engine Optimisation is gathering information about competitors' websites. We examine the sites of your competitors to optimise your own website (research into competitors' site content and use of keywords is important in understanding the market).
Client keywords analysed (known as a ‘client keyword set’)
Your 'keyword set' will be analysed to check for optimum effectiveness.
Suggested keywords researched (known as a ‘suggested keyword set’)
Based on research of competitor websites and actual search terms being used for this market on all major search engines, modified keyword sets will be recommended where necessary.
Implementation of keywords
Once approved, the next stage of Search Engine Optimisation is the implementation of the agreed keywords/phrases into the website. This keyword set will be implemented into the current website using various methods (explained below).
Optimised website tested
The website will be tested and analysed for optimisation strength.
Website submission to search engines
One the most important aspects! The website will be submitted to search engines and directories. If Search Engine Optimisation has been correctly carried out, search engines will take great glee in indexing your site on a regular basis!
Link generation and other tactics
Other tactics will be discussed including inward link generation, press releases etc. Search Engine Optimisation is an ongoing process and not simply limited to a single 'makeover'.
Tuning and tweaking
Search Engine Optimisation requires ongoing maintenance, tuning and tweaking.
When we perform Search Engine Optimisation on your website, we use tried and tested methods of optimisation. Here is an explanation of some methods used in optimising the website;
The Title tag
The most important tag on a page is the ‘Title’ tag. It carries a lot of weight with the search engines. The Title tag should carry as much keyword information in it as possible. The Title tag is also the part of the page that is used to create the ‘link’ text in search engine results.
Meta Tags
Meta tags are devices that are placed in the code of a web page to perform specific functions and provide specific information to a search engine. For now, we are only interested in two of these tags, ‘Description’ and ‘Keywords’.
The ‘Description’ tag should contain a short description about the contents of the page, and be specific to that page only. Description text is the descriptive text that appears as the brief description in search engine results. An exception to this rule is that some engines such as Google use the text content of the actual page to display the description. This means that different searches performed with different keywords produce different results.
Comments
Comments are another device used in the code of a page to lend weight to a keyword or keyword set by placing emphasis on them. Comments are simply snippets of text inserted into the code of a page as deemed appropriate.
Filenames
Another important aspect of SEO is filenames. Each image that appears on the website has a name and is referenced in the code of the page – this is also true for the names of the HTML pages. This is yet another opportunity to add keywords into your page content.
ALT Tags
ALT tags are devices that can be used on a website to show text in place of an image, if the image does not download or if the visitor does not wish to download images. It is therefore important that the ALT tag makes sense within the context of a page. ALT (which actually means ‘alternative’) is another good way of inserting keywords into a page.
Wherever possible, we will insert ALT tags into all image files contained within a site to further enhance optimisation.
Site Map
Using a site map is an excellent idea; not only does it aid a visitor who may be lost or not know what they are really looking for, it also fulfils a very important role for optimising the site further. A site map may be one of the last things that you do on a website since you will need to know what all of the pages are before you create one. A site map should be as basic as possible and preferably written in static html code with little or no other code in it. All links should describe their destination and (of course) contain as many keywords as possible. The site map file should also sit in the root of the server and be visible as a link from the front page of your site and from every content page in the site too.
Templates
Your template should be optimised to allow a search engine to ‘see’ the content easily.
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