Without Search Engine Optimisation Your Website Could be Lost
So what is Search Engine Optimisation?
Building a great internet site is a wonderful achievement. But it could also be a complete waste of your time and money unless potential clients can find it. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is one way to ensure your site is seen in the most crowded marketplace ever conceived.
To understand Search Engine Optimisation you must first consider how people actually look for – and eventually find – products and services on the web.
Research shows that more than 80 per cent of the world’s 290 million internet users (10 million of them in Australia) use search engines to find what they’re after and this is why you have to gain an understanding of how search engine optimisation can benefit YOU.
There are many search engines available to consumers – the better known include Google and Yahoo! – but in general they all work the same way. Typically a person will enter a keyword or phrase into the search engine and immediately receive a list of recommended web pages, usually those which are ranking on the first page due to good quality search engine optimisation.
Internet users are impatient, which means they seldom scan though more than a page or two of search results, and generally only access sites listed at the top of the page. If you want to be seen, your site must not only appear on a list of search results, it must rank towards the very top.
Open a search engine and type in a word or phrase someone searching for your company might use – if you fail to appear in a prominent position, chances are your site has not been search engine optimised. Without optimisation, your site is about as effective as an advertisement floating in the middle of the ocean.
Search Engine Optimisation – How do search engines rank internet sites?
Search engines regularly dispatch ‘spiders’ or ‘robots’ (aka bots) to collect information on websites. Using an algorithm – a set of complex formulas or rules – the search engine evaluates each website’s relevance and then ranks it accordingly.
These algorithms are unique to each search engine, they are highly secret and they change all the time. But in general they all obey a basic set of rules. That means it is possible improve your chances of a better ranking by ensuring your website has the most appropriate content, and that the content is structured in a search engine-friendly way – this process is known as Search Engine Optimisation.
Search Engine Optimisation is not an exact science. It requires trial and error, and there is never a guarantee of success. But without Search Engine Optimisation your website is almost guaranteed of not being seen.
Of course there are other ways of reaching potential clients. You could, for example, spend money to advertise on a search engine, and only have your advertisement appear when people search for particular keywords. That is valid way to increase your chances of reaching customers. But studies have shown people using the internet tend to trust and visit the free listings more than paid listings.
How do you get started on Search Engine Optimisation?
First you need to find out if your site is actually being indexed by a search engine.
Open a search engine and type your company name in the search box. If you appear in the results it means that spiders or robots have located your site. They will place the site into a memory bank, and visit it from time to time to update their information.
If your site it not listed you could consider submitting your site to search engines. This will not guarantee that they will list you, but it won’t hurt to try. A word of advice – do not submit your site multiple times as this will only annoy the search engine people, and you need to be on their good side.
Some search engines will not accept submissions – they prefer to find your site themselves. And some simply draw their information from other search engines (a disclaimer should alert you to this practice), which makes it pointless submitting your site to them.
Once you are confident your site is being indexed, you need to identify keywords – these are the terms a potential visitor might enter into a search engine when looking for your product, service or company.
Finding the right keywords is a pivotal component of Search Engine Optimisation. There are applications that allow you to test each word by showing how popular it is and how often it is used – the result might surprise you.
A good way to find keywords is to visit a competitor’s website and see what it has listed. To do this, open their site and click on ‘view source’ – a heap of what looks like gibberish will come up, but find a line which says
<meta name=”KEYWORDS” content=”</xmp”> and you will see a list of their keywords. Once you have decided on your keywords, you need to insert them into your own source code and through your site’s content. With the source code you may need assistance from whoever built your website (or someone with adequate knowledge of the program code). There are a number of places in the code in which you can insert keywords, including the keyword meta tag (as described above) and the description and title tags. When including keywords in your site’s content, make sure that you don’t over-use them – it is important your content remains readable. It is also a good idea to incorporate related words, as search engines will take these into account – for example, if your website is all about fruit, a search engine will recognise words like apples and oranges as being relevant. Having a keyword in the title will also impress a search engine. And making keywords bold, italic or bulleted can also help (but again make sure the words flow). There are a couple of techniques that some people will use as part of a Search Engine Optimisation process, like hiding keywords in a site’s background. But it is not a good idea to try these underhand tricks as search engines are smart and if they don’t like what you’re doing they may decide to ignore your site altogether. General rule of thumb – if you have to hide it, don’t do it! It is ok to name your pages using keywords (for example, [http://www.fruit-and-vegetable-garden.com]). You can also change what’s called the Alt tags on a picture to include the keyword in them (for example, fruit-apples.jpeg). <b>Good Search Engine Optimisation will also look at how easy it is to travel around your site. </b> Have you noticed that a lot websites duplicate their menu on the bottom of each page? There is a good reason for this – links in and out of pages make it easier for search engine spiders or robots to move around your site. You can also have links within your own content, which take readers to another page on your site. The key is to offer a clear navigation structure, because difficult or non-linking pages can cause a spider to exit your site quickly and possibly not return. The way you word your links is also important. Rather than using terms such as “click here” or “for more information”, try using keywords in the link, that way you kill two birds with one stone – for example, use “for more information visit our Seasonal fruits page”. Having another site offer a link to your site will help build your search engine ranking. Make a list of associate companies, suppliers or even customers that would be willing to link their site to yours. It is better if the site is related, but even unrelated links may hold value. If at all possible, when someone provides a link to your site, get them to use a keyword in the link rather than just your url. Directories are another way of getting links coming into your site. Some directories allow you to submit your site and they then upload a link. This process can take seconds or it can take months – be patient and avoid submitting multiple requests as a lot of the data in directories is entered by hand. There are many specialised directories, and a search engine may rate these higher than a general directory. <b>Increasing the amount of content you offer is another way of improving your site’s search engine ranking. </b> You may need to offer hundreds or thousands of content pages loaded with keywords in order to increase your ranking. But this may not be as difficult as it sounds. You can gather relevant content from your suppliers, manufactures, associates etc. And there are many sites out their offering free content relevant to your site (it can, however, be very time consuming if you have to write or edit such content, so consider asking a professional copywriter for help). The generation of articles, e-mail newsletters and press releases (all containing keywords) can also provide additional content. Explore whether other sites can also post your articles, newsletters or press releases and incorporate a link back to your site. There are actually websites where you can post an article for free, and others can then pick it up and publish it on their site (so long as they keep your link and leave your content unchanged). A couple of other Search Engine Optimisation tips: avoid fancy flash, frames or javascript as this will not impress spiders or robots (some may not even be able to enter your site); and don’t copy and paste from Microsoft Word straight into your site, it carries over background formatting that can cause problems. As you can see Search Engine Optimisation is simply a collection of fairly straightforward processes and techniques. But the successful application of Search Engine Optimisation principals could be the difference between your site being a rich source of business, or a poor investment of limited resources.
I am over 10 years now FULL TIME working from home on the internet making money online and I have put together the following website to share all of my secrets with you at http://www.DecideYourIncome.eu
Regards Always
Mark McCulloch
http://www.CoachOfSuccess.com – mark@markmcculloch.com
Internet Marketer and Entrepreneur, Committed to creating success
(UK) 07875 647 867 (Call Me Anytime), Skype – mark.mcculloch1
Search Engine Optimisation Specialist
Filed under: Internet Marketing • Web 2.0
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