Search engine optimisation (SEO)

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1 Search engine optimisation (SEO) Moving up the organic search engine ratings is called Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and is a complex science in itself. Large amounts of money are often spent employing web optimisation specialists. However, here are some pointers that you can manage as webmaster of your website. Obtaining a listing on the first result page when a search is performed is dependent on a number of factors using relevant keywords within the webpage, web compliant html, the number of incoming links, regular updating, age of domain, the number competitors. It is the intelligent use of keywords that is the single most important element in optimising your website. Identifying your website keywords Keywords are terms that capture the essence of a topic within a document. Identifying and using keywords for your website is vital in ensuring that your web pages are listed by a search engine when a user inputs a search string that includes one or more of the keywords. Gather and collate your keywords Over a 4 week period keep a flip chart or note pad full of all the words that targets might use if they were looking for your services. Have a creative brainstorm to kick start the process. Try all sorts of combinations that a target might use. Try word combination too such as location/type of insurance If your site is interactive try the word quote as well for example: Glasgow insurance quote real estate insurance quote property investor insurance quote Research these by entering them in the key search engines starting with Google. This will give you a good idea of what the competition are doing which ones are highly competitive and best to avoid which are worth targeting Google provide a handy Keyword tool that helps indentify keyword variations and see the approximate search volume for each keyword as part of their AdWords package. You need to set up a free Google account to access. Don t get hung up about being first. Third and fourth are fine but it is important to appear on the first page. Once you have decided on the keywords and phrases you must write them into each relevant webpage.

2 Understanding how a search engine operates Google is by far the most influential search engine and currently has around 86% of global search traffic, Yahoo 6%, and Baidu (china) 3%, Bing 2%, MSN, Ask, AOL and others share the remaining 3% (Netmarketshare March 2010). Understanding a little about how a search engine operates can help in understanding how you can optimise your web pages. When you conduct a search the results that are displayed come from a variety of sources robot-sourced listings, directory listings, paid ads and sometimes image and video. (see following diagram)

3 In this discussion we are primarily interested in the organic search results and these are collected and catalogued by the search engines using specialised software called robots or spiders that scan or crawl websites and index their contents. When a search is conducted the search engine sifts through its database for web pages containing the keywords used in the search string, for example commercial buildings insurance Sussex. The search engine uses a secret formula also known as a search ranking algorithm to sort the results. In a fraction of a second a list or relevant sites, containing the exact phrase used in the search string will be returned in the results page. There are many things that factor into how the search engines determine the rank for their main search results. In order to be in the running for a rank you need to provide HTML text for the robots to catalogue with HTML links supplying a clear path through to your web pages. Search engines give more weight to pages that use proper code (adhering to web standards) than those that do not. The use of cascading style sheets (CSS) for page rendering reduces the amount of code on a web page and in turn further increases the chances that search engines will index the content of the page. Robots do not recognise what your page looks like but rather what it says. Removing presentational code from the document and controlling it from an external CSS document will help your ranking. Remember that search engines index web pages not websites. What this means is that each of your key web pages can be optimised with keywords that reflect the websites content and as such these pages might well be the first place a visitor arrives at and should be designed accordingly. How to use your keywords Your first task is to make sure that the keywords used in a potential search string are present as part of the web page these need to be positioned in the visible page title; the HTML visible body copy; in HTML links; in the invisible meta and alt tags and if possible in the html links pointing to your website from third party sites. Keywords in page titles these display across the top of a browser window Create unique and accurate page titles for each page. Ideally one or more keywords should be included within the page title that effectively communicates the topic of the page content. Try to avoid choosing a title that has no relation to the content on the page or using default of vague titles like Untitled or New Page #. Titles should be short and informative, so be selective in when using keywords. Keywords in the HTML body Creating unique and useful content is the key to building your website s reputation. Users know good content when they read it and will act accordingly. Using keywords throughout your copy will enable search engine robots to identify and catalogue the content. A search engine often extracts a snippet and displays it under the document s title with the search string keywords highlighted in bold.

4 below: how the web page looks with the copy used for the snippet highlighted When constructing a webpage use the HTML heading tags to present the structure on the page to readers because they can be recognised and assessed by search engine robots. There are six sizes of heading tags - <h1> first order heading through to <h6>, the least important. A heading level tag <h1> is deemed to be more important than text within a paragraph. The spider is able to recognise a correctly structured page and will index accordingly. You can use multiple heading sizes used in order create a hierarchical structure for the page content, making it easy for readers to navigate the document. Use your keywords within the headings but avoid over use across the page also avoid using the heading tags for large blocks of text. Using keywords in HTML links the clickable text that a user sees as a link The anchor text will tell a reader and a search engine robot something about the page you are linking to. Links on a web page may be pointing to other pages on your site or a page on an third party website. The better your anchor text is, the easier it is for readers and robots to understand what the page you are linking to is about. The text you use for a link should provide at least a basic idea of what the page linked to is about and should include a relevant keyword from the page it is linking to. Avoid generic anchor text like page, click here or using the page s url as the anchor text in most cases (although there are certainly legitimate uses of this, such as promoting or referencing a new website s address).

5 Use your keywords in the description meta tag - invisible to readers of the webpage but visible to search engine robots A page description meta tag gives search engines a summary of what the page is about. Whereas a page title may be a few words, a page s description meta tag can run to around fifty words. Description meta tags are important because search engines sometimes use them as snippets for your pages. Snippets appear under a page s title and above a page s URL in a search result. When writing description meta tags try to accurately summarise the page s content. The description should both inform and interest a reader if it was to appear as a snippet in a search result. code example (search string = car insurance ) <meta name= description content= Save up to 329 on your car insurance with Britain s no1 comparison site. Compare over 110 insurers in just 2 minutes without the horror of haggling. /> The snippet in this case was taken from the description meta tag the site looks like this

6 Keywords meta tag, invisible to readers of the webpage but visible to search engine robots code example <meta name= keywords content= car, insurance, motor, compare, quotes, cheap, comparison, uk, companies /> It is assumed that search engine robots pretty much ignore this meta tag, however it has some use in enabling the author of a webpage to pull together the keywords that capture the topic of the web page. By including the list in the keywords meta tag it can help future contributors to the page understand the focus of the content and edit accordingly. Alt text, invisible to readers of the webpage but visible to search engine robots and screen reader software Where images and are used the use of alt text is important this allows you to specify alternative text for the image should it not display for some reason and it allows a search engine robot to understand the graphic. The descriptions should be short and descriptive possibly including one or more keywords if relevant. Other tasks and techniques that will help your website s search engine performance Submitting xml site plans to the search engines You can invite search engine robots to index your website by submitting a site plan listing all the page urls on the site. You can also use this method to request that the search engine does not index a section of your website, a secure private area for example. A simple xml file needs to be created and submitted to the search engines. The submission exercise is normally carried out by your web developer or SEO specialist but can be done by those willing to get to grips with the science. Using external links More external links pointing to your site mean better search engine rating - even if these are from a completely unrelated website, however the use of link farms (sites with little or no useful original content) are frowned on by the search engines and their use can lead to your site being blacklisted by them. The larger and busier the website you are linked to the better. Note that this is not usually a good means of directing traffic to your site It s for web optimisation purposes only. Clever use of URL s and microsites Rather than just having one site to fulfill all the marketing functions of your company consideration should be given to using separate URL s and microsites (small independent sites dealing with just one initiative). These can be cost effective and beneficial to the overall on-line presence of your company. To find out more about designing microsites and for a quick, inexpensive and easy solution go to Microsites should be considered where different branding and feel is required for example the image of property for a property investors site for a special product for a special sector to maximise the search engine optimisation to save cumbersome navigation

7 A major advantage of microsites is that they can be written in such a style as to maximise specific search engine criteria The url that you select does not have to relate to your company name but to the service / speciality you are promoting. When selecting the url for a microsite firstly make a note of all the site names that seem good. Secondly check availability and finally before making a final decision search for these to see what comes up, what your competition are doing and where the gaps might be. Ongoing development SEO is an ongoing project you must keep an eye on how your site is performing with your selected keywords. If your website starts to slip down the rankings experiment with new keywords. Look at your competitor websites to see if you can understand why they are performing better than yours. The search engines continually change the algorithms (criteria) for what will push a website up a page listing. Once your site is designed and optimised it is important to continue to review and modify the content to keep it high up in the search results. Develop a time-table to include the following activities review website keywords keep an eye on competitor websites regularly submit website pages to search engines develop quality incoming links to website from third party sites regularly update the content monitor and report Checking your PageRank (PR) PageRank is Google s proprietary measurement of importance of a web page. PageRank values vary from 0 to 10, with 10 being the highest level of importance. You can easily check your Google page rank at a number of free websites. - allows you to enter your url and will tell you your page rank. The jury is out on whether or not the page rank helps with your sites performance in Google s listings or whether the sites listing determines the page rank. It is however, a single figure that gives an indication of how important your website is deemed to be by the most important search engine.

8 Monitoring and reporting Monitoring of your website gives you valuable insight into how it is performing and give pointers on how to improve its content. There are many ways you can gather useful information about your website indicating from where, how often and with what result users are browsing your domain. A simple cost free solution is to register with Google analytics ( or Yahoo web analytics (web.analytics.yahoo.com) and include the supplied code in your web pages. Website hosting companies often offer monthly website statistics as part of their annual hosting fee. The diagram illustrates a sample website report generated from Google analytics. Recording some of the key data such as number of site visits, referral sites, time spent on the site etc. and combining with data collected by yourselves like number of completed contact forms and telephone calls originating from the website and comparing on a month by month basis will help you develop an overall picture of how your website is performing.