Search Engine Optimisation or SEO as it is more commonly refered to, is the process of optimising a website in order to ensure that it ranks highly within the Search Engine Results Pages (SERP's) for a given search term or phrase.
In the early days of search engines it was simply a matter of placing keywords and phrases throughout the pages of you website and this would ensure you rank highly. However, with billions of web pages now online good SEO has become somewhat of an art with certain tried and tested techniques that get results. Although keywords and phrases are still important, it is no longer simply a matter of including keywords and phrases within your textual content, and doing so disproportionately is often frowned upon.
There are four key rules to good SEO;
(a) Text based relevant content
It is important that the site is text based, and includes graphics sparingly and accompanied by explanatory text where possible. Search engines cannot read images, Flash animations or similar and so these have not bearing on the page ranking.
(b) Changing content
To be useful and achieve high page ranking, a site must have changing and relevant content. The inclusion of the news articles will help to achieve this. Thought should be given to RSS feeds, which can also make the page appear dynamic and current.
(c) Text location
The location of text on the page is critical to good SEO. Search engine spiders read the page from left to right, top to bottom. Words at the top left are more relevant than those at the bottom right. Using these rules, it is important that navigation bars are both relevant and highly optimised.
(d) Site links
In order for the search engines to find your website it is important that links are created from other relevant sites. There are many ways to achieve links from other sites but by far the most effective is what’s termed as natural linking. Natural linking is the term used when others link to your site without asking for a reciprocal link back. This is ultimately achieved by providing a site that is full of useful content and information about a chosen range of subjects. This in turn spurs visitors to link to your site without you having to return the favour. Search engines then assume that because someone is linking to your site without you giving them a link back, then this link must be natural and therefore relevant. Relevant site links are only attained over a period of time and should be managed by the website owner/administrator.
Search engine optimisation should significantly reduce reliance on Adwords and other paid for links which, unless used continuously can only provide a short term boost to a sites visitors. |
