Search Engine Optimisation Guidance for Website Owners

Jul 15
06:58

2010

Carol Forrest

Carol Forrest

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In order to achieve a good ranking for your website, you need to ensure you have undertaken search engine optimisation, otherwise known as SEO. In order to do this, a few simple procedures need to be followed.

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Search Engine Optimisation,Search Engine Optimisation Guidance for Website Owners Articles or what is popularly referred to as SEO, is the method

whereby website owners undertake certain procedures to increase their search engine ranking and is specifically targeted at the keywords somebody will type into the search box of a

search engine. The website that manages to achieve a higher ranking than that of its

competitors on a search engine will get more website traffic and therefore more sales,

although getting onto the top of the first page of any search engine is not an easy

mission. Nonetheless, with a few practical changes to your website following systematic

methodology will reap rewards.

Prior to commencing the SEO process, undertake a brief site analysis to include checking

your sitemap, use of flash, animations and images, website content, page titles and the

number of pages within the site, etc. Inspect header tags, robot,txt files and anchor text

n the pages of the site and then take a look at the websites of your competitors and

see where they rank in a search utilising your keywords.

Next, analyse your website methodically and make a list of your main keywords,

categorising them as primary and secondary keywords. You can use the assistance

of keyword tools such as Google AdWords. These keyword tools will provide data in

connection with the keywords that people are entering into search engines. Select

the relevant keywords applicable to your website and then use a competitor’s website

to form ideas to help you to generate keywords and phrases.

Ensure that each page of your website has a unique title that encapsulates the very

essence of that page and includes services, products and most importantly include

important keywords within the text. Page titles speak about the web page content

and all of this plays a crucial role in SEO. Choose your page title carefully and keep it

short roughly between 50 and 70 characters.

Meta descriptions play an important role in search engine optimisation, giving a more

elaborate description of your products and services and page content. Construct a

good description of your web page using your main keywords in the description.

However, do not fill the description with keywords, as it should look like a description.

The length of the meta description should be between 130 – 150 characters. A further

fact that makes the meta description so important is that the content you insert will be

displayed as part of the search engine results.

The content of your website will play a major role in your search engine ranking. Your

web pages should have good quality content, being fresh and comprehensive. Search

engines love fresh and unique content and they will reward you with a higher ranking

in search results. Make good use of your keywords, but write for your website visitors

and not search engines.

Incorporate header tag (h1 tags) on each page. The range is from h1 to h6. Use your

main keywords in the h1 tags. Search engines will give higher priority to anchors text,

so you should use your major keywords here. Try to avoid using generic phrases like ‘

read more’ and ‘click here’, using more search engine friendly phrases such as

‘Information about our services here’. This will help in providing a link to other pages

for search engines.

Generate a site map for your site, which should be linked to all pages in the site. The

ideal site map will offer inside links to all internal pages of the website. If you have a

website with more than, say, 100 pages then build a site map that links to only the

major pages of the site.

Have a robot.txt file for the site that indicates to search engine robots the pages of

the site that need to be crawled and the ones that do not.

Finally, link building plays a vital role in search engine ranking of your site. Endeavour

to get them from relevant sites and concentrate on quality rather than quantity.

Organic methods of link building are from social media sites, newsletters, blogs and

the creation of videos.