Search Engine Optimisation Examined

Fundamentally, SEO is the study of how Search Engines organise sites on their organic search lists. These organic listings are what we predominantly see when we search for any keyword. They're different from the ads that companies have paid for. The paid listings are typically in a yellow section at the top of the page, and in a column down the right hand side. All the rest have naturally been put into position. Algorithms are used to determine the position of a web site in a Search Engine directory.

Obviously, we want to be as high up the page(s) as possible. Nobody will know we're there if we're way down on page eight! No-one knows all the factors that Search Engines (SE's) use to determine your rank. It's not in the SE's interest to tell people everything they do.

Because of this, much technical expertise has developed around the subject. We have Search Engines constantly developing new technology on the one hand. This causes mass confusion over which methods they use for ratings. And then you have an industry built around SEO. This utilises a series of tests and measurements to determine the most pertinent factors.

Both 'off page' and 'on page' optimisation is dealt with. There are also 'off-web' factors such as demographic and geographic information - but we have no control over this area. (Off-Page optimisation is examined in an additional feature.)

ON PAGE SEO Explained

This involves making your web pages 'friendlier' to the Search Engines. This is the easy part and involves setting up your website 'correctly'. Doing things such as: Utilising H1 and H2 Header Tags, Internal Linking, Keywords and Meta Tags.

Don't worry if you don't understand the technical terms. For the most part, although this work isn't complicated, its effects are minimal. Indeed, it could be said to basically not have much influence at all. In the past it was easy to affect Search Engines with on-page SEO. That hasn't been possible for a long time though.

The only time that 'on-page' becomes important is when you have taken care of 'off-page' and have a lot of inbound 'back-links'. When that's happened, on-page factors can be optimised.

A Few Handy Pointers... Keywords and phrases that bring up massive results should be avoided by anyone new to SEO. For example, on Google's Search Engine you'll see 70 million listings in the UK for the term Car Insurance. When you're just getting going, it's not a great idea to face such huge competition!

However... A much smaller list (300k) comes up when I enter 'Southampton car insurance'. (Assuming I was a car insurance provider in Southampton.) So a much more realistic target.

We can do much more with this. In actual fact, it takes very deep pockets to get a premier listing for a term like 'car insurance'. I'd face fierce rivalry from wealthy opposition! Not a sensible option for anyone.

It's far better to choose phrases that are more specific to our offering. These 'long tail' phrases might contain a number of specific keywords. If your market's very competitive, you could be selecting seven word phrases. Typically they will be 3 or 4 words long.

We prefer to begin optimisation strategies with phrases that bring in less than five hundred thousand results. (In some cases, we may go with a higher count - if the current page 1 results are not well SEO'd.) We'll automatically move up the ratings for the more popular search terms as we gain more back-links. Assuming everything goes to plan, we'll hit the popular phrases in three to twelve months. This strategy is also far more targeted at the start. Frankly, we're only interested in the customers who are looking specifically for what we offer. There's much more chance these people will buy!

You should also build back links to various different pages - and not just your website's homepage. Google and the other Search Engines like this 'deep linking'. Category pages for instance are good to back-link. It's worth driving specific search terms to these pages - they often have links to lots of other product pages. Do not simply build links to your website's home page. Search Engines are increasingly focused on the individual pages within a website.