We have written this analysis to provide the reader with a brief guide to Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) essentials. If you have a website that is not bringing you as much traffic as you would wish, or you are planning a new website, you need to consider the following SEO essentials to ensure that you have the best chance of being ranked well in the search engines.

Keyword Research

Keywords or key phrases are the words that people type into search engines to find the results they want. If an initial search does not produce the kind of results that people are looking for they will refine their search so there will be a good number of phrases that people could use to find your website.

Brainstorm as much as possible to consider your target audience. Ask potential customers what keywords they would use, ask colleagues and compile a list of phrases that you think will be used. Then check it out using keyword research tools such as Wordtracker and Overture which will provide you with data on what people actually searched for. This is a useful exercise as you may find that a minor difference in search term can produce significantly more traffic!

Try to identify one primary search term per page and several secondary terms that would compliment the primary term. You can now apply your optimisation to individual pages.

Title Tag

This appears between these two tags. It should start with your primary phrase and be about 5-7 words. This title will appear in the blue bar at the top of your web page and will also provide the clickable link fro the search engine rankings.

Description Tag

This appears between these two tags. Your primary phrase should appear as soon as possible in the description but make sure it describes the page because there is nothing more frustrating for a visitor to your site if they get there and find that your description was not accurate. Often, but not always, the description will for part of the wording that is presented in the search engine rankings that will persuade a visitor to click on your link.

Keywords Tag

This appears between these two tags. Commas or no commas – whichever you choose be sure to be consistent. Don't spam the keyword tag i.e. don't repeat keywords over and over. Provide a list of relevant and complimentary keyphrases for those algorithms that give them a value.

Alt tag

If you have images or pictures on your site use the alt tag to provide information that describes the picture. Search engines cannot read pictures but they can read alt tags, in addition specialist software can read alt tags if disabilities prevent a user from viewing the pictures.

CONTENT IS KING!!

Write your web page copy for your human visitors first while also keeping search engine spiders in mind. Keyword density and prominence are measurements that are most efficiently considered in relation to competitors for specific rankings. Search engines also like to detect regular updates as this is an indication that sites are being maintained.

Anchor text

Anchor text is the text that you define as a hyperlink to another page. The anchor text is expected to describe the theme of the page you would be jumping to by clicking on the link therefore anchor text has been given more value in search engine algorithms. If you use something like ‘click here' as hypertext rather than something more descriptive (and keyword rich) such as, for example, ‘SEO Case Studies' then you are missing an opportunity.

Site Map

Add a site map to your site and link it from the home page so that spiders can crawl the site map quickly and from it crawl every important page on your site.

Google Site Map

Add a Google sitemap to your site – this is an xml file which visitors do not see and it is specifically for Google. By creating a Google sitemap, locating it in the root file and submitting it to Google you are ensuring that Google can easily identify every page on your site and also ensure that updates are notified to Google quicker than would happen without a Google sitemap.

Inbound links

Inbound links or links from other websites into your site provide credibility and emphasis the relative importance or authority that your site has over another site that has fewer links with relatively lesser importance. Inbound links have always been important but as search engines refine their algorithms in order to provide better and more relevant results they give more weight to ‘quality' links that are considered relevant to the theme of the site or page. Irrelevant links or links from link farms are increasingly undesirable and may even incur a diminishing affect.

Site Structure and Navigation

The structure of your site can affect how efficiently search engines are able to spider your site – hence the use of site maps. It can also affect how efficiently a human visitor will be able to interact with your site and whether or not you are able to persuade them to complete the action you desire – whether it be to place an order, make an enquiry or gather the knowledge they need.

If possible steer clear of framed sites and flash sites as these may cause problems for the effective spidering of a site.

Black Hat vs Ethical SEO

Black hat SEO uses methods to trick the search engines into awarding higher rankings and as these tricks are considered unethical you run the risk of having your site banned if you employ them. Duplicate sites, spamming, hidden text and cloaking are just a few black hat techniques. We would recommend ethical SEO every time.

Conclusion

The elements discussed above are considered to be the basics of search engine optimisation. Addressing these elements may be sufficient for some sites but more advanced SEO may be necessary to get rankings for other sites. If you have the time available to learn, research, test, adjust and test again then you have a good chance of being able to produce the kind of results in the search engines that you are looking for.

There is however much more to search engine optimisation than has been covered in these basic elements but this is an excellent starting point. Other elements to consider would include more advanced elements such as competitor research, keyword density and prominence, deep linking, ensuring clean code (W3C compatible), optimal site structure and navigation. You may also wish to consider blogging and RSS feed which can also be very effective methods to increase traffic.

As a final word…. Remember that search engine optimisation is not just about achieving rankings, it is about increasing traffic to your site and converting that traffic to profit. Best of luck!