The Basics of Search Engine Optimisation
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is essentially a marketing technique modifying websites to enhance their chances of being listed in the top results of search engines – the higher a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine. Wikipedia describes SEO as the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site from search engines. Quite a few factors need to be taken into account when optimising a website.
A major consideration is to understand how search engines work and what people search for. Optimizing a website primarily involves editing its content and HTML coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines.
Content needs to be tailored so that it is relevant to search terms entered by users on search engines; the page structure and layout of the website should make navigation easy and allow content to be readily found; the correct and effective meta-data needs to be implemented; effective keyword research should be done and the right keywords and key-phrases should be implemented correctly in various areas of the web page.
The primary goal is to optimise your site, so that when a search term relevant to your business is queried on a search engine, your site will be found amongst the result pages. Web users perceive high-ranking websites as being industry leaders.
Some of the main elements that affect ranking may include:
- keywords in the Title Tag
- keywords in the Meta Description Tag
- keywords in the Meta Keyword Tag
- keywords in the Domain name
- keywords in the page specific URL
- keywords in Heading Tags, e.g.
Wooden Boats
- bolding of keywords, e.g. wooden boats or wooden boats
- keywords in Link Anchor text (linked pages and linked words, e.g. wooden boats)
- keywords in Image Alt Text
- keywords closest to the top of the page
- keywords as names of images, e.g.
The above elements are mainly considered to be part of what is commonly known as "on-page" or "on-site" optimization elements and is not the only factors that affect site ranking.
Another important factor which is called "off-site" optimization is "Link Building" which is essentially a strategy of seeking out and building up the link popularity of a site from other relevant and authority sites – in other words, getting other people (sites) to link to yours. This strategy typically involves active contribution of new content onto the web from your blog, a social networking platform like Facebook, micro-blogging from Twitter or alternatively uploading video or images to sites like YouTube or Flickr. Writing of niche content and distribution of articles via Article portals will also help to strengthen your brand online and to push back visitors from other sources on the Web.
Finally, a basic understanding of SEO is one thing, but it is critical to also study your competitors to see what they are doing and how they are competing against you on search engines, social media platforms and other media. If you know how to counter their efforts, you can rank above them in the Search Engine result pages for the same terms.
We hope that this quick summary of Search Engine Optimisation gives you an idea as to what SEO is. To further understand how SEO can benefit your business, read our next article to find our more on the benefits of Search Engine Optimisation.
