Search engine optimization - what is it anyway?
Get your pages found
If you want your website to attract visitors then you need to make sure that it gets found and for that you need search engine optimization (SEO). SEO is often spun, by companies that do it as a service, as something of a black art, but, in reality, it is really quite straightforward. It just takes time patience and attention to detail.Here are a few of the most essential principles of SEO.
Be sensible
Be smart, but don 't try to outwit the search engines. More determined people than you have used trickery to get to the top of search engine rankings, been found out and had their rankings vanish.
In fact, don't expect your rankings to remain consistent. Google, which serves the overwhelming majority of web searches, and other major players like MSN and Yahoo are continually changing their procedures, so don't be surprised if your results change.
Search engines are trying to give useful content to their users. Cooperate with them and you will do well.
Get the right name
If you are a Master Baker then themasterbaker.com is much better as a name for your website than yippeeyumyum.com. Someone looking for a master baker will tend to find the first much quicker than the latter.
Get good content
If you tell people about the principles of baking, then you are going to have content that is helpful and rich in the terms that people use when they do web searches. Make sure that you have a good idea of the type of keywords that people are likely to use when they do a web search and make sure that you sprinkle them liberally in your copy. Don't go overboard - many search engines frown on "keyword stuffing".
Keywords tag
In the head tag of your HTML page you can insert a Keywords 'meta tag' containing the keywords relevant to that page. Search engines use this to a great or lesser extent. Try to make the keywords and key phrases the same as those that appear in the copy and other significant places (see below). Don't' just go for hundreds of standard terms, but keep your keywords to those that are relevant and don't repeat words too often.
Title
Another 'meta tag' contains the title that displays in the title bar of the browser window. Again, this is very significant. Make sure that it contains the most important search terms for your page, and do not repeat your keywords too often.
Heading and subheading
Most pages will have these, and the chances are that they will be contained in the "h1 and "h2" HTML formatting tags. Search engines know this and will tend to give more significance to text that they find in these tags.
bDescription
This is another meta tag, which provides a brief description of the page. It is important, but not critical. Don't make it too long, but ensure that it contains your most important keywords.
Page names
Make your page URLs descriptive of the content master-baker-recipes-parties.html should work well).
Get good links
This can take a lot of work: promoting your site to other sites is a time-consuming business, but it pays off, because search engines like to know that other sites like you.
You can go for reciprocal links with sites that have content relevant to your own, or that have good rankings. Alternatively, you can try to promote yourself in other ways, like providing content (articles, awards and so on) that enhances their site and the way that it is perceived (and carries a link to yours).
Don't keep bad company. Try to avoid dubious sites, as they may have an effect on the way that search engines see you. Again, common sense is the best guide. Do you like the site? Or does it take you to pages that you don't want or give you pop-up screens that affront your privacy?
It is a good idea to do a search to see how the linking site performs in search engines. If it performs well, then it will be good to have it linking to you.
Get good text in your links.
When another site links to you, it helps greatly if the text in the link is relevant to your content. 'Click here' is nowhere near as good as "Recipe for delicious fruit bread".
Get a DMOZ listing
No use attempting this until you have lots of relevant content, but when you have loaded your site with content that people will find useful, then apply for a listing with the open directory project, DMOZ. Though Google never releases its ranking principles, it is generally accepted that having a good DMOZ rank helps with Google rankings.
Beware! Humans make DMOZ rankings and you may have to wait a long time to get your site reviewed a second time. You can't fake it. Content is king.
What is the most effective way to do SEO?
As you will have gathered from this article, there is nothing mysterious about good SEO - but it does require you to look carefully at each page you publish.
To do this a web page program, like Adobe GoLive or DreamWeaver, can speed up looking at hidden meta tags, so that you can compare them with the page content. They also make sure that you don't accidentally make mistakes with your HTML coding.
There are also SEO programs that will analyse the various components of your page and give you recommendations about the number of keywords, length of title and so on. They do it, according to what they say, by tracking search engine function and making recommendations automatically.
Alternatively, you could consider Caliban. Caliban helps you to create content with maximum speed and ensures that keywords, title, description, heading and subheading and, to a lesser extent, links and link content, are automatically created to be as effective as they can be. In this way, you get a high volume of optimized content