Articles: Internet Marketing

The Basics Of SEO

05 May 2011

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is one of the main ways of attracting visitors to your website. It is a large subject covering many different strategies and techniques. The main aim is to attract traffic that is most likely to perform target operations, such as buying a product, making an enquiry for a service or signing up to a newsletter.

Broadly, SEO activities are categoriesed as being either black hat or white hat SEO. White hat methods are those that are genuine and deemed ethical. Black hat methods are those techniques that are deemed unethical such as placing black keyword rich text on a black background, or keyword spamming.

Most practices clearly fall into one camp or the other, although there are a number of gray areas. However, Google and the other search engine are constantly trying to enhance the quality of their search results by finding ways to identify those sites using black hat techniques and either penalise them in rankings or banning them altogether.

The methods I advocate and apply to client's sites are white hat techniques that should benefit from changes to search engine algorithms over time.

Keyword Types

There are several different types of keyword phrase that can be used:

Global Keywords

These are terms usually no more than 3 words in length that describe something e.g. "vintage tractors". Global terms are highly sort after as they often have large numbers of regular searchers. They can be difficult to target effectively, particularly where the terms are highly competitive e.g. "mobile phone". However, it is worth noting that these more generic terms do not always attract relevant traffic. For example you may only supply goods and services to a particular location.

Geo-Targeted Keywords

These are global terms with a place name. For most smaller business offering local services this would be most appropriate approach although search numbers for these terms are usually much lower than for the global equivalent. In smaller towns these can often be targeted effectively with a well optimised brochure site for less competitive business sectors. However, terms targeted at larger towns and cities can present a challenge and additional steps may need to be taken.

Long-Tail Keyword Phrases

Typically as an individual conducts searches they will start with more generic searches, and gradually increase the length and specificity of a search term in order to find what they are looking for. As a consequence it is worth while also targeting what are referred to as long-tail keyword phrases. Individually they will often not appear in large numbers, but by writing pages with good word content, you will naturally target many of these. Furthermore, as your website profile improves within search engines, you will appear for an increasing number.

Selecting & Embedding Keywords

As a minimum a website should be coded and contain content that allows search engines to reference it accurately. That is, search engines should note keyword phrases relevant to the main areas of the business and within the main geographic areas that the company operates.

This first part can be performed quite simply by a client selecting chosen keywords to be embedded into the code of each page and reiterate them in the page content. However, if done in excess this can constitute keyword spamming. Text should therefore be written for humans not search engines on relevant subjects that contain the chosen keywords.

A more advanced approach would be to first perform keyword research to ascertain the most popular terms that searchers are typing into search engines and the level of competition for these terms from competing websites. Often data on large numbers of possible relevant keywords is compiled, which can also be used in future when writing additional pages for the website.

Link Building Strategies

Once the search engines have referenced your website correctly, you then need to convince them that your website is of better quality and more relevant than competing websites in order to appear above them in the search engine results.

Search engine algorithms are complex and constantly changing, and include many different factors. However, one of the most import factors is in-bound links. A good in-bound link is deemed a vote for your website. A good link is one from a quality website that ideally has a related subject-matter. The better the perceived importance of the website linking to you the more weight it carries. Links from less well perceived websites and spam sites can have a negligible or even negative effect.

Techniques such as link swapping, or spamming forums can also have negative effects.

A better approach, therefore, is to simply present quality content that people will want to link to, use and find. Over time relevant link numbers will grow, and because it's genuine, search engine changes are more likely to favor your site.

So what is quality content? Content within your website that does one, or several, of the following:

• Solves Problems
• Answers Questions
• Meets Needs

There are countless ways to achieve this and it will depend on your business, how you like to work, and how much time you have to put into this. Possible approaches might include; FAQ sections, statistics, articles, help sheets, how-to guides, blogs and case studies.

Many search engines also note how often websites are updated, those that are updated more often are deemed to contain more relevant content, which can further help your position in search results.

For more information please use the contact form or call 07974 204138.