Search Engine Optimisation is all about getting your website or webpage into the top 10 of search engines such as Google and Yahoo. You don’t have to be a million dollar company or spend 1,000s of dollars to do this, sometimes all it takes is some knowledge and hard work.
There is no magic technique to getting top 10 rankings and no "quick fix" but if you optimise your site correctly with both on and off-page optimisation then you will at the very least drastically improve your Search Engine Position.
Main on page factors
Keywords are the start of any SEO campaign and this is probably the most important piece of research you will do. A classic mistake many people make is thinking they already know the main keywords and they blindly proceed to the detriment of the optimisation strategy.
Use some keyword research tools and see what people are actually searching for, you will probably find some surprising results. When you have the results don’t just pick the top three most popular terms and go for them, if you are competing against many big organisation who have large marketing budgets you may not stand a chance. Sometimes its better to find a slightly less popular keyword that has less competition. Infact the best keyword you can find is the one that has a low amount of optimised sites
# Title Tag
The title tag is the first thing that any search engine sees when it is crawling your website it is also what your potential customers see when deciding which site to visit so it goes without saying this is important. You want your main keywords to begin here and also to be made into a legible sentence. Remember its not all about optimising for search engines, your customers are also very important. Try and put a call to action in with your keywords, something like "book now" or "order today".
# Content
Content can include pictures, videos and text but your main focus should be the text because that is what the search engines really like. If you have under 100 words of text on your website you should think about adding some more. Try and use your keywords in your text but keep the density below 5% to avoid getting penalised for keyword stuffing. Also make full use of H1 and H2 tags, these should contain some of your keywords and if you don’t like the way a H1 tag looks then use a CSS file to integrate it into your content.
# Meta Tags
Meta tags include your keywords tag and description tag which are hidden from the user but seen by the search engines. Now the keywords tag is of little importance in ranking, mainly due to the fact it has been so abused by webmasters over the years. However it only takes a few seconds to create one so there is no harm in adding it. The description tags is also of diminishing importance to search engines but it can be important to your customer. This is because it is often used as part of your site description when you website is displayed in the search engine results and it is also used in some directorys. This means you should make sure it is an accurate description and also make it as appealing as possible (ie save 70% of hotel prices with us!)
# Alt Tags
Alt tags a the tags given to any images on your webpage, they are important because search engines cant read images so the filename and Alt text help you optimise the image for searches (useful for the links of Google image search). Don’t go crazy a start stuffing keywords into all your images, just be mindful of the fact that this is another area that can be optimised.
# W3C
The W3C has a validator that checks your website for any coding errors or mistakes which if you have been using a html coder like Dreamweaver will probably mean quite a few errors. This is not vastly important but a well coded site mean that search engine spiders can easily crawl your site and are more likely to index your page. It also mean that your site should load up in multiple web browsers as some are more picky about coding mistakes than others.
Main off page factors
The most effective way of getting a high ranking in Google is to get links to your website and to get the anchor text of those links to contain your main keywords. This is perhaps the most difficult and defiantly the most time consuming process that you will go through during your SEO campaign.
It is also important during this process to be patient, it can take time for people to respond to your link request or for directorys to list your website. It can also take time for you to see the effects of your link building campaign (usually at least a month) so don’t expect to get some high quality links and be No1 on Google tomorrow.
# Relevant Links
Relevant high quality links are the holy grail of link building and these are often hard to find. Relevant links are those that are on the same topic as you website, so if you have a travel website for Scotland then links for other Scottish travel website are the ones you really want. A quality link is one from a trusted website such as the Yahoo directory or from a site with a .edu or .gov domain name. Also links from website that have a high Google PR are worth looking for.
# Anchor Text
The anchor text is the clickable text which has the link to your site on another website, it is important to make sure your keywords are used in this text. It is also important that you don’t over do it and make every link with the same anchor text as this could be penalised. Ideally write 3 or 4 combinations of anchor text to be used that take in your main keywords. It helps if the anchor text you are using is displayed somewhere on your page this again is useful in making the page more relevant for search engine results.
# Directory Submission
There are hundreds of directorys out there and some require payment (either one time or annual) while others are free. The two biggest and most well know are Yahoo ($299 py) and DMOZ (free), you should definitely submit to the DMOZ after all it is free. The problem is that it can take months or years to get listed. Yahoo and Business.com are the two most respected paid directorys, they are expensive though at $299 and $199 per year. If you have the money a listing in either or both is well worth while.
If you type "free directory’s" into Google then you will find plenty of sites with lists of directory’s, if you want to find so good paid directory’s that are cheaper than Yahoo and Business.com then try the listing on Aviva.
# Social Networks/Bookmarks
The newest media on the internet and it is being used to great to generate both direct traffic and links. The direct traffic is a bonus but its often low quality traffic that doesn’t generate any sales, what you really want is to have people bookmarking pages of your website in Del.us, Digg or Stumbleupon. The best thing to do is add a "add this" button to pages on your website, you can get this from www.addthis.com. This tool allows people to bookmark your pages on a large selection of different social bookmarking sites. There is now harm in submitting your site to some on your own, just don’t overdo it and submit every page!
About the Author
Niall is an internet entrepreneur who runs several affiliate marketing websites which include Rooms in Scotland and
Rooms in Edinburgh.