What is SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)?

SEO is when you optimise a website both on page and off page in order to achieve better organic rankings in the search engines.  Which leads more traffic to your site.

SEO consists of four key areas:

o Keyword Research & Selection
  Selecting the right keywords is critical to your success.  Write down your seed words.  Use the keyword tools to select the most profitable keywords.  Use these words to optimise your pages.

o Site Building
 Search engine spiders need to find and index the pages on your site.  You can help them by building navigational text links on your pages.  Install a sitemap which is indexed

o On Page Optimisation
 Each page of your website needs to be optimised.  Use your keywords in your page title, headline, content and images.  Don’t overdo the use of keywords, remember keyword density.

o Linking Building
 Holy grail of SEO.  Your link strategy must be natural as Google is getting smarter and websites are being punished.  The key is to get quality links back to your site i.e. forums, articles, PR, suppliers, customers, social sites, blogs. 

 Tip:  Include your keyword as the link back to your site i.e. instead of click here – office furniture

SEO Example

Business: SW Office Furniture
Location: South Wales & South West
Typical Customer: Businesses, home workers, SME
Goal: Optimise site to attract more business

Domain www.SWofficefurniture.co.uk the domain contains the keywords South Wales Office Furniture.

Keywords: Office furniture, office furniture for the home, compact office furniture, discount office future.  Carry out research using the tools.  You have to know your keywords.

Page Titles: Office Furniture, Home Office Furniture, Discount Office Furniture.  Google sorts by pages, so each page has a keyword title.  This informs the search engine what this page is for.

Metatags: Same as keywords.  Not as important as they once were, but they still help to describe each page.

Content: Advice, tips, articles, case studies and testimonials plus FAQ.  Use your keywords in the content and make sure it is balanced and you are not spamming the search engines.

Link Building: Google is obsessed with incoming links.   Register with directories, industry related sites, suppliers, customers, forums and blogs.  Search engines reward good quality incoming links by giving the site a higher page ranking

Good SEO takes time, it is not a race.  Beware of Google, they don’t like cheats and they don’t like to be fooled.  It will cost you in the long term.  To start, focus on optimising your page with keywords and content you will be very surprised with the results.