Website optimisation, also termed search engine optimisation – or SEO, is absolutely crucial to the long term success of your website. There seems to be no point in pursuing website development, no matter how good it looks, if it can’t be found by anyone but you. Website Optimisation is the process of applying thorough analysis and strategic implementation of information to specific areas of your website – to the outer limits of your ability, so that as many people from your targeted audience as possible will discover your site when they’re searching.
Let’s say for the moment that people don’t know your site exists – how do you go about changing that? One of the primary ways of approaching this problem is to design your site in such a manner that the so-called “robots” agree that it’s a good source of information relating to the keywords in question. An individual who’s searching will usually type in a phrase that has to do with his or her particular problem, and it’s then the responsibility of Google, Yahoo or MSN to retrieve the most relevant selections. These world-wide organisations use complex algorithms within their colossal search databases, based primarily on information that their “robots” discover when they “crawl” through almost every website in the world. These algorithms are entirely automated processes and they utilise state-of-the-art proprietary systems which these organisations won’t disclose to the public under any circumstances.
An entire industry has been built up around search engine optimisation for online business. There are many experts and those who purport to know what it takes to optimise your site efficiently. Whilst there are many gray areas still in existence, there are a number of fundamentals that you have to bear in mind.
Before you even start to design your website, you must have chosen a domain name which is entirely appropriate to your product or service. The domain name should ideally contain your keywords, which are basically phrases that describe your product and service very specifically; for example, “article writing services” or “East Bay chiropractor.” Remember, in most cases it’s to your benefit to optimise your website according to your specific location, in addition to your particular field of professional expertise.
Once you have selected your keywords, you should optimise one page for each selected keyword. You can have hundreds of keywords if you choose, but you should make sure that you conduct careful research in every case. As you’re hoping that your website will appear in the search results when somebody types in “East Bay chiropractor”, for example, you need to try and make sure that the robots interpret your page as relevant to this phrase. Therefore, they must see the exact keyword phrase in the page title, in the description of the page and in the meta-tags.
The content within your web page should be informative and very relevant to your keyword, and it should contain the keyword a certain number of times; most people recommend a 1% density. Don’t forget that your website must be readable when visited, and there is nothing worse than what is called “keyword stuffing”, where web masters try and include a relevant keyword too many times within an article, severely affecting its readability. Technically speaking, the keywords should also appear in a related “alt” tag attached to each photograph or image on the site, and filenames referenced from within the site should also contain the keyword. Furthermore, a clear internal linking framework should contain, once again, your relevant keywords.
Search engine optimization doesn’t have to be particularly difficult, but you should pay careful attention to it. If you try to rank for “long tail” keywords (a more precise description of your product or service), and especially if you try to geo-target the audience, you’ll stand a pretty good chance of ranking well within the search engine pages for your terms.
Michelle Dale is The Managing Director of Virtual Miss Friday, an Executive Virtual Assistant who assists businesses and individuals with achieving their professional goals. Want to find out more about online business building success strategies? Contact VMF Now!