Search Engine Optimisation

Search engine optimisation has long been considered a bit of a 'black art', whereas it is, in fact, extremely easy to understand and implement if you have the following:

A 'human readable website' (not Flash)

Access to 'under the hood' -  control over META information, URL naming and content

A cleanly coded, well structured website

A brain of some form and the desire to take control of your content.

The basics in very simple terms

The best way to think about Google (and we're focusing on Google because that's what the vast majority of people use), is that it wants to do the best possible job it can for the user.

So the user asks Google "Show me where I can find out about this"

And Google wants to send back the best possible answer.

The quality of that answer will be determined by a mix of 'in page' factors such as well-structured content that features that search term, page title, web address (URL), META information such as the page description, and page load times. It can also be influenced by 'depth' of content and how often that content is updated and developed further.

It will also be rated by the type, qualty and number of external websites that link to the site, for that term. It will also look at how vsiitors use the website once they have landed there, in terms of duration of visit and further clicks.

It will look at the 'age' of the domain and website - so a site with a brand new domain may not rank well initailly as it is 'sand boxed' for a period.

So it is looking for the 'authority' for that search term.

That's it.

So how can I ensure that I rank for the search terms I am looking for?

Create good, compelling content that is relevant and interesting to the user. Update that content regularly.

Ensure your website is machine and human readable (i.e. not Flash).

Make sure your webste is properly hosted with high availability and uptime, and low page load times

Ensure your page is correctly formatted with a human readable URL (address). For instance, if your page is about 'safari holidays in Kenya' then a good URL would be http://yourwebsite/safari-holidays-in kenya

Make sure your META description and page titles etc are properly formatted. DO NOT spam keywords or duplicate search terms or phrase too much in the text. Your aim is to make an interesting and readable page for people.

Get feedback from a good statistics package on what visitors are doing once they hit your site. Google Analytics is the industry standard, and it's free.

Have patience - it will not happen overnight, but if you follow the rules it will happen.

Bear in mind that we are not setting ourselves up as search engine marketing experts here, because we're not. We know enough about the basics to be competent, and we learned those basics from years of experience building websites, and doing what you can do right now.

Reading the information that Google provide about it.

Check out the links below. A little thought, patience and application and you can be your own SEO consultant. Don't forget to charge yourself a fee.

External Links

A really useful PDF from Google which sums up the basics nicely

The Google Webmaster SEO Starter Guide