This is a question we are asked frequently, and unfortunately it's not one with a single, simple answer. The area of website marketing and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a large and complex one with many variables, but there are a few easy-to-follow tips we can provide to assist you in your quest to become Google Number One.
Things That Web design specialists Can Do For You...
As web design specialists, they have the experience to construct, or re-design your site to meet the latest industry standards, which will give your website the best fighting chance amongst your competitors' pages. The following tips are all tried-and-tested methods to increase rankings, and if used correctly, can help boost your website to that coveted top spot in the search engines.
Valid Website Markup : to Improve Google Rankings
Markup is the code which describes your website. It is the hidden structure behind all webpages which the casual user never sees, but which search engines like Google and Yahoo will index on a regular basis. By indexing, we mean that the search engines create a vast, searchable index of all websites available online. Each of these websites is ranked based on a set of criteria, such as the "usefulness" of the page, how well it is constructed and how relevant the content is to a particular field.
The quality of a website's structure is important to the search engines because they read your website code like a book. Write your "book" badly, with poor grammar and broken sentences, and the search engines may hold that against you. However, a well formatted book, or website, will gain bonus marks in the search engines eyes, simply because they know that valid HTML code, or markup, will allow the site to be presented to the widest possible number of users - this includes people browsing your site on their mobile phone, iPhone or even TV screen.
There are many different rules to take into consideration when constructing a website, but the main set of restrictions can be found at the home of The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). This is a group of people highly experienced in the field of web construction who have drawn together a list of rules which should be followed, as a "best practice" for website design. Websites which adhere to these rules (you can run tests for these rules at http://validator.w3.org) are considered to be more syntactically valid than those which fail.
Whether or not your site has to be 100% accurate to get the best rankings is debatable, but having code which is neat and well formatted is a goal that all web developers should aim for. Even if you get no SEO benefits from it, it's a good practice to get into, and will provide you with neat, easily maintainable code for the future.
Keywords : to Define The Content of your Pages
The content of your website is another extremely important factor to consider when aiming for high ranking on search engines. By writing about your subject matter, and including text and information on your site, you give the search engines food for thought. They will come along and digest the text on your site, analysing it for specific words and phrases.
By this process, they manage to identify, of their own accord, the purpose and overall subject matter of your website. For example - say you had a website about lawnmowers. It wouldn't do much good to talk at length about teapots, as the search engines would get completely the wrong idea and index you for the wrong words (in that case, a search for "Teapots" on Google may well bring up your, completely irrelevant site. That visitor will just skip past your page)
The density of keywords is important for SEO too, as well as where you use them. It's important to include your keywords in your page title, as this is usually the most prominent feature of a page, as seen by the search engines. Also, maintain a list of a few "secondary keywords" which you can use in sub-headings, and other prominent areas around your site, beneath the level of the main heading.
For the actual content of your site, make sure you use these keywords in the text, but not too often. It's usually recommended that around 2% to 7% of the words on any page are related to your chosen keywords. This shows the search engines that the content is relevant to the subject matter, and will earn you bonus points in the search engine rankings. Any higher than around 7% to 10% and you run the risk of search engines penalising you for "Keyword stuffing", e.g. filling your page with keywords in the hope that you'll be boosted in the rankings. Word of warning: Search engines are clever, and pick up on this sort of thing!
All search engines work slightly differently though, and no combination of keywords and content is guaranteed to give you number one spot, but it gives you a large advantage over the competition if you can tailor your content to that specification
Meta Tags : To Give Your Pages Meaning
It's debatable how effective meta tags are at influencing the decisions of search engines when indexing your site. Meta tags are the elements found near the top of HTML source code which provide information to browsers visiting the page. The main ones in the realm of SEO are the title, keywords and description tags. The keywords tag is simply a list of relevant keywords for your site, but this is of arguable usefulness, since engines like Google will index the full content of your page to determine which keywords are most valuable anyway.
The description meta tag is used for a similar purpose, but is much more useful with regards to search engines - not for the indexing programs which visit your site, but for the human visitors who are searching for information. By using the description tag, you can give a brief introduction to any page on your site which will be displayed - sometimes, not always - underneath your page title in search results. By using this wisely, you can prepare a short, snappy "advert" for your site which will lure people in.
And this brings us to the title tag. Possibly the most important of the meta tags (although it's not technically a "meta" tag, it still counts towards the information a search engine uses to index your site). The title tag is the headline for your pages, and is what people will see highlighted in blue when they search through Google, if your page comes up in a page of results. You should be able to see why it's important you get this tag right. With a properly formatted title tag, you are well on your way to grabbing the attention on someone scanning a page of results, and making them click through to your page.
Things That You Can Do...
Start a Blog about your Favourite Subject
A blog is an ideal way to attract visitors to a website. It fulfils several of the points mentioned above to generate good content to rank highly in search engines. By choosing the right subject, you can include a good density of keywords in your text and you can create varied, interesting content to appeal to readers and, thanks to the proliferation of well-written open source blogging software available these days, you can have a well formatted, SEO-friendly website up and running in no time.
Your blog can be about anything. If you're running a business and are looking to attract visitors, it makes sense to write about your business niche, but don't feel that your blog has to be full of lifeless articles about pipes, widgets or photocopier manufacturing (I don't know anyone in the business of manufacturing photocopiers, but it doesn't sound fun) - if you add personality and a touch of your own, then you'll gain regular readers, who come back for more and may even add to the content of your site by leaving comments on your entries.
Start another Blog : Concentrate on Niche Areas
Yes, you heard us right. If you're the dedicated sort, and feel that you have time to spare writing up articles about subjects that appeal to you, then starting extra blogs can be a real draw for your visitors. By focussing on a different niche area (something not directly related to your main blog, but in the same ballpark), you can attract a different audience and, if you wish, funnel them through to your main blog. This way, you won't need to rely on one single source of visitors and, if you're feeling pro-active, multiple blogs in this fashion can increase the effect greatly.
Choosing a good blog niche is an artform all to itself though, and plenty of thought and consideration should be given before jumping into writing a blog. The most important thing though, is : Choose something that appeals to you. If you write about something you find utterly mundane and dull (Stamp collection, for instance : Apologies to any stamp collectors reading this) then you're going to struggle to find the motivation to come back regularly to update your blog.
Look on this not as an attempt to make money, or to attract visitors, but as a chance for self-improvement. You can write about anything you wish, from history, to science, to art. Music or technology. Do your research, write about your subject and, if you're dedicated, you will see results.
Links from other Websites back to Yours
Search engines - like Google - crawl the entire web, and in doing so they will eventually locate all the other sites and locations which link back to your site. These links, on other sites, are called "backlinks" and are very important for search engine rankings.
The quality of the backlinks is important too though. You may come across web-pages devoted just to linking other sites. Pages and pages will be filled with link after link to unrelated sites. I cannot emphasise enough - stay away from these. They are called "link farms" and will do no good for your search engine rankings, in fact, they may harm your rankings. Google sees these sites as an attempt to boost rankings artificially and will punish anyone with links found on them.
The best way to get quality links is by investing some time and effort into a quality link-share program. Find other websites which share your particular niche or content area, and contact the webmaster to ask if they'd like to exchange links. In return for placing your link on their site, you should do the same and place their link on yours.
For this to be of most benefit, try and find popular sites, that get a reasonable amount of traffic. You may not get many visitors through these links, but the search engines will pick up on the fact that you seem to be part of a "net" of related sites and award you appropriately. This may not give you much of a boost though, but it should make a noticeable difference if you can get, say, 75 related links on your site (and vice-versa, from related sites). Don't go overboard though, more than 75-100 links and the effect of your own "links page" will be diminished (after all, who would want to be placed 100th on a list of websites, where you would barely get noticed)
Write Articles and post them Online
This falls into the same area as writing a blog, but has the aim of producing more useful content, and information which can be used to educate others within your field of knowledge. By creating an informative article and placing it online, not only are you helping to spread your expertise, but you will also recieve visitors who are interested in learning more, and if your article is good enough, links to it will be placed on other sites, giving you useful "backlinks" (see top section) which will help drive up your search rankings.
Post On Other Blogs in your Subject Area
An alternative to swapping links is simply to post on blogs and forums related to your website. In some cases you may be able to place a link back to your site, but some blogs and forums disallow that, perhaps until you've become a more respected member. This practice isn't always about getting links though, by participating in communication amongst your business peers, you can gather interest in your site in a more personal way, and find out more about your own specific niche subject area.
Update Often, Update Regularly
Although Google and the other search engines reward relevant content, they will rank a site lower if they detect it hasn't been updated in a while. We find that the best approach to developing a good relationship with the search engines is to maintain relevant content on your site and update it often. Even if it's just a paragraph or two on a blog every week or so, the search engines will detect that something has changed on your site and promote you slightly, because of the new content.
This is where dedication comes in to play. It may seem like a chore updating content on a regular basis, but look at it as more of a hobby, rather than a chore. Think of it as that book you've always meant to get around to writing!
A word of advice here too - scattered around the internet are repositories of articles, available for use for personal or commercial sites. These articles are free to use, and can be added to websites to increase the content volume. Bear in mind though, that these articles will also be appearing elsewhere on the internet, on other sites and as such you will effectively have duplicate content on your site. A couple of these won't hurt your rankings, and may even help, as long as you continue to provide your own, fresh and relevant content.
A Final Word
Search engine optimisation is a tricky thing to get right, and can take a bit of practice, but don't despair if you don't get it right the first time: It's all about trial and error. Try things one way, if they don't seem to be working, try them another and see what the effect is on your visitor numbers. But one thing is for sure, dedication in this field pays off, and once the visitors start to arrive, you'll reap the benefits.
Published in Tutorialized
