What is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)? Plus 7 SEO Basics

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the execution of optimising a website to improve its' rankings in the search engines. The primary search engines of use being Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask. The end result should see improved traffic and a more accessible page.

Now Mr Confuser would tell you that SEO is a highly complicated matter and should only be attempted by professionals. He would say that, a bit like a dodgy plumber might say "coh this job's gonna take a while, not straight forward this one!" Don't let Mr Confuser do his best to put you off SEO, if he's worthy of your business then you're worthy of a frank explanation.

SEO is like a slippery fish, just when you think you've grasped it, it gets away from you. That's why the best optimisers are always on top of fresh developments in the way search engines work. If you're starting out and do not have the funds to bring in a professional then here are some basics to get you started.

Does My Website Need SEO?

Without Search Engine Optimisation your website is missing out on potentially large numbers of new visitors and clients. A search engine is the first port of call for many internet users looking to find a business, community, products, information etc. If your content can't be found by users via the search engines then that doesn't necessarily mean you're not within their index but it does mean that your content is way down the list and isn't optimised as best it could be!

The Basics to Optimise a Website

There are a number of things you can do to optimise your site for the search engines. Many are basic elements no site should be without although many still are.

A well constructed website is like a well built house. It's no good having a fantastic interior with all the mod cons if the foundations are weak!

So with that in mind here are my basics to building a better optimised site:

#1 Page Title

The title of your page appears in the top of the browser window:

and also in the search results:

Your title should accurately describe the page, it should also contain your keywords and be no more than 60 characters long.

#2 Keywords

The page should have specific keywords that relate to that page and at the same time relevant to someone's search. Time should be spent researching popular terms to make sure your page has a chance of ranking within the search engines. If your site is about animals then your keywords should be ones people are searching for. It's no good calling your page fluffy bunnies if people are searching for rabbits. When I say it's no good, that isn't strictly true but I don't want to confuse anyone here, basics first! I'll be going into more detail about keywords soon.

#3 Alt Text

Images on a page are a great way to help your page rank for your keywords. So if your page is about monkeys and it contains an image of a monkey your code for the image shouldn't look like this:

<img src="/images/dsc0012.jpg />

It should look something like this:

<img src="/images/monkey.jpg alt="monkey playing scrabulous" title="monkey playing scrabulous" />

If possible a good description of what the monkey is doing.

#4 File Names

All your file names should also be appropriate to what they contain especially if they contain information about your keywords. Instead of a generic file name that your digital camera gives a file, you should name it according to what it contains, in this case a monkey. This is also true when it comes to video, music, PDF, Word etc.

#5 Header Tags H1, H2, H3 etc.

When building your page it's important your headings are using the 'h' tags. The heading of your page should be within the h1 tag and appear at the very top, accurately describing the page. Then sub topics should be within h2 tags and so on. Your keywords should be used here.

#6 On the Page Links (not to be confused with menu links)

These links should again contain your keywords, seeing a pattern here?! The text (anchor) within these links gives weight* to the page it links to. At the same time these links help the search engines crawl your site and find pages that may not already have been indexed. If you do not have a site-map then a good internal link structure is very important.

*Search engines use the anchor text of a link to determine the content of the linked to page. A link that uses the anchor text "click here" tells the search engines that the linked to page has content related to "click here!" Make sure you use relevant anchor text and if possible your keywords such as "monkeys".

#7 Meta Tags

Your site should at least have the Description Meta Tag, if not the Keyword Tag also. These tags are not visible on the page but are crawled by the search engines. They should appear between the Head tags within your html page. The search engines use these tags to help determine what content is on your page. They also take the description tag information and use it in the results page of a search (below).

A well written description can entice people to click through to your site and an opportunity to tell people why they should visit your page. If you do not have a description tag then the search engines automatically take text from the page, but to make sure you're utilising this properly you should write it yourself. Meta tags don't significantly influence your page rankings but still play a part with search engines such as Yahoo.

Dictionary

Crawl
Search engines use software programs called 'bots' or 'spiders' to 'crawl' pages and documents to index them.

Indexed Page
Once a 'bot' has crawled a page it will be indexed into a huge database. The search engines then present pages from this index to users who perform a search relevant to that query.

Rankings
Once in the indexed database the search engines use an algorithm (mathematical equation - not to be confused with an Al-Gore-ithm which is something to do with planetary cycles!) to sort the pages into an order. A number 1 ranking for a search term/keyword is deemed so by that search engine. Note: each search engine has a different set of algorithms so being at no.1 in Google doesn't necessarily mean the same page will rank no.1 in Yahoo.

URL
Uniform Resource Locator (URL) for example http://www.makakmedia.co.uk

Traffic
This stands for visitors to your website, the to and fro (traffic) of users.

Conclusion

In regard to all of the above your site should be built professionally and not by someone who promises you No1 in Google with a click of his/her fingers. Stuffing your keywords into content or tags can be seen as spamming or black hat SEO which can not only get you banned by the search engines but also put off users. At the end of the day if the user finds a page that's built for a search engine spider then that user isn't going to hang about to try and decipher your page.

Make it relevant, optimised and compelling and you're on to a winner.

Read more on How Algorithms Work and Relate To Search Engine Optimisation.

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Do let me know if you've seen improvement in your rankings since implementing these SEO basics.