Search Engine Optimisation Uncovered
Search Engine Optimisation takes into account the factors used by Google, Bing etc. when they position websites in their natural listings. The natural listings form the main body of a Search Engine’s pages. Paid listings are separate to natural listings. In a typical Google or Bing search, you can see the paid listings in the right column and in the yellow box at the top. The ‘natural’ listings are straight from the main index. Algorithms are used to determine the position of a web site in a Search Engine directory.
Plainly our aim is to get our site up with the top ones. We’re unlikely to get noticed if we’re number 8 on the tenth page! Only those in the Search Engine’s ‘inner circle’ know all the factors used to position sites. It’s not in the SE’s interest to tell people everything they do.
Because of this, much technical expertise has developed around the subject. We have Search Engines constantly developing new technology on the one hand. Leading to great mystique over their ratings methodology. On the other hand, there’s Search Engine Optimisation. SEO empirically measures and tests data to establish the more significant factors that the SE’s are using.
The objective is to maximise both ‘on-page’ and ‘off-page’ optimisation. There are also ‘off-web’ factors such as demographic and geographic information – but we have no control over this area. (We’ve covered ‘Off Page’ factors in a separate article, as there wasn’t enough room here.)
‘On-Page’ SEO
It’s possible to change the pages of your website to make them ‘friendly’ to the Search Engines. It’s not too complex – it just requires setting your website up the right way. Doing things such as: Keyword seeding (in the right places and the right amounts), using H1 and H2 header tags (and to some extent meta-tags) and internal linking.
Don’t worry if you don’t understand the technical terms. The bottom-line is, that while it is the easiest to control, it has the LEAST affect on your ranking. To be blunt, some would say it hardly has any effect at all. Search Engines used to credit on page factors in the past. Not any longer though.
The only time that ‘on-page’ becomes important is when you have taken care of ‘off-page’ and have a lot of inbound ‘back-links’. If that’s the case, internal linking and a certain amount of on-page fine-tuning can reap rewards.
Take Counsel – Avoid doing SEO on keywords that have millions of listings. Take car insurance for instance. In Britain alone you’d get seventy million sites listed. When you’re just getting going, it’s not a great idea to face such huge competition!
On the other hand… The phrase ‘Southampton Car Insurance’ only brings in three hundred thousand. (Assuming I was a car insurance provider in Southampton.) This still seems quite a large amount, but it’s actually not in search terms.
I could expect to get ranked far more easily for the longer phrase. In reality, getting ranked for car insurance would cost a fortune! I’d actually be head to head with the really big boys. So not a great idea – especially, in fact, when there are much better ways to go about it.
Therefore, we’re looking for phrases that yield less overall results – but quite accurately sum up what we do or what we offer. These ‘long tail’ phrases might contain a number of specific keywords. They could be anything from two to seven words in length. Generally we use 3 to 4 words.
We prefer to begin optimisation strategies with phrases that bring in less than five hundred thousand results. Sometimes we’ll consider higher counts if the top results are not benefitting from optimisation. As time goes on, we’ll benefit from an automatic improvement on the bigger terms as well. And as our work makes progress, we’ll be onto the bigger terms a few months down the road. This strategy is also far more targeted at the start. Frankly, we’re only interested in the customers who are looking specifically for what we offer. There’s much more chance these people will buy!
You should also build back links to various different pages – and not just your website’s homepage. The SE’s respond well to this. Product Group pages are a good place for back links. It’s worth driving specific search terms to these pages – they often have links to lots of other product pages. Don’t just create back-links to your home-page. Bing, Yahoo and Google are all paying more attention to the way a website’s pages are managed and listed.
Recent comments