Posted:23/06/2009
One of the
most important things for any business website is to have a successful and
effective search engine optimisation. This article will look at the website
optimisation or on site factors that you need to take into account to have a
successful campaign.
If you follow
the below steps you will be well on your way to an optimised website and top
rankings. However you should not fall into the trap of thinking it is easy and
something you can do and leave. A top quality search engine optimisation
campaign will take into account on site and off site factors and will work on
them consistently over time to achieve top rankings. Without a lot of effort
and hard work there is a good chance you will never get those first page
rankings. However this article will help you to get started.
Step 1 -
Keyword Research
Before you
begin anything you need to research the keywords you are going to work with.
This might seem easy as you know what keywords you want to appear in the
rankings for, or do you? There may be variations on your chosen words that have
more searches and are less competitive. This should always be your aim to have
keywords that have enough searches to bring you business but are not so
competitive that it will take you years to get on the first page.
This should
be done for each of your pages so that each one focuses on at most 2 or 3
keywords. This will give you a greater chance of getting the right pages ranked
for the right keywords.
Step 2 -
Navigation
Once you
know what keywords you want to use you then need to focus on your navigation
and inter page linking. It is of vital importance that your menu uses text
links otherwise the search engines will not be able to move from page to page
and so will not find your entire site.
You should
also use text with the content of your website and these can be set up so that
they include the keywords for each of your pages. This will help to reinforce
with the search engines what each of your pages are about.
Step 3 -
Title and Meta Tags
You now need
to set the title and meta tags for each of your pages. The title tag is by far
and a way the most important tag is it is of vital importance that you include
your main keyword at the beginning of this tag. This will enable the search
engines to know exactly what your web page is about.
The meta
tags are less important and in fact the meta keywords are pretty much redundant
now and so are a lot less important. The meta description is useful as this is
often the snippet that is used in the search results as the description of a
site. So it is important that you make it enticing and you include your
keywords in it. Also the search engines will check that you have a different
meta description for each page to ensure you are a quality well maintained
website.
Step 4 -
Include other Tags
There are
other tags on your web page such as header tags and image tags that describe an
image. It is important that you pay attention to this. If you can include your
keywords in the headers for your page it will add extra influence on what your
web page is about. Also search engines cannot see images so it is important to
describe them and if possible use your keywords here.
Step 5 - Web
Page content
Now you have
everything else in place you should work on the content and ensure your keyword
appears in the content. It should appear if possible in the first sentence and
in every paragraph on your web page. Aim for a density of 3%-5% of the words on
your page, this should help to show the search engines what your page is about
but not make it look like a spam website. Don't forget to rewrite your content
on a regular basis and keep the search engines happy with fresh content.
The above
steps will not get you to the top of the search engines on their own but they
will ensure your website is in the best possible state for achieving them.
