Optimising a website for search engines also known as SEO (search engine optimisation) or SEM (search engine marketing) is a hugely complex and multifaceted activity that has spawned an industry in its own right. However, if you follow some simple, easy to follow rules then there is a wealth of activities you can do yourself to make Google et al love you.
What is SEO
Simply put, ranking well in search engines is a popularity contest so the art of SEO is to make your website more popular for specific search words and phrases. The important thing to remember is that we want to rank well for search terms that relate precisely to what the site is about so that when a user clicks on a link to visit your site, their expectations are met.
On page or off page ?
SEO is a game of two halves: we have to optimise the content of your site to align with our specific search terms and we call that on page SEO. At the same time we need to create inbound links from other websites, social media and so on that indicates to the search engine just how popular you are. We call this off page SEO. Within this article we shall talk about on page SEO.
On page SEO
Within the scope of the article we cannot discuss keyphrases in depth but what is important to note is that whatever you do, you need to align your pages to popular search terms. For example, as web developers, we need to know the words that browsers will use when they search in Google. Do they ask for 'Web designers in Bournemouth', 'Bournemouth web developers' or 'Web page design in Bournemouth'? One of my favourite quck and dirty ways to find this out is to start to type a search query into Google, and in return Google will auto complete with popular search terms. Based on that we can then use those words and phrases in our pages.
Page titles and meta tags
Every page of a website should have a unique page title. This is not a visible part of the page but you will see it in the tab of the browser. It's important is it's literally the first unique piece of text that a seerch engine will read when scanning your page. It should ideally be no more than 10 words and to the point. The more words you use in the title, the more you dilute the potency of them. Secondly we need to write a 'meta description'. Once again, this is not part of the visible page but typically can be seen as the description when looking at a page of search results. Think of it as your pitch. With regard to our earlier example if you were looking at a page of results for Bournemouth web designers, that pitch is important. It should be an expansion of what the page is about with your USP. So if the page title is 'Phoenix Digital | web design agency | Bournemouth' then the meta description might be 'Award winning web design agency in Bournemouth specialising in ecommerce'
Use words in different contexts
Web pages are made up of headings, paragraphs, lists, links and images amongst other things. If you can imagine the phrase 'web design in Bournemouth appearing in a page title, in a paragraph, a list and the alt tag of an image then Google will understand that those words are important and relevant to the page.
Links
The miracle of the hyperlink is the thing that makes the internet work, allowing you jump from one page to another. The words that we use in the link can be as important as the link itself. As an example if you had a home page with a series of hyperlinks where the visible text is 'read more' then Google will assume that 'read more' is important to you. However if the visible text reads 'more about ecommerce in Bournemouth' or 'more about web design in Bournemouth' then it tells Google a little about the page the link points to before it even visits.
In our next article wwe'll delve a little further into specific types of content for your site to boost on page SEO.
