Search
Engine
Optimisation
Beginner’s
Guide
to
Search
Engine
Optimisation
(SEO)
Index:
Introduction ... 3
Key Words & Phrases ... 3
Meta Tags ... 4
Menu Items ... 5
Alternative Text Fields ... 5
Links ... 6
Contact Details ... 6
More often than not it is the content of a website that prevents it from performing to its maximum potential. And that often means lost revenue!
Fortunately, the performance of your site can be significantly improved by careful, informed re‐ writing of copy, modification of titles and search terms and the addition of specific information. You may already have invested significant amounts in your current website. A little extra attention and time can make the difference between success and failure online.
Development and design costs can be large and it is not always easy to measure your success or justify further expenditure. The truth is, much of your existing investment could be completely wasted if your site is not performing to its maximum potential. No matter how impressive the design or functionality is, a website that is not marketed correctly is potentially worthless.
So, before you decide to invest further in web development, take a look at our simple ‘help yourself’ guide and see what a difference you can make. If you do not have a Content Management System (CMS) for your website, get in touch to see how we could help with our range of self‐edit, search engine‐friendly website packages.
2. Key Words & Phrases
Before you begin the process of optimisation, it is necessary to spend some time identifying your Key Phrases and Key Words.
These can be single or multi‐word combinations by which your clients or customers are most likely to search for your products or services.
For example, a cleaning company wishing to promote its services in a given area might use phrases such as ‘domestic cleaning in Bristol’ or ‘commercial cleaning in Bristol’, depending on the emphasis and range of their services.
Single Key Words are often too generic and can therefore cover a range of industries, many of which may be difficult to compete with.
Recommendation: Ideally, you should target between 2‐ and 4‐word combinations and, when possible, specify a geographical location, e.g. website design in Altrincham. It is worth noting that, although ‘link’ words like ‘an’, ‘and’ and ‘in’ are largely ignored by the search engines, it is best to write logical copy which appeals to human beings!
3. Meta Tags
There are three main types of Meta Tag ‐ Title Tags, Description Tags and Key Word Tags ‐ all of which need to be carefully worded in order to affect your search engine ranking. • The Title Tag not only displays at the top of the browser window, but also appears as the linked text when potential customers review results from a search. To Google, the Title Tag is of average importance in terms of SEO, but of high importance with respect to ‘getting the click’. It is recommended your Title Tags are no longer than 70 characters, including spaces.o Recommendation: Use this tag to grab attention, to create curiosity and evoke emotion. Rather than simply use your company's or website's name, try to describe what your potential customers would be searching for so that the phrase which appears in their search (your Title Tag) most closely represents their needs. • The Description Tag is usually is placed after the Title tag and before the Meta keywords tag, although the order is not important. It can be up to 250 characters in length (including spaces) and should ideally contain as many Key Words / Key Phrases as possible, without repetition, and in order of priority to your marketing aims.
o Recommendation: It's worthwhile creating a unique and compelling Description for each page of your site, as that will provide you with the most control over what your potential audience sees in the search engine ranking pages, as with Title Tags. • Your CMS provides a field for Key Word Tags, which are basically your Key Phrases and key Words, ideally from 3 ‐ 6 different words / phrases. List them in the field, comma separated, and avoid repetition. For example, an ineffective tag list might be: ‘Builders in Bath, builders in Bristol, builders in Avon’. A better list might be: ‘Builders in Bath, Bristol building services, home extensions. Your words / phrases should appear a number of times in your copy and titles on the relevant product / service page, as well as being mentioned on your Home page in summary and on banner headings / links (and preferably hyperlinked to the relevant page ‐ see section 6: Links).
o Recommendation: increase your Key Word density by including at least three instances to your most import phrases, and focus on no more than 3 different phrases per page if possible. The Key Word density determines how ‘visible’ you become and is calculated as the word’s appearance as a percentage of all words on that page, including titles and banner copy. If necessary, create a separate page for each key product or service area you wish to promote to increase word density.
Your Menu Items are the titles which appear on your Menu bar, which can be in several positions on your web page. It doesn’t matter if your menu titles are featured across the page, above or below your copy or in the side menu. What matters is whether the search engines can ‘read’ them. Some website designs include graphical menu buttons, where a relevant image is the hyperlink to the corresponding page. However, if there is no text title on these buttons, they are effectively invisible to the search engine robots and therefore do not contribute to your ranking. The only way to make a graphical menu button ‘searchable’ is by use of the Alternative Text field (see section 5). However, if you choose menu titles which incorporate your Key Words or Phrases, they will be included in the Key Word density calculation and contribute to your ‘searchability’.
5. Alternative Text Fields
Although the Alternative Text Field does not contribute to the Key Word density of a page, it can increase visibility if Key Words and Phrases are incorporated into these descriptions of images, buttons and graphics.
Alternative Text should ideally be an informative sentence (not an essay) which describes the item concerned and the result of clicking on it.
For example, if your Home Page contains an image of one of your key product or service areas, which is featured in detail on another page in your site and hyperlinked to it, your Alternative Text might read ‘Click on this link to see more images of modern kitchens installed by Kitchen Installation Specialists of Birmingham’.
By including the descriptive term ‘link’ in the text, your website’s accessibility to the visually‐ impaired is significantly increased, which also positively affects your ‘searchability’ as a disability‐ friendly site. This is important to the search engines.
6. Links
Your website’s visibility and position in the Search Engine Page Rankings can be enhanced by the creation of both internal (from one section of your site to another, for example form an introduction on your Home page to the relevant section within your site) and external (to and/or from other sites) links.
They can be anywhere on your site and link from text, images or graphics, although section 4: Menu
Items above discusses the pros and cons of non‐textual representations of information on your site and our advice on Alternative Text content should be considered.
7. Contact Us
Software Assistance Limited can be contacted by any of the following methods:
By Telephone: 0161 929 1291 (Local / National) 0800 622 6338 (Freephone) Via our website: www.softwareassistance.co.uk By E‐mail: [email protected] By Letter Software Assistance Limited
10 Apsley Close
Bowdon
Altrincham
Cheshire
