What is search engine optimisation (SEO)

SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is the method of priming a website so it can be 'noticed' and 'picked up' by the search engines and listed in their result pages. SEO can be separated into two parts: onsite optimisation and offsite optimisation, both of which are necessary for good results on the search engine result pages (SERPs). It's a good idea to have some understanding of SEO if you rely on search engine listings for your business.

on-site optimisation

This is where optimisation is purely focused on the text and content in the site and code. Done properly the web designer or search engine specialist should work with the site owner to identify the keywords that the site needs to be found for and then research these keywords to understand how competitive they are. A final list of suitable keywords for each page will then be drawn up and implemented on the site. It is important to understand that if you target really competitive keywords (eg. 'chartered surveyors' which has 1.04 million google results) you are highly unlikely to rank very high at all. However if you channel your words to be more specific your site will have more of a chance at being listed (eg. by using 'chartered surveyors Reading' you will only be up against 74,200 other results).

The other part of onsite optimisation involves building site code which is clean and validated and follows the W3C rules (an organisation which develops web standards). Search engines favour sites which follow these rules as they can crawl the site content with ease and find exactly what they are looking for.

off-site optimisation

Google (the god of the search engine world) rates websites by seeing how many 'recommendations' it has. The more recommendations a website has from reputable and content-relevant sites the more Google will favour it in the rankings. 'Recommendations' are basically text links from one website to yours.

A good place to start is free listings directories, business directories, directories which may be specific to your field and even blog comment fields. These are good because they won't ask for a reciprocal link. In conjunction with directories you should look for websites with content similar to your own (although it's best to avoid direct competition). The best way to get links from these websites is simply by asking politely via email with details on how to link to your site. It is very hard to get a link from a website without also putting their link on your site, so be prepared for this by creating a simple 'links' page.

Link building should be an ongoing process if you want to ensure a top position for your keywords. It's not an easy job and unfortunately the results may not show for months but if your site depends on these listings then it will be worth it in the end. Perseverance is the key.

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