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The nuts and bolts of SEO

April 17, 2008

Do it right and the results can be remarkable and very rewarding. Do it wrong and your site could be banished to obscurity for a very long time. Search engine optimisation is all about researching, building credibility, reaching your market, establishing your niche and maintaining position.

But there is no ‘magic bullet’ that guarantees a high placement by using organic means and any effect will take months to filter through to the search results pages.

The page-ranking algorithms used by the search engines are closely guarded secrets and change regularly. So even if a site does manage to sit proudly at the top of the pile one day, there is no certainty that it will be there the next. Search engine optimisation is not just about achieving high rankings, it is also about maintaining them.

But success is achievable. Following the recommendations, doing the right things and not doing the wrong things will very likely result in an improvement in your site’s position. And by continuing to work at it, the trend will be upwards. It won’t happen overnight, but the effort will bring rewards.

Keywords for market reach

In order to be found, somebody has to be looking for you. This means knowing the words and phrases (keywords) that potential visitors are searching on and weaving those words and phrases into the right places in the right proportions on your web pages. Finding those precious keywords requires considerable research. Incorporating them into your website requires an appreciation of placement, technique and quantity.

Link building for credibility

To the search engines, a website’s credibility is measured in terms of its perceived importance by other websites. In other words, links from other sites to your site are invaluable. But this is very much a case of quality over quantity. One-way links from reputable, relevant sites carry real value. High volumes of links from dubious or irrelevant sites will not enhance your site’s credibility. They might actually harm it.

Older is better

As well as quality of inbound links, the age of the links carries value. As does the age of your site.

Search engine friendly

The search engine spiders will crawl through your site by following the links. Broken links will mean lost results and a markdown in perceived overall quality of the site. A site map provides an easy way for the spiders to find all your pages from one place. A robots.txt file can be used to tell the spiders which pages not to index. Frames, Javascript and Flash content cannot be so easily indexed by the spiders.

Competitor analysis

Your competition’s websites may provide a goldmine of useful information. Find out what sites are linking to them by using Yahoo’s link, linkdomain and site commands. Discover what keywords they are targeting by using Google’s Site Related keywords tool (external link) .

Targeting the important search engines

Google, Yahoo and MSN have something like 95% of the search engine market between them. The only other player of any significance is Ask (formerly Ask Jeeves). Each has different features, functions, policies and priorities. Understanding how they work, especially Google, is key to achieving prominent listings.

Don’t

The search engines are not easily tricked. The spiders are aware of all the tricks such as keyword spamming, invisible text, duplicate pages, doorway pages, meta redirects, off-topic keywords, phantom pixels, cloaking, CSS hiding, link farms and mini net linking, to mention but a few. The penalty can be getting your site blacklisted.

Do

Keep researching, monitoring and optimising. The search engine algorithms are continually being updated. That can affect your site’s position. Your competitors can steal a march. Your business model may change. Once you’ve achieved those high placements, make sure you keep them.

Filed in: Search Engine Optimisation