The ever developing skill of learning how Search Engines position sites on their organic search listings is known as Search Engine Optimisation. When we search for anything, up come the natural search lists. They are not to be confused with the Pay per Click entries. Pay Per Click adverts are generally sectioned off down the right hand side, with a couple across the top of the page. Naturally listed adverts have been taken directly from the index. Algorithms are used to determine the position of a web site in a Search Engine directory.
Of course, we would like to be as high as possible on page one. No-one’s going to find us if we’re listed on page seven. It isn’t possible to say for certain exactly which measures SE’s use to grade sites. The SE’s really don’t want anyone to know – so you can’t manipulate or ‘game’ their system.
As a result, we now have a very skilled bunch of professionals focused on optimisation. On the Search Engine side you have upgraded technological patents being regularly filed. (To cause as much uncertainty as possible!) On the other hand, there’s Search Engine Optimisation. This utilises a series of tests and measurements to determine the most pertinent factors.
Both ‘off page’ and ‘on page’ optimisation is dealt with. In addition there are geographic and demographic factors, but SEO cannot control these. (Off-Page optimisation is examined in an additional feature.)
‘On-Page’ SEO
Adjusting a site’s content to make it friendlier to the SE’s is called On Page optimisation. This is quite straight-forward – it simply requires correctly setting up your site. Factors like: The correct use and density of keywords and internal linking; H1 and H2 header tags and meta tags.
It doesn’t matter if all that sounds very confusing. In reality, this is very easy to control, but not wildly effective. Indeed, it could be said to basically not have much influence at all. Previously we could make an impact with On Page configurations. Not any longer though.
On-Page can still be important though if Off-Page has been taken care of. Then it’s worthwhile to manipulate your web pages and have some internal links.
Suggestions To Take Into Account – Do not START to SEO with phrases that yield millions of results. For example, on Google’s Search Engine you’ll see 70 million listings in the UK for the term Car Insurance. It’s fairly obvious that seventy million competitors is a few too many for someone just getting started.
But… Extend the phrase to Southampton car insurance and it’s under a third of a million. (Relevant if that’s the locality I work in). This still seems quite a large amount, but it’s actually not in search terms.
We can do much more with this. In point of fact, a phrase like Car insurance would massively set me back. I would actually be competing with the insurance conglomerates! So not a great idea – especially, in fact, when there are much better ways to go about it.
Therefore, we’re looking for phrases that yield less overall results – but quite accurately sum up what we do or what we offer. In SEO terms, they’re referred to as Long Tail Searches, as they include several relevant words. Long tail can be anything from two to about seven words long. It depends on your competition. Usually, a long-tail phrase is three or four words.
In general, our recommendation is to begin SEO’ing with keyword phrases that reveal fewer than 500,000 results. (If the sites on the front page haven’t used SEO techniques, then we might go with bigger yields). Then, as we build back-links, we’ll automatically start to gain some ground on the bigger search phrases. Assuming everything goes to plan, we’ll hit the popular phrases in three to twelve months. This strategy is also far more targeted at the start. Frankly, we’re only interested in the customers who are looking specifically for what we offer. There’s much more chance these people will buy!
It’s a good idea to spread the back-links around your website. Limiting them to the home page is unwise. We call this ‘deep-linking’ – and Google in particular likes this. Try back-linking product group pages. They very frequently link up to a range of sub-pages, so driving appropriate terms to them can be very worthwhile. So don’t limit the back links to one page. Bing, Yahoo and Google are all paying more attention to the way a website’s pages are managed and listed.
(C) Jay Kendall. Visit EvolveSEM.co.uk for quality advice on SEM Consultants and SEO Consultants.
