Overview of Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the art of getting your website and webpages to the top of the search engine results. 80% of searchers do not search past the 1st page of results and the first 5 results typically get 50% of all clicks. Google , MSN and Yahoo are the primary search engines and can make or break a site. Not being on the first page or two of results will have a huge impact on traffic to a site and on resulting revenues.

Competition to be at the top of the search engine results can be fierce. For example: the competitive search term "search engine optimization" returms 35,400,000 results in Google. Only 10 can be on the front page.

In it's simplest form SEO boils down to generating relevant incoming links to the site and building keyword-focussed content on the site. The more the better. These can be described as Off-Page factors and On-Page factors.

Off Page SEO factors

  • Links
    • The words may vary ('authority site', 'site with high PR'...) but search engines do rank sites based on the number of incoming relevant links. Sites with more incoming links are judged more important and authoritative than sites with less.
    • Links. Lots of relevant links. A link from a relevant on-topic page is worth more than a link from a link exchange directory.
    • A link from an on-topic page with few outbound links is worth more than a link coming from a page with hundreds of links where the weight of that link is diluted by the others.
    • Links from high ranking pages and high raking sites are worth more than links from lower ranked pages and sites.
    • The anchor text of a link tells search engines something about the content of that linked page. Put keywords into the anchor text to increase its weight and effectiveness.
    • Example: both these links point to Google but the second is better SEO 1) http://www.google.com 2) World's Best Search Engine

On Page SEO factors

On page factors refer to the layout and contruction of the page.

  • Keywords
    • Each page on a website stands on its own and must earn it's position in the search engines.
    • Keywords are the search terms that users enter into a search engine.
    • A keyword tool like Overture's can be used to get an idea of the number of searches conducted on different keywords and phrases.
    • Each page on the website should be be a separate topic focussed on a different set of keywords
      • A website about 'apple pies' could have one page focussed on 'dutch apple pie recipies' and another on 'homemade aple pies'
    • Write good and wordy content repeating the keywords without being too 'spammy'. This is also known as 'keyword density'.
  • Highlight Keywords
    • Words that are highlighted (in bold, italics, underlined etc...) have greater weight.
    • Repeat the keywords or a variation of the keywords in the page's section headers and follow each with related content. H1,H2 and H3 tags are typically used a section headers and indicate to the search engines that they should focus on these words.

This is an <H1> tag

This is an <H2> tag

This is an <H3> tag

  • Page Name
    • The Page Name is the last part of the URL. In this case www.fullpageparess.com/Main/SearchEngineOptimization
    • Search engines can read keywords in a Page Name especially if the words are separated by a dash. Dashes separate words while underscores combine words.

  • Title Tag
    • The Title tag is the top line in the browser - beside the browser's icon(ie Internet Explorer, FireFox...).
    • The Title tag is also the first line of each entry in the search engine results
    • Use the keywords or key phrase in the Title tag. Each page should have a unique Title tag. A common mistake is use the same generic Title tag thruout the website. Words at the beginning of a Title tag will have more weight than those at the end of a long Title tag. Don't waste valuable Title tag real estate with your company name unless you think someone will be searching on your company name, or your name contains relevant keywords.

  • Metatags
    • Metatags are embeddend in the webpage, are not seen by visitors, but can be seen by search engines.
    • Metatags are intended to give search engines a summary or overview of the page contents. These hidden tags are open to abuse and are no longer given importance by Google and some other engines. But it does no harm to include them.
    • The Keyword Metatag is just a list of keywords relevant to the page.
    • The Description Metatag is a descriptve sentance or paragraph about the page contents.

  • Page Layout and Markup
    • Right click and 'view source' or 'view page source' on a webpage to see the HTML code that a search engine sees.
    • Content at the top of the page has more weight than content at the bottom.
    • Try to get the main content as high up on the page as possible.
    • Many sites have indexes, banners, javascript and other markup at the top of the page that search engines must wade through to get to the content.
    • Scripts and Cascading Style Sheets can be moved to separate .js and .css files to remove clutter from the page.
    • On this page, the FullPagePress banner at the top of the page is actually at the bottom of the HTML code.
    • Search engines love text content. They don't care if the page is pretty, has Flash graphics or images. Markup, formatting and clutter should not geatly exceed content.

  • Search Engine Optimization will get more visitors to a site but good design and good content written for real visitors will keep them coming back.

  • Feedback and comments are appreciated.

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