Search Engine Optimisation Considered
By Jason Kendall. Filed in Uncategorized |Tags: advice, computer, education, hobbies, Home, money, self improvement, SEO, shop, software, technology, Uncategorized, web, Work
SEO is essentially a constantly evolving study of what factors the search engines take into account when they ‘rank’ you in their natural search listings.
‘Natural’ search listings are the main lists of results that come up when you search for something. Such listings are not part of the paid advertising section. On the major Search Engines, you’ll see a box at the top, and a column down the right hand side. These are the paid adverts. Naturally listed adverts have been taken directly from the index. The order of each site is determined by its ‘importance’ and relevance to the keyword.
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. We can’t know for sure about all the criteria Google and the like use to rank us. It’s not in the SE’s interest to tell people everything they do.
But there is now a skilled sector entirely devoted to benefiting from high rankings. On the one side you have SE’s like Google deliberately filing technology patents in many different areas. Causing much mystification about their methods! On the other hand, there’s Search Engine Optimisation. This uses empirical testing and measuring of various factors to determine which ones are the most important.
The objective is to maximise both ‘on-page’ and ‘off-page’ optimisation. Off-web criteria also play a part in SE listings, (e.g. demographics). This doesn’t come under the remit of SEO though. For a full discussion of Off-Page factors, please refer to our other article on this subject.
On Page Optimisation
If we can make changes to our site to make it more friendly to Search Engines, this is called ‘on-page’ optimisation. It’s not too complex – it just requires setting up your web site correctly. For example: 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. Some would argue its effect is so small it’s irrelevant. There was a time when SE’s were ‘duped’ by On-Page optimisation. Not any longer though.
On-Page can still be important though if Off-Page has been taken care of. If that’s the case, internal linking and a certain amount of on-page fine-tuning can reap rewards.
Things To Consider…
Don’t try hugely listed phrases and keywords in your early attempts at Search Engine Optimisation. The phrase ‘car insurance’ yields 70,000,000 results in the United Kingdom alone! It’s not rocket science to realise that competing in this area wouldn’t be productive.
However… When I search for “Southampton Car Insurance”, it comes down to a more manageable 300K. (If car insurance in Southampton was my business!) A big number still it seems – but actually quite a small number when it comes to web searches.
I could expect to get ranked far more easily for the longer phrase. In actual fact, it takes very deep pockets to get a premier listing for a term like ‘car insurance’. I’d be up against massive multi-nationals! Not a sensible option for anyone.
In fact, what we really need are terms that more specifically reflect our product or service. In the industry, we call these ‘long-tail’ searches – as they contain multiple keywords. Depending on how competitive your market is, the phrases could be from 2 to 7 words long. Typically they will be 3 or 4 words long.
In general, our recommendation is to begin SEO’ing with keyword phrases that reveal fewer than 500,000 results. (There are occasions when we might accept a higher yield figure at the start – when the top entries are not well optimised.) Then, as we build back-links, we’ll automatically start to gain some ground on the bigger search phrases. If we’ve worked well, we can start hitting the bigger terms in a few months time. It’s a much more targeted strategy. 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!
Don’t just limit building back links to your website’s home page – link them up to various sub pages as well. Google and the other Search Engines like this ‘deep linking’. Category or Product Group pages are a good example. They often have links to several other sub-pages about individual products. Do not simply build links to your web site’s home page. The SE’s are becoming increasingly interested in how a site’s individual pages are listed.
