The process of search engine optimisation (SEO) is aimed at pushing a website further up the search engines for specified searches. This can be quite a difficult and time consuming process and is definitely one that requires a certain amount of patience. SEO involves both on-site and off-site activity and one must first analyse the website in question and carefully look into options for keywords to be used. There are many companies who specialise in SEO and their prices range greatly, as do the techniques they use. At the end of the day, it’s their results that matter the most so if you are considering paying a company to engage in SEO of your behalf, first make sure you are happy with their track record.
On-Site Optimisation
On-site optimisation is as the title suggests; it involves work carried out on a website and its aim is to make a website as search engine friendly as possible and also relevant to the searches involved. Typically, the work done on a website will be both technical and content based. Search engines use complicated formulas or ‘algorhythms’ to decide upon the placement of websites within their listings, and thus there are many factors involved at this stage. Once the keywords have been chosen, the first step is to make sure that all the content on the website is focused towards the keywords, and that the meta page titles/descriptions/tags are also keyword strong. This ensures that the search engines identify your website in relation to your chosen keywords. Technically, a website must be of a high quality and that includes factors such as page validation, load times and XML site maps etc. All these things can help you earn ‘brownie’ points with the search engines and therefore increase your positioning.
Off-Site Optimisation
Off-site optimisation is focused mainly on gaining a website inbound links. A major part of any search engines algorithm is the amount of links a website has coming in. However, not only do search engines judge on the quantity of links, they also judge the quality of links. A high quality link is worth so much more than hundreds of low quality links. A high quality link is usually a link coming from a website with an old domain name and a high page ranking that is relevant to you particular line of work. Having a link as close to the home page as possible also helps the cause. When acquiring a new link, it is important that you try to make sure that the ‘anchor text’ includes the keywords for your website. ‘Anchor text’ is the text that forms the link to your website. This text helps identify to the search engines what the link is all about, and goes a long way to helping boost your websites positioning.
There is much more to it than discussed in this article, but hopefully some of the points raised can go some way to making the process of SEO clearer.
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