|
Title: WEB PAGE OPTIMISATION
Author: Graham J.
McLusky
Article:
I would envisage that there have to be a
million and one articles written on Web page Optimisation or SEO
techniques. Nevertheless, there will always be room for an unsullied
overview...
Introduction:
Web page
optimisation is the process of adjusting the design and substance of the
pages of a website so that when a search engine visits the site, it pays
greater attention to certain keywords and phrases incorporated within the
pages of the website. One wants to vigilantly improve the code within each
web page, varying and modififying the necessary parts to reach the
optimisation objectives. It takes a lot of fine-tuning and a degree of
proficiency to ensure that each individual website is properly optimised.
It is fundamental for good positioning within the major search engines.
Careful optimisation will permit your page to meet these necessary search
engine standards, be indexed for relevant key phrases, and get some sort
or a decent ranking within the top three search engines.
To
attain a lofty ranking on some of the bigger search engines like Google
and Yahoo for instance, your web site will be required to be what is
commonly called…"search engine friendly". This means that you should
develop particular techniques for enabling "search engine visibility" to
certain Keywords contained in your pages. You will need to vigilantly
assemble your web pages around your chosen keywords.
It is all to
do with the process of editing the text in the pages to obtain the proper
formation of HTML coding and the relative amount of key words to the rest
of the content.
All search engines seem to be designed to have
different formulae for deciding what a prominent web page must be.
The
universal law is to include a permutation of:
- Pertinent content to each page
- Well thought out Meta Tags
- High frequency of key words
- Key words which mirror the content of the pages
Positioning:
The position of your web pages within
the many search engines becomes immaterial should the web page not be
developed in the approved manner at the outset.
Search engines are
continually altering the way in which their ranking formulae
operates in order to afford additional appropriate information to the end
user and stay at the forefront despite the idiots who have coined the name
“Spammers”. These are calculatingly irresponsible people who
endeavour to dupe the search engines by overfilling their web pages with
immense amounts of keywords, many “doorway pages” and so on and so
forth.
For the reason that there are many revisions in search engine
technology and also page rank methods, it is imperative to observe the
ranking of your website/s on a regular basis and bring up to date your
optimised web pages, so that one is able to fill the criteria or formulae
which the search engines are utilising at that time.
Numerous people
desperately use infinite amounts of their precious time fiddling about
with and altering their websites, trying to crack what is believed to be
the search engine requirements.
Contrary to popular belief, there
are no speedy shortcuts to improving your website's position in the most
important "free" search engines or directories.
The oldest
technique of achieving top search engine results was by using “meta-tags”.
This has now finished to be an effective method following the
materialisation of Google 1997-98.
You must therefore
meticulously...
- Appraise your website's existing position
- Weigh up your competitor's position to see how you rate alongside
them
- Set and re-analyse your most important goals
- Note down the changes that should take place in order to accomplish
your goals
- Look at your website after three month intervals and re-evaluate
it
Optimisation:
One should learn the actions and
methods required in order to get the best results with your selected
keywords. There are plenty of web pages out there full of the information
you require, or if funds allow, speak with a web company who offers an
optimization service. Web Page Optimisation is the principal method
of ensuring your website is given a higher position correctly in search
engine listings.
Search engines like rich and relevant
information. If your site contains pertinent and valuable information for
its readers, search engines will favour your site above ones with low
quality information. You need to locate the most popular and significant
keywords and phrases which people use to find the sort of information,
products and services you offer to customers and visitors.
One
needs to focus on individual pages and work carefully to produce the best
content and keywords for that particular page and then treat the next page
as a separate and different entity. People spend plenty of time and money
designing their websites, either professionally or by themselves and the
truth of the matter is that web page optimisation is frequently the single
most important thing actually
missing!
Claims:
People once used to be
able to claim:
- "You can achieve primary positions in a very short
time"- this may have been the situation 8 years ago, when the
quantity of sites wasn't particularly large in number but today this
isn’t the situation at all.
- "We guarantee you first place on the search
engines"- absolute rubbish! You cannot do this using the free
indexing route. You are pretty hard pushed using any method. How many
sites can get on the first results page on any search engine? 10 in most
cases. How many sites are out there? Millions!
Pay Per Click:
Large search engines have stringent
criteria policies which protect the integrity of their services and do not
consent to synthetic positioning within their results. A position on any
search engine may only be certain if you pay for an advert, and also how
much you're ready to spend.
Pay per click (PPC) search engines can
be a cost-effective approach to building speedy traffic whilst your
ranking improves. Going the web page optimisation route as well as this
can aid higher rankings most definitely.
It is relatively simple to set
up PPC accounts with the big search engines, they have made it as easy as
possible to do. It is not expensive and is highly
recommendable.
Four Main Criteria:
For a simple
website, the optimisation route is comparatively undemanding, as there are
no more than four main criteria that affect your web page’s
positioning:
- Web site content and structure
- Links to and from the web site
- Selection of Keywords
- Competitors
Automation:
Moreover, rivalry has dramatically
increased for top positions, which means that attaining an elevated
ranking, requires astuteness, expertise, understanding and regular
monitoring and fine-tuning. Your website’s search engine position, using
particularly well chosen keywords, is what ensures whether or not you
obtain the visitors you seek, from the search engines.
There are a
lot of website ranking tools and software packages, available on the
internet these days, which automate this development procedure of checking
web site positioning. They are “de rigueur” for most webmasters.
Design:
Although the content must be designed from
the visitor’s point of view, you must also always consider what the search
engines need to see as well. So it is a fine balance.
One must
take into account: The TITLE, META DESCRIPTION and META KEYWORDS tags.
Also the relevance between the meta tags and the content of the page is
vitally important. The number of words on the page is important; too
little and the search engines will skip the page as being unimportant. The
keyword-frequency is to carefully considered likewise with the page
content.
A site map is almost always of prime importance,
containing links to your pages, so that the Search Engines may simply
“spider”and “index” them.
Submission to search
engines:
As soon as your website has been optimised, you
should submit your site to as many search engines as possible. Some search
engines take a protracted amount of time to process your ‘free’ entry.
Don’t submit to any search engine in anticipation of you having completed
your web page optimisation and create at least one external site link to
your site. Focus on the bigger engines primarily.
Do not use cheap
mass market software to do the submitting for you. Your entry to DMOZ and
other types of directories ought to be handled with added care, as the
narrative and classification of your site will frankly affect your results
rather considerably.
Keywords:
Keywords should
be kept in close proximity in the page content, to increase the keyword
density, also known as keyword weight. They should also be revised from
time to time to ensure better search engine positioning.
The subsequent
stage following the location of the correct keywords and phrases for your
site is to modify the supplementary sections which are included in the
HTML code. A “description” should be around 150 characters and ought to be
a straightforward sentence which includes the specific and most relevant
keywords of the product or service being discussed on that particular
page.
“Header Tags” hold significant areas in which to take
account of keywords. Include keywords in your “alternative text”
descriptions thus escalating the probability of your website becoming
found when a visitor enters those keywords into a search engine. You can
use all sorts of web page analyses services, like online tools which
analyse the TITLE, DESCRIPTION and KEYWORDS tags, in addition to the words
of the page and the keyword-frequency.
The most valuable keywords
may be selected using Google, Overture etc., to offer you the best chance
of a top placement. The keywords quite often change in the popularity
stakes and because of this, your earch engine placement and
re-optimisation requirements will necessitate regular
appraisal.
Here are the things to look for when optimizing your web
pages:HTML headers:
The “head” tags of the HTML code, which
precedes the page content including the meta keywords, page description
and title codes all necessitate rewriting to ensure they are as effective
as possible when read by the search engines.
Link
text
Equally, inbound and outbound links within your site
ought to be optimized correctly. Look directly at each element of your
site and also evaluate the density of the keywords.
Title
Tag
The “title tag” of your web page is the singularly most
significant dynamic to review when optimising your web page. This is for
the reason that the majority of search engines and directories treat
keywords that are found in your title tag as the most significant. This
particular tag is what the search engines usually pick up on for the
titles of your page’s listings.
Meta tags
These
have a lesser amount of importance now. However, meta “keyword” and
“description” tags should be incorporated in your HTML code to supply
search engines with as much detail as possible. However the majority of
search engines will ignore meta tags completely.
Body
text
This is a crucial aspect, as it describes your web site.
The search engines will read the content from your body text and will
attempt to expose the subject matter of your site and begin working on it
for suitability. A number of search engines actually adjust your site
description from the content of your body text. Placing key words nearer
the top of the page will in effect score
higher.
Images
Images will help your search
engine listings, given that every image on your pages is able to include a
keyword phrase in its “alt tag”. This extra text will also show up in the
image placeholder and assist those who may not see the images when
visiting, which is an additional way in which to advance your listing
probability.
Heading tags
Though they’re
infrequently used, heading tags <h1> <h2> etc., may well help
progress your listings too. Since they are "headings" the search engines
assume that they are related to the content of your page. Therefore it is
wise to include your most important keyword phrases between the heading
tags.
Links
Links from other web sites are
tremendously significant if you wish for high search engine rankings.
Visitors to your site will be a combination of individuals who are on
familiar terms with your business already, those who have discovered you
via links or adverts placed other sites, and persons who have turned up as
a consequence of using a search engine. Encourage more frequent use of
external links to your site.
Google defines links as “votes” for a
website. Therefore receiving excellent rankings for your website is
repeatedly going to be coupled with factors such as which sites and how
they link to your site.
Placement:
The
recompense for keyword research along with web page optimisation, followed
by good search engine submission, is that your website will more likely be
found by the keywords and key phrases associated to your subject in the
top search engines.
In summary:
- One of the foremost aspects of web page optimisation is to ensure
that the main keywords are seen by the search engine first. They should
be placed in the opening headline, to be as effective as possible.
- A significant part of the achievement of a web site is effective web
page optimisation and regular promotion of the web site to major search
engines.
- You ought to be aware of search engines and keywords which are
creating less traffic than anticipated and where extra work is essential
to progress your ranking. You could analyse a competitor's improved web
page optimisation and learn their methods of success.
- Favour the major search engines for your results.
- Don’t use mass-market software for your search engine placement
activities.
- Locate the most popular and germane keywords and phrases which
people will use to find information, products and services which are
offered by you.
- Become accomplished at the measures you ought to take in order to
obtain top search engine results with your selected keywords.
- One should, at all times, aim to apply recommendations you hear of
by editing your pages accordingly, which will increase your ranking in
the major search engines.
- Plan to register with the most accepted search engines and
directories throughout the world.
- On a regular basis, verify your page ranking in the major search
engines.
- Discover the number pages which are linking to your website; which
sites are linking to your site and check the opposition for both one-way
and reciprocal links.
About the Author:
The Hon. Graham J. McLusky is owner of
Graham McLusky Theatre & Multimedia Services. Based in Lincoln UK, he
heads a team of web & graphic designers, producing Internet Sites,
Multimedia Presentations, Powerpoint and Flash Presentations for Business.
He also offers a comprehensive copywriting service for business and
advertising http://www.graham-mclusky.co.uk
|