Simple elements you can optimise yourself

Optimising your web site for search engines is often a matter of making small modifications to your site.

Below is an overview of some of the types of optimisation that your site should include.

Optimisation TIPS

Unique, accurate page titles.  A good title will include the name of your site that reflects what you do, and some keywords that accurately describe the focus of that particular page.  You want the title to read well also, not just your name and a list of tags, but a short descriptive sentence.

Description meta tag. Search engines use the descript tag to gain a summary of what the page is about.  Some search engines only use snippets of the description in the search results, whilst others will use the entire description.

File structure of your site.  Use good descriptive names for the folders and files inside your site to allow search engines to rank your pages well.  Don’t name pages with names like page1.htm, but rather use a name such as rarest_baseball_cards.htm

Keep navigation simple.  Search engines use spider technology to trawl through your web site and the ease of this navigation (not too many clicks from the home page to reach important content) will be noted as search engines like to have a sense of what role each page plays in the bigger picture of the site.

Provide quality content.  Users of your site are more likely to direct others to your site using their own blog, twitter and social networking sites if you provide clear, easy to read, informative content.  Whilst you are designing the content for your users, not search engines, the more links that point back to your site through your quality content, the higher your ranking progresses.

Use clear anchor names.  Anchors provide links for users to jump directly to actual positions on a page.  Clear anchor names are noted and ranked by search engines.

Use heading tags appropriately.  Headings inside your page are created by use of heading styles.  Using these correctly allows search engines to note this as important content text and improves ranking if you provide appropriate text in your headings.

Use clear Image names and tags.  Image names should reflect what is in the image as search engines read the image names.  The Alt tag that is attached to images is useful for your visitors, giving them a description of the image (very important if they are not viewing images) and allowing search engines to see that your images reflect your content.

Promote your site well.  Good practices include – using a blog to promote new content and services, put your site address on all business material the public may encounter, use social networking sites to promote your site, link to other peer sites in your business community and add your business to Google’s Local Business Centre

Track site usage.  Use a tool such as Google Analytics to regularly review how users reach and behave on your site.