Basic Search Engine Optimisation Tips
- By Ben Greenwood
- Published 01/18/2012
- Internet
- Unrated
There are many techniques you can use to raise your website’s ranking in Google and all the other search engines out there but the place you must always start is with the site itself. It won’t matter how well you do off site with your search engine optimisation if your website is badly built and not optimised itself.
Here we look at how to set up your website, the structure and the on site optimisation – the basics of SEO, you could say!
Code Structure
Every one of your web pages needs to follow this format:
DOCTYPE – this tells the web browser what version of the markup language your webpage is using and ensure it is rendered correctly.
HEAD - This section of your page can contain a lot of things, but vital to search engine optimisation are the TITLE and META Description tags.
The TITLE tag is where you would include your keywords and is what the search engines will display when your site comes up in a search. It is also what Google and the other search engines will use (in part) to rank your site.
If, for example, your website was about dogs and dog training you would want your TITLE tag to read something like this:
Dog Training, Dog Obedience & Behaviour Training
This includes three of the search terms people are likely to search for if they want information on training their dog and it tells the search engines that is what your site contains.
Every page of your website should have a TITLE and it should be unique for each page. Consider this when you are deciding on the structure of your site. If you have the same TITLE on every page, your ranking will be hurt by this.
Google will display around 60 characters in its search results pages but it will index the whole title regardless. So you should always keep your key search words at the beginning but don’t be afraid to go over the 60-70 word limit if you think it will add value.
The META Description tag, on the other hand, has no effect on your ranking but it can affect how many people click on your link over someone else’s. Think of it as your search engine marketing copy, it should invite the searcher to click, promising them something unique. In the dog training example it might read like this:
”Top tips on training your dog to be obedient and well behaved. Learn how to keep your pet under control from our obedience training experts.”
That contains the key words and phrases and also the word ‘expert’ to instil confidence. Again, every page should have one and they should, if possible, all be unique.
BODY - After your website’s section and all it contains comes the section. This is where the actual content of your site goes and is what will appear in the web browser.
It is also the part of your web page that the search engines will value the most. Use your key search terms in the body copy fairly frequently, but don’t overdo it. If you do, the likes of Google will penalise you for “spamming”.
Write your content for the reader, keep it relevant to your chosen subject and you won’t go far wrong.
In addition to good content, you want your website structure and navigation to be as simple as possible – both for your visitors and for the search engines. They will take notice of how your site is built as well as what it contains.
All the images you use should have ALT and TITLE tags that contain your keywords in a descriptive manner and give your links a TITLE too. It’s all best practice search engine optimisation and it’s a good habit to get into. The search engines will love you for it.
One other great tip is to make sure all your website code – HTML and CSS – validates correctly. There are tools online that will tell you if it does and, if not, where it doesn’t so you can fix it.
That’s the very basics and it’s a very good place to start when it comes to SEO for your website. Get this right and everything you do off site to get your website ranking highly will prove that much stronger.
Here we look at how to set up your website, the structure and the on site optimisation – the basics of SEO, you could say!
Code Structure
Every one of your web pages needs to follow this format:
DOCTYPE – this tells the web browser what version of the markup language your webpage is using and ensure it is rendered correctly.
HEAD - This section of your page can contain a lot of things, but vital to search engine optimisation are the TITLE and META Description tags.
The TITLE tag is where you would include your keywords and is what the search engines will display when your site comes up in a search. It is also what Google and the other search engines will use (in part) to rank your site.
If, for example, your website was about dogs and dog training you would want your TITLE tag to read something like this:
Dog Training, Dog Obedience & Behaviour Training
This includes three of the search terms people are likely to search for if they want information on training their dog and it tells the search engines that is what your site contains.
Every page of your website should have a TITLE and it should be unique for each page. Consider this when you are deciding on the structure of your site. If you have the same TITLE on every page, your ranking will be hurt by this.
Google will display around 60 characters in its search results pages but it will index the whole title regardless. So you should always keep your key search words at the beginning but don’t be afraid to go over the 60-70 word limit if you think it will add value.
”Top tips on training your dog to be obedient and well behaved. Learn how to keep your pet under control from our obedience training experts.”
That contains the key words and phrases and also the word ‘expert’ to instil confidence. Again, every page should have one and they should, if possible, all be unique.
BODY - After your website’s section and all it contains comes the section. This is where the actual content of your site goes and is what will appear in the web browser.
It is also the part of your web page that the search engines will value the most. Use your key search terms in the body copy fairly frequently, but don’t overdo it. If you do, the likes of Google will penalise you for “spamming”.
Write your content for the reader, keep it relevant to your chosen subject and you won’t go far wrong.
In addition to good content, you want your website structure and navigation to be as simple as possible – both for your visitors and for the search engines. They will take notice of how your site is built as well as what it contains.
All the images you use should have ALT and TITLE tags that contain your keywords in a descriptive manner and give your links a TITLE too. It’s all best practice search engine optimisation and it’s a good habit to get into. The search engines will love you for it.
One other great tip is to make sure all your website code – HTML and CSS – validates correctly. There are tools online that will tell you if it does and, if not, where it doesn’t so you can fix it.
That’s the very basics and it’s a very good place to start when it comes to SEO for your website. Get this right and everything you do off site to get your website ranking highly will prove that much stronger.
Ben Greenwood
Ben Greenwood is writing on behalf of Fluid Search, experts in search engine optimisation.
View all articles by Ben Greenwood