Website Optimisation made Easy

One of the most important things for any business website is to have a successful and effective search engine optimisation. This article will look at the website optimisation or on site factors that you need to take into account to have a successful campaign.

If you follow the below steps you will be well on your way to an optimised website and top rankings. However you should not fall into the trap of thinking it is easy and something you can do and leave. A top quality search engine optimisation campaign will take into account on site and off site factors and will work on them consistently over time to achieve top rankings. Without a lot of effort and hard work there is a good chance you will never get those first page rankings. However this article will help you to get started.

Step 1 - Keyword Research

Before you begin anything you need to research the keywords you are going to work with. This might seem easy as you know what keywords you want to appear in the rankings for, or do you? There may be variations on your chosen words that have more searches and are less competitive. This should always be your aim to have keywords that have enough searches to bring you business but are not so competitive that it will take you years to get on the first page.

This should be done for each of your pages so that each one focuses on at most 2 or 3 keywords. This will give you a greater chance of getting the right pages ranked for the right keywords.

Step 2 - Navigation

Once you know what keywords you want to use you then need to focus on your navigation and inter page linking. It is of vital importance that your menu uses text links otherwise the search engines will not be able to move from page to page and so will not find your entire site.

You should also use text with the content of your website and these can be set up so that they include the keywords for each of your pages. This will help to reinforce with the search engines what each of your pages are about.

Step 3 - Title and Meta Tags

You now need to set the title and meta tags for each of your pages. The title tag is by far and a way the most important tag is it is of vital importance that you include your main keyword at the beginning of this tag. This will enable the search engines to know exactly what your web page is about.

The meta tags are less important and in fact the meta keywords are pretty much redundant now and so are a lot less important. The meta description is useful as this is often the snippet that is used in the search results as the description of a site. So it is important that you make it enticing and you include your keywords in it. Also the search engines will check that you have a different meta description for each page to ensure you are a quality well maintained website.

Step 4 - Include other Tags

There are other tags on your web page such as header tags and image tags that describe an image. It is important that you pay attention to this. If you can include your keywords in the headers for your page it will add extra influence on what your web page is about. Also search engines cannot see images so it is important to describe them and if possible use your keywords here.

Step 5 - Web Page content

Now you have everything else in place you should work on the content and ensure your keyword appears in the content. It should appear if possible in the first sentence and in every paragraph on your web page. Aim for a density of 3%-5% of the words on your page, this should help to show the search engines what your page is about but not make it look like a spam website. Don't forget to rewrite your content on a regular basis and keep the search engines happy with fresh content.

The above steps will not get you to the top of the search engines on their own but they will ensure your website is in the best possible state for achieving them.