That got your attention!

Or Search Engine Optimisation - in a nutshell.

How does google (and other search engines) find and list my page?

Believe it or not, this can be a simple process, if you understand how search engines view and rank websites - you can modify your site to make sure that it covers off the basics before you try more advanced techniques to improve your site ranking, but more importantly visits and conversions.

There are two aspects of search engines to understand before jumping in. The first is how spiders work. The second is how search engines figure out what pages relate to which keywords and phrases.

What are spiders?

Search engines collect data about a website by sending an 'spider' or 'bot' to visit the site and copy its content which is stored in the search engine's database. These spiders are designed to follow links from one page to the next - which is one reason one links are so powerful, including internal linkages. This is a huge job as you can imagine and is a continuous process that builds search engine databases so that their size is measured in the tens of billions.

Spiders are designed to read site content like you read newspapers. Starting in the top left hand corner, a spider will read site content line by line from left to right. If a spider encounters a link it can follow, it will record that link and send another bot to copy and record data found on the page the link leads to. The spider will proceed through the site until it records everything it can possible find there.

So as I have said before in previous blogs, words matter! What you say, how you say it and how you reference it are very important.

One of the most important basic SEO tips is to provide clear paths for spiders to follow from point A to point Z in your website. This is easily accomplished by providing easy to follow text links directed to the most important pages on the site in the navigation menu or simply at the bottom of each page. For a complex site with many pages, have a text based site map is a very important tool to further cement your website linkages with search engines.  The name of your navigation links also needs to be an important consideration.

Site content and how this is read

Search engines are supposed to provide their users with lists of pages that relate to the search query people enter in their search box. Search engines need to determine which of billions of pages is the best fit with to match with your search phrase. In order to do this, the search engine needs to know your site relates to those words.

There are a few elements, a search engine looks at when examining a page, I am going to outline a few here - but in our SEO basics training session this month, I will be covering in more detail how to use these elements in the context of our content management tools. After the URL of a site, a search spider records the site title. It also examines the description meta tag. Both of these elements are found in the "head" section of the source code.

Titles should be written using the strongest keyword targets as the foundation. Some titles are written using two or three basic two-keyword phrases. A key to writing a good title is to remember that human readers will see the title as the reference link on the search engine results page. Don't overload your title with keyword phrases. Concentrate on the strongest keywords that best describe the topic of the page content. You can have different page title structures to suit different pages

The description meta tag is also important. Search engines use it to gather information on the topic or theme of the page. A well written description is phrased in two or three complete sentences with the strongest keyword phrases woven into each sentence. As with the title tag, some search engines will display the description on the search results pages, generally using it in whole or in part to provide the text that appears under the reference link.

Keywords are not used as widely as they have been in the past, mainly due to abuse by webmasters, filling sites with irrelevant keywords.

After reading information found in the "head" section of the source code, spiders continue on to examine site content.

Good content is the most important aspect of search engine optimization. The easiest and most basic SEO rule is search engine spiders can be relied upon to read basic body text 100% of the time. By providing a search engine spider with basic text content, you offer the engines information in the easiest format for them to read. So groovy flash based content is a big NO NO!

Keep content simple and as a guide, use one page to cover off the 1 topic. If you find yourself speaking about multiple topics, this can be confusing for search engines ( it can also be confusing for viewers!) Split your content into different pages, to better suit the key themes of the page.

Training opportunities

We have 1 place left in our in-house SEO basics course this month, so get in quick!

If you miss out, we may be able to run an extra session in November depending on demand.

In 2011 we intend to focuss heavily on SEO and SEM strategies for our clients, so there will be plenty of opportunities to
participate in addition sessions in the new year.


Questions? Talk to us now!

With thanks to the Seach Engine Guide - The search engine guide for Small Business

About the Author - Leanne O'Sullivan
	Leanne has been sharing her knowledge and the power of the web, social media and search optimisation with Bosweb clients for well over a decade. An accomplished public speaker, Leanne enjoys empowering people with the skills and knowledge to make their business an online success!