Some of the best search engine optimisation (SEO) results can be achieved by optimising site design and content to work well with the tools and techniques used by search engines to index web pages. Good site design makes it easier for search engines to index your site, and increases your chances of a higher ranking in the results pages. Basic SEO techniques such as site accessibility, high quality content, links to and from other websites, and the use of relevant keywords in your content, will all help in giving your website a higher ranking in the search engine results pages.
Make your site accessible
The most important part of making a website search-engine friendly is designing it well, which also ensures visitors stay to browse and buy.
Well-written, easy-to-navigate pages - with interesting information and well-designed e-commerce systems - will get repeat visitors as well as satisfied customers. When building a website consider the technologies to be used and whether they lend themselves to SEO. Although SEO can always be improved, it is harder to do so once the technology is in place and the website has already been built. If you use a content management system, does it produce SEO-friendly pages?
More technical considerations include the use of friendly URLs, standards-compliant code and dynamically created XML sitemaps that can be used by search engines to index your website. Some technologies, such as Adobe Flash, do not currently support SEO very well. These technologies should be evaluated on a usability, customer experience and SEO basis, before being added to your website.
Have high quality content
Regularly updated, well-written and relevant content will improve your SEO and provide other websites with a good reason to link to you. The use of social media such as blogs provides an excellent way of keeping your content fresh and is well received by search engines
Search engines will also index specific terms or keywords that have been used in your content. Your content needs to describe your products and services clearly, in order both to sell them to your visitors and to help search engines index your site. If necessary, pay to have content written professionally.
Improve links to your site
A site's position in a search engine results page depends heavily on the quality, not the quantity, of links to your website. Use search engines to find other websites that have good search rankings for the key terms and phrases that are relevant to your site's products and services. Contact them to ask if they'll provide reciprocal links, ie will they include a link to your website if you will include a link to theirs. Strong content may also generate social media links to your website, providing you with potential customers as well as valuable backlinks. Google's approach to assessing the value of a webpage, ie PageRank, counts the number and quality of backlinks to your website.
Use of keywords in your content
It's important to define keywords or key phrases - recurring terms that are used in the body of your text - that describe exactly what your site offers. Choose keywords that are unique to your product or service, so that your site gets qualified leads rather than general visitors. Be as specific as possible; eg pick an appropriate two- to three-keyword phrase for one of your products. If you're selling tropical fish, appropriate keywords might be 'tropical aquariums', for a computer shop, 'custom-built PCs'. Once you have chosen these keywords target their use in your content.
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