Search Engine Optimisation

What is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)?
Pay Per Click
Do’s and Don’ts for Your Web Designer

Once you’ve built a website you’ll surely want to attract and keep as many visitors as possible.

In a perfect world, your site would appear in the top 3-5 results in a web search.  There are many ways to increase your chances of getting there.  Some you can do yourself (see our list of do’s and don’ts) and others will require a specialist.

What is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)?

SEO is the process of ensuring your site meets the criteria set by the search engines to give it an "important" rating.  It involves a complex set of rules regarding things such as:

• Site structure
• Page titles
• File names
• The text of navigational links
• Links or resources page
• ALT tags

  Top of Page

Pay Per Click

Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising is the process of buying keywords and phrases to instantly have your site included in the Sponsored Links section of a search results page.  You pay for each click through to your site.

New sites will begin to see results on search engines within two months and sometimes up to 12 months using standard SEO techniques.

A clever PPC advertising campaign is the way to instantly appear in the Sponsored Links section of a search results page.

Do’s and Don’ts for Your Web Designer BEFORE They Start

DO provide quality content - search engines love it

• Ensure your home page has at least 150 words of relevant, descriptive text about your products and services.  Include the keywords your customers are most likely to type into a search engine when looking for your product/service.
• Stand firm and say NO when your web designer insists on an animated "Flash" intro page to your site.  Search engines disregard them and your customers have seen enough of them!
• Provide as much useful content as possible on your site.
• Create fact sheets and expand your existing content.  Search engines view a 50 page site as more "important" than a five page site.
• Create a news section - it’s a great way to have a continual stream of new, relevant content.  Archive the articles even if they may seem out of date - search engines will love you!

DO provide quality content to entice links from other sites

• The more links from other sites you have, the more "relevant" a search engine will classify your site.
• Useful, educational content will always entice other relevant sites to link to you.
• Create content that will inspire popular sites within your industry to link to you.  Sites with .edu or .gov domains are especially relevant.

DO minimise clicks to content

Try to structure your evolving content so it takes no more than three clicks to reach it.  Also, don’t exceed 100 links per page.

DO add links from external sites

• Links from other websites within your industry will help to increase your ranking.  It’s called your "external link network" and is listed on a Links or Resources page on your site.
• Links from sites with a good Page Rank are favourable.

DO ensure your keywords appear as much as possible

Add at least one occurrence of your important keywords in each of these sections:  page titles, headers, the name of images, in body text at the top of the page and at the start of paragraphs.  But be careful - adding too many occurrences of your important keywords will lead to a Google penalty.

DO include a Site Map

• The site map is the easiest way for Google to navigate (crawl) your web page.
• Link to your Site Map from the home page.

DO NOT include Flash pages on your site unless you also provide an HTML version.  Most search engines have trouble crawling Flash pages.

DO NOT swap links with sites that are very general unless they are a major portal with a high Page Rank.  Your links must be relevant to your content/industry.

DO NOT exceed more than 50 links on your Links/Resources Page.  The more links you have, the less "points" Google awards you.

DO NOT sign up for Free For All Link Pages.  Google will penalise your site if it is linked with unsavoury ones - you could be banned from appearing on Google at all!

DO NOT try tricks like hiding keywords on your page in the same colour as your background.  Google is clever enough to see this and penalise you.

DO NOT use frames to build your site.  Google has trouble crawling frames.  I-frames are sometimes acceptable but tables and CSS are the best alternatives.

DO NOT use meta refresh tags.

DO NOT use irrelevant keywords to attract visitors.