Search Engine Optimization

Content is king. Every word on your web pages could be a keyword that search engines index and store in their database for others to find and come to your website.

When it comes to producing content for the web, checking that every page is search engine optimised is vital to getting on the first page. Doing so is less time-consuming than you’d think and can do wonders for your online reach. Our content management automatically creates meta data for your web page. All you need to do is write compelling, keyword rich content.

Google Adwords Keyword Tool

Google AdWords provides a free keyword research tool that is free for anyone to use, no need to sign up to Adwords. This is a powerful resource for finding out what people are searching for. It even tells you which keywords are most competitive. Ask Google or YouTube how to use it.

Repeat Keywords (but not too often)

Once you’ve discovered which keywords are best for your project, tailor your content accordingly. This means writing about the topics people are searching for and repeating the keyword several times throughout your article.

Do not to repeat your keywords too often. Search engines don't like ‘keyword stuffing’ because it degrades the quality of their results. You make get a lower page rank or not indexed at all. As a rough guide, two-three times for every 400 words is about right.

Keep Text Simple, Not Verbose

If it is not necessary to say it, it is necessary NOT to say it. Keep it short. Your readers don't have all day to get the hidden metaphers in your prose. Keep text so simple that a 2nd grade school kid can understand and get your point. Most adults are not much smarter than that.

Don’t get too clever with synonyms. While your English teacher would have praised you for it, your thesaurus has no place in web design. “Light providing device” as an alternative for “lamp” is no good when plain and simple “lamp” is what the vast majority of people would search for.

Page Titles

The <TITLE> tag is very important for SEO. The content within this tag dictates what you see at the very top of your browser. Search engines look here when they are trying to find pages relevant to a reader’s search query, This information is displayed on the search results pages.

Rather than using your site’s name as the title for all pages, give each page a unique title that accurately describes the content. Keep it brief and avoid keyword stuffing, but do include a keyword near the beginning of the phrase if you can. Our content management system uses the page name and path as title, and also puts it into the "keyword" tag. This makes it more relevant.

Meta Tag Descriptions

Give a more detailed description of your content by providing a meta description tag. While this is not believed to have a direct impact on a page’s ranking, it is still worth doing because it is shown beneath the title on some search engine results pages. Others grab a keyword relevant section from your page. In some cases Google will not show your chosen description.

By default, Google shows a snippet of the page content, but writing a meta description enables you to control this field. Again, include keywords within this, as Google and other search engines will bold up anything that matches the reader’s search query. When readers often only skim-read search results pages, bold words can be a significant help in improving your page’s click-through rate.

Friendly Page Names

Descriptive and relevant pages make it easier for search engines to crawl your site. Generic terms like “page1.html” or “blogpost1” are big no-nos. Some websites call pages via a script by a numbered parameter. That is even worse.

Remember that page file names are displayed on search results pages too, so keep them friendly. Lowercase tends to be preferred and it helpful to separate words with hyphens to make phrases easier to read. Generally, people are less likely to click a link if it’s difficult to tell what content it leads to.

External Links

Linking to related content from your site helps both readers and search engines find their way around. It’s worth adding the occasional link to external sites too, provided they are to relevant and authoritative sources. You never know, they might return the favour by linking back to you. Inbound links are a major boost to your page rank.

Remember the ALT Attribute

The alt attribute in the <IMG> tag describes what can be seen on the image. Not only does this help visually impaired people, but is read by search engines and helps them figure out what the image is about. Therefore it is vital that you fill it in with a clear and accurate description. Use a keyword if relevant. The HTML will look something like:
<img src=”lifeguard-pool-training.jpg” alt=”Lifeguard pool training”>

Flash and Javascript

Get rid of any Adobe Flash in your pages. Thankfully it's history. Search engines can’t crawl rich media content such as Flash or JavaScript. Don’t hide important content that way. Either avoid these entirely or create an alternative non-JavaScript verson of your website. Don’t forget that, while search engines are pretty smart, they also can’t read text within images. With this in mind, if you want a search engine bot to read it, just write it out in text.