How Do I Optimise my Website for the Search Engines?

A) On-site factors for SEO:

Page Titles: Use a short page title (of about 70 chars) with your keywords you want to rank for eg "Blue Widget Products". The title should be unique and relevant to that page. If you repeat a title throughout your site, with your company name say, your pages will likely be dropped as being duplicates by Yahoo! and Google.

Remember that the page title will be used by the search engines in the displayed results. Don't use an unattractive looking title stuffed with "keyword1, keyword2, keyword1 etc." Even if you get a number one ranking, most savvy internet users will skip over your link and click on a more relevant looking one below it.

Meta tags: Meta tags are hidden tags that can be used to describe your site to the SE's. Don't use these unless you can make them unique and relevant to the page you are describing. Again, repetition of keywords should be avoided because search engines will often display your meta tag text as a "snippet" of your page.

You can edit your meta tags using standard software. If you can't find out how to make these important on-site changes, you can ask in our SEO Forum.

Text content: Search engines love text pages. 1,000+ words for each page would be ideal for the SE's, but a turn-off for users, and you will need to find a compromise. Each page should be structured and written to target selected keyword phrases.

Don't try to target more than three keyword phrases on a particular page. If you have more than three targeted keywords, then write new pages! You should aim to add at least one or two new pages of fresh, relevant content each week. If you like you can set up a blog, for which you can add easily content on a regular basis. Blogs are particularly helpful in promoting a site in the Yahoo! search engines.

Next>>