Free Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Guide | SEO Tips


Search Engine Optimisation has been around for a while and it's particularly important for any business who wishes to trade successfully online. Below is a guide to help you understand Search Engine Optimisation, it provides tips and help on how to SEO your website.
 
We provide SEO Services for our clients in Swansea, Carmarthen, Cardiff and throughout South Wales. We only use organic natural SEO methods, these methods utilise you're websites own content to produce high search engine rankings. To find out how we can help you with your SEO please visit our Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) page for more information
 
Also check out our Pay Per Click Solutions page and our Pay Per Click Guide on our free website resources page for more information.
 
Contact us now on 0845 0034265 for an informal discussion regarding SEO.
 
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Quick links
> What is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)?
> How do search engines work?
> Crawler based engines
> Search engine ranking
> Frequency and location
> That little bit extra
> Off the page
> Types of search engine crawling
  > Meta keywords and descriptions
  > Example tags
  > Deep crawling
  > Meta Robots Tag
  > Full body text
> Free Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Tips
> Black Hat SEO methods to avoid
> Report spamdexed pages
 
 What is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)? Top
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) or Search Engine marketing (SEM) is the process of improving the amount and quality of traffic sent to your website from search engines. It's a tremendously complicated and fluid area of marketing and as such attracts the SEO con men, please see below for disreputable black hat SEO methods to avoid.
 
 How do search engines work? Top
There are two different types of search engines, crawler based engines and human directory based engines. Crawlers periodically search the internet and index the results, website content or product changes will be noted and indexed.  Directories rely on people actually submitting their site to the directory along with site descriptions, any website changes are not noted or marked on the directory. Some engines use a mixture of both methods to index results.
 
 Crawler based engines Top
These engines send crawlers or spiders periodically to read your website and follow any links they find. What the spider finds is then added to the search engines index, which is like a massive book full of website pages holding information. This information is only updated after it has been indexed and only then will changes be available to everyone on the net. Then the most important thing happens, the search engine has a software program that combs through the indexed pages and using a search term finds the most relevant data and ranks it according to its relevance.
 
 Search engine ranking Top
If you search google for anything you'll get a page that looks like the one below. The search engine sifts through the millions of pages of information and presents you with a list of the most relevant matches for your search.
 
 
So the most important question is how do they do it? Well that's a secret guarded very well by the search engine companies. What I can say is that search engines use ranking algorithms which follow certain rules.
 
 Frequency and location Top
One of the main algorithm rules is frequency and location of keywords. If you search for the word 'bus timetable, Cardiff' on a search engine. The search algorithm will check the following in order to determine relevancy:
> The keywords listed are present on a website, keywords being, 'bus timetable' and 'Cardiff'. Sites with these words will be more relevant.
> The keywords appear in the TITLE tag (see below for more info) if they do further relevancy will be attached to the site.
> The keywords appear at the top of the page in the first paragraph or in the headlines at the top of the page. If they appear here any articles will be deemed more relevant.
> The number of times the keywords appears on the page in relation to other words. The more they appear the more relevant.
 
 That little bit extra Top
Different search engines tweak this method in different ways, they all add that little bit extra to their algorithm which makes each search engine produce different results. The frequency with which search engines trawl the net is another factor which can make results different.
 
 Off the page Top
Webmasters have become more and more adept at re-writing content to produce high ranking websites, so much so that search engines now take into account 'off the page' factors as well. One of which is internal site linking, by analysing this they can discover what a page is all about and whether its important and deserving of a higher ranking. Another method is the 'click through rate'. If a link displayed on a search engine receives less clicks by users its relevancy drops and so does its ranking.
 
So your best bet with SEO is to be honest and try and give your readers as much information as possible.
 
 Types of search engine crawling Top
The following are just some of the methods used by crawlers to index sites.
 
   Meta keywords and descriptions Top
  Some crawlers look for certain pieces of code on your website called meta tags.
 
   Here is an example tag for a carp fishing website Top
  <HEAD>
<TITLE>Carp fishing made easy</TITLE>
<META NAME="Description" CONTENT="Carp UK is the only online resource for corporate carp fishing."> <META NAME="Keywords" CONTENT="Corporate carp fishing, Carp, online resource, free carp magazine, Carp fishing tackle sale,">
<HEAD/>
   
  You need to insert these meta tags into the code yourself. The TITLE tag is the title that appears on the page and the CONTENT tag comes from the descriptive content you have on your website. The KEYWORD tag is made up of words listed on your site which describe what you do or sell and are likely to be used as search criteria by people when they search the net for specific products. I should point out that adding keywords to your site is not a magic panacea for top rankings. Not all search engines use meta keywords as a method of indexing websites. For example, google one of the biggest search engines does not.
 
   Deep Crawling Top
  A crawler gathers many pages from your site even if they have not been submitted to any engines.
 
   Meta Robots Tag Top
  This is a piece of code which tells crawlers where they can go and where they can not go on your website.
 
   Full body text Top
  Most engines look at the full written text and index it, but be wary of over long pages they will not index it all.
 
 Here's some free Search Engine Optimisation tips Top
1) Anyone can submit a website to google http://www.google.com/addurl.html
2) Don't use images as text for important information, web crawlers can't read images.
3) Give every page a relevant title, crawlers use this to index pages. The title appears in the very top left corner of your web browser above your menu bar.
4) These are the top search engines you'll need to submit your website to:
  Yahoo
MSN
Google
Go
AOL
5) Don't use frames most search engines can't follow them.
 
A word of caution, be wary of SEO consultants who are vague about what methods they use, they may be bogus and use the following Black Hat SEO methods:
 
 Black Hat methods to avoid Top
Any type of spamdexing.
The use of hidden text on a website.
Sending users to pages that are different to those listed and ranked on search engines, this is known as cloaking.
Adding hidden links on your site to other sites.
 
 Report any of the above spamdexed pages you find on: Top

The Google search engine at http://www.google.com
The Yahoo! Search Engine at http://www.yahoo.com
The MSN Search Engine at http://www.msn.com
 
Contact us now on 0845 0034265 for an informal discussion regarding SEO.

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