SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) means finding ways to increase your site’s appearance in web visitors’ search results. If your website is well-built and easy to follow, understanding that the billions of web users all over the world are the search engine customers and not website owners is the key. Ask yourself the question, what would the customer want to find?
Monitoring
Ensure you have a solid reporting tool that allows you to understand who your visitors are, where they came from and how they found you. This not only allows you to understand your users, but you can also monitor the effect any changes you make to the site has on SEO.
Links
Link back to yourself
Possibly the most basic strategy that can be employed is linking back to your pages from others on the site. When your site gets crawled it means that other pages may be found and it also backs up the content that is presented on the page. It is however very important not to link excessively and please ensure that all links are relevant.
Reciprocal links
For exactly the same reasons as above, getting links to your site from respectable 3rd party websites will help your rankings. As these sites are well-known and are seen as experts in their field, any sites they link to will inherit some of that reputation.
Key phrases
Probably, the most mis-understood aspect of SEO is that of keywords. Bear in mind that your site will have a lot of competition on the Internet for vague key phrases. The more succinct you can make these, the better and greater chance you will have of performing well. Also consider which search terms your customers are most likely to use and how many of those will turn into a sale.
For example getting your site to the top of the rankings for your company name may not be as useful as getting it to the top for a specific product or service.
Relevant content
Your customers are going to want current and accurate information whether they are new or returning. New customers will want current content so that you look active and are up to speed with current developments and existing customers are most likely to make repeat visits if they know new information is going to be available. Because of this, search engines will place a greater emphasis on updated content as it is likely to be more relevant.
Displaying out-of-date content also means that the space on the web page is wasted and would be better off being used for a product or service.
Social Media
Social Media is the new buzz word online but it does have its uses. If you are active on social networks (FaceBook, Linkedin etc) you will have a circle of people and organisations who will hear what you say and that are receptive to the knowledge and expertise you offer. If you create a new page or discussion, link to it from these sites and encourage people to talk about it – you will also get an external link to your site.
Tags: Monitoring, Reciprocal links, SEO, Social Media
