Industry Digital Insights

IS it enough to ask you web team or your digital agency to look over your website and check to see if it’s search engine optimisation is up to scratch after a redesign or at the end of a new site build? Is it enough to ask Formula 1 engineers to check to see if the car is aerodynamic after it’s been built and had its first run out on the track?

Of course not, on both counts.

Why? Because, like Formula 1 aerodynamics, search engine optimisation (SEO) should be at the heart of any web build. It should be fundamental to every part of the project process. From the technical architecture through to the interface design and on to content of the pages, SEO plays a key part in all of these important processes.

It can be easier to look at SEO when it is broken down into 3 areas, these are, technical, internal and external SEO.

Technical SEO
Should focus on elements such as; 

1. File structure: Files and folders should be kept as close to the root directory as possible. Content should ideally not be nested any more than a couple of folders. This can be quite straight forward for a simple site but quite a challenge for a more complex site. In doing this search engines will see your content as important and relevant because it is close to the directory.
2. Coding practises: All pages of any site should adhere to good Web Standards. This means clean and well structured code. This is essentially what search engine spiders love. If good Web Standards are employed and page content can be easily read by search engine spiders then pages are more likely to correctly indexed.
3. Use of external files: Embedding CSS and Javascript into a sites pages should be avoided. Instead these files should be external to the page code and be referenced through the code on the page. The reason for doing this is search engines tend to put more relevance and weight to the content at the top of a page than that of the content towards the bottom of the page.
4. Google site map: Creating and submitting a XML Sitemap to Google is now considered SEO best practise. The Sitemap lists out all the URLs, or pages, for a site in XML format. Submitting a Sitemap does not replace the spidering of a site by Google spiders but it does allow the search engine to perform a more efficient job of indexing a site’s content.By submitting a XML Sitemap we can enable Google to access additional information on our site such as when a URL, or page, was last updated and how often the content of a site changes.
5. Search engine directories: Examples of search engine directories are DMOZ and Yahoo Directory.These are website directories that have human editors who look at and read copy written descriptions of a sites purpose. These descriptions should be written according to the differing guidelines stipulated by the differing directories.

   It is important to make submissions to these directories as all the major search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Ask to name a few use the validated data from these directories. The benefit of this for the search engines is that the submission to these directories have been read and evaluated by humans and not machines.

Internal SEO
Internal search engine optimisation covers off the relationship between the search engines and all elements of page content. This includes not only the content itself but also its relevance, accessibility and the richness of keywords and phrases within the content of the page.

1. Keyword lists: Defining keyword lists and phrases is one of the most important things you can do before actually committing time to writing any content for your site page or press releases. For maximum impact these keywords should reflect the words and phrases people will use in a search engine when searching for your products and services. Once you have this list you can then optimise this through online keyword tools such as Google Suggest, Keyword discovery or SEO Book suggestion tool. These tools will suggest related terms that you could use and also search volumes for your specific keywords.Your copywriters and content editors can then use this list of phrases and words to optimise your content and to also use in page titles, headers and abstracts.
2. Relevant content: Relevant content is fundamental to the success of your site. How many times have you searched for a product or service and clicked on a link that promises so much and then felt short changed when you read through content that is not what you were really looking for? You should always be optimising the page content for the individual and making it relevant for them, the by product of this is that if humans find the content relevant the search engine spiders will too.All of the elements of your page should work in harmony and be optimised to the content you have on your page. Your title tags should be relevant to your header tags which should be relevant to your page content and so on.
3. Page links: Pages that sit next to each other or indeed have contextual links to each other should follow this pattern of relevance. While one page within a section may talk about your products benefits the next page may talk about its production. This continuity between pages increases their relevance not only to your customers but also search engines therefore increasing their ranking.
4. Creation of relevant title tags: Title tags play an important role not only in that they are one of the first things search engines will look at in order to rank your page but they are also the wording that appears in the search engine results page when you hit the search button.The content of the title tag needs to contain specific reference and relevance to the search performed. The higher the relevance and the more specific to the page the higher the likelihood that the result will attract the individuals click through to your page. Again your keyword phrases play an important part in helping to formulate these title tags. It is also very important to create individual title tags for each and every page on your site, this way you can be sure that each title tag is specific and relevant to the content on that page. This means that when your customer or potential customer reads your page title on the results page and clicks through to your site the content on the page is what they were expecting.

   It is best to create your title tags once all your copy has been written for your pages. This way you can derive the tag from the content using all the relevant keywords and phrases. You should also try and make sure that the title tag simply does not repeat a phrase that is on your page or in your page header. Relevant but unique keyword phrases in all these areas will work harder for you. Finally, if you are using a content management system just be sure that you have full control over adding the title tags so you can ensure maximum optimisation.

5. Meta description: This is the area of text that can appear below the title within the search engine results page. A well written description combined with a compelling title tag will persuade more customers or potential customers to click through to your site. This description should include words and phrases from your keyword list and complement the content on the page on your site. Search engines sometimes create this description from a combination of this description tag and your site content.

External SEO
This area covers all elements that enhance and improve your websites reputation, trustworthiness, authority and relevance. Some elements that can help achieve this are

1. Content creation: Search engines and your website audience have a commonality; this is fresh, regular and unique content. Creating and publishing will not only mean that search engines visit your site and index it more regularly it will mean that your site will attract regular and increasing numbers of visitors.You can achieve this very easily through the creation of regular press releases or blog posts. A blog is an ideal way to publish regular and timely content that will engage your audience and drive up your search engine rankings.
2. Inbound links: The greater the number of inbound links your site has from other websites the more successful it will perform in search engines. Inbound links are essentially other websites out there linking to your content. This can be because they see you as the thought leader and authority on a topic or because your content is simply interesting and complements their content.The greater the number you have of these inbound links and the greater the authority, reputation and trust of those sites linking to yours the better it is for the optimisation of your site and the greater the ranking your site will obtain.

   There are many strategies you can use to gain success in this area. You could:

• Make use of PPC as a link building tool
• Register your blog with sites like Technorati who will then tag your content on their pages
• If applicable you could use offline techniques to promote and drive traffic to your website through hosting events and seminars
• Use Online PR sites such as PRWeb, Webwire, PRleap and Realwire. If you track who picks up your articles you could engage with them and offer them exclusive content or updates for future releases
• Exchange content with other online publications that cover or compliment your products and services
• Use the plethora of social bookmarking sites that are out there such as Delicious, Digg and reddit. If the content on your site is relevant and timely people will tag it to these sites which increases the chances of others seeing your site content and linking to it
• Develop relationships with others in your field that complement your product or service and exchange links
• Create a Wikipedia page for your company

There is no silver bullet to good SEO. It’s a combination mixing and matching, getting the basics in place and constantly tweaking to drive success. Your website is one of your most important business marketing tools and as such it is your responsibility to make sure it is working hard for you and to do that you need to apply the right tools to enable that success.