SEO - An Introduction

Search Engine Technology is Moving too FastI can't Keep up!

While Search Engine technology is indeed moving fast, the underlying concepts of SEO remain the same. Its a question of 'common sense' and applying all design and coding with Google in mind.

 

And now for the announcement...

There are no SEO Secrets !

 

I have been on a quest for the last eight years looking for the 'holy Grail' of secret SEO codes only to realise they don't exist. Probably a good marketing ploy for some Companies to put you into a 'false sense of security' and then get you to part with your hard earned cash.

 

Without getting too technical we have included a few tips on how you can improve your website performance for free.

Content is King!

Create interesting and valuable content on a well designed and developed infrastructure. If you can get that covered, you're well on your way. We will work on the layout and Meta Coding and we will always strive to get you on the right road to successful SEO!

SEO Who?

Search engine optimization ( SEO ) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results. Usually, the earlier a site is presented in the search results, or the higher it "ranks", the more searchers will visit that site. SEO can also target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines.

Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a "special relationship" with Google, or advertise a "priority submit" to Google. There is no priority submit for Google. In fact, the only way to submit a site to Google directly is through Add URL page or by submitting a Sitemap and you can do this yourself at no cost whatsoever.

 

Making your website available to the likes of Google is vital for anyone serious about promoting themselves and achieving top page results will make a significant difference to your traffic and direct enquries coming in from your website.

What Are Algorithms?

Each search engine has an 'algorithm' which is a formula used to evaluate web pages and determine their relevance and value when crawling them for possible inclusion in their search engine. A crawler is the robot that browses all of these pages for the search engine.

Google's algorithm is very important, it has a comprehensive and highly developed technology, a straightforward interface and a wide-ranging array of search tools which enable the users to easily access a variety of information online.

Google users can browse the web and find information in various languages, retrieve maps, stock shares and access the latest world news stories.

Google has the world's largest archive of Usenet messages, dating all the way back to 1981. Google's technology can be accessed from any conventional desktop PC as well as from various wireless platforms such as WAP and i-Phones, Handheld Devices and other such Internet equipped gadgets.

What is Page Ranking?

The web search technology offered by Google is often the technology of choice by the world's leading portals and websites. It has also benefited the advertisers with its unique advertising program that does not hamper the web surfing experience of its users but still brings revenues to the advertisers.

When you search for a particular keyword or a phrase, most of the search engines return a list of page in order of the number of times the keyword or phrase appears on the website. Google web search technology involves the use of its indigenously designed 'Page Rank Technology' and 'hypertext-matching' analysis which makes several instantaneous calculations undertaken without any human intervention. Google's structural design also expands simultaneously as the internet expands.

Page Rank technology involves the use of an equation which comprises of millions of variables and terms and determines a factual measurement of the significance of web pages and is calculated by solving an equation of 600 million variables and more than 3 billion terms. Unlike some other search engines, Google does not calculate links, but utilizes the extensive link structure of the web as an organisational tool.

When the link to a Page, let's say Page B is clicked from a Page A, then that click is attributed as a vote towards Page B on behalf of Page A.

Backlinks - Popularity Votes For Search Engines

Google calculates the importance of a page by the number of such ‘votes' it receives. Not only that, Google also assesses the importance of the pages that are involved in the voting process. Consequently, pages that are themselves ahead in ranking and are important in that way also help to make other pages important. One thing to note is that Google's technology does not involve human intervention in anyway and uses the inherent intelligence of the internet and its resources to determine the ranking and importance of any page.

Unlike its conventional counterparts, Google is a search engine which is hypertext-based. This means that it analyzes all the content on each web page and factors in fonts, subdivisions, and the exact positions of all terms on the page. Not only that, Google also evaluates the content of its nearest web pages. This policy of not disregarding any subject matter pays off in the end and enables Google to return results that are closest to user queries.

Things to consider when implementing your design:

A website should have crystal clear hierarchy and links and should preferably be easy to navigate.

A site map is required to help the users go around your site and in case the site map has more than 100 links, then it is advisable to break it into several pages to avoid clutter.

Come up with essential and precise keywords and make sure that your website features relevant and informative content.

The Google crawler will not recognize text hidden in the images, so when describing important names, keywords or links; stick with plain text.

The TITLE and ALT tags should be descriptive and accurate and the website should have no broken links or incorrect HTML.

Dynamic pages (the URL consisting of a ‘?' character) should be kept to a minimum as not every search engine spider is able to crawl them.

The robots.txt file on your web server should be current and should not block the Googlebot crawler. This file tells crawlers which directories can or cannot be crawled.

Things to Stay Clear Of:

When implementing your website you need to ensure that every aspect of the design and coding is built with the Search Engine in mind. Your aim is not to encourage traffic that bears no relevance to your product or business. Do not present your visitor with irrelevant content and stay clear of fraudulent schemes.

» Avoid tricks or link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking.

» Do not employ hidden texts or hidden links.

» Avoid Cloaking - This is a search engine optimization (SEO) technique in which the content presented to the search engine spider is different from that presented to the user's browser.

» Avoid stuffing pages with irrelevant words and content just to get visitors to your site. Google WILL pick this up and you will be penalised.

» Avoid "doorway" pages created just for search engines, or other similar methods such as affiliate programs with little or no original content.

 

More to it than playing around with a few Keywords!

BDI Media have a number of years designing websites and know a thing or two about getting you indexed on the web. There are a number of processes we apply to ensure that you get noticed and like a tip of an iceberg the web page design itself is only a small part of the whole project.

There may be many reasons you need to improve your website, whether to improve the site you currently have or to put a new one through its paces. We have a variety of techniques you can employ to make sure you get the most out of your web presence.

E-commerce sites and those which front offline businesses have a central requirement to generate leads and improve results. Even those without a direct selling function have calls to action – Follow Me On Twitter, Watch My Show on TV, Tell Your Friends.

Whatever the case, we use a selection of processes to test, measure and maximise conversion.

We apply proper coding for your META TAGS and ensure your KEYWORDS and PHRASES are all in place, and most importantly specific to your business. We spend a good few hours analysing your site and working on your keywords to give you the best exposure on the internet. We work with Google features and build specific code into your site, on completion we then spend time submitting the site to the big "Search Engine" players.

And after all that we then monitor your performance and make the adjustments to maximise your hits.

To see what we offer for SEO see our SEO Services page.

 

 

If you need to discuss your SEO requirements then call us on 07732 675 404

We are always happy to discuss new projects