Basic SEO Techniques

To achieve a good search engine ranking you should consider the following points when creating your pages or revamping an old page or website. Bear in mind that search engines when visiting a site, index a page and then will follow the links indexing further pages as they go. These are the very basic requirements which can be easily implemented in any web page during creation or later.

  1. Make it easy for search engines to follow these links

    Include in the head of your HTML files a message to the search engine robots to follow the links and index the page. The code will look like this:-

    <Head>
    <meta name="robots" content="all">
    <meta name="robots" content="index,follow">
    </HEAD>

    If you wish to add rollover images, scripts or flash navigation, you should always add a second navigation menu of text links at the bottom of each page as on this web site. These are the links search engines will follow.

Include Title, Keywords and Description Tags on all pages
Along with the page content, the <title> tag is the main source of information for most search engines, ensure it is descriptive, using key phrases you would expect people to use when searching for your site or the service provided on the indivdual page. Also use these words and phrases in the Keyword and Description tag. The main text content on the page should be very relevant to the <title> tag and include those phrases a few times. Try to ensure the text makes sense to your visitors whilst repeating the main phrases.

  1. All pages or areas of your web site should be optimised for different key words and phrases
    You should write each page so it stands alone on its own merits. The Title, Keywords and Description tags should be different on all pages but relevant to the content on that page and the service it provides. For example, if you provide a number of different services such as wedding photography, studio photography and portrait photography, ideally you should have a seperate page for each. Each page should be linked to from the main menu or footer links as well as a main services page, which should then link to the individual services. The wedding photography page should be optimised solely for wedding photography and so on.

    When writing the tags and content for indivual pages ensure you include in each section, details of the area you are located or the area you cover. For example 'Business name wedding photography covering Manchester, Lancashire, North West England'. Try to include different areas or change the order for indivudal pages.

  2. Try to use H1 tags with keywords in them.
    Using a H1 Tag can give greater relevance on search engines, although they may give an ugly appearance to Browsers as the text size will be very large. This can be overcome by using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to control the look of text on the pages.
  3. Include the Robots Meta Tags to all pages you want the search engines to index
    <meta name="robots" content="all">
    <meta name="robots" content="index,follow">

  4. Add alt text to all images using keywords like this <alt="Descriptive Keyword">

  5. Add title tags to all text links and ensure the link or anchor text of a link uses the key phrase relevant to the page it points too. For example if you want a text link on your home page pointing to your main wedding photography page, the link should look like this: <a href="wedding-photography.htm" title="Wedding Photography">Wedding Photography</a> . Change the file name to the name of the file you are pointing too.

  6. Include a robots.txt file in the route of your website. This will tell search engines which files you want them to index. If you want all pages to be indexed, simply create a file in a text editor such as notepad and save it as robots.txt.
    Add the code:

    User-agent: *
    Allow: /

    And then save the file. Upload the file to the root of your website (the location where your home page resides)

  7. Never Design a Site Using Frames!!
    A web site design in frames can result in poor search engine rankings.

    As a Frameset doesn't contain text as such but simply links to files within the Frameset, it cannot be optimised properly. As the Frameset is only made up of links, a search engine cannot index the main content so will not be able to tell what a page or website is about and rank accordingly.

  8. Do not use Flash as the main part of your web site or navigation.

    As search engines follow links within your web site to index pages, each page can be optimised individually. Most search engines cannot read the text within a Flash file or follow the links. This will adversely affect any rankings on these engines and should be avoided. Try using subtle Flash animation but ensure the main content and navigation is plain HTML. Add text links to the foot of all pages.

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