The Secrets of Search Engine Optimisation

I have been getting a lot of questions lately about Search Engine Optimisation - or more specifically “how do I get my website on the first page of Google results”. This particular question is a “how long is a piece of string” one. For instance - if I wanted to optimise the Swish Design website to get on the first page of Google for the search term “Swish Design Perth”, that’s easy. The same result for the search term “graphic design perth” is much, much harder to achieve. “Graphic design perth” is a very competitive search term whereas there are probably not a lot of companies out there fighting it out to be listed under “Swish Design Perth”.

So when you’re looking to optimise your website for a particular search term you have to keep a few things in mind:

1. Be realistic - unless you have a lot of money to spend, achieving a high ranking for a competitive search term is going to be very hard
2. Realise that improving your search engine ranking is a long term project that takes time (by time I mean 6-12 month AT LEAST). It is an ongoing process of implementation and assessment followed by more implementation and assessment.
3. The search engines don’t like being manipulated and they are constantly shifting the goal posts. So what the search engines gave high priority last year when ranking your site may not be the same thing they give priority to this year. For example, way back when, site meta tags were THE thing that search engines took note of when ranking your site for a given search term. These days though, much higher credence is given to keyword rich site content. Give it a couple of years and it will be different again.

So what’s my advice when it comes to Search Engine Optimisation? Well I usually recommend a two step process.

1. Do what you can yourself
2. Then look at paying for a specialist SEO program

SEO is a specialised area of website development and it is hard to differentiate between SEO companies who use legitimate “white hat” methods to improve your ranking from those who do not. A quick way to separate the grain from the chaff though is to apply one simple rule - if a company is guaranteeing you a page one Google ranking there are usually one of two things involved:

1. They are promising a page one ranking for an obscure search term - one that your potential customers will be unlikely to type in when trying to find the services you offer
2. They are employing dodgy “black hat” methods to improve your ranking, methods that may get your site black listed by the search engines if they pick up on them. Getting black listed by the search engines is quite undesirable!

But as I mentioned before, before you utilise the services of an SEO company, first you should make sure you have done everything you can to improve your ranking yourself. Keep in mind that when a search engine “web crawler” visits your site, it is cataloguing the site content. If you want people to find you in a search engine under a certain search term, then the web crawler needs to find that particular search term when they visit your site. There are many areas on your site that you can do this:

1. Does your home page have content on it … or is it just a “splash page”. Splash pages are nice and generally look pretty but your site home page is the first place that Google visits in its quest to catalogue your site content. It also places high priority on the site content of your home page. If your home page has little or no text on it, you run the risk that Google may not delve any deeper into your site.

2. Check the title tag on your site - this is the line of text that appears at the top of the browser when someone visits your site. Your title tag is given high credence by Google and indeed it is the first line of text you will see in your Google listing. For example, Swish Design’s title tag is “Website Design & Graphic Design, Perth, Western Australia :: Swish Design”. This tag should reflect the key search terms you wish to be found under. As you can see, I mention both “Graphic Design” and “Website Design” as well as “Perth”. Most websites also have the same title tag on each page. Instead the title tag on each page should reflect the purpose of each page. For instance, on the “Graphic Design” page of my site, the title tag is “Graphic Design, Brand Development, Logo Design, Advertising, Perth, Western Australia”.

3. Check your meta “description” tag. The content of this tag is what Google places in your search engine listing as the secondary line of text and should be a neat summary of what you have to offer. Swish Design’s description tag is “Specialising in Graphic Design and Web Design Swish Design ensures your company is presenting itself in the best possible way in today’s marketplace. Located in Perth, Western Australia.” Again you will notice that this description tag mentions the key terms that I want people to use to find Swish Design. Again, every page on your site should have a unique description tag.

4. The address of each page matters too. You will note that the “Graphic Design” page of the Swish Design site has the address www.swishdesign.com.au/graphic-design-perth.htm. This presents another opportunity for search engines to catalogue this key term for my site. It is a much better offering than www.swishdesign.com.au/graphics.htm.

5. The main navigation links in your site are important too. The search engines like your site navigation to be html text links rather than images or embedded in a flash file. You can tell if your site has text navigation by trying to select the link the same way you would select text in a document. If you can highlight the text, copy it and paste it into a word document, your site’s navigation is text based.

6. Site content is king. Search engines currently prioritise site content VERY highly. They trawl through all the text in your site and catalogue all the html text (ie if a word is an image, it is not catalogued). Think about the search terms you want people to type into Google in order to find you. If I want someone to find us under “graphic design perth” then these words must be mentioned liberally throughout the Swish Design site. I have clients who are mortgage brokers who do not once mention the words “mortgage brokers” in their site text! However don’t be silly about it. I have seen heavily optimised sites that mention their key search terms over and over and over again. There is a fine line between maximising optimisation and compromising the user experience of someone visiting your site. Prioritising the former over the latter is a bad idea and will alienate potential new clients. You may need to employ the services of a good copywriter to find a nice balance between the two. Your site’s content should be keyword rich yet engaging enough to hold the visitor’s attention.

7. Another thing you can do yourself is give the search engines a reason to go back and have a look at your site after their initial visit. So somewhere on your site, the content needs to change on a regular basis. Many people these days are using blogs to accomplish this. Or they write useful articles (like this one!) or provide some other relevant information to their site visitors like weekly specials. By turning over or adding to your site content regularly, you are ensuring the search engines have a reason to come back and visit your site on and each time they do this, they are re-cataloguing the content on your site.

8. Drive traffic to your site. People visiting your site tells the search engines that they too should visit your site and have a look. This is particularly useful for brand new sites. A common question I get asked from owners of a brand, spanking new site is “I typed my site into Google and it didn’t come up”. That’s because it takes the search engines a little while to find new sites. Sometimes it can take months. If your site is new, tell everyone you know about it! Send out an email to all your contacts to tell them “hey check out my new site”. If you have an existing site, put something new and interesting on there and again, tell everyone you know to go and check it out. Use social networking sites such as Facebook to tell your friends about your site. If you are a retailer, use your site to advertise current specials. Give people reasons to visit your site regularly, even without your urging!

So as you can see, there is a fair amount you can do yourself to make your website more search engine friendly. Of course you will probably need your web designer to actually implement the changes above, but if you can go through your site yourself and tell your web designer exactly what modifications you need them to make, the cost involved should be relatively small and easily outweighed by the return.

While I certainly not purporting to be an expert in the very specialised field of search engine optimization, I do know that doing all of the above will yield very solid results as an initial investment in SEO. SEO programs that cost in the thousands of dollars certainly have their place, especially if you are competing for very popular search terms. But I do believe in doing what you can yourself first and then looking at an expensive SEO program second.