What is Search Engine Optimisation - A beginners guide.
by Brian Cotsen

In this 3 part article we take a look at:

• What search engine optimisation is.
• Why it is so important to you as a business.
• The most important things you need to think about in order to improve your website's search engine positioning.

 

 

 

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What is Search Engine Optimisation? part 2 of 3

In 'What is search engine optimisation part 1' I explained, in broad terms, what search engine optimisation is and why it is important to you, the website owner.

In part 2 we look more closely at what you need to think about when optimising your website for the search engines and ultimately, for the visitors to your website.

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We introduced the analogy of a music band trying to break into the world music arena.

I suggested that the band would need to send out demo CDs to the big music companies to try and win their interest and thus secure a lucrative record deal.

But just sending out a demo tape to the music companies isn't enough.

No, you need to do a bit of homework:

• Research the right sort of music companies that look after and promote your sort of music.
• Find out who, in that company, looks after talent spotting and promoting new bands.
• Find out what makes that person tick.
• Choose the right sort of promotional material that will make them take notice.
• Even think about the words you choose in the letter and how you package the whole thing.

If you don't get the above right then you could end up wasting all of your time and money by promoting your band to the wrong person in the wrong company and in the wrong way.

Well Search Engine Optimisation is a lot like this.... putting together all the elements that make up the website such as:

• The construction of it - how it has been built, layers, tables & frames.
• The words you choose to use - those all important 'keywords' & 'key phrases'. We'll talk much more about these in later articles.
• The way your website pages are linked together to form your over all website and how your website links to and from other websites. Again we'll cover this in later articles.
• The coding that the search engines see - 'title' tags, 'heading' tags and all that funny text you see if you 'view' source code, the DNA of all websites.

These and many other factors, are taken into account by the search engines as they analyse and decide whether your website is one that offers something interesting for those searching Google, Yahoo, MSN or other search engines.

In the music industry If one of those big music companies decided that they liked your band... bingo... they will help you by promoting you, perhaps plugging you to all of their contacts and raising you up in the publics awareness.

Search Engines are like those big music companies

Think of those big music companies as the 'Search Engines' like Google, Yahoo & MSN. Sending in the demo music tapes is like submitting your website to those search engines. If any, or better still, all of them like what they see, you could find your website promoted to appear high up in the search engine results ... even number 1.

Remember that I said that the band had two options of promoting themselves?

The second option was to pay a specialist marketing company to promote their band and even buy them gigs.

Well in internet terms this would be like using the paid advertising system like Google Adwords or Yahoo's Sponsored Search (formerly Overture) to appear in the 'sponsored' search results often known as the pay-per-click results (PPC).

This is certainly a viable form of promotion for many website businesses and I cover this fully in the Adwords and PPC section.

But this option costs money and you are not guaranteed a place in the sponsored links. Where as if you get your search engine optimisation right, you will appear in the free or natural search results for the cost of your time and effort rather than paying for each click.

What is your goal with search engine optimisation?

Your goal is to build a website that the search engines think offers good information and answers the needs of their customers 'searching' for something.

How do the Search Engines decide on the good, the bad and the useless websites?

You may have heard the term Algorithm It describes the mathematical process that the huge search engines use to analyse every website that they have in their index and then decide if it will appear in the search results.

What is an Algorithm?

Imagine your band is being considered by the big music companies. They probably have a check sheet that covers all sorts of areas like:

• Can they play?
• What sort of music is it?
• Are they good looking?
• Is there a market for their music?
• Does their name sound catchy?
• Do they have any fans or a following?
• How long have they been playing?
• Do they do drugs or anything that make them a liability?

Like I said in part one, you can probably tell I don't know much about the music industry!

Well search engines have a checklist too, it's called the Algorithm and it looks at:

• What is this website called?
• What special words do they use to describe themselves?
• Is there a description of the website?
• Can we see these words on the pages?
• Do other websites link to this one?
• How long has the website been around?
• Are they doing anything dodgy to try and fool us?

If your website does well and gets a high score in the Algorithm then you will find that your website appears high up when people search for specific terms that you have optimised your site for.

Do badly at the Algorithm test and your website will languish at the bottom of the search results, never to be seen by your customers.

In part 3 of 'What is search engine optimisation' we look at each of the Algorithm's criteria and start to understand what you can do to increase your websites chances of getting to the top of the search results when you want it to.

What is search engine optimisation part 3 >>>

Want some help with your search engine optimisation? Take a look at our website consultation services or take a look at the reviews of search engine optimisation tools and books to help you optimise your own website

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Article copyright Brian Cotsen - www.simplewebsitemarketing.com 2007