Website Optimisation
There is a lot of talk about site optimisation however; most people don’t know what it is. Sites are optimised
so that Search Engines can easily find the key components they look for to rank the pages in your website. From
the information they gather they create a page ranking for each page in your site. Your page ranks is the order in
which you appear when someone does a keyword search. Most people only visit business on the first page of their
search results.
Components Search Engines Look for Include:
- Title tag - You need a relevant title, not just "Home Page" Use it for 5 key words.
- Headings - Search engines view < h> tags as being terms of emphasis - they give weight to the words within
them. Put key terms in < h1> & tags.
- Bold - Of lesser importance than < h> tags. The < b> tags still emphasise terms of importance.
- Alt text - Use descriptive short sentences in your alt tags.
- Email addresses listed on your site - make sure the domain name in the email address matches the web site
domain. Ie use ‘yourname@yourbusiness.com.au’ instead of ‘yourname@yahoo.com’ The search engines look at it as
suspect if you don't.
- Keyword metatags - Some engines use them directly, some check them as part of a validation process -
"do they match the content"? If they don't could this be a spam site?
- Keyword frequency across all pages. Does the content really speak about the subject which the page and the
website is supposed to be about?
- Keywords in the url - You can use keywords in the filename. For example if the page is about Tie Dye tshirts,
then call it "http://www.sitename.com/tie-dye-tshirt.html"
- Meta
description tag - Most engines look at this tag. Use distinct ones throughout your site, and distinct ones for
each page. Make them particular to that page.
- Key word
placement - Words that are higher up on a page are more heavily weighted.
- Key word proximity - Words that are close together are probably related, and thus the site will show up in
searches for those terms.
- Inbound links –
- How
many other web pages around the Internet point to your web site? Rating of pages linking to this
page Number of links on pages linking to this page.
- If the link to your web site is the only one
from a page, it's viewed as being more valuable than being one link among 100.
- Freshness of links
on pages linking to your web site. While the engines will count all links, a link from a web site that has not
been updated in a year or two will be less valuable than from one that is updated daily. It indicates activity /
interest levels. ·
- Reciprocal Links -
- Search engines like to see a
closed loop - that a referring site as also used as a reference. So when you are giving away a link, ask for one
back. It will help both websites.
- Response Time - If your site
is fast, it's favoured.
- Page Size - The engines tend to weigh
content at the start of a document more than content further down. If a page is long, look at breaking it into
sections. If a page is over 50k, then it's too long.
- Page Last
Modified (Freshness) - a page that is updated frequently is more highly favoured.
Is your website optimised to include all these important points? If it isn't your search engine page ranking
maybe low, your website maybe hard for potential customers to find and your web sales or web referrals maybe
suffering. How do you know if this is happening to your website? You can read all about
assessing your website and
website analytics
here.
If you are planning a website or if you are reviewing your existing website you may also like to read these articles:
All too hard? At Catalyst for Growth we make it easy for you to have a website that achieves your goals because we build websites that work. Click here to read more about our
website
design service.
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