If you have created a website for your business, you may have taken special care to make it look colourful and interesting.
Perhaps you kept things simple in order to please a wide array of customers. You might have included some humorous text or even a blog with some friendly advice to capture the attention of your potential customers.
But did you remember to make your website Search Engine friendly?
The Importance Of Search Engine Optimisation
Many online marketers believe that if they create a website, people will automatically find it and be ready, willing, and able to buy their products or services. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Today, there are literally millions and millions of sites on the World Wide Web. The number of domain names nearly rivals the number of dollars in the U.S. budget deficit.
How then, can the right person (the one ready to buy what you’re selling) reach your website?
The majority of consumers use a Search Engine to find the information they are seeking on the internet. Search engines can find your website and display it in the list of results, but only if you ‘optimise’ your URL. Search engines utilise a variety of proprietary algorithms and the metadata associated with a site in order to find it, and then rank it for any number of keyword terms.
The ranking of your URL is largely based on the number of inbound and outbound links, density of keywords, and the architecture of your site.
Methods of Search Engine Optimisation
The following are the areas most important to search engines, and those that require some tweaking in order to bring your website up to the top of the rankings.
Context
Link pages with related content. This makes it easier for someone doing a search for particular information to browse all applicable pages.
Calls To Action
Such things as buttons which include a link to a contact form, email address, or RSS feed should be prominently displayed. Social bookmarking (Digg, StumbleUpon, Del.icio.us, etc.) links are another form of call to action and should be included next to any type of content which is regularly updated, such as blog posts or videos.
Inbound Links
The more places on the internet where the URL to your site is referenced, the better.
Comments And Ratings
There should be easy to see buttons so that users can add either their own personal comment or rating to any type of content. This not only makes the site more interactive, it is a means to add ‘organic’ metadata.
Keep It Simple
Avoid using Flash and Javascript code. Search engine crawlers can’t recognise it and the code can pose a problem for many potential customers trying to view your content.
These are just a few of the ways you can make your website Search Engine friendly. Obviously, without paying particular attention to the ways in which crawlers can find your content, you cannot reach the majority of your target market and convert them into sales. Even little changes can make a big difference to your online success.
See you at the top of Google!
Sean Rasmussen
SEO Australia Pacific
AussieSEO.com © 2007 - 2010
Hi Sean,
I agree that it’s so important to make your site search engine friendly. The internet is a huge place and we have to give our customers every chance to find us.
I think that once we have our on-page SEO set up correctly we can spend more time building backlinks. I try to make it as easy as possible for people to share my content. I think it definitely helps to have your bookmarking buttons displayed prominently.
Every little bit of on and off page SEO that we can apply is going to assist in the task of achieving page 1 rankings
I have gone over the YOTA instructions for web site design and followed them as religiously as I could. Now with this article I can see that in so doing I made them search engine friendly. I keep learning new things in this game but ultimately, after exploring those new things for a while, I keep arriving back to the basic YOTA instructions. They are fundamentally sound.
.-= Wal Heinrich´s last blog ..Cheapest Granny Flats In Australia =-.
Even these days you see may website developers offering packages on website creation. The interesting thing is that more than half of them do not talk about SEO.
I find this interesting and wonder on whether they do implement it if requested directly by the client, or whether they refer it to another partner business…
As a small business owner you may not know the right questions to ask, this would be a major issue for such people.
.-= Cemil´s last blog ..Scribe SEO Plugin – Making SEO Easy =-.
Hi Cemil
I have come across some that claim they have implemented SEO when they haven’t. The client wouldn’t know unless they are up to speed with all the aspects of SEO.
The design of the sites are awful but the clients’ seem to be ok with it as the site looks nice.
.-= Gee Hollings´s last blog ..Are Keyword Research Services Really Worth It =-.
That is a good point you raise Cemil.
When I first started to look into having my own website, the range of prices was extraordinary and especially for the SEO components. I mean some were going to charge thousands a year. At that stage I had no idea what SEO was – but I am glad I hesitated and didn’t sign up. I found Site Build It (SBI) and lot of it is done for me as part of my hosting – which is a cheap monthly fee!
They also never say exactly what they are going to do. One company I know hooked a friend of mine into their SEO program by saying they would have them on page ! straight away. Yes, they did – because they used PPC and my friend paid through the nose.
Ironically, as I pointed out to my friend, I had their site on page 1 already for the keywords I used regarding their local business.
Hi Sean
This is an excellent article and so very important to understand how SEO works. You explain it very clearly and it is mind boggling to think of how many websites there are out there cluttering up cyberspace!
Building a site takes alot of careful planning and designing. Including all the tools necessary to enhance SEO is critical. I will use this article as my check list while creating mine.
Thankyou so much Sean.
.-= Elly´s last blog .. =-.
G’day Sean,
You have really hammered the importance of SEO into our brains with this article, PLUS all the SEO stuff in the forum. If I keep on paying attention and doing this properly I’ll be able to dream about it in bed at night.
Just got info from Tiger on fitting the buttons onto my blog.
Cheers
Harry
.-= Harry Lynn´s last blog ..SEAN RASMUSSEN’S ” LEARN AND EARN ” COMPETITION =-.
Flash also slows downloading the page and visitors often don’t like to wait, so they buzz off to another site and you miss out.
If headlines are catchy that will grab attention more than flash – and likewise good quality content that is scannable will hold them better.
I’m glad I read this article on “Making Your Website More Search Engine Friendly”. It reminded me that I have to get back to working on one of my websites and add social booking links for Digg, Stumbleupon, Delicious, etc. Now I’m not too sure that the type of user I’ll be getting on that site will have accounts on social bookmarking sites let alone understand the significance of the buttons so it sounds like a perfect chance for writing another blog article on the site’s blog.
.-= Don White´s last blog ..New Ireton Data =-.
Hi Sean,
One thing I do know now is that You must make your site Search Engine friendly and if you don’t achieve that you will get nowhere.
I have been going back to some older posts to freshen them up implementing what I have been learning.
Revamping earlier posts with better SEO can help especially when your time is limited .
I agree – it is on my list to do the same – I am sure I can improve my SEO – especially looking at my keywords and finding better long tails.
I have started to add in DIGG buttons and twitter Follow mebuttons too
Hi Rita,
That’s a good idea to go and revamp the blogs and make them More Search Engine Friendly as I come up with new ideas. Thank-you for that idea.
Sean, A great article. The call to action is important with RSS button and Social Media Buttons to Digg, StumbleUpon, Del.ici.ous, etc. I know a few people who have websites and are not yet taking advantage of the optimisation tools mentioned in this article.
.-= Jill Brown´s last blog ..Couples Marry at Common Law =-.
It’s amazing how easy it can be to have a search engine friendly website if you know what you need to do. It is not rocket science, but following some important basic rules. Once this is “in your blood” you will rank your sites up top in no time.
.-= Renee´s last blog ..Self Improvement Books – What Are Your Favourites =-.
Hi Renee,
Nothing is rocket science when you know how. Sometimes you don’t know what you need to know and you can’t ask for help because you don’t know that you don’t know it. I hope that make sense.
You’re right though. Once you know a few basic rules, you can easily build a search engine friendly website.
.-= Jazz Salinger´s last blog ..Finding Your Passion =-.
And, adding to that – just be consistent with SEO and updating. Google loves sites that are active and adding more useful information.
It’s very easy to make your website look pretty, and forget about the backend stuff for the search engines. It is great that there are WordPress plugins which make the job of making your website more search engine friendly a lot easier and a lot more manageable.
.-= Jayne Pleysier´s last blog ..How A Marketing Service Can Help Your Business Grow =-.