Fundamentally, SEO is the study of how Search Engines organise sites on their organic search lists. These organic listings are what we predominantly see when we search for any keyword. They’re different from the ads that companies have paid for. The paid listings are typically in a yellow section at the top of the page, and in a column down the right hand side. All the rest have naturally been put into position. Algorithms are used to determine the position of a web site in a Search Engine directory.

We want to be right up there where we can be seen. We’ve little chance of being seen if we’re way down the list on page 7. Nobody can be entirely certain about which factors Search Engines use in their ranking process. This is to prevent an outsider controlling the system.

So, over the years a complete industry has grown up around this. On the one side you have SE’s like Google deliberately filing technology patents in many different areas. This makes determining their ratings methods more complex. On the other side you have an SEO industry. SEO empirically measures and tests data to establish the more significant factors that the SE’s are using.

The objective is to maximise both ‘on-page’ and ‘off-page’ optimisation. A certain amount of page ranking weight can be attributed to off web geographic influences. SEO can’t control these though. (We will cover off page optimisation in a separate article.)

‘On-Page’ SEO

This involves making your web pages ‘friendlier’ to the Search Engines. This is the easy part and involves setting up your website ‘correctly’. Doing things such as: Utilising H1 and H2 Header Tags, Internal Linking, Keywords and Meta Tags.

It doesn’t matter if all that sounds very confusing. On-Page optimisation is now known to have the smallest affect on your page rank. To be fair, it’s generally assumed now to have very little import indeed. It used to be possible to ‘trick’ the Search Engines with on-page factors several years ago. But that door has been completely closed down for several years now.

The only time that ‘on-page’ becomes important is when you have taken care of ‘off-page’ and have a lot of inbound ‘back-links’. When that’s happened, on-page factors can be optimised.

A Few Handy Pointers… Keywords and phrases that bring up massive results should be avoided by anyone new to SEO. For example, on Google’s Search Engine you’ll see 70 million listings in the UK for the term Car Insurance. When you’re just getting going, it’s not a great idea to face such huge competition!

However… A much smaller list (300k) comes up when I enter ‘Southampton car insurance’. (Assuming I was a car insurance provider in Southampton.) So a much more realistic target.

I’ve a much better chance in the rankings having added the word ‘Southampton’. Getting ranked for a term such as Car Insurance would take pots of money and a great deal of time. The competition would be fierce. Which is really not a good idea.

It’s far better to choose phrases that are more specific to our offering. These ‘long tail’ phrases might contain a number of specific keywords. If your market’s very competitive, you could be selecting seven word phrases. Typically they will be 3 or 4 words long.

We like to start Search Engine Optimisation using terms that yield less than 500K. (There are occasions when we might accept a higher yield figure at the start – when the top entries are not well optimised.) As our back links increase, we’ll start to rate more highly on the bigger search terms as well. With some effort, it will be possible to have a stab at the big ones within a year. This line of attack starts with more focus. We’re after the people who are really looking to buy, so we go for phrases that convert well.

You should also build back links to various different pages – and not just your website’s homepage. Google and the other Search Engines like this ‘deep linking’. Category pages for instance are good to back-link. It’s worth driving specific search terms to these pages – they often have links to lots of other product pages. Do not simply build links to your website’s home page. Search Engines are increasingly focused on the individual pages within a website.

(C) 2009 S. Edwards. Hop over to Click Here or www.jasonkendall.co.uk.