SneakyMedia Web Design Mag

Introduction

Website optimisation is the first step in the SEO process. This involves ensuring everything on your website helps to indicate to the search engines what your website is about.

This page will provide a simple, yet comprehensive guide to optimising your web site’s design to be as SEO friendly as possible. Subjects covered are:

• Meta Tag Optimisation
• SEO for Page / Post Titles
• SEO for URL or permalink Structure
• Internal Link Text and Structure
• Keyword Density
• Optimised Content
• Link Building

Meta Tag Optimisation

The Meta description tag is a small section of HTML code that should be placed inside the< /Head > section of a Web page.

Meta tags aren’t inherently useful for increasing your Search Engine ranking. However, in terms of the way your site is perceived by users, it is very important. Meta tags which are properly optimised give the search engines a basic idea of what your site is about and can help to increase click-troughs.

The title carries most weight with search engines and is the most important non-content item. It should be below 60 characters and contain your most important keywords; remembering that the first word carries more weight than subsequent words.

The description is no longer used for SEO purposes, but think of it more as an advertisement of your webpage, aimed at web users.

Google doesn’t use meta keywords to manage rankings, but some search engines do. Therefor, it’s important to include your targeted search terms here.

SEO for Page / Post Titles

Page titles give an immediate view of your site’s content to search engines and to visitors and so should be extremely concise and targeted. Use your strongest key words within this title but keep to a 70 character limit; this will ensure your full title appears in the search engine results pages (SERPs). Ideally these titles should offer a ‘call to action’ (‘buy here, learn how to… for example) which will promote a desired response from visitors whilst retaining your keywords.

Bad Example – Mary’s Easy Guide to arranging flowers and other horticultural advice
[fancy_header]Good Example – Flower Arranging Help | Learn Simple Horticultural Advice Quickly

SEO for URL or permalink Structure

Page URLs offer further oppurtunity to include keywords outside of your page’s regular content. Clearly the page URLs carry heavy weighting in the search engine’s efforts to deterine what your page is all about, which is why it is much easier to rank highly for a keyword which is present in your main site URL. For WordPress users you can find some WordPress specific SEO techniques here, including permalink advice: http://yoast.com/articles/wordpress-seo/

Bad Example – http://www.MarysShop.com/16/?p=1870
Good Example – http://www.BuyFlowersOnline.com/roses/red-roses

Internal Link Text and Structure

Internal linking is an often overlooked aspect of on-page SEO, which is a mistake as links (regardless of where they are pointing) carry a substatial weighting with s.earch engines.

First of all, ensure internal links are all absolute, as opposed to relative ones. i.e Replace /pagename with http://www.yourwebsite.com/pagename. If your URL contains keywords, then this is one more oppurtunity to include a keyword within a link.

As well as where the link is pointing, we need to consider the anchor text. Optimising your anchor text (the actual text which will act as the link). Ensure your targetted keyword/phrase features within a link at least once on your page. For example, in an about us page: “We at SneakyMedia Web Design always…”

It is important to cap the total number of out-bound links (links leaving your page) at a maximum of 5-10. If too many links are present this will begin to deduct from their relevancy.

Keyword Density

Keyword density is the number of times your keyword appears on a page, as a percentage of the total number of words. There is much debate about the best keyword density for SEO purposes – as mentioned above, quality SEO is about treading the line between keyword density and readability.

Too few keywords, and your site will not be deemed relavant, too many keywords, and your site could be conisdered spam as well as appearing unatural to the reader. Quality, relavant content should naturally create a good level of keyword density. In my opinion, a realistic target should be around 5% keyword density

There are many free, online tools for checking keyword density, a few of which can be found here: Best Free Analysis Tools for Web Designers

Optimised Content

continuing on from keyword density we need to consider the overall content of our pages. In terms of SEO, it certainly is the case that content is King. Make sure your website is clear and coherent. Not only will badly written content dissuade visitors from returning but it can also negatively affect your rankings.

Ensure your chosen key words are used naturally where needed, as pointlessly repeating yourself in an attempt to improve rankings could lead to you being penalised by Google and quite frankly, looks unprofessional. If you constantly update your site with useful and relevant information you will find your site naturally climbs the organic search listings as Google holds fresh content in higher regard. For this purpose, it may be prudent to include a blog within your domain as you can edit and update content freely (see our Web Design Blog).

Link Building

Link building is possibly the most important factor to consider when beginning an SEO campaign.

Search engines such as Google assess how many different websites link to your website in an attempt to discover how ‘popular’ it is. For this reason, the process of building links to your website is extremely important for search engine optimisation and to increase your rankings.

As your site grows in popularity ‘back links’ (links to your website) will naturally appear across the World Wide Web increasing your search engine ranking. However, when you are initially getting started with search engine optimisation it’s important to ‘build’ some of these back-links yourself and ensure search engines are aware of your presence.

The easiest and most cost effective (although somewhat time consuming) method of link building is manual link building through business or website indexes. A webmaster submits information about his/her website to these online databases and directories and this information then appears on the internet within them. This is a benefit in terms of SEO as each submission to a directory is one more back-link to your website. Sign up to a good number of these directories (I would recommend a minimum of 100 if you have the time) and you should start to see some considerable improvements in your website’s rankings.

However, a word of warning; try to ensure that the directories you use are good quality websites. This means that they should be ranked highly in Google and, if you are a UK based website, should be ‘.co.uk’ sites. Directories that allow you to write a few paragraphs of description can be even more useful because when the content around your link relates strongly to the content on your web page, search engines will consider this to be a strong back-link.

Many directories you look at will vary in what they require of you. Many will be completely free, however just as many will ask for payments to list your website and will possibly even offer a ‘premium’ listing which offers a highlighted ad for a higher price. Some directories are free, but they require you to add a reciprocal link (a link to their website on yours). The directories you use will vary depending on your budget and knowledge of HTML but all strong directories should help to improve and optimise your website in terms of search engine rankings.

Of course there is an added benefit of having your site listed; when customers or web users are able to find your website through directories your traffic will naturally increase. Most of the directories offer are indexed by category making your website easier to find.

Paddy (Admin)

I'm Paddy. I build awesome WordPress websites and drink coffee. I'm an SEO and Social Media enthusiast. Follow my Tweets for Web Design and SEO goodies @SneakyMedia. I also write articles over at Blurb Herd