Guide to ethical search engine optimization
This guide to ethical search engine optimization has been produced so that you, as a business person, can gain more information on how to obtain more customers via the Internet search engines. By being available and visible on the search engines, when someone is searching for something that you sell you will direct more traffic to your website, which in turn will result in increased sales.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
It can be quite difficult to understand the words ‘search engine optimization’ (SEO) and what the term involves.
In reality, it is very logical: it is about convincing the search engines that your webpage offers the best content, so you should be seen at the top of the search results.
Solving the issue of search engine optimization within your own company is not necessarily the best alternative for all webpage owners. A successful search engine optimization campaign is a continuous project, not a one-off task. It requires time and resources to keep everything rolling.
Search engine optimization is best carried out by a company that deals with SEO (search engine optimization) on a full-time basis. It takes considerable time and commitment to keep up-to-date with the latest trends, to maintain the optimization and to assess the success of your search engine optimization campaign. Outsourcing enables a site owner to avoid all the work of researching, testing, implementing and maintaining a large-scale search engine optimization project.
Working on search engine optimization
Remember that by no means are we covering all aspects of search engine optimization here. The idea of this guide is purely to describe some of the most fundamental aspects of search engine optimization.
SEO in practice
Search engine optimization (SEO) work involves work on the following aspects:
- The textual content of the webpage
- The structure of the webpage
- Link strategies (showing that the website exists)
Textual content of the webpage
The content of the webpage is the foundation of good visibility on the search engines. It is about having textual content where important keywords stand out in the headings and occur frequently and naturally in the text body.
The search engine robots analyse and measure which words occur, where they occur, and how often they occur. This information is then used for their calculations, which determine the placing obtained in the search results.
Structure of the webpage
If the website has good content, it is important that all pages can be found; therefore, it is a good idea to give thought to the way in which the hierarchy is constructed on the website in order to reduce the number of steps between levels, and to ensure that there are normal links (a href) between the pages.
If the content and structure of your website are good, it is important that others can find it. This is a case of showing and marketing your website using social media, blogs or various types of company register.
The search engines analyse all websites on the Internet and, if they find a link that points to a page, the link is regarded as a “vote” indicating that the page it is pointing at is a good one. If you receive a lot of “votes” of this kind from popular pages, it will result in a higher ranking for the website on the search engines.
Link strategies
If the content and structure of your website are good, it is important that others can find it. This is a case of showing and marketing your website using social media, blogs or various types of company register.
The search engines analyse all websites on the Internet and, if they find a link that points to a page, the link is regarded as a “vote” indicating that the page it is pointing at is a good one. If you receive a lot of “votes” of this kind from popular pages, it will result in a higher ranking for the website on the search engines.
Title tag
The title tag is the most important part of optimization. It clearly emphases the most important words of the page in question. An example of what a title tag looks like is shown below:
You should always strive to have unique title tags for each page, and to indicate what the important words are. This makes it easy for both a user and a search robot to distinguish what the various pages are about.
The title tag also affects the click frequency (CTR), i.e. the number of people who click on the result in the search results. The number of words, and the combination of these, are important factors.
Meta description
The meta description is a brief description of the current page. This description is often used in the search engines’ search results. This description is an important part of optimization, as it also affects the click frequency (CTR), so it should capture a user’s attention.
Exactly as with the title tag, you should strive to have unique meta descriptions for each individual page.
An example of what a meta description looks like is shown below:
In the results from the search engine, the meta description tag is shown. An example of how it might appear is shown below:
Meta keywords
Meta keywords show a comma-separated list of the most important keywords of each individual page. This element is currently evaluated differently among the search engines, with Google choosing not to include it at all in its calculations.
If we look back, this element used to be abused, with webmasters adding a range of popular keywords and thus gaining a good ranking. The search engines were not keen on this, as their aim is to present the most relevant search results. Instead, they began to focus more on analysing the content of webpages, and how it was presented. They also began to value links in and out of websites particularly highly.
Content of the page
The textual content of a webpage is the foundation of good visibility. You should have a structured approach and use headings and sub-headings in the correct manner. This increases readability and clearly emphasises what is important in the text. Make sure, too, that you use the relevant language. Keep to one language per domain.
Text body
Try to include the keywords by which you wish to be seen in a natural way in the text body. They should recur naturally throughout the whole piece of text.
Headings
It is very important to use headings to emphasise what is important in the text. They capture the attention of both the users and the search robots. Use heading tags only when required. Neither users nor search robots like a large mass of text: it should be easy to read, so you should create airy sections of text and sub-headings.
An example of how it should appear is shown below:
Hierarchy of headings
The hierarchy of the heading structure is of great importance as it signals to the users and search robots how important something is. It is important that vital keywords occur in the main heading (H1), and also very good if they occur in sub-headings (usually H2 and H3). Note that there should be only one H1 heading per page, while you may have a number of sub-headings (H2, H3, etc.)
Images
Images can be an important part of the content, depending on how a website has been designed. Search engines cannot interpret an image, but you can help them to understand what the image depicts by writing a short, descriptive ALT text. The images also have more chance of being visible in the search engines’ image searches.
Structure
If you have a website with good content, it is important that all the pages can be found by the search engine robots. In other words, they need to be accessible.
Accessibility
Accessibility is all about the internal link structure, i.e. how pages are linked to one another internally within the same website. You should try to minimise all the blind alleys that may arise: a search robot should always have the opportunity to move forwards or backwards via normal links.
Hierarchy
You should always strive to have as shallow a hierarchy as possible in order to minimise the number of clicks, i.e. the number of steps down into hierarchy that you need to go in order to reach a subpage.
Navigation
For the optimal internal link structure, it is important that all links used should be normal (a href) links that the search engines are able to follow. You should also give thought to the text in the link (anchor text), as this helps both users and search robots to understand what the link means, or where it is pointing.
Sitemap
A sitemap is a page that helps both users and search robots to gain a simple overview of the various pages and areas of the website.
If this sitemap is linked into the menu, or into the footer of all pages, it will help to minimise the number of steps in the hierarchy to reach important subpages. A user or search robot can always choose to go to the sitemap, and then on to an important subpage.
There are also two different types of sitemap we tend to talk about. These two types, HTML sitemap and XML sitemap, are described below.
HTML sitemap
The principal improvements from an HTML sitemap are in that it improves the internal link structure, spreads the PageRank, and helps visitors to gain an overview of the website.
XML sitemap
The principal improvements from an XML sitemap are in that it helps the search robots to find and index pages, governs the priority of pages, provides information on when they were most recently updated, and gives faster indexing of the website.
URL structure
A webpage’s URL (web address) is an important part of the structure of a website, as this is what uniquely identifies which page is which.
Using simple, descriptive addresses is good for both users and search robots.
Examples of a good and bad URL are shown below:
A good URL address: http://www.kund.se/[kunds most important word URL-friendly]/
A poor URL address: http://www.kund.se/?id=12345
Top-level domains
The top-level domain is an important part of the URL structure as it helps search robots and users to understand which country the page is aimed at.
For good visibility in Sweden, for example, you should have a .se domain; for Norway, you should have a .no domain, etc. These domains are termed country-specific: they are bound to display content associated with the specific country (in the eyes of the search engines).
Then, there are international top-level domains, such as .com. This top-level domain can be managed so it ranks well in all countries.
Frames
Pages built in frames have an inferior internal link structure compared to other webpages, which is a barrier to the search robots. This is due to the fact that, in fact, a page consists of several pages (which are connected together).
Flash
As with frames, pages built using Flash affect the searchability of the webpage: the search robots have difficulty reaching the content of the page.
The search engines have problems interpreting and understanding pages built in Flash, the content being seen as an image or a film.
It is quite a common scenario to find pages that load and feel like a large image or film. Something people perhaps do not think about is the loading time: neither users nor search robots like to wait, which affects their behaviour on the website.
Link strategies
History
It used to be the case that the search engines relied very heavily on popular keywords that occurred on the websites. Many people exploited this by throwing in popular words on their pages, giving them a higher ranking.
Google, among others, were not keen on this and developed instead a new method of assessing webpages, Google PageRank. This is a voting structure based on links.
External link structure (Inlinks)
With Google’s current algorithm, inlinks are regarded very highly when calculating the ranking and are often of vital importance in determining the top placings on competitive keywords.
Google advocates that you should try to get natural inlinks to your website from relevant pages, i.e. pages within the same area or field.
It is important for the link to be in text form, and for important keywords to be included in the text as this says something about the nature of the webpage to which the link is pointing.
Internal link structure
The internal link structure is very important as it indirectly affects the ranking of the page. If the content of your site is good, it is important that all pages can be found.
How do you get inlinks to your website?
Basically, it is all about offering good content that others will wish to provide links to. You can also use blogs to spread news or information about your website.
There are many ways of marketing your website. Examples of this are shown below:
Tools that can be used for SEO
There is a range of free tools that you can use for information purposes, and in order to work on your website.
Google Webmaster Tools
Google Webmaster Tools is a tool that helps Web managers to determine how Google interacts with the website, and provides practical information directly from Google.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is an excellent tool for analysing traffic to the website.
Once search engine optimization is complete
Once optimization has been carried out on your website, it is important not to finish there. There are important follow-up measures to take, including measuring and processing the data and evaluating the statistics.
Register your website with the search engines
It is important to ensure that the search engines know your webpage exists. If there are no indexed pages on the search engine, this may be due to it never having been indexed. Usually, the search engine finds a website through a link from another site, if the webpage has not been registered by the user.
Measuring, processing and analysing
Once your pages have been optimized in a good manner, it is natural to want to keep tabs on the results. Here, a good statistical system is extremely useful. If you are a customer of MediaAnalys, our Customer Relations department will take constant care of all monitoring of statistics and deliveries to you. We also implement Google Analytics, one of the world’s best statistical systems, completely free of charge.
Search engine optimization requires patience
It is important to remember that good search engine optimization takes time. In other words, you should not expect any immediate change to your ranking. It can take weeks or even months for the efforts you expend on search engine optimization to produce visible results. Conversely, when the changes do start you will continue to have a high ranking, especially if you use a system to monitor and update your pages regularly.
Would you like to know more?
If you are interested in learning more about serch engine optimization, or would like us to contact you with guidance as to how your company might gain more customers via the search engines, contact us or complete our the contact form.