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Understanding SEO

Kate Ebbott

SEO is an acronym for "Search Engine Optimisation"; the process of optimising websites for search engines. This gives websites a better chance to achieve a higher ranking within the major search engines such as google.com, yahoo.com, and msn.com. It is an important part of web development as many people rely on search engines to bring visitors to their website.

There are many technical aspects to how SEO it works, but its principal purpose is to prove to search engines that a website contains quality information. Search engines go to great lengths to help keep the irrelevant websites out of the top positions for any given search, providing you with quality links for whatever you're searching for. To understand the subject of a website, "robots" will work their way through the site, reading its content and following links to see where they go - both internally and externally.

In the initial stages of developing a website, there are three primary aspects that need to be defined:

Who is the site for?
Is the information on your site to generate new customers/clients or do you wish to provide a further service for existing customers/clients?
What is the site about?
These key terms are to be used throughout the text in your website and are words you feel people are most likely going to use when wanting to find your company or product on a search engine.
How big is the website?
Planning out a website structure before development begins can not only make the whole process smoother, but also allows the site to be structured in a way that will be easy for search engines to evaluate. Robots don't like to have to search through more than three links to get to a web page - and nor will your visitor.

Once these primary aspects have been established, the information gathered from them will shape the development of the website. It will be developed in a way that provides the visitor with an easy to navigate information resource. Keywords will be used within the main content of the website and for linking text to help strengthen the key points and company/product name. Keywords are also used to help search engine robots understand the subject of a website. It is also important to adhere to current internet standards making sure every website passes validation tests. This ensures that the website will be visible to the largest number of people possible - regardless of their computer specifications.

Once the site is developed and online, it is important to identify other related websites or directories that can be used to provide links to your website. When search engines identify numerous inbound links from other websites of similar content, it is assumed that the website is genuine and contains quality content as others wish to link to and share it.

With these basic principals of search engine optimisation implemented in your website, it will stand a much higher chance of gaining a prominent listing on top search engines. One thing to keep in mind, however, is that the larger the market, the greater the competition; there are more people fighting for those desired top positions. This may influence the time it will take to achieve a high ranking, but regardless of competition, it can take up to a month for the search engines to discover your website - remember, there are over 7 million websites for them to keep track of!