This is the first part of an as yet to be determined series on absolute SEO basics. It’s the absolute bare bones of SEO knowledge and is not comprehensive… but it should give a beginner a point of reference to begin their efforts. It’s the first part of about 3 or 4… I don’t know how many there will be yet, I seem to keep on thinking up more and more to write about as I go along!

What is Search Engine Optimisation?

Search engine optimisation (or SEO) is named according to the fine traditions of this industry. We make everything sound a lot harder than it actually is!

At a very basic level, SEO is simply the process of changing aspects of your site to make it more relevant to search engine queries made by people looking for the product or subject matter of your site.

There are many things which a search engine looks at to determine which sites are most appropriate to be displayed in response to queries. When you engage in SEO you are merely trying to respond to these criteria.

Further Reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization

http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/S/SEO.html

How Search Engines Rank Web Pages

Each search engine has a subtly different way of ranking pages in response to search queries. They all apply a formula known as an “algorithm” or “algo” to analyse the content of a web page and determine its relevance. Search engine algos are top secret and the details of exactly how they work are not made public. This is for a very good reason. Obviously if we all knew exactly how Google & other search engines ranked their pages, the search results would lose relevancy because every man and his dog would know how to create a site with killer rankings (as opposed to a site with the user in mind). In the past, this kind of knowledge has led to spammy search engine results, which is why search engines brought out their cloaks and daggers to create ranking algos which were difficult to exploit. So your current endeavours to learn the mystic art of SEO have been made that much more complex by all us pre 2003 affiliates who could create 10,000 ranking pages in about 5 minutes flat!

Learning about SEO by reading online information is rendered extremely difficult by the fact that nobody knows for sure exactly what goes on inside the algos. This means people develop their own methodologies and articles can be contradictory as a result of this. The best advice I can give on this is to not get bogged down in this by accepting everything you read as gospel and then getting confused by blatant contradictions. You, like everyone else, will eventually formulate your own working methods based on the results you see from your efforts.

If I tried to analyse even just a part of a search engine algo, I’d probably have enough for a PHD thesis. So this article is intended to be very basic to give you some pointers to the areas you should spend time on when trying to build site visitors.

So what makes search engines love your site?

This is not a definitive list… it’s the basics. You’ll no doubt hear of other things to do to make your page hyper-relevant from loads of different sources. When researching SEO further bear this in mind – if a method sounds too good to be true / like an overly easy shortcut you may be straying into search engine ban territory. Broadly speaking, SEO is hard work these days, but the rewards are wonderful!

Content: Now, before I even start the list properly I want to give some sage advice on what your site pages should contain. The phrase “content is king” is well worn for a good reason. Sites with thin content, and with no original content tend not to perform (particularly in Google). You should be writing original content you think will be genuinely useful to your target audience to include on your site. It’s not enough to adopt a copy and paste attitude towards your new search engine hobby… it’s just not going to wash in the search engines. Google in particular has something called the “Duplicate Content Filter”. If your site has content copied from somewhere else, the great Google will know and will penalise rankings accordingly. You have been warned!

OK, there are two aspects about your site which will be looked at: On site Factors and Off Site Factors. See, optimisation is not only about how your site looks, but also about how other sites are talking about it. Still interested? Yes? OK. Let us proceed!

On Site Factors

Keyword Rich URL’s – Search terms in domains are deemed to be relevant to the sites content. Think about it from the search engine’s point of view. If the domain name carries certain search terms this is likely to be a strong indicator of the sites subject matter.

Don’t worry if your site doesn’t have this, many millions of sites rank without this benefit. However, if you can get a popular search term as your domain name, it is most definitely of assistance. It can also help your site achieve a better click through rate, as most search engines will highlight matching search terms within a site in bold, including your URL.

Below is an example of Google search results for the term “Cookware”:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&rlz=1B2GGGL_enGB176GB176&q=cookware&btnG=Search&meta=

As with many search results, particularly Google, there is a strong presence of keyword-bearing url’s in the search results. This does suggest that it can help significantly with your rankings. Depending on the competitiveness of the search term, this will not always be a factor that will tip the search engine scales in your favour without other work. It is possible to rank highly for lower volume search terms quickly using this tactic, which can be lucrative if you’ve found an unexploited niche area with low competition and good conversion rates.

Keyword Distribution

When a search robot visits a web page it analyses the position and frequency of search terms throughout the page. Search engines look for some key markers to determine what terms contained in the page are most relevant to the subject matter. On a very simple level, a search engine robot reads your page in the same way you or I might scan a newspaper to determine what was going on with the days news.
Search terms contained within certain page elements such as titles, italicised and bold text, and link anchor text are considered to be likely to contain terms relating to the main subject matter of the page and therefore carry a greater weighting.

Search engines also look for which terms are sprinkled evenly thoroughout your page, the logic behind this is that if a term is mentioned frequently in all areas of the page it is again likely to relate to the subject matter of the page. I always describe this analysis as “Top, Middle, and Bottom” to SEO newbies. If you look at your page and see terms of relevance in all these areas, your text content is going to be pretty close to being right.

Pseudonyms
Don’t just repeat your main search term. Think of different ways to describe it in your page content, and use lots of related keywords. For example, a page about “designer lingerie” should also mention related terms like “underwear” “bras” “thongs” etc. This will reassure the robot that your page really is relevant!

A proviso for all you would-be search marketers: - Don’t try to manipulate this by engaging in “Keyword Stuffing”. By this I mean creating pages with artificially high amounts of your search term. That search ship sailed long ago, and Google will actually penalise a site it considers to be engaging in this practise. You have been warned (again!).

The optimum keyword density (i.e. the % of keywords from all your text that cover your desired search term or terms) ranges between 5% and 20% for Google. The optimum level changes with subject matter, and apparently anything above the threshold will trigger Google’s keyword spamming alarm. How true this is I am unsure. The best advice I can give on keyword density is to keep it natural when writing your page content. Simply talk about your desired subject using as many relevant words as possible without putting in superfluous pap (yep, that’s a technical term) and you should be fine.

Page elements search engines give special weighting to: -