An idiot’s guide to Search Engine Optimization

When thinking about SEO most people immediately consider ‘keywords’ and ‘meta-tags’. However, Google accounts for approximately 90% of all search engine enquires, and they practically ignore all keywords. The reason for this is that often companies use the wrong keywords for their website, and if Google took these keywords in to consideration it would not produce a very good quality outcome for the searcher.
Google has instead focused on the titles and descriptions that you assign to each page on your website. To view how many of your website pages Google detects and what it sees simply type “site: (your website url)”. Therefore you should include these keywords within your titles and page descriptions. This will ensure that your web pages will appear when appropriate.

Link Popularity
The way that Google decides which website is highest ranked on the search is by the websites link popularity. You can view your link popularity by visiting www.backlinkwatch.com. BackLinkWatch.com will list every website that has a link to your website and they also supply the details of what words they use for the hyperlink (the anchor text). The more closely matched these words are to your keywords the better effect it will have on your SEO. BackLinkWatch.com also displays how many links there are on the website that links to your website (OBL column on the website), the fewer number of links they have, the more impact that link will have for you.

A way to improve your SEO via these links would be to:
1. Ensure that your existing links are as good quality as possible, by contacting the website managers who already have links to your site and ask them to use keywords to link to your website.
2. Run blogs/micro sites and link them to your website using your keywords. If you decide to take this route it is more effective to make these micro sites about the industry you are in. Often these micro sites can become highly ranked in Google, so it would be advised that you brand them using your company logo/name/colours/etc...

An example of a micro site approach is www.old-phones.co.uk which has been set up, branded, and linked to envirophone. The more competitive your industry is, the more micro sites you should have. The general consensus is that if companies take this approach they will need 10-50 micro sites.

Data Capture
The purpose for having a website in the first place is to generate business. To improve your chances of doing this you need to capture the data of those who visited your website, then you can contact them again in the future using direct marketing methods. The best way to do this is to offer an incentive for them to leave their details. An example of this can be seen on www.heathergate.co.uk. Heathergate offer their visitors a £20 voucher for Virgin wines in exchange for their details. Virgin will allow you to do this at no cost to you or your business, as they reap the benefits of the free promotion.