Top Five SEO Tips:
On Wednesday 3rd of March,BitZesty hosted a lunchtime q&a session on SEO, at coworking space THECUBE. Matt kicked things off by explaining the basics of SEO for those unfamiliar with the concept, and then opened the floor to the group. SEO-savvy attendees shared their tips, experiences and frustrations, before getting Matt to explain how BitZesty had succeeded in ranking so high on Google searches for certain keywords.
The main thrust of Matt’s introductory talk was that small business owners who rely on their websites to generate custom can maximise their site’s visibility on search engines without having to resort to payment. Used properly, SEO should ensure your site occupies a higher position on se arch engine results pages, and improve the numbers and calibre of your website traffic by helping people who are interested in your services to find your site. The most important thing to understand about SEO is how to work with the search engines: if you make it easy for them to index your site accurately, you increase the chances that they will place your site high up on their results pages when a potential customer makes the relevant search.
Matt concluded the session by listing his top five SEO tips, which are as follows:
- Identify the right keywords for your business. Search engines index sites by the text which they contain, so it it is very important that you should identify the key terms which define your business, as well as the words which will be entered into search engines by potential customers. Once identified, these words can be used to great effect, repeated throughout the site often and prominently (see point 2) enough for the search engines to register them. The words which potential customers might enter are especially important, and any time spent brainstorming them is time well spent. In order to compete with larger, more established companies on the keyword front, it is better to decide on a more specific set of keywords and target these on your site, rather than waging a hopeless battle for general terms. You can use Google’s Keyword Tool to identify relevant keywords that have many searches but comparatively little competition.
- Place keywords in the titles on your website wherever possible. Search engines prioritise the text in the title tags and in your headings and sub-headings, which are labelled as <h1>,<h2>, <h3>… in HTML, so you should make sure that you choose these words wisely and use keywords where appropriate. The words in the main body of the text are also taken into consideration, but less so than the headings. However, search engines can detect when websites repeat keywords endlessly out of context, so don’t overdo it.
- Try to get other sites to link to your own. Another factor the search engines take into account and consider important is the number of times other sites link back to your site. The more prestigious the site providing the link, the more credit your site gets from the search engine. For example, a link from a well-established site such as bbc.co.uk will count for more than one from a lesser-known, newer site. However, the links only work in your favour if your keywords are included fully in the link – being the destination of a ‘Click Here’ on ‘Read more’ link will not help you at all. You can help yourself by making sure that you always include keywords in the link when linking to other pages on your own site and by asking others who link to you to use those keywords as well. For example, instead of saying The Cube, it would be more useful if the link included The Cube – Co-working Space in London, not only it is more helpful for the reader, it also improves the SEO.
- Maintain a steady flow of fresh content on your homepage. Search engines value fresh and original content, so it is in your own interests to keep your website regularly updated. This can be done quite easily, for example, by posting a blog on your homepage.
- Choose the right technology. Finally, search engines also weight sites on the speed at which the pages load up. If your homepage is full of Flash and Javascript, it will take longer to load and count against you in the rankings, so it is generally better to use HTML (and keep Javascript to a minimum) where SEO is a consideration. On a further note, search engines find it harder to reach the text in a Flash format, so it is again advisable to work in HTML and only use Flash on a limited basis.
By bearing these points in mind when working on your site, you will be making the most of search engines’ potential to help you attract new custom and increase your company’s profile. There do exist quicker, less honest, methods of increasing your ranking on search engines, but these are ultimately pointless. Developers are ever refining the ability of search engines to pick out and penalise attempts to manipulate the system by keyword stuffing and the use of artificial links, and the days of so-called ‘black hat’ SEO are dwindling fast. Rather than trying to outwit search engines, it is more useful for businesses to work towards helping them to do their job, which is to supply the most relevant results for each search.
Matt has created a short course on SEO for anyone who wants to learn more.
Bit Zesty Ltd is a web application development company.
