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Tek Tip Topic: Search engine optimisation

Search engine optimisation (SEO): what is it and what does it mean to your website? I assume you're all familiar with search engines; everyone knows Google right? Search engine companies write rules that check websites to help get the searcher to the sites they are most likely searching for. SEO is what a site owner does so they have the best chance at having their site turn up in search results when someone uses search words that relate to them. The rules search engines use are forever changing; they need to evolve as dodgy sites use the rules to their own advantage.

So, what does this mean to you? An SEO company will tell you you need SEO and you need them to do it for you. They even have statistics to back them up: 85% of internet users will look for products, services, and research data using a search engine; 95% of internet users won't look past the third page of search results; and the big number: there are more than 10 billion web pages indexed by the major search engines.

These figures are probably correct and you can, of course, employ an SEO specialist company to help you with your SEO. Just Google 'search engine optimisation' and if they don't show up on the first couple of pages of results then they aren't very good at SEO are they.

But there are things you can do for yourself before you consider parting with the big money. The two areas that need to be addressed are external linking to and from your site and internal linking to pages within your site, making sure the search engines know who you are, what you offer, and that you are a legitimate site. Here are a few of the things you can do:

Externally:
~ Contribute to relevant forums with your website in your signature/tag
~ Have links on your site to other sites relevant to your business, e.g. if you offer bookkeeping services link to the ATO, MYOB, QuickBooks, and Accountants sites
~ Network under your business name in network sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, or even MySpace
~ Make a little video relevant to your product or service and upload it to YouTube then link to it from your site
~ List yourself in relevant internet directories
~ Ask other sites that you are happy to be associated with to link to your site; but be weary of link schemes, Search engines don't like them
~ Once ready, submit your site to various search engines for listing. Each will provide you with instructions on how to do it.

Internally:
~ Keywords. Keywords need to be used within the content of your page. Make sure your headings are keywords. Make sure that your site actually includes the words you think people will use to find you.
~ Images. Give your images relevant names and use relevant text as your image alternate. Some people view web pages image-free or sometimes an image just doesn't show up so the 'alt' text is displayed instead of the image. Search engines prefer it if the alternate image text is different for each image.
~ Don't do naughty things like display content irrelevant to your keywords or play host to viruses and Trojans.
~ Tag correctly. There are some links below that can help with understanding this so you can discuss it with your web developer.

Google offers some really good tools that can help you stay on track for SEO.