Search Engine Optimisation can be separated into 4 areas:

• Keyword Research
• On-page Optimisation
• Content Development
• Link Building

Keyword Research

You don’t want to base your keywords on the basis of search volume, you need to identify keywords which are relevant and realistic to where your website currently sits within the search engines.

• Relevant – identify keywords / phrases which are suited to your business needs. If your keywords are not relevant then it is not going to be effective.

• Conversion Friendly – Use keywords which your customer base are going to use to find someone like you. Don’t go wasting your time targeting keywords for traffic which is not going to result in an conversion or benefitting your company in some other form.

• Search Volume – You need to know if your keyword is worth optimising for, so always check this.

• Realistic – You need to understand where you stand within the search engines and then move on from there. For example thinking you can target “Luxurious Bathrooms” when you have just launched a wet rooms company is not realistic. You need to localise your keywords first to get a foot hold within the search engines. A more localised phrase like “Luxurious Bathrooms Somerset” will be more realistic to target.

If you need help finding your keywords search volume or related keywords to target then use the following tool to help:

• https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

On-Page Optimisation

You need to make sure your website is optimised for your keywords and kept user friendly.

• Title – Each page of your website needs to be unique and containing keywords. This also acts as your advert in Google search results, this could be the difference from someone clicking on your and someone else.

• Meta Keywords and Descriptions – Again make this unique for each page, these are now less important to do with SEO but again these act as your advert in search results.

• Keyword use – You can’t keyword stuff on your website. Thinking that mentioning your keywords every sentence is a bad move.

• Heading Tags – Use your tags appropriately and try to optimise keywords here.

• XML Sitemaps – this helps search engines find all your pages within your website.

• URLs – Make your URLs SEO friendly. E.g. yourwebsite.co.uk/cat45/item-234532 to yourwebsite.com/categories/45/bathrooms/white-sink

Content Development

Your content has to be written for the user and not for SEO purposes. If users don’t find this useful then they will leave to find the information they need elsewhere.  Once a new article is added, a page or product updated then you need to share this. If nobody can find this content then it is wasted.

Link Building

Here a few tips to get you started:

• Directory Submissions

• Article Submissions

• Social Bookmarking

• Forums

If you need help optimising your website for search engines then please contact me.

I have been planning on putting a portfolio here for month’s now but time has been very rare these last few months.

So instead here is a WordPress blog where I will talk about my latest projects, last news within the web industry, hints and tips and anything to do with rugby.

So please be patient while I start writing the content for my first blog post.

Cheers!