Search Engine Optimization, SEO for short, is a term well used in webdesign/development circles, but for those who are coming in ”from the cold” its something needed to be understood.
The concept behind SEO is that you should not need to even know of its existence, and as you design & publish your website and if the contents is original and well written, your visitors will like it and links will be made to your site without you even asking for them. People will start talking about your websites or blog contents on various forums and social media platforms and this interaction or networking will be detected by search engines resulting in a high ranking or indexing. Its sounds so easy! This is the theory, in practices its another whole ball game.
When you have a website that is selling or offering a product or service there is probably many others offering the same service or at least calling your product or service by the same name. Since search engines work on keywords and phrases, and its these keywords that is gathered and converted to a theme in some search engines. When a theme has been established the website is ”pulled” through a complex algorithm to rate it in order to rank it against the various key words and phrases and many other variables.
Here are a few ideas that will help you with your website SEO:
- Keywords. Before you even start adding text to your website, jot down the 5 most important keywords that your new website visitors will need to type into a search engine to find you. This could be phrases as well.
- Adding Text. Use these keywords/phrases when writing your text, repeating these words in a way that reads well, but not seen as stuffing them, as this will count against you in your search engine rankings, and it never reads well.
- Structure your Text. Write your text in a way that starts with a heading, sub heading/s then bullets or easily readable small paragraphs. add in a ”read more” button for those who need more detail. To much text chases visitors away.
- Adding Pictures. Balance your website with graphics. Graphics cannot be seen by search engines, so its important to tag your images with what the image is about, but images are for your visitors not for search engines. Thus we need to make sure we balance the site graphically. Too many images the site is slow and to little images makes it boring and visitors will leave. Pictures add atmospheres and focus attention.