SEO Basics

SEO is still a big mystery which everyone has heard of but most people are either frightened of it or have no idea where to start. We hope you found our last article on selecting and buying Website Domains in our “Back to Basics” series useful. As promised we are now delivering the next article in the series to cover the basics of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). So if you are an SEO guru, this is not for you as you already know all this. You can stop now and use the time to read something else on our website! However, if you are a newbie in Websites and the mysteries of SEO and Ranking your website, carry on reading.

What is SEO?

To understand the function of SEO we need to first appreciate the function of Search Engines. In the good old days of dial-up modems, and way before Google changed our world, we relied on Website Directories to find relevant content to the subject of our search. So we hopped from one directory to another, looking for the sections that covered our subject such as Travel, Computers, IT, Food, etc. Then we clicked through laboriously to find a website that would cover what we were looking for.

If you are old enough you will remember this was not a pleasant process and required patience, time, and tenacity to find anything on the web. In came the Search Engines such as Yahoo, Google and Ask. Their Raison d’être was to find the “most relevant website for your search term”. To this day, this is the fundamental objective of any search engine and hence each Search Engine has written their own algorithms that decides which website is the most relevant to any given search term.

In essence Google, Yahoo and others try to find the website with the most relevant content for a given search term. Consequently, SEO is the attempt to make your website more relevant than your competitors hence your website show up higher in the SERP (Search Engine Results Page).

Why bother with SEO?

Unless you are made of money or/and have 7-figure marketing budget that enables you to build your brand via mass media advertising, sports sponsorship, and PR to draw people to your website, then you are relying on people to search for a product or service you offer (Keywords/Keyphrases).

Everyday we come across beautifully crafted website that their once proud owners are despairing as they are not generating any traffic or leads. The reason is simple. The website was designed by talented creative individual or team but without any understanding of Search Engines and Relevance.

You can have the most creative website on earth but if you do not come up in the SERP (Search Engine Results Page) for the keywords that your potential customers search for, then you are dead in the water because you are in the abyss of the Internet. Yes you are in the Central Square in Tumbleweed Town with the most beautiful shopfront but no customers.

How do I optimise my website?

Remember the golden rule of SEO is “Relevance”. Everything you hear about SEO strategies, tricks of the trade, secret codes, etc. is all means and ways of indicating to Search Engines that you are the “Most Relevant”.

Remember your school days and the teacher standing in front of the class asking questions and you jumped up and down excitedly with your hand up because you knew the answer. “Miss Miss Miss” or “Sir Sir Sir” “pick me”running through your head? This is SEO! You are trying to catch the attention of the teacher or in this case Search Engines because you have the answer. Except you can’t put your hand up, jump up-and-down, and calling “Miss Miss, I know this”.

Simply put, SEO is the process of making your website look relevant by sending the correct signals that the Search Engines Algorithm look for.

What are SEO Signals?

There are 2 types of signals Search Engines look for which broadly speaking fall into On-Page and Off-Page signals. There are an estimated 600+ signals that make up Google or Yahoo’s algorithm so there is no way we can list them all here, without the reader losing the will to live, so we will do our best to give you the most important ones here.

What are On-Page Signals?

These are specific messages that your website and the content are directly responsible for which means they are present within your website content and coding so that you can directly control them. These include:

• Domain Name

  Yes you read this right. Your domain name should include your target Keywords. It should mean something on its own and just like a joke, should not need explanation. This means before you select a domain name you should think about SEO. If you already have a domain then you should read the next points.

• URL

  Your page URL should include your target keywords and specifically keywords that are targeted by the specific keyword that each page addresses. This means if your page is about Chocolate Ice-cream, then your URL should include “Chocolate Ice-cream”. You should also take note of the next point namely “Content Structure”.

• Content Structure

  The way you group your content provides a big clue to Search Engines. Using sub-directories to separate information in a logical format is not only a good practice for your administration of the website, but is also a signal to Google, Yahoo, etc, about the content of your website. This is one of the reasons you should think about SEO before designing your website. Taking the example of above, if your website is all about food, then you should divide your content into sub-directories such as Ice-cream or Deserts or other main headings. Then your URL would look like mydomain.com/deserts/ice-creams/chocolate-ice-cream. You can see precise signal to Search Engines is not just about the page but also the structure of your website content.

• Navigation Keys

  Navigation keys do not have to follow the structure of your website and can give further clues to Search Engines about the interconnection of the content. You can either follow your content structure and reflect it in your Navigation keys or you can use your navigation to help your visitors to find the information much easier. This is combination of usability and SEO signal working hand-in-hand.

• Page Content Structure

  This is taking you back to school again. Remember basic rules of written text where you sign-post the content for the reader with heading, sub-headings, paragraphs, etc.? These rules still apply on the Internet and Websites, as Google and other Search Engines use these signals in order to map the structure of your content on a page. Headings and sub-headings are coded in “H1”-”Hx” to show the hierarchy of the content. You can also use colour and font to further emphasis this structure visually for the readers as well as Search Engines.

• Title Meta Tag

  This is the declaration of your broad content for a given page. Each page must have a unique Title that includes the target Keywords or Keyphrase of that page and not your broad website keywords. Remember this is about the specific page and not the website, so you must explain the content in less than 60 characters which is the limitation of SERP page display (see Blue text in the SERP image)

• Description Meta Tag

  This is the 160 character long version of your content which must once again include your target keywords of this page (not necessarily your website) but must also appeal to humans as this is visible within the SERP (see black text in the SERP image). Description is your “Elevator Pitch” but must attract both humans and Search Engines.

• Keyword Meta Tag

  There is a lot of debate whether Google takes account of this as it was abused in the past. Regardless of Google, other Search Engines do take note. Also this is a good reminder for you as it keeps you focused. In 6 months time you will not remember what your target keywords were for this page! However, this is not an invitation for stuffing every keyword or keyphrase you can think of. Maximum should be 5 per page with the most important at the start and least important at the end.

• Language Code

  This code within your page header tells both Search Engines and browsers the language in use for a given page. This enables the browser to display the correct characters as well as Search Engines understanding your target language for the page. Remember in a multi-Language website each page will have a different language code.

• Alt-Text (Alternative Text)

  Remember Google and other Search Engines cannot read or decipher images. This means no matter how visually rich your website, it is only the text that counts for SEO. Therefore each image has to be described in words, so that Search Engines can understand their relevance and purpose. Where possible target keywords should be used within the description to emphasis your relevance. Alt-Tag is used within the HTML code to give textual information about an image to Search Engines.

• Page-Load Speed

  This has become more important as Google in particular is focusing more on “Customer Experience”. Pages that take a long time to load are marked down and penalised, so you should avoid uncompressed and large images, gimmicky graphics with high payload, and do not bloat the page with code.

• Responsive Design

  This has only become important since the rise of smartphone and tablet use. This means your website adapts to the width of the visitor’s screen and displays the website accordingly. Again, this is about Customer Experience as well as basic common sense.

• SSL (Secure Socket Layer)

  This is security and authentication certification that can be added to your website. This is not normally needed unless you are an e-commerce site and handle financial transactions on your site. There are some rumours within the SEO circles that Google may start to insist on this in the future no matter what you do on your website, but for now there is no evidence this to be the case currently.

• Sitemap

  There are 2 types of sitemaps. One is for Search Engines that lists your pages, last time it was updated, priority, etc. This is important as it underpins the structure of your websites as well as gives the date when each page was last updated. Fresh content is exciting to Search Engines! The second Sitemap is for humans which includes the URLs as well as a quick description of the page in case they get lost around the website. This is of less importance these days but still is a good practice.

• Robots File

  This is a text file that tells Search Engines which directories they can scan and index,  which they can read only (but not index), and also which directories they are barred from access. It is also a good idea to emphasis this on each page using Robot Meta Tag per page.

As it may have dawned on you by now, On-Page SEO starts before your website takes its first digital breath. SEO should start at the selection of your Domain Name, Structure of your site content, URL structure and naming convention, etc. You can now see why you should start thinking about SEO before you even buy your domain. If you have already committed to your domain name, then you should not embark on designing your Website before speaking with people who understand SEO. Your website should have SEO built-in to its design and not an afterthought.

What are Off-Page Signals?

This is even bigger subject and more mysterious and black art than On-page SEO. We will cover this in a separate article but if you still have the energy, time, and then go ahead and click here for Off-Page SEO.