Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) – the process of maximising the number of visitors to a particular website by ensuring that the site appears high on the list of results returned by a search engine. (Source Wikipedia)

I am far from an expert when it comes to SEO, however, I have spent a lot of time working on my own for my website and wanted to share some useful tips and tools that I have come across along the way to try and help increase traffic flow to your website.

Before you even think about working on your SEO, you need to think about your website.  What content you are going to include, what do you want to capture, who is your audience, what are they looking for, what you are offering and how you are going to continue your relationship with your customers.

Meta Tags

A meta tag is a HTML tag containing information that tells a search engine about a specific website.  Meta tags contain keywords or phrases to let search engines know what content a website contains for the search engine to include in search results.

There are three important things to think about when it comes to meta tags:

Title– The title tag is the title text that is shown in search engine listings.  Search engines view the information on your website in codes.  Behind the content you have created on your website, there is a lot of coded information that the search engine will use to identify what is on your website.  It is important to ensure the titles on your website are correctly coded and set as “titles” as just using “text” or “paragraph” won’t help the search engine properly identify and read the information.

Description– The meta description is where you would put a summary of your website, what your site is all about and what you are offering your customers.  It should not be too long because the search engines can only read up to a certain number of words.

Keywords– Keywords are important.  This helps search engines to identify what is on your site, what you are offering and to connect you with users searching for what you offer.  However, if you abuse the use of a particular word the search engine will pick this up.  A recent workshop I went to on SEO suggested that you should aim for 5% keyword density for a particular word or phrase.  If you want to check out what your keyword density is, check out the free tool available from http://tools.seobook.com/general/keyword-density/

Alt Tags

Alt tags, or alt descriptions, are a way to provide a text alternative tag for images.  Because search engines read codes, they cannot see the images on your website.  By adding an alt tag to an image, you are letting the search engine know what your pictures are of.  It also helps to boost your keywords and phrases.  By ensuring your file is named correctly ie instead of 12345567.jpg it is saved as laptop.jpg, search engines will be able to identify the image and can categorise appropriately.

SEO Reports

If you aren’t an SEO expert, or don’t use an SEO specialist, I would recommend getting a free SEO report to review the performance on your website.  I first used Total SEO who provided me with a free report, with details of where and how I could improve upon my SEO.  I have also recently used SEO Site Check who also provide a free report and guidance on where you need to improve.

If you’re not a technical person (which if you’re reading this blog I’m assuming you are not) then the jargon on the report will probably send you into a cold sweat.  Relax – this is where the internet can help!!  Google the suggestion and add in who hosts your website; the chances are you will find numerous guides and instructions to follow.  I used this approach myself and dramatically increased my Google ranking.

Where do you rank in Google?

How did I know where I rank on Google?  I use an app called SEO Edge where you put in the domain and a few keywords or phrases.  The app will allow you 5 keywords and 1 domain for free, or you can pay to upgrade to check out additional searches.  You will then get a ranking for each keyword and an average ranking.  As you move up and down Google, the app will update you on your performance and how far you have moved up or down.

These tips will have given you some useful tools to take away and try yourself, but if you are looking for support with your SEO, I don’t personally provide this as a service, however, I do have a couple of contacts in the industry so please do get in touch by email at info@njrvirtualpa.co.uk or by phone 07538 715537 if you want some help with improving your SEO for your website.