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SEO Myths and Legends

Over the years, lots of SEO myths and legends have built up about search engine optimisation. Mainly because no-one really knows for sure exactly how the search engines come up with their results. Here are some SEO myths and legends that will help you to avoid the less scrupulous people trying to sell you search engine optimisation.

6 SEO Myths:

1. Higher Page Rank means higher search rankings

Google probably rue the day that they included Page Rank in their toolbar as Page Rank is one of the SEO myths that really has become a legend.

At best, the 1 to 10 Page Rank score is just a vague indication of how Google see your site versus the other sites out there. The figures are released every few months and are a snapshot, frozen in time. They’re also rounded – if you believe that Google only gives sites a score between 1 and 10 then you probably believe in the tooth fairy as well. The real figures will be much more precise.

2. You need to register your site with Google to get indexed

Maybe this was true years ago. Nowadays, the Add URL option is a waste of time. Chances are that Google’s robot will have crawled round your site soon after your domain was registered and it will crawl round again on its own accord. The same goes for any decent search engine.

3. Your pages need to have a certain keyword density

Generally, this isn’t the case. Which is why there are such widely varying figures for what your keyword density “should” be. There isn’t a magic figure for keyword density that suddenly turns your page from rubbish to fabulous in the eyes of a search engine, it’s just another of those pervasive SEO myths.

Just write your pages for real people and your keyword density will be OK.

Of course, if you’re writing content for someone else’s site then you’ll have to abide by their keyword density rules but those will only look for a maximum figure. They’re not a target to aim for!

4. Meta tags make all the difference

Years ago, yes. But then sneaky webmasters started spamming the meta tags to raise their pages in the search results.

Nowadays no self respecting search engine pays any attention to the keywords meta tag.

The meta description tag is sometimes still used but even that is getting less common as the search engines try to use a description that is gathered from the page and is relevant to the query that their user typed in.

5. Reciprocal links will help your search engine position

Reciprocal links are the internet’s equivalent of “I’ll scratch your back if you’ll scratch mine”. You agree to put a link to someone else’s site and, in turn, they link back to you.

Google and the other search engines are wise to this and discount this kind of link. They want you to link to sites because the site is worth linking to for reasons other than trying to artificially boost your own ranking.

6. We don’t need to use an SEO expert – we can do it in house

OK, I would put this one in!

On site SEO is mechanical and so long as you get the basics right, yes, you can do it in house. In fact, getting your pages “in order” is a good idea to help boost the rest of your search engine optimisation efforts.

But once you get past that stage, you need help from someone who knows what they are doing and who keeps abreast with all the latest developments. Otherwise it’s all too easy to go in the wrong direction and possibly get penalised in the process.

Check out our affordable search engine optimisation service and dispel all those SEO myths!

How To Set Up A WordPress Blog

One of the quickest ways to get a new website up and running is by using a WordPress blog but the big question that’s often asked is how to set up a WordPresss blog? Whilst you can do this for free on the WordPress site there are limitations there, the most important of which is that your blog can’t have “commercial intent”.

There are no such restrictions when you use your own domain name and hosting.

So, how to set up a WordPress blog on your own host?

Step 1: Domain name: Get this first. Much depends on the area you’re targeting. Lots of people go for .com’s and lots of people go for their specific country extension. Choose a domain name that’s reasonably targeted to your chosen market and preferably that doesn’t include hyphens.

Step 2: Hosting: Get this second. Keep it separate from the domain as this gives future flexibility amongst other things. Even if it’s a couple of pounds/dollars a month more than the domain name seller wants to sell you hosting for – in the same way you wouldn’t use your gardener to do your electrics, it’s not their specialty. Most of my domains are hosted by either 1&1 or Hostgator.

Of the two, Hostgator are US based and one of the largest hosts in the world. This means their prices are reasonable and that they know what they’re doing. Their support is by chat window and is staffed day and night throughout the year. In my experience, their support people are usually at least OK and quite a few are pretty good. Plus everything is standard and anything you could ever dream about (and more) is likely to support them and be supported by them.

If you choose another host, make sure they use CPanel (don’t worry about what this means) as you can get support all over the place. Also make sure they have something like Fantastico which offers an almost one-click install of WordPress. So no worries about how to upload software – it’s all done for you. Click the Fantastico button, select WordPress and just follow the instructions on the screen and you’ll have a basic install of WordPress in no time. It really is that simple!

When you install WordPress, use a secure password – generate it from a site like Random Password Generator. Keep a note of it and let your browser store the value when it asks. I increase the length from the default 8 characters to 12 characters and tick the box that includes special characters. A password this long would keep the NSA or the UK’s GCHQ busy for quite some time trying to crack so you’ll be pretty safe from hackers.

Step 3: Set up DNS. Go back to your domain name control panel and enter the “name server” details your host will have emailed you (this is often called DNS settings). Again, don’t worry what these are, just do it! That way your domain name will “point” to your web hosting, which is what you want to happen.

Step 4: Configure WordPress. A handful of clicks and the basic install is done (see above). You then need to set it up correctly. Don’t panic about this list – it’s mechanical and almost paint by numbers. All the options are in the left hand side of the main admin section of WordPress.

4a. Posts – delete the “Hello World” post that’s installed.

4b. Links – delete the standard ones WordPress installs.

4c: Pages – amend the About page so it has a sentence or two about you & your business.

4d: Appearance – pay someone on fiverr.com (if you’re brave – standards there vary considerably) or vWorker to do a WordPress header for you. Tell them that you need it the exact size stated on the Header sub-option: 940 × 198 pixels (unless you’ve installed a different theme from the default Twenty Ten them) and tell them what you want on it – maybe send them a couple of photos you’ve taken to include on it. When it comes back, upload it via the option on the Header page.

4e: Plugins. We’ll come back to these a bit later as there are quite a few you’ll likely want. Section 5 covers plugins in reasonable detail.

4f: Settings. Most of this I’ll come back to but for now, click Permalinks, select Custom Structure and put the following gobbledegook in it:

/%postname%/

4g: Main screen. (Also known as your home page). Your choice as to whether this has your latest posts on it or some text about your business.

For a business, click Pages. For a more traditional blog, click Posts.

Click Add New. Add a title and type in some content. Make it a few paragraphs long if you can but even one paragraph will do for a start. Click the “Publish” button.

4h: This is optional but if you’re running a business site and also want to include a blog (so you selected Pages, not Posts, in the step above), click Pages. Click Add New. Add a title of “Blog” (without the quotes) and press the “Publish” button. Don’t put any text in this page.

4h: Settings=> Reading. If you’re creating a regular blog, you can ignore this step. Otherwise, click “Static Post”. On the drop down list for the front page, select the page you created in 4g. On the drop down list for Posts Page, select Blog.

5. Plugins

This is where WordPress starts to get flexible. Chances are that if you want it to do something, there’s a plugin available to do it. Many are free, some of the more complicated ones are chargeable.

Installation is a two stage process (sometimes more if there are things to configure). First you install the plugin – usually automatically – then you “activate” it (turn it on). You need to go to the “Add New” sub-menu underneath Plugins to do this. Then use the Search option unless you’ve downloaded a plugin to your hard drive, in which case use the Upload option instead.

These are the ones I normally install:

5a. Akismet. You’ll find this pre-installed for you, waiting for you to activate it. Akismet is a powerful anti-spam tool. If you don’t plan to allow or approve comments, you don’t need it. If you’re thinking of allowing your site users to comment, go to the small trouble of obtaining a “key” and then activate it. Full and reasonably easy instructions are given as you go through the activation process.

5b. Easy Privacy Policy. It’s generally thought that Google looks for a privacy policy and even if that isn’t the case it doesn’t hurt to have one. This is easy to install and adds a Privacy page when you click the button at the end of the page.

5c. Google XML Sitemaps. Optional but helps to allow the search engines to find all the pages on your site. Despite its name, it doesn’t just cover Google.

5d. Smart Update Pinger. You have to download this one to your hard drive and then use the Upload feature to install. By default, WordPress “pings” (tells) various services that you’ve added a new post. Trouble is, it gets over enthusiastic and does this every time you make a change which if you’re in the habit of editing posts until they’re “just right” causes the ping services to get upset. Smart Update Pinger stops that from happening and allows your site to alert the ping services often but not too often.

5e. TweetMeme Retweet Button. This allows site visitors to tweet about your posts on Twitter at the click of a mouse. Useful to get a bit of extra buzz going.

5f. WordPress.com Stats. Another plugin that needs activating. Sure, you can get stats from your host but this gives an at-a-glance version without leaving your site. There are plenty of stats programs out there but I’ve found this one to be reliable.

5g. WP Super Cache. This is for when your blog gets busy – hopefully from lots of users but busy-ness can also be triggered by all sorts of other things. This is worth installing on a “just in case” basis.

5h. WP-SpamFree. Another one you have to download to your hard drive and then upload. I use it partly to provide a backstop for Akismet but mainly because it allows me to add a contact form quickly and easily. Activate it and copy the contact form code into a new page (called Contact or whatever you prefer). The only thing to remember is that this is code so you need to click the HTML tab above the post before you copy in the code. Then click the Visual tab again otherwise you’ll wonder why the buttons at the top of the editor look weird. There are other contact form plugins out there – Contact Form 7 is one I use if I want more control but WP-SpamFree is the one I use when I just need a basic contact form with the minimum of thought or effort.

That’s it – you’re ready to start adding pages or posts or both to your new WordPress site. Congratulations!

There are a few other tweaks you can do such as play around with Widgets. If there’s enough interest, I’ll talk about them in another post – just let me know in the comments section below.

But this post should give you all the essentials on how to set up a WordPress blog.

UK Search Engine Optimisation

UK search engine optimisation: In theory, optimising a site for the search engines in the UK is the same as optimising one anywhere else in the world. After all, the algorithms used by the search engines are the same regardless of which country you’re based in. And to a reasonable extent, this is true.

With UK search engine optimisation, there’s a fair amount of evidence that having a .co.uk domain can help slightly as this helps the search engines to realise that you are indeed UK based or at least aiming at our country.

The jury is out as to whether or not you need to have your domain hosted in the UK for a search engine optimisation advantage. Google and the other search engines are generally smart enough to realise that website hosting can be anywhere in the world, so it is generally thought that basing your servers in the UK is unlikely to give you much, if any, boost in rankings. But it can affect the speed of your site for UK based customers, depending on the website hosting service that you are using and whether they do actually host their sites in the UK.

After those considerations, you need to take into account UK versus US spellings of words. Which is why we’ve used optimisation rather than optimization. Even with the ever increasing Americanisation of spellings (especially with programs like Word often defaulting to US English), most Brits will use the British spelling to search. Google and the other search engines realise that the two spellings represent the same word but they also know where you are based and will take account of that in delivering their search results.

One other advantage to using a UK search engine optimisation service is that you don’t have to worry about time differences. You can be reasonably certain that the firm you are using will be available during UK working and waking hours, rather than having to turn yourself into a night owl just to be able to deal with a firm based elsewhere in the world.

Click here for more help with your next UK search engine optimisation campaign.

4 Essential Questions To Ask Your Website Designer

Like any professional service, website design is one that’s not always easy to judge before you actually sample it. Sure, you can look at someone’s portfolio but you have no way of knowing how much of the design was down to the designer and how much was insisted on by the client. So what should you ask your website designer to stand a better chance of getting a well designed website?

1. Do you do the design work by yourself or with a team?

There’s advantages and disadvantages whichever way this one is answered. But it may give you a clue as to how big the firm you’re working with really is. Sometimes a one-man band can bring better results than a collaborative effort and often this is more down to your personal preference as a client.

2. Will the pages you design validate and work in all browsers?

This is a biggie. There are standards for HTML and CSS that should be adhered to. As Microsoft have gradually made their Internet Explorer browser more compliant with these standards, a lot of sites have been caught out because they were designing their pages to take account of the idiosyncracies of Internet Explorer rather than work on all modern browsers. A good designer can make your pages look near enough identical regardless of the browser or operating system your customers are using. A bad designer will produce a page that goes haywire if it’s not viewed on the precise combination that they designed it in.

3. Will I be able to change the pages myself if I need to?

This may well strike dread into your designer’s heart but it shouldn’t! After all, you may want to add an extra service or remove an item you no longer offer. This is probably a two minute job that’s as quick for you to do as it is for you to explain to your web designer. It’s no good if it takes weeks of to-ing and fro-ing to get small changes made to your site. Any blustering could mean that either your potential designer is a control freak or that their code is so messy it would take you a month of Sundays to work your way round it. Some designers can’t even modify their own pages – scary thought, but one I’ve met before.

4. Will the site be installed on my web hosting?

This is another biggie. Too often, your website designer will want to host your site on their servers and hold you to ransom if you want to move or change anything. It may cost you slightly more initially but you’ll have more peace of mind if you can install the site they’ve designed on a website host that you have control over and access to. You can always allow your designer in to that space as well, but you’re in overall control. This is much better than finding out in six or twelve months time that your website designer has skipped town with a stack of unpaid bills and your beautifully designed site has been consigned to the digital garbage.

Are You Making These Mistakes With Your Website?

Websites are fragile things. They rely on co-operation between humans and computers and there are plenty of places where this can go awry. Some of the points below may seem obvious and you may even be certain that they would never apply to your website. But have you checked them recently or is the first time you find out that something important has broken when a customer calls you up to tell you?

Website simply doesn’t work

The page might be blank, it might say “forbidden” or you may get a heap of code that would send a geek into ecstasy but will leave normal human beings clicking their back button as fast as they can.

This happens more often than you think – about two in every hundred sites when I’m doing research seem to be afflicted. Sometimes it’s the content management system you’re using and an upgrade went wrong. Sometimes you haven’t named something properly. And occasionally it’s because you got round to buying the website hosting but didn’t get any further, although usually there’s some kind of place holder page when this happens.

Oh and sometimes this can happen when your website host thinks you haven’t paid your invoice, regardless of whether you have paid or not.

It should go without saying that any non-working website should be fixed as soon as possible. And that you need a system in place to check your site regularly, making sure that you’re not looking at a stuck “cached” version that’s out to fool you.

Site under construction

A few years ago this would have been accompanied by a road sign image and a picture of a worker digging something. Nowadays it can take the form of a page that says that this site is reserved for one of our customers. This happens a lot with Yellow Pages where there’s often a package deal that includes a website but nothing’s happened to it yet.

Sometimes it can also take the form of a page that says you’re reconstructing your entire website and that your visitor should (a) care and (b) come back soon. Don’t be tempted to do this – keep your current site up and running until the new one is ready.

Whatever the reason, you need at least a simple page of information. A few paragraphs about your company, the services that you offer and a way to contact you. This shouldn’t take long to do – even if you’re a complete novice it shouldn’t be more than an hour’s job – but you need to do it. Google crawl sites almost as soon as they’re registered and if you’re not careful their search results will show your “coming soon” page for weeks or months to come.

Broken contact forms

One of the beauties of the web is that people can reach you in a few clicks of a mouse and by typing a few words on their computer. Which makes it very easy for a first “toe in the water” contact.

But what if your contact form is broken?

When was the last time you checked it?

It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that because your contact form worked when you installed it then it will still work. But in real life it’s not as easy as that. Website hosts helpfully upgrade versions of all sorts of helper programs that run on your webserver. They do this all the time to fix bugs and patch security loopholes. Much the same as Windows gets the latest updates for your local PC.

The trouble is, these upgrades can unwittingly break things and contact forms are one of the casualties. Unless you get so many enquiries that you’d know almost instantly when something was wrong, check your contact form and any other programmed part of your website on a regular basis. Go through the whole procedure and send yourself a message to check it gets through as intended.

On-site SEO Checklist

All the major search engines take account of the different components of your web pages but on-site SEO is fairly similar across them all. Since – at least in theory – you have total control over these factors, it pays to make sure that as many as possible are correct.

Important on-site SEO items:

Title tag

This is the title of the page. It appears at the top of the browser screen you’re on as well as in any tabs you have open. It is also the blue clickable link that you’ll see in the search results. Which makes it one of the most important tags you can use. Each page title should be crafted for the content of the page, ideally with the most important keywords closer to the start of the title. The maximum length displayed in search results is around 65 characters.

Description tag

This is sometimes used by the search engines for the main text below your title link. Make it good, with either a teaser of what your page is about or some kind of call to action. The maximum length displayed in search results is around 160 characters. Remember that search engines can decide to use other text from your page if their algorithm decides that will better serve their users. If you’re fortunate enough to have a listing in Dmoz or the Yahoo! Directory, this description is sometimes used instead although you can over-ride that by using a meta tag in your pages to tell the robots of your choice.

Keywords in your url

If you have a choice, it’s generally considered good to use your keywords in your url. The major search engines bold the keywords in their results to give searchers confidence in the results they’ve been given.

Heading tags

After the title, headings are one of the most important on page SEO items. Think of them in much the same way as you’d see headlines used in a magazine story. One main headline (the H1 tag) plus a few other sub-headings. If your page layout looks messy with the default heading size then you can use CSS to change it so that it fits better with the rest of the look and feel of your site.

Image names

You’ve probably noticed that the search engines offer an image search and that images sometimes come up high in the results, depending on what you’re searching for. Because analysis of the contents of images is still in its early stages, sensibly naming your images and giving them meaningful “alt” tags helps the search engines to correctly classify them. It also reinforces what your page is about. So take the time to change the name of your images from the default numbering system used by your digital camera to something that a human (or a robot) can understand.

Write naturally

Don’t stuff your page full of keywords! That might have worked in the very early days of the web – back when Google was just a twinkle in its creators eyes – but it will work against you nowadays. Write for humans first, search engines second (if at all). The search engines have analysed literally billions of pages of text and know what words are related to other words, even down to the context. So if you’re talking about an apple on a computer page it will be given a different meaning to a maths problem page or a healthy eating page. The search engines are usually smart enough to work this out. So just write naturally and let the robots figure out what you’re page is talking about – most of the time they’ll get it right.

Get help with on-site SEO and off-site SEO here.

Press Release Submission: What You Need To Know For A Successful Press Release

It’s all very well getting a press release written but then what do you need to do next? There are so many different press release submission services ranging from free to big money it’s sometimes difficult to know where to start.

Most press release submission services will start by checking over your proposed release. There are certain standards that need to be met, otherwise your release is doomed before it even leaves your computer. They need to be news, not an advertisement in disguise. Or, to be more correct, they need to be phrased well enough to not read like an advert. Let’s face it, most people want their press release submission to work the same way as an advertisement but without the costs of constantly running an ad.

Press release submission tips

So the first check is that the release is phrased correctly. It’s actually surprising just how promotional you can be without crossing the line. If you need proof of this, check almost any daily newspaper and you’ll see stories that are obviously adverts in disguise yet have been published in major newspapers.

Once your release has passed muster, the next stage is to decide where it should be sent to. News is expected to be duplicated all over the place and press releases are no exception to this – Google News even tells you how many other similar stories there are and gives you the option of checking “all 332 news stories” or whatever the figure is for your chosen piece.

Which means that your submission shouldn’t be restricted to only one or two press release services unless you are on an extremely tight budget. No single service has a monopoly on distribution and, computers being what they are, it’s not always easy to predict which version will show up at the top of the internet news let alone whether a particular piece will be grabbed by a journalist or posted on a popular website. Sites such as Digg allow their users to vote on news stories, so if one version of your press release works its way to the front page of Digg, there’s a good chance that will be the one that Google choose to feature.

It’s a bit of pot luck and something you have very little control over once you’ve pressed the submit button. So increase your chances by using more than one press release distribution service.

You should also check whether your chosen submission services make it easy for people to bookmark stories on social network sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Most readers won’t share the news unless it piques their interest but if you get your story to hit the right mood of your readers, you could end up with an absolutely massive following. So it pays to make sure that your release can go viral even if that’s not your original intention.

Another thing to watch in your submission is the effect of your headline or title. A lot of the secondary distribution of releases is almost 100% controlled by computer in the form of RSS feeds. These pick up keywords from your title (and sometimes elsewhere) so be sure to include your main target phrase in your title whenever possible.

Check out our affordable press release writing and press release submission service here.

5 Vital Questions To Ask When Choosing A Press Release Service

Press releases are a different animal to regular articles which is why it’s best to use a professional press release service. The idea is that they actually convey some form of news. Of course, you and I know that they’re really designed to be an advert for your company or service but in order to get your press release published, you need to play by the rules. Which is where a press release service comes in handy. So what should you look for when choosing such a service?

Five press release service questions:

1. Will they write the release for you?

A release is a different skill set and a lot of regular – and normally excellent – authors fail at this hurdle. So it helps if your distributor can write the complete release for you or at the very least turn your first draft into a newsworthy piece.

2. Will they advise on the content of the release?

Newsworthiness is a very nebulous idea. And what is considered newsworthy in one are may be completely ignorable in another. It’s hard to think of a situation where a science journal would be interested in a news piece about Britney Spears, no matter how much they think that including it would boost their circulation. So you need to be aware of your target audience, which is where your advisors can help.

3. How active will they be with your press release?

Let’s face it, a lot of our news nowadays comes from the web rather than traditional newspapers. So your release needs to appear in Google News as well as more traditional outlets. It’s worth checking where your release is going to be distributed and doing some background research to see how likely it is that you’ll be featured in Google’s hallowed pages. You don’t want your release to sit there, gathering virtual cobwebs.

4. Will they help you come up with news?

This sounds a bit like point 2 but it isn’t. After you’ve created a few press releases, the chances are that you’ll face a kind of writer’s block on ideas. The release has to be worthy of being called news and the average business owner runs out of ideas fast – some can’t even think of the first item let alone subsequent ones. A good press release service will help you come up with news. Which leads us on to the next question…

5. Will they help you to create news?

It sounds cynical but “created” news is all over the place. Pick up any newspaper and you’ll be able to spot these specially created pieces all over the place. Surveys are a favourite and easy to do with the various survey companies online. Fascinating statistics are another type of fabricated story – how many cans of beer were sold by a store in the hours before a major sporting event, how the weather has created unusual demand for a special food, that kind of thing. The kind of story that you’d ignore but with the right kind of spin can turn into a piece that gets published all over the place. And don’t forget lists like this one – they get re-used everywhere although they need a news angle of course.

Click here for our press release service.

Search Engine Optimisation Service in Cheltenham

Search engine optimisation is more of an art than a science. Sure, Google and the other search engines provide guidelines for webmasters but that’s as far as the advice goes.

Choosing a search engine optimisation service isn’t just about price. Choosing a local company means that you will get some local knowledge as well as the search engine expertise. There’s also the knowledge that, with a local company, you can actually meet the person who’s working to promote your business face to face. That’s a lot more difficult to do when the company is based across the ocean.

SEOMax are a Cheltenham based search engine optimisation service. We’ve been successfully promoting businesses on the internet since 1995 and we will work with you to make sure that you’re found high up in the search results when local people look for your type of business on the internet.

Optimisation is a process that works over weeks and months.

Don’t expect your site to be at the top of Google overnight – the only way that can happen is if you pay to appear in the “sponsored links” section of the results. And be very careful is someone calls you up out of the blue offering to put you in those results for a flat monthly fee, but that’s another story entirely.

With the millions of pages indexed by Google it’s just not feasible to expect your web page to hit the number one spot. For instance, at the time of writing there are 6,970 pages targeting “wedding photographer Cheltenham” and 13,400 chasing the phrase “”Cheltenham wedding photographer”.

If you do a quick search for your business and Cheltenham, you’ll see just what you’re up against.

The good news is that although that looks like a scarily high, most of your competitors won’t be doing much work to make sure that they’re listed high up in the search results.

The typical local business will put up a website, maybe get a few links pointing to it in the initial burst of enthusiasm and then leave it to sink or swim in the Google results.

All you need to do is be better than that! By regularly getting extra links pointing to your website, you’ll start to appear higher in the Google listings. All it will cost is either your time or, if you’re like most people, a small monthly fee to someone who will do all the hard work for you.

So if you want to increase the amount of business you get from the internet, take a look at out Cheltenham based search engine optimisation service and give us a call on 07967 478272 to arrange a no obligation consultation.

How Does SEO Work?

OK, you’ve heard about SEO but just how does SEO work?

SEO, which is short for Search Engine Optimisation, works by making your site “friendlier” for search engines such as Google to list in their index.

No-one knows for sure just how many pages Google has indexed. It gave up posting that figure some time ago as it’s irrelevant to the average internet surfer – we only want relevant results when we’re searching and don’t really care about the literally millions of pages that were discarded on the way.

As website owners we only really care about our pages being found for searches that are relevant to our website. And that’s what SEO is all about.

Google and the other search engines don’t disclose precisely how they decide which sites rank at the top of the results for any given search phrase. That would be like Coca Cola revealing their recipe or KFC listing their herbs and spices. Instead, we have to use other tools to find out how SEO works.

In a nutshell, a search engine has to make a snap decision about what a page is all about. So, if a page mentions a monkey, the search engine has to interpret whether the page is about a monkey as a primate, a monkey as a British slang term for £500 or maybe a monkey wrench as a tool. SEO works by helping the search engines with that decision.

Google tell us some of the things they want us to do to help them:

Title tags. These are the the headline the searcher sees when they get back the search results and they should be much like a newspaper headline, giving everyone a snapshot of what the page is about.

Heading tags work much the same way. The first, H1, tag is likely to be the same as the title of the page. Other heading tags work in a similar way to sub-headings in a newspaper, helping draw a reader through the page. Lazy readers ought to be able to tell most of what a page is about just from reading the headings. This article doesn’t work like that, although I’ve bolded some items. But if your web page can tell a story with headings alone, the search engines will have a much easier job of working out what the page is about.

Inbound links: these are the search engine equivalent of a vote. Each link pointing to a page has a few words underlined and search engines take note of these words when they decide where to rank a page. So, if you search for the words “click here” in Google, chances are that you’ll see the Adobe site at the top of the results. Not because Adobe want to be number one for that phrase but because so many sites use those words to tell their visitors where to get the Adobe Acrobat reader.

Sometimes you have control over the wording used in your inbound links, sometimes you don’t. But this example shows you how important the words used on these links are – they are telling the search engines what your page is about, in as few words as possible.

The rest of the content on your page goes towards the “score” of the page. This is used to fine tune the search results and you don’t have to resort to repeating your target words and phrases over and over and over again. The search engines are good at intelligently guessing which words are related to each other – they’ve got millions of examples to analyse and that’s the kind of thing computers are good at. So you can write your pages in natural English without worrying that the search engines won’t know what you’re talking about. Chances are they’ve got an excellent idea. That’s why I haven’t harped on about SEO this and SEO that in this article – the search engines will know from all the other SEO related words what this article is about. So don’t worry about things like keyword density – we’ve moved way beyond that in recent years – just write for your readers and there’s an very high chance your content will be fine in that respect.

If all this sounds too much like hard work, give us a call on 07967 478272 for your search engine optimisation!

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