Link building is a very important aspect of SEO. Search engines see a link from another website as a ‘vote’ for your site, so the more links you can get to your website, the better.

However, it is not just the quantity of links that is important but also the quality. A link from a page or site about the same subject as yours (i.e. with similar keywords to your site) carries more weight.

Another aspect of this is the anchor text, the text which is the actual link. If the anchor text includes the keywords you are aiming for, it is an even better ‘vote’ for your site.

A few of the main ways you can get links to your site are:

• Exchanging links with other websites with similar or related content (reciprocal linking).
• Submitting your site to web directories.
• Writing and submitting articles.

But mainly, it is about creating a site with great content – then people will want to link to it anyway.

The search engines need to know your site exists, so they can index it and rank it in the search results. Most search engines have an online form you can use to do this (here is Google’s, Live Search (formally MSN) and Yahoo’s – you have to sign up for a free free Yahoo account).

However, there are many, many more search engines out there so an automatic submission tool is a real help. You can use specialised SEO submission software or websites like www.freewebsubmission.com. It is a good idea to have a separate email account/address for search engine submission so all the replies, confirmations and newsletters (some may think it spam!) don’t get mixed in with your normal email.

Search engine submission was once very important and you could pay a lot of money to have your site submitted. But you really only need to do it once, if at all, since the search engines should find your site anyway by following links from other websites. In fact, some experts think search engines ‘prefer’ (i.e. rank more highly) sites found in this way.

Once you have decided on your keywords, the second stage in SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is incorporating them into the design and content of your website. This is called ‘on-site’ or ‘on-page’ optimisation.

The search engines look at the whole of your site to determine which keywords are relevant to it, but the text within specific HTML tags on a page are given more ‘weight’. The list below is in a rough order of importance, but remember no one knows exactly how search engines rank pages so this isn’t gospel:

1. The title meta tag.
2. The content on the page (within p tags).
3. The anchor text of internal links.
4. The anchor text of external links.
5. The description meta tag.
6. The alt tags of images.
7. The H1 tag (and other heading tags).
8. The filenames of pages.
9. The filenames of images.
10. The title tags of links.

Most SEO experts agree the title meta tag and the description meta tag are particularly important.

These tags are also important because they are usually displayed in search engine results, so be careful when writing them. If they are just stuffed full of keywords searchers may not click on them. Conversely, a well written description tag can encourage a searcher to visit your site rather than a competitor (even if that competitor ranks above you in the search results).

In fact, you may be tempted to fill up the whole page with keywords because that’s what the search engines like, but this is a bad idea for a couple of reasons:

1. Search engines can easily detect this, decide the page is spam and ban your entire site from appearing in their results.
2. The page will be meaningless to a normal human being and they aren’t going to stick around on your site. In fact, they might go back and complain to the search engine about your site, again resulting in it being banned.

Conclusions

The main point to remember about using keywords is in web pages is that search engines like text; they can’t read photos or video or graphics. Of course, graphics make your site appealing to human beings, so you should use them, but remember to add text to the alt tags so the search engines will be able to read them.

Search engines also like structure. A website should be structured so that each page targets a particular key phrase with your homepage targeting the most important one.

It also helps human visitors to your site if each page is about a specific subject and broken up into clear, logical sections.

The first step in optimising a website for the search engines is (SEO) Keyword Research.

Keywords and key phrases are what people type into a search engine. What are people going to type into a search engine to find your site? What words are used most in your area? Which are most relevant to your website?

First, generate a list of possible keywords by asking yourself ‘What would I type into a search engine to find the service or product I offer?’

Remember people are not going to know that you are called ‘Dave the Magician’ and search for that phrase; they are going to search for ‘party magician’ or ‘children’s entertainer’ or ‘magician Leicester’.

You can add to this initial list of ideas by asking friends and clients, looking at competitor’s websites – look everywhere. Once you have this initial list, you can add to it and refine it using an online keyword suggestion tool. This will tell you how many people actually use a particular keyword or phrase and also suggest alternatives.

Try the free Digital Point Solutions keyword suggestion tool. This tool accesses the two main providers of search data, Wordtracker and Overture.

Remember, you need to find the keywords that are not only going to drive lots of traffic to your website, but traffic that is going to convert into sales and clients, traffic relevant to what you offer.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), or optimization in the USA, are the techniques used to help a website rank near the top, or best of all number 1, in the organic search engine results for a particular search term.

Organic results are the results listed and ranked by search engines as opposed to the sponsored listings paid for by advertisers – most search engines display these above or at the side of the organic search results.

The good news is you can get to the top of the organic results for free if you are prepared to put a bit of work in and do your own SEO.