OPTIMISING YOUR OWN WEBSITE 2

In optimise your website part one, we looked at the basic inclusion of a title and meta-tags on every page you build. Adding a title and meta-tags should be second nature. Every time you build a page, add appropriate tags. Great.

So what else can you do to a page to optimise it?

You've got your main search terms already picked out, and presumably you've used them lots of times in context within the main page content. Good

Next step is to use those main search terms within some text as close to the top and bottom of the page as possible. I like to add just a line near the top of each page almost mirroring the heading that I'll use within the page. At the bottom of each page I'll often just use the one or two search terms beside the copyright note.

Headings. At the start of the main text content, use an H1 tag to give the page a heading - this is a really important tag. In it's basic state it's also quite ugly, so use your stylesheet to redefine the H1 tag.

If you have further paragraph headings further down the doc, use an H2 tag to define them. Obviously make sure you use those main search terms in both the H1 and H2 tags.

Alt-tags. Give each image an alt-tag to describe it. Better still, if the image at all relates to the search term, include the search term in the alt-tag.

Bold text. The first time you use your search term in each paragraph, highlight it in bold. It gives a little emphasis to it.

Contextual links. If you use a search term within the body of the text that relates to another page, link it to that other page. Scan the text throughout your site and look for opportunities to link to other pages, or even to other websites. Just having the link there at all increases the prominence of that term on that page.

Link titles. Give each link in your navigation a title tag or an id tag to identify it. Use your search term relating to that link in the tag.

That gives you a good pile of ways to increase the incidence and prominence of main search terms on each page. If you've got good content and apply all these suggestions you are well on your way to a highly optimised site.

Don't forget though that content is king. The higher quality your actual information is, the better you will do in search engines. This process of SEO is merely the polish that will make your listings shine brighter. Content is king, content is king, content is king.