How can I make sure my site is SEO friendly?

Before you can ask yourself “how can I make sure my site is SEO friendly”, we need to discuss what is SEO? Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the website equivalent of being in the main entrance of the local Westfield or high street shopping centre. You want your site to be the most visible site your users see when they type a keyword phrase into the query bar of a search engine such as Google.

However, before we continue, I preface the rest of this article with the caution – search engines do not buy from you, they are not your target market – what we try to say is that it is important that your site is SEO friendly so that it appears in searches, but at the point, it must be human user friendly to create the relationship or make a sale.

To gain a great position on the first page of a search for keywords relevant to your business is the result of a multitude of factors, a few of which we will briefly discuss here. In the beginning, as in all marketing, you need to know your customer and know what they want. In the “satisfying search engines world”, that means knowing what keywords your potential visitors are currently searching for. This is the first step,

1. Do constant keyword research. There is a plethora of keyword research tools, not least is the free Google Keyword Tool. By knowing what keywords your target audience are searching on, allows you to keep your content current and aimed at the searches. This inherently makes your site SEO friendly.

Each page you create on your website must first be indexed by a search engine. The search engine spiders trawl sites on a cycle related to how often that site has new content. Which continues our list of SEO friendly behaviours with one of the most important items:

2. Maintain fresh new content. Regular new content will attract the search engine spiders to revisit your site often, thereby regularly indexing your new content. This means your visitors will have access to that content faster when searching.

3. Good quality content, written for your users (not just the search engines) means visitors will want to read your material and come back to your site.

4. Because you are maintaining fresh, current, and useful content, your users will want to come back time and again as well as sharing your usefulness with others. The outcome of this sharing is that your users will link to your site – a critical factor in making sure your site is SEO friendly. The more genuine links you have (with other related, credible sites) the more respect your website gains, thus showing the search engines you are a preferred site, thus improving your rankings.

5. Live in a nice neighbourhood – reusing the shop front analogy – if you don’t like visiting businesses in dark alleys surrounded by tattoo parlours, houses of ill repute and illegal drug labs, don’t expect search engines to stick around if you have links with sites that are known for spamming or other anti social behaviour. Make sure you know exactly who you are linking to.

By following these top 5 tips, you are well on the way to making sure your web site is SEO friendly.