Search engine optimization is the process of setting up the website so that search engines can find it easiest and add you properly to their listings. There are over 180 different things that search engines such as Google look for on a web page, below we have detailed some of the more key elements.

What makes good SEO?

The primary thing for any Search Engine Optimization is having good copy text. Without good text, it does not matter how well a page is laid out, it will never receive good rankings as it has nothing to offer. Remember content is king.

However if you copy that text from someone else then it is likely that this will downgrade your ranking as the search engine will see both and know when the original text was made and by who. Originality is of utmost importance.

Semantic xHTML

By using both the latest version of HTML (xHTML) and by laying it out in a semantic manner, the search engine rankings will be improved. On the whole semantic xHTML mean “we use the right tag for the right place”

Accessible websites are better

An accessible sitewill be chosen over a non-accessible site by Google, as it means that more of it’s viewers can actually use the site. Sites that gracefully de-grade when there is no javascript, flash or images will also do better than one that needs these items to perform.

Page ranking is vital

Links between pages, and in & out of your site add value to your pages. If you link to great sites with content that matches the reason to link there, Google believes that makes your originating content more valuable. If a major site links directly to your site with pages that match in content style (i.e. Newspaper report about your company links to your financial statements). Then it will add more value to the page on your site as being the destination of that information link, this is the only true location of this information and thus has the highest ranking possible.

Simply put the more links that you have in to your site the better, sites that have a high page rank will improve your page rank when linking to them.

Links between pages in your site are seen as a good thing as it is easy to navigate and there is additional page(s) should you require further reading.

However don’t be fooled into thinking that a “link’s page” would be a good idea, for any page with over 100 links (including the menu) is seen as bad in Google’s eyes. This extends to the xHTML sitemap of the website, even if you have over 100 pages and want to link to them all on the sitemap, you should not. The sitemap must be split into logical subgroups and pages offering under the 100 links max.

Consistent look and feel across all browsers

Google knows if the page looks different in IE in comparison to Firefox, and accordingly downgrades the value of the site if they do not match, or if a browser is not supported.

Surpass Google’s Webmaster Rules

Google have defined in their webmaster guidelines a number of rules and regulations that they expect all webmasters to follow.

Use a XML sitemap and Robots.txt

Google, Yahoo and Live search engines all use XML sitemaps to navigate your site and find the pages with the most priority. For example the home page may have the highest rating of 1.0, as would the sales pages of the site, where as the about page may only receive a priority of 0.1 thus always putting it lower in the search engine results when just searching for the company name.

Search engines use Robots.txt to allow and deny access to parts of your website. For example you may have a part of the site that is password protected, in that occasion it is pointless having the search engine try to access it. This can be applied to documents and images in just the same manner.

Don’t forget about the other search engines

Depending on the statistics that is read, Google owns upward of 70% of the search engine market. However that still leaves 30% left over that use other search engines. To combat this we create sites that also work with the other major search engines such as Yahoo and MS Live search.

Great URL names that are understandable

The URL of a page should mirror it’s title and it’s first H1 element. For example this page is about SEO, which is an item in our web services thus we have used /web/seo to define the location of this information.

This is much more useable by google and other search engines than /index.php?group=web&page=seo or /index.php?g=1&p=3. Apart from neither of these pages being accessible to google as it does not know how to access the URL after the ?, this style of URL conveys little to the user about what they are viewing.