Masque Arts

In this section

• Your website
  • Search Engine Optimisation
    • Keywords and key phrases
    • Content, content, content
    • The Title Tag
    • Meta Tags: All that hidden stuff at the top
    • What's in a name?
    • Linking in and Linking Out
    • Instructing the robots
    • Don't be a black hat!
• Book Shelf

Search Engine Optimisation - getting started

Remember that the person you want to visit your site has made several decisions before clicking on your link - they have decided to look for information; then they have decided to use the World Wide Web; next they have chosen a particular search engine to use and finally they have decided what words or terms to search on. So they are looking for you - it is your job to help them find you.

Where you appear in search results is referred to as your natural search result. You can't expect your web site to top the lists for every search done on the web, but there will be key words and phrases where you would like to be as far up the list as possible. Don't forget it is not just your home page that you have to work with - you can think of every page on your site as a home page for particular topics.

OK, so where do I start?

Good question! There is so much written about this on the web and in books that it can feel overwhelming, but as long as you take a methodical approach to this project then in shouldn't be too daunting. To help you get started we are going to cover a few areas that you can get working on and provide you with some links if you want to get more involved. some of the stuff may look pretty technical, so a good idea might be to read our Anatomy of a web page first.

Keywords and key phrases: Deciding on the words you want your site to be related with sounds easy...but hold on, not so fast there!

Content, content, content: This is really what it is all about. If the content is not there, there is nothing to index. If the content is not relevant the indexing is meaningless.

The Title Tag: This is a key element and you want to get your key words in here - don't make it too long though.

Meta Tags: All that hidden stuff at the top: The description meta tag is important, but the keyword tag is of lesser importance these days - but still worth the effort

What's in a name?: Page names are used in the indexing of your site, so use a page name that has meaning. A home page called index.html is not very meaningful - so give it some thought.

Linking in and Linking Out: Links to your website are important as they indicate your authority and relevance. Linking out to authoritative sites help you by association.

Instructing the robots: To index or not to index? that is the question. Make life easy for search engines and tell them.

Don't be a black hat!: While there are many things that you can do to help your site up the rankings, there are some definite no nos that will get you kicked out!