How to Make Your Website Search Engine Friendly - SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Ideally we think it is better to design your website for your users first, as search engine algorithms are constantly changing. Focus on writing good quality content that will inspire, motivate and provide value to your users. There however some things to keep in mind while designing your pages or making your blog posts that will enhance your posiiion in the search engine results.

Relevance to a search:

The frequency of a keyword on a web page is an indicator of its relevance. If a web page contains the word ten times on the page, it is ten times more relevant than a page which contains the word only once, up to a certain point, after which the content is over saturated with a particular keyword and may be considered by some search engines an attempt to manipulate search results. This could result it getting your page or entire site ommited from the search results.


The position of the search word:
In the title tag.
This appears in your browser at the very top of the screen, above File, Edit, View...

The title tag is important to your webpage search engine ranking. It is visible to the visitor, in the search results and ostensibly sums up the purpose for the page. Other meta tags are largely ignored by search engines.


In a heading.
This tag is very important to search engines as it is visible to the visitor, and indicates the purpose for the page. The size of the heading does not matter. Take care not to have more that one such heading on the home page. (Don't confuse the search engine).


In a link to another page.
In the HTML coding, such a link could be Whodickies. If "Whodickies" are important enough to have a link to them, they are very relevant to a visitor's search for whodickies.


In the body text.
Key words near the top and the bottom of the text are important. Certainly many search results show the beginning and end of pages.


Proportion of key words on the page.
The intensity of keywords in relation to the total words in a page tells a search engine if there is spamming. Experience has shown that if the key words in a search make up more than 10% of the total web page the page is marked down. Some experts say 5%.


Number of inside pages linking back to that web page.
The more inside pages linking back to the home page the more relevant the home page appears to the search engine. A website with 30 pages must seem to have more information than one with 3 pages.


Number of other websites linking to that web page.
A website with links from 20 other websites seems more popular than one with links from only 2 other websites. The quality of such links has a bearing. e.g. Links from other websites which display your key words are better than links from websites without those words. The quality, popularity and relevance of the websites linking to your website also carries weight with the search engine algorithms.


Number of articles published linking to that web page.
Many websites publish articles on many subjects. Check the formats acceptable. Compose your article, then submit it.

Why do different search engines give different rankings to the same website? Each search engine may give a different weight to each of the factors above.

Why would a website lose or gain ranking position, without any change? Search engines change their secret algorithms (formula of factor weighting) from time to time. Other websites may enter the lists, change, or leave the lists.

Click here to learn more about making your website more search engine friendly.

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